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I'm Bill Elzey, with Showplace Lawns. Let me tell you how to hire a landscaper. First,
decide what you want to have done, what you would like to have, and get an idea on your
budget. Then, I would check the Yellow Pages. A lot of us today, also have web pages. You
will see trucks and trailers with signs, or see people on projects. Ask for a business
card. Try to find the people that work in your area of town, and then what I would recommend,
is to call as many as five or six different ones. Have them come over, and talk to them
about your project. See which ones fit and do, what you want done. Get to know them a
little bit. Figure out from talking with them, and seeing what they have to say, and how
you hit it off, who is good, and who is not. Don't worry about the money aspect at the
beginning. Please don't do that. Talk to the people and understand them, first. Then, that
right there, you may eliminate one or two, because you just don't like their attitude,
or just something you don't like, and that's fine. Then, ask the others to come back, and
go over the project with them, and get a cost estimate from them, and the reason I would
recommend more than three, I'd say five, six, eight maybe, because when you get those estimates
back, three things are going to happen on that. You're going to get some people that
are way up here. You're going to get some that are way down here at the bottom, and
you're going to get a group in the middle. That's going to tell you a couple of things.
The people at the very bottom of your list, you don't want to have them do your job, because
they're underbidding it just in order to get the work. They will probably fly through it,
not do a very quality job, or they will hit you up for more money, realizing that they
didn't bid it enough, in the beginning. This only leads to problems, and bad feelings.
The people at the top, have overpriced their work. For whatever reason, they think it's
worth, they've overpriced it. The group you want to concentrate on, is that one in the
middle, and I'm willing to tell you, and bet on it, that the group in that middle, are
going to be closer together, than the group at the top, and the group at the bottom. Now,
that's your core. That's a good representative area, because those people know what they're
talking about, and you can see, that there's more people that are closer, than there are
on either end. Then, approach it from that standpoint. Go and look at who they are. See
which ones you felt comfortable with. See which ones actually can do, and say they do,
what you want done, and then match that with that core group of estimates in the middle,
and that's a good way to pick your landscape contractor.