Professional or Impostor?
It is March and a time to reflect on the previous year as I create the new content on our new website.
Thinking back to last year as a year of great success, and great challenges, I feel compelled to write of the most disheartening experience in our 25 years of business...YES this is our 25th year!! We are truly excited to be a business started from absolutely nothing but $1600 saved, and scrounged for. The money we used to register our business, buy some cards and get a truck to work from...it was not a pretty sight for sure.
We have seen great growth and change during our first quarter century, and hope to see another quarter century of positive change.
TWG Landscaping has always been run by the same owners, and have never had to reinvent our company. We have not changed our name, nor have we claimed to be a business with combined knowledge as our "experience" I say this because it is a red flag to watch for.
We personally know many companies who claim experience because they word it as combined experience or "operated since" and this does not mean that the business has been "owned AND operated" by that person or current owners.
Business Fronts
Family owned businesses changing hands, and long time companies selling to new owners (took place in 2017) so buyer beware of wording before hiring. New business owners have entered the industry as "experienced" but have in past closed previous businesses for whatever reasons.
The most disheartening change or addition to our industry hit us directly...There are new businesses portraying work as theirs. and indeed it is not jobs done by them...our jobs in particular. Just last year we had an ex-employee who worked a very short period of time for us, take photos of our sites and use them on his fathers NEW business site. This cost us to hire a lawyer and demand a cease and desist however, internet does not make that an easy task.
1) If you see pictures of a property, ask to see more, and for the address of that site (they wont know it if they did not do the job since most were just taken to sites and rarely knew info of the clients)
2) Ask for details they should know if they were the contractor on the job and if they do not know it, chances are they are Impostors. Unfortunately for us, legal action got the pictures removed from their site but google had used the pictures and it is claimed they cannot get them removed from searches involving this business...
If you see the following photos being portrayed as work by the company, they are jobs his son worked on while in our employment. Another job on his site was built by our staff as a favor to his landlord at the time.
This company has a long way to go to make his mark in the industry as reputable and experienced and unfortunately this is not the way to do it. We have the contracts, and the full property finished photos to prove our jobs.
What Consumers Can Do?
There are so many great companies out there who have earned their place and if you do your homework, your time will be rewarded but remember, seeing may not be believing.
1) Google the name of the person you are meeting...if they are long time owners, there will be a lot of detail on line attached to that individual for years prior.
2) Check with the business registrar and if there has been ownership changes, there will be records. Having the money to buy a business, does not mean you possess the experience to run it, sadly.
3) Ask for detail explanations of their policies, processes, and procedures. There must be continuity in their business and your representative should know them well.
4) Ask for references, historical info and experiences, awards, social media links, and do searches of them.
5) Research yourself what your product will look like, what the manufacturer recommends for installation and how the product can and should be used. Education will give you an edge on how to know if a company cuts corners or not.
6) Go with your gut feeling...is the experience from first call to quotation, design and consultation to contracting and booking, all being done professionally? How do you feel this contractor will manage your calls in future if you have warranty issues? Will they even be around?
7) Biggest mistake is hiring someone just because they are building on your street...did your neighbor do their homework or will your street be another of the multitude with failing projects depicting same styles and same errors?
We often tend to forget the steps preached and just jump in with the prettiest job but as history has proven, we have been called to repair or redo so many jobs that have been done by companies who's sites show pretty jobs, who's company has been in business a long time and who's owners talk the good talk.
We have had many jobs which we quoted and did not get call us embarrassed but asking us to come in and do the job right after they had chosen another contractor who did work poorly, and now one or two years later, we are having to fix them.
- We have the processes in place to provide you with the professional, stress free experiences
- We have the past projects to proudly share with you and references to back them
- We have the experience of building countless projects year after year that have wowed our customers AND their neighbors
- We have the community reputation of a trusted contractor who will do what we say and how we say it
- We HAVE and WILL be here to stand behind our projects and provide you and yours with years of creating memories at your property on projects you can be proud of being part of.
Which is why we are the perfect choice for your project...
