How Many Professionals

[Ric]

exotion,

I want to be one of the first to wish you a most successful career in lawn service and landscape maintenance(if you do more than just cut grass) and I sincerely hope that your hard work enables you to support you family in a manner that allows you to provide financial stability, harmony and the always increasing needs of your children!!!

OK........now to settle this How Many "Professionals" definition debate(now this is coming from a homeowner that came to these forums in search of advice that will enable me to maintain my lawn & landscaping so that it "looks like I payed someone a LOT of money to do it":0)

1)A Lawn Care Professional:This is the person who owns/manages/works/applied for license/pays taxes & insurance for a licensed Lawn Care service company that charges people to mow their lawns(the same would hold true if Landscaping, and other "property-maintaining" services are rendered by said company). If it is a large enough operation to have "employees" that do some of the work, these employees are NOT Lawn Care Professionals....they are simply employed by and draw salaries from a Lawn Care Professional. These employees "do this for a living"(whether or not it is their only job, full time or part time) but are, I repeat NOT Lawn Care Professionals.

2)If the Lawn Care service company is not still active after several years(I would say at least 5), then "Professional" was a misnomer and that person did not have the skills required to operate that business with enough profit to sustain it.

3)If you have operated in either capacity described in Section#1 for several years(I would say at least 5) and you are still doing that then you have now become a veteran lawn care maintenance worker, very skilled at what you do(or you would have fallen victim to section# 2.......or been fired).

4)If the yards you cut(or other property maintenance services rendered) do NOT look like a "Professional did the job"......see Section#2(no matter how many years your business has been active or you have been doing it:0)


Welllllll.......how did I do(for a wannabe????:0)

This Post is food for thought

:laughing::laughing: I just really like how you define the Lawn care Professional but I think there is something you have totally over looked. You haven't thought about the term you're defining.... LAWNCARE PROFESSIONAL and what it applies to. I Mow Lawns for a living, I trim, edge and blow off sidewalks and driveways and most anything else people want to have done pertaining to their lawns but I am Not a Lawncare Professional and never will be and anyone who does the same and refers to themselves as a Lawn care Professional would be misrepresenting themselves. I haven't seen over two, maybe three Lawncare Professionals on this forum.

 

[djdicetn]

This Post is food for thought

:laughing::laughing: I just really like how you define the Lawn care Professional but I think there is something you have totally over looked. You haven't thought about the term you're defining.... LAWNCARE PROFESSIONAL and what it applies to. I Mow Lawns for a living, I trim, edge and blow off sidewalks and driveways and most anything else people want to have done pertaining to their lawns but I am Not a Lawncare Professional and never will be and anyone who does the same and refers to themselves as a Lawn care Professional would be misrepresenting themselves. I haven't seen over two, maybe three Lawncare Professionals on this forum.

Ric,
Soooooooo, are you saying only the technicians that work for Scott's and Truegreen that come out and perform an analysis of your lawn and sign you up for a monthly fee program to get a nice golf-course looking lawn are "Lawncare Professionals"???? Can you justify your last sentence(without naming names) and tell us exactly "what" constituted those two or three users being a LCP??? Of course if you describe them well enough, they may know you're talking about them without ever mentioning a user name:0)

P.S.
What descriptive term do you conider appropriate for what you do(aside from "I mow lawns for a living"). I mean everybody that gets paid for what they do has a "Job Title".

 

[Ric]

Ric,
Soooooooo, are you saying only the technicians that work for Scott's and Truegreen that come out and perform an analysis of your lawn and sign you up for a monthly fee program to get a nice golf-course looking lawn are "Lawncare Professionals"???? Can you justify your last sentence(without naming names) and tell us exactly "what" constituted those two or three users being a LCP??? Of course if you describe them well enough, they may know you're talking about them without ever mentioning a user name:0)

P.S.
What descriptive term do you consider appropriate for what you do(aside from "I mow lawns for a living"). I mean everybody that gets paid for what they do has a "Job Title".

Yes the people or technicians who work for Scott's and Truegreen and those type company's that do the analysis, set up for a monthly program to get that nice golf-course looking lawn are "Lawncare Professionals, that's what they do is care for your lawn. The thing is when I purchase my License every year it doesn't say anything about a Lawncare Professional nor does my Insurance. The term that is considered appropriate for businesses like ours would be Lawn Maintenance Professional we are the people who Mow lawn, trim, edge and clear, maybe trim hedges and put down some mulch, those are the jobs we preform which is Lawn Maintenance.

 

[Carscw]

Yes the people or technicians who work for Scott's and Truegreen and those type company's that do the analysis, set up for a monthly program to get that nice golf-course looking lawn are "Lawncare Professionals, that's what they do is care for your lawn. The thing is when I purchase my License every year it doesn't say anything about a Lawncare Professional nor does my Insurance. The term that is considered appropriate for businesses like ours would be Lawn Maintenance Professional we are the people who Mow lawn, trim, edge and clear, maybe trim hedges and put down some mulch, those are the jobs we preform which is Lawn Maintenance.

Ok sit down so you don't have a heart attack I agree with you 100%

So what would you call someone that does the cutting and all that and take soil samples and applies the fert or what ever it needs?

(( racing is the only sport that you need two balls ))

 

[djdicetn]

Yes the people or technicians who work for Scott's and Truegreen and those type company's that do the analysis, set up for a monthly program to get that nice golf-course looking lawn are "Lawncare Professionals, that's what they do is care for your lawn. The thing is when I purchase my License every year it doesn't say anything about a Lawncare Professional nor does my Insurance. The term that is considered appropriate for businesses like ours would be Lawn Maintenance Professional we are the people who Mow lawn, trim, edge and clear, maybe trim hedges and put down some mulch, those are the jobs we preform which is Lawn Maintenance.

Ric,

Ohhhhhhh, OK.....I get it........the keyword is "Maintenance" versus "Care". That makes sense.

Soooooooooo, take all of my "defintions" above and replace each occurrence of the word "Care" with Maintenance(in your mind, because I'm not gonna re-type all that just to get "politically correct":0)

Aha......you admitted it.....you ARE a "Professional"!!!!!!

 

[djdicetn]

Ok sit down so you don't have a heart attack I agree with you 100%

So what would you call someone that does the cutting and all that and take soil samples and applies the fert or what ever it needs?

(( racing is the only sport that you need two balls ))

Carscw,

That's a "hybrid" we will have to call a "Lawn Care/Maintenance Professional":0)

 

[Carscw]

Carscw,

That's a "hybrid" we will have to call a "Lawn Care/Maintenance Professional":0)

Everyone I know would just say landscaper.
But to be called a landscaper you would also have to install plants and Sod. Or I guess just change the look of the landscape.

(( racing is the only sport that you need two balls ))

 

[Ric]

Ric,

Ohhhhhhh, OK.....I get it........the keyword is "Maintenance" versus "Care". That makes sense.

Soooooooooo, take all of my "definitions" above and replace each occurrence of the word "Care" with Maintenance(in your mind, because I'm not gonna re-type all that just to get "politically correct":0)

Aha......you admitted it.....you ARE a "Professional"!!!!!!

I consider myself to be a Lawn Maintenance Professional, I have nothing to do with Lawncare. I don't fertilize, I don't do Insecticides, weed killers or any of that, that is what True Green, Scotts and the type company's do it's considered Lawn Care. When I worked for the county we had people that took classes and were licensed to do Lawncare, to use chemicals and such and we had people who took classes for lawn maintenance. The thing is though when I took those classes I really figured it was ridiculous, little did I know at the time I'd be doing the crap for a living or to supplement my income when I retired :smile: and I have too admit some of it has come in handy.

 

[djdicetn]

I consider myself to be a Lawn Maintenance Professional, I have nothing to do with Lawncare. I don't fertilize, I don't do Insecticides, weed killers or any of that, that is what True Green, Scotts and the type company's do it's considered Lawn Care. When I worked for the county we had people that took classes and were licensed to do Lawncare, to use chemicals and such and we had people who took classes for lawn maintenance. The thing is though when I took those classes I really figured it was ridiculous, little did I know at the time I'd be doing the crap for a living or to supplement my income when I retired :smile: and I have too admit some of it has come in handy.

Ric,

Thanks for sharing your insights and "Professional experience' with us newbies and wannabees!!! I'm retiring in October, 2013 after 43 years in Information Systems. After I bought my new Lone Wolf Trailer on 3/9 for my 2012 Gravely(and a sundry of other post-retirement needs and projects), my daughter in Alabama commented to my wife..."hey, is Dad thinking about going into the Lawn Care business when he retires?". I'll be sure the next time I talk to her to tell her "No, but I may very well go into the Lawn Maintenance business"!!!!:0)
Not really......I'm gonna be so busy fishing, camping and traveling I wouldn't have the time to mow someone elses lawn!!

 

[exotion]

I consider myself to be a Lawn Maintenance Professional, I have nothing to do with Lawncare. I don't fertilize, I don't do Insecticides, weed killers or any of that, that is what True Green, Scotts and the type company's do it's considered Lawn Care. When I worked for the county we had people that took classes and were licensed to do Lawncare, to use chemicals and such and we had people who took classes for lawn maintenance. The thing is though when I took those classes I really figured it was ridiculous, little did I know at the time I'd be doing the crap for a living or to supplement my income when I retired :smile: and I have too admit some of it has come in handy.

I have taken this thread to heart and have done some research and made some contacts. I now have an open account with a soil test lab I will collect three samples from the around the property various depths send them to the lab. This costs 10 a sample he will then tell me what kind of fertilizer to buy in numbers x-x-x. I will then power rake lay fertilizer and over seed in the fall. This service will not be cheap as I will need to buy special fertilizer.