Yeah they will try anything. Never use your proper email openly on the net. Either use a form or if you have to supply an email online set up a couple as bot dumps and use one of those.
I see lots of people who have webpages with their email proudly displayed. Scraper bots love these and you can guarantee you will be inundated with junk mail. Never ever be tempted to reply to to junk email and never open an attachment. Basically if you get an email from an unknown source treat it with distrust.
Use your junk email filter and rules to limit it.
Cheers
Bluey
Adelaide Home & Garden Solutions
http://www.ahgs.com.au
"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when everyone is watching."
I have the occasional lassie who loves my pics and wants to come to Oz and meet me.
Beer bobs are starting again around here. Makes me grumpy. I know they will wear themselves and their cheap gear out but it takes some of my business away until that happens.
Latest one doing one of my casual jobs for $30 that I charge $70 for. I thought I was cheap for a 1/2 acre block but this young fellow is way to cheap. Rant over.
hjl
hey its ok ive got them in my area and what happens they get fully booked at cheap rates they cannot take on anymore work and as always the cream rises to the top .
today i was working at a nice garden next to a gardener that charges 25 -30 bucks an hour ,they were bragging how busy they are and asked me if i wanted the overflow of their work quotes..just smiled and said naa i be right ..they previously did the garden that i was doing but took them a day to do so that was 200 bucks odd...i did the same with shindy pole hedger vs their hand shears in 2 hours and made 350 bucks ...i am pretty happy these beer bobs pop up because they get fully booked ,do a sh1t job and leave us to make serious dollars ....in my area customers do watch you and know who is good and who is bad ...today the lady slipped an extra 50 on top of the 350 so that was nice ...bought the mrs some flowers hahahaha
Whilst it is a reality it is still bloody annoying and hurting us all in the long run because it conditions people to think they can get work done at really cheap rates. I have tried to talk to a couple of these blokes and explain why they need to charge higher. Invariably they will say I am only just starting out and need to build up my customers. They come from a job where they were earning $24 an hr and think $30 or $40 is a huge amount to earn. What they dont do is work out how much it costs them to actually run their business and charge accordingly. And most dont really care when you point this out to them.
With the economy the way it is now customers are chasing everything cheaper. I have lost count of the quotes I have done where the person almost chokes and has a fit when you tell them their lawn will cost $50 every 2 weeks and they say the last bloke was doing it for $20 every month.
So no matter what you think they are in fact harming us all. They drive down prices, do shoddy work and damage the market. They give us all a bad reputation where the public thinks we are all **** kickers who have lost their job and will work for peanuts
There are no doubt many of them trolling this actual page and reading this thread. If you are I say this. Get serious and get your shyte together or bugger off to another form of work.
Cheers
Bluey
Adelaide Home & Garden Solutions
http://www.ahgs.com.au
"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when everyone is watching."
some very good points there ...however i still stress if you are starting up or running a good business you need to be professional...you should from day one have all the good stuff including uniform ....if i started up a coffee shop i would not just have a card table and a little jug to boil the water ..so why would i just have the basic lawn mowing stuff like the beer bobs.....presenting to the customer a professional unit will put ypou ahead of these guys...and if the cuatomer wants just a beer bob price they are not what you want in business ..instead of you blokes whinging about the cheap ones fight back with a professional unit ...but knowing this forum will get me hed kicked in...lol
well said Geoff - nice analogy with the coffee shop
http://curraronggardening.com/
"All sin is washed away in the Holy goodness of Beer"
Book of Redeye, Psalm 69
Agree totally!
Many people get into this business though often because of hardship and do whatever they can to get going.
You can still do a professional job, look professional even with cheap gear - how long for is another thing.
It's the guy who listens, watch and seek out help that learn quickly what Geoff said is the real way to earn a modest living in this business.