Entry level to landscaping is too low

In the previous post, I spoke about the retail nursery struggling in the current economic climate, & the landscaping industry is suffering similar problems, of which one is economic.
We work in an industry, where a guy can decide he's going to get a bakkie, a few labourers with lawnmowers & brushcutters, & call himself a garden service.
This is all good & well, provided he or she sticks to mowing lawn & sweeping up leaves. Let's face it, it's a service & folks are prepared to pay money for that. The problem comes in, when that same garden service company is asked if they can do some landscaping.

Not wanting to disappoint the client, & perhaps seeing some dollar signs to compensate for the ridiculously low rate that they may already be charging, to appear to be competitive with the rest of the "rats & mice" (See previous post), they say: "Of course we can!", & then proceed to stuff it up completely, because they have no idea what they are doing.

This again brings our industry into disrepute, because we get lumbered with every other person out there who calls themselves a "landscaper", whether or not they have studied / qualified or successfully run a business for the last 20 years.
Perception is a funny thing, & once someone has a negative perception of an individual or for that matter an industry, it is incredibly hard to change that perception. A good perception or image, on the other hand, can be destroyed overnight if someone perceives what we have done, to not be right.

This is the reason why we have organizations like the South African Landscapers Institute, which were formed to try to bring a professional image to the industry, & they have done a great job for the most part.
Unfortunatley, it is not a prerequesit to conduct business as a landscaper in this country, so anyone can potentially call themselves a "landscaper", sometimes with disasterous consequences.
Fortunately the law of survival of the fittest, whittles some of them down, but the damage has already been done, & the industry is constantly on the back foot trying to justify themselves to the public at large.

As professionals in our industry, it is in our own best interest to support institutions like SALI, & to demand of those instutions methods to make the public aware of the advantages of using a professional, & the fact that should there be a problem, there is at least a certain amount of recourse for both the client & the landscaper.