Some of your post makes a little sense. Here is the thing...NAA, now TCIA, and ISA always promoted professionalism. Be professional, spend money on training, keep your equipment right, follow best practices, take time out for paid employee safety meetings, get credentialed, get licensed, insure your business, insure your employees, keep your paper work right, keep your taxes tightened up, get your CDL, and etc., etc., etc. TCIA and ISA like to meet with politicians and slap each other on the back about what a good job they are doing promoting all this professionalism and what a good thing it is and how the government loves to see tight ships just freaking overflowing with professionalism. Then, the government who claimed to be on our side decided they would let 15,000,000 illegal aliens compete with us. These illegals would be held to no standards, allowed to operate in any fashion they see fit, pay no taxes, be really, really unprofessional, be immune from regulations, etc., etc., etc. Johnny Q. Public liked the idea of all the professionalism but Juan Mojado would do for $350.00 what John Professional needed $975.00 to do and it wasn't long before price started to become the old big deal maker breaker over just about anything else. Old guys like me who came up the old NAA way didn't know what to do except approach the client with their ins. in one hand and their credentials in the other. With maybe their applicators license stuck to their forehead. It wasn't long before too many customers viewed all this as justification to charge a lot more than Chingones Tree Service. And it was justification...being better, insured, licensed and legal was what we all used to justify a higher rate. Problem is, things just kept sliding towards the who is the cheapest side. I see it everyday.
