Should I hire a big or a small company to fertilize and care for my lawn.

I have asked consumers in the past which they thought would provide better service, or a better value, a large lawn service company ( fertilizer, weed control, aeration, seeding) or a smaller company. Some times there are some interesting ideas that I hear about this and I would like to take an opportunity to clear this up. Large lawn companies may have slick marketing and tons of money to spend on it and professional sales men, who may not have more than just surface knowledge about turf management and plant health, but know how to sell. But on the other hand in my experience talking to their employees in the field many of them are new and less experienced and have just enough knowledge to put the chemicals down and lack the skills to diagnose and treat out of the ordinary problems when they arise. They may also not have expert knowledge and tips to offer. Where this becomes dangerous is when they pretend to be experts and improperly treat lawn problems or do not see them and do things to aggravate them and make them worse. Again they may know just enough to be dangerous and make enough sense to pull the wool over until you see the results of what has happened. The other problem is that they have extremely high quotas on a daily and weekly basis, to the point that they treat lawns and hang the bill sometimes in no more than five minutes altogether. The problem with this is that they cannot monitor and diagnose problems on the lawn before they become big, or communicate with you and offer personalized service while working at this pace. I would be willing to bet that the larger companies turn over up to thirty five percent of their customers every year and have the money and resources to throw out the money net and get more. Some people are under the impression that the chemicals that larger companies use are better, this is also a misconception. For example my company uses fertilizers and chemicals from the same major manufacturers as the larger companies. But, larger companies pre order very large quantities of fertilizer in advance and many times have a set program they use nationwide. Even though soil conditions and weather is different throughout different regions. My program is customized to fit specific areas within the Saint Louis metropolitan area. Not only that but from year to year depending upon current weather conditions I make decisions about what levels of nutrients will be most beneficial. Because I do not by large quantities in advance I have the ability to change with the weather. I can also buy specific product for a customers lawn that may have unique needs. That gets hard to do if your sitting on a warehouse of chemicals that you have to use. To take this one step further some large companies will order multiple truck loads of the same type of fertilizer to get a lower price and tell customers that they use special fertilizers that are different throughout the year based on seasonal needs, when they actually use the same thing all year long. They know they could be using better, but the higher profit margin trumps the health of your lawn. Many times the employees forget that their employer is the customer who's lawn they are caring for. And when losing high percentages of customers each year is the norm it's acceptable to make mistakes and not do everything they can for each customer. Losing customers is standard for them. As a small company I know that I can not afford to lose any customers and each time I am on my customers lawn I do every extra thing I can to try and make sure that there is more value in my service. If you are in the Saint Charles or Saint Louis area and are ready to see what it is like to have one knowledgeable professional on your lawn I would be happy to give you a free lawn analysis and estimate. You can visit my website at www.theturftrainer.com , or call me at (636) 439-0808. I treat every lawn as if it were my own and value your business.