paying too little

Professionals are not commodities that are the same no matter who you buy them from such as hammers, nails, cars, staplers, etc.. Professionals should be chosen based upon the professional’s experience, recommendations of friends and colleagues that you trust, online reviews from others that have actually worked with the professional and your gut feeling after you might speak with the person. Price, although it has its importance, should be secondary because we all know "you get what you pay for". Just ask John Ruskin.

John Ruskin … Common Law of Business Balance

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

NOT MY WORDS but I think it is well said …

"What I try to talk about with my friends and clients is about finding the appropriate balance between product and cost – which would be the value. If you don’t appreciate the more expensive item, or can’t tell the difference between something and its less expensive alternative, how can there be value in paying for it? The only time this really becomes an issue is when someone wants to pay for the cheaper alternative but expects the quality level to remain unchanged. It simply doesn’t work out when the expectations don’t align with the associative cost. Just something to think about." Bob Borson