Economic Crisis

[oldugly]

How much are you guys getting killed by this crisis. On one hand our industry shouldn't suffer much, because people will always have trees, and need tree workers..but on the other hand I am finding alot of new businesses sprouting up in my area because of the lack of work for builders, and construction workers. They seem to view treework as unskilled and profittable with little investment. So they get an old pickup, and Poland and call themselves a tree service.

How bad is this hurting you guys? I'm finding it hard to bid against these guys when my equipment costs, insurance, and misc. legit expenses are going up, and these guys are driving the prices down. I commend them for not taking the easy route, (ie wellfare, or unemployment) and I commend their ambition, but their business practices are really hurting the industry in this area.

 

[Dadatwins]

Been a real slow year, and have seen more than one new jackleg running around underbidding. Companies that have never done treework now offering it as another service. My stragegy has been to offer things that I did not do before like leaf clean-up, mulching and more plant installation. Of course more people are doing a lot of that themselves also. The tree business will always be around as it is one of those things that requires skill, but the easy jobs are harder to find and the stuff no one else wants is left. Problem is there is not a lot of money out there to charge for it.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Partly do to my bussiness model, and partly to my disabilites not allowing me to do a lot of cut and drag ground work, I've probably lost $10g in potential work since late summer.

 

[oldugly]

I've been trying to offer other services not available in this area also. Including the Certified Arborist, and chemical treatments. This has helped, but I agree, the easy jobs are not out there. I am finding the only real niche I have is doing the impossible trees no one else wants.

 

[Dadatwins]

The certified status has helped get me a few jobs this year. I am going back to school this winter to get pesticide certification to offer as a service also. Figure the more I have that the other guy does not the better position I am in. The trick is to survive long enough. This business runs on recomendations also, so doing the best job you can always helps.

 

[treeman82]

I'm definately seeing that people are cutting back on what they spend on tree care this year. The summer went well for me, but I'd say after September? or so things started to take a dive. Jobs that were only waiting on the calendar got cancelled, or they got somebody else for less. A few people told me that they want to do the work after Jan 1. We'll see what happens. There are some good things I can say though... 1 is that the state requires a license to perform tree care, so it would hopefully discourage the rif-raf a bit... 2 is that the oldest tree care company in town is really slacking off lately... not returning calls or estimates, not showing up to jobs, etc. etc. and lastly is that a lot of the jobs I like to do / get are the ones that nobody wants. I like them because of the variety between properties.... others hate them because of the hills.