Ever change prices mid-job?

[jefflovstrom]

Of course. I just thought the room was getting a bit warm and I wasn't sure why.

Because we are tree guys and no-one can argue with us better than us! Put on your man suit and deal with it.
Jeff

 

[mckeetree]

Keep in mind, though, my viewpoint is only about 1% off of yours, so I think we can agree to a 99% agreement. And that's not too bad.

That's better than in the political forum where everybody is in in 99% disagreement with you.

 

[mckeetree]

Man, you got excuses for every situation. You are sounding like a guy I used to know. Lame!
Jeff

Yep.

 

[pdqdl]

Well, when I give a price, that's the price! I would never make the customer pay for my ignorance!
Jeff CTSP

Unless I am mistaken, you work for someone else, right? I guess that makes the employer pay for your mistakes, eh?

It is a bit different when you pay all the bills, and you know that you are dealing with a cheapskate that will take advantage of you at every turn.

 

[Groundman One]

That's better than in the political forum where everybody is in in 99% disagreement with you.

I find your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution remarkable documents in that they not only allow for the expression of the dissenting viewpoint and the voice of the individual - even in the matter of pricing tree jobs - but cherish and protect those views and voices as they are the ultimate guarantors of the freedom loving nature of the American nation.

Hence this fine site. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Mckeetree?

 

[mckeetree]

I find your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution remarkable documents in that they not only allow for the expression of the dissenting viewpoint and the voice of the individual - even in the matter of pricing tree jobs - but cherish and protect those views and voices as they are the ultimate guarantors of the freedom loving nature of the American nation.

Hence this fine site. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Mckeetree?

Well in your case tis good they allow for the dissenting viewpoint because you are the great dissenter around here.

 

[Groundman One]

Well in your case tis good they allow for the dissenting viewpoint because you are the great dissenter around here.

This is an excellent tree work site.

 

[jefflovstrom]

Unless I am mistaken, you work for someone else, right? I guess that makes the employer pay for your mistakes, eh?

It is a bit different when you pay all the bills, and you know that you are dealing with a cheapskate that will take advantage of you at every turn.

I dont make mistakes, I make money for the company or I would not be employed by the company. Maybe you need a guy like me! My boss dont pay me for my good looks. You are still making excuses- do you ever admit your short-comings. I don't think you could do my job, 33 years of this is what I do and I don't make excuses for not knowing how big my bucket truck is, or asking clients to pay more for my ignorance.
Jeff

 

[Groundman One]

I dont make mistakes, I make money for the company or I would not be employed by the company. Maybe you need a guy like me! My boss dont pay me for my good looks. You are still making excuses- do you ever admit your short-comings. I don't think you could do my job, 33 years of this is what I do and I don't make excuses for not knowing how big my bucket truck is, or asking clients to pay more for my ignorance.
Jeff

Well, this is a vibrant debate.

I hold to my 99% and cling to the 1% as well.

Let there be trees... and money.

 

[pdqdl]

I find your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution remarkable documents...

Hence this fine site. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Mckeetree?

Nice reminder, and a good post.

McKeetree & jefflovstrom are the ankle-biters of this forum. I just looked at the last 75 posts for both of them, and nothing was more than a couple of lines, invariably some smart comment about what someone else posted. They are not contributing very much recently, they mostly just poke at the contributors and stir up conflict.

Come on guys, you can do better than just pick fights all the time. I have seen you do it.

 

[jefflovstrom]

Well, this is a vibrant debate.

I hold to my 99% and cling to the 1% as well.

Let there be trees... and money.

I am starting to like you. Even if you are a socialist!
Jeff

 

[mckeetree]

I am starting to like you.
Jeff

That will wear off. I went through that phase with him too.

 

[pdqdl]

... You are still making excuses- do you ever admit your short-comings. ...
Jeff

All the time. As I have pointed out to you previously.

I dont make mistakes...
Jeff

It must be nice to be perfect that way.

BTW: Don't has an apostrophe. Wouldn't that be a mistake?

 

[mckeetree]

Nice reminder, and a good post.

McKeetree & jefflovstrom are the ankle-biters of this forum. I just looked at the last 75 posts for both of them, and nothing was more than a couple of lines, invariably some smart comment about what someone else posted. They are not contributing very much recently, they mostly just poke at the contributors and stir up conflict.

Come on guys, you can do better than just pick fights all the time. I have seen you do it.

My god, what can you reply back that is constructive at some of the retarded things that have posted here lately.

 

[pdqdl]

Look at this. Almost midnite, central time, and there are 4 people on this thread sniping at each other.

We all need to get a better focus on our priorities!

 

[Groundman One]

I am starting to like you. Even if you are a socialist!
Jeff

Damn straight you are. And damn straight I am.

I'm 46 years-old and I can still groundpound guys half my age into tears. I'm not doing it for the laughs, I'm doing it for the sole reason of exchanging physical work for money. I do good work, so give me the money.

That said, there is a philosophy to pricing the job, doing the job, and collecting for the job. And it's hard to say that any one method is perfectly correct. There are always variables and surprises.

 

[pdqdl]

My god, what can you reply back that is constructive at some of the retarded things that have posted here lately.

That is a fair challenge.

Look up my last 75 posts, and then try to tell me that all my posts are deprecating, insulting gibes at the other participants here.

Generally, I just share my thoughts on a topic, or pass along what I believe is good advice. When the commentary runs into the verbal battles, I generally don't get involved. When someone pokes at me, I would like to believe (for the most part) that I try to educate or coerce folks out of acting retarded.

Hence my challenge to you to do better.

 

[tree md]

This thread made me think about one I really screwed the pooch on onetime. Huge Cottonwood. Sprawled over two houses. I believe we measured the stump at like 72" when we finally got finished. It was many moons ago. It took me two days to get the tree on the ground. We were hauling everything with a trailer. Took us 5 days in all. I was working with a partner back then. We had hired 2 guys to help us drag brush and move logs but it took me two days to get the tree down and that was all the time we had them for, they had to go back to their regular job. Me and my partner had to cut cookies like 4' in diameter and 4" or 5" thick, roll them out of the back yard and load them on the trailer. In all fairness we had the tree completely removed in 4 days but we had to come back the 5th day to fix/replace nearly a whole section of privacy fence that I wiped out. We did it for $1600. The lady felt sorry for us and paid us $1800. I still think I only made about a hundred dollars a day on that one. It was about the biggest tree I had done at that time. Lost my ass. I told my partner that if I hadn't been taught that my word was supposed to mean something I would have walked on that one. But I didn't walk, I finished it... And learned from it.

 

[pdqdl]

I've got several of those "bid wrong" Cottonwood tales too.

My tree foreman/climber bid one job at $900, then told me to run from the bid, because it was at least a $1500 job. I told him "You bid it that cheap, now you have to do it!"

It too was a 6' cottonwood, and the biggest we have ever done. We crushed two fences [a broken rope and an incorrect felling cut], and we spent three days with a full crew hauling truckload after truckload of logs out. It was worth $300 just to wheelbarrow all the noodles out to load onto the truck. When the huge 50' spar hit the ground, it buried a 10" limb about 14 inches into the soft ground for about 11' of it's length. We had to get a portable winch just to get the log out of the ground.

The tree was down in the ghetto, and the house couldn't have been worth more than 10 grand. Furthermore, the maintenance was terrible, and the interior of the house was a cockroach infested pig-sty, so we were worried about even getting paid the $900.

The old gentleman paid like solid gold when we were done fixing his fences.

And no, I didn't offer to raise the price.

My biggest tip on a tree came on a similar cottonwood: slightly underbid, the customer tipped me $300 over my bid, because she knew that we bid it too cheap.

 

[Blakesmaster]

1. This was back in 1997, so $400 was a lot more money then. It was the first year I had that bucket truck, so I was a bit of a newbie with a bucket truck.

2. Even with the additional payment for the crane, the job was seriously underbid. Even after adding some money to the price to compensate for the crane, I considered that I was "eating it". I worked on that tree for an entire day and a half before I had it on the ground. The first day was discovery of my mistake, and the second day was spent working out of that incredibly slow crane (with a man-bucket mounted on the end) cutting down the tree.

The access to the tree was very difficult, and we were barely able to get the larger crane truck down the skinny alley and into the rough terrain of the tiny backyard. My crane operator was my brother-in-law, and the rest of the tree took all day to complete, since he was not a skilled operator, and it took a lot of extra time to lower the wood into a safe area. Bottom line: I lost money big-time on my mistake, but I suppose I gained some important experience.

3. I had done previous work for this customer, and he was always a cheapskate, seeking the very bottom dollar and expecting the most out of it. He bought and rehabilitated houses for a living, and seldom sent me any work that was very profitable.

Unless it was a job that he absolutely couldn't do himself, there was no future work for me in it. We understood each other completely, and there was no credibility to be saved. He knew that I was capable of doing of the more advanced tree work and and that I was trying to honor my quote, and he also knew that I had materially underbid my competition.

In this particular case, I made a mistake, I admitted it, and I offered my customer an opportunity to profit from my mistake: I had 1/2 the tree on the ground before I discovered that I simply couldn't finish the job safely. He might have taken another tree services quote at a reduced price at that point, but he stuck with me anyway.

Why? I believe that he had complete confidence that I would do the job well, whereas the other tree services were an unknown quantity.

He called me just last summer, for what he described as a simple brush cleanup that he did not have time to do himself.

HO! HO! HO!

It turns out that there was an enormous yellow jacket nest in the middle of the work area. After I had farmed through the area and discovered the nest, he denied even knowing that the yellow jackets were there, despite having already cleaned the brush almost the rest of the property. Fortunately, I had chosen to mow it in the summer heat with my air-conditioned Bobcat A300 and our brush mower deck. No stings, no problem! I even took the time to dig out the nest with the corner of the mower deck. That really stirred them up!

If I had been there in an open cab, exposed to the yellow jackets, it would have been a a sure trip to the hospital if someone was even a little allergic. Before I got off the job, he wanted me to do some additional brush clearing at no additional price.

Like I said, he was a cheapskate, but we understood each other. He pays the bill I ask for, and I must watch carefully for all hidden danger and expenses.

So basically you're saying if the customer said no way and told you to #### off, you'd have been better for it in the long run? Makes sense now.