Has anybody ever made it who did not come up "through the ranks"?

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I worked for years as a and for a landscaper and was always the one in the trees or on the ground handling the tree work. Used a tree chipper once for a good sized job and loved the whole concept of what that baby could do. I owned a small chuck and duck,6", and hated it prior but after using the bigger one, acually the chipper that I own today, I started to get into it a lot more. As mentioned throughout in here, I only work it weekends but business is getting bigger and better every year and possibly soon I'll do it more toward full time. Never went to school for climbing or removals and (knock on wood) haven't had any problems or injuries that I couldn't recover from within a day.
 
I just...can't quite put my finger on you, man. Nonetheless, rock-on. :rock:


Well to the highly motivated and high aspirating individuals, there are a million things to it. To the millions of regulars that litter the floor of the tree biz colosseum, there are few things to know.

You can take your millions of things you know, and make it very useful to people for a big payoff. The thing is you have to know how to market your expertise, or never any payoff. Otherwise you can't take what little you know to the people out there, and receive any big payoffs. Just some payoffs.

Just to add my perspective of this. There are two sides to this business. There is the actual treeing skills i.e. climbing, rigging, all of the biological knowledge, and systematized expedition of all of the debris removal which includes management of working hands and machines. The other side is all marketing. Here is where you can put your know how on a jet instead of a chip truck. Any guy can know everything about how to run an operation, but if that guy is no good at systematizing an advertising campaign, it's no good because he doesn't have the clientel to sell it to.

Personally I think the right guys could come to this show, and make a killing. Just like in the food business there are McDonalds and there are Olive Gardens. I think that the reason for the minimal franchising on this market is because it's an unsavory field of work. Stinkin', dirty, gripin', haphazarous.... Cooking food and cleaning restaurants is nothing like this. That is easy money, and it's safe. This is a little like being on the bomb squad.
 
i guess i did.

no one would train or teach me anything.not even for money.i bought the gear and read.started low and slow but picked it up quick probably because of my rock climbing days.i worked for a few tree companies but i seemed to know more than them with not much experience.only person i ever worked for that impressed me was Tree MDS.good guy with a nice outfit.
 
Through the ranks fer sure. I started out working for an absolute ******* who couldn't run a biz for #### and didn't know a damn thing 'bout trees. Left that gig and found a real hardass, tough old tree guy to work for locally. He was very old school in his work methods but taught me the value of an efficient job and how to work like crazy as well as run big equipment. Started climbing a bit here and there for him, started banging out my own side gigs and grew my business as I evolved as a climber. I feel coming up this way is far safer and will get you familiar with many more aspects of the biz. A weeks straight in the firewood pile never hurt anyone, Plas.
 
Well to the highly motivated and high aspirating individuals, there are a million things to it. To the millions of regulars that litter the floor of the tree biz colosseum, there are few things to know.

You can take your millions of things you know, and make it very useful to people for a big payoff. The thing is you have to know how to market your expertise, or never any payoff. Otherwise you can't take what little you know to the people out there, and receive any big payoffs. Just some payoffs.

Just to add my perspective of this. There are two sides to this business. There is the actual treeing skills i.e. climbing, rigging, all of the biological knowledge, and systematized expedition of all of the debris removal which includes management of working hands and machines. The other side is all marketing. Here is where you can put your know how on a jet instead of a chip truck. Any guy can know everything about how to run an operation, but if that guy is no good at systematizing an advertising campaign, it's no good because he doesn't have the clientel to sell it to.

Personally I think the right guys could come to this show, and make a killing. Just like in the food business there are McDonalds and there are Olive Gardens. I think that the reason for the minimal franchising on this market is because it's an unsavory field of work. Stinkin', dirty, gripin', haphazarous.... Cooking food and cleaning restaurants is nothing like this. That is easy money, and it's safe. This is a little like being on the bomb squad.

I think your right about the marketing, but I wanna say this: I was incorporated at 17 yrs old after working for 2 years (while going to HS on mondays to complete my week's work in one morning, and working Monday afternoon through Saturday) for two different timber outfits. During my first year in business, I spent 63 bucks on advertising; business cards. In that first year, with a beat-up ford ranger and sub-par equipment, I grossed $148,000. I gained an excellent reputation, and all of my work was from referrals. This trend continued, and I grew my business with about 90% of my work coming from word-of-mouth referrals. If you do quality work at equitable prices, while maintaing your honesty, morality, and integrity, the work will find you.

I have used newspaper and radio advertising as well, but for overall cost effectiveness, business cards, word of mouth referrals, and a reputation of quality and honesty cannot be beat.

T
 
I think your right about the marketing, but I wanna say this: I was incorporated at 17 yrs old after working for 2 years (while going to HS on mondays to complete my week's work in one morning, and working Monday afternoon through Saturday) for two different timber outfits. During my first year in business, I spent 63 bucks on advertising; business cards. In that first year, with a beat-up ford ranger and sub-par equipment, I grossed $148,000. I gained an excellent reputation, and all of my work was from referrals. This trend continued, and I grew my business with about 90% of my work coming from word-of-mouth referrals. If you do quality work at equitable prices, while maintaing your honesty, morality, and integrity, the work will find you.

I have used newspaper and radio advertising as well, but for overall cost effectiveness, business cards, word of mouth referrals, and a reputation of quality and honesty cannot be beat.

T

That's a good example of how some people can play better with little than others can with more.

I definitely believe that those characteristics you describe are the baseline virtues that make the difference between ameauture and big leagues so to speak. Flat out, you either don't care chit about those people, or you really want to give the biggest, best something or another that you can muster. One guy never thinks about what else he can contribute to them and what they want/need. The other guy has it all thought out, and keeps on thinking about them have an effect on them with upper league impressions. The thing is the people are who hire and pay, and if you don't think like someone who doesn't care chit about people and their service, they don't see you, hire you, or pay you.

Overall some of us feel better at the back, and some of us feel better at the front. Whether or not any of us are at either end of any business field depends on how we think about the service and what we have time for. And there's always going to be some that fall through the cracks.
 
That's a good example of how some people can play better with little than others can with more.

I definitely believe that those characteristics you describe are the baseline virtues that make the difference between ameauture and big leagues so to speak. Flat out, you either don't care chit about those people, or you really want to give the biggest, best something or another that you can muster. One guy never thinks about what else he can contribute to them and what they want/need. The other guy has it all thought out, and keeps on thinking about them have an effect on them with upper league impressions. The thing is the people are who hire and pay, and if you don't think like someone who doesn't care chit about people and their service, they don't see you, hire you, or pay you.

Overall some of us feel better at the back, and some of us feel better at the front. Whether or not any of us are at either end of any business field depends on how we think about the service and what we have time for. And there's always going to be some that fall through the cracks.

A long time ago, my Dad told me "if you help enough people get what they want, eventually you will get what you want". I really take that to heart. I provide a service, and I help people get what they want. When these people are happy, they pay me, and I get what I want.

The circle of life...

T
 
Very cool

I guess the first tree-related job I had was working for a local logger in the afternoons and evenings splitting firewood... with an 8-lb maul. After a while, I started running a saw for him, and he taught me how to fell, buck, skid, grade, and sell timber. After about a year with him, I went to work for an old Austrian dude that really knew his stuff. He hated everyone, except me... he was a miserable human being in general. I ran a saw for him, a big Husky (I'm a Stihl guy... does a Husky 1080 make sense?), felling timber, for about a year. After he died, there was no one to take over for him, and his gear was siezed as part of his estate and sold off.

I was cutting firewood, which I was harvesting off the back acreage at my dad's farm, when people started stopping and asking if I was selling firewood. I wasn't, just cutting and splitting for personal use. After the 10th or 12th person stopped and asked, I was in the firewood business. As my name got spread around town, people started asking me if I could remove their trees. I was good with a saw on the ground, and I took on several jobs that I could accomplish easily from the ground. After a while, people started calling wanting to know if I climbed. I was in the process of explaining to one woman that I didn't climb, when my dad snatched the phone out of my hand, and yelled "Hell yeah he climbs, he'll be by Friday!" and hung up on the woman.

My dad was in the line construction biz for 42 years, and immediately took to teaching me the ins and outs of a belt and hooks. Granted, in hindsight, he tought me just enough to be dangerous, as linework and arboriculture are two completely different things.

I started getting more work. I also took a job at the local Agway, where the Nursery Manager was a former tree guy, had his own business back in the day. HE took to teaching me the latin names of most of the Northeast Species (alot of which I have since forgot) and showed me how to climb with ropes, and knots and hitches, and alot of other sacred tree knowledge. I was also handing out business cards like crazy to all the rich people who came up from NYC to spend the weekends in the Adairondacks. The business grew quickly from an old Ford Ranger and a Poulan Pro (it hurts to even mention it...) into several trucks and pieces of equipment, and all the Stihl saws, ropes, rigging gear, and everything else to support the biz.

So to answer your question after all of that blabbering, I dont think so. I think it is valuable to know all aspects of the business for several reasons, and one fo the best ways to gain that experience is from starting at the bottom.

Sorry for the disertation,

T

That was an excellent story. And no, the Husky doen't make sense.
 
Back
Top