POLL: What is Your Biggest Challenge or Problem in this Business?

[treeslayer]

I couldnt hire anything but drunks and dope heads of course they told me they didnt use drugs or anything. I cant imagine staying in business with the help that is available today. Good luck to you guys toughing it out.

I meet a lot of decent guys in this biz, course I travel half the country.

there are a lot of good guys out there, its a crap shoot, though.

 

[tree MDS]

I meet a lot of decent guys in this biz, course I travel half the country.

there are a lot of good guys out there, its a crap shoot, though.

Yeah I hear that too, all my best freinds are mostly treeguys, I just cant afford them full time and they got kids etc. etc. I did have one guy that wasnt exactly great shakes but had him for over 8 years on and off though. His back and knee went out eventually (non work related injuries). We also had a conflict of interest with his backyard wrenching thing going on.

 

[sharkfin12us]

biggest problem

I was talking with a fellow tree care professional the other day and we got on the topic of some of the problems that we face in day to day operations of our tree care businesses. Some of the problems we had answers to, others we did not. I am starting this thread to take a poll of some of the biggest challenges we face as tree care business owners and hopefully as a group, come up with some great ideas to overcome them. Whaddya think?

Getting paid what we deserve and well ive been in business since 2003 and this year is much better for me mostly referals.Stress some times when certain months seem to dry up but bounces back.Im used to it now i know even if it feels as if work is dryed up comes back again.Respect we should get.People think if they wave a dollar in your face they can talk you down in price.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Seeings how I'm just getting started my biggest PITA is equipment. I didn't have the money to buy nice stuff so I bought old stuff and it seems every week we're spending money here or there, banging our heads together trying to fix this or that and all I wanna be doing is cutting trees.

 

[lxt]

WOW!!!! I cant really complain, ive got a good team!! they have their moments but who doesnt, the bad thing to me is all the low balling that goes on..... why? I have to lower my prices or sit at home, so knock off $50 here or $100 there, I just work a little harder/faster to make up for it, but my days are numbered at doing it like this!!!

hopefully things will pick up economically & people wont think about the price so much! I had a guy tell me "any one can cut grass so why should I pay top dollar" well sir....hmm..this is a tree not a lawn!! well hey he says how hard can it be? go up there make some cuts & throw it through the mulcher!!

this is alot of peoples mentality and untill this trade becomes respected again like it was 20+ years ago things wont change, so many people have been jammed by idiot start up contractors who think they know more than what they do......thus giving the good contractors a black eye!!



LXT............

 

[custom8726]

WOW!!!! I cant really complain, ive got a good team!! they have their moments but who doesnt, the bad thing to me is all the low balling that goes on..... why? I have to lower my prices or sit at home, so knock off $50 here or $100 there, I just work a little harder/faster to make up for it, but my days are numbered at doing it like this!!!

hopefully things will pick up economically & people wont think about the price so much! I had a guy tell me "any one can cut grass so why should I pay top dollar" well sir....hmm..this is a tree not a lawn!! well hey he says how hard can it be? go up there make some cuts & throw it through the mulcher!!

this is alot of peoples mentality and untill this trade becomes respected again like it was 20+ years ago things wont change, so many people have been jammed by idiot start up contractors who think they know more than what they do......thus giving the good contractors a black eye!!



LXT............

You are lucky to have a good team The low balling fly by nighters make it tuff for legitimate tree services to stay afloat some times. As you implied DIVERSITY is key, hence, kicking it in high gear some times or doing that 2nd or third job that day instead of putting it off. You never know if it will still be there tommorow or the next week. I try to really plan out my days now to every detail possible, like bringing only the equipment needed for that day, instead of say bringing the log truck for two logs VS just chunking them up into 20 pieces and tossing them in one of the other trucks. Or slinging the portable stump grinder and setting it in the back of the log truck with the knuckleboom instead of bringing an extra truck and trailer to tow it. ETC. ETC.. Having the right equipment allows us to get in and out of alot of bigger jobs in half the time of some of the local competition allowing us to price better then most on bigger scale jobs (3k and up) The problem with having a bunch of equipment is obviously a higher overhead making it very hard to compete, if not impossible too with Joe shmo and his pick-up truck on the smaller jobs ($2-$8 hundred doller jobs)

 

[Mikecutstrees]

help/ equipment etc.....

Things are looking up here. Got two guys who are great. Neither started off as tree guys but both work hard and are learning. Chainsaws still go in the dirt a little too much and one guy still has trouble with knots, but I need to give him a little more knot tying instruction admittitedly. Both listen and get better everyday. Machines are working well knock on wood. No major mechanical problems so life has been good. We end up doing alot of big takedowns like the 30" maple we did today. My best advise is when you think someone isn't working out FIRE THEM!!! immediately and get someone new. Keep turning over the deadbeats untill you get someone good. Then take good care of them! I kept deadbeats way too long in the past thinking they would learn or get better. Wont happen. ...... Mike

 

[gr8scott72]

the bad thing to me is all the low balling that goes on.....

I got a call today and the guy was trying to find the guy that did his stumps last time. (Made a lasting impression huh?) Well, I went and bid on the job. I thought it was about a $300 job and would've been ok at $250. The guys like "No way!". He says he got one guy to grind about 100 stumps for only $400. $4 EACH!?!?!?! Whot grinds stumps for $4 each?

He talked me down to $150 and TRIED to get me to $125. I really wanted to just walk away but haven't even had a job in almost a week and REALLY needed the money. He ended up giving me $180 and it only took just over an hour (1.2 on the meter.) so I guess it wasn't that bad although it is MUCH lower than I normally get. (Glad I have a monster, 60 hp tracked grinder that could finish it in that time.)

I so bad wanted to tell him that there is a reason he couldn't find the guy that ground 100 stumps for $400. Because HE'S OUT OF BUSINESS NOW!! But, I just took my $180 cash and went on my way.

 

[treemandan]

I was talking with a fellow tree care professional the other day and we got on the topic of some of the problems that we face in day to day operations of our tree care businesses. Some of the problems we had answers to, others we did not. I am starting this thread to take a poll of some of the biggest challenges we face as tree care business owners and hopefully as a group, come up with some great ideas to overcome them. Whaddya think?

wait a minute! That is not a chainsaw! How did you get the bird to do that?

 

[BCMA]

A lot of you guys are singing my song! This industry needs some regulation. Otherwise, anyone with a chainsaw and a Rottweiler is going to have a tree service.

And, the reason we have to drop our prices is because more than half of the tree services in this country are probably not insured properly, or run a legal payroll. Paying employees under the table, or 1099 forms for employees is not legal. Someday, we might wakeup.

I don’t see where we have any right to complain until we are willing to put a stop to it.

 

[Slvrmple72]

No complaints really for me. I load up the truck ( pickup ) hitch on the chipper and keep busy with referals for pruning and the smaller removals. When I get into the bigger removals I have a few guys I know I can call ( one of them has his own stump grinder business and as you can guess he gets my stumps in addition to being one of my groundies ) I will climb for others for $25/hr and have work enough to get me into the new year either way. I have found it more useful to rely on equipment to get jobs done that I would have needed to pay more out in manpower. Drop the tree, chip the brush, cut the logs to just fit the dump trailer and load them with the grapple on the mini while the stumps ground out. Dump the firewood at home, come back to the job to settle up and load the mini and go. Treemandan will say the same thing about that mini as I do... Worth every penny!

 

[treemandan]

No complaints really for me. I load up the truck ( pickup ) hitch on the chipper and keep busy with referals for pruning and the smaller removals. When I get into the bigger removals I have a few guys I know I can call ( one of them has his own stump grinder business and as you can guess he gets my stumps in addition to being one of my groundies ) I will climb for others for $25/hr and have work enough to get me into the new year either way. I have found it more useful to rely on equipment to get jobs done that I would have needed to pay more out in manpower. Drop the tree, chip the brush, cut the logs to just fit the dump trailer and load them with the grapple on the mini while the stumps ground out. Dump the firewood at home, come back to the job to settle up and load the mini and go. Treemandan will say the same thing about that mini as I do... Worth every penny!

Yeah, as soon as my manic depression takes a swing back to manic I am going to plant some 14 foot spruce with it... by my gat dam self !
Actually I am not M/D, more like manic/ full blown nutjob.

 

[tree MDS]

Yeah, as soon as my manic depression takes a swing back to manic I am going to plant some 14 foot spruce with it... by my gat dam self !
Actually I am not M/D, more like manic/ full blown nutjob.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

 

[treemandan]

Why doesn't that surprise me?

 

[treemandan]

Dan Murphy called me last night. Within 2 seconds of talking with him he goes" do you have A.D.D.?" It kinda pissed me off but I replied " I call it multi-tasking."
he blames it on the old vaccinations but I blame it on sesame street. You ever try to follow that show these days, it makes you tired. The kid stand 2 inches away and just stares, everyonce in a while she asks for some more chocolate milk.
My brother used to say, when we were teens, " I think by the time you are 37 you are as crazy as you are going to get." I am now just 38 and I disagree.
I see it this way, the pic is actually in black and white if you didn't know allready

But when you look at yourself...

You can't always be serious.

Or you start to look like this

 

[treemandan]

By the way I didn't pay for that haircut I just did it my gat dam self.

 

[tree MDS]

Ya know dan, ADD isnt exactly helped by the POT! lol.

 

[treemandan]

Ya know dan, ADD isnt exactly helped by the POT! lol.

No that red eye is from the camera, honest. besides I pay attention to everything ( so I have been told numerous times though too much sometimes) and my periphrals are clear. I saw ya coming, actually heard ya first.

Why trees?
Obviously, for me, its all the time off I get and I can be as me as i freakin want. Howz bout you?
I tell ya a guy climbing 40 hours? Not a way in this world. Really no need, ceptin to make another guy impressed. Huh?
Maybe the circle again? You can see where it leads. Oh, Nails, nice set-up but please... that no rope thing? I can't beleive no one got off on Vintage Dan ( hey remind me if I forget to capitalize that OK ?). Really anyone will attest that when I got pulled over by the cops I said " Sir, this here is a 77 Chevy N I ! " He asked what N I was and then i yelled " NOT INSURED! "
Nevermind, not these days. But this whole concept of mine back then is looked down upon. The " Pick-up driving tree scab". Really, you were in it 4 years before going on your own? I was in 4 days before I stopped lol-ing.
Not really, maybe a solid year and a half broken up between seasons working for who knows what. The big guys had the mexicans back then as you can PLAINLY see in Vintage Dan. I just didn't speak the langauge, I tried. I bought the "tapes" but it didn't help.
On my own for years before I went back a hammered the guys who paid me for MONEY ! and leaving me alone if you know what I mean.
I don't think I was really that bad if you compare things. What do we start talking about when Dan Murphy called me last night? That everybody is on drugs...STILL! Personally, not me, never really was just like the taste of bud, beer ( maybe 2) for thirst. Pretty much my whole life save for some crazy parties sporatically placed along 38 years. Don't really want to put up with myself drunk either these days.
I always thought everbody was so high on coke, herion and meth becasue the job really sucked. My friends always wanted to see me start a big shiney tree service ( they really had no idea about it anyway) and that always made me laugh. personally, if you come around here with any hardcore addictions I will kill ya. What? Do you think that's respectful to me, to anyone?
so now I have tons of time off from the little things that kill. I do " waste" time thinking in depth,well, its my time! I actually am pretty effecient at using it wisely.

 

[treemandan]

Oh and by the way, I don't use spell check to fix the grammer. I know its not all perfevt. Not dab huh?

 

[custom8726]

You do crack me up Dan!!! I still can't figure you out but as Ive said in the past you have a unique perspective on life.