salesman

[nor'easter1]

Any of you guys utilize a sales man for your company. I know it might sound crazy but if I had a sales guy to do estimating, bidding, mulch sales, fire wood sales, and prospect jobs then I could spend more time doing what we do which is cutting. Has anyone ever thought of going this route or is it a crazy thought.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I worked for a guy that paid 20% of the gross to his salesman. We all thought he was crazy. 20% of the net maybe. He had no inspiration to bid proper. He didn't care... he got his cut.

Its an okay idea, but kinda tricky.

 

[treeman82]

This is just me personally, but as the President of the company, my time is better served finding more work to keep my people busy. You are the President of your company I would assume? You are in a sense the company. If you are sending somebody out for you to bid the work, they make that connection with the client. If you just show up after the work is approved to do the job... what say have you really had in what is to be done? You are just relying on the salesman to do the bulk of your thinking for you. If that is the case, why not just hand over the company to him / her and become a foreman?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

The thing about leadership is understanding what you do best and where you are weak, then finding a way to delegate what you cannot do to those who can.

As with having any person do things for you, there needs to be trust and confidance for it to work.

Look in the back of the trade mag's. There are allways several columns of adds looking for arborist-salesman.

One of the most effective methods I've seen for the micro company is to give the workers leads to run and then base compensation on a percentage of proffit. Now you've got 2-3 extra partime sales people out there. They get paid for the bid work only after they finnish the job.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Originally posted by netree
I'd rather do it myself. Like the saying goes- "If you want it done right..."

but then you have no weaknesses...except for a cold barley pop in the evening

 

[dbeck]

who said ditch wine was a weakness?

 

[kowens]

liers

most salesmen are liers and theafs thay will say or do anything to get thear comm. have you ever worked all day finished everything on the contract clean up load all the tools everybodys
in the trucks the home owner comes home you do a walk thru
and he/she says so and so said you would do this and you would
do that out comes the men and gear up the tree again
or you find out your salesman has been saleing your leads to
another company fora higher comm
save yourself the headache do it yourself

 

[OutOnaLimb]

From a climbers point of view having a sales man who knows little about tree work really bites the big one. I seem to have to deal with that pretty frequently. There are a lot of aspects that you have to look at in bidding a tree job. Such as obsticles (power and phone lines. other buildings, sprinkler systems in the lawn, fences, etc.) There is also the aspect of accesability to the site draging brush and logs through from the back yard through a tiny gate over the front yard and to the curb really slows a groundie down. The condition of the tree is another thing to consider. You definately need some on who can look up in a tree and be able to spot dead or diseased branches. (just this week I showed up to do a $500 pruning job on a big Ash tree that was hanging over the house and the neighbors garage and guess what? about 80% of that tree was DEAD!!) I felt like a bone head when I had to tell the home owner that his tree needed removal, not trimming. However if you can find an old retired arborist to do you sales, ie MB or JPS it might be worth your while if you can afford them. (just kidding guys) I get paid 20% of gross and some times it really doesnt seem worth it cuz I am doing so much extra work for nothing all on account of the sales man not seeing what I would see if I were to have bid the job.

:Monkey:

 

[jmchristopher]

I are one, though that seems to be a point in my favor wjth some folks here. I put in my time as a climber/production foreman, and realized that as I'm getting older, my real strength is in communication. I build relationships with my clients and see to it that their trees are cared for as well as can humanly be done over the long term. I have to be able to look up and see what needs be done, figure out how it's going to happen, write it up, explain it, get committment, see it gets scheduled, explain it to the crew...etc endlessly it seems. I believe I earn an honest living, and do my part in a pretty grand enterprize.
Once in a while, if I'm particlarly lucky, I get to climb again!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Originally posted by OutOnaLimb
....$500 pruning job on a big Ash tree that.... I get paid 20% of gross ....

Wow, $100 hope there's more work for the rest of the day, if this is typical. You can spend a lot of time nit-picking a big green ash.

Durrin peak season I need at leat $200/ day to show up. Only if I have something else I want to do and negotiate a half day will I do $100.

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Originally posted by John Paul Sanborn
Wow, $100 hope there's more work for the rest of the day, if this is typical. You can spend a lot of time nit-picking a big green ash.

Durrin peak season I need at leat $200/ day to show up. Only if I have something else I want to do and negotiate a half day will I do $100.

I wish I had a digital camera to show you a pic of this tree. It was about 30" BHD about 3' away from the neighbors fence and garage, and maybe 12' from the home owners house. About 1/4 of the canopy sprawled out over the neighbors garage and a distribution electrical loop. there was only one leader that went over the home owners house. But my point was that this tree was DEAD. The home owner finished building the house about a year and a half ago, and from looking at the root zone I am pretty sure that the construction had a big part in the decline of the tree. Call me crazy, but I just dont see the point of spending half a day pruning a dead tree. Especially with all the obstacles that I would have to avoid. At least 50% of the work I do is in back yards with very confined spaces. Whats the point of taking the chance of getting the obvious dead out of a tree that only the home owner can see from the ground, and then when the tree doesnt leaf out like all the other trees on the block, he feels like a bone head because he spent 500 bucks to have his tree trimmed, but in fact it is obviously dead when there are no leves on it come June?:Monkey:

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Or you come down and it's got 3 limbs left on it.

 

[murphy4trees]

Of all the trees I work with ash is one of the hardest in winter to tell how much of the canopy is dead... Not making excuses for the guy... jut an observation and recalling that I burned myself a time or two on that one way back when...
And it sounds like the guy could use a crash course in tree estimatin...

 

[BigJohn]

Ash is a tough one. I have one guy who cuts all kinds of live out telling me its dead and then his excuse is that the boss will be mad if doesn't cut enough out. I tell him that when it say dead wood you take dead wood. You don't make extra brush to make a boss happy. It's no ones fault when there isn't alot of deadwood.

I have been up trees where we could not find any deadwood but that is what was on the work order. I was told to just walk around up there and have fun. I miss those jobs. How did I end up selling myself as good guy for removals?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Originally posted by BigJohn
How did I end up selling myself as good guy for removals?

You wanted the big money?