This business is weird....

[Nailsbeats]

So I bid removal of 2 large silver maples today. $1,950 to take down the pair of them and leave the stumps as low as possible, no clean up.

The one was 7 feet across and 80' tall or better, big wood over the house. classic tight antennae clearance, obstacles everywhere. The second one was the same height 45" across and over 7200v primary power. 2 triplex power lines and 2 cable lines need to come down to do the job, close line needs to come down and the unused small satelite dish too. Move an old junk mower and we are good to go.

Here's the thing, I have zero confidence that I will get this job because of the price, but you seasoned fella's know what it will take. Experience, equipment and the job needs to get done timely to put power back to the tenants. That's that.


Second job I bid today, somebody bids $800, next guy $400 with a bucket. I get the job for $250, it'll take me 1 hour with my saddle, spikes, 1 climb line, 2 saws and a compact car.

What gives, a guy can't get a big job for what it's worth but lands the easy ones easily. This isn't the first time either. Not that I really don't understand, cause if I didn't I might as well get out of business and that ain't happening. It's in my blood.

Just food for thought/conversation.

 

[lone wolf]

So I bid removal of 2 large silver maples today. $1,950 to take down the pair of them and leave the stumps as low as possible, no clean up.

The one was 7 feet across and 80' tall or better, big wood over the house. classic tight antennae clearance, obstacles everywhere. The second one was the same height 45" across and over 7200v primary power. 2 triplex power lines and 2 cable lines need to come down to do the job, close line needs to come down and the unused small satelite dish too. Move an old junk mower and we are good to go.

Here's the thing, I have zero confidence that I will get this job because of the price, but you seasoned fella's know what it will take. Experience, equipment and the job needs to get done timely to put power back to the tenants. That's that.


Second job I bid today, somebody bids $800, next guy $400 with a bucket. I get the job for $250, it'll take me 1 hour with my saddle, spikes, 1 climb line, 2 saws and a compact car.

What gives, a guy can't get a big job for what it's worth but lands the easy ones easily. This isn't the first time either. Not that I really don't understand, cause if I didn't I might as well get out of business and that ain't happening. It's in my blood.

Just food for thought/conversation.

We are in a bad bad economy now and will be for a long time people dont have much money is the reason.Just hope you dont get it sounds under priced to me.

 

[mattfr12]

if you run your operation right you can make some good money cleaning up the easy ones.

we couldn't go out for a 250.00$ job. anything small we say 550.00 is as low as we can go. or it isn't really worth turning the key. endless its within a few miles of our shop.

we did telephone line clearance all day today did probably close to a half of mile of road we cut everything down within 50 foot of the lines we did it in 4-5 hours with the equipment we have.

was real close 2 AA's house we also don't have to haul anything out so two guys are flagin one in the bucket and one fueling saws and pulling the truck forward.

 

[mattfr12]

We are in a bad bad economy now and will be for a long time people dont have much money is the reason.Just hope you dont get it sounds under priced to me.

ya the silver maples do sound like a good deal.

 

[Nailsbeats]

ya the silver maples do sound like a good deal.

I don't want to lose the job, kinda chompin at the bit for a couple big thrashers right now, don't want to freak out the customer, but am not naive to what it'll take myself. The perfect tree storm.

 

[rymancm]

I don't want to lose the job.......don't want to freak out the customer.

Story of my life...

 

[treemandan]

So begins Nails' slow descent into insanity. YAY! Can't wait til you get here! You see your future don't you? You gonna be like me, MDS, X, 101, Murphy... TreeCo is the maddest of us all leaving poor Ropes standing by himself. The best advice I can give is to keep it externalized. Don't internalize whatever you do. That's what got me.

 

[treeman82]

I just bid an oak tree today. They have several other bids on the table, all around 2,500 - 4,500. I bid 6 in order to NOT get the job.

 

[2treeornot2tree]

I bid to remove 2 norway spruces for $2400 for complete removals for a landscaper. He got 3 other quotes for theses trees and I was the lowest. The owner gave the job to a guy that bid it for $1000. What is wrong with people.

 

[treemandan]

I bid to remove 2 norway spruces for $2400 for complete removals for a landscaper. He got 3 other quotes for theses trees and I was the lowest. The owner gave the job to a guy that bid it for $1000. What is wrong with people.

Wait! if you bid 2400 and another guy bid 1000 how are you the lowest? Oh I get it. The " owner" is not the landscrapeire ( that's French for landscaper btw) you handed your bid to.

 

[2treeornot2tree]

Wait! if you bid 2400 and another guy bid 1000 how are you the lowest? Oh I get it. The " owner" is not the landscrapeire ( that's French for landscaper btw) you handed your bid to.

Correct. These two norways are about 3' dia and 75-80' tall. One is grown up around the elec and cable wires too.

 

[Bigus Termitius]

Why be peasants?

That's my motto....well, one of them anyway.

Nevertheless, I often recall a fine quote from an excellent movie:

"Relax pal. First lesson in business is don't get emotional about stocks - it clouds your judgement."

It's easy to incorporate that into this biz, especially when your batting with the bigger boys and larger project bids start to push 10K on up.

I'd rather strike out as the high bidder, than strike out as the low.

Call em like you see them, don't second guess em and don't look back...that ain't the way we're going.

 

[treemandan]

I bid to remove 2 norway spruces for $2400 for complete removals for a landscaper. He got 3 other quotes for theses trees and I was the lowest. The owner gave the job to a guy that bid it for $1000. What is wrong with people.

Well I am not a fan of overcharging fat cats sending out underpaid crews but Jeez, let that SOB have fun with that one... or die tryin it sounds.

 

[treemandan]

Why be peasants?

That's my motto....well, one of them anyway.

Nevertheless, I often recall a fine quote from an excellent movie:

"Relax pal. First lesson in business is don't get emotional about stocks - it clouds your judgement."

It's easy to incorporate that into this biz, especially when your batting with the bigger boys and larger project bids start to push 10K on up.

I'd rather strike out as the high bidder, than strike out as the low.

Call em like you see them, don't second guess em and don't look back...that ain't the way we're going.

Thing is that to say " its in my blood" ( and it is, no doubt about that) and not to get emotional is like some kind of oxymoron.

You see my point?

 

[Bigus Termitius]

Thing is that to say " its in my blood" ( and it is, no doubt about that) and not to get emotional is like some kind of oxymoron.

You see my point?

I do, but I do my best to save it for the job once I get it.

 

[Iustinian]

I love the monster removals as well, for the fun and the challenge -- but lately I'd make more money on a handful of trims than one big removal. Purse strings tighten up in this economy, so you have the customer who has less to spend, and the guys out there who are willing to work for less and less the more desperate they get - its a bad mix thats like a snowball rolling down a snow covered hill, it picks up speed and gets bigger. Obviously theres less disparity in pricing on a trim, and its less money for the customer to come up with compared to the big removals which leave more room for undercutting when your talking about thousands instead of hundreds.

On this topic, they passed a law in this state that on public projects (like alot of the clearing) the bids MUST be awarded to the lowest "qualified" bidder. Some of the bids we've seen on the clearing projects are near 70% lower than ours, and its crazy to hear how much was "left on the table" - that is to say, the difference between the lowest bid, and the second lowest bid, and sometimes its UNREAL. I'm sure most of you can relate.

 

[Sagetown]

Just guessing, but I have an elderly friend who's been complaining about his large pine trees in his yard fence line overhanging his utility shed, and his neighbor's garage. I'm not a treeman, but went and looked the situation over. To dangerous for an amature like me, and I told him from what I've learned here on AS, that two of those trees would ring up over $1000 to get them down, and he balked at that idea. The elderly home owners around here have the biggest tree problems, and are afraid to spend what little they have because of the economy.

What was funny, is he wanted them taken down for nearly free of charge, yet he didn't want his yard messed up by big equipment, holes in the turf by falling limbs, or impaction of any sort.

 

[superjunior]

Here's a nice twist. Went and looked at a tree on a house yesterday right down the street from my shop. 40 ft maple uprooted and came down on the roof pinning the service drop against the house. She still had power. Easy job, I can pull the crane right up on it from the neighbors driveway. Probably have to polesaw the limb that's pinning the power line then hook the tree up. 1 pick - maybe 2 to be safe. I figured maybe 2 hrs max with clean up. I told the lady 700$ and she said "wow that is more then fair, my ins. co. is going to pay more so I wouldn't mind paying a little more". I said ok how about a 1000$? She said now that's fair when can you do it..

That's my project for today.
It's nice when customers talk you up instead of down for a change

 

[2treeornot2tree]

Here's a nice twist. Went and looked at a tree on a house yesterday right down the street from my shop. 40 ft maple uprooted and came down on the roof pinning the service drop against the house. She still had power. Easy job, I can pull the crane right up on it from the neighbors driveway. Probably have to polesaw the limb that's pinning the power line then hook the tree up. 1 pick - maybe 2 to be safe. I figured maybe 2 hrs max with clean up. I told the lady 700$ and she said "wow that is more then fair, my ins. co. is going to pay more so I wouldn't mind paying a little more". I said ok how about a 1000$? She said now that's fair when can you do it..

That's my project for today.
It's nice when customers talk you up instead of down for a change

I have had that happen once. I gave a customer that I have had since I started business a great price for cleaning up his property after that Oct snow storm. He said I think thats a little low and said how about we add another $200 to that. I said well Ok, works for me.

 

[imagineero]

On this topic, they passed a law in this state that on public projects (like alot of the clearing) the bids MUST be awarded to the lowest "qualified" bidder. Some of the bids we've seen on the clearing projects are near 70% lower than ours, and its crazy to hear how much was "left on the table" - that is to say, the difference between the lowest bid, and the second lowest bid, and sometimes its UNREAL. I'm sure most of you can relate.

I think the hope of contractors who do that is that they can make it all back up with variations at a later date. They often do from what I've seen.

I no longer do council work, work for body corporates or commercial jobs including schools. I just found it was too much jumping through hoops for too little money, paid too late. Residential goes well for me, people pay on the day generally and they don't mess you around. I bid big trees with a fair price and I'm happy not to win them. Even winning them at a price I'm happy with I still dont make as much as I would make on doing medium sized trees, you can do 2 or 3 mediums in the time it takes to do one large and put less wear on yourself and your gear and put more in your pocket too.

I bid a big Euc last winter when the wolves were getting hungry, put $3750 on it when I really should have put closer to $4600 on it. About 60~70cubic yards of chip in it, only about 90' tall but very spready, 6; barrel. All over the guys house, neighbours house, 2 sheds, a carport, phone and service lines, street power etc. Probably a 2 day job for 5 or 6 guys, no access for a crane. Guy called me up and said he wanted it done last week, told him I'd have to have another look because I'd made notes on my quote sheet that the price was winter only. Got out there and told the guy how winter prices work and said he could add another $1k to the price, or wait till next winter and see how I felt about it, or find someone else. I hope he finds someone else.

Shaun