How's business this year?

[Scars2prove-it]

Last year at this time I was booked out to 3-4 weeks working 6 days a week. This year, for the first time in many years, I'm only booked out 4-5 days. The housing market is the slowest in 20 years and we all know about gas prices and uncertainty in the economy. I might have hit a temporary lull but I think it will continue to be slow. We have been in a drought so we haven't missed any work due to weather. Therefore, more work has been getting done causing less of a backlog. I have been bidding on a lot of drought stressed dead oak trees so that might bring in a little business if the undercutting hacks don't get to them first. I am located in Maryland not too far from Baltimore.

 

[treeman82]

Better than last year, but last year was my first year back in on my own. Plus this year I've added spraying, and got hooked up with a good worker... so that has helped. Picked up a few new good customers. The year could have gone a bit better... but I'm not complaining. The main thing is that I enjoy what I am doing. This year though I've been anywhere from a few days, to 3 weeks out.

 

[daveyclimber]

We have ben whining and cryng this year as it has been very slow. Within the last week we have become booked up for 4 weeks yay!. Seems the busy season is about 3 monhs laterthis year.

 

[ASD]

how far out you are booked out is the wrong way to tell how your co. is doing you need to watch your sales our's are up 18% hear in N. CA.

 

[Davey Dog]

Yeah, a lot of the big companies are really slow this year. I have managed to find work though. The guy I am working with is booked out about five weeks. We are a small company though with only 4 employees. Anyway, I think the economy in general is slowing down a lot. As soon as people are comfy financially they will start spending money on their trees again. We just need to keep our heads up and make it through this slow time.

 

[hornett22]

not a good year here.

didn't see many service companies out at all this summer.picked up at the end of august but people are tight.seems like if you paid them to do their work it wouldn't be enough.

 

[Xtra]

Not only was this a slow summer, but pricing really fell.

Now, we're getting our annual "before Halloween & before the leaves fall" bump, but pricing is still down.

In my area, I saw many new companies around this year and a lot of the landscapers were short on work, so they started doing tree jobs.

 

[phil g]

still busy over here , and been busy all summer wilkl start goin quiet from now on though i reckon ! i have been to maryland scars2prove-it what a lovely place 2 weeks was not enough !!!!

phil

 

[tree md]

So far this has been my best year to date. I normally start slowing down around Thanksgiving and remain slow until end of February/early March. Have had more work than I can do in the past 2 months. I'm a small service and do little advertising. I plan on doing a little more advertising through the Winter to see if I can keep sales up. I've made enough to weather the winter but would like to keep my guys as busy as I can.

 

[beowulf343]

Busy, busy, busy.

 

[mckeetree]

We are booked till about Xmas right now.

 

[OLD CHIPMONK]

Looking foward to next year !