A couple of times a month, somebody starts a thread about wanting to start a tree business. They think a couple of saws and some climbing gear is all it takes to get started. According to Dept of Labor stats, some 3 out of 4 businesses fail in the first 4 years. This is for all businesses, which includes simple to price types like barber shops or hot dog stands, all the way up to big construction outfits.
This indicates that most folks don't have the required management skills to run even a simple business. Now, take something like treework, aircraft maintenance or, heart surgery and the required skillset goes up. True, you can hire an expert to do all the 'technical stuff' but, how can you really know how 'expert' they are if you don't know it yourself. Real experts are expensive! How can your business afford to pay you and the expert for doing the work of one person and still compete ?
You can 'learn from your mistakes', but I think that would be even more expensive than hiring the expert. It can also be fatal, not just from a business point of view, but in fact as well.
The simple truth is, if you are asking questions like "How much should I charge?", or " Which climbing line should I use?" or even better yet, " How would you do this job?" ( simple, straight forward, every day type of tree ), then you really are not yet ready to run your own company. If you think I am being harsh, let me ask you this....... If you had surgery scheduled tomorrow, what would you think, if your surgeon was on
WWW.SURGEONSCHAT.COM right now asking how much he/she should charge?, what size scalpel he/she should start with?, and should he/she start the cut at the top or from the bottom ?
Would you feel that your surgeon was ready to operate on you?
It takes a lot more than chainsaws and climbing gear to BE a tree business.
Rick