Sick of random people starting companies.

[mckeetree]

In my area a well to do bus company/ rental property owner bought the local hacks equipment, a 40' genie boom a chuck and duck, a tele-handler and a ****** old dump truck. Its for his sons slum lord business properties. Well they are taking down a pretty good sized tree with clean up for 500 bucks. Making me look like a criminal asking 800-1000. The question "how do they do it?" their rich daddy buys all of the equipment, pays for all the maintenance and fuel. Then they get to go make some beer money and take food off my table. Good thing they do a horrible job. I told the lady about them, but she is all about the almighty bottom dollar. I guarantee they will **** her yard all up and bring in all that equipment and three guys and work at it all day to gross 500 bucks. I doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I deal with that sort of crap all the time. Frustrating.

 

[woodchuck357]

I get angry with competition due to the fact that I am able to land one job a month and the other start ups are able to get 6-7 days a week of work. I mean when I do get the jobs that I do, I make very good money at it and enjoy every minute of it. I guess that I might have to start lowering my pricing a little bit.

If you are only doing one job a month you are not in business. It's a hobby that you are trying to make pay. I'm mostly retired and yet I do at least 5 times the jobs, mostly small or very dangerous trees that others can't figure how to do, but I don't think of myself as being in business anymore.

 

[RDAA]

I deal with that sort of crap all the time. Frustrating.

The good thing is they can't do a whole lot with a 40 foot lift. They don't climb either. The guy was giving me **** about a seventy foot tall silver maple that I did for a guy that I got to before him. I thought to myself how the hell would these yahoos gotten that tree down without any damage? They sure don't know what rigging is. I guess that it's a matter of time before they wreck something pretty bad and the word spreads in our small community fast. So maybe they will do themselves in business wise or beer money wise.

 

[ATH]

I agree that you need to have insurance and pay workers comp on your employees to be "legit". But I never judge somebody by their equipment (well...except maybe a few extreme cases). I have seen more the one crew loaded with equipment that has no idea what they are doing, does not work safely, no PPE, probably no workers comp, etc...

Just be honest, do a good job, and keep it above the table. Success will come.

 

[Leimkuhler]

You say nothing illegal, well not having insurance insnt really illegal but frowned upon and none of the start ups have a legit insurance policy. GL isnt really all that expensive. I am paying $1200 a year for 2million

Wow that's cheap! I pay 2,300 a year and we are claim free


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[cupar]

I want to start my own gig, but until I have a customer base and the money for at least a chip truck and chipper, prefer a boom truck but such is life. In the mean time people know me as a "tree guy" and call on me from time to time, I've only door knocked twice for what looked like 911 tree's and got neither job haha, but I work 50 hour weeks for the company and do a little side cutting on weekends. I used to do more as my last company didn't have a residential service and I could sell myself out, now I only take jobs that come to me as professional courtesy.

 

[Groundman One]

As soon as a storm comes along and they see an opportunity to make money anyone with a pickup and saw is a so called tree service. Once you have been established for many years you should have your own customer base.

Thank God for the customer base because every jackass with a Poulan thinks he`s a tree service once a storm hits. We had a regular call us for a tree across his deck last summer after a big storm and by the time we got there he had at least four business cards stuffed in his door, all out of town guys. A storm hits and they fly in like locusts.

And I don`t know where some of these guys get the cash, but it`s like they register their business Monday morning, get insurance Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday at lunch they`re out in brand new custom painted F350s towing a BC 1000. How the **** do they get the cash to finance their brain fart of an idea to start a tree company with top of the line equipment like that?

 

[Sagetown]

In my area a well to do bus company/ rental property owner bought the local hacks equipment, a 40' genie boom a chuck and duck, a tele-handler and a ****** old dump truck. Its for his sons slum lord business properties. Well they are taking down a pretty good sized tree with clean up for 500 bucks. Making me look like a criminal asking 800-1000. The question "how do they do it?" their rich daddy buys all of the equipment, pays for all the maintenance and fuel. Then they get to go make some beer money and take food off my table. Good thing they do a horrible job. I told the lady about them, but she is all about the almighty bottom dollar. I guarantee they will **** her yard all up and bring in all that equipment and three guys and work at it all day to gross 500 bucks. I doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Yep; my friend had a fenceline full of huge pines. He didn't want any yard damage, etc, etc,, but when quoted a price from a good tree company, he nearly fainted. In short, his fenceline neighbor, a construction owner, did it for zip. Tore up his yard, burned all the limbs in his yard, and left looking like it had been a war zone.

 

[mckeetree]

And I don`t know where some of these guys get the cash, but it`s like they register their business Monday morning, get insurance Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday at lunch they`re out in brand new custom painted F350s towing a BC 1000. How the **** do they get the cash to finance their brain fart of an idea to start a tree company with top of the line equipment like that?

That's a good question. We have had some show up here out of the blue with conservatively $300,000 worth of NEW equipment. And I don't mean just after a storm, I mean just show up and start trying to work this area. None have ever lasted (here anyway) more than eight months max. The last one was a guy named something or another Green...anyway his last name was Green and he called his business The Tree Green. He lasted about four or five months and really screwed some people there at the last taking deposits and never showing up. I heard later some bank in Houston, TX got stuck with his equipment.

 

[woodchuck357]

Thank God for the customer base because every jackass with a Poulan thinks he`s a tree service once a storm hits. We had a regular call us for a tree across his deck last summer after a big storm and by the time we got there he had at least four business cards stuffed in his door, all out of town guys. A storm hits and they fly in like locusts.

When a really bad storm hits near here, 200 mi is near, we stick the camper on the old extended cab 350 load it up with saws, hook the trailer up and head out. We work mostly the poorer neighborhoods, usually set the camper off in some ones back yard and spend a week or so giving back a little. I doubt we take any bread off the table of the tree services in the area and the most we accept is a meal and maybe a shower from the folks we help out. Some times I have to pay some of the younger help but mostly they old farts like me. I have never believed it was right to make money off of disaster.
woodchuck357,

 

[Groundman One]

When a really bad storm hits near here, 200 mi is near, we stick the camper on the old extended cab 350 load it up with saws, hook the trailer up and head out. We work mostly the poorer neighborhoods, usually set the camper off in some ones back yard and spend a week or so giving back a little. I doubt we take any bread off the table of the tree services in the area and the most we accept is a meal and maybe a shower from the folks we help out. Some times I have to pay some of the younger help but mostly they old farts like me. I have never believed it was right to make money off of disaster.
woodchuck357,

That is a decent and charitible thing to do.

I doubt, however, that the locusts that fly in here share your sentiments.

For our part, we make a good deal of money when big storms hit, not because we charge more for the situation, but simply because of the volume of no clean up jobs. We went thirteen straight days with emergency calls after the last big storm. We`ll drop `em and chop `em, but if they want the chipper and the Big Clean, they have to wait. No time for brooms and rakes when the guy down the block has one on his wires. Yeah, we make good money after storms, but we work for it. We`re a tree service, it`s what we do.

 

[ducaticorse]

Survival of the fittest. All I have to say about that.


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[DR. P. Proteus]

I ,too , was an audacious bastard with a truck and an axe, crapsman saw, homemade rope saddle...

I have been scabbing trees since I was 11, didn't realize people actually did it for a living til I was about 20, now I am 44 and still run my own tree scabbing business.

Let me tell you something about tree scabbing, well, I pity the fools who try.

I was just talking to some guy a few years younger than me, he was telling me about his 'businesses'. I take him for a hard worker, had his hands in everything, told me he was the foreman for 4 different jobs in one sentence. Maybe some BS, maybe a lot. He said he had " his crew" out doing a little tree scabbing and it cost him 28k! Paid out of pocket!

 

[DR. P. Proteus]

I get angry with competition due to the fact that I am able to land one job a month and the other start ups are able to get 6-7 days a week of work. I mean when I do get the jobs that I do, I make very good money at it and enjoy every minute of it. I guess that I might have to start lowering my pricing a little bit.

Well, yeah, it is a market and I guess it has been tainted. You get a bunch of guys in buckets working cheap but that does break down if you aren't GOOD.

That's the edge in this business - being good. Then you can be in the market.

Now you have a company named Affordable Tree and you are higher than most?

 

[Pelorus]

[QUOTE="DR. P. Proteus:Now you have a company named Affordable Tree and you are higher than most?[/QUOTE]

An elephant gets eaten one bite at a time. Affordable Tree has a no money down, low monthly payment plan for every client, even if the outstanding balance is something the customer's grandkids inherit. Call now and get an extra tree whacked. You just pay the shipping and handling.

 

[DR. P. Proteus]

Affordable Tree is complaining other companies don't charge enough?

 

[ducaticorse]

Perhaps affordable needs to go take some business classes. There are excellent workers and excellent business persons in this business, it's very rare that you get both together. If you've just started a business and are only landing one job a month, you're doing it wrong, and won't be in business too long.

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[treevet]

You won't be worried about all the peripheral tree start ups if you are booked every day at what you want to make. They are actually kind of amusing to watch. Yesterday saw a new one working all around a big td doing all the easy stuff...name ...."Tree mend us" tree co. Give em 6 mos.

 

[TreeAce]

I have my slice of the pie I figure. I really could care less what the clowns around here do as long as they arnt stacking brush on the curb for the city to come chip. I do have a problem with that. Otherwise I figure it will all work its self out.

 

[ducaticorse]

I have my slice of the pie I figure. I really could care less what the clowns around here do as long as they arnt stacking brush on the curb for the city to come chip. I do have a problem with that. Otherwise I figure it will all work its self out.

Dude, the city chips curb side brush where you live?? Sign me up!

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