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2treeornot2tree said:
I work 7 days a week, most of the year. If I am not out making money, I am doing maintanence or paperwork. Winter, I slow down but still work alot. I have been doing this too long to go back to working for someone else. So i gotta do what I got to, to make it work. My business has turned into my whole life, it always comes first.
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I hear ya man. Wish I could just be the climber and not have to deal with the rest of it sometimes. After bustin ass all day I try to sneak in a quick dinner before I go into the dungeon (my office) and deal with paperwork and phone calls the rest of the night. Wears ya down...
 
I don't work weekends and try to be home by 6:00 I get started about 7:30. I do do estimates in the evenings or weekends if I must but I would rather not. However, I am a small operation and need to ramp up the income to support one more full time employee. I gross a little under $90000 a year and need to make $130000+ to be where I would like to be. I think I can do that with out working evenings and weekends for the most part. I have decided that my wife and kids come first and I don't want to have any regrets about what I spent my time and energy on... Not trying to be high and mighty that is just how I want to do it.
 
GarethVW said:
I don't work weekends and try to be home by 6:00 I get started about 7:30. I do do estimates in the evenings or weekends if I must but I would rather not. However, I am a small operation and need to ramp up the income to support one more full time employee. I gross a little under $90000 a year and need to make $130000+ to be where I would like to be. I think I can do that with out working evenings and weekends for the most part. I have decided that my wife and kids come first and I don't want to have any regrets about what I spent my time and energy on... Not trying to be high and mighty that is just how I want to do it.
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what area are you in Gareth?
 
GarethVW said:
I don't work weekends and try to be home by 6:00 I get started about 7:30. I do do estimates in the evenings or weekends if I must but I would rather not. However, I am a small operation and need to ramp up the income to support one more full time employee. I gross a little under $90000 a year and need to make $130000+ to be where I would like to be. I think I can do that with out working evenings and weekends for the most part. I have decided that my wife and kids come first and I don't want to have any regrets about what I spent my time and energy on... Not trying to be high and mighty that is just how I want to do it.
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I'm with you there. I didn't do any estimates on weekends this past year and only a couple late (past 4 or 5pm) I try not to even return calls past 6 pm if I can help it and we only work on Saturdays if absolutely necessary to catch up. People will make themselves available during the week or I go by without them being there. Office work is everyday all day, whenever I can get to it. I'm not going to meet people late or weekends, they take advantage of your time if you let them since they're just sitting around their house it's no big deal and will forget to be there, in the shower, eating, sleeping, ####ing, whatever.
I'm sure I could be alot busier if I did but it's not worth it to me.
 
Good Topic, I own a very busy tree service. 4 Trucks, 2 chippers, 3 full time employees and two seasonal employees. I am trying this year to save myself some time by hiring another climber/ bucket truck operator. This will free me up more during the day to do repairs, calls, paperwork etc. Normally get up at 6am and dump/ fuel the trucks and get the gear ready. Then work all day and do estimates after work. Then come home and return calls, write contracts and bills and return e-mails. Saturdays is more of the same. I also have one of my best employees coming in early this year to dump the trucks which saves me a lot of time. I have a secretery who handles quick books and some of the paperwork. My wife pays the bills and handles insurance and many of the other headaches. Its all a ton of work. I wouldn't want to add up all of my hours and divide by my profit. I'm making some changes this year to make my life easier. Add to that we had our first child this year 4 months ago. Busy Busy.....

Mike
 
I run estimates a lot on the weekends and work throughout the week doing an estimate or two in the evenings when I need to. It is the slow season here but I have maintained pretty steady work. When I am really busy I like to take one full day and do nothing but run estimates when I can. I find myself taking Mondays off a lot as well. I say taking off, I usually work on equipment on Mondays and will tomorrow as all of my chains are dull from the past week's work. I've got a thousand things I need to do equipment wise and will have to take care of a lot of phone business, banking and pay some bills tomorrow, I just remembered today that I've got one out there from last week that I didn't even remember to collect on; I'll have to take care of that tomorrow as well. To tell the truth I am a much better treeman than business man...

Here's the thing, it can consume you if you allow it to. I try to make the best living I can but don't let it break my heart if I miss a job or two. I worked for an old man early on who was a workaholic. His wife had divorced him and he was estranged from his family. His whole life was trees and he was dam good at what he did. Unfortunately he wasn't very good at being any kind of person. He died a miserable old dude who was mad at the world. I don't want to be that guy.

Life is very short. I hope you never have a wakeup like I did as to how short it really can be. It will change your perspective on things. I am going to do everything I can to be a good brother, son, friend, partner to the people that I care for. I am going to spend all the time I can hunting, fishing and doing the things I love to do. I still bust ass all I can at work but I make sure I have my me time as well.
 
I do estimates seven days a week during the busy season. Met a lady at 6:00 this aft. (Sunday). I have six quotes to get in tomorrow. Some of the figures I have seen thrown around in here for yearly gross wouldn't even make my payments so I have to get it while I can.
 
tree md said:
Life is very short. I hope you never have a wakeup like I did as to how short it really can be. It will change your perspective on things.
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I should remember what you are talking about if you posted it but don't. What happened? I haven't been feeling too good myself.
 
So nice to see others living the same glitzy showbiz life that I do. However it gets, its all easier than milking cows!

Climb and drag during the day, then 5.30 onwards its quotes (I swap from work truck to ute at home so try to touch base with the kids), sometimes to 8.30 or later in summer. All saturday is quoting, sunday is gear fix time after I have taken my 2.5 year old and 13 month old to soccer and a swim at the pool.

Im lucky, my base is home and we generally dont travel far for our work. I get to make my kids and wife breakfast every morning before the guys arrive.


A few days before our second was born my near new chipper broke a bottom end, the morning she was born the other chipper threw in the towel as well. 2 crews no chippers.

Pressure makes diamonds baby!
 
I guess this is kind of the reason we are running our own businesses. We can do what we want, to an extent. We can be as busy and profitable as time and willpower allow. (Yes, there are other factors of course)
 
I do my best to shoot clay birds atleast every other Sunday. I rarely miss my kids soccer games. Otherwise I work my butt off.
 
Whats funny is the more I read this thread the more I appreciate being small time , I mean I have the luxury of making good money during the hours I choose , I don't wanna ever be a slave to shiny trucks and high mortgage payments , because honestly what life is that , and when I talk to guys that have a busy big business its really kinda depressing , I mean 80% of them just provide a really nice life for someone else and then they buy toys they hardly use and the finale of all there hard work is a nice box under a decent tree with a view , no thanks I will gladly make the money annually that some guys need to pay for there equipment :laugh: But when I am busy I am up @ 5am and poolside by 4pm daily some sats. we work only when we have rain or are really really really busy
 
This is a good thread... I am glad I am not the only one that is completely consumed by owning this business! I just hired a guy to do my books, insurance, taxes, scheduling, etc. He starts on march 4th and I can't wait! Over the past few weeks I have been almost completely consumed by taxes. I haven't climbed in almost a month, I barely have time to go check out the job sites. I really just completed my first full year in business, and though it was good (looks like we grossed just over 250) it was insane. Started the year with one groundie, some saws, a dump and chipper. Ended with all that plus 4 full time employees, a flatbed truck, a forestry truck, nice big morbark, a bunch more saws, a mini skid, stump grinder and a big fat workers comp bill to pay every month WOOHOO! I have thought about hiring a salesman but instead I have been training a couple of my guys on sales and it has been working out, I send them out to the smaller bids and they get a nice bonus if they sell the job.

I love owning my own business more than anything, I would slave 100 hours a week just to know that no one is bossing me around. I spent to long in the army where people tried to tell me what to do (keyword tried). I am sick of that ####. I love running my own show, I love my trucks, I love climbing and I love chainsaws. God bless Arboriculture!
 
treeclimber101 said:
Whats funny is the more I read this thread the more I appreciate being small time , I mean I have the luxury of making good money during the hours I choose , I don't wanna ever be a slave to shiny trucks and high mortgage payments , because honestly what life is that , and when I talk to guys that have a busy big business its really kinda depressing , I mean 80% of them just provide a really nice life for someone else and then they buy toys they hardly use and the finale of all there hard work is a nice box under a decent tree with a view , no thanks I will gladly make the money annually that some guys need to pay for there equipment :laugh: But when I am busy I am up @ 5am and poolside by 4pm daily some sats. we work only when we have rain or are really really really busy
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Your speaking the truth that's why I'm done growing after the next k boom is paid off I'm done buying only replacing after that. I got everything paid off up till the next boom then no more. Gonna use it all for 8 to 10 years then replace it having a decent amount of value to put in it from the first truck. Up till now I wasn't really paying myself much just in a race to pay everything off so I could go on vacation when I want. I bought the majority of my trucks in 08 so their all starting to get paid off now. By the time I'm on the third replacement I'll either sell out or retire.

I sold most of my toys tho except my guns and bought my wife a nice car she was working part time at lowes at the time. The part time job was nice saved me 300 a month on her health insurance.

I had to hire a telephone answering service last year which was a few hundred a month. I just couldn't keep up with it. After a storm we could get anywhere from 50 to 100 calls average day over 20.
 
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Theres alot to be said for staying small. But it limits what happens when your not able to be on the tools as much or if you want your company to be more than something that rotates around you.

Many years ago I heard a very important and valuable bit of advice.

If your the most important factor in the everyday running of your business, you dont own a business, a business owns you.

I have yet to follow this advice fully, but im sure as heck working towards it. coz Im short on time.
 
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