Im new to the business, but never climbed before. Any advice?

[rico]

I don’t mean to be an ass, but If you’re truly a business man you would already know the next step. You would realize, 40 hours a week means shitty part time help, or an outside hire, (subcontractor). Good Subcontracted climbers will not climb for $30 an hour. I wouldn’t and none of the guys I know that are good, drug free, liability insurance, workman’s comp, full gear, and knowledge to educate you, would either. In my area, good contract climbers make 3-500 for an 8-10 hour day depending on difficulty. $250 is my minimum and I expect it to be a 30 minute drive and be back home for lunch.
First Get your appropriate licenses, insurance, and business registered.
Next, you hire the contract climber who puts it on the ground. Now how are you going to clean up jobs? Chipper? Mini skid? Dump trailer? Pick up truck? Are you doing the clean up work yourself, or hiring a guy to do it? How is your clean up guy going to clean it up? Do you trust him? Your businesses reputation depends on others. That’s something I myself would not be ok with, I take pride in my work and my reputation far too much to trust others, let alone people I do not know.
How will you give competitive estimates without the knowledge of how long it’s going to take to put a tree on the ground?
What about Is that tree safe to climb? Does this brown fungi on the trunk effect the tree’s integrity? Rot? What size diameter limb will hold under a climber? What about rigging? Will that tree hold up under rigging? Species? Each species is different. I’m all for you getting training and knowledge, but I went to school for 4 semesters for this gig while working full time in the industry and the book knowledge is mostly useless without the hands on knowledge that years in the business taught me.
Lastly, Good companies bid the Complex jobs. A lot of the simple and easy jobs you will not get because any crackhead with a buddy and a pickup will underbid you for money to buy whatever they’re tripping off of and post bail for their next time they’re busted.
Sounds like you need to buy an already working tree company and keep the previous owner as a manager.
Or. Possibly hire a contract climber, or small business owner who has a lot of knowledge to come and help you bid. Chances are, they will be vague, if they help at all. Around my area, I get along great with a few other companies, but we do not discuss bidding, save one that I use him and his crane. For most It’s an unspoken rule not to discuss pricing even tho we bid against each other weekly.
The tree biz Is a tough cookie. If you think in a year you’re going to draw a salary, you’re probably wrong. Every other tree service owner I’ve talked to, did not draw a salary to speak of for 2 years. I have been at this for a year, I made ok money, but it wasn’t enough in and of itself. I subcontracted too.
The people of the buzz are blunt, and to a point. If you’re driven and passionate about the industry you’ll succeed, but if you’re in this just to make money, their are more lucrative markets to sit back and make bank.

Great post buddy. I hope the OP reads this more than once.

 

[islandarb]

Was bored after a hard graft. Read this whole thing. 4 pages of comments. Cannot remember last time I did this but the title drew me out of my tiredness. Where da fuck do I start. Rico.... Talon .... Evo...Rope ....ent....Tom..something witty all on top. More I did not mention.

But you are setup to fail quick. This is no nursery school biz. Trees kill and fast. I also do not have much respect for anyTree biz owner who does not climb. I do know one I do but not the norm. Climbing and rigging trees is complex and takes years to master. Most never do and are only hacks. Treecare is my fav aspect of aboriculture and takes so much education to become proficient and has a huge learning curve.

Removals are a whole different animal. I hardly get easy removals. You know why? Hacks are cheap and can do them for peanuts.

Bottom line here is I am an asshole. So I will say this. Bail now while you have some self respect and before you fuck someone's valuable trees up.
Fuck yo making bank.

P.s if you still want to go ahead. So be it. My advice is be very very cautious.

 

[SomethingWitty]

Yes.
Here in my area you don't need to be ISA certified. I wish there were a way I could show my knowledge.

I have read up on tree biology, anatomy, etc.

I don't do pest control because I don't know much about that. But that's OK since I can work with someone on that.

I feel many here are just putting alot of buts.

I have always found that where there's a will there's a way. The only viable way I'm seeing after talking to everyone here is to hire climbers so I can focus on the business.

You missed my point. You need to hire more than climbers. You need to hire leaders. You need someone who can sell, maintain equipment, hire and fire.
You need someone who can do everything that you don't know how to do.
The only way to do that is to find someone who has been run out of another company where they did everything for one reason or another or you could poach the lifeblood of some other company. Guys who can do what you need don't look for work for long.

Or, you can build one, but that takes a quality person and a lot of money on high-end contract climbers (a year or two would probably be long enough) for virtually every job. They cost more when they are acting foreman for a green crew.
Climbing is wonderful and complicated and generally the best thing ever, but it is still only a small part of the industry. Many great climbers know fuck all about how the equipment works. Or about selling. Or about maintaining tool inventories or building a business in general.
What is your time frame? We need a ground hand pretty badly. Two years of dedication on your part and you would at least be able to tell if a climber is blowing smoke after a few days with him on job, plus earn some skills that would serve a tree worker well. I suppose you wouldn't need those, though.


It looks like this was the thread of the day.

 

[Jorgon1022]

You missed my point. You need to hire more than climbers. You need to hire leaders. You need someone who can sell, maintain equipment, hire and fire.
You need someone who can do everything that you don't know how to do.
The only way to do that is to find someone who has been run out of another company where they did everything for one reason or another or you could poach the lifeblood of some other company. Guys who can do what you need don't look for work for long.

Or, you can build one, but that takes a quality person and a lot of money on high-end contract climbers (a year or two would probably be long enough) for virtually every job. They cost more when they are acting foreman for a green crew.
Climbing is wonderful and complicated and generally the best thing ever, but it is still only a small part of the industry. Many great climbers know fuck all about how the equipment works. Or about selling. Or about maintaining tool inventories or building a business in general.
What is your time frame? We need a ground hand pretty badly. Two years of dedication on your part and you would at least be able to tell if a climber is blowing smoke after a few days with him on job, plus earn some skills that would serve a tree worker well. I suppose you wouldn't need those, though.


It looks like this was the thread of the day.

I agree with you. Thank you for taking the time to even tell me all this. My timeframe is 5 years. I am starting this business slowly, no rush, and looking to do things right. This is exactly why I am here. If I didnt give a fuck and wanted to be just a hack, I would just go out there and do the work. lol.

But this type of work aint no joke, so mentorship is a requirement.

 

[SomethingWitty]

I agree with you. Thank you for taking the time to even tell me all this. My timeframe is 5 years. I am starting this business slowly, no rush, and looking to do things right. This is exactly why I am here. If I didnt give a fuck and wanted to be just a hack, I would just go out there and do the work. lol.

But this type of work aint no joke, so mentorship is a requirement.

So find a certified arborist near you and buy him some beer and hang out on his job sites when you can, for money or not.

 

[Jorgon1022]

First Get your appropriate licenses, insurance, and business registered.

Done

Now how are you going to clean up jobs? Chipper? Mini skid? Dump trailer? Pick up truck? Are you doing the clean up work yourself, or hiring a guy to do it? How is your clean up guy going to clean it up? Do you trust him?

I have a dump trailer and pickup truck plus all the cleanup tools. Initially I would be doing all the cleaning. As my job scales I would hire ground workers.

How will you give competitive estimates without the knowledge of how long it’s going to take to put a tree on the ground?

This is something that I will learn the hard way. So far, I have guessed right. How do I know? I ask customers to tell me how much the other guy charged them? Usually, I am a 2-3 hundred dollars off. One job I bid 350 below the second lowest price. But other than that job, I usually have bid high. Still, this is a learning process.

Possibly hire a contract climber, or small business owner who has a lot of knowledge to come and help you bid.

I agree with this 100 %

 

[Ent]

Looks like you do need to be an ISA certified arborist in your area. Might want to put that business acumen to work to see what you need to actually run the business legit. Yet you call me ignorant. Seems legit.

 

[Jorgon1022]

Looks like you do need to be an ISA certified arborist in your area. Might want to put that business acumen to work to see what you need to actually run the business legit. Yet you call me ignorant. Seems legit.

I apologize for calling you ignorant. I should not have thrown out any name calling.

Having said that, what you are showing me does NOT indicate that I have to be an ISA certified arborist in my area.

What that is telling you is that to perform work on public rights of way, the companies need to be ISA certified and be approved by Boise Community Forestry.

To perform any sort of pruning, tree removal, etc on private properties, it is not a requirement.

Believe me when I tell you this, I researched all this before getting started.

 

[Ent]

I apologize for calling you ignorant. I should not have thrown out any name calling.

Having said that, what you are showing me does NOT indicate that I have to be an ISA certified arborist in my area.

What that is telling you is that to perform work on public rights of way, the companies need to be ISA certified and be approved by Boise Community Forestry.

To perform any sort of pruning, tree removal, etc or private properties, it is not a requirement.

Believe me when I tell you this, I researched all this before getting started.

Fair enough. Boise needs to get there shit together.

 

[chiselbit]

You guys ever hear of a guy called brush ape on some of the other forums? Kinda looking familiar,,,?

 

[islandarb]

I agree with Rope and Chiselbit. The more I read this thread all I am getting is Troll. I bet this is going to continue for 20 pages. We have a skunt in mom's basement passing some time. Harmless enough but loads of smoke blowing....Idaho has trees? Guess a few because a picture was shown....

 

[islandarb]

Would love to see what this character looks like. Bet he has smooth hands and is soft and pudgy like freshly kneaded dough.....

 

[Serf Life]

Sounds like you need to buy an already working tree company and keep the previous owner as a manager.

This

 

[Jorgon1022]

Would love to see what this character looks like. Bet he has smooth hands and is soft and pudgy like freshly kneaded dough.....

Sure we can go with that. But this character here is gonna make bank scaling this type of business.

Judging by what I've seen so far there's a huge opportunity to take advantage of in this industry.

 

[SomethingWitty]

You've said that like five times, but it's just like a catch phrase. It doesn't mean anything. You also seem to have shifted to talking about making money rather than pretending to have any interest in trees.
I think swing is right. Nobody is accidentally that dumb.

 

[Jorgon1022]

You've said that like five times, but it's just like a catch phrase. It doesn't mean anything. You also seem to have shifted to talking about making money rather than pretending to have any interest in trees.
I think swing is right. Nobody is accidentally that dumb.

Lol OK.

 

[Birdyman88]

Personally, this post is teaching me how to become a better fisherman - or fish.

 

[Jan_]

Ok, so what about you (@Jorgon1022 ) try to use the actually helpful advice you were given here, and update us in a few months. Maybe you are actually good at doing this, and you just have that bit of something that others before you didn't and that makes you a great bussines owner. We'll see in a few months.

 

[owScott]

Looks like you do need to be an ISA certified arborist in your area. Might want to put that business acumen to work to see what you need to actually run the business legit. Yet you call me ignorant. Seems legit.

Decent

 

[owScott]

Sure we can go with that. But this character here is gonna make bank scaling this type of business.

Judging by what I've seen so far there's a huge opportunity to take advantage of in this industry.