At what point do you settle?

Earlier this year we were slammed and I was thinking about starting a second crew. Then I sat back and thought about it and decided I didn’t want that kind of stress. Instead I have decided to just refine our services and service area. My long term goal is to pay off our land and then work less doing tree work and just spend more time on the farm where we live. Growing the business into something where I need to be out selling work or managing people 5-6 days a week might help me get there financially but at what cost? And will scaling back down be possible?
 
Treemuel said:
Yeah, that seems low for all that. But of course markets differ…
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Yes that's low. Honestly this is only for 2 of the services I sub to. It's low, but still doable. 6-7 is just for an average day with them too. A longer harder day would have to be compensated for. There good peeps that I have know for a while.
southsoundtree said:
Is that an additional $6-700?
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For other tree services, I'm at 500 day rate for climbing. If I brought the big truck and chipper into the mix, I'm thinking 200/hr with a 3 hour min. If I'm just climbing, running truck and chipper, or a combo of both, I'm making a good day rate. If I'm climbing for a half day or less, and running the truck, I'd have to lower the climbing rate a bit.
 
I’m sure it was a mix of reasons to go from contract climbing to running a business @RyanCafferky but any insight for the original question? Did you notice a change in net income after adding an employee or specific gear? Not starting a new crew sounds like a good call with your farm trajectory.

@VenasNursery have you had some good call or bad call experiences with your business growth? Seems like you have scaled up quite a bit with equipment, and mult employees etc. share some insight on what moves gave the desired return or fell short?
 
I definitely was trying to expand but employees are just to hard to retain!
And realized that I can’t handle anymore work load and the last foreman I built from ground up end up starting up his own company and convinced a couple employees to go with him also tried to steal my good long term customers.

Left a terrible taste in my mouth and I may never share all of my knowledge and strategies to any employee again!
Maybe a mistake maybe not.

On top of all of that I’m very thankful for not expanding because our work load this year simply wouldn’t of supported 2 crews
 
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VenasNursery said:
I definitely was trying to expand but employees are just to hard to retain!
And realized that I can’t handle anymore work load and the last foreman I built from ground up end up starting up his own company and convinced a couple employees to go with him also tries to steal my good long term customers.

Left a terrible taste in my mouth and I may never share all of my knowledge and strategies to any employee again!
Maybe a mistake maybe not.

On top of all of that I’m very thankful for not expanding because our work load this year simply wouldn’t of supported 2 crews
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On the positive side, what worked for me was investing in equipment equipment has limit the amount of employees I have has made our work logo so much smoother, easier ,safer , and more efficient.
We bring in probably 60% more than we did four years ago before investing heavily into better equipment.
Also have great employees at the moment
 
Serf Life said:
I’m sure it was a mix of reasons to go from contract climbing to running a business @RyanCafferky but any insight for the original question? Did you notice a change in net income after adding an employee or specific gear?
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Net income is actually down from when I contract climbed and went to Cali for 3-6 months a year to suck on the bosom of PG&E. But quality of life is so much higher. If I had kept living that life I would have a higher net worth but wouldn’t be married and I wouldn’t be doing something sustainable. Running a tree service has turned my one man show into a respected local business that employs people and is something I can easily do as I age. Versus contract climbing which is a dead end. I feel connected to people and my community doing what I’m doing. Contract climbing is a lonely game how I was doing it.

We went into debt to start our business but the equipment makes us money and is quickly being paid off. Once the debt is gone our operation will become even more profitable and then we will be even more established and hopefully it will continue to be fairly smooth sailing.

Most profitable equipment in my opinion is a truck and chipper. But now that I own a dump trailer, I can see how a guy with a 3/4 ton truck and a dump trailer could do pretty well with just that and some gear.
 
The most simple way I can put what my business plans are is that I'm trying to build something that I can continue making a living from when I'm no longer physically able to be the main/only climber. It's building towards that and nothing larger or more complicated than that.
 
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