Love tree work. Not the tree business.

I have found heroin addicts make good occasional workers, they’re pretty much always available, keen as mustard for a couple of days, and you usually know where to find them.
Just don’t pay them in the evening if they’re due to work the next day.
 
Matias said:
I found my sometimes guy at a plant swap. He was building a one man landscaping business, and we clicked. Been friends for years now.
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I can’t like your post without opening an ad, but at least I can reply. We met our sometimes guy while he worked at a bird sanctuary. We took the kids there and somehow started talking. Said he was interested in part time tree work in the future when he planned to leave his position and start his small family farm. That was years ago and he’s still with us. Awesome guy. Awesome attitude. Ready to learn. Unbelievably flexible with the schedule….I guess you just luck out sometimes!
 
ATH said:
Curious: "...bring someone..." Who is that "someone"? How do you keep access to a helper without giving them adequate hours?

I'm glad to finally have a full time helper again! There are 2 sides to this coin, and I get to decide how to see it.
A) I can stress out about making sure they are generating revenue 40 hours per week (he wants full time work)
B) I can recognize that there are days there isn't much opportunity to generate revenue directly, but there is always training, maintenance, cleanup, etc... to be done, so can let him have the hours and recognize we'll make it up when there are invoices to be written at the end of the day.

I'm also fortunate to have a few part time helpers as well. One or two are happy to help whenever, but don't "need" or expect hours. They are both teachers, so summer only. Another would probably like to work every time he is available (full time student, and he has like 2-3 other jobs so sometimes that's limited) and he's a great worker so I'd like to have him help as much as possible. I recognize this is a temporary situation until he graduates. It'd be great to have him full time...but he's far to entrepreneurial. That's a great thing, but I don't think he'd want to be "tied down" to an employer. As we spend time together I can envision giving him some free reigns if he wants to use that entrepreneurial here, but I have doubts that will be enough to scratch that itch.

All that to say: I'm just curious how other people find good "sometimes" help.
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I married my sometimes help
my wife's a badass - she can do it all, but these days I'll only bring her out if it's rigging or I need a spotter. She's earned the right to not do tree work again lol, but she's the best rigger and one of the best tree workers I know.
More than that then my sister in law, who was one of our employees and we trained, is another option.

Working with these 2 other smaller businesses has also netted me a small pool of competent guys who are happy to work the extra odd day.

if it weren't for those then I don't know what I would do - we conscripted the sister in law and trained her because the help that was available was unimpressive lol.
 
VenasNursery said:
Wow
Joking?
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Partly.
I had a guy from the village to help me as a third man on a casual basis when I was in the UK over 20 years ago.
We had quite a few run ins, but he was no thief, and if he was ‘there’ he did ok.
In the end (long after I left) he straightened himself out to an extent, does ROW line clearance now, functioning member of society.
 
Mick Dempsey! said:
Partly.
I had a guy from the village to help me as a third man on a casual basis when I was in the UK over 20 years ago.
We had quite a few run ins, but he was no thief, and if he was ‘there’ he did ok.
In the end (long after I left) he straightened himself out to an extent, does ROW line clearance now, functioning member of society.
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I’m glad it worked out for you but but no illegal drug addicts allowed on my jobs period.
I’m a business not a rehab
 
RyanCafferky said:
Just had another good friend pass away two weeks ago. She was my best friend’s wife (he passed away 21 months ago). So now I’m tasked with helping to go through their belongings and get rid of or sell everything. Certainly is making me think about what I’m doing and why

Finding myself quite disillusioned with trying to run a tree service. Just feeling like I’m on the endless treadmill of bids and customer pleasing to keep the crew busy and make payroll. Missing the days of contract climbing. Show up and blow people’s minds, hero status, pack up, go home.

My body and brain love the work. I’m 49 and have been in the game 30 years now.

I regularly think of three options:

1. Downsize to a barebones team. (Kinda dumb).

2. Sell the company. (Dumb)

3. Wait it out for two more years and then sell. (Smarter).

Advice?

.
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How’s it going Ryan? Hanging in there?
 
RyanCafferky said:
Just had another good friend pass away two weeks ago. She was my best friend’s wife (he passed away 21 months ago). So now I’m tasked with helping to go through their belongings and get rid of or sell everything. Certainly is making me think about what I’m doing and why

Finding myself quite disillusioned with trying to run a tree service. Just feeling like I’m on the endless treadmill of bids and customer pleasing to keep the crew busy and make payroll. Missing the days of contract climbing. Show up and blow people’s minds, hero status, pack up, go home.

My body and brain love the work. I’m 49 and have been in the game 30 years now.

I regularly think of three options:

1. Downsize to a barebones team. (Kinda dumb).

2. Sell the company. (Dumb)

3. Wait it out for two more years and then sell. (Smarter).

Advice?

.
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Start talking to regional/ national companies. Bartlett just bought a tree care company in Oly (with monster chipper who pushed to expand their market share as arborists removing big trees (irony)).
 
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Colin1234567 said:
How’s it going Ryan? Hanging in there?
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Still getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other. Have another person really close to us who just got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Will likely be gone in 6 months or less. Losing close friends is rather demoralizing.

I still love tree work but perpetually struggle to like running my tree business. My dream would be to sell to someone who would just hire me to climb part time and do sales part time. Whoever would buy us would likely crush it in our market. It is an upscale market with minimal real competition. We have great staff, great equipment, and great clientele. Running a business just isn’t what I want to do. I refuse to sell to a franchise or a big company. I’d rather just sell the iron and walk away than sell to a company that will just ruin the soul of the company.
 
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In certain ways things have improved in that I hired a guy from Portland who was a contract climber who I truly respected. He has made it so I can step away from most anything and not worry about whether it will get done. Then we hired a replacement for a ground guy who quit and the new employee is an absolute machine who never stops moving and has a great attitude. Somehow we continually attract good talent.

After seeing some of the posts on here and really drilling down on my feelings, I am considering downsizing and what that would look like. We do have an opportunity to do that as we have another ground person leaving at the end of the month so we could go down to a 4 person crew rather than running two crews. The challenge would be bidding to feed a 4 person team and to not let the backlog get too out of control.

We also have the chance to hire more talent and just take me out of the equation more while still running two crews. But that will be high stress to feed the dragon and once again taking me out of the part of the work that I actually want to do.

As always a tight wire act and likely a matter of perspective of whether whatever path I’m on is winning or losing.
 
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What a struggle.



Forget about the backlog getting too big. People can wait or go elsewhere.



Managing people and a biz is not fun unless the people pretty self- manage fully.


I was just trying a CA for size. Not a match. Not safe. Stressful and in-fun, plus hazard trees




I was just randomly, quickly, thinking who are the people with whom I'm acquainted were I would expect I could work for, showing up for quality trees, equipment and crew in a package, on day one, and things would go safely and smoothly, without avoidable CFs and poor management.

I thought of you, Ryan, and So. Oregon Tree Care (Willie).




Finding people, at any salary, capable of your needs must be tough.
 
southsoundtree said:
What a struggle.



Forget about the backlog getting too big. People can wait or go elsewhere.



Managing people and a biz is not fun unless the people pretty self- manage fully.


I was just trying a CA for size. Not a match. Not safe. Stressful and in-fun, plus hazard trees




I was just randomly, quickly, thinking who are the people with whom I'm acquainted were I would expect I could work for, showing up for quality trees, equipment and crew in a package, on day one, and things would go safely and smoothly, without avoidable CFs and poor management.

I thought of you, Ryan, and So. Oregon Tree Care (Willie).




Finding people, at any salary, capable of your needs must be tough.
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As the backlog grows so does my hourly rate.
 
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