What if you didn’t have to work?

Why don’t you tell us how you really feel? I’m the one who leveraged everything I own to be able to finance equipment And hopefully one day have good enough crews to be able to pay it off. Do you think if I went under today that my employees would volunteer to give up their stuff to pay the notes so that I didn’t have to go bankrupt and lose my house and the things that I own? Do you think they would volunteer to pay for my kids diapers and put gas in my wife’s car? I’m the one who takes the bigger risk so I’m the one who reaps a bigger reward. Capitalism! I love it!
 
Work ethics are caught, not taught. As nice as your proposal sounds, and being an owner/manager myself, There is something about the satisfaction of putting in a hard days work for my family that can never be replaced by simply doing what i want to do at home.

But i am a big proponent of putting systems in place to make business run so that us as owners can have a semi-regular work schedule/hours.
 
OasisTree said:
Work ethics are caught, not taught. As nice as your proposal sounds, and being an owner/manager myself, There is something about the satisfaction of putting in a hard days work for my family that can never be replaced by simply doing what i want to do at home.

But i am a big proponent of putting systems in place to make business run so that us as owners can have a semi-regular work schedule/hours.
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I totally agree with a regular work schedule. The gentleman I’m working with right now does not want to be off work. He just wants to be ABLE to be off work when he needs to be or wants to be.
 
Signing your name on a note is not work, it is a gamble. Looking at the world through corporate eyes, where the important things in life all have dollar signs, reachable if you are willing to take the risks, falls far short of teaching life's true values.

A child is correct in wanting to be taken care of, an adult will be needed to get it done. That is the natural way of things. Far too many people show a lack of this maturity, preferring to continue having others carry the load.

Look around, does the world need more people kicking back, just enjoying the benefits of a society that was built by the sweat of people being productive, because they gambled that a signed bank note would payoff.
 
I would say the world needs leaders. I’m an entrepreneur. I employ dozens of people lawfully. I provide health insurance and safe working conditions. If that makes me some degenerate in your eyes, than I guess I am.
 
CanaryBoss said:
What size is your company?
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I have a 3 man crew including myself. 2 1 tons, 1 chipper, and a backhoe. We do about 200k a year. I have hesitated to get bigger because I didn't want to have the headaches and I've had a hard time finding employees. As I get older and more beat up, I have realised this is not sustainable long term. My plan this year is to buy some equipment and grow. I can get twice as much work lined up with my current call volume if I can get off of the job sites. As is, one of my guys can run a bucket truck very well, I just need to get him a truck and get 1 or 2 more ground guys.
 
From the standpoint of an investor, if a business NEEDS a certain 1 person to survive or thive, it is not a good investment. That one person gets hit by a bus tomorrow or has a heart attack, the business is done. A business needs to be self sustaining to be investable.
 
I strongly believe that you will see a greater return by finding a responsible and honest foreman to take on some of the real work. There's accountants that get paid for their time they give you. You won't be forking over a percentage for them to sit idle. If you need a hand with sales and estimates, look to your own crew(s). They'll have a better idea of what you need to make on a job than a professional manager or salesman that knows nothing about tree work.

Watch your employees and promote from within. Sometimes you'll find an employee worth their weight in gold.
 
RBJtree said:
From the standpoint of an investor, if a business NEEDS a certain 1 person to survive or thive, it is not a good investment. That one person gets hit by a bus tomorrow or has a heart attack, the business is done. A business needs to be self sustaining to be investable.
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I agree. You just own your job if you own a business that is useless without you.
 
Bango Skank said:
I strongly believe that you will see a greater return by finding a responsible and honest foreman to take on some of the real work. There's accountants that get paid for their time they give you. You won't be forking over a percentage for them to sit idle. If you need a hand with sales and estimates, look to your own crew(s). They'll have a better idea of what you need to make on a job than a professional manager or salesman that knows nothing about tree work.

Watch your employees and promote from within. Sometimes you'll find an employee worth their weight in gold.
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Well said. That is part of the refining program we sell. We train. We have infrastructure in place to promote in stages of training. It’s not just a list of things to do. Our managers, who are extremely successful in our field, come in and teach the processes and help to apply them over months and months to get the process right. Ultimately, it is the company’s people doing it, we train how to hire and promote growth. We insolate leaders, we help to bring them up the chain.

There are a bunch of other things that come with the refinement like equipment maintenance programs, estimate/sales training processes, and office protocols as well. I can’t say that I think it would work well on a tree service with less than aspirations for two crews. There has to be enough money coming in to support the extra structures that cost money to implement.
 
DSMc said:
Signing your name on a note is not work, it is a gamble. Looking at the world through corporate eyes, where the important things in life all have dollar signs, reachable if you are willing to take the risks, falls far short of teaching life's true values.

A child is correct in wanting to be taken care of, an adult will be needed to get it done. That is the natural way of things. Far too many people show a lack of this maturity, preferring to continue having others carry the load.

Look around, does the world need more people kicking back, just enjoying the benefits of a society that was built by the sweat of people being productive, because they gambled that a signed bank note would payoff.
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What counts as "productive" ? I think a true business man in a capitalistic world would continue on creating... Taking more "gambles" leveraging capital. Being creative. Ann Rand style. Getting out and dragging brush all day would be a great underuse of said persons ability and means, unless that is what they enjoy. I'm not a fan of the system, but that's the system we are in.
 
CanaryBoss said:
... Also, according to every valuator I have ever spoken with, the sale value of a company is reflected in the company’s ability to run without the owner.
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This is what I have a problem with. Very corporate thinking.

So are you an important, productive and needed component of what your company is and how it functions, or is your input so generic that it would function just as well without you?
 
Corporate thinking of course. I believe that's the angle of this thread if I'm not mistaken. What kind of thinking are you espousing? Being a successful tradesperson would be a different topic I think and there are many threads on here about that.

I would love to see you and Sylvia create a business model that could compete with tru green chem lawn that you could scale up with a tried and true system and you could simply plug competent people into the system, creating healthy soils instead of killing soils. That would be really productive. I would buy into a franchise such as that.
 
treebing said:
Corporate thinking of course. I believe that's the angle of this thread if I'm not mistaken. What kind of thinking are you espousing? Being a successful tradesperson would be a different topic I think and there are many threads on here about that.

I would love to see you and Sylvia create a business model that could compete with tru green chem lawn that you could scale up with a tried and true system and you could simply plug competent people into the system, creating healthy soils instead of killing soils. That would be really productive. I would buy into a franchise such as that.
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X2!
 
In my neck of the woods in CT, companies get big by hiring a bunch of Mexicans and then undercutting the market. There’s a bunch of them, I’m not sure if they are really making any money either. But if there wasn’t an ample amount of cheap labor they wouldn’t be around and prices would increase. I guess it’s good business...
 
bck56 said:
In my neck of the woods in CT, companies get big by hiring a bunch of Mexicans and then undercutting the market. There’s a bunch of them, I’m not sure if they are really making any money either. But if there wasn’t an ample amount of cheap labor they wouldn’t be around and prices would increase. I guess it’s good business...
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See... If they would let me just build my wall then we wouldn't have this problem
 
bck56 said:
In my neck of the woods in CT, companies get big by hiring a bunch of Mexicans and then undercutting the market. There’s a bunch of them, I’m not sure if they are really making any money either. But if there wasn’t an ample amount of cheap labor they wouldn’t be around and prices would increase. I guess it’s good business...
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Good work isn’t cheap and cheap work isn’t good. They won’t last. I tell em “don’t abuse that equipment, cause I won’t overpay for it when you go out of business”
 
treebing said:
Corporate thinking of course. I believe that's the angle of this thread if I'm not mistaken. What kind of thinking are you espousing? Being a successful tradesperson would be a different topic I think and there are many threads on here about that.

I would love to see you and Sylvia create a business model that could compete with tru green chem lawn that you could scale up with a tried and true system and you could simply plug competent people into the system, creating healthy soils instead of killing soils. That would be really productive. I would buy into a franchise such as that.
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Just do the opposite of what they do and market accordingly...
 
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