What next?

[RopeShield]

Oh here is what I did for the 1st few yrs in biz.
Look for a local database, that will give you all the contacts information. can cost you up to 600 or mor dollars.
Helps alot if you are familar with MS Access or Excel for management.
Start with Doctors, engineers etc then city streets in areas you want to work in.
Work on a professional, personalized letter.
I made about 50 to 100 phone calls per week. I had no yellow pages at the time and this workd well to keep fairly busy and support single income family.


If you want some extra help with the learning curve, I will be happy to answer any questions.

 

[southsoundtree]

It definitely can be good to have a grinder, in house.

Matdand is a one man show right now, which is part of why I figure subbing, at this point, is a good option, if there is more tree work to be done in place of grinding. Grinding is the end of a removal process, generally speaking, unless it is getting additional tree work along with someone else's stumps. I only grind my own, generally.

I think that a lot of you guys are having employees grinding for you, if I'm not mistaken.

This is all for the sake of discussion for the OP's situation.

Do you (many who have more years in business than me) think that a grinder is a profitable step, or the best next step.



On a different note, for the next step, a good customer database can be a worthwhile thing, set up to remind you about pruning cycles, work that the customer has decided to wait to do, etc.

Getting your book keeping, expense tracking, tax deductions, depreciation, and other such administrative things going smoothly now, can save you headaches later. It will take less time now to get it set up, and then incorporate weekly/ monthly data entry. Having all your ducks in a row can help to reduce potential stress of a potential tax audit. There is enough stress involved in being an owner/ operator.

Finding a good employee, and training them well (with documentation in case of an auto accident or on the job injury) to do some of the low tech work can be a great investment of time and money. Also remember, machines may break, but they don't get tired, nor require worker's comp insurance.

Best of luck with year two.

 

[treehumper]

Whatever you do, sell YOUR service, don't apologize for what is missing. You know stump grinding is part of the service so have a solution, whatever it might be that will better assure you land the deal.

I will suggest a stump be left, flush cut, in a garden bed if it's not important to the client to grind it. That's all part of the selling process.