"so....hows bizness"

pics...?
oh thats right,
i think a camera is welcome in about 1 of 3 places where we work,
nothing exciting,
of course i dont get excited untill i need to add lengths to the 300 ft ropes, for lowering.
i just bid a week long removal of 3 monterey cypress, big uns, bigger round than the hood of my chevy
if i get it ill put up some pics

To keep busy ive been doing volume work about 10 to 20 % cheaper than normal.

I run the guys about 9 hrs a day
and my lead climber john and i move the equipment to the next site late at night or early am, that way at 7 am the guys can make noise

heck, ive seen every sunrise and sunset from my truck since jan 3
acording to the calendar i've had 2 days off, only reason im home is i got the cold thats going round.
broke even on a few, lost on 1, made out on a couple big take downs
should be able to start fixing that chip truck soon. at least the rents paid and most of the monthly bills

i do believe the prayer and humility helped and i'm still a prayin, to keep my crew out and the family well

even had the wife and 8 yr old son out raking with us at dark thirty the other night.

hope it comes around for all of you soon
 
Saying prayers for burn days right now here.. Most of my clearing jobs are on hold for burn days.. Customers are leary of staging brush in tight zones for fire safety reasons. CARB has kept burn days at a minimum up here.. I think in some ways they are trying to help the farmers down in the valley out by letting them burn more (and you should have seen the air quality yesterday in the valley:P) . They will not be able to burn in the ag areas down there as of 2010.
SO I have enough work for the winter and early spring.. IF I CAN BURN.
Days off now are cancellation days and no burn days when we don't have work we can slide in.. Other than that we work rain, snow or shine from here out till May. If we can burn that is.
Can't start early because they often don't change the burn message till after 8 am .. and sometimes they are later with it. :slam2:
Hope you feel better soon Tree guy... Katy and the kids all have the cold now... I am just trying to stay healthy..
 
Is business picking up now that spring is approaching?

I picked up one big hotel contract, largest hotel on Oahu, 22 acres and over 2800 rooms. Looked at 4 other hotels on Friday but declined to bid on all the trees. If I ended up winning the bid I would have to try and find a really good climber and 4 more ground guys. I just gave them a bid to do the palms that required spikeless pruning and the winning contractor could not get his bucket to or gave a higher price to trim. I'll find out this Friday if I got any.

March is almost completely booked.
 
We are still a wee slow for this time of year. Mostly weather and burn day related. The phone is ringing, but we are getting cancellations as well as work... Tree work is down for now but should pick back up in spring. The tree jobs I am getting are pretty small. The storms have helped a tad, but nothing like last year where we were taking them off structures. A lot of root ball failures though this year as the ground is really wet. So spring time we should get slammed pretty good with some clean up. I see more people doing their own clean up this year. We are hoping the weed eating season should be good due to all the rain.
 
I am about the same as Willie. I am getting equal amount of calls for bids as for people looking for work.
 
just managing to keep 3 guys out
booked up about a week and a bit
BUT
theyre all to the wire, the normal margin of profit was slashed about 20% to keep people biting
BUT it is foreward movement
the bills are getting paid, my pos is almost legal, and i bought an air compressor today
too bad tax and comp deposits are due in a week or so
if i didnt have to pay that crud id be at the expo in reno
praying for heavy wet snow
or some wind
were gettin at least an inch or two of rain a day
hope it picks up for you all
 
oh yeah
how about all these newly available "climbers"
i swear its like the depression ,when i think how many people a day ask me for work, or my wife getting calls "are you hiring?"
ive been kinda hard on all these guys
trying to see if anyone good comes along, i'd rather just keep my boys out though
 
I've been getting quite a few calls for work also. I take down all their info and I feel kind of sorry for them.
 
my phone is starting to ring a bit more often, bids, estimates, consults and work. I am a single guy company again and its making me nervous about the coming spring and early summer when I normally get some medium sized install jobs where the extra help is, well, helpful.
 
Hey, I have a question involving a customer who just never seems to mail payment.

I removed a red oak for this lady (480 bucks) and scheduled to do a day of pruning for her two weeks later. The pruning job came around, and she hadn't paid me for the first job yet. On good faith, I did the pruning, after which, I mentioned being paid for the previous removal. She asked if she could send out both payments that weekend, so she could sit down and do all her bills at once. "Sure." Well... It has been two weeks since the pruning, and I called her last Tuesday about the payment. She said she still hadn't sent the check acted all frantic-apologetic. I'm going to call her this afternoon if the check isn't in the mail box today. Lady owes me about 1500 bucks.

What leverage do I have with customers like that? I've heard stories about people putting leans on people's houses and stuff, but are there other options?
 
I almost never take payment by mail. I state ahead of time that payment is due immediately upon completion. I generally ask for a check right then.

Service is different from goods, no inventory, no reason to delay payment... plus, it's retail. Net30 terms are for business to business transactions.

One thing for sure, the customer's perceived value of a service drops sharply once the service is performed so you need to get payment immediately.

You can put a lean against her property but I don't know the details, never done it.
 
do you have a signed contract? you need to look up lien laws for your state as they vary. thereis usually a time limit so start looking if this is something you want to pursue
 
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