Fallen Tree

[greenscaper123]

Originally Posted by Steve Would you have liked to price it differently? Or would you the next time a similar job popped up? Or was this price ok? yea probably would have gone 600.. price was fine though at 500. I didn't take the stump out so I'm happy with it. i wanted to give the guy a little bit of a discount anyway cause i use to work for him when i was in high school. he throws me work occasionally. he's always referring me to his friends and family (i don't give those people discounts though) and lets me hang fliers and put out business cards in his store, which gets me even more work.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

With such a job, I do wonder if putting a picture on a flyer and showing what you did then distributing it to the neighbors and say something like 'we just removed this tree from such and such address.' If you need any tree or lawn care please keep us in mind. Maybe include a magnetic business card. Also, maybe putting all this in an envelope and mailing it to surrounding neighbors would help gain more business.

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[patrick6411]

I have a tree similar to this one to cut up. We are cutting it up hauling it off and grinding the stump.

• Cut tree up: 350.00
• Grind stump: 250.00 (contracted to a company)
• Load haul and clean up area: 200.00 (I keep the wood, if it is good for heat, this tree is oak so its good)

We will generate 800.00 in income for about 2.5 hours of work I am sending a crew of three to the site. Keep in mind the tree feel on its own due to a water leak, that has been fixed and dried up. The tree is dried out and looks like it fell two months ago. This job is for a foreclosed home that we service for a financial company.
I don’t predict that it will take us longer than predicted. We should stay within budget. In my contract the finance company does not allow us to release pictures to anybody except them or I would post a few to show you. One thing we do is take photos of before and after all of these types of jobs, because of the liability.

[patrick6411]

I forgot to mention that we are also cutting the yard, weed eating and cleaning up the trash on the property. This is not being done until next week or the week after. The property is 1.25 acres. We are also winterizing the property and making it ready for winter. We are also trying to get the pressure washing contract on this property. Basically making it ready for auction. If we do the complete job in addition to the tree, we usually do. This will generate an additional $450.00 in revenue. (Not counting pressure washing)The back yard looks like it has not been cut in a year.

[greenscaper123]

Originally Posted by Steve

With such a job, I do wonder if putting a picture on a flyer and showing what you did then distributing it to the neighbors and say something like 'we just removed this tree from such and such address.' If you need any tree or lawn care please keep us in mind. Maybe include a magnetic business card. Also, maybe putting all this in an envelope and mailing it to surrounding neighbors would help gain more business.

yea i've seen guys do this before.. not a bad idea at all

[greenscaper123]

Originally Posted by patrick6411

[*]Grind stump: 250.00 (contracted to a company)

how do you go about contracting out the stumps. i've never sub contracted anything so not entirely sure how it all works. does the customer pay you and then you just keep a percentage? whats a fair price to pay someone to sub it out? does the contracter sign some sort of liability or service agreement with you?

[patrick6411]

Originally Posted by greenscaper123

how do you go about contracting out the stumps. i've never sub contracted anything so not entirely sure how it all works. does the customer pay you and then you just keep a percentage? whats a fair price to pay someone to sub it out? does the contracter sign some sort of liability or service agreement with you?

Yes the customer pays us. We mark up the services about 25%, sometimes, more or less. The way I sub out is I require them to have insurance. I request a binder made out to my company. (This may not be the name of it. Could be a certificate.)

When I start working with a new company I walk the jobs with them and ask as many questions as possible. My goal is to get to know what they are looking for and what their prices are. This enables me to be able to describe the job to them in detail over the phone in the future.

One thing we never do is tell customers that it will be us doing the extra work; we are honest and tell them that we sub it out. This helps when another company shows up or they show up late.

[HPI_Savage25]

The last job I did was no where near that size. Maybe half that size or a 1/4 and I was at $400 for the job. It required two trips to the dump with a 8 yard dump trailer that we filled up. Hour wise it took about 8 hours total.