Arborist Selling Tree Jobs

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Chris E said:
Thanks Nate, I appreciate your input. My operation isn't based on high volume so its easy to skimp on follow up. When the need arises for regular follow up I'll likely draft a generic template email to go out.
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That is actually not a bad way to do it. Low effort, possible to even automate plus easy to get interaction stats. I hear you, if you have enough chow without ringing prospects, then why do it.

I made the most money in treework by being a contract hit man. By not having a high day rate, I had daily work and quite often the type of work that had me heading home at 1-2pm. When I had a high rate, the days always ended up long and brutal.

Now I make good coin as a contract, independent sales (manufacturers representative) for capital equipment. No close = no money. Working with multiple capital equipment product lines has increased my knowledge base, only eating what I kill has increased my skill set from discovery to closing.

I miss the trees, but I don't miss the daily dealing with labor. (people who pick up sticks for beer money)
 
Being the antisocial ahole that I am I always ask the customer on the phone if they can put a piece of string on the tree to be removed and then look at it when they are not there and call back with a price.
 
We just had an interesting conversation in our company a couple weeks ago.

We offer 10% to our arborists if they sell work. One guy does it on the regular. Another guy does it rarely but on occasion.

While back we sent one of the guys to a returning clients' house to scope out some pruning on their trees. He gives them the quote, they accept, we do the job and they pay.

Few weeks later he's reminds us he didn't get his commission yet.

At this point I was like, "oh. I didn't even plan on giving one."

He's an hourly employee that was being paid to be there, used the company vehicle to get there, got paid to write up the quote after, it was a client that we already had (they weren't bringing in new clients), we were the ones that put the footwork in to get it scheduled between the client schedule and the arborists schedule, and we booked that because he had a doctors appointment that day and doing this visit filled out his morning and gave him time to get to the doctors.

So Karina and I talked about it. Realized there are definitely different situations.

In the end we DID give the commission and have decided to revise the policy to be "10% commission on a new client that you find and you go on your time....5% if we send you to a returning client."

That's how we do it at TreeCareLA!


love
nick
 
Sounds crazy to me. Full hourly wage, repeat client, company transport, and going out of your way to give him hours plus 5%¿?
Repeat clients are almost guaranteed work, I agree with everything except the 5%. 5% maybe on a new client you brought in one time. But that's me on Oregon wages :D
 
I thought it odd, I'd give a drink to anyone who brought in a lead. No more, certainly not if they were doing a job and the client mentions they might want some more work done, I'd expect them to tell me so I could price it.


Works for you so more power to your elbow.
 
Yah. Sounds crazy to me too. I believe in keeping people happy, but sometimes as the boss you have to draw a line. Some employees will just take and take and take, if they see that you're willing to give everything they ask for.

It's all good I suppose if you're happy with your bottom line.
 
What happens if your salesman underbids the job? Does he still get a percentage? What if the job goes under but because of unforseen events? Or if he doesn't properly communicate what the client wants and you have to go back?
 
It happened a little at the beginning- jobs taking longer than the sales guy thought. They still got their commission. We talked with them to make sure the situation got better and not worse.

Nowadays it doesn't really happen.

At the end of the day, we hire people to make their best judgement on a day to day basis. Their judgement should be right 99.8 percent of the time.

If it were to keep happening we'd just tell them to leave the selling to the rest of us.


love
nick
 
Thanks Nick, I might put a sales guy omn the team next year, so I was just wondering how you went about it. I see unforseen as lots of metal in the trunk, a guy that left his car parked at the wrong place, things like that.
 
I think what nicks saying is there should be enough to cover unforeseen too.

You can usually tell when a job is going to throw up those kind of problems anyway, boundary trees often have metal in, and I often ask the client about the parking/access situation.
 
I put a note on my dashboard to try and avoid parking tickets- not for metered spaces only where free but time limited. The note gives the address that I'm working at, explains there is no off street parking and to please call or sms if I must move to avoid a ticket.
 
I've never received a call or msg (or ticket) but its not like I need to do it that often. I think the key lies in the fact that you are acknowledging their authority. I've spoken to a few parking guys when I'm scoping a job in that type of area and they say that they know we are just trying to work and that it should be cool-could well be different stateside.
 
I view unforeseen as an insurance policy. Every client gets charged....6.2% extra (totally just made that number up) and 95.8% of the time we never have unforeseen issues. But on the rare occasion we do, the extra $25 everyone else has kicked in should cover it.

I don't actually execute things that way- but it does make me FEEL better to THINK about it that way!

And omg. Parking. Don't get me started. I often spend more time scoping out the parking than i do the trees! We get pre-paid parking permits on over 50% of the jobs we do. In some cities these permits cost $400!!!!!


love
nick
 
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