But I'm not dead yet ... Age and climbing

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Yes Cory, sounds like an effective team.

I'll muddle along for a while, not scheduling hard jobs one after the other is important for me.
 
Mick! said:
I'll muddle along for a while, not scheduling hard jobs one after the other is important for me.
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I'm not at all suggesting that you are merely muddling along with your operation, I fully know you you have a good tree business.

I also agree that wise scheduling is key. Between the factors of weather, customer needs, equipment, proximity, employees, job difficulty and other logistics, I think scheduling is usually one of the biggest challenges.
 
Agreed, scheduling can become a bit stressful. I've read some others "T & Cs" that state dates are approximate and that bookings are dependent on availability of workers and equipment. I may end up having something similar, not that I won't try to accommodate clients wishes where possible but it provides something to fall back on.
 
I book for a specific day maybe 50% of the time at most. I'm the salesman and arborist. I usually remember everything better than they do, and I spec it on the contract.
Utility drops, specific view pruning, etc needs the customers there. The rest of the time, I'd rather them be gone most of the day.

When asked how long a job will take. I say I don't know. It will take as long as it takes to do it properly and safely, probably...
Making an expectation of how long a job will take can lead to rushing and short-cuts. I don't take short-cuts. I tell the customer's this. If we are trying to do what turns out to be 9 hours of safe work in 8 hours, how can this be accomplished?

Should I rush someone's job so that I can be 'on-time' to the next? Am I doing the job as I intended/ promised?
 
Chris E said:
Agreed, scheduling can become a bit stressful. I've read some others "T & Cs" that state dates are approximate and that bookings are dependent on availability of workers and equipment. I may end up having something similar, not that I won't try to accommodate clients wishes where possible but it provides something to fall back on.
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Good language there, Chris, Imma have to remember that.
 
I can't relax until my schedule is locked in, I resent it when clients accept a bid, tell you they want it done asap and then drag out returning the booking confirmation. You are basically holding a day/timeslot open for them and making a bottle neck of bookings (other clients waiting on answers). I should be more proactive and ask for a response within a certain time frame...
 
To run my 40hr week I scheduled always a date and time with th customer for each job. I scheduled mon-thur as full days as I thought we could produced and then Friday would either be 'fir friday' or catch-up. So I'd schedule an easy fir and if all other jobs were complete as scheduled that week it'd be back to the shop for maintenance and beers. If something hadn't been completed from mon-thur jobs we'd squeeze it into Friday too and I might do maintenance on the weekend.

Scheduling like that I'd get 6-8weeks out often and found i could stay very consistent.

Fir Friday, everyone loves a fish in the barrel 'easy' job to finish the week.
 
The way I'd stay on schedule too is id really try no to overbook days. I found most customers really wanted to know a day and time that it was happening, it was a big 'event' for them and they wanted to plan to be around. But the odd person wouldn't care. When I was booked out a month or more I'd let people know if they were 'flexible' I might be able to fit it in sooner, but we'd go ahead and book my next available day 'just in case' so that it wouldn't linger on forever if we couldn't fit it in. So that customers job would then go on my 'floater' list and if a day came up short I'd feed off the floater list and that would potentially free up some future schedule time.

This seemed to help to hook the customers that didn't want to wait six weeks to get their work done. I'd be upfront and let them know we may not get to it until the scheduled date, but if we could roll in at a moments or no notice then we'd try our best. Also then if you slide in a couple 'floaters' it would potentially free up a day on the schedule that wasn't 4-8 weeks out and again allowing a opportunity to fill it up with another customer. So then you'd be out bidding and you could say look,I have one day open next week if you confirm now, or if you need to sleep on it you'll be looking at more like six to eight weeks. High pressure sort of, but honest. Many times it would prompt customers to jump and book instead of waiting it out to collect other quotes and whatnot. Not always, but sometimes.
 
Chris E said:
I can't relax until my schedule is locked in, I resent it when clients accept a bid, tell you they want it done asap and then drag out returning the booking confirmation. You are basically holding a day/timeslot open for them and making a bottle neck of bookings (other clients waiting on answers). I should be more proactive and ask for a response within a certain time frame...
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Sorry, I didn't follow what you were saying.

FWIW, the other day at the bid someone asked when I could get to it.
I said right now, within two weeks.
She said "so it about two weeks from when signed?"
I said "no, its within two weeks, as of right now. A big storm just hit. Lots of people are looking to have work done ASAP. Tonight or tomorrow, I could be a month out or more. I have a lot of bids out for consideration by property owners."

I'm not holding a spot for potential new customers.


I usually tell people that have small jobs, that I can often squeeze a small job in with another small job, or to finish out a partial day from a large job, sooner than I can schedule it, concretely. Otherwise, I tell them about "x" weeks, and I'll keep in touch.


Some people specifically ask for a day. I work with that.

Having a flexible schedule allow me to work with my parenting needs, and lets me sneak in regular customers for their little projects, like 3-4 hours of spring pruning down on the water. "Sure, Lynne, I can sneak you in this week". I leave her an hourly bill, never a problem.

Larger operations need more structure, I'm sure.


Retirees are often more flexible.
 
Very detailed info there, Squish, but I still am largely clueless re how you did it.. loads of commonly occurring issues can come up to delay production by for example 1 day which would necessitate at least 16 phone calls/emails for rescheduling (4 weeks out x 4 days scheduled/ week)??

Ok maybe only 4 phone calls if you get back on schedule in a week by catching up on the open Friday.
 
The key is not overbooking your days, harder to judge on multi day jobs, but doable. And then having a well populated floater list, so if a day goes to short you can cream in some other job or two. Also, there is endless maintenance and whatnot to be done with a tree biz so when we got back a bit early we knew exactly what could/needed to be done. Never had an issue finding things to keep busy if we were back to the shop an hr early. I liked everything ready always for just turning the key and leaving in the morning. Impossible almost to do if you're pushing long production days and the crew is hitting the shop and jumping in their car and leaving. i paid my guys to help me keep everything clean, maintained, and repaired. To me that was part of the day.
 
I've destroyed equipment before though and have had to make calls, there's no way to foresee some things.

If something like that happened, unfortunately those that waited the longest would get bumped first(like the next days job) so yah they'd go to the Friday or next available spot if there was a light day earlier.
 
Well that all makes sense. And custys no doubt like knowing a specified day. But idk, scheduling is complicated enough to me without creating additional specific expectations. I give people a '2-3 week' time frame.
 
Yes.

If they need a call before hand I'll call the day before. Even that sucks but I seem to do it more and more lately.
 
Ive never had the sense that lack of specific scheduling has ever hurt my prospects for landing a job. Once in awhile if someone needs a specific day for some given reason I'll go with that but it is a pita. What if I don't get done the stuff from the day before? What if I have to schedule lightly the day before to ensure I'm good to go the next day?? That stuff = more stress and less pay, imo.
 
See I scheduled a time and date when it was booked. And then I specifically tell people, no more phone calls unless there's a change. I let them know then and there, there will be no call the night before, to expect not to hear from me again and I will just be showing up on the agreed upon date/time.

I greatly disliked the, 'call me the day before you come please'. No thanks, just mark it on your calendar please.
 
Maybe it's a culture thing. Here, I have the distinct impression from many of my old customers that they want to know a date and time. Just showing up sometime within a two week period and doing large treework like removals and stuff wouldn't fly here. I wouldn't want to give someone a open two week window to stop by with their crew of people I've never met and do a bunch of work when I'm potentially not home? It could be a culture thing, I'd say Canadians around here are quite private people and want to know a date/time that contractors are going to be on their property.
 
Nah, I don't have a problem calling the night before. It makes for a lot less headache in the long run.

I don't want to wait for them to move vehicles/boats/whatnot.
 
But the way I ran, if something needed to be moved or arranged, there was no need to call. because the customer knew when to expect me ahead of time.

I'm not trying to say my system was perfect and that I never had to reschedule anything. But I feel it worked well for me.
 
I will sometimes ask if I need to plan my schedule around theirs for a specific day. Its cheaper when we have a flexible schedule, costs more when we don't. I can schedule to make it happen. This is while sussing out the scope of work. Never have I been asked what the price is both ways.

I don't like when people negotiate the deal, then say that they want to schedule a specific day, even through we discussed my availability previously, without them specifying theirs.


I get it that people distrust stranger contractors, specifically tree contractors. I try to work on reputation and referral more than finding new customers from the general pool. I'm used to people trusting us, and them being gone or coming and going.

As both salesman and foreman, my ability to remember or document the details makes things go smoothly without customer input.
 
squisher said:
But the way I ran, if something needed to be moved or arranged, there was no need to call. because the customer knew when to expect me ahead of time.

I'm not trying to say my system was perfect and that I never had to reschedule anything. But I feel it worked well for me.
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I follow a similar model, I will be there on this date UNLESS you hear from me.

Keeps phone calls and conversations to a minimum.
 
Interesting, I may try your style, Cory. Although if I didn't have a set day and time I may never show up, being the slacker that I am.
 
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