Educated Climber.com

Breaking The Time Barrier

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First, some context. Even before I started my tree care company, ConservaTree, I was unhappy with the standard business model in this trade. You sit around hoping for the phone to ring, you go and meet with a customer who tells you what they want to get done, you give them a price for said work, usually based on some arbitrary hourly rate, and then you hope that they go with you. You churn through customers, constantly looking for the next one. You’re able to make ends meet… maybe, but you never really feel like you’re getting ahead. And then the truck or the chipper breaks down. Sound familiar? We work harder than most tradespeople, so why does it seem like our services are so undervalued? Why are we lumped in with “landscapers” and “grass cutters”?

This standard tree service model is one in which our services are undervalued and everything is about price. Price is the only thing that matters. “Why should I hire you to trim my Copper Beech, when I already got another quote from Beaver Tree Service and they were $100 cheaper?”. Trying to differentiate yourself based primarily on price is the absolute wrong way to run a business. It is a race to the bottom, and as Seth Godin says, “the problem with running a race to the bottom, is that you just might win.” Instead of acting like trusted advisors to our clients and leveraging our specialized knowledge about plants and trees and landscape management, we have commoditized ourselves and our work, and we go around trying to fit everything into nice little boxes. “You want me to deadwood that maple? That will be x amount, sir”. “Raise the canopy on those 3 birch out front? That’s gonna be this much ma’am.”

This business model is reactive. What we need is a proactive business model, one in which the differentiation is not price, but value. We are professionals. We have detailed knowledge about trees and landscapes that a homeowner doesn’t have. So when they call us in, it shouldn’t be them telling us what to do and asking how much it’s going to cost. It should be the other way around! It should start with a good exploratory conversation about their long-term goals for the property in question. What are they trying to achieve 10, 15, 20 years down the road? Once you have had that conversation, at that point then you can start making recommendations to achieve those goals. You tell them what they need, because you are the tree doctor! Right? You know far, far more about trees than they do! You should be the one telling them what they need, not the other way around!

The Bottom Line

If you run a tree service or tree care company, you need to wrap your head around this:

Our business, our actual business, is providing solutions to homeowners and property owners, and those solutions come in the form of tree work. So tree work is a byproduct of our actual business. The actual business is communicating one-on-one with homeowners and property owners, establishing relationships, and providing value and long-term solutions to help them achieve their goals. That is our business. That’s what we do. Tree work, you know: trimming, removals, planting, fertilizing…these things are just a byproduct of that business.

I have something that I need you to read. It is an e-book called Breaking The Time Barrier.

I rarely make recommendations to my audience, but when I do, it is for something that I wholeheartedly believe in. I found this little e-book through Tim Ferriss’s podcast, I read it as fast as I could, and I knew right away that it was spot on, and could help a lot of people in this trade. This short read is specifically for people in a service industry like ours. It was written by Mike McDerment, the co-founder and CEO of Freshbooks. It is distributed for free on their website. The original e-book is 70 pages long, mostly due to formatting and large font size. I spent about 3 hours removing all the formatting and produced a printable version of the full, complete text, which is only 29 pages long. Please, please invest 30-40 minutes to read it. And then re-read it. Seriously. It is fantastic. It will change the way you think about your business. Read it, print it out, pass it along to someone else who could benefit. It might just change the way you think about your business, and the role that we play as professional arborists.

 

Breaking-the-Time-Barrier-PRINTABLE
 Download as PDF

 

You can find the original version (70 pages) here.

 

Praise for Breaking the Time Barrier

“People constantly ask me ‘How can I get a 4-hour workweek with a service business?’ This story is the short answer.”
– Tim Ferriss
Author of the #1 bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek

“Spectacularly simple, remarkably true, for every small business owner who’s determined to grow, Breaking the Time Barrier will work for you!”
– Michael E. Gerber
Best-selling author of The E-Myth Revisited

“This book unlocks the truth about how to build an insanely profitable business.”
– John Jantsch
Best-selling author of Duct Tape Marketing

“In order to understand the difference between time and value, just read Breaking the Time Barrier. In about an hour, Mike McDerment will get you up to speed on the fundamental difference between churning billable hours and delivering value to your clients.”
– Sam Glover
Editor-in-chief of the law practice blog, Lawyerist.com

“Breaking The Time Barrier is a must read for every business owner who’s ever struggled with putting a price tag on their services. If only it would have been around when I started my design studio.”
-Tina Roth Eisenberg
Founder of CreativeMornings, swiss-miss.com

“It’s the eternal struggle of the freelance worker: how do you price your work in a way that’s fair to both you and the client? Nothing less than your career success and personal happiness hinges on this question. Spend an hour with this book, and you’ll come away with a whole new way of looking at your value and your relationship with your clients.”
– Daniel H. Pink
Best-selling author of Drive, A Whole New Mind, and Free Agent Nation

“I urge my friends in public accounting to first read the book and then make sure every one of your small business clients does, too. It could prove to be the most important 30 minutes you invest this year!”
– Gregory L. LaFollette
CPA.CITP CGMA

 

 

 

Climb high, Work smart, Read more.

– TreeMuggs

 

 

Educated Climber Podcast Episode 3: Subcontracting 101

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Alright, here’s the scenario. You’ve been climbing for a few years, and you’re good at what you do, but maybe you feel like it’s time to branch out and do your own thing, or maybe you just need a change of scenery. So where do you begin? Today on the podcast, we’re gonna look at one of the easiest and best ways for an up-and-coming arborist to transition from being an employee to being self-employed. I’m talking about contract climbing – freelancing. 

We start with the basic concepts and then go on to explore equipment, expectations and responsibilities, money, liability, choosing your customers, and promoting your skills. This is gonna be good!

This episode is brought to you by The Schultz Effect. Documenting Pfannerman’s journey from doubled rope climbing to SRT expert, The Schultz Effect explores all aspects of climbing systems, hardware, basal and canopy anchors, remote and retrievable redirects, hybrid systems, as well as practical, in the field SRT climbing for both trimming and removals. If you are looking to level-up your climbing game, head over to theschultzeffect.com to get started.

 

Show Notes

 

 

 

EducatedClimber Podcast Episode 2 – Telling Your Story

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Good day friends! Today we are looking at harnessing the power of the internet and social media to create an online presence for your tree service or tree care company.

We explore what I consider to be the 5 essential elements of online marketing for your business in 2018:

1. a website
2. an email list
3. a Facebook page
4. an Instagram account
5. a Youtube channel

The concept is this: how can I take everything that I have learned from promoting my side hustle, EducatedClimber, and apply it directly to my actual physical business, ConservaTree, while documenting my progress along the way so that you can see what works and what doesn’t. This is gonna be good!

– Patrick

Show Notes:

Gary Vaynerchuk – Podcast: “The GaryVee Audio Experience”

Seth Godin – Podcast: “Akimbo”

ConservaTree.ca

ConservaTree on Facebook

ConservaTree on Instagram

WordPress

Squarespace

Arborist Blair Glenn on Youtube

 

EducatedClimber Podcast Episode 1 – Introduction and Manifesto

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Welcome friends! So excited to get the new podcast out to the world. No set format, no set length, opinionated and raw, the podcast will explore primarily the business side of the industry, with interviews from innovators and entrepreneurs who make their living in the canopy. This is gonna be good!

In this first episode we explore a little bit about my background in both audio recording and tree work, and we set out the framework for what you can expect from the podcast in the future. Be sure to subscribe through your podcast player of choice to get automatic notifications of future episodes!

This episode is brought to you by ‘The Fundamentals of General Tree Work – Digital Edition’ by G.F. “Jerry” Beranek. Get your copy today!

 

 

The Illusion of Safety: Safe vs. Safer vs. Safer-er

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photo courtesy of Reddit – /r/WTF/

“You have your way, I have my way.
As for the right way, the correct way, the only way – it does not exist.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

<sarcasm>

Good day friends, today I want to talk to you about climbing and production tree work. Sound good? Ok, let’s begin.

Today you are going to learn the master key, the grand secret of tree work. This will probably change your life. Pay attention now, we’re going to move fast. Here it is – 

Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety.

Safety! Safety.

Safety, safety, safety. (Safety, safety).

safety………….

“Safety?” Safety!

And just so we’re clear… SAFETY!

I hope you learned as much from that as I did. This concludes the lesson, carry on with your day.

Climb safe, Work safe, Read safe.
– TreeMuggs

Meow let’s all get out there and just be safe. OK?

</sarcasm>

 

Wait. Let’s start over. First of all, some definitions:

Safe

/sāf/

adjective

1. protected from or not exposed to danger or risk;
2. in other words, a utopian condition continually strived for, but impossible to attain, due to the nature of… reality.

Safer, Safer-er, Safest, etc.

/sāfər/

adjective

1. illusory and subjective concept with no endpoint; these terms are therefore to be defined as: undefined.

Safety Police

/’sāftē  pəˈlēs/

noun

1. a small but vocal minority of people in this trade, usually (but not exclusively) encountered online, who feel the need to validate their own superior knowledge by continually pointing out how things could have been done “safer” and “safer-er”. Unofficial Motto: “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt”.

 

Context

First of all, I work in the private sector. I run my own tree service. What little money I make from this enterprise helps to put food on the table. In other words, my production at work matters. I have to get stuff done to get paid. I can’t take 2 1/2 days to get a tree down. We don’t have guys with white hats standing around. I don’t work for a city, or a municipality, or “hydro”. If you do, mazel tov. I have more friends in the industry who have left the private sector than those who have stuck around. They leave for the better pay, the benefits, the pension, and all the other perks. I get why they leave. I don’t hold it against them, and I’m not envious of their position. Why do I stick around in the private sector? I stick around because I value freedom more than security. Being my own boss affords me a freedom that my friends elsewhere simply don’t have. I set my own schedule, I choose my own customers, I make my own way. I say all of that to give you some context for where I’m coming from.

I may take a lot of flack for this article from the Safety Police and others in the “industry”, but this is a subject that needs to be addressed. This is something that a whole lot of people think about, but it is politically incorrect to talk about. I care about safety as much as the next guy, but make no mistake, nobody cares more about your own personal safety than you do.

What is Safety?

I care deeply about safety. I want nothing more for myself or my employees than for all of us to be able to go home at the end of the day intact. But make no mistake, the reason that we all come to work each day is not to “be safe”. Sorry if you’ve been told otherwise. No, the reason that we all come to work each day is to get shit done.

I believe that safety in terms of a production arborist has a lot more to do with how you interact with others, rather than how you interact with yourself. Once you know the rules of the game, only you can define what is “safe” for yourself. If I’m on a ground crew and I get hit without warning by a big chunk of tree, what does it matter that the climber who sent it down was using 2 lanyards, both with a 540 wrap, and 2 climbing lines “for redundancy”?

There is a strong correlation between a climber who exhibits good personal safety and also works hard in a team setting to watch out for other’s safety. But correlation does not imply causation. Again, nobody cares more about your own personal safety than you do.

Safe Enough

I want to introduce a concept that seems to have been lost on most institutional teachers and trainers, as well as the infamous “safety police” that lurks online. That is the concept of “safe enough”. We must make allowance for “safe enough” because things could ALWAYS be “safer” and “safer-er”.

If you are a trained and competent climber and you want to spur up a tree with just a lanyard and no climbing rope belay, then go ahead.  I’m not going to put my Safety Police hat on and lecture you on how you could be “safer” or “safer-er”. The important thing here is to be “trained and competent”, and this means knowing the what-ifs, knowing what you are trying to avoid. You need to understand the rules and why they are there, before you can break them. As long as you know what a kickout is and how to avoid it by keeping your weight on the spurs and lanyard, then spurring with just a lanyard is “safe”. Old-timers used to actually refer to their lanyard as their “safety” – i.e. the lanyard is what makes spurring safe. Would you be “safer” with a secondary, backup lanyard? Probably. Would you be “safer-er” by setting a climbing rope from the ground and belaying as you ascend? Yes, you would be. But just because you choose not to, that does not make spurring with just a lanyard “unsafe”. Do you see the difference? The Safety Police would have you believe that if something is even a bit less than “safer-er” then it must be “unsafe”. This is a false dichotomy, because climbing trees is inherently unsafe. 

At some point, there must exist a “safe enough”. We must make allowance for “safe enough” because at the end of the day, we do actually need to get up there and get the work done. If the one and only situation in which we can say that we are really, truly safe is when we stay at home and lie in bed, then we have a serious problem. Not only that, but couldn’t I argue that if you are “safe” at home in bed, you would be “safer” at home in bed with a helmet on? Wouldn’t you be “safer-er” if you moved your bed down into the basement in case of tornado? What about hurricanes and floods? Raging wild fires? Bed bugs?

 

Safety is an illusion. You can NEVER be perfectly, well and truly safe. We are climbing living organisms, natural systems that could fail at any time, while swinging around on little nylon ropes with running chainsaws for God’s sakes! This is not a safe thing to do!

 

Concept: Minimum Effective Dose (M.E.D.)

The Safety Police are always obsessed with “safer”, but what does that even mean? This is a game that has no endpoint. Water boils at 100°C (212°F) – that is the minimum effective dose for boiling water. At any given time, water is either boiled, or it isn’t. Bringing water up to 150°C does not make it “more boiled”. (Borrowed from “The 4-Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss.)

When you work on a crew, safety is everybody’s job. You need to work as a team: everybody looks out for everybody else. Does that make it a “safe” situation? No. Tree work is dangerous. Driving to work every morning is dangerous. But we still have to get to work. So, we apply the minimum effective dose of safety to our driving.

  • seatbelts, brakes, airbags, not texting, paying attention, etc.
  • would we be “safer” wearing helmets and full body harnesses like in Nascar? Yes, we would. Would we be “safer-er” if we never drove faster than 30 mph? Yes, we would. Could I keep going with this analogy? Yes, I could go on for quite some time. My point is, we have agreed on a certain base level of safety precautions, and at some point, we just have to put our faith in Providence, hop in the car, and get to work. 

 

Conclusion

Please don’t take any of this the wrong way. I am certainly not condoning any behaviors that we can all agree are unsafe. I simply need you to understand that tree work is not about safety. It’s about work. Of course we strive for safety in the execution of our work, but the reason that we come to work is not to “be safe”. Learn the rules of the game. Learn how to get the work done in the best and safest way possible. Just don’t be delusional about why we do what we do. Going back to our driving analogy, we could argue on the interwebs about what is “safer-er” all day long, but arguing does not get us from point A to point B… driving does.

 

Climb high, Work smart, Read more. Oh, also, be safe (seriously).

– TreeMuggs