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Since adding tree services to your company can be quite an undertaking, many landscapers subcontract to outside tree companies to take care of their tree needs.
But there can be a number of problems that come up between a landscaper and tree care professional.
For instance, if two companies are getting a job from a property manager, and the companies haven’t worked together, there can be a lot of bickering and finger pointing if something goes wrong.
“In that situation, it would behoove either relationship, either the tree care company or the landscaper, to reach out to the other side and say ‘Hey, we need to figure out how we can best take care of our mutual client and work together.’ A lot of times, the property manager doesn’t play a good facilitator,” says Joel Spies, president of Rainbow Treecare Scientific Advancements in Minnetonka, minn.
Whether you are in that type of a situation, looking to find a company to partner up with or you just want to improve your relationship with your current subcontracted company, it’s important to remember the customer should always be the first priority.
But that can’t happen unless the tree care company and the landscaper are on the same page.
Lawn & Landscape spoke with some tree care profesionals about what landscape contractors should and shouldn’t do when working with a tree care company.
Do your homework.
You want to find out if the tree company is certified by the International Society of Arboriculture and the Tree Care Industry Association, but you also want to look deeper.
Ask to see how the tree company operates to find out if their standards for work match yours. Kevin Caldwell, president of Caldwell Tree Care in Roswell, Ga., says he’s happy when a landscaper wants to see his day-to-day operations.
“I’ve had people that are interested in doing business with us and they’ll stop by our office and they’ll actually look, not necessarily just at the brick and mortar, but they look at how you do business,” he says.
That means going beyond reading marketing materials and meeting with a salesperson.
“I think before someone does business with you on the scale that a landscaper can do, they ought to understand what your capacity is and how to expect to do business with you,” Caldwell says.
Landscapers should also request written proof that the company has insurance,” Spies says.
“If you have a tree worker and they’re not insured and they cut a branch off, and it falls on someone’s car or that tree worker gets killed and that company is not insured, they can go after the homeowner,” he says.
Landscapers should also understand why the tree care company is taking a certain approach on an issue, Spies says. And don’t be afraid to ask for industry information to back up that approach if you can’t find any.
“It’s almost like the better educated you are about what needs to be done, the better off you’re going to be at hiring a qualified company to do it for you,” Spies says.
Develop clear instructions.
Don’t be vague when writing out what you want the tree care company to do on a property you are servicing, Spies says.
“Clearly define ‘We’re going to do these trees’ and this is what needs to be done to each tree – the trees are clearly identified, so a good quality site map,” Spies says.
The instructions should also be laid out immediately and involve all the concerned parties. If a property manager comes to a landscaper and tells the landscaper tree work is needed, all three parties must be involved.
“I would engage that arborist as soon as possible in the conversations with their client,” Spies says. “The sooner the better.”
Greg Krogstad, co-president of Rainbow Treecare in Minnetonka, Minn., says there should be a mutual understanding that if something goes wrong, the companies will talk about it and not immediately go to the client and claim negligence.
“That starts long-term relationships,” Krogstad says.
Trust.
In the case of a tree care and landscaper relationship, the two sides need to trust that neither one will steal business from each other.
“It’s important for a landscape contractor to find an arborist who doesn’t have competing services,” Krogstad says.
“So if you have an arborist that plants trees, you’re going to have to have that conversation of how to work around that, or find an arborist who doesn’t plant trees, just maintains currently established trees.”
Whether it’s in a contract or done by a handshake, it should be established right away that stealing work from one another will not be tolerated, says Ben Tresselt, president of Arborist Enterprises.
“The relationship between the two companies tends to be more of a gentlemen’s agreement I would say more than anything in that respect,” he says. “And that we’re not going to do anything that’s going to jeopardize your relationship with that client and vice versa.”
The author is an associate editor at Lawn & Landscape. He can be reached at bhorn@gie.net.
Going to the top
Some landscape contractors want to add tree care as a service. Here are some facts they should know before getting started.
Kevin Caldwell has seen his fair share of landscape companies try to add tree care as a service. And it hasn’t ended well.
“I’ve seen really great landscaping companies try to go into the tree business and end up getting a lot more people hurt, really badly,” says the president of Caldwell Tree Care in Roswell, Ga.
Some may not want to start the service from scratch, instead subcontracting with a tree care company or acquiring one, tree care can be another way to help your bottom line. Some companies, albeit a small percentage, are looking into the addition.
According to Lawn & Landscape’s 2010 State of the Industry report, 3 percent of landscapers said tree service was the fastest growing service for them in 2010, and 3 percent expect it to be the fastest growing service in 2011.
If you are willing to take on the responsibility of adding tree service within your own company, you’ll want to find a strategic partner who can guide you on what you need to do, says Joel Spies, president of Rainbow Treecare Scientific Advancements.
“You need a resource – it’s a very complicated thing,” he says, adding you could start simple. “A tree care company like ours, they have like 60 protocols they use. A landscape company may want to start with one or two and focus on that.”
To get started in the tree business, Peter Sortwell, president and CEO of Arborwell in Hayward, Calif., says it would take about $150,000 for equipment and $12,000 for outfitting the equipment with small tools. Other costs, such as company overhead and dues, can run about $20,000. His company puts employees through about 150 hours of safety training a year, on top of technical and knowledge training and certification.
While a tree service can bring in revenue of $250,000 to $300,000 a month for a three-man crew, there are increased costs as well. It will vary by state, but a tree care company has a higher worker’s compensation rate than a landscaping company, Sortwell says.
In addition, Sortwell says arborist are paid 30-50 percent more than a landscaper in an equal position, which can cause turmoil in the company. He says landscapers sometimes have trouble grasping that tree care may take overtime to get a job done, where a landscape maintenance job could or may have to wait until the next day.
“So quite often spending dollars on overtime makes a lot more sense than no overtime and driving them around back and forth to get the job done,” Sortwell says. “It’s very hard for landscape managers to understand that philosophy. When managers do understand it, it causes friction among the landscape employees that do not have the same opportunity.”
Spies says some of the mistakes you make doing landscape maintenance can be undone, but mistakes in tree care can really hurt your business.
“It’s also probably the biggest risk they are taking on,” Spies says. “If they kill a tree, they’ll lose that client forever.”
By Brian Horn
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