Business Management Strategies for Pandemics

by | Mar 23, 2020 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

BUsiness Management Strategies for Pandemics

Last week we looked at some safety strategies to help individual team members prevent contracting the coronavirus in the article Coronavirus Safety for Arborists, however, a lot of my conversations with our clients have turned to how can the business minimize the impact of this pandemic? Here are few business management tactics that can help insulate your business during a pandemic.

What Essential Services are You Providing? – According to a joint statement released by TCIA and ISA, many of the projects that tree care companies perform everyday could qualify as essential services, allowing your tree service to continue to operate. Make sure to read their statement and understand the specific rules in place in your operating area. Also, If you temporarily lose enough employees due to illness, you will need to prioritize which jobs to do first. How you reorganize and service your customers will be critical for success after the illness crisis. I suggest focusing on the highest hazard jobs first, as long as you can safely get the work done. Communicating this to your customers is of utmost importance as everyone won’t fully understand the restrictions and allowances for tree care companies to continue to perform work during this time.

Know Your Crew – Similar to how we outlined knowing your crew member’s medical history in our article “Know Your Crew”, knowing the skill strengths and weaknesses of each of your team members will help you shuffle crews easier when facing a shortage of employees who are out sick.

Distractions at Work – Remember the most common reason we all want to work safe, our family and loved ones, are also some of the largest distractions when we are at work. During this time of uncertainty, many people will have other things on their mind while they are at work Talk to your team about how to identify and handle distractions so your team members don’t suffer an injury or get into an auto accident because they were focused on what is going on at home rather than what’s right in front of them.

Down Payment or Prepay Discounts – With the economic uncertainty that has already come with the coronavirus being able to get money upfront as a down payment on soon-to-be completed jobs is a great way of working your cash flow. Also, offering discounts or low interest rate financing for customers to prepay or agree to the work is a way to insulate your cash flow.

Pay-As-You-Go Work Comp Policy – Speaking about cash flow, there are Work Comp policies where you pay the premium based on the prior month’s payroll. When your payroll is lower from not doing as many jobs, your premium is lower which can be a tremendous boost to your cash flow.

Flexible Sick Day Policy – Make sure your sick day policy is flexible enough that an employee who is sick does not come into work just so they can continue to get a paycheck. If they are sick they should feel comfortable that they will not lose their job or because of an illness. Obviously, this will slow the spread within your company and hopefully prevent a full scale outage of employees at one time.

Remote Office – We touched on this last week, but there are soooo many benefits to being able to have your office staff work remotely. Limiting the spread of an illness is one of the largest benefits, but also to work remotely effectively, your workflow procedures and document record keeping need to be in order. When you have solid procedures and document storage it is remarkable how efficient your office team can be.

These are just a few ways to help minimize the impact of a pandemic within your tree service. We’d love to hear other ideas, please comment below to help fellow tree care companies through this tough time.

Written by: Eric Petersen

4 “Knows” to a Yes!

by | Sep 3, 2019 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

4 “Knows” To a Yes!

“Sales Training? Ha! We don’t have time for that, we just do on-the-job sales training.”

Have you caught yourself saying that before? If not, I’m sure you’ve heard other tree care companies say that. Whether you use an outside sales training program or not, this article will give you four simple points to discuss with your team to help close more sales.

We all know the most common mistake that every sales person makes is that they talk too much and don’t spend enough time listening to the prospective customer. So at ArboRisk, we’ve come up with the 4 “Knows” to a Yes, which is a series of questions designed to help us understand our prospects better and close more sales. I personally believe, these should be taught to everyone of your team members, not only the sales people to maximize the impact on your organization.

Here are the 4 Knows that should be part of your sales training:

Know the Why – Why did the prospective customer call? Not what did they call about, but WHY. You have to dig deeper to learn the reason they want the tree work done. This can be accomplished by simply asking them “what is your vision for your yard?”. If you uncover the underlying reason for the call, your sale has just become immensely easier. Here is a full article that I wrote on this topic (The Most Important Question to Ask Your Customer).

Know your prospective customer – Was it the decision maker that called or is there another one you need to know about (spouse, business partner, village board)? Have they had professional tree work done in the past? Knowing who the prospective customer is as well as learning if they can afford your services goes a long way in determining whether or not they are a good fit for your company. Each decision maker may have a little different reason for wanting the work done, so understanding how the decision will be made is also important part of this process.

Know how you can help this customer – Knowing the strengths of your company is vital for all employees in your company to understand. When anyone from your team communicates with a prospective customer, they have the chance to continue to move the buyer along the customer journey towards a sale. They don’t have to know all of the scientific reasons and exact methods that could be used on the tree, but they should know of past examples of how your company has helped similar situations before.

Know how to say “no” – If you’ve figured out the first 3 Knows, this one should be easy. Being able to politely and professionally walk away from a job that isn’t within your scope is a skill that needs to be practiced and taught, but once mastered this skill helps eliminate wasteful bids and unprofitable or perhaps unsafe jobs. Having a few referral partners within your area that will gladly accept work that is outside your specialty is necessary for a successful walk away. I recently wrote an entire article on walking away from a job that you can read here (The Power of Walking Away).

At your next sales meeting talk about these four “Knows” and how each of your team members can begin incorporating these into their daily conversations with prospective customers. If you need additional help with your sales training, check out ArboRisk’s Sales and Marketing Package! We can help you get more of the right jobs with your ideal client immediately!

I’m Too Busy to Manage My Time

by | Aug 27, 2019 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Effective Time Management Skills

All too often we hear people say “sorry for the delay” or “today was crazy”. I’ll start by saying I’m no time management guru myself. I had been using the first one almost every day because let’s face it, it’s much easier to fall into a reactive lifestyle rather than a proactive one. I recently started reading a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear and was encouraged to grab the bull by its horns and make some changes in both my personal and work life. In the book, Clear discusses the power of habits a.k.a. systems and how important they are for success in everyday life. I strongly recommend giving it a read.

Knowing I need to improve, I attended an eight hour class which focused solely on time management and organization skills. Coincidentally, the overarching theme of the class also focused on systems. Whether it be keeping your desk clean, your email inbox empty, or managing projects, we all need these systems to stay proactive.

One of the key systems I took away from this class is called Time Blocking. Time Blocking is the idea of breaking down your day into different levels of activities to help prioritize what gets done and when. Below are the three different levels of time blocking:

Level 1 Activities – These are going to be activities that are most important for you to move closer to your definition of success. The more level 1 activities you complete in a day, the more efficient you are. If you own a tree service, this might be something like creating a safety program for you employees to follow so they can stay safe day in and day out. Maybe you want to grow your sales from $750,000 to $1 million and you need to create a marketing strategy to do so. Consider your goals and think big picture when you create your level 1 activities.

Level 2 Activities – Level 2 activities are things you HAVE to get done, but don’t necessarily help you move forward. These could be things like dealing with customer complaints, handling employee altercations, etc. These activities typically still need to be done by you, and can’t be passed on to others. With level 2’s, make sure you don’t underestimate the time it takes to complete and try to focus on 2 or 3 per day. If you overwhelm yourself, you’ll likely disregard the time blocking system as a whole.
Level 3 Activities – Level 3 activities are day to day work, such as answering phones, cleaning the shop, etc. Activities in level 3 can be easily delegated allowing you to focus on the larger goal. As the owner of a tree service, the less time spent doing level 3 activities, the better.

The idea behind this system is that time blocking becomes a habit. For example, Eric has blocked off time every Tuesday morning to write the weekly tip for ArboRisk. After doing it for a little over a year, it is ingrained in his mind that he needs to complete an article each week, even if something pops up on Tuesday.

Monitor your daily activities and get a feel for how you allocate your time. Then map out your ideal day and leave time to address each level. Some will suggest mapping out one week at a time but I’ll leave that up to you. I personally have found it helps to address one day at a time to account for things that come up unexpectedly. Feel free to reach out if you have questions regarding this system and how it translates to your everyday life. I’ve dropped another blog post below that I found helpful while writing this article and check out Atomic Habits if you have time!

Written by: Malcolm Jeffris, CTSP

Succession Planning – Managing Risk

by | Aug 13, 2019 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Succession Planning – Managing the Risk

Succession planning is the process of identifying and developing new leaders. New leaders may be needed to replace an employee who is retiring, one that has been promoted, to fill a vacancy caused by turn over and or to fill a new leadership role created to expand the company. It’s a risk management strategy that increases the availability of prepared and qualified people as the business grows, adds new employees, new services and or loses a key employee. It’s also one of the best ways to retain, inspire and reward employees.

No matter the size of your company, this activity starts at the top. The leader is responsible for the people who are responsible for the customers. Leadership is a learned skilled, preparing your people to lead is one of your most important duties.

Here are a series of steps to consider at least once a year to help you include succession planning as a risk management strategy in your annual business plan.

Identify critical positions in the company which require highly capable employees.
Identify the most competent person for each specific critical position and what the consequence would be if that person were to leave, be promoted, and or become temporarily out of service.
Identify people in the organization that are likely candidates to advance into those critical positions when the time comes. These transitions can be planned in the case of a promotion, or in the case of an emergency the company is prepared to minimize the impact.
Identify success profiles for all critical positions. If you are on top of this there should be job descriptions to review for this information. If not, that is a good first step to developing a success profile.
Create development plans for successors to ensure they are ready to assume future roles.
Develop a complete employee development plans to address the gaps. Budget time and resources for leadership training.

Begin by getting your key players involved to help with identifying critical positions and highly capable people. At first people can be threatened with this type discussion, as it may appear you are getting ready to replace them. Communication needs to be handled well and if it is, you will find it is something that is welcomed. The process allows people to see benefits and opportunities that they might not have seen before, for themselves, others and the company.

Written by: Jim Skiera

Using Fear to Sell Tree Work

by | Jul 23, 2019 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

USing Fear to Sell Tree Work

Have you ever used fear to get someone to buy tree work from you? Of course you have and while fear is an effective motivator for people to buy your services, sometimes it doesn’t feel the best. So, I want to share with you an easy, relatable way to sell professional tree care to your customers based on fear that you can be proud of.

Every Certified Arborist knows that proper care for a tree reduces risks of falling branches and tree failure due to storm damage, however many struggle with communicating that to their customers.

I believe the key to creating sales using fear as the motivator is to be realistic on what could happen and have statistics or real life examples of scenarios that could’ve been avoided had the property owner followed your professional advice.

Recently we had a severe storm blow through our area and one of our home owner insurance clients had a tree fall on their house. Fortunately, no one was hurt and their homeowners insurance policy is taking care of the repairs, but the tree that crashed through the roof of their living room was an Emerald Ash Borer infested Ash that should have been removed a year or two ago. This tree was too brittle to withstand the wind gusts that day and the homeowner, while lucky it wasn’t worse, was left with a huge disturbance to their lives that could have been prevented had a tree care company been able to get them to understand the danger of that tree.

Here are some numbers from this one tree failure that you can use when explaining the importance of proper tree care to your customers.

One month after the tree fell, the homeowner’s insurance claim already has paid out $23,858.19 and they are far from being done with the clean up. Immediately, they needed to get an entire new roof put on since the tree opened up a three foot diameter hole from which rainwater rushed into the living room. A restoration company had to come in and clean up the rainwater and mitigate for mold. There was significant internal structural damage to the walls and ceilings in that area of the house that have yet to be repaired.

The walls are currently being worked on, but it has now been thirty two days since our clients have lived in their home. They, along with their ten month old son and two dogs, are living with family members until the home is repaired to a safe condition. To make matters worse they had a family member’s car in their driveway at the time which also got hit and was totaled out by the insurance company.

All in all this tree failure will exceed $60,000 in damages and will take over two months to get the homeowner back to normal. Can your customers afford this type of disruption in their lives?

Use this example the next time someone refuses to listen to your professional advice about what to do with the tree in their yard.

Written by: Eric Petersen

What to Look for in a Contract

by | Jun 18, 2019 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

What to Look For In a Contract

Written by Eric Petersen, CIC

As I was sitting at my desk sipping my coffee this morning, I couldn’t help but be thankful that I didn’t have any contracts to review this morning for our agency. Seriously, REALLY thankful!

Unfortunately, many tree service owners wake up with the exact opposite feeling, staring blankly at the six page contract that their local municipality just sent over for them to agree to before they even give a bid! And worse yet, once you do start to read them, the language that they use often leaves you scratching your head.

I wrote this article to highlight a few general provisions within common legal contracts that you will see within the tree care industry. Paying close attention to these provisions will give you the basic understanding of what the other party is asking of you within the contract and the amount of risk you are exposing your company to by agreeing to the terms. This simple analysis will give you the edge over other tree services who just sign it without reading, as you will understand where you can negotiate as well as when to walk away from an unreasonable situation.

And of course, please don’t take this article to be actual legal advice. Talk to your attorney with any specific questions that you have regarding contracts that you are contemplating entering into.

There are many different types of contracts that you will run into as a tree service owner, from lease agreements for your building and equipment, to subcontractor or work order contracts to purchase orders, the list goes on and on. Each of them will outline who is responsible for what. If you are ever unclear about what you are asked to do within a contract, make sure to clarify with the other party BEFORE signing it.

General Provisions

Who, What, Where, When and How Much? – Every contract must specifically address these five questions. If there is any confusion on any of these basics, they must be figured out before any work is done. These set up the terms for the entire project so be clear on the verbiage.

Cancellation – How does your responsibility change if you need to cancel the contract? Is there written notice that must be given in advance? What about if the other part cancels? Gain an understanding of how this contract will dissolve so you do not get caught doing tree work for free.
Insurance/Risk Transfer Provisions

Additional Insured – Many contracts ask to have one party be named as Additional Insured. If you are required to list another entity as Additional Insured, you must contact your insurance agent/company and physically change the policy to meet this requirement. Many times there are specific insurance forms that are necessary to fulfill this requirement. Listing another entity as Additional Insured gives the other entity coverage on your policy, so your insurance company is taking on another defendant in a lawsuit if something happens at that particular job/project. Send a copy of the contract to your insurance agent before you sign it to gain an understanding of the type of Additional Insured status they are asking for and to get an idea of how much this will cost you.

Loss Payee – If you are borrowing money for an equipment purchase, the lender will want to be listed as Loss Payee on your insurance policy. This guarantees that they will be paid first if the equipment is damaged or stolen.

Hold Harmless Agreements – Simply put, Hold Harmless Agreements are used to transfer the risk of something happening from one party to another. If a contract states that you will indemnify and hold harmless the other party, you are assuming to pay for anything that happens on that job site without help from that other party. This can be a very large exposure to your company that many tree service owners are unaware they agreed to. Again, send a copy of the contract to your insurance agent or attorney for review before agreeing to something that you do not understand.

Waivers of Subrogation – Similar to the Hold Harmless Agreement, a Waiver of Subrogation will remove the right for your insurance company to seek reimbursement for an accident/injury from the other party. Typically, the Waiver of Subrogation will be placed onto the Work Comp policy for a charge from your insurance company. With the already high work comp cost for arborists, losing the ability to get reimbursed for a workplace injury can cause an injury to financially affect your company more than it should.

Unfortunately, there is a lot that goes into a legal contract, however, paying attention to these contract provisions will help you quickly understand what you are being asked to agree to and can save your company from entering into a fatal contract. Remember to utilize your team; attorney, insurance agent, business coach and possibly your CPA to help you understand what the contract says before you sign it.

Still want help reviewing contract provisions? Contact the ArboRisk team today to learn more or check out our Thrive New Heights Package!