Importance of Vehicle Inspections

by | Jul 13, 2020 | Risk Management | 0 comments

Importance of Vehicle Inspections

Safety is the most important and obvious reason to inspect your vehicle. A vehicle defect found during an inspection could save you problems later. You could have a breakdown on the road that will cost time and dollars, or even worse, a crash. Federal and state laws require daily inspection by the driver when the vehicle is in use, and if you fail to do a pre-trip inspection, a DOT inspector can place your vehicle out of service. So why risk your life, or the life of another, in an unsafe vehicle?

Pre-Trip Inspection: The first thing a driver should do when beginning a trip is to review the Driver Vehicle Inspection Report from the previous day. If there were defects noted, you should verify that the DVIR has been signed by a mechanic certifying that either the defect was repaired, or the defect does not affect the safety of the vehicle and the repair was unnecessary. If the previous day’s DVIR did contain a defect, you must sign the report to indicate that you have reviewed it, and that the required certification and signature are present.

Vehicle Inspection: No truck may be driven unless the driver is satisfied that the following parts and accessories are in good working order such as:

-Service brakes, including trailer brake connections
-Turn indicators
-Parking (hand) brake
-Steering mechanism
-Lighting devices, running lights, and reflectors
-Tires
-Horn
-Windshield wipers
-Rear vision mirrors
-Coupling Devices
-Wheels and Rims
-Fluids
-Emergency Equipment

Post-Trip Inspection: At the completion of each day’s work, the driver is required to prepare a written report identifying the vehicle and listing any defect or deficiency discovered or reported to the driver that would affect the safety of the vehicle, or result in a mechanical breakdown. The report must cover at least the parts and accessories listed above under “Vehicle Inspection.” If defects are noted by the driver, the motor carrier is required to certify on the original report that the repairs have been made, or that the defect does not affect the safe operation of the vehicle. All DVIRS must be retained by the motor carrier for 3 months where the vehicle is stored. Always protect yourself and others by performing a thorough vehicle inspection!

Make sure you utilize the resources available to you and have a good understanding of expectations, especially locally. The TCIA offers daily recording and post trip inspections on their website that are bilingual and the DOT also has standard inspection forms available on their website. We also have a fleet safety program that discusses employee expectations, inspections, and much more. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested in a copy!

Written by: Margaret Hebert

Effective Sales Training for Tree Care Companies

by | Jun 29, 2020 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Effective Sales Training for Tree Care Companies

A strong, knowledgeable sales team is one of the most important tools to help tree care companies stay ahead of the game. Improving your sales team and selling more effectively is a significant key to your company’s growth.

While you may say that estimating and sales are the same job, they are not. Estimating is looking at the job and computing how much the tree removal, pruning, PHC, and etc. should be. Sales is finalizing the sale, getting the customer to say yes to the treatment, pruning or removal plan because the ultimate goal is enticing the customer to say yes!

A well-trained salesperson can easily influence a potential customer. With the right negotiation tactics along with arboricultural knowledge, pricing and presentation, the salesperson is ready to go and this can make all the difference. Hence, sales training is a critical factor in the world of sales. Here are five reasons why you should invest in a good sales training program:

Customer loyalty: Sales training improves the person-to-person connection which is required to gain loyal customers. According to a recent study, 71% of people base their buying decisions on trust and credibility. It is crucial that salespeople thoroughly understand their customers’ wants and needs and at the same time efficiently communicate the benefits of the services your company offers. Therefore, focus on sales training that will enable your staff to have better interaction with customers.

Improved Communication: Salespeople must make sure that customers understand the services offered. This is mainly possible through effective communication skills. Excellent communicators with fantastic people skills are an asset to any organization.

Brand Image: Salespeople are the face of every company. Being the face of your company, what the salesperson says, and how they say and do certain things create an impression in the mind of the customer. Good sales training will teach sales professionals about behavioral and attitudinal changes to leave a long-lasting impression on the minds of the customer and build a better brand for your company. Make sure your salespeople understand and reflect your company’s core values.

Overcoming objections: We must not forget that sales involve objections. Sales training can teach salespeople how to anticipate objections as well as techniques for overcoming them.
Up-selling: Good sales training can teach the salesperson when to recognize and recommend additional services for the customer.

In your company, you may have an excellent estimator. That person may be spot on – including everything in your estimate that you must get paid for, but that person cannot sell a pair of shoes to a barefoot person. On the other hand, you may have a salesperson that is fabulous – they can sell four pairs of shoes to a person with a hundred pairs of shoes, but they cannot estimate properly – forgetting to add in clean up or stump grinding, etc. Reinvent the wheel! Make those two people a team. It takes talent for both selling and estimating, and the goal is to GET THE JOB! Never forget that sales is an integral part of your team. Without a good sales person, you do not have a team.

Keep in mind that salespeople are a direct reflection of your company. Good sales training is vital to the success of your sales team. Your salespersons must be skilled in both industry knowledge and people skills. It is important for them to be authentic in establishing credibility. This will help them gain relevant information about the buyer’s objectives, provide a useful proposal, and, hopefully, create customer loyalty.

There are general sales training opportunities out there such as Dale Carnegie, but ArboRisk has a light training opportunity with the ArboRisk Thrive Program which is geared more for the arborist. In the future, Streamside Green/Victorian Gardens will be offering in-depth sales and estimating webinars geared for the Arborist. The training will be separate webinars, one on sales and a separate webinar on estimating. Click here to receive email updates on upcoming Streamside Green/Victorian Gardens webinars for arborists.

Written by: Margaret Hebert

Written by: Dawn Thierbach

COVID-19 and the Risk Management Process

by | Jun 8, 2020 | Risk Management | 0 comments

covid-19 and the risk management process

As an employer, risk management should be one of your top priorities. Simply put, risk management is the conscious handling of exposures that a business faces. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, tree care owners have been addressing a new risk to their business, viral infection, and using risk management techniques to minimize the impact upon their business. The purpose of this article is to help you understand how you can utilize the risk management process to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 to both your employees and your customers. If you are fortunate enough to have participated in the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification training, you should be familiar with the Risk Assessment Matrix. You likely use this tool in your daily work as an arborist to evaluate risks associated with trees. Here is how the same risk assessment methodology can be used to manage the risks to your business.

Risk Identification

Let’s start by considering how COVID-19 could impact our business operations. Obviously there are many ways COVID-19 could be transmitted, but we encourage everyone to begin to identify the potential hazards and interactions that increase chances throughout your operation. In fact, OSHA requires employers to assess hazards in which an employee may be exposed. The CDC also has a hazard identification assessment that may be helpful found here. Here are four common risk identification areas to start with:

1) Employee contracts the virus, and comes to work even though they aren’t feeling well.
2) Employee is asymptomatic and comes to work not knowing they are carrying the virus.
3) Employee interacts with customer, who is carrying the virus.
4) Virus is transferred from a surface area.

Risk Measurement
The likelihood and severity of COVID-19 impacting your business is not easily defined, but very important to study. You should have an idea of roughly how much revenue you’re generating per day and be able to calculate the consequence of an infection within your company.

In some states, like Colorado, there are mandatory shutdowns that are being required for businesses that have an infection outbreak. Per Colorado’s CDHPE’s Workplace Outbreak Guidance: preventing, reporting, and mitigating outbreaks are necessary if you experience the following:
One case of infection – the affected areas are to be closed for 72 hours and disinfected
Two cases of infection in 30 days – entire facility disinfected and closed of 72 hours.
Three cases in 30 days – entire facility disinfected and closed for 14 days.

Think about the impact these mandatory shutdowns could have and use these numbers to express to your employees how serious you are about safe workplace practices. Also, consider if you could lose jobs after notifying customers you aren’t able to operate due to a COVID-19 shutdown?

Risk Mitigation

Mitigating the risk comes with two trains of thoughts.
1. How to we prevent it from happening originally?
2. If it does happen, what do we do to control it?
Using an example of having two employees in the same truck driving to the jobsite, I’m sure you can come up with some pretty simple ways to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. Many tree care companies have moved towards having employees drive their own vehicle to avoid multiple employees in one truck cab. Simple adjustments, similar to wearing a mask when within 6 feet of another employee, can make a huge difference in stopping the spread prior to an outbreak.

Masks can lower the risk of COVID-19 infection to you, your employees, and your customers. Masks and or face coverings used at the appropriate times in conjunction with proper hygiene and social distancing can greatly mitigate much of this risk. Research shows that people who have no symptoms can spread COVID-19, so wearing a non-medical face mask or face covering helps minimize the spread of the virus.

Your company should also have a response plan in place, detailing the actions necessary for limiting transmission if an employee does test positive for COVID-19. You’ll need to know who the employee has interacted with, which area they’ve been active in, and what equipment they’ve used at the very least. Note that other employees may have to quarantine as well if they’ve been in close contact, and again consider the impact that could have on your business.

Review and Monitoring

At this point, you’ve already done a lot of the leg work. Review the effectiveness of your program and make sure you update your response program as we learn more about the virus. Moving forward, you’ll be ready if there is another wave and will not have to rely on emergency measures for similar situations.
The ArboRisk team has been very active in helping tree services with proper risk management during this time. Reach out to ArboRisk today to get help directly or visit TCIA’s COVID-19 webpage for additional guidance on policy development that is provided specific to tree care Once developed communicate the policies to all that are exposed to these risks.

And remember, the risk management process can and should be used for more than just COVID-19!

Sources(Image):
https://www.comindwork.com/weekly/2018-10-29/productivity/risk-management-process

Written by: Malcolm Jeffris, CTSP

Risk Management and Cash Reserves

by | May 18, 2020 | Risk Management | 0 comments

Risk Management and Cash Reserves

Written by Jim Skiera

This pandemic reminded me of the childhood story, The Grasshopper, and the Ant. As the story goes the grasshopper was the free spirit who was never concerned about what tomorrow will bring and lived in the moment. The ant to the contrary was busy preparing for the onset of winter storing food and supplies to get him through tougher times. Winter comes and the ant survives because he was prepared for the worst, and the grasshopper goes hungry and dies. The moral of the story as we were taught, those who do not plan for the long term will not succeed in the long term.

The pandemic has, as I am sure you have witnessed, caused unprepared businesses to fail. A key difference of businesses that have survived rather than failed is the practice of building and maintaining a cash reserve for times like these. Just like your safety program, company policies and procedures, training, hiring practices, workers compensation and other insurance, a cash reserve should be an integral part of your company’s risk management plan. If you have a reserve in place great; if this article will help you start one immediately.

Expenses – This sounds simple, however to accurately establish the amount of reserve needed for your company, you will need to spend time determining your on-going expenses. Your accounting system should allow you to look at your expenses for the past 6-12 months. As the tree care industry tends to be somewhat seasonal in many parts of the country, pay attention to how your expenses fluctuate month to month. If you have a significant difference, for example in the spring when expenses are high gearing up for the busy season, factor that into your planning. The purpose of the exercise is to make you aware of your financial needs throughout the year.

Risk Tolerance – With a firm understanding of your expenses, then determine your level of risk tolerance. It is recommended that companies have between three and six months of cash reserves available to cover expenses for unplanned downturns, other emergencies and or growth opportunities. This may seem like an unrealistic number; however, the last three months should now make you aware it is not out of line with the current reality. The true impact COVID-19 has on the economy and your business is likely not to be known for years to come.

Next sit down with your CPA and or financial consultant to determine the right reserve amount for your business. Speak to them about setting up a plan for your company to build the reserve over time, as it will impact your short-term cash flow. If you have a reserve that has been depleted, it’s time to structure a come-back plan. Based on the severity of this crisis you may want to revisit your risk tolerance level. Consider the impacts of possible future downturns in revenue and look for unnecessary expenses that can be shed until better times return so your reserve outlasts the crisis.

Financing Options – If you are like many businesses with little to no reserve, you may need to use financing to assist you with expenses for the short term. Your banker is another important adviser to help guide you. Ask about any financing options they have available to meet your immediate needs including Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and or lines of credit. A line of credit can be more difficult to set up, as it requires your company to meet the qualification minimums established by your bank, based on their lending level of risk.

Typical requirements include:
– A list of company assets and values
– At least two years of profitable operations
– Sufficient cash flow to cover financing
– Owners who have assets to put up as collateral themselves

SBA loans are an alternative for companies that cannot meet bank loan requirements. In response to this crisis, the government has established several additional new loan programs administered by the SBA. It is likely there will be more, so having a relationship with your banker to keep you abreast of these opportunities is critical. These loans are provided by banks in partnership with the SBA. Information about applying for SBA loans can be found on-line or provided by participating partner banks.

Now is a time to think like an ant.

To learn more about how strategic planning can enhance your organization, take a look at our Thrive Risk Management Strategic Planning Package. In just 4 short weeks we can help you identify who you are as a company, what you want to become, and what strategic milestones will be needed to achieve your goals.

Tips to Maximize Online Learning

by | May 11, 2020 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Tips to MAximize Online Learning

In this time of Social Distancing, you may be contemplating how to obtain your CEUs. There are many organizations offering Webinar training. Your ISA Chapters, green industry associations, and other training companies are offering classes online.
Webinars are a great way to educate yourself and earn CEUs.

They are usually done with a power point and a chatroom for you to ask questions. There is an instructor that you listen to but do not see. Usually the attendees are muted so as not to interrupt the speaker and disrupt the flow of the webinar. These classes usually are finished in one to two hours.

Meetings, as compared to Webinars, are much more interactive. The instructor has a Power Point presentation and you can see the instructor also. These presentations usually last three to five hours. The attendees are muted, but at certain points in the presentation, the attendees can either ask questions through typing them in the chat room, or unmute their microphone to verbally ask questions. This type of learning is more interactive and social – you are attending with your industry peers and can see all the attendees.

There are benefits to online training: you are in your own home or office setting, you can get a drink when needed, you can stretch your legs by walking around and, the best, you can even attend the workshop in your PJs if you want to. Other benefits include being able to select from a wide range of topics, not having to travel, getting to interact with arborists around the country, and reduced cost since the presenters aren’t having to travel, either!
Here are some rules for being courteous when attending an online meeting:

1)Show up on time. You may not disrupt the presentation by logging in late, but you may miss important information.

2)Keep your microphone muted unless asking a question. In most formats, the person running the meeting has the control to mute all mics and will do so since even the slightest background noise causes significant distraction.

3)Turn off your webcam during the presentation. Nothing is more likely to illicit giggles than to have the presenter turn off their PowerPoint presentation and the software defaults to someone watching (or worse – not watching), unaware that his or her webcam running.

4)Wait your turn. In a live setting, you can see who has a question or when a presenter is ready for an interruption. In webinar, especially when not everyone is on webcam, you may need to rely on cues such as hand-raising icons or questions posted in chats. Some presenters will let you know that there will be breaks for questions.

5)Ask questions concisely. Webinars are focused; be sure your questions are, too. Avoid wasting time in lengthy introductions, and don’t self-promote or spend a lot of time sharing your opinion before asking a question. If you have comments, ask yourself if they will help others before commenting.

6)Don’t use the chat room as your personal water cooler. Just like you would not stand in the back of the room gossiping with someone while a presenter was lecturing, refrain from using the chat room just to socialize.

Even after social distancing restrictions are lifted, online webinars and meetings will continue to be an excellent and affordable way for arborists to learn and to earn CEUs. Check out StreamsideGreen.com for upcoming online training opportunities through a partnership with Victorian Gardens, ArboRisk, and Bandit.

Written by: Margaret Hebert

Written by: Dawn Thierbach