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I've heard the advice that you shouldn't be selling this job; you should be selling the ten after that. Which does sound good but is quite open ended.

You need to read the last 274 pages of this thread really.

That was my first thought too, if you're not comfortable using it at the time then it's probably not right and needs more investigating.

Personally I would walk away, but only you can make that decision, no offence intended to any other opinions but I certainly wouldn't risk 1400 quid on the advice of anybody on any forum. you can choose differently. I'm old school too, cash, bank transfer, are good reliable payment methods, why complicate things. you might find he'll change his mind if you say no, for all you know you could be one of any number of people who have said no to paypal from him.

PayPal is safe to use but if you don't use it or don't have many customers wanting to pay that way ask yourself if it's worth the extra effort to go through. Did they want to pay with PayPal Friends & Family where there's no associated added fees like protection of the deal from being a scam, or were they wanting to pay with Services where they would have to pay the additional fees on top of the £1400? Off the top of my head I forget how much the additional fee is, it used to be something like 4%, plus the business owner pays a small fee of about the same, a lot of people avoid the Services option and go with Friends & Family taking a gamble that the deal goes through smoothly. I've only used PayPal privately, not used it on the business side of it so wouldn't be able to say if or what the fees are like for the business owner. So long as you've got an email address and bank account you want to set these up with it could be something to look at in the future. Oh and I believe it's free to open an account with Paypal.

Ever since Reg left Blighty, you’re my favourite craftsman. what cut did you use for dropping the big limb at the start. stay healthy

I think you could piss £25k, I’d say nearer £30k.

Now watch as this thread goes in a different direction. Yeah, he could buy the tickets. Or he could buy a second hand GRCS, a new 500i with three bars and nine chains, two helmets with comms and some poles with a hook. For an extra £350, he can get a train ticket to Newcastle, a taxi to my house via Oddbins and I'll show him how to use it all. Bosh. Useful groundsman to have around. Do one day a fortnight for six firms. 150 days a year at £150/day. £22,500. Probably better than £25,000 PAYE even after running costs and you have Mondays and Fridays for the lord. You still have to pay to drive to a PAYE job. He'll need NPTC 207 (CS45) of course, like everybody who runs the ropes on the ground has. EDIT: Glossary since the bloke reading this isn't an arb, yet. GRCS - A really gucci rigging device. There are probably only a hundred in the country. They make you better than average on most jobs and a god on the right job. 500i - A really good, fairly big chainsaw. Most tree firms' big saws are shagged and have running problems and nobody can be bothered to sharpen the chains for the long bars. Turn up with one that works with big, sharp cutting gear and you're making their lives easier not having to fix theirs. Comms - Tree firms struggle to use them because their employed blokes forget to charge them. Turn up with yours and you're just that little bit slicker than anyone else. Poles - An underused piece of kit. Climbers use throwlines to get ropes into the top of a tree. Most people are shit with them and spend half an hour untangling them and getting angry before just getting a ladder instead. You can poke a rope over a high branch with your poles and save everyone a lot of embarrassment. Plus they're very handy the rest of the day.

They obviously haven’t read the memo then Dan.

I’ve been asked by a customer if he can pay me for a job via PayPal as he’s collecting air miles. I’ve told him I don’t have a PayPal account and now he’s wanting to cancel the job because I’m old school, please pay my business bank account by BAC’s. Has anyone else come a cross this as I don’t even have a PayPal account. It’s not a small amount of money and not exactly a large amount! £1400.

Ballistol Universal Oil And not poisonous for cleaning really dirty carabiners I’ve been using a Oral irrigator. i don’t have a air compressor.

I think the idea of using an impact driver as a way of managing the reaction torque is novel. To me it does have the whiff of snake oil about it, if you could suddenly increase cutting tool performance and life by a factor of two then people like Dormer and Sandvik would be all over it. After all cutting tools have been thought about a lot, by a lot of people. I suspect they are twice as good as cheap tat, and more equivalent to the decent ones that few people buy.

If you look through arbjobs some of the firms offer an estimate, eg team leader at Beechwood 30-39k. It's going to depend on area too, can't find it now but I think there was a an from Edinburgh botanical gardens for around 20k. I'd have thought 25k is achievable in Oxfordshire though.

‘Impact rated’ is nothing like the same as ‘an impact driver is faster than the sustained torque offered by a decent drill’

Unbelievably good

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That's intriguing, not much use but intriguing.

I am not sure I understand. it is carried on a trailer. it is on tracks so it drives itself up the ramp. in the photo its is just facing the brash and I am blowing it into the back of my truck.

Good idea for a thread, Alex. I'm going back to your title/original point -mainly because I don't/won't have a website myself. Spending a few minutes with a new potential customer, to explain what works we do and our background, etc seems valuable to them, to glean an understanding of us, and seems to build their trust. I always do this before discussing their potential work/problem. It helps set the initiative -and helps them understand there are two parties in their contract considerations . On more complex/open enquiries, I think sacrificing half an hour or so to gently quiz a customer on their objectives, seems a mutually beneficial exercise, often for both parties. Getting them to list/produce a simple specification of what they actually need, is helpful all round. I should have mentioned at the start, that our Conservation work includes treework.. so maybe a little different from others here.

so were still looking, we do have a few to look at , albeit on the cheaper side .. im kinda put off from the Forst now , tho they did seem to be a bit cheaper, but reliability is a must, I guess all things go wrong tho , does the Forst have the same engine as the TW ?

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Mate just sent me a pic of his willow we repollarded back to bare bones on June 11th.

Thanks both- the ag sector is pretty tight money wise, less than £25k isn't abnormal, and that's what I'm on now. I've no ambition to be making silly money, but as others have said, I'm looking for that sweet spot between satisfying work and a decent wage.

Good Morning All.

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