changing your life

[White Noise]

you need to have your work head and your family head mate. Write down a list of rules and regs(yor own personal ones) and get them printed out and put it on a laminated sheet infront of your work folder(if you have one) dont make decissions until you have consulted this on every job, also have a diary, even have 2, one for you and one for your wife. Plan yor months stuff with the family around the table after dinner, then slot your jobs in around these, being organised sometimes goes against the free and easy attitiude self employment can give you, but if you are not organised you waste so much time, and believe it or not, if the customer moans at you, you just point to the black and white writing and blame that, they then dont take it out on you and you just follow those rules, if you ask a waitress for free toast with your coffee she will say no, because she has been trained in the do's and donts of her job, we make on the spot decisions depending on how we feel and how nice the customer is, that should be irrelivant.(well i know i do sometimes and always used to)

 

Your right there if I look at the work from a workers point of veiw I suppose I would say no loads more. People who know me cant believe I,m such a push over at work . I will put some of your wisdom into action as of from monday . Cheers Paul .

[SJH]

I like this thread, nice one for posting it some good words of wisdom here.

[Stephen Blair]

i have paid good money for that wisdom, but i will pass it on for free and if it works i will charge you one magners at the apf:thumbup:i am the exact same mate, everyones best friend,i agree to do things then go in a bad mood when i run out of time or miss putting the kids to bed, if only i practiced as much as i preached sometimes, its easy when the bank is full but when work is thin on the ground then you must eat:001_smile: The best thing you could do to make your life easier is get a micro chipper and a van, take nothing away and go home at 4pm, its great. I have things pretty much sussed in the balance between work and home but sometimes i lapse into my old self and give myself more grief, but then i soon learn my lesson and start afresh:thumbup1:

[Rob D]

I like your life threads Stevie...

 

I have changed my business this last few months. The chippers been sold and I have not climbed a tree for 6 weeks. I just found I was getting no job satisfaction any more from general tree work. Now I'm just looking for the big felling jobs where milling is an option.

 

Also I want to expand on selling more stuff on line and I have a few ideas in the pipeline for that.

 

I'm sure you can think of times when you enjoyed having the mog and all the big equipment Stevie but I can pick out good times I had with one of my Xs although 50% of the time we were arguing...! I'm sure you made the right choice.

 

 

 

[Stephen Blair]

good on you rob, i am glad things are working out for you, we have been doing more firewood too, it is much more sociable too, having a chat with a coleague most of the day rather than sweating your backside off all day with ear muffs down worrying if you are going to make any money or not

[Rob D]

Yep - exactly that - the constant grimace, teeth gritted as you strive to get through another day (profitably)... it's nice just doing a days work and not worrying about how much money you've brought in - your overheads are low so there's nowt to worry about!

[Frank]

All well and good but how does that span out into the long term??? I.E business wise??? Surely your company will be fairly static??? In other words, you will be limited in how much profit you make and how much spare time you have.

 

More spare time = less profit

More profit = less spare time.

 

My idea is to build up slowly (I'm still a young buck at 27).

Progressing my company gradually until it is an all singing all dancing environmental arboricultural solutions masterpiece offering everything from tree surgery to planting, surveys to consulting etc etc. By then the company will be paying for someone else to answer the phone, price the jobs, climb the trees etc etc, and I will tootle about yuppyville sipping mocha lattes in my range rover.

[skyhuck]

and how much spare time you have.

 

More spare time = less profit

More profit = less spare time.

 

.

 

I think thats always the case mate, no mater how long you have been trading.

 

Most of my kit is paid for and that helps, but it still needs maintaining, fixing and replacing.

 

I'm not sure an arb firm is ever easy to run, WE tend to be OUR businesses and our businesses tend to be US.

[Stephen Blair]

All well and good but how does that span out into the long term??? I.E business wise??? Surely your company will be fairly static??? In other words, you will be limited in how much profit you make and how much spare time you have.

 

More spare time = less profit

More profit = less spare time.

 

My idea is to build up slowly (I'm still a young buck at 27).

Progressing my company gradually until it is an all singing all dancing environmental arboricultural solutions masterpiece offering everything from tree surgery to planting, surveys to consulting etc etc. By then the company will be paying for someone else to answer the phone, price the jobs, climb the trees etc etc, and I will tootle about yuppyville sipping mocha lattes in my range rover.

 

 

Profit is profit, it has nothing to do with spare time or hours you work. The most profitable or tree surgery is getting the tree on the ground, after that you are just covering costs, labour, vehicles,finance,fuel insurances etc, yard space. I try and just do the profitable bit now and that can be done by getting rid of the offsite part of the job, it is working for me so far, i do have the truck which means i can consentrate on getting lots of jobs on the ground and ready for uplift, then come round later, but i could easily have a firewood guy come round and clear my feet if i wanted:001_smile:but i dont:biggrin:

[Rob D]

Frank I wish you all the luck in the world. Settling for less profit may seem a strange concept but I more see it a saving of energy and putting that energy into something different.

 

The struggle with running a large company is that no one ever does the job like you do. The larger the company then you just end up managing people and solving problems (that other people have caused).