flatyre

Seems like the right time to make a few new year resolutions business wise, anyone have plans for streamlining their business, do anything differently etc? I spent last year getting mugged by customers, new business, desperate for work, bending over backwards to keep them sweet so they didn't bad mouth me, the s**t I had to do to protect my fledgling reputation:thumbdown: So i'm thinking this year I'll take a more hard line approach. Just spent two unpaid days this week on a paving job I did in January, customer wanted garden dug out and replaced with paved paths running to a paved circle in the centre, in between paths dug out, weed membrane down, and a good deep layer of bark over the top, the customer stated she had no intention of planting anything and wanted the bark deep enough so her cats wouldn't dig up the membrane when doing their business, roll on spring time and muggins here gets a call, "where's the soil? I want to plant some shrubs and its all bark!" So I then have to dig out the bark, peel back the membrane and fill it up with topsoil before replacing the membrane and bark. Did a one day tree removal job there and somehow the customer (sweet old lady) roped me into doing a whole rake of other smaller jobs for free. Anyway new tax year and new attitude, have had a few grass cutting customers phone up looking their grass cut for cash in handyman prices, took pleasure in telling them to phone a handyman then:thumbup: As a young business is it too soon to take a "take it or leave it, I don't need your business" attitude?

I use the Barbie all year round, great for cooking kippers on without stinking out the whole house, trout, spatchcock chicken and pheasant, bellypork, steak, rabbit, have a big parasol which helps with the weather, only issue was a good supply of decent charcoal, solved with the discovery of making biscuit tin charcoal in the wood stove:thumbup: just got to be careful not to get too much carbon in the old diet, makes you a better barbequer!

i'm a pickup fan but a transit tipper is more versatile, what type of work do you do. residential? l

thanks for the advice folks, tried to draw some middle ground between boss and bast**d, let him work on until he got to the point where his flags didn't work in against the kerbs, then politely told him we couldn't leave the job like that until it was right (Friday afternoon and he was on a plenty of fish promise) so standards picked up rather quickly:thumbup1: This has been my first taste of being an employer if you could call it that and I've learned a lot, my fault as I brought him in un tested to cover while I had to leave site, will call on him again as he is a good grafter, just lacks the finishing finesse. In future he will be relegated to cement mixer/paving fetcher until he understands two key points, 1, he's not as good as he thinks he is, and 2, he won't get that good if he doesn't listen to those who know. Again much appreciate the input folks:thumbup:

Hey folks not on a tree surgery job but need some advice on a situation. As my landscaping business has been growing I decided to throw a few days work at a mate who has some paving experience (first mistake I know but he had mentioned working for me a few times) . He worked for a couple of years for a local paving expert who liked to do things old school freestyle like screeding with a stick and just his eye (twenty years experience and a good eye). Anyway I was asked to lay a 7x13 metre patio so offered him a few days work primarily to drive the dumper while I dug it out and drew stone in. A number of small one day and half day jobs came up which needed my attention so I worked out the levels, set up all the lines, gave him a crash course in using screed rails, and we laid 21 sq metres of 400x400 flags in four hours, next day I re set the screed rails and left him to it. Came back at the end of the day and he had 6 sq metres laid and not as well, screed rails were ditched as soon as I turned my back . Then today I came back at the end of the day and he had binned the lines which had been carefully worked out regarding the necessary falls, and used to set the kerbs for the raised area. Needless to say his levels are all over the place, the flags don't tie in with the kerbs, and it looks like crap. I don't want to offend him but how do I explain that his previous employer had perfected freestyle screeding over twenty years, and that he just isn't that good yet? Hell I reckon I can freestyle screed pretty well but still use lines on every job and screed rails where possible.

firstly I am in the middle of a landscaping job which I have received a deposit for which covers tools and materials. I won't be finished until after tomorrow therefore I won't get the final payment (profit) until next tax year. Does it matter? Secondly I looked at a small tree job (cherry tree removal and stump ground out) as part of a larger landscaping job today and the customer said a "tree surgeon" had already looked at it but when she said her brother might remove the tree if he removed the stump, he informed her he couldn't remove the stump as he wasn't insured to work below ground level. He also said the tree had been cut down at some point to just above the trunk as it thinned before branching out. I've seen many cherry trees with this 'step' and always thought it was their natural shape. Didn't get a photo of the tree but it looks the same as this.... Anyway it got me thinking is he a real tree surgeon and therefore might have a point about separate insurance for doing stump work (because its below ground level)? Or is he talking Bo**ox as proven by his assessment of the cherry tree (if he's wrong)? He may well be right.....or maybe he just didn't want to do the grinding if he wasn't getting the full job?

business not political but Victoria Fritz: thumbup:

mate of mine loves them and he's cynical about everything (makes his living from fixing/welding 4x4s, like all jap 4x4s its all about rust, get a clean one, plaster it in waxoil and it'll outlast and out tow just about any other motor, great workhorse, popular with farmers and equestrian types, says enough!

i'll be honest I have no knowledge of legal stuff but a firm I used to work for got in trouble for purchasing and then billing the next tax year!

not sure on that one, apart from sounding a tad illegal, is the van second hand? did you buy it from a private seller? if so how do you explain the seller allowing you to pay it off in three yearly instalments?

customers that just want the cheapest price are not worth the time it takes to price the job. whats worse for the industry, putting in a fair price and then adding to it because your now expected to clean up some cowboys mess, or putting in a cheap price then offering to come in and clean up some cowboys mess for even less? imagine this, Bob "just got a few trees removed buy a local guy, not a tree surgeon but got the job done" Neighbour "weren't you worried about giving the job to an amateur?" Bob "nah if he didn't do a good enough job you can always get a professional in to fix it. works out cheaper that way, get the handyman to do the donkey work and the pro to finish it off!"

but what do they look like on the wife?

Bravo:thumbup: its t**ts like this that encourage cowboys, I have to use a crowbar to prize the money out of my customers when the jobs finished, chances of getting anything out of the before the jobs done would be impossible.

Your obviously doing a good job at being the bread winner and your wife respects that:thumbup1: on the other hand my missus thinks because I like tree work any expenditure is not so much out of necessity but just me buying new "toys". She only right most of the time.

2017 buddy! Man has learned to choose his battles!

find it pointless trying to explain equipment expenditure, so have opted for a "what they don't know......" approach. Works as long as there is more money coming in than going out:thumbup1:

man up and just lie about the cost like me, then squeeze in a cheeky little fell job to pay for them and claim you were out pricing a job.......which unfortunately didn't come through.

Many things add to this problem, firstly as far as i'm aware there is no law that says someone cannot call themselves a "tree surgeon" without the relevant qualifications, secondly what level of cs certificate do you need to reach to be a "tree surgeon"? thirdly while the government fails to introduce licensing to purchase chainsaws then any tom dick or harry can walk into B&Q and buy such an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment. Fourthly if joe public is prepared to give such a specialised job to however is cheapest then hell slap it up them when something goes wrong. And fifth, though controversially, I know of a number of "big firms", "reputable firms", "professional firms" with all the relevant qualifications and equipment who are total cowboys I wouldn't trust to prune a rose bush.

of all the great 80's music I wouldn't have picked TTD, more a Depeche Mode fan myself:thumbup:

As WRSNI says over here farmers can do a lot more than move a few internal walls. My previous employer was from a farming family though they stopped farming decades ago. He built playgrounds for a living, but still had a herd number which meant he could throw up new sheds without needing permission. There were a number of benefits to being a 'farmer' without owning a farm:confused1:

generally the bigger the business the more efficient it is, i'm not saying struggling farmers should let their land go to waste and become a mass of brambles and whin bushes, but sell to a bigger farm that is more streamlined, efficient, and profitable

how so?

I think in relation to career choices etc if you can't make your business work try another business.

true but what i'm saying is if one farmer can't make his land profitable, why not instead of subsidising him, make him sell to a farmer who can, we still get the food but without having to pay the farmer AND the supermarket he sells to? Why should I pay for the same bag of potatoes twice just so the farmer can keep up the style he is used to?

true, why should farmers not make as good a living as bankers, why should we not all make as good a living as bankers, and if we can't turn a decent profit why should we not all be subsidised?