Retired Climber

That guy has bigger balls than me. As far as I'm concerned if you are in the water and see that, you run away as fast as you can (screaming like a girl optional, but recommended).

I'd imagine the proper answer will depend on requirements for work positioning v's fall arrest. Most climbing harnesses are for work position aren't they?

We used to have to wear a waist belt hooked to the cage and that was it. That was a few years ago now though.

The problem is, it's virtually impossible to get impartial marketing advice. Pretty much anyone you approach for advice will be biased and only really interested in recommending whatever solution they happen to offer. I'll reply to your private message in a bit. Just off out to shoot some rats.

No problem. For the benefit of anyone else reading this, here are a few points to consider before getting someone to do any internet based marketing for you. Don't ever let the person who builds your site register the domain for you. Do it yourself and make sure it's registered in your name. Never host the site with the same company that designed the site. Never have domain registration and hosting with the same company, even if you organise it. Make sure any Google ads accounts are yours and you own the data if you decide to leave or do it yourself. Half of the value of an ad account is in the history, the data, and a bloody long list of negative keywords. Make sure you own the rights to any phone numbers used; some companies forward to your number but get leads to phone a number they own. This is crafty and ensures you are wasting your money. Always send traffic to a designated landing page on your own website, never the homepage, or a page on someone else's site. Sorry, I'll leave it there. If I carry on I'll get to point 500 before I stop typing. I should say, I don't offer any of the services I'm talking about, and have no ulterior motive for posting this. I simply have to know this stuff inside out and back to front for what I do for a living.

I can't get your URL to work. Do you own the Google ads account they are using (it hasn't been AdWords for some time). It's a favourite trick of the less scrupulous agencies to use their own account to you don't own the data. Have you made sure that you own the domains of the landing pages, and also the phone number? How much of the monthly spend is used to buy clicks, and how much is paying them to manage it?

How are you advertising? Any chance of a slap from Google? If your site is anything like quite a few members of this forum your organic ranking is likely to take a hit soon. Are you using Google ads?

There are lots of reasons people make the choices they do. Some of them are sensible, and others defy all logic; some are made simply in an effort to avoid cognitive dissonance. If you really want to improve conversion rates, think like a customer, not a tree surgeon. Do you think an average client really knows the difference between a brand new Greenmech and a crappy old gravity fed Bearcat? You can never win every quote, but you can certainly stack the odds in your favour. Actually, one way to improve how you do things is not to see it as 'winning' the job in the first place.

Pricing low won't increase your chance of getting the job by as much as you think anyway. Next time you are quiet, wack a load on top of the price and see what happens.

It's clean because it's just come out of the dish washer.

Only if you value your time at nothing.

Haha, can't remember where I put my 70 foot ladder. Anyway, I was only joking, it doesn't really matter how tall it is; it looks easy enough to climb and deal with. A difficult 40 ft tree can be much more expensive than an easy 80 ft tree. Get some quotes and see what you think of the prices; they shouldn't be stupid money.

That's the smallest 70 ft tree I've ever seen.

This thread makes me feel old. 18 grand a year for an unskilled trainee still feels like a lot of money. I remember when my brother started his first ever job as a graduate trainee, he was on about 25 grand a year and we thought that was loads of money.

My grandad used to do the same, but screw the lids to the underside of shelves to save space. I'm not sure the lids of modern jars would take the weight of a whole jar of screws.

Roland certainly knows how to live. I wonder when I can pack off the Mrs and kids somewhere so I can do the same.

That's why you need spare blades. My place used to take exactly a week. I'm not sure exactly how they sharpen them. The garden machinery shop told me they were done on a giant rotating whet stone. I'm not sure if that's how they do it or not.

Set up a charity: Charitable purposes - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK To start a charity you need trustees, to choose a business structure, decide suitable charitable purposes and you may have...

The surplus funds need to be used for the 'cause'; there will be no shareholders to whom dividends could be distributed. A normal business is designed to make money for the shareholders, a not for profit is supposed to use all funds gained to help the 'cause'.

There are a few exceptions I'm sure. But yes, generally, I completely agree. Some of the worst (least persuasive) adverts and other promotional marketing efforts I see come from Charities (and, to be fair, government departments).

I think you misunderstand the terms profit and surplus funds. They can easily not make a profit by investing surplus funds. It's only a semantic arguement though as a not-for-profit can easily have surplus funds. Not-for-profit does not mean it has to run at a loss, or even break even.

They may have done that with mine too. Note to self - pay more attention in the future.

My local garden machinery shop used to do mine. They used to collect everything up and then once a week send everything away to get sharpened somewhere else. I think a lot of places do this now. Prices I used to pay probably aren't relevant now though.

Your first priority should be getting basic tickets. You are much more useful if you can use a saw. You also need to check the English in your CV; it's very poor. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because you are applying for an unskilled labour job the person reading the CV won't notice a split infinitive. Obviously you don't need immaculate English skills to work in arb, but showing you have made an effort with your CV is never a bad thing.

You got a nice shape to that. Looks like it's been lifted a fair bit in the past too.