How To Bid Tree Work Tips!!!

[Music] what's up everybody this is Joe Bisping and in this video we're gonna talk about how to bid tree work and these are tips and fundamental practices that I think you should keep in mind when you're out there trying to bid your tree work so stay tuned listen up get ready to learn something and I hope you enjoy the video here we go alright so I wanted to make this video because I had a few requests to do it and I hope that it helps you guys I hope you value what I'm doing here on my channel and if you do I see you please subscribe to my channel and share these videos so they get out there I'll put a lot of work into these and it takes a lot of time but I truly do want to just help some people so that you could support my channel by sharing it on Facebook whatever social media outlet you have liking the video and subscribing to my channel I would really appreciate that I hope you learned something I hope you enjoyed this video alright guys I just want to start off by saying look I'm just your average Joe arborist okay I'm nothing special here these are just fundamental principles that I found doing true work over the years bidding work okay that's specifically towards residential pretty work so just keep that in mind when you're watching this vision I really hope you wanted something be specific about your bid right down to the fine detail so when you get to the job there's no misunderstanding of what you have bid to come and do okay the homeowner should give a look at your bid sheet and say I know exactly what they're coming to do and that way you can avoid any like oh I thought you were gonna do this or oh maybe you should have done that you know so you can avoid those conflicts by being very specific on your bid sheet put an expiration date on your bid that way if you show up to a bit a job and say it's a tree removal and the tree is kind of dying it's looking kind of rough and you see you bid it to climb it right and you've been in a certain amount of money well this way that the customer can't take that big hold on to it till next year because they clear it off and if your investment rata body they don't really care the next year they call you and say hey can you come cut my tree down now well now we're a year later the trees even more dead more crispy and you wouldn't necessarily climate now so you can't really do it for that price so it's important to put at least a 30-day expiration date on that do you have a chance to revise the bid make sure there's no major defects to the tree or anything like that as far as pricing goes nobody can specifically tell you how much you need to charge to do your tree yeah is it all depends on so many different factors alright your market not your skillset the tools that you're using so if you have a lot of heavy equipment if you're using a lot of big equipment you need to factor that you're using employees so many things compact them to put a picture up online and say how much would you guys choose or how much would you guys charge at this tree there's pretty much pointless because it doesn't matter unless you know they're specifically in your market or like work for you basically yeah or it's you because nobody can tell you how much to charge it really depends on how you work you know there's a certain amount of money I'll charge to even just leave my house I won't leave for less than a certain amount of mine because I just won't be making money no I'll leave and I'll literally be doing it a lot so there is a bottom line you know don't be afraid to tell somebody when somebody calls you up you know can you come right now can you do this you know if you're super busy and if they say it's a semi emergency job you know something to keep in mind you can be fair you can say well it's gonna be at least this much for me to come if you're fine with that I mean that's gonna be the bottom line it's going to go up from there so just giving somebody an idea of how much it's going to cost them a lot of times I void you know wasting your time going to do a bit so the big question how do you determine how much to charge well I can't sit here and be like what you need to charge this okay I can't tell you that but what I can tell you is how to come up with a price based on your environment so things to keep in mind the cost of your equipment that you're running right so if you're running a skier you're on you can be chipper your trucks cranes all these things you have to factor that in how much does it cost me to take this out today to pull on my drive it I have to think about how much that cost me so I'm gonna add that in there we're to start with that fuel and on the area how much does fuel cost me how much fuel am I going to use it wear and tear on my gear a lot of guys don't factor that in but you got to replace this gear something breaks now especially if using big equipment you have to factor that it you can't just factor in your paycheck yet you have to factor in where I'm tearing your gear like ropes if you're having a hard time buying a rope every year if you need to replace it if you're using a lot you're not charging enough okay you got a charge enough to replace those things these things wear out there's a lifespan to all these things and you have to replace them it should just be on you if the customer is asking you to come do work you tools and that's part of that charge time how much time it's gonna take you what kind of help you're gonna have so you have to factor in your employees whatever the help is yeah back to that as well you know somebody calls and says yeah I just need this tree down you know you don't have to bring your chipper anything you know the truth is if you're if you're an owner let's say you click taking loans out on your chipper there whatever the tools at your knees and give loans on truth is you still have to make those payments so yeah you technically you're not costing so much to go out and say just drop a tree right so say there's a job it's gonna take you a half a day even a day without your gear right you can't just be like I'm gonna cut my prices in half because I'm not using my my equipment because the truth is if you have payment you still have to make those payments you still have insurance ok so you can't really slash your prices you know what you can discount some don't get me wrong but you do have to realize you know what hey I can't go I can't do a week worth of like no cleanup jobs and cut my prices in half and and still have my payments in the an online yeah yeah you have to think about this and you say there's still a minimum that you're gonna have to charge even if it's an easier job and if it's an easy job maybe it's not for you you know but it's pretty rare that we even get calls for jobs that are easy yeah so if it's an easy job don't let don't be afraid to let it go you know because you still have to make money not about just you know I probably wouldn't drop it I'm just saying in general nothing you never have those it's nice to have those sometimes you uh don't be afraid to let it go if you're not making money and this next one specifically important to me because I'm a climber but I factor of risk right you know I know what I'd like to make a day you know with the equipment that I use but then I also look at a train taking this trees extra risky you know there's the risk reward here is a little bit there's more risk than reward so I have to charge for that so I I always add for that you know and I'm not afraid to not get that job but I always add for risk as well you know it comes to payment and somebody asks you about payment I would never take money for work that I haven't done yet and here's why I don't like to have to go work with what I already have I don't like when I have the cookie in my hand to go out and have to work for it or I can eat it I like to go to work and then get the cookie needed that's the way I motivation go out and do the job with it that's not to say if you're doing a long big job right sometimes I have a you know two three weeks worth of job for a single you know owner or a single client sometimes I'll ask them to pay for what I've already done yeah and that's a fair thing to ask the customer is most of time they're really happy to do that so but I would never just take money up front I mean if you didn't take money I mean there's only a few reasons why I would take money and that would be because of rentals right so I've done jobs where I've rented a $3,500 crane before and that would require that front because I have to schedule that and that's that's something where they're asking me to take that responsibility of the claim I don't do that I would I would require the money upfront to preserve the claim for that and pay for that so I would do that if you want to take a small percentage of fun just to kind of get some commitment from the people the villages back out on you later on they tell you they're gonna do the job and then you're bidding more jobs and you're saying well I'm out this far which that could cost you some more jobs and then if a customer backs out now you're not really out that far in your schedule so if you want to schedule for if you want to take a little bit of money upfront just keep you know just so big they don't want to just give up that job because they've already invested a little bit in it you can probably do that but I would never take more money than I could ever do the work right so you don't want to do that you want to stay away from that but that's just my opinion so once you determine you know how much time thing is how much you know it's gonna cost you take your gear out you want to factor those in basically breaking down and boil it down to the day all right so I know it's gonna cost me this much per day to go out with my guys my gear and stuff and then you want to you want to add and obviously what you want to profit from that so you would add that you know so that's really how you're gonna determine how much it costs you it's useless to look at somebody else's bid in the market because it really doesn't matter okay well that is just how much it's gonna how much do you have to charge to make money doing what you're doing yeah that's really what matters if if you're if you're not if you're not winning bid you might have to change the way you're doing things so just keep that in mind it's important to charge enough to have time to do the job right if you're rushing you're not doing the job good the customers not satisfied and you're not even making money you're not making enough money right it's important to do that when you're bidding the true word remember that you're there to make money you're not there to cut trees I know there's a big pride in the tree industry and guys really love to be able to look at a tree and say I can do that yeah it's sure you probably can okay but the point is we're there to make money that's the bottom line you're there to cut trees after you make that so don't be afraid to walk away from a job if a customer's unwilling to pay for it period you just have to do that in my opinion oh I would say give a solid price and don't change unless you absolutely have to okay why would you have to change the price ball if there was something in the tree maybe up high in the treaty you could have really no control over something change something dramatic I can think of one time that's happened to me and I kind of ate the price a little bit and you know we talked about it we kind of split the cost of dealing with the issue but my canyon is don't change the price bid it for what it is don't give the runaround and that way there's no misunderstanding you know another thing I would say stay away from discounting and money off kind of deals you know my opinion is just give the best price that you can to everybody and be fair with with it and just go with that route if somebody says what can you do for lastra can you and you take some money off you know something that I would suggest that you would say is well you know there's things that you can do to reduce the cost like do less work right so I can take off the raking off the bill because now we're being specific right so I'm charging for raking just so they could see that hey this takes time you can pay me to do that you can get your you know teenager down the street to rake your yard after I'm done you want to pay me to do or not so say I put a fifty dollar charge or a hundred dollar charge for Reagan president and say okay you know I can take that off now would say the $100 I can take off would renewable I can take off all the cleanup that would save you money if that's the route you want to get but I would I would stray away from just taking money up and talk because somebody asks you to remember we're valuing ourselves we're giving the price that we think fair because we're there to make money so just look for other avenues to reduce the cost other than just taking money out of your pocket if you start doing low prices and you go out there and be low guess what those people are gonna go do you're gonna tell all their friends about the low price you gave them and they're getting their friends are gonna call you and their friends are gonna call you and then you know once you do that tree work next year they're gonna call you again and they're gonna they're gonna expect a little price so keep that in mind keep your prices up and don't be afraid to charge higher even in the winter okay don't drop your prices you're doing winter prices people are gonna expect that and they're gonna expect that later in the summer you know so just keep the prices what they are so when you're talking to customers don't be wishy-washy and don't be you know just shoot straight with people they appreciate that people can respect that when you just straight forward with them and you just tell them what it takes to do what you got to do so you want to be the professional guy you don't want to be the cheapest guy okay as businesspeople you have to realize that there's no market of people who just want a professional come in to do their job and there's a market of people who just want to chief this guy and they're gonna do whatever it takes to save a penny and they're gonna be involved gonna be pretty critical with what you're doing just you know this those guys that will literally try to drag a piece of brush behind me to save five dollars and then there's people who say okay I'll write you a check when you're done just do a good job those customers you've won yeah so one thing I hear people say a lot is well my market there's just no money in my market or there's you know in this area there's not a lot of money well there's neither one of two things that are happening there one you're either wrong and there is you're just not in that group so you've had customers who are low paying those cheaper customers who I always want to save the penny and want to be a little bit more critical about the work and and devalue what you do or you have there's usually a group of people in your area a market of people who just value what you do don't really want to go out and do the the work they just want pay somebody to do it you just need to get in with that market maybe you haven't tapped into that yet and some of these principles can help you do that you know you want to look professional when you're bidding work too you don't want to look like you know you just kind of woke up got better came out of the bar okay you want to look professional you want to look like somebody who knows what they do and values themselves and values their property and one thing I like to do when I'm bidding work is to wear my safety gear so I wear my chain saw can so wear my chain saw boots I'll wear my my might you know hi vis shirt and have safety glasses on because these are supposed to show people I'm worried about a thousand dollars worth of safety gear so I value myself so I'm going to value your property when I'm working on and so I might suggest doing that as well when you're bidding tree work the dumbest thing you can do is bid it from the window of your truck okay get out go look at the tree walk around the other side of the tree I can't tell you how many times I'm looking at a tree right and it looks kind of normal right and you think you're not I pretty much know no judgement now welcome to the other side a tree and it just rotted out or there's metal in there just concrete it's just something crazy anomaly that you know it's just throat would throw the whole thing off right a lot of guys don't walk around the other side of that tree and when they come to do the job - like man I didn't charge enough for this so it's important to get out look around the tree take your time when you're bidding yeah don't be rushed try to factor in everything ask questions like this Hayes their septic under here are their lines in there here is their electric you know around here what am I looking for look for Hazzard okay and factor those in and don't underplay them because they will come to bite you don't like customers rushing you into thinking that it's not that big of a job because I see that all the time oh it's not a big deal you can just drop it I get a phone call oh yeah I just need you to leave this tree down for me well I get there and it's like literally impossible to lay this tree down without doing damage to the property it's just not possible okay and they want to play it off like it's not that big of a deal and a lot of times if you're not paying attention if you if you kind of go with the emotion you'll be a trainee like what did I just do I mean that's nothing I can't do at unity so don't let a customer talk down the job okay or how hard or not it is okay you're there to determine that take their information but you know thank you for what it is and go out and do your job by valuing and looking for those hazards that we've already talked about and when you're bidding you have to have value for yourself you're a valuable person okay your skill sets are valuable this is an extremely dangerous job that requires that they're a high level of skill and expertise to do what we do so you should value yourself so then in turn the customers can value you so don't evaluate yourself and don't let customers devalue you you know bit enough to buy the tools that you need to do the job right if I was a plumber I'm gonna charge enough to come and fix your pipes correctly right I'm gonna be able to show off with a pipe wrench that I need to tighten the the bike right take the five or whatever yeah if I show up and I'm trying to use my hand it's ridiculous you know because I'm not charging enough but not only do I want to have the pipe wrench to do the pipe that I needed but I want to have the different sized pipe wrenches that I need to do the job so when you're painting tree work you need to make sure you charge enough to get the tools to do the job right yeah this comes back to valuing what we do in importance the seriousness of three work so good enough to make money to buy the tools that you need do the job now there's always extra big toys and the different things you can save up to buy but really just help the job like cream egg to skid steers and bigger things bigger shippers you know those are the things that are a little bit bigger skill but I'm talking about the robes the pulleys the blocks the carabiners you know all those things you know that you need to have to do the job correctly the communication set right if you're working with somebody having a communication set that's huge in this industry you're not using those you really should you know they make a big difference so charge enough to cover those things I mean there's been times when somebody's asked me to do a specific job that I don't have a tool for and I'm just sewing since I don't have this tool for it but here's an option I can get this tool I'll have to charge it for it but I'll be able to do this job for you if you want to go that route and I've had customers buy the tools that I need to do the job before because it's really specific for their job not that I can't use that tool later on but if yours are open with people sometimes they'll do it yeah you know when you're probably the customer don't make stuff up okay if they ask you a question and you don't know the answer whether it's tree ID disease stuff you know or you know whatever the question may be just don't make it up and don't pretend like you know just be honest people do not like BS they don't like it if you just say I don't really know here's what I can do I can research it I can get back to you that's where people value that's what people want honesty you want to feel like they can trust you I mean you have to imagine you're letting somebody on your property right number one you're letting somebody come into your property and that's a big step for somebody already I mean we get to get on places most people don't get to go you know people's property let's say right then you're gonna let them do it dreamwork right moving big equipment big gear you know cutting down big heavy trees or trimming them over they're highly valuable house you know that everything they've worked for so you want to oh so you want to have an atmosphere of making them feel comfortable by not biessing with them and just being honest and open about everything and making them feel like hey I'm comfortable with this person I know I'm not getting the runaround I don't want to deal with just a sales guy you know I mean I want to deal with somebody who actually does care he's willing to do the job right and then I have to work I'm just gonna be a nothing so I'm not just gonna be another number like them you know learn how to do quality work you know if you're doing quality work bidding jobs is gonna be a lot easier and different people are already gonna have an idea you know your reputation is what's gonna sell you your jobs not how well you can speak to a customer okay a lot of my customers that I get now been already heard about me they've already had my references where the mountains everything it wasn't a card that they saw on a board somewhere in the mall or whatever in a store it was what they've heard from my work in it and that's big and I know that's later on if you're just starting out but the only good quality work you know that's important you know when it comes to winning jobs when you're bidding work another thing when it comes to pricing your work you keep in mind is that you're not gonna work every single day unless you have a crew okay well it's most likely if you're watching this video and you're signing off you don't have a crew you're not gonna work every day and here's what I mean you're gonna worry you're gonna work you're gonna work right now so you get three days it's all working and all sudden you're chipper trucks full of chips you need to fuel up everything you got logs laying around your needs grease stuff I mean you have maybe something grow okay you have to factor in for maintenance days right so if I want to make today I want to make five grand a week okay I have to understand and I'm not gonna spend five days that week making money probably only gonna get three to four days and I'll have to have a day of doing maintenance dealing with you know material things like that bidding job right as if you're a owner you have to go on good jobs if you're going to work and you're the owner you have to factor that in so you're not gonna be working every single day so keep that in mind your time your price because your dad said 50 thought I'm gonna charge this amount per day you want to add a little bit more because you're only getting so many days of the week it's a business owner to actually work unless you have a crew you know when you're bidding treat or be likable you know have some personality don't be afraid to joke around a little bit you know lose something you know that sometimes it can be kind of a high attention you know think four people one because they have to spend money on something they don't want to or if it's an emergency job you want to loosen things up makes me feel comfortable be confident what you're doing but be likeable and be personable and it makes them feel more comfortable about having you do their true it's always best to go and be in front of the person to give them a price and do the bidding that with because to use you instead of like in my example would be showing up to the house looking at the tree and leaving a bit on the porch I mean there's nothing necessarily wrong with that I do that all the time but it's a better result if you actually get to meet the owner talk to them and the big go over with them it gives the homeowner a face to put with the bid and that's important and I see that I find the windows bit more often than just dropping a bit on the porch never bid over the phone or the internet or over pictures okay this is always something that you can't see if you want if it's all for though I got bad people call me they're like maybe an hour two hours away and they just want to trees down so you don't really have to take your gear I might give them a roundabout price and say hey it's gonna be at least this much but I'm gonna come probably the day that I would work on it and I'm gonna tell you if it's gonna be more you know if I see things like power lines gas line all those things were already talking about looking at and given in that option and a lot of time you can kind of weed out some of those things rather than driving two hours to just give a big you know when you're in the owner and you're the worker it's hard to do that so keep that in mind all right everybody this is the end of this video I hope it helped you I hope you enjoyed watching it remember I'm just your average Joe arborist just like you okay I'm just trying to help spread what I know nothing that necessarily it's the best or just this gives you something to either build off of or add to what you're already doing stay tuned I hope you like my channel because I got some cool things coming up here I'm looking in the works and maybe some merchandise right some cool t-shirt stuff also I'm giving away a pretty cool climbing device here in a couple weeks of stay tuned for that video all you have to do is watch the video and comment on it and you can have a chance to win so I hope you guys enjoyed it thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Joe Bisping

Views: 25,297

Rating: 4.934236 out of 5

Keywords: joe bisping, tree work, how to bid tree work, tree removal, arborist, Bisping & Seyler Tree Service LLC, tree takedown, arblife, tree climber, landscaping, tree business, tree, bidding trees

Id: EZMMAmvDN8c

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 07 2019