Originally Posted by Ekka

Brad, this is how it went down for me.

When I first put my ad in the local paper here there were 8 ads. In the early days I would get around 15 calls a week, this was 1 local paper and Brisbane has about 10!

Now I'm in 3 and get 3 calls a week.

It is winter and many ads have been pulled, but there still remains 17 ads in the paper for the area I live in. In summer it goes to 28ish.

The intensity of the door knockers over the last 3 years means many people dont get to call, they're haggled at the door.

Regarding the 18" chipper. You not only require the chipper but a suitable truck to pull it then some-one to drive it. The skills shortage will see you get some legend drivers and chipper operators. Truck drivers who sit on their ass with a HR licence get $25/hour so why bust ya ass for a tree crew for less than that.

Then you have to get the work for it, so you'll have to increase you advertising yet the return on that is low but you also have to be cheap to get the job. This then becomes a spiral of death. You need to own that gear and have contracts with councils/schools etc. With the recent housing boom there's no shortage of refinanced big chippers getting towed around.

It's tough, the toughest I have ever seen, the pricing is low and up here we dont do much pruning where skills and knowledge may over ride a cheap quote. When the tree remains what you get is important unlike a take down.

I'm sad to here Sydney's the same, I thought the TPO's down that ways would have cut down on the hacks. With the drought up here there's also an army of lawn men cutting trees.