It’s one thing to project the financial results you want. It’s something else to do the right things to produce those results. And it’s a whole other process to become the person who can make it all happen.

My ongoing investment in personal/professional development opened my eyes to many opportunities in arboriculture. A shocking discovery: most arborists and tree care companies are oblivious to their full potential, failing to scratch the surface of true success and fulfillment.

I wondered how a tree service could struggle financially. If you take a look at the environmental and business landscape, success favors the arborist. In this evolving era, it appears learning a trade is beneath the typical online influencer. As people become funneled into digital worlds, knowledge of the natural world erodes. As people become less active, our aerial-arborist feats become more Marvel-like.

This is the perfect setup, creating high demand for our services amid a declining supply of skilled and knowledgeable companies. We should be profitable. But why aren’t we? It’s not your market, your competition, your background – it’s you.

The author presents on “The
Financial Playbook” at TCI EXPO ’24 in Baltimore last fall. All photos courtesy of the author.

Developing a framework for success
Combining my powers as an accountant, arborist and author, I developed a framework to supercharge countless tree care professionals – inspiring them to not give up, despite business woes. This is what I call “The Financial Playbook for Tree Care Professionals.”

You can teach a tree company owner how to read financials and how to engage in the correct business activities, but it won’t lead to sustainable growth. You see, your financial results are like a tree’s canopy; the specific actions you take are like the trunk. But what creates sustained growth starts with you, the inner workings of your mind, what is not as apparent – the root system, if you will.
Root work may not be as exciting as AI, but it is necessary for creating not just a profitable business, but a truly wealthy life, and one that is holistic.

Creative instinct
When you teach someone a bunch of steps, it will only confuse them if they do not have the right mindset in place. On the flipside, a person with the right mindset can easily figure the right steps to achieve success. This is because they are utilizing creative instinct over technical thought.

This concept struck a chord with me when I took a guitar course. The instructor said his goal was to help his students replace technical thought with creative instinct. Now, when you hear “creative,” you may think art, music, design, etc., but creativity, imagination and critical thinking are encompassed in the highest forms of awareness. In fact, someone with a company more successful than yours probably knows it has nothing to do with their “intelligence.” They are just more aware of the possibilities around them. While you may focus on the roadblocks in the tree care industry, they are locked into the possibilities.

And just as a tree has a mortality spiral, a person in creative flow reverses the spiral to grow upward instead of defeating themselves. They unlock unmatched mental bandwidth, block out failure, block out competition and climb to new levels. There is no “competition,” only you. That is a tough pill to swallow for some, because it forces you to take 100% accountability for your actions.

Arborists are super professionals, but you have to believe it if you want to climb to the next level. All graphics courtesy of the author.

Selective focus
The majority of “The Financial Playbook for Tree Care Professionals” dives into mental constructs and paradigm shifts. But this is the cool part – being able to design a profitable tree care service will be the smallest benefit from what you learn. You will gain greater social awareness, better communication/marketing skills, a stronger voice, mastery over emotions/selective focus, power networking and the ability to integrate the power of story to enhance your message, release trauma to activate more energy and bulletproof your sales process, to name just a few benefits. Just by understanding the root of your thoughts, you can achieve so much more.

During the beginning of my arborist career, I was still employed as an accountant. I attended networking functions, amazed by how some individuals could work a room effortlessly. Some people got it, others didn’t, or so I thought. More than a decade later, I can go to any networking event, build connections and gain tree care clients without thinking about it.

Shortly after TCI EXPO ’24, I lost control of my truck while driving over loose gravel at a ridiculously slow speed – on Christmas Eve. My training in personal growth, generating creative flow, reclaiming mental bandwidth and shifting my perspective worked miracles in a dire situation. I remember practically laughing at the situation – not because I’m crazy, but because that day could have been my last day.

Instead of crying about the situation, I flexed a muscle, because after a hospital checkup, I felt unscathed. From helpful bystanders and neighbors to law enforcement and medical staff, I conversed with them all, making them laugh, too. The moral of the story: You can be doing all the right things and something still can go wrong; the answer is the power of selective focus.

Your perspective matters
Now, if you have unwavering focus, what could you accomplish? Think about it. Instead of looping on “this is wrong, that is wrong, I hate this, this is driving me crazy” – stop, stop, stop. That’s a victim complex, and victim complexes block your awareness of opportunity and abundance. It is an “us against the competition” frame of mind that promotes scarcity.

Let me ask you something. Does your “competition” wrap chains and barricade your home like a Looney Tunes skit to prevent you from leaving your home and going to work? Does your “competition” tell you you can’t market better? Is it your competition holding you back – or you? “My competition is working for cheap.” Well, what’s stopping you from being the premium service provider? Get creative. That’s when you will find your answers. As Kenny Rogers explained (in his song “The Gambler”), every hand is a winner or a loser. It’s your perspective.

Ultimately, success and failure are one and the same. I see that most tree care professionals get ecstatic when they win a bid and are ready to close shop when they lose one. This roller-
coaster keeps you stuck. Regardless of whether you get the bid or not, guess what? You still have to get up the next day and go to work.

You get the bid. Now you have to schedule the work, or make sure it’s done, or make sure you handle the money properly or monitor your business systems.

If you don’t get it, guess what? You have to do some more marketing, follow-up, sales training, something. Seeing that the two – success and failure – lock together, you can tune your focus, conserve your energy and deliver more value in your tree care service.

Tree care is a simple business model, and with a clear mind you can develop stronger business systems.

You get what you resonate with
The art of interpersonal communication is fading, but being able to read eyes, faces and body language can dramatically improve your sales results. You can decipher who’s close-able and who’s not.

Now, most sales training will teach you how to magically close anyone. It’s like mind games, and you don’t have to do that. I discovered that you get what you resonate with. Like in music, you can usually tell when a note is out of key, even if you’re not a musician. When I started to resonate with the idea that there is a market that will pay a premium for tree services, and that I will deliver exceptional quality in return, I started to receive more clients that fit that criteria.

Accidents happen – it’s how you deal with them that determines personal growth and success. The author’s truck after a crash last winter.

This also is win-win thinking. Why should you destroy your body for pennies as your client talks you into slashing your price? That’s lose-win. And don’t take advantage of your clients, either. That’s win-lose. Everything should be win-win, and if it ain’t win-win, don’t do it. When you’re losing, that kills your winner mindset and throws you into a downward spiral – like a tree-mortality spiral. Once the groundwork is laid and your mental root zone is decompacted, it’s easier to produce the result you’re striving for.

Switch your thinking
Business is a culmination of activities, like a series of levers. You can increase leads, improve your close rate, fine-tune your pricing, create recurring offers and/or boost your efficiency. Take these activities and systematize them. Ask the famous reporter questions: Who, what, when, where, why and how? To get granular, think about each position, including:

• Job description.
• Compensation package.
• Accountability metrics.
• Succession plan.

Take note of the potential revenue generation and cost structure of each position. This switches your perspective from job building to business building, employee expense to team-member investment. This is a great exercise that can aid you if you have your sights on growing, scaling or exiting your company. Also create a monthly, weekly, daily flowchart of all activities for helping your management team.

Focus on SRS for business success
I like to focus on “SRS” to increase company value:

• Skills = Expand professional knowledge.
• Relationships = Delegate applicable tasks and improve marketing message.
• Systems = Fine tune your business processes.

Reading financial statements doesn’t take a four-year degree like my journey, but once you understand the inner workings of your business, the numbers tend to make a lot more sense.

This article is based on the author’s presentation on the same subject during TCI EXPO ’24 in Baltimore.