I'm relocating this fall to start this company with my brother. Building the brand and back end now. Claude has been so instrumental in running numbers, writing blog posts for seo and really giving me a clear picture on how to organize a cluttered mind. If you guys haven't used Claude I encourage it. The $20 a month pays for itself in 5 minutes. Great to be in a community full of winners. Let's all keep winning

These two jobs taught me valuable lessons (first hand). Worth a lot more than the ~$5,000 in time/wear/broken teeth cost me. Fortunately, I used the crew day pricing tool and bid them ok even with the losses. Both jobs ended well and the land owners loved the result, it just cost time and frustration on my end. Rocky land is a lot harder on equipment than first thought. It threatens to remove your tracks at every turn (literally). I had to slow production from 1.5 acre/day to .75-1 acre/day. Ten seconds of inattention and my 275 walked out of a track (thought I had everything to put it back on but spent 2 hours chasing the right tools, stubby bottle jack and 6' pry bars). Even going slow and skimming most of the ground I knocked out two teeth (carbide) in the last hour of the job. The Douglas Hawthorn (thorn tree) is a beast. The mulcher rips foot long strips instead of chips. It bogs the head constantly, slowing production to 0.5 acres/day. It hides how big it is with wide spreading branches that cover a 30' diameter shielding from view the eight or nine trunks lurking inside,scheming to steal your time. I have now updated my estimate algorithm to include a "surcharge" for rocky ground and or thorn trees. Thorn trees will get knives instead of carbide. Hopefully that will increase production rate and the charge will cover the swapping of teeth.

So today got out my comfort zone and listened to Austin’s video and bided on sight for $8600 to clear out 25ft by 1000ft of dense brush customer seemed very impressed and said he will be calling us at the end of the week!!

Since I still have a main job, how do you guys handle answering the phones if you work a job where you can’t answer right away? My wife will be the one answering when I’m not able to. No problem there but… Do you guys have a separate phone or can you switch who the call is forwarded too? (Easily) Just curious what you guys do / what’s possible.

Goodmorning from Oklahoma. I am just getting ready to submit my first pretty good size estimate to the customer this morning on a 20 acre woodlot they’re wanting almost completely cleared. I am curious if anyone has any pointers or examples of how they itemize and describe each line item and the amount of detail you put into it. I’m a very ocd and detailed person but I’ve also heard it can be a bad thing to break things down too much. Any help is welcomed and be honest with me where I need it! Thanks.