Ep 14 Secrets of Scaling a Tree Surgery Business with George Blake

Welcome back to the tree surgery podcast. Today, I've got George Blake from Blake Treecare. George, you're based in culture store and near culture store? Yeah. Yesterday, I had George in for one of our one-day masterminds and he decided to stay over and come in today and do the podcast with us to thank to stay in over. How did you find yesterday? Amazing. You know sometimes as a business owner you think, right, let's do this, let's do that and it's good to come on a course like that makes you realise you need to just focus on the little things. Yeah, the little things and they amount to the big enlarging. So it's good to have in that from yeah, other business owners that you can make sure you just keep focusing on doing the little things. Yeah, doing the basics right. Exactly. I think people sometimes come and think where's a secret source? Where's the like, where's the secret pill like? How do I make millions of pounds? But actually, like we said yesterday, it's just about getting the basics right and just doing that consistently really, really well. So anyway, let's about that more about you. So tell us about how you got into the industry and when did you start? So 2007, 2008 went to Otley College, which was over it, which way, but before that, that was after school. So before that, worked for a guy, Richard Fordham, just down the road from myself, did my work experience there at school and yeah, that was really good. So that was a good insight into it and all the ways on Saturdays and half terms and stuff like that. Growing up on a small holding, always done a bit of climbing trees as you do. So doing a bit of firewood as well. And then from that sort of left school done the Otley College, we was in the recession that sort of time. So I did another year doing welding and fabrication, but yeah, after that, then went into full time doing tree surgery, working for the guy up the road, Richard, and then also doing my own bits weekends, evenings and grew it from there really managed to do quite a lot of the climbing and you're getting involved with a climb and got a harness for my 16th birthday. Love it. So you're doing it since day one, then really? Yeah, Christmas Day. My friend who I worked with, Richard, he came around on Christmas Day Boxing Day with his climbing kit as well. So yeah, climbing trees. Like doing that and yeah, so from that, it just kept on getting better, going out your comfort zone, constantly just going out your comfort zone and getting better and better and yeah, building up a tolerance to be able to be a quick and efficient upper tree. Nice. And what sort of work did you start doing in the industry? Before you started your own farm, what sort of are you doing for your first job? Mostly domestic, done a little bit of forestry, crick-a-bite willow stuff, but yeah, mostly it was domestic, people's gardens, conifers, yeah, bread and back. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, quite a deserved a bread and butter, but yeah, yeah, yeah, got efficient upper conifer and a conifer hedge, doing, doing those, getting them nice and level, sometimes going out there with a bigger sore to get it so it's nice and flush on a hedge and stuff. So yeah, bread and butter was that and logs as well, you know, doing that evening's weekends, but also Richard, he had a large firewood company as well, so involved with that quite heavily, so yeah, it was a good mix, lot of different sort of works. And then how did you come about starting your own tree farm? So yeah, doing it for, I guess, everyone starts it, friends, family, neighbors, working for them, doing it in the evening's weekends, and then, yeah, getting to know people that are landscapers and gardeners, doing work for them, my uncle was a gardener, so he got a few jobs, bits and pieces like that and bought a stump grinder, sort of yeah, maybe 2014, I think it was over me until I was six, yeah, that was a bit of a beast, and then bought actual big cage trailer, 14 foot cage trailer from my boss before that, we used to hop my mum's horsebox, one of a few jobs for me, bought a 14 foot cage trailer and then used that to, yeah, get all the rubbish back, used to fill that up, cut it all up, dice it up, before we had to buy the chip or anyway, well, we just all got to start somewhere, everything, that's a thing, it's just like you just got to do what you can when you start something from scratch, it is, you know, trailers, horseboxes, old defenders, whatever it is, just to get off the ground, right? Yeah, how old were you when you started your business? So worked, it's up way up from when I was working for Richard, doing mine bits and pieces, I had sort of like my cards set up, had my insurance, my own accounts because I was self employed, so working as a sole trader, first of all from 2012, yeah, and then 2017 made, or 2016 made the bought a few of bigger bits of kit, the truck and the chip are only bought that in 2016, and then 2017 sort of made the jump, dropped my days from working for three days, then and then the added mine bits and pieces and then made 2017 sort of made the jump to go from my own, started from there, and yeah, that whole time was evenings, weekends, 100 hour weeks, 70 hour weeks, just constant just, yeah, doing anything and everything. So starting a business is like the rocket taking off, like you're going to use 80% of fuel, just getting it off the ground and doing those long days, like doing 10, 12, 14 hour days, like you're just trying to get money, money in the bank, when you've got it from scratch, you've just got to do what you can, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, and yeah, before that added, bought the 8 of 56 more, so in the evenings where we make Charlie, just going to cut and grass, things like that, doing bits of tree work as well, so yeah, getting as much money as you can to buy the ladder, the blower, the hedge card, the chance to just keep investing in the kit and keep investing it to, yeah, build it and grow it and keep doing that. I love it. And what challenges you find, you come up against when you first started in the nice first few years? Getting the right guys to help you do the jobs. I guess it's staff, but yeah, good people, I went to college with that started when I first started, one guy Lawrence met him in a smoking area, but he still works with us today, you know, so all that time ago, now he works on the website and the development of the company and SEOs and stuff, so his role has transitioned into that, but first of all, it's sort of being a groundy and doing that, so nice. Other challenges is the customers, you know, dealing with customers, getting it right, getting pricing it for the right amount of money is something I've never really done too much of, so pricing it right and when the customer comes back to say, "Oh, can you do any cheaper?" And you drop it 100 pounds and it's like looking back and he's like, "I just dropped 100 pounds." He always do that and then it's always the worst job as well. It's always the one that ends up running over the one that you give a little bit of discount work to. 100%, so like they say five words to you, then five words to save them 20 pound a word. It's just like working it out a lot of things like that, so, yeah, it's looking at what you're pricing are and having faith in it and looking at what you've promised. I've all made those mistakes, haven't we, where we've been like in a conifer job and we've priced it for a two days and we'll still be there four days later. I remember doing that when I first started and thinking never again. That's it. Yeah, the conifer's very underestimating. Yeah, some of them come down easy and think, "Thank you for the cheaperers and others, a denser trucker." And yeah, you don't realise them. Yeah, at the back of their head, you've got trim bag and going around the neighbors, it all takes time and yeah, time scales, but as long as you want to work hard, get through the work and just be relentless with it and just, yeah, get as much time and. Nice. And so the guy that's still working for you now, so he's one of your first people that started for you. Yes. Well, I do think he stayed around for so long. He's quite good to be able to have somebody who's committed and stays within the company and watches it grow, right? Yeah, well, so about four years ago, he left to do media marketing for another company, not a true surgery company, but a large sort of scale company in London, kept in contact, yeah, gotten really well, still spoke to each other and he moved more into the SEOs and the website design and he built our newer website. He'd done that in 2023 and, yeah, worked well with us and, yeah, the partnerships still been there, saving. Another couple of guys have been a sort of, yes, since a year from when it started, there's such a pair of you, sort of, my right-hand man, he took on the job role of being able to do the quoting and looking at the jobs. Which, yeah, how do you find that drawing around looking at the jobs? First of all, you do it in the evenings, yeah, this when you do it in your spare time, you go out with a family and you're like, oh, God, can we go to London today? Well, I've got a job to look at down the road trying to work around that and do that, but then doing it as your actual sole job because you've got enough guys that you got to do it for four days a week to look at the work and then Perry coming into that role and taking over that, you get so much time back. It's incredible, but yeah, he loves it, he's a natural born salesman, so doing that, putting through courses, the sales course, management course, doing that and the personal development for himself, me as well, to keep on growing through the company, has been incredible, you know, so you've got to make sure you keep doing that. But I think that's really smart, I think that's really smart, because I spent quite a few years training myself, like after I lost it all, I went on this mission to go on all these different courses and then I'd go back and I'd come back off a course and I'd relay it all to the team and they'd just be like doing their work and then be like, 'Fuck, now Henry's doing another course again.' And then I realised I was trying to get him to do things, and I realised that like one thing I wasn't doing is I was training me, but I wasn't training my team, and then now we started doing that more and more and more and more. So what you've done there, it's really smart to be going, 'Right, I've got this guy here, let's put him on some courses', because then everyone in the company's benefits, and then you get the buy-in more from the team, and people go, 'Actually, this guy, he's been really committed to putting me through training, I won't stay in longer, right?' So you're not just growing yourself from the company's growing, but you need people to grow with it. Yeah, yeah, so keep it as smart, be like that. Yeah, good, and yeah, I just think like we talked yesterday, people always wanted more time, but the only way to get more time is to be able to leverage other people's time and be able to trust people, and then to be able to trust people, you need to be able to know they can do a good job, job and then being able to do the training is amazing. So, so how are things like in your business today to moving on what 10 plus years, how are things now? Really well that the team like go there in the morning, the team guy out, do the jobs and the money, you get great feedback from customers. Yeah, some days, if someone gets broken, this didn't happen or a bit of road rage maybe, but all in all, yeah, the team that we've got are incredible, you know, to be able to do that and how everybody knows what their jobs are. The team meetings, I don't do them enough, but they really help doing those once a month, but I need to do more religiously, you know, yeah, spending more time with the team as good as what I am, spending time with the team, I need to do more of that, that's one thing. Yeah, communications key and it is, it's one of those things, it's trying to fit it all in and we meet every month, but sometimes it goes to six weeks, because life is the way business gets in the way, but it sounds like you've got a really good culture there. So, how have you built that culture? Have you implemented anything to do that? How would you find putting that into the business? Yeah, so I've got a big, big board on the workshop door, there's got a tree that Lawrence, who still works, he created, and we've got sort of the core values on there, you know, and all of the, yeah, and stuff and so every day, this is subliminal messages, you know, so I say every day and in the team meeting some guys will bring it up and yeah, joke about some of the words on there and stuff, but you know, it's good sort of that everybody sees that and yeah, you can see that and it does sort of fill it down with everyone and how they represent the company on site with customers and stuff, it, you know, it really works and getting that team, team player, you know, team, team player is key, it really is, it's having the right team of everyone bonding together and like if you walk around the yard and notice all of our different signs, I say for tomorrow and all that kind of stuff and the boys do, it sinks in, it sinks in slowly and I think a lot of, like in the past when I used to be in, it worked for people 20 years ago, the culture's just thing wasn't there, I mean people don't understand what culture is a lot of time in business, but really it's just about looking after your team and getting everyone pulling in the same direction, right, so and then it creates a good place to work and what you get off the back of that is like what you're experiencing where the customers are happy, the boys are happy-ish, they're not always fully happy, but they're happy-ish and you get good job, job satisfaction, so sounds like you've done a great job with building a solid culture there. Yeah I mean, me, you say I've done a great job, it is everyone wanting to work together, I'm very lucky, we are on our base as a small holding, so got Tracy, my mum in the office, which is the orchestra, you know, with all the, yeah, the public master. Yeah, the public master, that's it, yeah, definitely, and then weighing my dad, he come on board full-time in 2022, but beforehand he was sort of, yeah, behind the scenes fixing this sortness out and getting everything ready and bits and pieces, but he's on board full-time now, and yeah, it's just having that back up. Yeah, actually it becomes back at the end of the day, this is broken and then he's sort of next morning, it's ready to go. Yes, someone has a bit of handy, like my old man's like that, he comes in and fixes things, one of the biggest things he does is fixes the trailer cables, so you know, the trailer light cables, like because the boys just like ran them in, they've fallen up falling apart, and then I went and came in last year when I come back into the business, and I found a box of about, I think there's like 20 plus cables, so all the they were doing is every time one would break, they would go, oh, Sophie, your office manager, whoever, can you buy another one, and we'd order with Amazon, and you'd think like how many times that's happening, and it's a lot, and now like that's just one of those things that all they need to be quite often is just rewired, or wire cart or check that there's not wire done, and they're just constantly, we've got one cycle now, taking moments of my dad, they come back the week later and they've got this big box of cables, so you kind of need that, don't you, someone that's just on the ball, we've just keeping everything going, because again, that's like we're talking yesterday, lot of the staff, you think they're pissed off about a lot of big stuff, but they're not, it's like a stripper that's not working, or like a chipper, or lights that aren't on in the morning, and there were those little things built on the plates, yeah, they're on the right number plates, they order to pack an unplaced, now we're in the van, so we'll put the right number plates, yeah, it says the little things are often, it is, it is, and so how are you finding, I've known a lot of people in the industry at the moment, a little bit quiet, how are you finding this year and last year, if you've, like it's a dip in work, or how are you finding it? Yeah, so we do track what our quote, how many quotes we do, what the conversion rates are, and from last May was diabolical, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, it wasn't very good at all, but following back, or going backwards every May, because of nesting season, that knock on effect always comes, so we spend a lot of time in May usually doing the firewood, and cutting all the logs up, splitting them, getting them shared, so that's ready for the following winter, so we sort of use that as a fallback for when we're quiet, and do that, so that's a good part of the business that picks up and can be busy when the domestic side is quiet, but this year, Perry, more than me, we've used that time strategically to bring up golf courses, ground workers, stuff like that, you know, just touching base network, and doing that, so using it efficiently, rather than running my head, just checking, so we've got no work, we're going to then get everyone going, and so it's not doing that, just, yeah, using the time, yeah, and it means we're doing a lot of output, which is what you're doing, you know, you know, marketing's great, because you look waiting for the phone to ring, and if you do good marketing, it does, but when it gets quiet, that's when you need the output, because we were the same last May, June and July, we were dead, like, I think we got down to about three days with four or five teams, and it was like, proper tie, and you started panic a little bit, but I'd been out the business a bit, and then the last year, we've put so much into sales at this year, we've booked up for, I think, mid-July at the moment, it's beginning of June, I'm not sure when it's podcast going out, but we've got about six, seven weeks work, which sounds interesting. It does, it needs a lot of output, it needs that time to get to do that, it sounds like you've got a good guy in Perry, who's helping you push the business forward, but I remember working with a business coach a few years ago, and we went through our P&L for like five years, and he was like shocked, with, like, what it looks like through winter, we'd be doing like 150, 160 K, and then through summer, it'd be going down to like 60, 70 K, and he was like, "Fuck it, how did you manage this?" And I was like, it's just the industry, and it's getting worse now for the right reason, but because of ecology, bird nested in, it's that time, and then also you get the perfect storm, when you do commercial work in April, the budget's reset. So quite often, people hold on to budget for a while, councils, local authorities, actually, we're just going to hold on to it for a couple of months, and work out how we're going to spend it, and then it slows down massively. So I think it's the same challenge, but I like what you do with the logs, because it's a good way to just keep everyone busy, know that you're, you're investing in something that's going to pay back in the future. Last year, we did a charity work for a week, when we were really quiet, we just sent one team into a local sends school, they had a full big fall in oak tree, and I think that just, even if you can just find something, it's not making us huge amount of money, but it just helps with one, it's nice thing to give back a bit, but also it just helps keeps the guys busy and you've not got them sat around in the yard. So definitely. Yeah, nice. So what's your future plan for the business? Future plans. I don't want to grow too much more. There's about sort of 16, 18 of us, including yeah, office staff and guys in the yard. Yeah, just keep on working on the small incremental differences, you know, you can just, yeah, just work on tweaking it. So it is a very profitable business. Keep the logs going, you know, that's great for the local area, for people locally, gets our truck about Perry, like to make him a director of the company and work like that, and also Keegan, who's sort of in the forestry side of the company, do similar sort of thing with him as well. Try and do that just to give them more responsibility, give them not so I can do less, but so then I can work on different tasks in the business and work on different things. And they get invested by in them as well, because they see that they're part of the business, we're doing something similar with Mike, who's been me 15, 16 years, you know, we're going to be bringing him in to do a game shareholder director, just because one he deserves it, because he's put like, I mean, a phenomenal amount of time. They're giving their life up. They're like, they're like their life sentence to your company. And those kind of people, they're almost an anomaly these days. You don't tend to get people that stave places for decades. So most people, we're in out in four, five, six, seven years, sometimes even in a couple of years. So you really like want to keep hold of the you good guys that, you know, they're the only way to build a business and I love your e-fosses about the team. Like it's not about you, it's about the whole team, and I think that's a great thing you're doing. And the last, or however, since I've started, we've spent a lot of money on kit and buying a lot of equipment. We've got a lot of equipment around us now. So, yeah, we've got another guy who's doing his HGV course as well. So, yeah, just a couple of apprentices doing their CS31. So just, yeah, it's been time and money on the team. What I've learned in the last couple of years with personal development, you've got to invest in yourself. So if I can do that with the guys and just upskill them, bring them up to the level that you want them to be at. It'll only be more profitable for the company. So, yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because it's just all about investing in that team. Yeah. Like, team is everything. You know, I relate a lot of everything we do is about teamwork and having everyone pulling in the same direction is key. You know, we were talking about yesterday, like our teams that go out, they are the guys that make the money. I don't make the money. I've got the guys in the office don't make the money. He's a guy who's got money. If they're committed, happy, you know, as you say, there's going to be a little issues from time. So I'm people are human. But, you know, you know, I've got a lot of work to do with the team. So, it happens, people make mistakes and shit happens outside of life, but if you can have a good workforce that feel appreciated, feel respected, also they've been upskilled, it makes it night and day, a lot of our reviews, and I'm sure, if I read your reviews, they'd be similar, where we don't do customer service training with our guys, but they'll be like, the guys were attentive, kind, caring, they did a great job, they cleared up really, really well, and you read it and go, well, they obviously did live in great customer service, but I think it's because we look after them, they want to do a good job, they take pride in their work, so I guess it's similar to you. Yeah, that's it, and the last couple of years worked on sort of last Christmas, doing like an annual bonus scheme as well, which worked quite well, you know, making the accountability for guys, a lot less kits being left on site, you know, over the last few months, you know, whereas sometimes it was a chainsaw pile or battery and things like that, you know, that's gone down massively, minimise that, even the late or sickness and stuff like that, you know, sort of doesn't eradicate it, but it's sort of, yeah, and it never will do, but it just gets less and less and less, and there's always going to be shit that goes wrong, and it's always been things that break, but it's just trying to keep that to a minimum, and treat people like human beings, and work out, you know, we had the debate yesterday about whether you charge people, don't charge people, but I think when you get into that, that's only charging people, you're just missing out on a trick, or just trying to understand why something's happened, and be able to be able to work that out. So how do you find employing people? Yeah, it's like finding stuff, it's always the biggest question people can't find stuff in this injury, how do you find that? Yeah, referral has worked quite well, beforehand in the past, I've given people sort of money as a referral, if they can recommend somebody, I haven't done it recently just because, yeah, where staff haven't been with us the full year maybe, but it's very difficult, but going even on like chat GPT, can you give me 10 questions to ask tree surgeon and having those phone call conversations and putting, just keep asking questions, asking the right questions, say, look, we'll do a trial week, see how you get on with that, and then, yeah, you can do like a trial month or a trial for three months and probation periods and stuff like that, not saying just do a trial day, right, yeah, full time. Yeah, because anyone can turn up and be good for a day. Yeah, that's it, it takes a lot to be turned up to be good for a week and longer, doesn't it? So I'll say to everyone, say, look, I'll ask for feedback, because I'm not with you on site, I'll get feedback from everyone else, so if you're good in front of them, you've got to impress them, not impress me because they'll tell me good and bad, so whatever you do on site or however you are and very often guys, you know, I'll ask them not the good team that we've got to say, so how they get on? That is not one of us. Yeah, we'll go, yeah, nice, yeah, we want them to keep them, don't even go anywhere else. Yeah, it's only done three days, try and get into the five days and yeah, so. Well that's a thing, can you be able to good culture? Like your team want to get good people, good people, good players, they don't want to work with people that are dragging their feet and sitting on their phone and, you know, not getting out of the van and all the rest of the other stuff, the traits of people of the guys that don't want to do it. And they players want to play it, they play it, so yeah, so I think you've got a good culture there. It's difficult as well, because you see the adverts, oh, job and knock, you leave early on a Friday, it's as well, and you get paid more and do less, but yeah, and I do well, that'd be great, but you need people to turn up, do a good day's work for a decent day's money and put the grafting, you know, and if there's an extra job to do on the way home, get it done. If the company does well, you do well, you know, it's for the great ethos. Yeah, with the bonus, you know, it's not just the negatives that you take money off, if you get faster reviews or great feedback or other people give you good feedback, that really works well, employ the month, we've done that, and it's such hard work. We put it in there, it's like, right, can everyone give me their vote? Can everyone give me their vote? And you've got a message in all individuals, how do you use your vote? And you've got to almost drag it out of them, the information, but what that delivers or brings to everyone in regards to the 50 quid for employing the month, you know, what I want it, what it's like, yeah, decent. All those little comments that everyone has that's given me a reason to Christmas, releasing them into the group chat, so this is what people have said over the years. Yeah, that we did last year, first year, so I've just got to make sure I keep continuing that. Yeah, do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Nice. And you mentioned apprenticeships, so you get fresh people in the industry, you get them through apprenticeships. Yeah, some have been bad where they fell asleep on side and on the bush, some have gone really well and going off and doing their own jobs on the weekends and, you know, really taking to it, like, duck to water and, yeah, putting your time and effort into the young guys as I've tried doing, or have emailed to Otley College and Rital College near me, I want to do just going and have a talk, you know, about what my learnings are, as a business owner, as a tree surgeon and how I can help them and stuff like that. Almost, I'd like to create a booklet, you know, to give them, yeah, I've read every through there and you'll be great. Yeah, I love that. I think that's great because it's our responsibility. Like, you hear people, like, all the time talking about, like, there's not enough people in industry, there's not enough people in the industry and everyone wants to finish that up all today, like, because everyone's busy and they're thinking about tomorrow, they're not thinking about a year, two years, three years time, they're thinking, I've got a job on, I've got a job next week, I've got a job the following week, I've got loads of work on for the next two months, I need someone who's a great climber today and they're not thinking about the long term and going actually, like, I need to invest and I think we've all got a responsibility as business owners to be trying to pull more people in and not just expecting the other association or the colleges to try and pull people in, it's all of us to try and get those younger people on board. And yes, we've had some terrible apprentices, like, we have, but, like, I remember when I was like 18 years old, like, I didn't have a ****. Yeah, I was clueless, but, like, still, even if you have an apprentice, it's a quite low risk thing to have because they're getting paid lower money. I mean, we never paid them the minimum because it's a hard job, but with lower money, you get a bit money from the college. And even if they don't work for you for 10 years and they just do a year or they do their apprenticeship and they go and work somewhere else and bumble around, it's another person going into the part of the industry and helping and getting this staff shortage that we seem to have, like, back up again. So I think, I think that's a smart move to be working with those apprentices. You also mentioned HGV, so are you starting to use lorries now? Yeah. So not so much for chipping into, but in the equipment and kit around, the tractor and the winches, the telehanders doing that, which it's not so much going to be a full-time job. It's, you finish a job and rather than having to ring up and try and get prices and someone there, I can't do it for two or three days. Like, we'll have the lorries driven there by the guy. So do the job, load them up, go to the next one. So it's more for efficiency. It's not so much for another revenue stream. It's more to make it flow. Yeah. And that's a thing. It's just trying to be more productive. It's trying to be more productive. That's what we're looking to do is buy an 18-tonner with a high app on it. So we can go and pick wood up because then we've not got free blocks being paid, whatever they've been paid, 40 grand a year, to go and then pick, like spend half a day ringing up word or the hour and then overloading the van, going back some forwards. You need to send the lorries at the end of the day and they can go and do another job. Yeah. Now they can disappear. Yeah. As long as it's somewhere the lorries can reach. And I think, like what you're saying is that you're taking it away from the lads having to do anything. It's just making them more productive. And I think productivity's key. If we can just try and squeeze a little bit more out. And that's why I've got like, are you ready for tomorrow everywhere? Because I think if you can set you, the guys can come home and spend 10, 15 minutes organising themselves the next day. It's like what I always say. Most people go, oh, they do their own life, which is all fine. And they come in like a newborn baby the next day. And it's like, what's going on? What am I doing? And there's takes a while to like wake up and work it all out and get stuff sorted. It's all there but they before. You just jump in your van and chuck your tools in. I see it. Off you go. Preparation, yeah. Preparation. There's a pair and a fail. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Love that. Love that. Yeah. I think trucks and lorries are going to become more of a thing. I keep seeing as well like Vossa and lots of people getting pulled over and stuff. And Adam and Steve who are Swift Tree Swords and yeah, they did obviously did the podcast episode and that really like before they came into the mastermind. I'd not really thought about lorries. I knew like some of the council contractors guys have seven half tunners and they do that for a bit more productivity because they own a schedule of rates. But I'd always just looked at it and God, I don't want to give spend thousands to get my guys through HGV. What if they leave? But actually when I look at my business like all of our guys stay for 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years and longer. It's an irrational thought to think I'm going to spend some money on somebody and they're going to potentially leave. And again, like we're talking about, we're investing in people and that's what people generally want is to be upskilled, maybe a little bit more money. And I think it's the way the industry is going. When you look at like Australia and American stuff, obviously they drive around and big trucks is different country, bigger roads. But I think our industry will start to move more across to lorries as time goes on. So it's got to like, I think you said in a previous podcast on the ground works side of things. They put 18 ton of dirt in a truck and we only do two or three ton of wood chips maybe. But if you look at say a 10 ton tree, you've worn a lorry just to put it all on there, be unloaded, get back and it's not had much wear and tear, whereas overloading. Yeah, I've overloaded a truck a few times. I think everyone does. I think we all do. I think probably everyone listens to this podcast probably. It's difficult to not to like when you work out how much weight is in it, the tools, the guys, the chip are, and even the big box on the back, everything. It all adds up and before you know it, you can put a wheelbarrow, a chip on the back. Okay, we can't do this job. So yeah, I think it's definitely the way it's going. So what challenges do you feel like coming up in our industry? Do you see for the future as in challenges? Challenges for myself would be noon old. kid what to buy whether you buy new or buy old is having that mindset mentality and knowing what to do with that with the whole industry. I guess it's a problem there's always been a problem is the standard of work you said yesterday it's like yeah there's a lot of tree sessions out there how many good ones are out there so it's good that you've separated yourself from that I hope so but there's a lot if you could get some sort of something that's in the industry a lot of the association but it's got to be more appealing than the association. It's kind of it's just plateauing the accreditation and I've been in 10 years they've ever gone further than 350 members and that's been you know some people leave some people stay and it does need to have a lot of their courses you're done with the done of PTI course yeah and that was really good done the BS 5.8 free 7 the Impaction Reports on that I think that was CAB so I gave yeah the PTI has been massive helpful that was yeah doing that course but yeah I guess it's just trying to upskill everyone but I guess if you speak to an electrician or plumber they'd probably have the same conversations maybe yeah yeah I think those are now a lot more regulated aren't they plumbers maybe not so but could be registered or I think that's been taken over by something else electricians need to have everything signed off and there needs to be something else but I just don't know whether our industry's big enough to ever be recognized more but I mean I kind of hope with you know some of the instance the accents that have happened recently for fatalities that even the Q guard and situation you know the Toby Carvery the sicklemore gap that that's getting more recognized the public that like trees are really really important very important you can knock down like you go to a job where a ground works company started all that big development you can knock down a house in a year and rebuild it a tree that'll take four or five hundred years to get to that yeah yeah you can buy a tree for a hundred grand and put it in there but you can't you can't you can't you can't get that back and that's that's the sad thing isn't it like that Toby Carvery tree it was just unnecessary unnecessary feeling and it's tricky but yeah I agree there needs to be something more some more regulation but how that's ever gonna happen I don't know and the thing is is there are lots of good tree surgeons out there and lots of good people who can climb well and and do a good job but like I said yesterday it's it's actually getting the basics right and just doing things like answering the phone yes it helps massively yeah so many people don't answer phone or don't have a cool arching service or someone to be able to answer the phone but I think it needs it you know as you say it needs more than that doesn't it it needs to be like what I would like to see is every insurance company has to use a you know an arb approved or type accreditation you know all the counsels I didn't know before I started this mastermind that most councils up north you don't have to be able to prove nice it's like actually like people don't see the benefits they're not seeing the monetary gain I know that being able to prove good because it's good that I've got the health and safety in place and all that kind of stuff but generally people don't see the return well once you return on their investment of spending money on all the accreditation so I don't I don't know how that's gonna work but yeah you're right it needs to be it needs something that's gonna help level up your industry and not so many people doing cheap treeback but I guess with that is try and block out the noise you know I know there is a lot of bad things going on a lot of good things but try and just take little snippets little gold and nuggets of what other people are doing around you and take on the good things and the bad stuff just yeah let me get on with it don't worry about it just keep doing what you're doing focus on doing the basics get them done and just keep guys hitting me once we didn't do anything special to us to get this size and all this money in the bank we just answered the phone turned up when we said we would if we weren't gonna turn up we told them we weren't gonna get there and when we was gonna get there after you know so it's just then yeah it's just like basic customer services but like generally you don't people don't learn that especially when like yourself you've left school and you've done really well to learn all these things because you left school and we're trying to straighten tree surgery you know you've done it from day one which is like a lot of people in this industry and it is just about doing the customer service right and well and just be able to talk to people and getting those basics right yeah yeah love that love that so yeah I mean it's been a great podcast episode I've really enjoyed this and you've done really really well to get to where you are and I'm looking forward to you coming on the free day course in the next few months and see seeing what other little tweaks we can help you and what do you see like the future of the industry like lots changed it since you've started and we've got more mechs do you think it's gonna go more mech do you think what do you think like the influence of AI and people go away eyes to have no influence in the trees because they can't cut trees but what do you think the future is for that kind of stuff mech is that mechanical yeah yeah so with the ash die back I guess in roadside they have phenomenal bits of kit but with the tight roads and tight access that we've got in this country you'll still need for the the climbing and the cherry pickers but Kalam whose arm innovation he's got the VR mate that's something I'll see that at the art show and that is incredible I can see that especially a couple of our guys have ADHD and when we've done a first day course they had their phones out and the lady got annoyed you know so having that on there without that so I can see what he's got there coming in to the industry massively they'll be incredible to see that sort of yeah spread across all that innovation have just been able to live to put that VR set on and be able to just be in a woodland and be seen compression and tension on a see it's 30 31 and all that kind of stuff yeah phenomenal but yeah the first day courses or mapping a whole woodland taking out certain trees and you can see what it looks like before you've cut them down just going and looking at a job and quoting you'd be able to get a 3D image of the tree and then on the iPad tablet remove the canopy or make this tree a reduced tree right that's how it's going to look then you show to them right this is how it looks with one year's growth two years growth your own tree that you want a more light in your garden now is pushed out and you've got this how it's going to look like and then it would probably be able to tell you what the light is underneath a percentage of light you're going to lose underneath so something like that I can see I did not even thought about that like being able to use it for customers because like that's half the problem we have is like being able to explain to a customer but I want to butcher that tree like actually this is what it's going to look like but no but I want it like we've all been there where they're like no I'm just going to I'm just going to pay you I want to butcher that oak tree because we want more light and then you show them what it's going to look like yeah like a time that you can have like a picture of it done it right that's what it looks like here's a time lapse over the next five years press playing and as fast as anything they can see the growth of this tree and underneath have almost like a scale or a chart or a graph that shows you the lack of or the loss of light underneath and then say that is what it's going to happen so something like that would be really good yeah with that side of it I love that I'm not even thought because I obviously a calamity and we're talking about it and he's showing me a load of stuff on his computer when he came in and he just talked about the training aspect of it and I'm not even thought about showing the customers what they should pay it pay it now yeah but yeah I mean that is something I've not thought about that would be amazing because it is one of the biggest problems where people go but the customer just wants me to do a shit job and you know you see it on our table all the time you know who's butchered this tree and you know probably some of its times it's just someone doing bad tree work and other times it's the fact that the customer's on I just want that yeah you don't do it someone else yeah someone else you got a mortgage he's rocking a heart place but yeah and then with the AI I spoke to you earlier about it so there's a few gadgets you can buy this one if you were doing quotes and doing any quotes or looking at jobs you go get customers permission first but AI compass is called a fielding but this would be definitely it summarises it all transcribes it yeah and then you can take all the notes away from that job looking at a quote and yeah that's been a game trade offer like I've seen them advertised recently and I'm thinking of using one for me and I said earlier I'll use what bit for the zoom coaching calls that I do and again I'm not even thought about getting mic on of those because sometimes you'll go and do a survey a quote of a survey and he's looking at a hundred trees and he's got a bit of pay prescribing through it yeah he's right down but you can be like t1 that's it t1 on the north side and then you just get back you just download it on your phone or yeah on your phone on an app you just got it all makes it games yeah a lot of that but a lot of people say I'm worried about it but I mean another thing looking at what the industry robots what Tesla got going on with robots and stuff like I wouldn't get a car on finance but a robot I would get a robot on finance yeah a hundred thousand pounds I'd find out a way I'm trying to pay for it yeah get a robot but like I said about apprentices giving them a booklet you give a robot a booklet or a memory card or a microchip into it so that they know how to do the job so it just drags branches from the front to the back you know knows how to be careful of hitting the gutter and make sure it sweeps all the leaves out like like the drainage little things like that knows where the manholes are being careful across the lawn and with logs and stuff but robots I yeah fucking scary that that's what I mean I'm excited yeah yeah yeah yeah that's the future of it and there's so much innovation going on isn't there and I think it's about using it to keep improving your business keep improving the service being an innovator I love these ideas I do it's great yeah I'm excited yeah yeah it is the future in it yeah this is the merlose and the magnies again my goal five year goal would be to have one of their magnies and yeah have one during the tree work grapple saw on it be incredible just to be able to do that and minimizes I think a 60% faster or time it's amazing Eddie man who used to be on the mastermind he's got a he had a merlose he's now got a magnie and you know talking to him about the quantity of tree work that they do in a day like is insane and they had this. I can't remember the exact number, it's like a hundred pops in a row and they want to be reduced to the same size and I've done those before where you were in a state or somewhere when you're juicing and you keep iron it up, where's it going to be and you've got to climb up and you've got to rig it all down or knock big tops out and he just comes in and just everything's the same height, picks out, picks out, picks it out, gets a contract chipper in or I think he's got a highs hack and you just like pile it all up, chip it all goes to buy a mass seed, get a job done quicker, you get paid for the chip, happy days, yeah, incredible, yeah, like to say all the future holds is very, very exciting, scary, but exciting, yeah, so you've got scary and exciting in the same, yeah, same sentence you get, yeah, I don't think like all of it, the kit and the AI, I mean I said yesterday we used to have three girls in the office, we've now got one and I won't want to go and get another three girls in the office, just more I teach Sonia how to use chat GBT, she can use that as an extension of herself, it's like having a team, it's like P.A. for me, it is a C.K.A, they can help us with everything, health and safety, HR, you know, all the legal stuff, you know, it's just tenders, whatever it just, it can just speed up jobs that used to take hours and it takes minutes, yeah, so it's like, you know, if you listen to this podcast, you're not looking at it, I just start using and just start learning AI and I've tried to learn a lot of it and some of it blows my brain but even just using it as a basic level to help me write an email, it just saves me like where I failed everything at school, I'm not great at English and I used to really have to work hard on writing an email that would really make sense and be good English and now just chat GBT, it just does it and it's there, so yeah, cool, it's been amazing having you on George, thanks for coming down here, thanks for having me, people want to follow you, where's the best place to follow you? On Instagram, yeah, yeah, Blake Treake, I guess LinkedIn as well, George Blake or Blake Treake, but yeah, yeah, Instagram's probably the best thing, cool, all right, you've done phenomenally well with your business, I love the refus, I love your culture, I love what you're doing, I'm really excited to see what you're doing in the future and also work with you, yeah, working hard, isn't it, coming months and years, so yeah, thanks for coming on, George, thank you, cheers mate, cheers Henry, thank you,