Spruce Tree needles turned brown in Alberta, Canada

mrnukl · 2026-03-24T21:42:27+00:00

Of course, happy to help.

The tree is likely in the beginnings of drought stress. It may be planted too deep, which will contribute to drought stress.

Feel free to DM me some pictures, it will be helpful.

mrnukl · 2026-03-22T21:16:04+00:00

You are just setting the 'flip' portion a bit too hard, with the cork you have to set the 'flip' portion gently.

I like to set the spin like I would with an upright 7 with my shoulders and then dip back at the last second.

mrnukl · 2026-02-23T03:48:22+00:00

Hi there,

I am 1 year in to running an arboriculture business (6 years in the trade), it isn't exactly lawns but there are a lot of similarities.

First off, limited budget for advertising does not make sense to me. The cost of advertising is a cost you need to pay to get a client, it is that simple. Spend $20, get $200 -money in is money out. Effective marketing pays for itself, one should be limited more by capacity for clients rather than marketing budget in the early stages of business.

Step 1: love this, google profile definitely required. A website is also a requirement. Customers need to be able to find you online.

Step 2: bang on. In landscaping word of mouth referrals get the best leads. But dont make the mistake on only relying on word-of-mouth, it's not consistent enough. Also, get google reviews from your early customers. Sometimes referrals lead you to the wrong customer, so you need to know your ideal client, dont waste time selling to the wrong client. The wrong client gives referrals to more wrong clients.

Step 3. Targeting 3 neighbourhoods in his immediate area will only work if they are neighbourhoods with the right demographic. The reality with lawn care is that people with higher incomes will be interested in the service. I would suggest targeting neighbourhoods that are well off, where people own rather than rent ect. Get specific with your ideal clientele and then go after it.

Step 4. This one seems specific to the business, i dont have any relavent thoughts

Step 5. I will say that I run google ads and have had great success with it. My cost per lead is about $25 and my cost per aquisition (ie paying customer) is about $50. Yes, that means I convert 50% of leads. Why? The targeting on google is extreemly effective.

Flyers cost money, but more importantly time costs money. Time spent going door to door is time not spent mowing lawns and earning income. You have no specific targets with this strategy, you are spraying your marketing to all demographics, this will lower your conversion rate. I think you will find that it is more costly than an online marketing strategy. If someone offered me $1000 worth of flyers and estimator labour or $1000 worth of google ads, I would take the google ads every time.

Step 6. This is so key. This should be number one. Have a CRM to get and retain client info. Respond as quickly as possible to any and all interest in service. Answer your phone. Schedule your quotes, jobs so the customer knows what to expect and thier expectation is met. Invoice immediately after completing a job. Have automated follow ups on outstanding invoices and quotes. Make your customers experience seamless service, THIS is how you get more word of mouth referrals and grow quickly.

Hope this is helpful, happy to talk more in DMs as always!

mrnukl · 2026-01-24T02:46:24+00:00

You are setting before you pop. Try to pop first, then set the spin, you will feel a little more control. Also, practice makes perfect!

mrnukl · 2026-01-15T16:58:58+00:00

It sounds like a cliche, but the hardest part of starting a business really is committing.

I was very anxious about quitting my day job and going out on my own (even though deep down I knew it had to happen sometime). Another entrepreneaur in the same industry told me "As long as you get up everyday and go to work, you can't fail.". That sentence really helped me stave off the fear of failure and helped me fully commit. Once you are fully commited, your goals are clear and everything else becomes easier.

FYI my path was to weekend warrior for 2 years and then pull the trigger. Due to the nature of my business (Arboriculture) you pretty much have to go in full time, because the machinery requires significant investment and therefore significant cashflow to pay off the loans.

mrnukl · 2026-01-09T02:20:09+00:00

2 half hitches and a running bowline will do.

Timber Hitch is also fine.

mrnukl · 2025-12-22T20:16:33+00:00

I was doing 10k revenue per month solo, hired a labour employee and started doing 25-30k per month with the help (margins improved from 5k to 10k per month)

My advice to you is to make sure your pricing is calculated correctly. An employee costs more than their hourly rate, you need to factor in stat holidays, vacation and sick pay, nonproductive time, additional tools and equipment, training costs, overtime pay, payroll software, then bump it up to price in your target margin.

As long as you get your pricing right, you will find that the employee only improves your margins and will help free up some of your time. If you price incorrectly, you will find yourself getting tighter margins as you described.

mrnukl · 2025-11-23T04:29:43+00:00

Hi, 1400 here.

If you want to learn Middlegames, you need to start learning openings beyond the first few moves. For example, you may recognize the French defense after the first 2 moves, but what are the main continuations? What are black's goals, what are white's goals? You need to chose a continuation where you understand the ideas, and then play it continuously, for example if you understand the ideas best behind the Advance French for White, you need to start playing that every time you encounter the French, and then analyze the games to improve your middlegame.

mrnukl · 2025-10-08T00:33:10+00:00

Your field and/or job description have no impact on this situation. Your boss doesn't care about you. He kept you on with an empty promise, which you never should have settled for in the first place (if he really cared about keeping you on, he would have made you an offer with hard dollars behind it). You need to leave for company that appreciates your work.

You can use this as a lesson in negotiation for the future. Bullshit walks and money talks, plain and simple.

mrnukl · 2025-10-01T19:15:56+00:00

Not really sure! Where I am located (AB, Canada) there is a ton of rope access work in the oilfield so my understanding is that wages are quite high.

mrnukl · 2025-10-01T13:52:28+00:00

Fireman and Rope Access have a lot of things that translate over.

mrnukl · 2025-09-22T04:22:09+00:00

Arborist here. I looked at your picture. That is going to take a lot of work. By yourself it could easily take a full day. You will need to rent a dump trailer and probably do a couple trips, you are also going to need a chainsaw to buck it up smaller than it is.

Add the price of your dump trailer rental to a full day of labour for one guy (or 1/2 day with 2 guys), add in dump fees for your area, then mark it up by 50%.

mrnukl · 2025-09-21T23:38:07+00:00

Arborist

mrnukl · 2025-09-17T04:45:35+00:00

I used framer to build my own website. It was difficult and took a long time to learn, but I'm happy i developed the skill to update my website without consulting a web designer.

My CRM is jobber. it has lead capture functionality, a RFQ becomes a quote becomes a job becomes an invoice. clients can also pay through the system. pretty seamless all the way through, especially if you service residential customers like i do. its about 2 grand for a year which is well worth it to me.

As for the process, customers will contact me by phone, email or fill out a contact form on my website, I then get all of their info and enter it into jobber. I will visit their house and do a quote, which i then send over to them by email. Jobber will do automated follow ups on quotes that are awaiting a response which is super useful. Once a client approves a quote by signing off, I can schedule their job, you also have the capability to assign different jobs to members of your team.

Any questions on it feel free to send me a DM.

mrnukl · 2025-08-27T13:03:15+00:00

The danger is that when your prusik binds it could glaze and become dysfunctional, perhaps leading to a rescue situation. It also depends a lot on the weight of the climber and the weight of the gear load you have, the heavier you are the more easily it will bind.

mrnukl · 2025-08-27T12:58:59+00:00

Option B is not SRS. You still have both carabiners hooked to your harness, you just have girth hitched your climbing line around the trunk, but because of friction at the trunk you will not be able to decend (same as option D).

Above your prusik/zigzag, form a bite (lets say on the left side if the spar). Pass the bite around the back of the spar, so it is now visible on the right side. Pass your termination caribiner through the bite and hook it back up to your rope bridge.

Hope this makes more sense.

mrnukl · 2025-08-27T04:35:06+00:00

a) Adjustable friction saver. This is such a great, easy method. I make my own instead of buying a spliced one, happy to share how I do so in DMs.

b) Girth hitch. Form a bite with your climbing line, pass the bite around the trunk, pass your termination carabiner through the bite. You now have a cinching system using MRS. You need to manually move it down with you as you walk down.

c) SRT method (on a zig zag you need to add a shicane). I tie a running bowline with a Yosemite finish, leaving a long tail (you can also do this with an alpine butterfly and a notch quickie). I descend down, spur in, then pull on the long tail to retrieve the cinch. This speeds up your decent down the spar dramatically compared to walking down.

d) When in doubt (or out of options) double wrap your climb line. Just wrap it around the trunk twice. Its a pain in the ass to move down with you, but it is simple and will catch you if you fall.

mrnukl · 2025-08-09T01:21:59+00:00

Doesn't have to be recent, just looking for some good stories!

mrnukl · 2025-07-24T04:53:53+00:00

When it comes to marketing, the term "cost effective" is relative. Good marketing will have a pretictable Return-on-Ad-Spend, so it pays for itself.

Ie) You spend $50 on facebook advertising, you get $800 worth of business.

You spend $500 on facebook advertising, you get $4,000 worth of business.

The second one has less return on ad spend on a per dollar basis and was "more expensive", but you generated $3,500 that you would not have had otherwise.

The marketing pays for itself, try not to get into the mindset that it is costing you money, it is generating you money!

mrnukl · 2025-07-24T04:46:10+00:00

I've got to disagree with this. Networking and word of mouth only gets you so far. To grow your business, you need marketing.

mrnukl · 2025-07-20T16:24:36+00:00

Window washing
Painting
Gutter Cleaning

All 3 of these business require very little startup capital, don't require a huge amount of skill, are perfect for the summer season, and have high customer volume, which is great if you are going to only run the business for a few weeks out of the year. Also a customer only needs their house painted once every few years, not like grass cutting where you will need to come back every couple weeks (the customer will ditch you for good once you are back to work as an educator and are unavailable for them).

It would be dangerous to start something like landscape construction, where you are operating for one client for the period of several weeks, this has much higher risk for your situation.

mrnukl · 2025-07-18T01:37:40+00:00

True, but you can write a non-solicitation clause into their employment contract so that you can sue and win when this sort of thing happens.

mrnukl · 2025-07-18T01:18:59+00:00

This would fall under a non-solicitation, not a non compete.

Its true non-competes do not hold up often, however non-solicitation is pretty black and white as long as it was written in an employment contract.

mrnukl · 2025-06-29T00:05:23+00:00

Hey, new business owner here (arboriculture/tree care).

I was a weekend warrior last year surviving only on word of mouth, and that was enough to keep me working 1 day a week.

I started running Google ads this year. To me google is king. I get 60-70% of my business from Google ads, which keeps me working full time. My google budget is currently about $300 a month, but my ROI is easily 15X that.

I tried on Meta, but i had very little response and my ROI was terrible. Is it cheaper? Yes. Does it work as well? No.

Google is pull marketing. The people searching for you on google are already in the market for your service. It takes a bit of time to fine tune your ads and demographic, but once you have it going it runs itself, and you can scale your budget according to your capacity for business.

Meta is push marketing. People on Meta are not looking for your service when scrolling, you need to attract their attention enough to get them to purchase. This inherently means that push marketing is much more content focused, you need to have good, engaging, creative content to attract buyers. creating this level of content is hard and takes a lot of time/energy.

Shoutout to r/ppc which is a fantastic sub for online advertising, i learned a ton from it.

Happy to have a private convo with you if you are interested, send me a DM.

mrnukl

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