Pat Stumpf could give you all kinds of reasons he likes running his own tree service company.
He loves being outdoors. He likes working with trees. He’s tried what he calls regular jobs and was unsatisfied. So he’s going on 31 years in the tree care industry and two decades of running his own business.
But really, the No. 1 reason is he likes being his own boss.
“Nobody tells me what to do,” Stumpf says.
He’s the owner of Woodland Tree Service, which does tree trimming, tree removal and stump grinding in the Twin Cities metro area in Minnesota. Most of the year, Stumpf employs four or five people and operates one crew. He’s often on the jobsite himself in addition to his duties drumming up business and bidding jobs.
Equipment upgrades
So in the office and on the jobsite, Stumpf is the boss. One of the decisions he made recently was to upgrade his equipment to larger models. That includes buying a Vermeer BC1800 brush chipper and a Vermeer SC372 stump grinder.
Stumpf estimates that he completes stump grinding jobs twice as fast as he did with the smaller model he had before.
He’s also seeing increased productivity with the new brush chipper. The BC1800 can handle larger pieces of material, which helps in chipping more limbs and branches in less time. It also helps reduce the size of the loads the company hauls away from jobsites because the crew has the ability to process material that their previous chipper was unable to handle, he says.
Woodland Tree Service also has a Vermeer compact utility loader, also known as a mini skid steer. The crew uses it to move brush and logs.
“It shows up every day. It doesn’t ever complain,” Stumpf says. “It makes things go a lot quicker and a lot easier. If I didn’t have the mini skid steer, my crew would need to cut material up into smaller pieces and then move it to the chipper in a wheelbarrow or a cart.”
Winning jobs
These benefits — increased productivity and efficiency, and decreased labor — make a big difference considering Stumpf names competition and lowball bids as the top challenges to his business.
In addition to his equipment, Stumpf tries to overcome these challenges with superior customer service. He tells customers his more than three decades of experience demonstrate he is dedicated to the job and knows what he’s doing. He talks about why it’s important for a contractor to show proof of insurance. And he is honest.
On that last point, he recalls a bid early last fall when a homeowner wanted his oak trees trimmed. Stumpf said that work is supposed to wait until after the first hard frost, and the man said he’d gotten an estimate from someone else to do the work without waiting.
“He liked the idea that I was truthful and upfront,” Stumpf says.
Repeat customers
That’s a reason many of Woodland Tree Service’s jobs come from word of mouth and repeat customers. That goes for outside the Twin Cities, too. Minnesota winters are harsh, and although Woodland Tree Service works year-round, the number of jobs goes down in the coldest months. So for the past decade, Stumpf and his crew have gone to St. Louis to work for a couple of weeks each January, February and March.
It’s more than 1,100 miles (1,770.3 km) roundtrip. Making that drive several times a year shows that being his own boss doesn’t mean Stumpf takes it easy. That’s one of the reasons he’s been a successful business owner for two decades.
“I try to stay busy, just try to keep going at it,” he says. “Some days aren’t as good as others, but you just have to stick to it and go.”