Your tree company may not have a hiring problem. It may have an operating problem.
Trucks sitting in the yard. Crews missing tools. Good guys quitting. I find the operational leaks costing you profit, and help you fix them so more of what you sell turns into money in the bank.
Apply for a Free Operations Strategy CallYou may not have a hiring problem
Check how many of these sound like your company.
- Trucks and chippers sit while sold work waits.
- Crews show up missing tools or equipment.
- Work orders don't match what was sold.
- Sales sells more than crews can produce.
- You keep hiring for the same seats.
- New hires get paperwork, not training.
- Jobs run long and nobody knows why.
- Take a week off and things slip.
Check three or more? It may not be your people. It may be your operating system. Professional people want to work for a professional company.
Every leak has a price tag
These problems don't just cause headaches. They take profit out of work you already sold.
Idle trucks and crews
A truck and crew sitting for a day is a day of revenue you can't get back, while you're still paying for the truck, the insurance, and the guys.
Turnover
Every time someone quits, you pay again to find, hire, and train the next one, and the crew runs slower until they catch up.
Jobs that run long
When a job takes longer than it was sold for, the extra hours come straight out of your margin.
Everything runs through you
If every decision waits on the owner, the business can only grow as big as your day. That's revenue you'll never get to.
The Operations Bottleneck Audit
A paid, evidence-based review of your whole operation, with a clear plan to fix what's holding you back.
What I look at
- Leadership, culture, and retention
- Hiring, onboarding, and training
- Trucks, equipment, and safety
- Sales-to-crew handoffs and scheduling
- Job costing and owner dependence
- Estimates, follow-up, and repeat work
What you get
- A scorecard of your company
- Where you're losing profit, and what it's worth to fix
- Your top 3 bottlenecks, ranked
- A 30-day fix-it plan
- Who does what, and by when
- My honest next-step recommendation
Two ways to do it
When included in the audit scope, I speak with owners, office staff, managers, and crew leaders to get the real feedback your business needs.
I've done this from the climbing line and the owner's chair
I'm Anthony Romeo, a second-generation tree climber from Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. I started on my dad's crews at age 6, and he was the toughest boss I've ever had. I climbed for about 20 years, then ran my own tree company for about 15 years before selling it. I'm a TCIA Certified Tree Care Safety Professional and a qualified trainer, with years in high-ticket in-home sales.
When it's your money on the line every job, you get obsessed with waste. I studied the Toyota Production System and brought it into tree work: find the leak, fix it, keep improving. And I'm frugal. Before you buy more trucks, hire more people, or add more software, I want to get full use out of what you already have.
I take on no more than two hands-on operations clients at a time.
A Pennsylvania tree service company
The owner called me because he couldn't find or keep workers. That wasn't the real problem.
Before
- About 6 trucks and 3 chippers, but only about 2 trucks running
- About 3 employees
- Two sales reps selling work with no crews to do it
- No onboarding, unclear work orders, lots of blame
After about 6 months
- Team grew to about 12 people
- Workers started reaching out to join the company
- Crews trained, equipped, and inspected on a regular rhythm
- Reported revenue grew steadily, not overnight
What we changed
- Better hiring questions and a real Day 1 process
- A training ladder, with saw maintenance taught before anyone ran a saw
- Weekly safety meetings, job site visits, and gear inspections
- Truck tool checklists and clear roles
- End-of-day crew feedback on missing or broken equipment
- Sales representatives responsible for making sure crews had the specialty tools and equipment required for the work they sold
These figures are approximate, based on my recollection of work performed more than three years ago and on company-reported results. They are not audited and are not typical or guaranteed. The company isn't named for confidentiality, and the owner's team did the work every day.
Four simple steps
- Strategy call Free30 minutes. We talk about your company and whether an audit makes sense.
- Bottleneck audit PaidRemote or on-site. Clear scope and price agreed before we start.
- 30-day sprint OptionalWe put the top fixes in place with your people.
- Ongoing support OptionalFractional operations help until your team owns it.
Is this a fit?
Established tree-service companies doing approximately $500,000 or more in annual revenue, with the strongest fit generally being companies around $2 million or more that have outgrown informal owner-led management.
Good fit
- At least one active crew, ideally 5+ field employees
- Equipment or sales capacity going unused
- The same people problems keep coming back
- You want an honest look and are ready to fix it
Not a fit
- Brand-new one-person operations
- Looking for a cheap course or quick hack
- Want to hear it's someone else's fault
- Won't act on what we find
Common questions
Can this be done remotely?
Yes. Most of the audit works over phone and video with your records. On-site shows what a video call can't, like how crews and equipment actually move.
Do you travel?
Yes. I'm based near Coopersburg, PA. Travel is added to on-site work and agreed before anything is booked.
What does it cost?
It depends on your size and whether it's remote or on-site. You'll get a clear, fixed price on the strategy call before you commit to anything.
Is the call a sales pitch?
No. It's a fit call. If an audit isn't the right move for you, I'll tell you.
Is my information confidential?
Yes. Your numbers and your people stay between us. I don't name clients without written permission.
Do we have to switch software?
No. I fix how the work moves first. Software is only recommended if it helps.
Will this make us OSHA compliant?
No consultant can promise that. I help you build safety meeting, training, and inspection habits, but this isn't legal, regulatory, insurance, or accounting advice.
Will our revenue go up?
I can't promise that, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. Results depend on your leadership, follow-through, market, and resources.
Find out where your company is leaking
Apply for a free 30-minute strategy call. It takes about two minutes.
What happens next
- I review your application personally.
- If it looks like a fit, we schedule a 30-minute call.
- I ask about your people, operations, sales, equipment, and goals.
- If an audit makes sense, you get a clear scope and price before deciding.
Your answers are confidential and will only be used to determine whether a strategy call is appropriate.
Confidentiality: Anything you share with Synertree about your company, finances, or employees is kept confidential and isn't shared without your written permission.
Disclaimer: The Operations Bottleneck Audit is an operational consulting assessment. It is not accounting, legal, insurance, or regulatory advice, and it does not by itself make any company OSHA compliant. No specific revenue or growth results are promised or guaranteed. Results depend on implementation, company leadership, market conditions, and available resources.
Synertree helps established tree service companies find and fix the operational leaks keeping them from their next level.
215-657-8733 · Coopersburg, PA
Free Strategy CallServices & Training