How to grow a towering $144,000+ tree biz

Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

✔️ How to spot a $1,000,000 tree

✔️ How to grow your own money tree (by cutting them down)

✔️ 5 money tactics for tree huggers

How to spot a $1M tree

Pop quiz: Guess which one of these trees costs $1 million (yes, really).

The answer: B is the million dollar bonsai tree. A, on the other hand, is worth a measly $122k.

I know what you’re thinking: Who the hell would spend six to seven figures on a glorified house plant? I wondered the same before I learned that there’s a massive market for bonsai trees all over the world.

Those who grow bonsai trees spend years cultivating, trimming and caring for them better than most adults care for themselves. When they’re done, they have a beautiful tree they can sell for fat stacks of cash.

I love this stuff (I even made a TikTok about it). It’s a weird and unconventional way of generating income that brings something from the 18th century into the 21st century.

It also proves an unconventional point: You can grow money on trees—and you don’t need a green thumb to do it.

I’m not going to tell you to spend 10+ years growing a bonsai tree with the hope of selling it for a million bucks, though. There’s a better way to make a million bucks with trees in a fraction of that time: by cutting them down.

How to grow your own money tree (by cutting them down)

I won’t lie – I'm not the best at gardening. Although my house plant game is strong.

That said, I'm a little obsessed with the landscaping biz. Gardening, lawn mowing, garden gnome installations (is that a thing?), you name it. Landscaping is lucrative because:

✔️ There’s a big ceiling for scale

✔️ There’s huge revenue potential

✔️ There’s virtually zero barrier to entry

Not to mention, it’s boring AF.

So, pretty much ideal.

Case in point: Tree trimming and removal. Here’s a video of this work in action that had me mesmerized.

Don’t you just love men who know how to handle wood?

(Get your filthy minds out of the gutter)

In just 2 hours of work, this dude had $1,800 in his pocket. That’s a single job, too—and definitely not the only one his crew had that day. We can play it out with some back-of-the-napkin math:

• 1 job = $1,800
• 2 jobs = $3,600
• 4 jobs = $7,200

If he did 2 to 4 jobs a day for just 5 days a week, that’s $72,000 to $144,000 a month—or $864,000 to $1.7mm a year for those keeping track at home.

Okay, not bad. What’s the catch?

Well, for one, you’re not going to be clearing a milly right off the bat. Sorry. If that was the case, I’d be out there doing my best Paul Bunyan impression right now, instead of writing this article.

Why? You need a team to cut down a tree in two hours. You may be able to make $1,800 a job by yourself, but it’s going to take a little longer, and you’re going to have to learn some Spider-Man tree parkour.

The power in this business is that it has massive growth potential. (Like a tree, get it?). Let’s do a quick breakdown.

First, purchase equipment.

Assuming you already have a vehicle (ideally a truck), this biz will run you less than the cost of a new iPhone.

Second, you do one job.

You can charge $1,800 to remove a tree or $500 for tree trimming. With a single job, you already recouped the money on your principal investment and paid for your biz.

Trees are literally everywhere, and they all need to be trimmed eventually. That means there are customers everywhere—though you might have to get a little creative finding them.

(Check out my next section for more on this.)

Third, you do the next job.

Then the next job. Then the next job. Then the…you get the picture.

After one job, you’ll have enough to buy another chainsaw and ladder. After five, you can hire someone to do the job with you.

From here, it’s a matter of scaling: the more employees you hire, the more trees you can cut down and the more money you can make.

Before you know it, you’ve become the Warren Buffett of tree trimming.

Okay, not really, but you’re going to be making some good cash.

Tactics for tree huggers

We all love trees. Shade in the summer, huge piles of leaves to jump into in the fall and firewood in the winter.

Nobody really wants to deal with them, though—especially when the branches get so big that they’re threatening to put a hole in the roof.

This puts tree removal specialists in a unique position to charge customers to get rid of them. How much you charge and invoice your customers depends on your competition—which you can get an edge on with some tactics.

Here’s how I’d spin this to juice more revenue.
​

#1 Show, don’t tell

It’s 2023. You need to get an Instagram or at least a Facebook page. One great way to market a service like this is with before and after photos of your work.

Hell, make a TikTok that’s all about how satisfying it is to shape up a tree or cut it down. Seriously. People eat this stuff up.​

#2 Literal room for growth

You don’t have to limit yourself to trees. If I had this biz, I’d expand the menu into other landscaping offerings. Clean gutters. Cut grass and mow lawns. Install and maintain gardens.

Some rough price points you could offer:

• Clean gutters: National average is $0.80 per linear foot of gutters. That means you can charge $180-$200 for a typical house.
• Mow lawns: $50 per hour. You can expect to get $100-$200 for a lawn.
• Pull weeds: $30-$50 per hour. That means around $150 for a piece of property.

Bundle these services together to give your customers a discount. That ties customers to you with recurring revenue and a chance at all their larger projects.

The beauty about tree trimming and removal is that the wood itself can be resold. There’s a massive demand for wholesale mulch, not to mention raw wood from all types of trees.

You can go DIY and sell on Craigslist, but I’d probably create a relationship with a company like Harvest Lumber Co (which uses wood to create cool shelves, desks, etc.). You provide at wholesale and they buy every time.

#3 Be brutally honest

See a tree you know is in danger of falling down on someone’s house? Potential clients.

It’s a basic principle of psychology and marketing: People are more motivated by loss than gain.

Take advantage of this. Knock on some doors and let them know what you see—and what they stand to lose if they don’t work with you.

#4 Have zero shame

This means going to your friends, family, third cousins and that weird uncle that you only see at Thanksgiving. Hit them up and ask them if they need any tree trimming done.

An early-game tactic, but an effective one.

#5 Take it online

Another thing we’ve seen lately is service-based businesses moving online.

Think of the doctor or dentist who’ll give you a telehealth check-up. Or the fitness coach doing programming on Zoom.

You can add a subscription component to your tree trimming biz. Add in 3D models or digital projections of how someone’s trees can look trimmed, or how their properties would look without the trees there.

That’s my rapid-fire take on the tree biz. Make sure you limber up before you start climbing those things.

Boots not suits,

- Codie

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