Atlanta Arbor Sees 100% Growth Year After Year with SingleOps

Key Takeaways

Joshua Marotta’s unique passion for tree care has lead him to establish one of the most well respected full service tree care companies in the Atlanta area.

Atlanta Arbor has seen extraordinary amounts of growth in the five years since it was established.

SingleOps has helped Atlanta Arbor achieve scalable growth by eliminating the need for duplicating paperwork, allowing them to grow into other sectors of the tree care industry.

Joshua Marotta had a vision for a different kind of tree care company when he started Atlanta Arbor. Since opening the doors five years ago, Atlanta Arbor has consistently grown 100% annually, added new services, and built one of the most reputable teams in arboriculture in the southeast, all while operating most of the business through SingleOps.

“There is so much more to the tree care industry than cutting trees.”

“There is so much more to the tree care industry than cutting trees,” says Marotta. He has a unique passion for arboriculture, but his views on tree care have developed over the years. Recalling his early years working in the tree care industry, Marotta said “When I first started doing tree work back in 2011, I had no idea what it involved– I just thought you went out and cut down dead or hazardous trees. I didn’t know the arboriculture side– managing and maintaining trees.”

Marotta became a member of the Georgia Arborist Association in 2014, and that really opened his eyes to a whole different side of tree work and how much more he could offer his employees and clients. He then started working with the city of Atlanta on ways to improve standards and practices. That passion has led Marotta and other area industry leaders to establish a PAC to push for legislation to keep everybody safe and accountable. Marotta’s experience working with other tree care companies, and then owning his own business really pushed him to take each of these steps; however, the Georgia Arborist Association ignited his interest in the industry. “We have four ISA Certified Arborists on staff (with two more taking the test by the end of 2019). Two of these Arborists will be taking Master Arborist test within the next couple of months, there are only a handful of those in the state of Georgia. We also have certified tree care safety professionals on staff.”

After spending time in sales roles in other industries, Marotta learned early on in tree care that, while the sales process is virtually the same across all disciplines, sales within the home care, and specifically in the tree care industry, was actually very different. He explains his philosophy, “Trees are a necessity for people, so the best way to sell them is to be as informative and knowledgeable about them as possible because most people just don’t know much about trees. They think they are pretty to look at or they are very dangerous, but there isn’t much in between. So, you have to be the knowledge base for the client.”

Marotta’s tree care sales philosophy has obviously worked.

Marotta’s tree care sales philosophy has obviously worked. A little more than a year after the company was established, Atlanta Arbor was growing substantially faster than he originally projected and they needed a CRM system to really keep up with the customers, the leads coming in, and the follow-ups that needed to be made. Atlanta Arbor began using SingleOps at the beginning of 2016 in order to streamline operations and achieve more diversified growth.

Describing some of the hardships that led him to implementing SingleOps, Marotta says that they were writing contracts out by hand on duplicate/triplicate contracts, which had to be signed by the customer. “Once the customer signed the contract, you had to come back and type up your contract and email it to the office. The office would copy and paste the job into a Google Calendar that was shared by office and sales reps; they would also print out the work orders each week for the crews. There was no way we could continue to grow beyond two crews using that system. So, I knew something had to change.”

With SingleOps in place, Atlanta Arbor has been able to support its rapid growth and also provide better customer service. “Whenever leads came in, the office would text them to the reps. So now we know what leads are coming in and how long it is taking for the reps to get to them,” Marotta explains. Atlanta Arbor is also able to track follow-ups, send emails, schedule jobs and accept payments all from the same platform. Marotta’s customers are consistently impressed by how smoothly his business runs and how knowledgeable his employees are.

“There is never a question for the crew as to what needs to be done.”

One aspect of SingleOps that has helped his crew provide better service is the pin drop feature. Marotta says, “I can drop a pin wherever the tree is located on a property and include a picture of the tree. In the description I can write the DBH, specimen, and exactly what they need to do, along with the address. There is never a question for the crew as to what needs to be done. And the customer can see all that information as well. Everyone likes the transparency of the service.”

Every year, Marotta holds a sales competition with his team, and after crushing last year’s growth competition, they are now focused on plant health care and aim to add $500,000 in sales in 2019. He is confident that his team will be able to easily reach this goal. In the new year, he also plans to continue educating his employees in arboriculture and safety, “I want to take everybody in the company through an aerial rescue training course so that they can learn how to rescue someone in a tree. There have been too many local safety issues and accidents this year that have resulted in death or near-death, and I don’t want any of my guys to be a part of those statistics.” To Marotta, having safe crews is just as important, if not more, than running big sales numbers. “As long as everyone runs safely, then they will run efficiently.”

All in all, the future looks very bright for Atlanta Arbor. When asked about his experience with the company overall, Marotta responded, “It’s been good. It’s been fun, with just a little bit of stress. I’m trying to slow down right now, so I can focus on core fundamentals and have everybody at 110%. I want to build up what we have.”