Independent Tree Service Increases Growth and Profitability with SingleOps

Key Takeaways

Independent Tree Service is a leader in their market and their success over 40+ years proves their ability to deliver great work time and time again.

Hard drive based software wasn’t working for Independent Tree Service because of the influx of growth they were experiencing.

With the implementation of SingleOps, Independent Tree Service has been able to make smarter investment decisions based on accurate, up-to-date data.

“My dad, Jerry, started the company 41 years ago, back in 1978.” says Jordan Upcavage, a certified arborist and Vice President of Independent Tree Service. “With drive, and American dream, he hired his first employee, and then bought a dump truck, a trailer, and then a bucket truck, and hired more people. He became a certified arborist the first time it was available in the state of Florida, and learned the right way of doing things.”

Jordan grew up in the company from a young age. In elementary school, he joined his dad on estimate visits. And in high school he worked as a ground man, learning the ins and outs of a successful tree care operation from the ground up, literally. Towards the end of high school, Jordan knew he wanted to pursue arboriculture full-time.

“I studied environmental horticulture at the University of Florida, and after graduating became a certified arborist. I was a full-time climber for a while, and then as time progressed I moved back down to Tampa to work with my dad.”

Digitizing the problem, but not solving it

10 years ago, Jordan and the team at Independent Tree Service moved from using pen and paper to a custom application built on the database software Filemaker Pro. But they found this solution was only a band-aid.

“[The program] was only accessible to whichever hard drive you installed it on. So if I had my computer, and someone in our office had their computer, we couldn’t see other’s files. Communication between myself, my dad, and our crews was still all happening on paper.”

“You should try SingleOps, it’s awesome.”

Jordan started evaluating new platforms for running his business early in 2017, and after taking a look at a few solutions on the market and talking to friends in the industry, couldn’t find the right solution.

Then, Jordan spoke with Danae Jackson of Davey Tree (and formerly TCIA), at a tree climbing competition. “She said, ‘Hey Jordan, you should try SingleOps, it’s awesome.’”

“So we took a shot in the dark and it’s been great. Emily, your VP of Customer Success, has been the main point of contact for us and she is always there for us, promptly making adjustments upon our request”

Increasing growth and profitability with SingleOps

SingleOps has helped what was already a high-performing organization achieve even better results. “If a crew gets done early, SingleOps enables us to pull from the whole wide world of Independent Tree Service jobs that need to be done, and I can move other customers ahead of schedule, thus producing more gross income on a daily basis, because I can look at everything live from any device at any time.”

A key addition to the team was Christi Upcavage, Jordan’s sister who manages the office and business operations, and has been critical to the company’s success with SingleOps. “I was able to offload so much of my responsibility to where I can now either run more estimates, or devote more time to strategic planning and maximizing capacity.” said Jordan.

Jordan estimates that the company is growing more than 20% year over year, and mentions they have added a number of new employees in the past year.

Better information leads to better strategic decisions

Jordan and his team have even leveraged the data in SingleOps to make better strategic decisions. Prior to deploying SingleOps, they were subcontracting out roughly $70,000 per year in stump grinding work.

And Jordan says that “now, with SingleOps, and being able to tag and categorize individual projects, I can see for a tree removal it might be $2000 to cut the tree down, $400 to haul the wood away, and $300 to grind the stump.” By looking at that information over time across several jobs, Jordan saw that stump grinding could be done profitably in-house with right equipment.

“After pulling the 2018 items report I am delighted to find we grossed $114,715.00 in stump grinding, $29,930.00 in AirSpading and $19,600.00 in root pruning.  What a wonderful way to measure revenue streams that do not involve running a chainsaw!”

“You shot us full of nitrous oxide and we’re just running wide open”

Thanks to the team’s hard work and the addition of SingleOps, Independent Tree Service is growing quickly at over 20% year over year, adding a number of new employees and another crew in the past year.

The company is a leader in their market, and their success over 40+ years, across multiple generations, proves their ability to deliver great work time and time again.

“We deliver the best product and the best service. We were already killing it, and then you just shot us full of nitrous oxide, and we’re just running wide open”