That sounds crazy....but it's true, we don't cut wood for a living. If you were to bump into a logger at a sports event and ask him (or her) what they did 99.9% of the time the answer would be "I cut wood for a living".

The truth of the matter is that wood is just a byproduct of the things that we do. We manage people who work with our landowners to supply them with the best possible experience when harvesting their timber. I believe that when you focus on what you do, and how you do it, your business will grow.

Tom said that he never has had this much business lined up in all the years that he has been working in the woods. I believe it is a direct result of a strong focus on systems, accountability, motivation and improved communication, not just within the company, but between the landowner and Maine Custom Woodlands.

One of the things that I have been really trying to point out to the guys is that they are professionals. We have tallied up combined years of experience that our company has and the guys were surprised at the total.

In my previous jobs, if I were to make a presentation, or conduct a workshop I had to supply the company, organization or school with a bio. This makes sense doesn't it? People want to know what they are getting, that I am qualified to speak on the topic, that I have the experience to back it up.

That's when I got the idea to create bios on all the guys in the crew. We have operators who have years and years of valuable experience, and the landowner would never even know. By nature of what they do, and the fact that they are a very humble group, they would never brag or seek unwanted attention. So I am going to gather information on all the guys and create a more informative landowner packet. Now if I have to supply a bio when I speak, to validate my experience, why wouldn't we share the valuable history of the guys who are working with dangerous machinery around landowner's homes and in their woods?

No matter what business you’re in, the more informed your client or customer is, the more comfortable they will be with your company. Transparency is the key to making any business more successful.

We are comfortable in the woods, we know what a good job is, and we know what our huge machinery will do. Most landowners do not have a frame of reference for what a mechanical timber harvest is.

We are working on a job right now that, because of the terrain we had to create a smaller than usual landing. There is a beautiful stone wall that runs right along the old tote road where the landing had to be created. We basically told these lovely landowners that the stone wall would have to be compromised, that they may possibly sacrifice the stone wall in order to harvest the timber. Even though we only had to create an opening for the trucks to get in, I was very clear when I said that the whole wall could be lost. The reason I did this is I didn't want to let anyone down, should a log or a skidder bump it. The tight quarters added a touch of concern on my part, for processing the wood, swinging the crane, turning the skidders and loading the trucks all had to take place in this not so normal landing. I wanted to make sure that the landowners weren't upset should anything happen.

I really have faith that they guys will keep the stone wall in good shape, and our excavation crew will place the rocks back into their old location to gather moss for another hundred years, and our landowners will value the fact that their wall was saved, instead of feeling let down if it was disturbed.

I also told them that I have a person who just loves to buy stone walls. So I put in a call to my good friend Chuck up the coast to put him on standby should they want to sell the stone wall.

So that's what we do, we educate, create opportunities for landowners that they may not have known existed, form relationships with a lot of very nice people and communicate, communicate, communicate. We take a lot of pride in our crew and the job that they do to keep everyone safe and our landowners happy. Oh yeah, by the way, we cut wood too!

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