How to grow a tree surgery business: from one crew to two.

September 2026 · 10 min read · By TreeLine Marketing Agency

The typical tree surgery business at the point of wanting to grow looks like this. The owner climbs. There's a groundie, maybe two. The diary is full for weeks, the phone rings while you're halfway up an ash, and at the end of the year there's less in the bank than the turnover suggests there should be. Every job depends on you being in the tree, so a bad ankle is a closed business. That's a good trade, but it isn't a business yet. Growing means the firm can earn while you're not on the ropes.

This is the practical route from there to a second crew, in the order that works. If you want a page to fill in as you go, the free one-page plan is at the bottom.

1. Know your numbers before you change anything

You can't decide whether a second crew pays if you don't know what the first one earns. Four numbers, and you can get all of them from a diary and a bank statement:

• Your real day rate, built up from labour, kit replacement, waste, travel, insurance, overheads and margin, not copied from the firm down the road. Our guide to how much a tree surgeon should charge walks through it.
• Days worked versus days available. Weather, quoting, kit repairs and admin eat working days. If the crew is on site three days a week, the day rate has to carry five.
• Quote-to-booking rate. Out of every ten quotes, how many book? If it's three, you're either quoting the wrong people or quoting badly, and doubling the crews won't fix that.
• Where the work comes from. Log every enquiry against its source and what it turned into. Within a couple of months you'll know which channel fills the diary and which one just makes noise. Our guide to tree surgeon leads shows the log.

Most owners who do this exercise discover they're underpriced. Fix that first. A second crew at the wrong day rate is two ways to lose money instead of one.

2. Decide what growing actually means

A second crew is one answer. It isn't the only one, and for some businesses it's the wrong one:

• Higher-value work at the same size. Fewer, bigger jobs: dismantles, commercial contracts, work under TPO where the paperwork scares off the cheap quotes. Same crew, better margin.
• A wider area. The same crew, working the next two towns, with location pages and a Google Business Profile that reach them.
• A second crew. More capacity, more turnover, and a step change in what you have to manage.

Pick one. The plan at the bottom asks you to write it down in a sentence, because the marketing that gets you council contracts is different from the marketing that gets you a second crew's worth of domestic work.

3. When a second crew pays

A crew costs money every day it exists, not just the days it works. Wages, a second van, a second set of saws and climbing kit, more insurance, more fuel. So the test isn't “was I busy this month?” It's “would my lead flow and my booking rate fill two diaries most weeks, including February?”

The signs it will:

• You've been turning away or losing good work for months, not a fortnight. Customers who can't wait six weeks ring someone else, and that's your second crew's work going to a competitor.
• Your prices already carry a proper margin, so the first crew is profitable on its own.
• You have a source of steady work under the domestic jobs: a contract, a landscaper who feeds you, a housing association. If you don't, the ARB Approved Contractor route to tender work is worth reading about in our ArbAC guide.
• Your lead log shows the enquiries are there, and the constraint is capacity, not demand.

If demand is the constraint, don't hire yet. Fix the marketing first (section 6) and let the enquiries prove themselves for a season.

4. Hiring: who, and what changes

Two routes, and most businesses use both in turn:

• Subcontract first. A freelance climber with their own tickets and kit, paid by the day, on the jobs you can't get to. It tests demand without a payroll. Check they hold the certificates for the work they'll do; our guide to tree surgeon qualifications lists them.
• Then employ. A climber to lead the second crew, or a lead groundie who's working towards their climbing tickets. The day you employ anyone, employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement with a minimum of £5 million of cover, and the government can fine you £2,500 for every day you're without it. Casual groundies count. Sort it before their first day; the detail is in our insurance guide.

The change nobody warns you about is the one to you. With two crews, somebody has to quote, schedule, order, chase and answer the phone, and the business needs that person more than it needs another climber. Most owners keep climbing at first and quote in the evenings. It works for a while. The plan should say when it stops.

5. The systems that stop two crews falling over

None of this needs software you don't already have on your phone. It needs habits:

• A written quote template that itemises the job, states your insurance and what happens to the waste, and looks the same every time. It wins work at higher prices and it stops disputes.
• A job sheet per job: address, access, hazards, what's been agreed, TPO status. The second crew can't read your mind.
• The photo habit. Before, during, after, from the same spot, every job, by whoever's on site. Our guide to building a tree surgery portfolio covers it, and it doubles as your record if a customer complains.
• The review habit. The direct review link texted on the day, every job, by every crew. The system is in how to get more Google reviews.
• A phone that gets answered. Two crews mean twice the calls, and a missed call is a lost job, not a delayed one. A proper voicemail, missed-call texts, a same-day callback rule. If you do nothing else on this list, do this.
• A monthly half hour with the numbers. The three you picked in section 1, on the same day each month. Growth is a line on that sheet, not a feeling.

6. Marketing that keeps two crews busy

Two crews need roughly twice the leads, and they need them in February as well as June. The order that works is the same one we recommend to every tree surgery business, just done more deliberately:

1. Google Business Profile and reviews, because the map pack is where most local tree work starts and it's free. Our Google Business Profile guide covers the setup.
2. A website with a page for every service and every town you want the second crew working in. That's how you reach the next two towns rather than just your own. It's what our website design and SEO for tree surgeons services are built around.
3. A paid tap you can turn up and down. Google Ads, and Local Services Ads if you can get verified, to fill the second diary in the quiet months and hold back when you're booked. See our guide to Local Services Ads for tree surgeons.
4. The van, the uniforms and the quotes matching, so the customer who saw crew one's van recognises crew two's quote. Our van signwriting guide is the starting point.

Budget it from margin, not hope. Our guide to how much a tree surgeon should spend on marketing gives the shape of it for a business at each size.

7. The one-page plan

Nobody in this trade needs a forty-page business plan. You need one page you'll actually look at, with seven boxes:

1. Where the business is now. Crews, typical job and price, days worked a month, where the leads come from.
2. What growing means, in one sentence. Second crew, bigger jobs, or wider area.
3. Where you want to be in twelve months. Crews, turnover, the kind of work.
4. The three numbers you'll track every month, and their values today.
5. The one hire that gets you there, and when.
6. What could go wrong: insurance, kit, weather, you.
7. The marketing, in order, with a monthly budget.

We've laid it out as a printable page. Put your details in below and the template opens straight away; we'll also drop you a line to see if you'd like a hand with the marketing box, and nothing else.

If you'd rather talk it through, book a free audit. We'll look at where your leads come from today and tell you honestly whether the marketing can carry a second crew.

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