Miles Lanier: Tall Pine Outfitters & Lanier Lumber Co

June 23, 2022

Miles Lanier: Tall Pine Outfitters & Lanier Lumber Co

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Miles Lanier of Tall Pine Outfitters & Lanier Lumber Co. Miles started the tree service company Tall Pine Outfitters with his brother and then vertically integrated another company, Lanier Lumber Co, into their business when they saw the need and opportunity.

“My brother and I have a background in landscaping. We were doing landscaping for a while, landscaping installs, and maintenance until we transitioned over and started our tree service company. So we went full-time residential tree service and land clearing land management.

In the first couple of years in business, we produced so much material through the tree service that it became a no-brainer to integrate vertically. Then we could turn this raw material into something workable that we could bring to market instead of just burning it or disposing of it.”

Miles Lanier

Finding the Niche for Your Business

One of the crucial parts of building a business is determining a niche where your business will be successful and fulfill the needs of your community. Above all, taking the time to do the market research and only invest in the tools and machinery needed at the time rather than overspending on everything at once.

“Initially, we were doing a lot of trees in our landscaping and property management business. We started looking over the numbers and wanted to be in our home markets instead of traveling. On top of that, we wanted to do something that would still produce the amount of revenue we needed to have the quality of life we’re chasing after.

So we started the tree service with not a whole lot. We started with a pickup truck, a dump trailer, and some chainsaws, and we began doing jobs and just bootstrapping it. Things like building up the capital, saving everything we could, and rolling everything back into the business.

We started with some smaller equipment for the tree service. So we got a material mover, mini skid steer, stump grinder, and an aerial lift and just hit the ground running, producing material every day. From there, we got a five-acre lumber yard filling up with logs, and we got to figure out how to cut them. So one thing led to the other.”

Miles Lanier

Steve’s Advice Corner

“We’re running into a bottleneck on the tree service side when it comes to quality lead generation trying to get it filtered down to people who are ready to get the work done. They know what they want, and they’re ready to move forward. All they need is us to be able to show them the way.”

Miles Lanier

The challenge facing Miles and his business is similar to many others. Generating quality leads to building your business and audience is one of the essential elements to foster growth. One effective way to improve this element is to closely examine your current process and figure out how you could enhance each aspect.

“So what I would do is put you through the Woodpreneur Method sort of framework. It’s mindset, branding, community, and sales. Branding yourself as a family business is very powerful, and the idea of a family-run business is a very attractive thing. People like to support families, people, I mean, people like to support people more than we think.

So I would market the fact that you’re a family-run business, and you need to put that on your homepage. The second thing about community is that you have a lot of reviews, so I would market your reviews. When people are inquiring about intake forms or what have you, say, ‘Hey, before you book, check out our five-star reviews.’ It’s almost like you’re conditioning them to check out what other people say about you.”