Business Innovators Radio - Episode 7: Reinventing Blue Collar Work with Brittany Parsons Engel

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

What happens when the age-old tree service industry meets 21st-century technology? In this episode, Phillip Lorenzo sits down with Brittany Parsons Engel- a fifth-generation female entrepreneur and the operator behind the successful multi-location tree care business “One Stop Tree Shop”. Brittany shares how she’s solving real pain points in hiring, equipment access, and operational efficiency. We explore the cultural resistance to tech and how digital presence is now the front door to growth in trades. Whether you’re in tech, trades, or somewhere in between, this conversation will reframe how you see innovation at work in the real world.Fractal Focushttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/fractal-focus/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-7-reinventing-blue-collar-work

Welcome to Fractal Focus, the podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. And today we have a really special guest with us, someone who was with us at Folsom Tech Week, who is really operating in an interesting space between the blue-collar world, quote-unquote, I'll put that, and the white-collar world. Her name is Brittany Parsons Engel, and she is with one-stop tree shop, and someone who really understands the intersection of technology, and traditional blue color work. So Brittany, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you here. And I kind of want to frame things a bit because when we think about, and maybe this analogy, this is analogous to what you do. So when we think about a tree crew going out there and looking at some kind of plot and maybe they have a drone and maybe some, someone is like getting their rentals ready, but they're looking on Google search, or maybe there's other ways that they can coordinate these different resources to conduct work.

Why is high-tech integration into these workflows so necessary? Well, thank you for asking. Several reasons. The tree service industry is typically a more archaic industry, but they are realizing that it is time to jump into innovation and to tech. And they have developed some incredible high-tech machinery to handle these things. And then as you spoke to about the drones, you know, we have dense populations of forest. And we have things that are very hard to navigate. So with this new advancement and equipment and technology, they are able to use less man hours, save time, to even get the bid in the first place going because they are not having to have a crew deployed to figure out how massive this project is. They're able to look at it from the air and they're able to use primators and plot lines and, you know, all of the survey data to be able to now,

attack large, you know, forest and landscape projects where, you know, maybe you are removing these things for a new home development or a building to be built there. So definitely these overgrown forests and adding this new technology is a huge advancement. So I want to take a step back to your background and how come you're so. immediately knowledgeable, especially the idea when I hear overgrown forest. Like, I do you know that? I'm curious as to, and I'm sure the audience is curious as to your background, how you've walked the path to this point in your career where now this is your intersection.

Thank you for asking that. So I've been married to a precision tree climber for over 25 years. He's only ever worked in this industry. So for several years, I was involved with the day to day of what that looks like for him as an employee. And then in 2013, we had enough business to go out on our own. So we've had multiple locations of tree service companies since 2013. And so overall, I've been in the field for two decades. That's that kind of, it's almost like the osmosis learning rights. Like you've been so exposed to it and so learned from it that you become it.

And that is always an interesting thing to think about as far as how do we learn our skills. How do we learn our trade, right? And so now with that background in mind and the things that we're talking about and going into, this passion you have for digital presence in this space, where does it come from and what does it actually mean for a blue-collar business to have this digital presence? Because there's so many qualities that a blue-collar business has and needs to have, right? Because it's all, I don't want to say hustle, but a lot of it is hustle, right? But it's like, where does this passion come from? And how is it cultivated?

So the reason digital presence is so important in the tree industry is because it is archaic, as we mentioned before. And a lot of these companies have been around for 20 and 30 years. And they are not. learning in today's new world where you learn tech at a very young age. So we have older, you know, generations that have been in the tree industry for a long time and they don't know about Google ads. They don't know about demand harvest and how, you know, people are actually up there searching for tree service and they could tap into that and pull more work to them. They are hardworking and never seen. If you don't take the time to learn how to forge a digital process,

presence for your company, your hard work is not going to be seen. And nowadays, most people are not flipping through the yellow pages. They're not stopping at your business. They drive past. They are finding your website. They're filling out a form. You'll be lucky if they call you. So pretty much, if you don't have an established website and an easy way to get in contact with you, you're missing out of a percentage of the market that is looking for you. Now, when we think about digital presence beyond the website and beyond that public-facing storefront, are there other ways that technology you feel

are going to integrate with this space? Internal tools, identifying resources, and then thinking about it in a way of customer resource, models where it's like, you know, CRM tools or thinking about other ways that these businesses can't interact with technology to maximize efficiency. And that sounds like a very verbose way of saying, hey, how can I better resource without having to make phone calls all the time or using this new technology? So this will be a two-part question.

one, do you see it as starting with digital presence and web storefront as a way to get these businesses caught up? And then two, do you feel that this needs to go even further and help them actually manage their workflows that they usually manage through paper and pen, scheduling, like having a board with like different people and where their, what sites they're in? So I kind of want to have your insight. So it starts with the web presence, but should it go further to internal tools? Definitely, all the way around. You know, the old school way is you show up on a job site, you make a triple kit and you call and hope you get the business or they call you. Now there are CRMs and full technology tools where you can go on the job site. You can not only GPS map location,

these trees, but you can take pictures of them, you can make notes under them, you can do your route flow. When you set up your crew, you can, you know, make sure that they're not wasting time going on the same, the wrong streets or this or that. You can set up, you know, you're going to this house first. You're going this house. The CRMs will keep all of the clients, data in them and the previous jobs. And not only that, but they can give issue the estimate right there in real time, on the job site and even take payment or deposit through these CRMs that have been developed for the tree industry. So when you're talking about efficiency, typically a estimator would come back to the office,

prepare these estimates, take that time in additional to the bid on job sites, and then start issuing these to the customer some way, whether it's, you know, mail or email or whatever they have, whenever the customer is using to receive that. So by being able to do that in real time, you're saving all of those man hours later that you're turning around and going back and having to compute those things. And this is how you're increasing your efficiency and not only bidding, but time and also getting the jobs awarded. People are like very impressed when you can give them this type of breakdown of the tree work and match it with we can schedule now we can take your payment now and here is this delivered to you right here while i'm job site that's awesome i

think for one thing you put a lot of thought into this entire process do you feel perhaps that you are a one of one or one of few meaning that is there like resistance to this integration. Does the tree industry and the people in it, are you experiencing it all this pushback as if this doesn't respect the trade, as if this is like a threat to this industry? Have you seen that or met that in any way, shape, or form, whether subtly or whether vociferously through some kind of massive like tirade from a veteran tree farmer? Thank you. So yes and yes. So I've seen both sides of the coin where there is a little pushback because they're set in their ways. But at the same time, they are hiring young bucks with young backs. And they have this digital education because this is and this technology education. So even the old school, I punched a clock, you know, time card that's out of the window. the sats out the window. You have to, if you're using a check management system, you know,

like paychecks or something like that, there's apps that they are logging into now for time cards and all these things. So the old way has kind of hit the wall where they just don't have a choice. They have to have somebody at least in their company that is upgrading into the new way. If it's not the owner, they have to hire well and, you know, get this technology installed in their company. And this kind of segues into exactly why I started one-stoptreeshop.com. We are handling the tree industry's pain points, the main pain points. And I know this because I've lift it for the last 20 years being in the industry. I'm a natural problem solver and I just saw this gap that it's so hard to hire and this entire industry is waiting on somebody to walk through

the door or they're using Indeed or other platforms that aren't specifically tailored for this high skilled dangerous trade industry. And so it is a non-specific. generalist hiring board, which, you know, makes you run into turnover after turnover because they don't know what to expect getting into this trade when they, you know, reply to your Indeed ad. So it doesn't really work. And, you know, you are left with constantly patchwork, you know, stitching and glue and all those things trying to get this crew together to be able to finish these high, you know, these high performance jobs or these catastrophic events or surge in storm work. So there's just a consistent need for hiring in this industry. I do not know a tree

service company that is not always hiring. So I created this platform to handle the hiring bottleneck and also the access to equipment and rentals, which is an additional advance and technology for this industry. There is so much that you said that is fascinating. For one, young bucks with young backs. That is a very interesting way to say it. And then also, at the same time, marrying that with their exposure to technology. Even the new generation of blue-collar, hardworking people are using technology.

They're using smartphones. They're using tablets. They're using computers. So they already are exposed to technology. And so it's like a natural fit. It's just a matter now, maybe the people that have been in management positions getting used to that. And the fact that you're addressing the gap and you saw the gap is amazing. And in the of itself.

So how would all of this, like when we think about great CRM tools and good digital presence, how is that going to give the customer a good experience when working with these different companies now? Like, where do you see that going and where do you see the customer base growing? Well, this is exactly why digital presence is so important because now people are looking for your reputation online. You know, if they got you from a referral, like somebody else has used to you, that's a different funnel. That's a different way you're capturing this lead. But if they are actually going and saying, I need X, Y, and Z, if they cannot find, you know, reviews and a website with work displayed and equipment displayed that you have to complete their jobs, they're just going to move on to the next. Nobody has patience anymore.

You have to capture their intention with the first seven seconds or they have moved on to a different tree service company. we talked about this in our conversations before the call and rivalries are a thing. Competition is a thing. And I almost say, again, this is my very ignorant thing because I'm not in the industry, but I always think about like one of those reality shows I imagine where it's like the greatest catch or something like that or some other show where they're competing hard with other companies that are trying to get the same resource that they are. right? So how can tech in this case and how can these tools better improve that environment? And in fact, I'm going to go back to the hiring conversation we had. How does it help with hiring and finding resources? So for example, let's say there's this region where there's this one worker that is

amazing, but he can only work so many hours for one company. And then maybe another company needs that same resource. So I might be a good example of how can tech foster this almost cooperative competition. I want you to give me your thoughts on that and see where do you think that can go. Okay. Well, thanks for your visionary, but let's roll it back way further than that to the Wild Wild West, you know, in the dirt, the saloon, between the saloons here, you know, gun draws, okay? That's how far back we need to roll it to the old Western days.

That's how archaic and the level of competition that they are used to. And that is the third pain point in the industry that I am addressing with one-stoptreeshop.com. It is all about collaboration. There is enough trees for everybody. Every single tree you see has to either be trimmed, cut, removed, or replaced. It ages out, right? So for me, I have always believed in collaboration, in unity, it allows growth in the industry. So that is the third pain point I am addressing.

And the reason I am fostering this collaboration is because, for an example, as a baby company, when we started out with a chainsaw and a Honda Civic, we sure did not have a truck, a dump truck and a chipper and things that made our jobs go faster every single day, right? We have not achieved these milestones yet. Well, when I got a big job, I would have been able to scale and fulfill these contracts easier if collaboration was easier. If they were all located in one convenient place, meaning I need an additional climber for the day. I need an additional groundman for the day. I need to rent a chipper and I need to rent a bucket. truck or a chip truck. I had to go to multiple sites. I had to go to multiple hiring sites. I had to

make deposits with multiple rental companies, things like that that takes away from the meat in the margin for you to be able to, you know, that makes your margin just so small. You're not able to have any meat on the bone when you have to hire and come up with all this extra money to fulfill one job. I foster collaboration. I believe in there's some for everybody. And if I can partner with a company that has the extra groundman, has the extra climber, has the bucket truck, and has the chipper, I'm way ahead of the game. And then we can collaborate and we have some for everybody. So I believe the coming together and connecting this industry is the way to have us grow. everybody to really raise what their margin and take home is. And also it increases safety. And that is a huge part of this is this job is very dangerous and increasing the safety on the job site by not having equipment you can't count on or a crew that is random that you hired from a labor pool and they're not skilled workers in the industry, you know, with years under their belt, it's so important to have trust on the job site because of the level of

danger in this field. So, you know, you'll see these crews develop when they've been working for a long time where they know what to do for each other. It's like watching this, you know, beautiful sequence of events where they are just flowing from one position to the other when everybody knows what they're supposed to do. are trained. That is a huge part of it when you just grab labor off the street and they're not in this industry. You're increasing the risk on your job site and you're not able to have that instant camaraderie that needs to happen on the job site because we all have to protect each other and watch out for each other in this industry. Wow. I feel like there is so much to digest from that in the sense of there's a mix of practical solution in what you just said and also altruism and that sensibility of we can you know the rising tide floats all the boats right yes and i think that your vision of it and you're thinking of it and i'm glad you scaled it back so let's go back to the wild blow West. Let's go back to the days of the pistols. Let's go back to that adversarial idea of

competition. And so when we think about this adversarial nature, you really kind of, I think, encapsulated why it's so important to have tech in this field, because if we're playing catch-up with the way that people work today and the way that people want to work today, more importantly, I think, and you can definitely correct me from wrong, but, this co-optition model, this idea that we can work together, and you mentioned it, you mentioned safety, you mentioned better rates, you mentioned all these different things, but now that we are at this point where tech can help with that, where do you see the future of this industry now that you're here involved in it and you're thinking about this?

Because in the future, if this works, now we're looking at a potential where this whole thing can become a truly transparent industry with really good people managing each site with really good resources with safety standards that are uniform. And it's all kind of, not kind of, it's all integrated with a tech infrastructure that can continue to scale with it. So based on all those parameters I just laid out, where do you see the industry if this works in five, ten years? you. I think that it's super important to set up scalable infrastructure. It is just starting to catch up

streamlining operations and creating this infrastructure. And where I see it going is that whether you've been in business for 40 years or three years, you are going to have to know, innovation, no tech, and install it in your business and also have operators that understand it because chainsaws will be carried by drones soon. And they are already in the works and doing these things on large scale projects. So you will need to understand tech to an umth degree to be able to precision cut with a chainsaw drone. And I think that's where it's going to really be. That's like the ultimate five, 10 or 10, 20 year vision of all this. So I think, oh, go ahead.

Bill, imagine being in a large plot of forest hiking, just hiking for the day. And you look up and you have 20 flying drone chainsaws above your head, flooding the trees or maybe not necessarily above your head, but in the vision. Wow, that's a little scared. I don't know. Of this forest, you have, you know, a large logging or tree company out there. And you look up and you see all these flying chainsaws handling work. Oh, boy.

I mean, there's a lot of neatness about that. And then at the same time, here in the over your head, I'm like, wait, I'm going to, what if that drone drops it? When I grew up watching the Jetsons, I did not understand that we were going to be moving into this, you know, blue-collared tech industry. I mean, I thought maybe, you know, food, refrigerators, cool things, you know, maybe cars in the air. But moving to the air with this type of machinery and innovation is incredible. When we think about all of this, the move from digital presence to technical integration as tools for this trade, reframing the way that we feel about competition. Do you think, and this is probably something where some people in tech might be or are often thinking about an environmental impact as well. So where do you think all of this goes to address that for some people?

That could be in the tech industry that are developing the products on the software side and that would have those questions. So that's a really good question. I think that they need to have a deep understanding. of not only how important innovation is, but also how this industry works on integrity. And when you are going after a forest, a clearing of this, there are steps that you have to go through, not only to get that approval, but to get the town's approval. And so anything you develop, there's risk and you have to evaluate how the public will react to what they believe is their beauty you're looking to destroy. So, you know, us personally, we don't just go cutting down trees.

Obviously, we want to, you know, satisfy our customers as well, but trees are important. They're the reason we breathe. They provide us paper. So any innovator or inventor in this space will always have to be super conscious about every angle, every angle. You have to evaluate every angle before anything you put out because the backlars, is this industry is moving slower than other industries, and that is holding back the new wave of employees that are looking to work in this industry. So if you want to survive, you're going to have to catch up,

and you're going to have to do it with integrity. There has to be no loss of integrity in anything we create or bring forward because the industry doesn't respect it, if not. that is really thoughtful. And I think, again, it speaks to why you're thinking about this for sure. So to kind of bring it home, we think about how blue-collar work has, in fact, built this country. If you think about the infrastructure, this entire country, it is a result of hard work, starting early in the morning, getting home late at night after all these hours of work. Now we're thinking about it as tech, allowing it to run smoother, safer, more efficiently,

maybe save time for human people to do human things. And at the convergence of those is the businesses that could survive. How important is this solution given that context now? I would say that if you don't have at least one partner, one core member, of your business that understands how important innovation, digital presence, and the cooperation is, then you're going to be aged out. And with that, I think that's a great close. Don't age out.

Keep up the innovation. Keep up to date. So I think for this episode, definitely share it with your friends in the trades. Make sure that you keep in touch. Brittany, where can people reach you to learn more about this really important and cool idea? Thank you. At one-stop tree shop, 2023 at gmail.com, or you can go directly to the platform, one-stoptreeshop.com and reach out to us that way.

Awesome. And if anybody has anything to say about this episode, please comment. And you could always send emails to us, and that's in the first episode, I believe. And also, you can check out Fractal Focus on Google. You can check us out on Apple Podcasts. And again, thank you for listening to this. And hopefully you've gained some insight into an industry you had no idea about and into an industry that is looking to integrate technology in a way you didn't know about either.

And with that, keep innovating, keep learning, keep learning, Keep growing and take care. Thank you for having me today. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Fractal Focus. We hope you found valuable insights. If you enjoy the conversation and want to stay updated on the latest trends in expert advice, make sure you subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us continue bringing you the content that drives your business forward.

Until next time, keep innovating and stay ahead of the curve. curve.