THE ROOTS OF A SOLID BUSINESS
Toronto arborists find growth in education
Anyone who has ever doubted the merits of a summer job need look no further than Tait Sala and Tomas Cohen, founders of Cohen & Master Tree and Shrub Services Ltd. (cmtrees.com).
When the two met at a summer landscaping job, Sala was studying theatre production and Tomas Cohen had just emigrated from Israel. It wasn’t long before they realized they shared the same passion and ideals. Once Sala graduated, the two friends made their move. Their summer experience showed them that there was a demand for tree care in the city, yet they noticed that the service quality often left something to be desired. In 2002, they formed Cohen & Master, and they haven’t looked back.
Two friends and a truck
They started off simply, just the two of them and a truck. That early experience of working directly with clients through every step — from proposal to completion — informed how they have run their business ever since.
“Our relationship with our client is the core of our business, the heart of our success,” explains Cohen. “That’s the challenge, and that’s where people often don’t have the know-how, vision or patience to do it right.” With customer service at the centre of the business, Cohen & Master has grown to become one of the leading tree services in Toronto. Sala and Cohen employ about 20 people full-time, serve the entire GTA (with an eye to expanding out of the city) and are now taking on more complex tree issues, such as pruning and tree removal. The company also offers soil and root care and quarterly planthealth monitoring. “We’re focused on tree preservation, what the impact of the urban environment is on a tree,” explains Sala. “People make it very hard on trees to survive.”
Finding harmony
“For trees to thrive and be healthy,” says Cohen, “it takes having the client on board and understanding the process and the vision.” The key is finding harmony between their clients and the greenery around them. “It requires different strategies as far as maintaining trees, being proactive instead of reactive,” adds Sala. “That’s where we focus our efforts.”
Cohen says educating clients is an essential part of the business. “If clients understand the reason for what we’re proposing, if they understand the concept and the vision, that will be the best model for us to continue to grow because they will come back to us,” he says. “We very much believe in the relationship with the client. We’re not interested in one call once every five years. We believe you can call us any time with questions because you know the arborist and you know the program.”
True to the vision
The business has grown each year despite the high cost of running it, which Sala puts down to proper planning. “We’ve always been very careful about setting our projections, what our expectations are and analyzing what we’ve done in the past,” he says. “It’s an incredible market to be in — it’s also very competitive. And if you’re not good at what you do and you don’t do something different in a special way, you won’t make it, because there are 20 companies behind you who will take your business.”
Cohen concedes that staying true to the company’s original vision — combining customer service and education — gets more challenging as Cohen & Master grows. But more than a decade later, it’s still their guiding principle. “We worked hard to get those clients and we worked harder to keep them,” he says. “We want to build on those people, build on the really solid root of this company. We want to be different. We want to do things no other company does in this city.” For the two entrepreneurs, it goes well beyond their bottom line. “Toronto has an incredible urban canopy,” says Sala. “Being part of the city and having our own small part of this big, beautiful canopy — that’s a bonus.”
“People often don’t have the know-how, vision or patience to do it right.”