One of the most critical aspects of a successful Christmas tree farm is shearing the trees. Shearing refers to the pruning and trimming process that gives a tree its full, triangular shape.
Christmas tree farms aim for a taper—the slope of the tree’s sides—of 45 to 60 degrees, with a base width of 1.5 to 2 times as tall as it is wide. An ideal six-foot-tall tree, therefore, would be about 3-4 feet wide at the base.
Beyond the symmetrical, full look of a tree that buyers desire, there are other objectives beyond the aesthetic. Shearing promotes healthier trees that are more resilient and therefore stay fresh longer after cutting.
Ultimately, shearing produces trees more appealing to buyers, which translates into greater overall profitability for the farm.
Shearing a Christmas tree is an ideal metaphor for operating a professional services business using the principles of The Generosity Mindset™. Just as shearing shapes a tree to make it more appealing, valuable, and resilient, the deliberate pruning and refining of your business can create a more client-focused, impactful practice.
Shaping for the Client’s Perspective
The first commercially sheared Christmas trees were seen as "too perfect" by skeptics who thought they lost their natural charm. Customers, however, loved them because these trees represented their vision of the ideal Christmas.
In the same way, shaping your services with the client’s perspective in mind is key. Using the principles of The Generosity Mindset, it means not just offering value but focusing on the value clients perceive and, in turn, meeting thoseings that meet client-perceived value.
As you listen to the goals and challenges of your clients, where do you need to refine your services to meet those specific needs? What needs to be cut back or dropped altogether? How would you be able to improve your pricing through a better focus on where your clients perceive value?
Pruning for Healthy Growth
Shearing is not just about creating appealing symmetry but also stimulating healthy and full growth. In your services business, your shearing involves pruning distractions and inefficiencies that don’t align with your own dreams and goals for your business, to be sure.
Operating with The Generosity Mindset, however, means letting go of what doesn’t contribute to successful client outcomes. Such pruning frees up resources that you can invest in deepening relationships and delivering greater value to clients.
Such shearing may mean paring yourself of the “we’ve always done it this way” mindset that you have about your business. It could mean saying no to what seems like a great opportunity, but one that doesn’t align best with your expertise and the value clients perceive in you and your work.
The shearing you need to do might be ridding yourself of the mindset that you’re not good enough to create a business as successful as others you admire. It could mean that you finally raise your prices, dispensing with the self-limiting belief that all your clients are price sensitive when, in fact, they are value sensitive. It could mean that you finally decide that the problem client you continue to struggle with needs to be invited to find help elsewhere, both for their best interest and yours.
As you reflect on your business today, what pruning do you need to do in the long-term interests of your clients, both current and those you’ll serve in the future, as well as you the business owner?
Consistency Builds Trust
A Christmas tree farmer skilled at shearing generates consistently beautiful trees, year after year, and such consistency keeps clients coming back to their business as an almost essential part of their holiday tradition. In professional services, the consistency of your focus on delivering value in all your relationships, not just to clients but to your network and your community, builds trust.
The Generosity Mindset reminds us that trust isn’t built through flashy marketing but through actions that demonstrate genuine care, often when no one’s watching. Trust comes when you are consistently concerned for the welfare of others and their businesses, regardless of whether it benefits your bottom line in the short run.
When you reflect on your business, not just this year but since its inception, where have you gone above and beyond, and what outcomes have you achieved as a result? Where has your consistency deepened trust, and how can you continue or make it even better?
Airing Out Perspectives
Shearing encourages air and light to reach all parts of the tree, which keeps it healthy and vibrant. For a professional services business, this reflects the importance of regularly evaluating how you work, what value clients perceive in that work, and how you communicate that value.
Further, bringing fresh ideas and perspective to your clients is hardly an original idea I’ve conjured up as a hallmark of The Generosity Mindset. It's inescapably essential to delivering great value to your clients.
Where then do you need to further invest in your capabilities to serve your clients? What challenges do you need to make to their assumptions and help them better “see around the corner” of their business?
By shearing and shaping your business operations with principles grounded in genuine service to others, you build a professional services practice that is client-centered, trusted, and resilient. You’re not just offering services in a purely transactional manner; you’re delivering the transformative value clients crave. In turn, you open your business up to more effective pricing.
I wish a joyous holiday season to you and all those close to you, as well as a healthy and prosperous 2025!
Image Credit: Sean Foster on Unsplash
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Are you frustrated by your pricing? Need help articulating your value? Do you need a better way to identify and close your best-fit clients? Do you want to restore the joy you used to have for your business? I may be able to help you.
I’m John Ray, a business consultant and coach, author, and podcaster. I advise solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their two most frustrating problems: pricing and business development. I’m passionate about how changes in mindset, positioning, and pricing change the trajectory of a business and the lifestyle choices of a business owner. My clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners. Click here to learn more or contact me directly.
I’m the author of the national bestseller, The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices. The book covers topics like value and adopting a mindset of value, pricing your services more effectively, proposals, and essential elements of growing your business. The book is available at all major physical and online book retailers.
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