Firefighter Uses Chainsaw for Jumbo-Sized Woodworking

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Have I got a story for you today? Hey, what's up? Welcome to Cytos Will School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Listen, today's story, pretty crazy.

It features an Alberta firefighter who takes advantage of some downtime, picks up a chainsaw, and begins carving out life-sized wooden bears. If you are new to the show, you're probably like, "What? That's crazy." If you've been listening for a while, you're probably like, "Okay, yeah, I get it." Either way, this firefighter sells his creations to universities, restaurants, and anyone who wants a unique and large handcrafted item. Personally, I was excited to work on this episode because I've got three life-sized wooden bears here in my recording studio, but I really feel like I need a fourth one. So now I know where to go.

And in addition to this being a pretty cool project, it also helps to reinforce an important lesson in pricing your services or handicrafts. That lesson is that unless you have a really good reason to charge by the hour, you should charge by the project or by the life-sized wooden bear, in this case. I'll explain more about that at the end of the story. Here's a quick thank you to our sponsor, and then on with the show. Firefighter uses chainsaw for jumbo-sized woodworking.

As the leader of a hell-attack wildfire fighting team, Cameron Vilsack spends a lot of time near the Canadian Rocky Mountains of Alberta. During periods where there is heavy rainfall or high humidity, wildfires are significantly less common, and he and his team take the opportunity to train. This training includes a lot of chainsaw work, because, you know, chainsaws. And it was during one of those training sessions that Cameron decided to hang on to two of the biggest logs his team had cut. Most of the logs were used for team campfires or just left out to rot, and he had an idea.

His idea was chainsaw carving. Yes, chainsaw carving, otherwise known as carving with a chainsaw, think of it like wood carving, just with a chainsaw instead of a pocket knife. Growing up, Cameron had spent weekends camping with his family and whittling small wooden figurines. This taught him how to use various carving tools and gave him the basic skills he needed. Naturally, the difference is that, in this case, he'd be using bigger tools and materials, which he was also comfortable with as well, since he used them all the time in firefighting.

In fact, he says that using a chainsaw is easier than the usual microcarving because it's machine-powered and you get greater room for error when using a bigger log. On his first attempt, Cameron managed to carve a bear standing on its hind legs. This got the attention of everyone at the fire base where he worked and his colleagues asked him to share some techniques. That was the moment he realized that his woodworking could amount to more than just a hobby. The next week, Cameron carved a replica of an Easter Island moai statue, which he shared on Instagram.

After seeing it, one of his friends asked if he could put that statue on display in the front window of his store, along with the bear. A whole series of fortunate events quickly followed. He received a call from the city's art director, who had noticed the two pieces of work and wanted to display them at the upcoming arts festival. Cameron agreed, and the very night of the festival, he received an offer of $800 for the two woodcarvings. Later that week, he was featured in the local paper.

With all the attention, he knew he was onto something. He began spending his free time on Reddit, YouTube, and in Facebook groups, learning more about his new craft. To truly turn this from a hobby to a hustle, however, he needed customers. His second customer was the University of McGill, which hired him to build four custom tables for a contest they were taking part in in China. Cameron had originally volunteered for the project, but after showing the lead architect some of his designs, the university said they would pay him a fee.

Best of all, they allowed Cameron to use their architectural workshop, expense all of his materials, and gave him some extra needed tools. Of course, not all of his customers provide such benefits, nor has it always been so easy to make sales. Cameron has had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get the word out. He pitched his services to interior design firms, restaurant owners, and even called his local lumber yard to see if they had excess lumber to offload. On the digital front, he started by doing most of his marketing through Instagram, but is now pivoted to YouTube, where he shares how-to tutorials.

In his words, "You hit it from every angle, and eventually you will get a yes." The greatest challenge he's faced so far is deciding what to charge for his projects. And on that topic, he has an intelligent philosophy. He doesn't want to sell his time, but rather his skill, so he charges by the project and not by the hour. When he's not fighting fires in the Canadian Rockies, he's averaging about $1,000 a month from his woodworks. This is all without any initial startup costs, whatsoever, since he already had access to a chainsaw.

But as his projects have become more complicated, he's begun to invest more in his equipment. The next project is to build a 1,500-square-foot log cabin. He plans to document the entire process and upload it to his YouTube channel, which he hopes will inspire others to take up woodworking, maybe even with a chainsaw. And hey, if you're not into chainsaw woodworking, don't worry, you can carve out another side hustle that is just as well suited to your talents. [Music]

All right, let's talk about pricing by the project instead of by the hour.

Let's say it takes Cameron an hour for him to carve up a tree. It probably takes him a lot longer to carve out a bear, but I have no idea, it's hypothetical here. So in this scenario, it takes an hour for him to do that. Are you paying for that hour, or are you paying for the finished product? I suppose this is also assuming that you want a life-size wooden bear in your living room, but who wouldn't?

Anyway, you are paying for the finished product, not for the time it takes him to make it. Imagine you're on the other side, like now all of a sudden you're Cameron, and you've been charging by the hour. What if you become more efficient? Like what if you actually get better at your craft? Are you then paid less?

If a year from now, let's say you can do the work twice as quickly and still produce the same or better quality, do you think you should suddenly get paid half? Well, no, if anything, you should probably get paid more. 'Cause again, it's not about the time you put into it, it's about the time that you have spent mastering that craft, that skill, and what the value is of the finished product. So another way to think of it is like going to surgery. If you have to have an operation, you or your insurance company, or both, are paying for the years and years of training and experience that your surgeon and his or her team have had.

Not just the actual time spent in the operating room, the operating theater, the hourly rate of a heart surgeon is probably something like $30,000 an hour, or maybe more, I have no idea. But it's not based on the time they spent doing that surgery, it's based on their expertise. It doesn't really matter to you how long it takes, it matters whether they can fix the problem. So if you think about it this way, you can see like why it's so much more valuable in lots and lots of cases to charge by the project, not by the hour. There are some exceptions, and there are also some occasions where it can go either way.

Here's a quick example of web design. So I'm doing a web design project where there's an agency commission to build a whole website, and they have quoted that out based on the project, not based on the hours. I also need them to make some tweaks to another website. Actually, the Side Hustle School site, which is greatly overdue for some tweaks. And for that, it's not a complete rebrand, it's not a complete redesign.

So they basically came back and said, okay, here's the quote for the project, for the site. And for the tweaks you need on the other site, we'll just quote that on an hourly basis. If you accept this proposal, however much time we spend on it up to a certain amount, that's how much you'll pay. So there are exceptions and so on, but for this kind of project, what we're talking about today, I think it would be a big mistake to do hourly pricing. And fortunately, Cameron is not only adept at fighting fires and using chainsaws, he's also made a wise decision in his life-size carving project.

So good work, Cameron. Next time I'm up in Alberta, I expect to bring back a life-size wooden bear. And to all of our listeners, I hope you enjoyed it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to Cameron's YouTube page, where you can watch some of this stuff get made.

It's pretty awesome. Just go to sidehustleschool.com/641. That is for episode 641. You can also check out my own chainsaw handcrafted items at your local bookstore. And if you don't see any of them, you can ask for my books, because I actually have done that.

I have written books and most local bookstores might have them. That'll work on the rest of my skills. I'm gonna go and do that now. Hope you have a wonderful day or wherever you are in the world. And I hope you come back tomorrow for more.

My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School.