Off Market Research

[Swampy]

Sorry for the late reply been busy running around getting things for my designer to get the first few jobs locked down for spring. Sor far so good I must say.

The suit was dismissed, the person didn't show. Kind of funny that they serve me and yet are a no show to their own case.

So anyways the backhoe was a success for the most part. I don't like how slow it moves snow but the guys where happy with it. It looks like that opition is what I'm going to go with this year. I only demoed a CAT and would like to try a few more manufactures such as Deere, New Holland, Volvo, Case, and going to try out a JCB. I've heard some horror stories with JCB but supposable its a different company now. Plus this past storm I rented a 426 JCB 3 1/2 yard loader, needed to stack some snow mounds and the dealer gave me a deal on a weeks rental for only 1000 bucks.

[sjrtk]

Congratulations on the case, and lining up the spring work.

JCB is a different company now but i still want to see what there gonna do. All the others are good choices all thought the Volvo's are the quickest IIRC.


Good Luck.

[Swampy]

Congratulations on the case, and lining up the spring work.

JCB is a different company now but i still want to see what there gonna do. All the others are good choices all thought the Volvo's are the quickest IIRC.


Good Luck.

I've seen the specs on volvo machines and they look good. I'm not happy with my local volvo dealer. The sales personal seem to treat me and the few personal that I bring with like crap, they just want to sell me a machine. But I run purchases like this, I am the purchaser, my foremen are the operators 90% of the time, my mechanic does 100% of the monthly and yearly maintenance/repair.

But just because my local volvo dealer sucks doesn't mean they are excluded.

[leloup]

I have the results from my entreprenership students. It was about 50-50 for going green or getting a new machine, with a little advantage to green. Some of the kids really liked the idea of green, some did not care (it suprised me to see who those kids were also). I also compiled a list of some of their suggestions.

A couple though you should purchase your competitors, a few others though you should open up shop in a few of the surrounding cities. Several (and these were my low kids) thought you should sell you business all together . Some thought since you take on too many areas, you may want to cut back and focus on specifics.

Some of the better suggestions I thought are increase advertising (be it through tv, radio, internet, billboard, flyier, etc). If you went green, one said you should use all green materials for advertising, like recycled paper and plant dyes for inks. One also suggested you could advertise at expos or demos (maybe a sponsored demo at home depot). Another one that I liked was doing some charity work (they suggested for tax credit) for churches and other organizations. I was thinking that some of the churches I know do a community garden, and if you tilled it for free, it might get you some local rapport with the church members and then they would tell their friends.

Hope some of that might be usefull for tha future. If you wouldn't mind, I thought this was a pretty good learning experience for my students, and I would like to use it for future classes. Also, the kids were really curious, they wanted to know the name of your business.

[Swampy]

I have the results from my entreprenership students. It was about 50-50 for going green or getting a new machine, with a little advantage to green. Some of the kids really liked the idea of green, some did not care (it suprised me to see who those kids were also). I also compiled a list of some of their suggestions.

A couple though you should purchase your competitors, a few others though you should open up shop in a few of the surrounding cities. Several (and these were my low kids) thought you should sell you business all together . Some thought since you take on too many areas, you may want to cut back and focus on specifics.

Some of the better suggestions I thought are increase advertising (be it through tv, radio, internet, billboard, flyier, etc). If you went green, one said you should use all green materials for advertising, like recycled paper and plant dyes for inks. One also suggested you could advertise at expos or demos (maybe a sponsored demo at home depot). Another one that I liked was doing some charity work (they suggested for tax credit) for churches and other organizations. I was thinking that some of the churches I know do a community garden, and if you tilled it for free, it might get you some local rapport with the church members and then they would tell their friends.

Hope some of that might be usefull for tha future. If you wouldn't mind, I thought this was a pretty good learning experience for my students, and I would like to use it for future classes. Also, the kids were really curious, they wanted to know the name of your business.

Hey thanks for the use of your students and sorry for the late reply, been busy putting together a bid to do work on a island on pewaukee lake and there is no bridge to get there either. My company is call Landscape Engineering Services. I tend to try to do everything I can but really I'm just trying to fill holes in the years schedule the two biggest's services I offer is Snow/Ice Management and then Landscape Construction. I offer the others such as tree pruning/removal (if it can wait) in the winter months, not only is it better for the health of the tree or the lawn underneath if your felling but it evens out my employee's hours and they are more happy to be working than collecting unemployment. My months that I have nothing really going on is between about mid March to the end of April as its to soggy to put equipment on for construction. With three Skid Loaders and a two tractors I can equip them with brooms or broom/bucket combo's for parking lot clean ups when the snow melts (look at a gas stations parking lot snow mounds collect all the trash, stones, and dirt). It would help me bring up my ROI on the loaders a bit.

The one thing I'm going to be scaling back on is the Lawn Maintanence side of things. That division has the highest overhead to it with the lowest profits. I'm actually over priced on it if you average on per visit together at about $52/acre vs the average at $45/acre. But the cost of equipment eats you up a Toro Diesel Zero Turn Mower runs about $13,000 plus tax. You don't want to know how much a Toro 5900 costs. This year I'm planning on selling off the lawn spraying and applicating equipment and just sub contracting it out to someone that does it full time like Tru-Green/Chem Lawn.

Satilite Locations, haven't really thought to much on it. Personally I like to come in the morning and see everything, things like what material needs to be loaded for which crew, or security wise if anything walked off during the night. The lawn maintanence is pretty much centralized within the county. But my landscape crews, usually drop off equipment/trailers from site to site, unless a machine needs maintanence or holiday weekend. At first I wasn't to fond of leaving equipment on site but it grew on me. Easier for crews, easier on my pocket.

Advertising is my old enemy. I don't like it cause no set form of advertising (radio, phonebook, etc) is really doesn't have the worth of word of mouth. Happy customers are worth the weight in gold, plus if you go into a new development project and you complete a job when the first few homes go in everyone sees it. I use to just use those flimsy cardboard lawn signs, I still use them but I talked with a graphic's artist kind of guy, on bigger jobs I'm going to have "future look" type of signs made up per job. Plus if they want the home/business owner has a keepsake. One thing I've found that works well is Local Paper advertisment at least here they have for citys the number over 10,000 pop a local type of paper. In my area its the Waukesha Freeman, Occonomac Sun, Lake Country Reporter are to name a few. Though I'd avoid the National types such as Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Most of them target people out of my area, even some of the bigger local papers such as My area Milwaukee Journial Sential which are spread out through the state. Online is good, its cheap to run a website I am going to have one built soon hopefully the one problem I see is getting people there. Avoid the Phonebook it is absolutily worthless, plus it literally costs a arm and a leg to have a Ad placed in one. Unless your business name starts with a "#" or a "A" I just leave it at my phone number, which I might just drop that anyways, for the fact that if you see our trucks you know the name and the internet is king of info.

I got more towards your reply but I have to run its getting late and I have to be up early.

[Lohman446]

May I suggest this for advertising:

Find the local little league (softball league, whatever). If they are short fields (they always are) offer to help offset the cost of a new field at there location as sponsorship. The field will advertise for you (make sure you are allowed a sign stating "built and maintained by") and those directly involved with the little league (coaches and organizers) will look to you first. Its likely all tax deductible as well. It generates word of mouth advertising and good will. I know my cousins who own a major landscaping company (landscaping, snow removal, pretty much the same stuff you do) find it to be one of the most effective forms of advertising they use, and is a feel good thing at the same time. Bonus: It helps keep your guys busy

[teufelhunden]

Just my input on the tax issues that seemed to come up a couple of times:

No deduction (on whatever form you're filing for your LLC - 1120/1065/Schedule C) for volunteering. Meaning if, for instance, you build a baseball field for free, you don't get to deduct the $100k it would have brought in had it been billed out. You likely would be able to deduct any of your costs (if it costs you $10k in labor, that would be deductible in most cases), but that may be offset by the value of the advertising you would get in return (as far as the Internal Revenue Code, if you get anything for free, you get to record income for the fair market value of what you received).

So, hypothetically, you build the baseball field. It costs you $40k, you would have done it for a paying customer for $100k. Having your name in center field would cost someone else $1k/year, and in return for doing the field, your sign will be there forever. Assuming you start and finish the field in the same tax year, you'd get to take $39k as a deduction (potentially limited, but that's beyond the scope here). Then probably $1k a year in income til your sign comes down.

All that said, I'm not your accountant, and any different facts or circumstances will change the tax treatment of any transaction So check with your accountant first

[Swampy]

I got more towards your reply but I have to run its getting late and I have to be up early.

Can't sleep, and the cookies and milk are not helping either.

If your students want more info just let me know, go ahead and use it as a future example. I find it more challenging and exicting to have new blood in the industry, but I also learn a lot about and from these guys.

I was thinking towards of donating time but to build a baseball field takes time and materials. Which, I haven't run the numbers on building a field, I would lead to cost a lot towards me. It's a little extreme to for that, plus me trying to be a perfectionist in nature would want me to build it to MLB spec's. Though going on with that idea maybe contacting a city's or villages about renovating area's of a park, such as adding tree's or making some landscape beds. I'm thinking smaller and multiple since I'm already servicing and operating in with in 20+ townships. I 'd think it would be unfair towards helping one town out vs. the larger picture.

The other thought I came up with was with local food drive's. Donate a driver and a truck for the day, get people to load it up with food, haul it to local pantry's. Maybe get a couple of other contractors in the program and call it "Dump trucks for Food" even then make it a competition between businesses I guess. Even just a spur of the moment I'll even throw in, a up $1000 to match the items in the truck. It hits me a little hard personally when I went to hire personal for spring and in to the winter months the number of skilled service/tradesmen that where out of work. Some of these guys worked 20 plus years running a road grader, lost their job, and now feeding a family off peanut butter and jelly. Sorry for getting a little emo on it but its sad to see that. But I'll qoute Napoleon "A army runs off its belly" The army being people, people have many wants but one of the basic's is still food.

Sorry got to continue on the Phone book. Take this a example. You(and guests) want a pizza. Three thoughts that run through your mind chain store pizza, local joint that has been better, or the frozen kind. So what is the need of a phone book if your not looking to try something else and just looking for the number for Pizza Hut! Thus you know I dislike phonebooks and phone companies.

Devil: I belive my form was a 1065 but don't qoute me on that, I have my CPA that does the business taxes, that is what I'm horrible at. I did it number of years and I messed them up bad, I'd forget to claim things like my off road use fuel, office supplies, etc. But what he broke it down to me in stupid style is that A. I need to make a major "new" purchase this year or B. get enough tax credit that nullifies.

Anyways I'm off to try this thing called sleep. Thanks again you input is well appreacited.

[leloup]

I totally agree with you about word of mouth. It has been proven to be the most effictive (not to mention most cost effective) form of advertising.