This is Waste to Wealth, a podcast about turning your waste-hauling business into a profitable, scalable, cash-flowing machine. And now, here's your host, Michael McCall.

Hey, again, Michael here from Buffalo Finances, and we're doing Waste to Wealth today. In this episode, we're reading through Facebook questions and comments from Facebook groups. That way, you don't have to, making your life a little bit easier. I love the groups, the community. There's a lot of dumpster communities. And so I go there and I share what I can. I learn what I can. Helped me a lot when I was struggling, I had questions. And Facebook seemed to have a lot of people there. There's thousands and thousands of people. So here we have a post from Candice and Candice is asking a simple question. For dumpster signage, is anyone using magnets or aluminum signs? And if you're using aluminum signs, how are you attaching these signs? Are you using high powered magnets? So I have seen magnets on trucks and cars, but I've never seen someone use a magnet on a dumpster. I think that's a bad idea because you're gonna leave that dumpster sitting and anyone has access to it, really be easy for someone to take that magnet and steal it. and then you don't have any signage on your dumpster. So I don't recommend using magnets on your dumpsters. You can use a magnet on your truck, but if you have a high-powered magnet on your truck, on the side, you got to take it off because it will dent your door. So that, I don't recommend it, but you can use it. And then you can turn your personal commuting vehicle into an advertisement that is flexible. So you can take it off if you want. That's actually more done when you have employees where you want them to advertise the company. but you don't want to go through the commitment of having that specific vehicle detailed because what if it's their personal vehicle? What if they leave the company? What if they want to sell it and get a different one? Then you have to have that signage removed. On your commercial vehicles, Don't bother putting a magnet, just get them stickered, get them vinyled. That is way better. So vinyl works wonderful. I recommend vinyl signage on your dumpsters and your trucks. Magnets are okay for employees that you want them to use their personal vehicle to promote the brand. That's it. And it's not that expensive for the longterm. Mm-hmm. I'll also say that vinyl is really, really, really good, really high quality, but we actually ended up using spray paint because spray paint is a lot cheaper and you can put it on really fast and if a dumpster gets dirty or stained or someone splashes paint on it, which happens quite a bit, you just paint over it. You paint the base. We had blue base and then we had orange as our color. Those were our colors, orange and blue. get two colors, have a base and have a primary. There you go. Big visibility on the job. We're just looking for some more comments now, questions. All right, can someone give me a reference to an affordable commercial auto insurance company? And I know that it's gonna be expensive. This guy's getting quotes for $1,400 a month for two trucks. He's got a Dodge Ram 5,500. I have one of those, I have two of those. And that pulls, a 20-foot roll-off and a 2000 Ford F-250 Super Duty that pulls a 16-foot trailer. So that's actually a really good price. I think I'd be happy with that. There's a lot of insurance companies out there. I'll promote the one that we love, which is Southeastern Insurance. They're really good in the Southeast, hence the name. So we're in North Carolina. They're also in South Carolina, Virginia. I'm sure they'll do anywhere in the country, actually, but that's who we use. We really like them a lot. There's a lot of companies out there and I'll be at the Waste Expo in a few weeks. So I'm sure I'll see some other ones that are highly recommended. And if there's an insurance company that sticks out to me, I'll share them as well. Hey there, this person would like some advice from some pros. She just got a gooseneck trailer for 20 yarders roll-offs about a month ago. Payments are starting soon, so she's gotta get started booking it. So any advice would be much appreciated. So if you've got your equipment and you don't have a plan already for how you're gonna get customers, you've done it in the wrong order. First, you have to know how you're gonna get customers before you start going and buying equipment. And yeah, that's the first thing you do. What's your plan? Getting equipment is step number 10 on the what to do. First figure out how you're gonna get customers, get your website set up, get your order process set up, get your payment. Payment, how are they gonna pay you? You need to know that. It's not hard to do, but you don't want to buy the equipment first, because you have money going out with no money coming in. Um, you can make those signs. They, uh, I forget what they're called, but you stick them in the ground and you put them all over the place. Those were great. I, if you don't, if you're not a believer in that, you're silly. Cause that works fine. Uh, your dumpsters are also advertisements, so that's good. But if they're not deployed yet, they're not going to be. easy for people to see. So get those signs, put them in the ground. I would do SEO, make sure your website is findable and proactive marketing. Reach out to your contractors. I've talked about this before. It's my favorite strategy is to go online, find out who is pulling permits for projects and contact those contractors and just let them know. My name is Joe, or in this case, well, I don't want to pick out this specific person. My name's Joe. My name's Jim. My name's Michael. My name's Michael, and I have roll-offs. My name's Michael. I have dumpsters that I'm renting. We'd love to service you. We're just getting started. we'd be very easy for us to dedicate dumpsters to. And just be transparent about what you're doing. Ask a lot of people, let them know that you're doing it. Do it in a friendly way, not a pushy way, just you're informing them. And maybe some people will say yes, but either way, a lot of people will know that you offer them. If they're in a pinch, they'll know to look for you. Okay. And let them know how they can sign up, whether that's texting your phone, you're probably going to have to use your personal phone because you're going to want a cell phone and you can have a business cell phone, but you're going to want to use a cell phone. That way they can text you. Contractors love texting. So give them a phone number that they can text to give them an email address in case they love emails, which most don't, but have that as well. So have your email clear, have your phone number set up. So you have all these things set up first. And there's just so much. This is like a big question. How do I actually get started? I've got the equipment. How do I get customers? And it's letting the world know that you exist. And you want to let the local people know that you exist. So you need to reach out to them. And if you're doing dumpster rental, I'm recommending that you go after, that you work with contractors because they are a business and businesses are easy to find. You can easily find contractors because they're also advertising. So they're trying to advertise to their customers, but at the same time, you as a vendor can find them as well. So find your contractors, reach out to them, let them know you have a dumpster service, you'd love to help them out. If you happen to know job sites, if you drive around and see job sites, you'll see these contractors working. And if there's a job site that's got a dumpster that's over full and their guys are working on site, that is a red flag that actually it's a green flag. That's a green flag that you should contact that contractor and let them know you have empty dumpsters available. You'd love to help them out and drop them off. Especially if they have a one of those big company dumpsters like a GFL, Waste Management Republic, and it's over full. It means that that area is just not getting serviced. In some areas, those big companies just, they're not as efficient with their contractors, which is sad, but it's an opportunity for you. There's a lot of hustling. Um, and also don't be opposed to when you're first starting out doing junk removal. I, I did talk recently about how you want to focus on one thing. So you want to have a primary, but when you get started, you got to get revenue. You got to get revenue. So, um, if, if you need to start with junk removal, start with junk removal, but that's a different client. That's a different client. How are you going to get those clients? And you have to reach out to different type of clientele. Okay. Um, there you go. Got a question here. What am I supposed to do if I see that there is a municipal bid? Like they have a bid for work. Maybe it's a convenience center where they're trying to, or they want to have a dumpster on site or 10 dumpsters on their convenience site all the time. And they need to be serviced once a week. Like, how do you bid on that? Well, those are actually very hard to get. and you normally need more than one you need, you're going to have an area, so you'll have like 20 sites. That means 20 sites, let's say everyone needs 10 dumpsters, that's 200 dumpsters you need to service those convenient sites. I'm being maybe numbers are a little bit off, but if you need 200 dumpsters to service a contract, you better have them already because you're not going to be able to buy 200 dumpsters quick. and it's going to be very expensive. You're not going to be able to compete with someone else bidding on the contract. So if you're going to bid on a contract, make sure you already have the experience with it, but it doesn't hurt to bid on it and be honest about your price. But when you go to, when you bid on a contract, like a city contract, municipal contract, go to the opening, the bid opening, because most of them are blind. And so you submit your bid and then they open all of them at the same time. They have a room, they have a meeting, and they will open the bid for the first time, and they will read what it says, the people that are administrating the bid, and the ones that are in charge of the contract. And then they'll make a list of all the people that have bid, like what their name is, and what their bid was, and then they're gonna award it to the person that is qualified, because you have to be qualified and has the lowest price. And in the trash world, it's going to be the lowest price unless you demonstrate that you can't do the work. They're going to have to see that you are qualified, like you have enough insurance, for example. If you don't have enough insurance, like say it needs a $2 million insurance, coverage umbrella and you don't have that, well, then you're not qualified, obviously. So it doesn't matter what you wrote down for your price. But be there when they open it and you'll get so much experience. Maybe you'll see other companies that are there and build a relationship with them. It's great to know who you're competing against. because they're not your enemies, they're just trying to do the same work you are. You might need their help, or they might need your help, or they might throw work your way when they're overwhelmed, or the work that they love to do is not the same work you love to do, so they're happy to give you work you love to do. Maybe you like to have small projects where your 20s go, and they like to have 30 yarders only. Well, you'd love to have a relationship with those clients. It's more likely that they have 30s and 40s, and you have 10s, and they hate the 10s because they don't make money on them. and you love the 10s because you don't have CDL drivers, that's more likely the scenario. Actually don't see a lot of companies that do all the sizes, that go from 10 all the way up to 40. See a lot more that they're focused on the 30s and 40s, they're really good at that. And they have the smaller ones because people want them. And then you have the other companies that they have a lot of small ones and that's all they do is small ones because they're under CDL, okay? That was pretty fun to talk about. I like talking about bids. I used to go to those bids. That's why I know about them. We won a few, but most of them we lose and that's okay. It helps us to learn where we are in the market. And then if we lost because we couldn't make money at that level, we were totally fine with that. We got a question here about how to modify a dumpster. Let's say you have a 15 yard dumpster and you want to make it bigger. because you want to charge more for it and get more waist halt. Bigger dumpsters can haul more. So how do you turn a 15 yarder into a 20 yarder? Well, I have seen this. I've never done this. I don't think I'll ever do it, but I've seen it where you can take a 15 yarder that's a low side, low side. So, let's say it's a five foot high dumpster. So, it's not over your head. You can see over it. Unless you're a midget. There's midgets in this business, I suppose. But you can stand and see it. You can add a foot on top of that dumpster and make it from a 15 yarder to a 20 yarder. I have seen videos on this, so it's totally possible. However, it seems like a ton of work and I don't know how you make that sturdy. I've also seen it where you take wood and you put wood in it just like you would on a truck that's got uh, rails that you can remove. So you could make it into a rail dumpster where the rails slot in, you can turn it from a 15 to a 20 just by moving the rails. That is acceptable. Again, same problem. It's not going to be very sturdy. It's, it's going to get weak over time, but if you already have 15 yarders and you don't want to go by twenties, but you want to turn into a 20, that's how I would do it. I would add material on top if it's a low side 15. Okay. Let's see what other people have said about that specific thing, because I didn't actually read all these comments. Oh, yeah, you can use wood. All right, so we got some pictures here, and maybe we can throw this up on the screen. Billy Goat Dumpsters. Yes, Billy Goat. He's got a nice setup with wood up high. That makes it very tall. It looks like he extended it like a foot and a half, maybe two feet. That's pretty impressive. I do not want to lose this image. We're going to save this image. Boom. Saved it. And then we've got people that do extensions. So I guess more people to do it than I thought. Here's one that's, that's metal. They, they welded metal on top of it, man, these crazy people, I guess it's more of a hillbilly way to go. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's just extra work. So we'll try to get these pictures on screen. I like it. I like it a lot. I would just buy 20 yarders though. I would not waste my time, my energy on that. Unless you love welding, but there's a lot more things you can do with your time. You shouldn't be bored. All right. If you have a 30 yard, if you have a 30 mile radius and someone wants to get a dumpster, that's twice as far away, 60 miles away. Uh, what do you do? How do you charge for going outside of your common radius? So that's a great question. Um, you figure out what's your loaded mile costs you. How much does it cost for the truck? with, with the maintenance that you're going to incur with the fuel, with the driver. And if you're the driver, make sure you pay yourself. Don't don't assume your time's free. It's not free. you could do other things with your time that make money. You could drive Uber, for example. So, I don't know what your number is going to be. I think at least $3 a mile is what I would charge. And that's, let's see, that would be round trip. So, if it's 30 miles, like 30 miles you have to go, I would say add $90 to the order. And Um, that would probably be each time. So if I drive out, yeah, that's what I would do. I just, just keeping it really simple. This might not be the best thing. You should know your specific numbers because fuel in California is way more than fuel in North Carolina. So if you're in California, let's just add an extra dollar to the head number, call it $4 a mile. But. I would do that for each way. So when I do the delivery, it's gonna be $3 per mile. So it's 90 bucks, maybe round up to a hundred, a hundred dollars more. And then when I go to do the exchange or the pickup, that's a hundred dollars more. And I break those things up. I charge for delivery separate than I charge for the pickup. If I can, I'll take the, if I'm gonna combine anything, I'll take the pickup money and I'll put it into the delivery. so that I'm getting paid up front, our service is valuable enough, and I don't wanna cashflow something that, I don't wanna cashflow the work. Especially because if they don't pay me and I did all the work, I'm screwed, I'm out all the money. Whereas if they pay me up front, I know I have the money. And if there's an issue, for some reason I overcharge them, heaven forbid, it's very easy to give money back. Impossible to take back service, but you can give money back. So that's the right way to handle it. if you made the change of a trailer into a truck. So this person has finally switched from This person's finally switched from having a truck and a trailer to having just trucks, straight trucks, which is fantastic. Fantastic. And they went to a hook lift that has a swap loader on it. And I love the swap loaders. So that's where, that's where you can have a 36 inch and a 54 inch hook and you just swap them really great setup. Um, I don't like this low hook cans at all. I know that's what smaller guys run, but man, they, you can't see if you have a 36 inch hook, you cannot see when you're making that pickup. So you're. you're gonna smash into that dumpster. And that's actually what most people do that I've seen is they'll back right into the dumpster. They'll kiss it, what my guys called it. They'll kiss the dumpster and then pull forward just a hair after that. And so now they've had their truck has now hit the dumpster. So they're gonna have damage on the truck and the dumpster is gonna have a dent in it. It's gonna get worse and worse over time. And it's gonna need repair. It's gonna look bad. It might not even work right. And then once you pick it up, you have to trust that your instincts are good enough to get it straight. And if you're at an angle, it's way harder to pick up. I know you can get it no problem after practice, but if you're on a hill and it's dark and you're at an angle, very, very dangerous. So I hate 36-inch hooks. We had a lot of them. I got rid of as many as I could either by just scrapping them, like when they were done, they were done, or we would turn them into high hooks. If they were a 20 yarder, I would save them. If they were a 15 or 10 and they were low hooks, 36 inch, I didn't want to bother fixing them because they weren't worth it. But if they're 20 yarders, 36 inch, as soon as it made sense to give them a refurbishment, I would raise that hook to 54 inches. Just use a 54 inch. That's my advice. That wasn't the question at all. That's my advice. All right, well, this has been Michael with Waste to Wealth. I hope you're doing great. Keep hauling, keep serving the world. God bless you and peace out.

Michael McCall

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Waste to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you connect with us on social media and subscribe to the show wherever you consume podcasts. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell a friend about the show. Until next time.