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"Dustings" 2-30: Product Launch Episode...Storm Phantom is here!
0 Playsin 18 hours
The guys sit down with Jordan Smith of Storm Equipment to give it to SnowJobs Nation officially FIRST! The Storm is no longer coming, it has ARRIVED! The Storm Phantom plow is here, and will set the future standard in hydraulic wing plows! Hear all the details here for the first time anywhere! Congrats to our friends at Storm!
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Transcript
Introduction & Episode Overview
00:00:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Here we go, Snow Jobs Nation. We are coming at you with a brand new, very special dustings episode on the Snow Jobs Podcast. As always, I'm Steve. You know who's with me.
00:00:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
And if we're doing dustings, you know who's also joining us.
00:01:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jeremy and Jordan are both in the house. How are we boys?
00:01:04
Jordan Smith
Doing good, what up boys?
00:01:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
What's going on?
00:01:06
RICK JAMES
Doing good. Yeah. Everybody's looking good this morning. Good
Syma 2026 & Industry Impact
00:01:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, this is, ah we had the had to get on and do this. We got ah a big couple of weeks coming up, you know, Syma 2026. It is, ah for lack of a better option, it is the biggest week in the snow industry off season.
00:01:09
RICK JAMES
morning recording.
00:01:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
So we we had to come on and get a dustings in. It's a very special time for our friends across the ah across the country there in Minnesota.
00:01:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
So Jordan, how you been? what Anything new and exciting?
00:01:39
Jordan Smith
Oh, there's so much, so much to talk about today, guys. I can't wait. And I'm um i'm excited for the audience of Snow Jobs to be first.
00:01:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
Let's get right into it. What do we got?
00:01:46
RICK JAMES
What's going on?
00:01:49
Jordan Smith
And i will say Snow Jobs audience has had plenty of lead up and teasers and feedback on what we're going to talk about. But this will be the most comprehensive ah review of of what's about to happen next week at Saima.
00:02:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
We're a vault, dude. There's no leaks coming out of this ship. Wow. Wow.
00:02:07
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:02:07
RICK JAMES
No. Hey, I see you looking at me, but hey, everything I've said has been
00:02:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah wow
00:02:14
RICK JAMES
in I've been, guys have told me I could do it, so.
00:02:18
Jordan Smith
You're good.
00:02:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, ah It's great.
00:02:19
Jordan Smith
I love it.
00:02:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
now There have been ah there have been a lot of teasers and stuff out there and ah accidental viewings and stuff like that, or maybe not so accidental. But it's all all led up to this, which is a very, very big endeavor for our friends at Storm.
Introducing the Phantom Plow
00:02:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
So why don't you ah tell us what's coming, Jordan?
00:02:42
Jordan Smith
Well, I guess when you send out 70 of a new top secret product all across the country, it's pretty hard for that not to leak out. Right. So.
00:02:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:02:53
Jordan Smith
so So I think, you know, obviously, again, with the audience having heard a lot of what's going on, but also with new listeners coming all the time. um Essentially, for those that don't have all the context, Storm has been operating as a distributor dealer of Metal Plus hydraulic wing plows all the way back to 2016 under the VSI brand before we sold that to Boss.
00:03:19
Jordan Smith
And we've done very well with the product. We have run the product in our own fleet. We love the product. Hydraulic wing plows have made our operation substantially more efficient and it's done the same for many, many companies across the country.
00:03:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:03:34
Jordan Smith
It's not the only tool in the toolbox, but it's a great tool for the toolbox for the right jobs. Over the course of the past decade, we have received feedback on what people love and what they would love to see improved upon.
00:03:49
Jordan Smith
And we've have taken that feedback in over the years and essentially in our heads have been formulating what the perfect hydraulic wing plow could look like.
00:04:01
Jordan Smith
And in the very recent past year, we decided to make that feedback list a reality and develop and launch what is now going to be called the Phantom Plow.
00:04:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:04:13
Jordan Smith
So hey very, yeah, very sneaky.
00:04:14
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yep, 100%.
00:04:17
Jordan Smith
It's phantom. It's also in a phantom black and gray color scheme. That's a whole different story. We'll get to that in a little bit.
00:04:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, I mean, it was appropriately named because the biggest thing my guys noticed was the silence.
00:04:30
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:04:31
The SnowJobs Podcast
How quiet it was. So ah it is that is a fact.
00:04:34
Jordan Smith
Quietest plow you'll ever run. Not that.
00:04:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
i will I will definitely attest to that.
00:04:39
Jordan Smith
Not that that is a main selling point, but I will tell you that it was unintentional, but between our edge system and the bushings we use to make everything tight tolerance on the plow, it is dead silent.
00:04:39
RICK JAMES
after stuff
00:04:51
Jordan Smith
And over the course of a 20 or 30 hour run, you'd be surprised how nice it is to have quiet.
00:04:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:05:00
Jordan Smith
it Again, not a main selling point, but but yeah, the the name Phantom and Stealth Edge is what we're calling our edge system. It all just kind of works.
00:05:10
RICK JAMES
all right
00:05:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, it definitely worked. It definitely worked. You said you had 70 of them out there last year in an R&D field test situation, and Jeremy and I were ah we're lucky enough to to have a couple, and the it was pretty incredible. i got you know Hats off to you guys. It's ah you know it's something else. when Whenever a new plow that performs like that hits the market it's always cool but when people you know are actually and friends with are actually the ones responsible for you know creating it like that's really freaking cool it it was really it was an honor to uh to run it the guys uh the guys had a lot of fun with it
00:05:56
Jordan Smith
one Yeah, I think just kind of the theory behind the soft launch was that this entire product came to be because of feedback from our friends and customers.
00:05:57
RICK JAMES
Yeah, it definitely was.
00:06:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:06:09
Jordan Smith
So what better way to actually make the product the best that it can be than to send the product out to our same friends and customers?
00:06:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
True.
00:06:19
Jordan Smith
and have them help us perfect that product. And candidly, we we thought when we sent the things out, they were pretty close to perfect because we had been testing them on the Storm Academy pad.
00:06:29
Jordan Smith
um But the reality is when you get it in the hands of different operators in different climates on different types of sites, the feedback that came in to help reshape what the final product actually was, was just absolutely massive.
00:06:43
Jordan Smith
Um, like I said, when we sent them out, I, I probably even told you guys like, ah, these things are, these things are rock solid.
00:06:49
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:06:49
Jordan Smith
Like we've been testing them We've been bashing them. We've been doing all this stuff. Um, And as we learned pretty quickly, like they weren't perfect yet, which that was part of the point, right?
00:06:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:07:00
Jordan Smith
Part of the point was that we knew they weren't perfect. We thought they were great, but not perfect. Now let's make those last incremental improvements to make them just that much better.
00:07:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, you had the you had the main 90% done. It's just minor tweaks at that point with what you know feedback you're getting from everybody, which I was impressed that – I was actually very impressed that you guys were like, yeah, okay, ah come on.
00:07:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Don't sugarcoat anything. Like, we want to know, like, what didn't – my guy running it most of the season, I had three guys rotate through it at one point, but my guy that did the main amount of running it was Mark.
00:07:27
RICK JAMES
is.
00:07:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
and Mark doesn't hold back, but he was like, do they really want to hear the truth or do like, like, am I sugarcoating it? I'm like, no, give it, you know, you write the review how it is.
00:07:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
and ah he was i was very impressed the first time I saw it go by because the number one thing I noticed from operating a metal plus for two years and probably my one of my biggest complaints, um not complaints, but dissatisfactions was that you could always tell where the wings ended and the moldboard began.
00:08:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
With the Phantom, that was 16 feet straight across. Same exact scrape. You could not literally tell where the wings ended and the moldboard began, which was super impressive.
00:08:23
Jordan Smith
Yeah, that we'll get into a little more on that on the product features and improvement side of things, but that was a huge part of the entire feedback loop we've gotten over the last decade is like, man, I love these metal plus plows, but how can we make this issue better?
00:08:23
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:08:41
Jordan Smith
And that's what we probably spent the most time and effort on. And candidly, like I think from the soft launch, some of the best feedback we got to make that even better came out of that soft launch.
00:08:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:08:53
Jordan Smith
um So I think the other thing with the soft launch guys, is it's not just to perfect the product, but also
00:08:54
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:09:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gives us an opportunity to try before we buy.
00:09:02
Jordan Smith
Yeah, and and and to give and to give social proof that it's a good product.
00:09:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:09:07
Jordan Smith
you know For us to have ah nine different contractors, and that includes our own contracting company, running the product and vouching for the product, that makes a big difference because whatever you might think about Metal Plus or HLA or any other hydraulic wing plow, they've been around for a long time.
00:09:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:09:25
Jordan Smith
And they there's there's social proof there that they're a reliable product, that they do a good job, that they're durable. And Phantom doesn't have that fully yet because it hasn't actually been on the market for a decade plus like those other products have.
00:09:40
Jordan Smith
So I'm not saying we can accelerate a decade of of real life social proof, but I think that by running it, running 70 of them in a very strong winter, many of the markets these things were in got double or triple average snowfall, which was great.
00:09:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:09:54
Jordan Smith
We we calculated we have over 10,000 hours of runtime on this on this plow.
00:09:58
RICK JAMES
All
00:10:00
Jordan Smith
um So again, not as much as the incumbents, but I think for a new product launch, we have to be pushing Guinness Book of World Records here on how much testing and time we actually got on the product.
00:10:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
you you You sent it out for soft launch the right winter for most of the country.
00:10:16
Jordan Smith
Totally.
00:10:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like we got, I believe we were last winter hour wise. I believe we were the same amount of hours as we were the previous two winners on the metal plus that we had.
00:10:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
So it basically, you could you could test them head to head with the same amount of hours. And yeah, it was great. we had ah We had a great time with it. It did everything we asked of it. So what
00:10:40
RICK JAMES
Yeah, you need a great R&D. R&D is from, you're to get from your buddies, whatever. You everybody thinks you give them to your friends, they're going to sugarcoat stuff, but not not not our not our group of people.
00:10:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, it's the opposite. Mm-hmm.
00:10:52
RICK JAMES
So, i I mean, you knew going get whatever, and you told everybody just to give whatever feedback you get. And, yeah, I mean, good or bad, we were giving it, and you took it all, and it worked great.
00:11:03
Jordan Smith
And and and ah I'll give i mean both you guys props. You both spent a lot of time giving us feedback. I will say that that Jeremy endured a little more of the pain than Steve had to because Jeremy got the literal first units we shipped out. Like Glacier got...
00:11:21
Jordan Smith
like number, you know, one, two, three, four off the line. um And because Fargo gets snow earlier than than what you do, Steve, and and we had to get them up there.
00:11:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. Absolutely.
00:11:31
Jordan Smith
So there was more, no, no, I know.
00:11:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Not this year, though. Not this winter. Yes, 100%.
00:11:35
Jordan Smith
There was more bugs to work out for Jeremy than and there was for you.
00:11:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
00:11:39
Jordan Smith
but But Jeremy worked through that with us and and identified some some pain points that we had to solve quickly.
00:11:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
yes hundred percent
00:11:47
Jordan Smith
And when I say quickly, it's it's not overnight, but we got it done as fast as we could. And and when we got the final updates made, it it did what we needed it to do.
00:11:52
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:11:55
Jordan Smith
And like I said, without this soft launch, I just, I wouldn't have the same degree of confidence in the product that we do now. But between diverse markets, operators, climates, types of sites,
Phantom Plow Testing & Improvements
00:12:09
Jordan Smith
and how many hours we got, I just, we feel so confident about the product that that to to back that up even a step further, for first year buyers, we are putting a full three year bumper to bumper warranty on these things too.
00:12:21
Jordan Smith
so
00:12:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
Really?
00:12:22
Jordan Smith
Yeah, so not not that i not that I think they're going to need to use it because I think these things are overbuilt, if anything, but yeah, they're they're beefy and those that see them at Syma will see what we're talking about.
00:12:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:12:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
They definitely are.
00:12:30
RICK JAMES
You're sexy. Awesome.
00:12:35
Jordan Smith
You can just see it when you look at it. They're beefy. But, uh, yeah, three years, bumper to bumper, no questions asked, just like everyone's used to a storm and the way we support product, the way we've supported product that isn't even ours.
00:12:39
RICK JAMES
sex
00:12:48
Jordan Smith
Uh, we're going to support our own product as well, if not even better and for longer. So I think that'll help ease any concerns people have about making the switch.
00:12:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Very cool.
00:12:57
RICK JAMES
ah so
00:12:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, that's definitely, I mean, it definitely doesn't hurt. That's for sure. You know, you can you can buy with confidence that anything wrong is going to be ah taken care of for three years. That's ah in the snow world.
00:13:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
Is that even a thing? like i thought as soon as I rolled off the lot, it was on me.
00:13:11
Jordan Smith
I don't think so. Yeah.
00:13:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like, that's how it all goes always goes.
00:13:15
RICK JAMES
Yeah, exactly. It's easy how it goes. Well, the bolt fell out, that's your problem.
00:13:21
Jordan Smith
yeah
00:13:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jordan, you said you had 70 of these out there. um I didn't actually know it was that many. did you you've been running Did you run them in storm snow as well? I assume you did.
00:13:34
Jordan Smith
We did. Yeah, we converted we converted most of our fleet over to Phantoms to start the winter.
00:13:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
00:13:41
Jordan Smith
But we did leave some of the incumbent product in as a control group just to to run side by side because...
00:13:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. Smart.
00:13:51
Jordan Smith
You know, everything performs different in different conditions. And we wanted to look at what it looks like across that entire spectrum from 30 degrees down to negative 30 degrees. What does the scrape performance look like? What does the plow performance look like? What are the hydraulic, what does a hydraulic performance and reliability look like in those same conditions? So we we kept some incumbent product in as a control group and we were we were happy with the results, put it that way.
00:14:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, what I was going to ask you. If you guys were using them yourselves, testing them, you guys are obviously intimately familiar with them. When you got 70 of them out there in the hands of of other people that aren't so familiar with them, what was like what surprised you the most about you know how how these plows performed with outsiders or what was the most surprising piece of feedback you got from ah from the 70 plows that were out there compared to what you guys thought you already knew?
00:14:42
Jordan Smith
I think to be honest, the the edge system we developed, we're calling it the Stealth Edge. It's it's a pretty unique edge system. It has three layers.
00:14:53
Jordan Smith
There's ah a layer of steel on the front, layer rubber in the middle, and a layer of steel on the back.
00:14:54
RICK JAMES
Thank you.
00:14:58
Jordan Smith
And kind of the concept there is front steel gets your initial scrape and hard pack, rubber takes off the moisture, and then whatever's left behind the back steel will get. And we had only tested it in our rather dry, arid Minnesota snow climate, and it it worked great here. We also did, we were fortunate to get some early slushy concrete snow, as as Jeremy would call it.
00:15:26
Jordan Smith
um And that that's where that rubber layer really shines. Like we were, especially during the daytime, we were scraping these lots to like, Nothing like black.
00:15:38
Jordan Smith
You know, you say black pavement and sometimes it's figurative, like it's it's pretty good, but there's still some white film like this was black pavement.
00:15:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. Yes. Yep.
00:15:45
Jordan Smith
And the feedback we got.
00:15:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
We can attest to that.
00:15:47
Jordan Smith
Yeah. And the feedback we got from especially our East Coast and an Ohio partner was, you know, warmer climates, wetter climates. um Was that.
00:16:00
Jordan Smith
they they get that kind of snow more often. So for them, that stealth edge system is even more beneficial than what it is in our climate here.
00:16:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:16:07
Jordan Smith
um Because I will say, like I don't wanna claim our product is perfect. There is no perfect product. ah The advantage to the stealth edge is the moisture removal, the the the length of the service life on that edge without having to use carbide, which can scratch the pavement.
00:16:13
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:16:23
Jordan Smith
Um, but when it gets really cold and there's no sunlight or, or no chlorides down in the pavement, you do get less optimal scrape performance than you get when it's warmer out or during the daytime.
00:16:34
Jordan Smith
And when I say that, I still think it's the best scrape I've seen, right, right up there with an Arctic for sure.
00:16:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
It is
00:16:39
Jordan Smith
Um, But there's like, a I don't know, 10 to 15% difference between cold nighttime temperatures versus, you know, anything above 10 degrees.
00:16:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's very close.
00:16:52
Jordan Smith
It's pretty much the best optimal performance for that edge system.
00:16:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
I mean, I can speak to that if you if you want.
00:16:57
Jordan Smith
Yeah, yeah, please do.
00:16:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah well Because we we actually saw that, and ah that was part of our feedback. ah Mark called me one night, and he had been using it. we we had We were very lucky this year. We had a lot of storms that continued for a long duration this season. So we were plowing and plowing. We pre-treat everything, but after you – after you um After you're running that plow and you make five or six passes, let's face it, if you're not continuing continually treating behind the plow, that pretreatment is basically nil, especially if you have below freezing temperatures. So one day we had a ah storm start at like 9
00:17:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
The plow was phenomenal all day. Mark's calling me, telling me, dude, you could literally come in and blacktop seal behind this plow. Like it's, it's that clean a scrape, but he was loving it. And then the temperature, it was, it was very cold, um but not, not crazy. It was like mid twenties during the day.
00:17:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
When it hit seven, eight o'clock at night and the sun went down, it dropped down to like, I don't know, 10 degrees, eight degrees, somewhere in that realm. And it was still snowing, very dry powder. And he called me. He's like, something's not right. I'm doing something wrong. It's not scraping black anymore. And I i was like, okay. So I went over there and I looked and I'm like,
00:18:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
I think you're being a little nitpicky now. Like he goes, no, it's just not looking the same as it did this morning. I wanted to make sure I was doing everything right still. And it was, it just left that slightest little film of white behind, but you could still see the handicap outline. You could still see the stripes on the lot, but it just wasn't getting that black clean. You you know, you could seal the parking lot after the scrape. If you wanted to scrape that's,
00:18:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
But that was only, again, only in that one circumstance that did that that that happened. ten Below 10 degrees at night, no sunlight, no no treatment down.
00:18:53
Jordan Smith
and and And the cool thing about that is is we get that condition almost every time it snows here in Minnesota, and it's what Jeremy gets in Fargo.
00:19:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:19:04
Jordan Smith
So for us, we were... you know, we could only compare that performance to what else was on the market. and And one of those is the product we've been selling for many years.
00:19:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:19:13
Jordan Smith
And another one is Arctic. And we were really happy with that performance compared to the incumbent products. We thought it was equal or greater than, depending which product you're talking about.
00:19:25
Jordan Smith
And then when we sent it out, ah well, when we got some of those warmer weather events, when I say warm weather, I mean like 20 degrees or, and when we sent them out to Ohio and the East coast, that's what weather you guys get 90% of the time.
00:19:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:19:37
Jordan Smith
So these, so you guys are using these things going like this edge is unfreaking believable 99% of the time.
00:19:37
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:19:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:19:45
Jordan Smith
and And you had that one situation your entire season where you're like, Oh, Hey, this is still great, but it's not as good as it was this morning. um So I,
00:19:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
But you're talking minuscule. Like, well I got to stress, we were told to be extremely nitpicky with any variation, any deviation that we saw.
00:19:54
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:19:59
Jordan Smith
Yep,
00:20:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
And you're talking if if during the daytime that Jet Black scrape was at 100 or 99, because I would put Arctic at 100. So this would be like 99.8.
00:20:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
But I'm talking a drop from to not a drop from ninety nine to sixty five You know, you're you're talking like a minuscule, like we're being extremely nitpicky and it still scrapes better than any other wing plow I've ever used by far in any condition.
00:20:23
Jordan Smith
yep exactly.
00:20:32
Jordan Smith
and like you said earlier, I think it's not just the scrape.
00:20:32
RICK JAMES
right.
00:20:35
Jordan Smith
We have addressed the issue of leakage. You know, the the the main challenge with hydraulic wing plows is that when you have a corner that moves, there's going to be a spot where snow can leak through.
00:20:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:20:47
Jordan Smith
And also typically when you have a segmental edge system, whether it's, ah you know, spring loaded or rubber blocks or whatever, there's typically gaps between the edges that leave little trails and they don't hurt anything.
00:20:57
Jordan Smith
The salt or liquid eliminate them immediately, but it's an aesthetic thing. because we have rubber integrated into our edge system and because rubber is flexible, we can tighten those tolerances between those edges and between the wing and the edges.
00:21:02
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:21:11
Jordan Smith
And we don't have that leakage. So like we've got some just amazing photos from from some of our soft launch partners of of like you said, Steve, like it looks like the parking lot's ready to seal coat.
00:21:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
No.
00:21:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:21:23
Jordan Smith
um There's nothing and and they haven't salted yet.
00:21:26
Jordan Smith
There's nothing left behind. it's It's pretty neat. And again, some of that's just aesthetic, like does eliminating those trails actually make a huge difference on the overall, um you know, the overall performance for your customer?
00:21:40
Jordan Smith
Not really, because that stuff does just disappear as soon as a car hits it or a salt hits it. But it is just a little differentiator that I think little things make a big difference.
00:21:45
RICK JAMES
ever
00:21:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, absolutely. Attention to detail.
00:21:51
RICK JAMES
I hate those.
00:21:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
we We preach that constantly. Attention to detail is of supreme importance, right?
00:21:58
Jordan Smith
je Jeremy, since you're in the coldest climate, like can you can you give some of your feedback on on the edge in that type of climate?
00:21:58
RICK JAMES
We call them treasure trolls.
00:22:05
RICK JAMES
um Definitely, yeah. We use them all winter. and Being as cold as it is up here, honestly, that thing would scrape. We got to Like Steve said, there was a few times where you you could tell the difference between an Arctic or that, but not with nothing major. i mean, nothing. You had to go back over and over and over. But yeah, the thing would, ah it would scrape everything that we threw at it this winter in the cold.
00:22:30
RICK JAMES
The guys loved it. i mean, I don't know what how to explain what, they just, a lot of guys that used them, we had four of them, think it was four, and the they would, they all were ran the competitors before.
00:22:45
RICK JAMES
And they ran this one, and was hands down. This was so much a better. just Just from putting the plow on the ground was so simple. Your hitch system is amazing. And it's easy. Not not the not that your competitors are hard, but like Steve always says, it takes a little time. but I mean, this is set down, go, scrape.
00:23:02
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:23:05
RICK JAMES
Like Steve said, the you can't tell where to wing and the moldboard connect because it's clean pass all the way through. Even our cold climates, and I i beat the hell out of them.
00:23:16
RICK JAMES
when we had some hard pack and that thing would just pop that hard pack up, you know, and we would, I spent a lot of pressure on that thing and she would just take it. No problem. You know, when you're cutting edge, when just the spring couldn't give out like some do, you know, if you're putting all that dumb pressure on it.
00:23:33
RICK JAMES
So, cause you know, we, we get some accounts that would want us to come in and clean up. Not, not our accounts, but some hard pack stuff that hadn't been touched on winter. You know, as a snow guy, I always think that's satisfying watching those big blocks pop up and then it's clean and underneath. them And that thing would do a hell of a job at that. And we brought that thing out all the time for those little jobs like that or big jobs, but work great for us.
00:24:00
Jordan Smith
When think I got to give, ah I've given this privately, but I got to give you a public shout out too, because like I said, you were one of the first ones to have the product.
00:24:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
I'm sorry.
00:24:13
Jordan Smith
And and so you did, you did experience some of the, R and D side of this where you found issues right away. Like I'm just going to be transparent about it. Cause I don't have a problem doing that.
00:24:25
Jordan Smith
Uh, the first thing Jeremy did is he took these things off the truck. Now, mind you, hydraulic leaks were like one of the main things that we were trying to avoid with this product.
00:24:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
yes
00:24:33
Jordan Smith
Right.
00:24:34
RICK JAMES
Oh, I was pissed.
00:24:34
Jordan Smith
Especially with fricking snow jobs, right?
00:24:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh my god
00:24:36
Jordan Smith
We can't have fricking hydraulic leaks with snow jobs.
00:24:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah ah
00:24:39
Jordan Smith
Yeah. the the Jeremy gets him off the truck.
00:24:40
RICK JAMES
ah
00:24:41
Jordan Smith
He's all hype. These things look sick. And then next thing you know, i'm getting a video of him covered in hydraulic fluid. like, you've got to be kidding me. well as
00:24:49
RICK JAMES
pi
00:24:50
Jordan Smith
Oh yeah, you should have been pissed. we ruined We gave him a brand new shirt and it was ruined in five minutes because he got hydraulic fluid on it.
00:24:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
god
00:24:57
Jordan Smith
um so So what we learned there was just something really simple. Like we're we're using aluminum hydraulic block and steel fittings and the thing is tightened and toleranced and leak tested and perfect when it leaves and when it gets there and it changes temperatures and it wiggles around on the truck like stuff was loosening up.
00:25:18
Jordan Smith
So we had to find a solution so that that can't happen. um And it and we we did. So between The way that we tighten the fittings and between a clamping mechanism to keep the lines from wiggling in the block, we were able to prevent. I think after that, Jeremy, you didn't have any leaks after that, did you?
00:25:39
RICK JAMES
No, no, we didn't have that. it was a Yeah, once we got that figured out, and then then you can jump ahead with that. The block system, did you do something different with that so we could actually, if we had to tighten them?
00:25:50
RICK JAMES
Because were so tight.
00:25:51
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:25:52
RICK JAMES
I mean, you had to take every hose off to get to the one you needed to tighten.
00:25:52
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:25:56
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:25:56
RICK JAMES
That was, you know,
00:25:57
Jordan Smith
Yep. That was based on your, based on your feedback as well. And, and Kyle, Kyle, uh, Kyle had the same issue cause he, he also had some that, that, uh, had the same issue you had and, and, uh, same feedback like, Hey, you know, if I could just go and tighten the one fitting, this would be okay, but I got to take all these off to get to this one.
00:26:03
RICK JAMES
you know
00:26:14
Jordan Smith
And that's not, not cool. So we've made adjustments based on all that feedback, uh, so that it's easier for the people that end up getting the product.
00:26:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
00:26:22
Jordan Smith
And again, that's the point of this soft launch is like, for whatever reason, i think it's probably because we were, you know, building these things for ourselves and, and, uh, you know, our, our best people were, um, tightening all the stuff and monitoring everything as we put it together.
00:26:37
Jordan Smith
So like, we didn't have those issues, but then you go into production, you know, uh, uh, manufacturing production mode and, I'm not saying there's a lack of quality control, but like there's eight different people touching these things and you just don't get the final checks and balances.
00:26:51
Jordan Smith
But because of the feedback, we've been able to dial that in and get these things out to the point where no one's having to worry about hydraulic leaks.
00:26:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
I didn't lose a drop on mine the whole season.
00:27:00
Jordan Smith
Well, we we waited very specifically to send yours until we had that address, Steve.
00:27:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
um yeah Smart move because I would have been fucking losing it.
00:27:04
Jordan Smith
Trust me.
00:27:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
But no, i wanted I want to put that out there that when I got mine, we did not. And we monitored that because I told Mark, dude, if this thing loses a drop out anywhere, i want to know about it.
00:27:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
And he's like, nope no, it's it's good. And everything stayed tight. And we and we beat on that. Like we were told to beat it and we beat it And the thing just kept spitting out candy. so And we worked a lot this winter. This was the winter to test something up here.
00:27:33
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:27:34
RICK JAMES
getting getting back hydraulics or Jordan but but along with all the hydraulic hoses of that this thing has half the hydraulic hoses or less than that of the your competitor which which which also which which also is less points of leakage so that's that's always a good thing too know I just have to point that out because we know how I bitch about that stuff so
00:27:34
Jordan Smith
i think.
00:27:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Go.
00:27:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
I noticed that first. That was the first thing I noticed.
00:27:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:27:59
Jordan Smith
Yeah, we have, I'm not the engineer, but we have just just over half the hoses. So we have 10 hoses on ours. Competitors have between 18 and 20, depending on the model.
00:28:13
Jordan Smith
We have 14 total fittings where there's connections and the competitors have 30 or 32, depending on the model. So less than half the fittings, about half of the lines.
00:28:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:28:25
Jordan Smith
That definitely helps reduce the chance for leakage and breakage.
00:28:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. 100%. And. and
00:28:31
RICK JAMES
and research.
00:28:33
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:28:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes. The, um the one thing I'm glad Jeremy brought it up because it was probably my, if you go back in the episodes to, don't, I think it was last, last spring.
00:28:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah You wanted an honest review of a different, of another wing plow that we had. and I gave it to you. I said, I don't think personally this replaces my Artics because of the reset time when I was going into a stack and then coming back and trying to figure out the sweet spot between the wing indicators and the slip hitch and stuff.
00:29:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
um That was the first thing that I heard from Mark is and Danny actually for that matter, because he jumped in it too. And the first thing he said was this thing's drop and go basically.
00:29:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like it's really simple to find the sweet spot in this hitch. And, you know, that was probably my biggest complaint because I said it's, it may be more efficient in some ways, but if I'm losing seven, eight seconds, every time I come down and reset, because I'm trying to find the right wing indicator spot, the right slip pitch zone, that's to me ah over four or 500 times a storm. That's costing me a lot of time where the Arctic's are set it and forget it.
00:29:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
This did not do that.
00:29:46
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:29:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
This was very quick on the reset. So hats off on that.
00:29:51
Jordan Smith
It was like one of the main, ah outside of the hydraulic simplicity and eliminating the chance for breakage and leaks in the hydraulic system as much as we could.
00:30:01
Jordan Smith
Another main initiative on this product was to make the sweet spot to set the plow down as easy as possible. And to be honest, that was inspired by Arctic. I mean, you know, when we got those, when we got those Arctic for storm Academy, i had run some before, um but, but I had never spent substantial time on them and
00:30:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:30:20
Jordan Smith
I'll never forget jumping in one of our Cat 930s, and I think we had the h d seventeen Arctic on there. And I was on the phone. i was holding I was holding the phone in this hand because my headset was dead, and I was driving the loader and trying to run the joystick. And I'm like, man, the Arctic is so...
00:30:39
Jordan Smith
easy to set down because you have a huge sweet spot where like I can, I can run the thing while I'm on the phone and there's no way I could ever do that with, uh, uh, you know, the hydraulic wing plow product we've been running.
00:30:51
Jordan Smith
And, uh, our goal was to achieve that level of simplicity with our wing plow. Now I will admit we're not using rubber. Um, uh, so we don't have quite as much of a sweet spot as Arctic.
00:31:03
Jordan Smith
Arctic sweet spot is insane. I don't know how to measure it, but
00:31:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, it's, yeah you're not going to get, you it's ah it's virtually impossible. You're talking about two different plows, two very different plows.
00:31:10
Jordan Smith
Right. Well, and and you're also talking about having your hitch system, you know, three feet behind your moldboard versus right at your moldboard.
00:31:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Sure.
00:31:19
Jordan Smith
That makes a big difference.
00:31:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
sir
00:31:20
Jordan Smith
There's a big leverage point there.
00:31:21
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:31:22
Jordan Smith
But what I will say is that I, like this is probably the most complex engineering challenge we faced with this product was trying to figure out how to make this thing easy to operate and also have it perform really well.
00:31:38
Jordan Smith
And what it ended up being is a combination of things that that we're all moving towards our objectives. And one of those things, and I think it's one of our biggest differentiators, Jeremy actually, um Steve, actually, you mentioned it earlier, is that the reason we achieved equal performance from the moldboard to the wings, there's no gap in performance between the moldboard and the wings, is because we have full floating wings.
Design & Compatibility of Phantom Plow
00:32:04
Jordan Smith
Typical hydraulic wing plow products, I think of all brands, they have a fixed corner where the mold board meets the wing. And the reason they have a fixed corner where the mold board meets the wing is because that is what prevents allowing the plow from blowing itself up in the case of of a full compression situation where one edge system dips down into say a storm drain or something like that.
00:32:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:32:30
Jordan Smith
ah When you have fixed corners, that can never happen. That way you're always on a level plane and one edge so you know one edge section can't be subjected to all of that force. The problem is that when you have fixed corners, you have a very sensitive product to set down level.
00:32:46
Jordan Smith
Because when you have fixed corners, picture it like a fulcrum. Like i'm I'm showing it on video as if people can see It's a podcast. They can't see it. But when you have fixed corners, it's like a like a rocking horse. Like you have to get exactly in the center of that rocking horse for the thing to to be stable.
00:33:02
Jordan Smith
um And so you have to set it down in this tiny little two or three inch window. And if you don't, the plow is not going to scrape correctly and you're probably going leave scratch marks on the pavement. And that was one of the biggest complaints we've gotten over the last 10 years was like, how do I stop scratching the pavement?
00:33:17
Jordan Smith
and i And I will say like a very good operator could run one of those products without scratching the pavement. When you're when you're on the phone with a customer and they're upset because they scratched their customer's parking lot, the last thing they want to hear is be a better operator.
00:33:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
True.
00:33:31
Jordan Smith
That's like, that's not good feedback. So what Storm's approach to this was is we must make this issue simpler to resolve. And again, it was a combination of making the corners of our wing not fixed. So our our corners of our wings are full floating.
00:33:50
Jordan Smith
um That allows us to have a full floating wing and get that equal scrape. It also makes the sweet spot setting down the plow much larger. And then that in conjunction with our hitch system just gives you this huge dynamic range where again, like you said, it's as close to ease of set down as you get with Arctic as you can possibly get with a wing plow.
00:34:13
Jordan Smith
To the point where Like if you look at some of the other products on the market, they have like indicators to show you when you're set down level. And i think people think those are helpful, but honestly, a lot of times they're distracting because you're constantly fixating on those markers.
00:34:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Very
00:34:29
Jordan Smith
Like, are they lined up? Is it where they're supposed to be? um I think we've made ours easy enough to set down.
00:34:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
very
00:34:36
Jordan Smith
that you don't need those. And and the way that I proved that to my team, because our team was kind of internally debating, do we add a a level indicator or not? I took my 10 year old, my middle boy, and I brought him down to Storm Academy and I said, i want you to run this plow.
00:34:52
Jordan Smith
And I'm just like, I'm not going to train you a whole lot. He'd run a loader before, but I just want to see if you can set this thing down level. And he consistently was able to set it down level. And it's not because he was a perfect operator. It's because you can have the thing tilted back four inches or tilted forward four inches, and it still sets down level when you go to set it down.
00:35:11
Jordan Smith
And then I put them on a different product that has the fixed corners and the kid couldn't get the thing set down level.
00:35:11
RICK JAMES
I
00:35:16
Jordan Smith
And and again, it's not a ah knock on that product. It's just, it's the way it was designed. And we specifically worked to design around those challenges because I'm not saying everyone's got 10 year olds running their loaders, but I think a lot of companies have people that are as smart as 10 year olds running their loader sometimes, right?
00:35:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
But you're saying, so this is Sean proof.
00:35:33
RICK JAMES
wouldn't
00:35:34
Jordan Smith
but
00:35:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sean will be able to run this. Oh,
00:35:36
Jordan Smith
Yeah, sean Sean should be able to handle this product.
00:35:37
RICK JAMES
go that far. I wouldn't go that far.
00:35:39
Jordan Smith
That was our target demographic.
00:35:39
RICK JAMES
i will not go that far.
00:35:44
Jordan Smith
Sorry, sea Sean, we love you.
00:35:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, man.
00:35:44
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:35:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's awesome. it's ah I'm excited for you guys. You know, the the the biggest thing I think, Mark, I'm trying to get his feedback pulled up here. I'm on a backup computer here, so I'm trying to go across systems. But if I remember correctly, one of his biggest feedbacks was the from year to year, the difference in time for greasing.
00:36:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
There were a astronomically less zerks.
00:36:09
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:36:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
On this plow than in previous products we've been running.
00:36:12
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:36:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
So that was a big savings.
00:36:19
Jordan Smith
This was another very intentional move that we made. ah We recognize that in our own snow business that we are not diligent about greasing. A lot of our machines sit on site year round and we have mobile fleet mechanics that do this stuff, but when it snows a lot, it's not a priority.
00:36:42
Jordan Smith
And so oftentimes, just candidly, what happened is our plows would get greased when they came in for the spring and they get greased before they get sent out. And that was the only time they ever got greased. And I'm not saying that's every company. I'm sure there's some companies on you saying, oh, no, we grease our stuff every time. Well, good for you. Not not most. Most companies don't do that.
00:37:01
Jordan Smith
um Our company doesn't do it. I've talked to many other companies that don't get out there and grease stuff between storms. So what we've done is we have integrated self-lubricating greaseless bushings into a majority of the rotating points on the plow.
00:37:17
Jordan Smith
Now I'm not saying there's no grease zerks like the main pivot pin still has a grease zerks, which, which I think once a year would be enough for that because it's a sealed environment.
00:37:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, there's a couple.
00:37:27
Jordan Smith
um The hydraulic cylinders, those are off the shelf hydraulic cylinders. We've kept that very simple so that they're inexpensive because, Some of the other brands out there, you pay a thousand bucks for a cylinder when you break it. Ours are a couple hundred bucks off the shelf.
00:37:40
Jordan Smith
um Those have grease zerks in them from the factory, but otherwise, yeah, we we have very few grease zerks on the plow because we have greaseless bushings. The other nice thing is when and if those greaseless bushings ever wear out,
00:37:52
Jordan Smith
You just pop in new bushings and you have a brand new plow when it comes to the tightness and performance of it.
00:37:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:37:57
Jordan Smith
ah So just another one of those things that we've gotten this feedback over the past decade, we've seen it in our own snow business. And we're just trying to address these little, I wouldn't say massive issues, but these little things, they all add up.
00:38:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. Yeah, it's not major stuff.
00:38:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah, sure.
00:38:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's tweaks. it's you know that That's what anybody would do if you're out there and you're saying, well, I really like this product, but if I could get this, this, this, and this just turned up a little bit, that would be perfect for us.
00:38:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
And yeah it sounds like you went and did it. So, I mean, it's great.
00:38:29
Jordan Smith
Well, I think...
00:38:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
Do you want to do you want to talk about, like, we've we've talked about the scrape, and the scrape is... For wing plows, there's nothing, no wing plow that I've run out there with ah even close to as good a scrape.
00:38:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
Do you want to talk about the the edge system a little more, or do you or did we kind of you think we covered that enough? Because I know it's it's different.
00:38:50
Jordan Smith
i think
00:38:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's definitely a different way to go.
00:38:53
Jordan Smith
Yeah, and we kind of talked about it. It's a three-layer system. It's got the steel, rubber steel. The steel does a good job with the hard pack and the scrape. The rubber does a good job with the moisture and the the sound dampening.
00:39:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
But no carbide.
00:39:07
Jordan Smith
but we don't have to use carbide to get long edge life.
00:39:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
There you go.
00:39:10
Jordan Smith
So because we have a three layer system, it's thick. When you when you come to Syma or when you get a demo or whatever you do, you'll see that our edge system is is over an inch and a half thick.
00:39:21
Jordan Smith
It looks a little ridiculous when you look at it, but because it's three layers, it it it it's thick.
00:39:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
It does.
00:39:27
Jordan Smith
But because it's thick, you also get an extremely high service life without having to use carbide. And don't get me wrong, carbide's a ah beautiful thing. It's, you know, and
00:39:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's awesome. But what's it cost right now?
00:39:37
Jordan Smith
it's true well, and it is ironic timing on carbide costs, but it's it's up like 500% in the last year.
00:39:39
RICK JAMES
it
00:39:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:39:45
Jordan Smith
And that could come back down, of course, but it's not just the cost. It's also that back to the feedback said earlier, people were concerned about the scratching. Carbide is 10 times harder than steel.
00:39:58
Jordan Smith
So carbide does leave scratch marks on asphalt and and concrete.
00:40:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
ye
00:40:03
Jordan Smith
And it not only does it leave scratch marks, a lot of times they're superficial, but it leaves like a bright white scratch mark. So it like stands out. It's like hey, customer, come check out this.
00:40:14
Jordan Smith
And a lot of times you can scuff it off with your foot. ah So it's superficial, but it is still superficial. um
00:40:21
RICK JAMES
Something.
00:40:22
Jordan Smith
It's an appearance thing, right? Like it it does matter. And we don't leave any of that with our edge system. And you still are gonna get that long service life. Now, do I think we're gonna get as much service life as carbide?
00:40:35
Jordan Smith
I don't know that for sure yet. We got 70 plows out there. We got tons hours on them We took measurements to try to best drive what we think that translates to in terms of service life. I think it does depend on what size plow. I think on the compact plows, you're probably gonna get four or five, six, seven or eight years of service life out of those edges. I think on the bigger, heavier plows with the bigger loaders, you're gonna get less.
00:40:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
no I mean, that's kind of all of them.
00:41:00
Jordan Smith
Right.
00:41:01
RICK JAMES
know
00:41:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like even even Jeremy with the HD Artyx, I mean, we always joke that I've never broken a block because all I use is LDs, but he breaks blocks on the HDs. The bigger plows are always being pushed by bigger, heavier machines, putting more stresses on on components.
00:41:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
You're always going to have more breakages with with the bigger, heavier plows and bigger, heavier heavier machines.
00:41:21
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:41:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah, with the plows we used this year, we put a few hundred hours on them for sure. And we just hardly see any edge life wire of them.
00:41:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
We didn't see anywhere.
00:41:32
RICK JAMES
So we're pretty happy with that. so
00:41:35
Jordan Smith
Yeah, Jeremy, the 16-footer you sent back to us, you had sent us how many hours were on it. I don't remember what the number was, but it was it was a few hundred for sure.
00:41:46
Jordan Smith
There was only about 20% edge wear on that.
00:41:47
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:41:49
Jordan Smith
So we had 80% life left on that one yet after a couple hundred hours.
00:41:50
RICK JAMES
OK. Yeah.
00:41:53
Jordan Smith
So based on that math, that means it should be thousand-hour edge, but I don't want to i don't want come here and advertise that and have someone someone be disappointed.
00:42:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. No, it's too soon to do that.
00:42:01
Jordan Smith
So...
00:42:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I mean, but it definitely, we didn't notice. I mean we had a hundred and something hours and we didn't notice anywhere. It's if there is anywhere, it's not noticeable at all.
00:42:10
Jordan Smith
Yeah. Right.
00:42:10
RICK JAMES
And we,
00:42:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
um
00:42:14
RICK JAMES
we pull a lot of, a lot of, lot of concrete and stuff and some around here and all the, lot of guys use for me see mainly asphalt, but concrete usually wears know pretty fast.
00:42:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
so
00:42:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes, all asphalt.
00:42:24
RICK JAMES
You know, the big lots where you're around are all concrete. I think, mean, like you said, I'm just trying to not plug it, but I'm just trying to reinstate, let everybody know that we p pull a lot of concrete and then still didn't have much wear.
00:42:38
RICK JAMES
So.
00:42:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
00:42:41
Jordan Smith
well And I think just to to round out the edge discussion so we can move forward, the other thing that that Glacier and Jeremy helped us with a lot was you know some of the earliest testing they did.
00:42:54
Jordan Smith
they They were sending us videos of just this beautiful scrape, but then when the edges would hit, hard, hard, hard pack, they would trip back before they would scrape it off.
00:43:06
Jordan Smith
And basically Jeremy's feedback goes, hey, it's working good, but what if this could be better? Like, what if what if you could make this not trip back quite as easy so that you we could scrape this this stuff off?
00:43:17
Jordan Smith
So that actually led to one of the biggest changes we made on the product um to to stiffen up the trip force on the sections, which helped us not only helped us achieve even better hard pack scrape performance, but it also just generally improved the overall scrape a of the plow in all conditions.
00:43:34
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:43:36
Jordan Smith
Because again, it's always the scrape is good in all conditions. It's phenomenal in all conditions.
00:43:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:43:40
Jordan Smith
This just made it that much better. and And a lot of that feedback came from Jeremy. I don't even know how many videos you sent us, Jeremy. it was hundreds. You were great about sending us feedback.
00:43:50
Jordan Smith
um But that feedback helped us make, again, a final better version for everyone that's going to get them this year.
00:43:59
RICK JAMES
I would send those videos in the middle of the night. didn't care. I care what you guys I sent a group chat about you and Phil and Steve.
00:44:02
Jordan Smith
Oh, I loved it.
00:44:07
RICK JAMES
I sent you those the middle of the night. You guys would even respond in the of It was pretty cool.
00:44:10
Jordan Smith
That's right.
00:44:10
RICK JAMES
There you
00:44:11
Jordan Smith
We're out there doing snow too, baby. That's what it's all about.
00:44:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's it. it Is it so quiet because of the edge system or is it a combination of like the edges, the springs, the bushings? How did you achieve that?
00:44:22
Jordan Smith
Yeah, it's all of It's all of it. um
00:44:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's all of it.
00:44:25
Jordan Smith
It's all of it. So one of the reasons that... a lot of products with segmented edge systems rattle is is because in order to float over an uneven surface, you have to have a lot of moving parts. and when you have a lot of moving parts, you have a lot of places that can rattle and make noise and vibrate.
00:44:44
Jordan Smith
ah And candidly, because no one else in the industry is using bushings, they're leaving ah so ah significant amount of tolerance gap between their pieces so that it's easier to assemble them.
00:44:59
Jordan Smith
ah And I don't want to get too much into engineering talk because I'm not an engineer and I'm just regurgitating what my engineers have told me. But essentially a typical tolerance for metal parts going together is like 60 to 70 thousandths of an inch tolerance, which I don't even know what that equates to. It's like it's based it's like human hairs. It's not a ton, but it's it's slop, right? It's it's slop.
00:45:24
Jordan Smith
And when you're using bushings, you're like, you're like 10,000ths. So it's like five to six times less tolerance gap in our pieces, which makes it harder to assemble and put together.
00:45:35
Jordan Smith
But what it means is when you get the final product, the thing is really tight. And because it's really tight, and when I say tight, I don't mean it's like binding.
00:45:39
RICK JAMES
you
00:45:42
Jordan Smith
I mean, like all the stuff fits perfectly.
00:45:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:45:45
Jordan Smith
There's no vibration. There's no rattling. And then you put that in conjunction with the fact that there's a layer of rubber in the edge system, which is a dampener.
00:45:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:45:52
Jordan Smith
You now have a tight plow with a dampener in the middle of the edge. And again, we didn't intend to make this plow quiet, but the first time we ran this thing on the pavement, I was like, holy smokes.
00:46:03
Jordan Smith
You can't even, oh all you hear is the engine of the loader.
00:46:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Something's wrong. There's no noise.
00:46:07
Jordan Smith
You don't hear the plow at all.
00:46:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:46:08
Jordan Smith
It's insane.
00:46:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:46:09
RICK JAMES
Yeah, that's the first thing I did, I took it off the trailer.
00:46:09
Jordan Smith
It's insane.
00:46:13
RICK JAMES
When I got it late fall with dry pavement, ran it outside dry pavement, couldn't even hear it. All I could hear is the loader.
00:46:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, that was one of Mark's first feedbacks.
00:46:20
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:46:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
He was running ours on a 321, and he said, ah if I was running this in a skid, I would be nervous because I'm not hearing anything. I would be trying to put tremendous down pressure on this thing because i'm I'm so used to hearing the plow, and I'm not hearing it.
00:46:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
So he's like, thank God with the loader, I can just look down over the front tires and see that, hey, listen, this is scraping clean. i don't have to do anything, but it's so quiet. And that was like, yeah, he was shocked by how quiet it was. And then when I got there and took the first video of it that we took while I was plowing, I was like, holy shit, I only hear the loader. I hear more noise coming off the moisture on the tires than I do from the plow.
00:47:03
Jordan Smith
It is very quiet, which again, wasn't necessarily the intent. And it's, and I'm not even saying it's a huge marketing push, but I will say that from an operator experience standpoint, over the course of a ah long night or day, it allows you to keep the radio quieter and still hear it.
00:47:20
Jordan Smith
It doesn't rattle your brain as much. Like it does make a difference on operator fatigue over a long shift.
00:47:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:47:25
Jordan Smith
Yep.
00:47:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
100% mental fatigue. it It is. Yes, that is definitely a key thing in mental fatigue is the noise.
00:47:32
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
00:47:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
I love it.
00:47:34
Jordan Smith
ah I would say one of the last main differentiators um that we haven't already talked about is probably the biggest piece of feedback we've received from our customers over the past decade.
00:47:49
Jordan Smith
And that is that it would, you know, basically what they've said is it would sure be nice if I didn't have to stock all these different edges and all these different springs and all these different cylinders and all these different hydraulic lines.
00:48:02
Jordan Smith
Like why can't this same cylinder, like these two plows look like they're the same size. Why does have two different cylinders? And these two plows look like they're the same size.
00:48:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
m Definitely.
00:48:09
Jordan Smith
Why are the edges half an inch different?
00:48:10
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:48:12
Jordan Smith
And like, For an extreme example, like let's say you fleet of 30 hydraulic wing plows, um not not called Phantom.
00:48:23
Jordan Smith
If you're going to support those 30 hydraulic wing plows, and let's say you have five different SKUs, you probably need to stock like 100 different part SKUs to support that fleet of product.
00:48:35
Jordan Smith
if you If you want to proactively stock this stuff.
00:48:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
At least.
00:48:37
Jordan Smith
Now, one one great thing about Storm is we stock all this stuff and overnight it if you need it.
00:48:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:48:41
Jordan Smith
But that's not cheap either. You need to overnight cutting edges. The shipping costs more than the parts. it's It's not great. We can do it, but it, you know.
00:48:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:48:50
Jordan Smith
So one thing that we laser focused on with this product is cross compatibility between all of the different models. So right now with our product launch, you know, all the way from our 16 footer for compact loaders up to our 26 foot man wing, all of the edges, all of the shoes,
00:49:11
Jordan Smith
all of the springs, a majority of the hydraulic lines, and a few of the cylinders are all cross compatible. So like if you owned a fleet of 20 Phantoms and you owned all five different SKUs, you could probably stock 10 parts to support your entire fleet.
00:49:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, it's awesome.
00:49:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's phenomenal.
00:49:28
RICK JAMES
huge
00:49:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's really, and that's a selling point. Honestly, that's a huge selling point.
00:49:32
Jordan Smith
it It is. It is. As a contractor, I'm obviously biased because it's our product, but as a contractor, simpler is better when it comes to supporting a product. And the fact that we've used off-the-shelf cylinders and there's only three total cylinder SKUs across all models,
00:49:50
Jordan Smith
The fact that we have the same hydraulic block for all the plows, the fact that it's the same two foot edge section for every single plow, the same two foot wing edge or or shoe section for every single plow and every single spring across every plow is cross compatible.
00:50:04
Jordan Smith
I mean, those are really the parts that can break or need to be replaced. Oh, and curb runners too, I should say. All the exact same across every model. ah I think that, you know, especially considering that we have a lot of customers that have fleets of 10 plus,
00:50:19
Jordan Smith
That's going to be a huge selling point and it's going to save them a ton of money on supporting and maintaining the product.
00:50:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Yeah, that's phenomenal. yeah And I had i had the 816 compact, so and I'm in my own little bubble because I don't have any heavy loaders. We do everything with skids and and the compacts.
00:50:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
um So I know there's other models out there. How many different versions are you building? How many different sizes, different models are you guys actually doing? Because I know Jeremy had different ones. I know there's other options out there, but I'm honestly not familiar um I didn't invest myself in knowing everything you're making because I only need the one size.
00:50:57
Jordan Smith
Yeah, we're we're we're keeping it very, very simple this year. There's gonna be six SKUs. um The smallest one actually is going to be for this year that is going to be the 816.
00:51:09
Jordan Smith
I know Steve, we had originally talked about maybe doing a 12 footer for you, but after we looked at an eight foot mold board with with two foot wings, it just kind of looked like a T-Rex.
00:51:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:51:22
Jordan Smith
And and to be honest to be honest, the weight savings wasn't enough to really make that skew worth prioritizing this year.
00:51:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:51:30
Jordan Smith
um we're We're gonna do something about that in future future years to add some diversity to that size. But so for this year, the smallest one will be an eight foot mold board with four foot wings on each side, 16 feet overall.
00:51:43
Jordan Smith
Now, what I will say is because of our full floating system and because um ah the way weve we've engineered the plow to make it easy to push with the stealth edge system, you can push a 16 foot plow with with ah a loader that would normally struggle to push that big of a plow.
00:51:59
Jordan Smith
I think the best feedback I got was on that was from Kyle at UD. He was running, I would argue that these loaders are too small for this plow, but he was running 816s on 221 loaders.
00:52:13
Jordan Smith
He had previously been running 13-foot plows on those.
00:52:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes, I would agree with that.
00:52:17
Jordan Smith
But, and I said, I saw a video of him running this thing on a 221. I'm like, wow, how's the 221 handle that giant plow? And he's like, honestly, i I think it walks the dog. And I'm like, okay, I mean, that's good for you. I would still argue it's probably too big for that loader.
00:52:32
Jordan Smith
But he said that going from a 13 footer to a 16 footer on those two 21s, he was getting like 40% more productivity out of that loader just because he's covering more ground with a taller mold board and wider stance.
00:52:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
I would agree with that.
00:52:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:52:46
Jordan Smith
I thought that was kind of cool feedback. And we do have some cool solutions that we'll present to you guys at Syma to show you how you can potentially take a smaller machine like a 221 or if you're using a 321 and you're concerned about the weight because our product is overbuilt because we're we're prioritizing durability in our launch here.
00:52:49
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:53:08
Jordan Smith
um We have some some good counterweight opportunities so that you have more stability with smaller loaders. I would say that the 16-footer is ideally engineered for like a Cat 908, which is like a 14,000-pound machine.
00:53:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:53:23
Jordan Smith
That's a perfect combination.
00:53:24
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:53:25
Jordan Smith
That's what Jeremy was running.
00:53:29
Jordan Smith
So yeah, real simple this year, six SKUs. We're going to have the 816. We're going to have, and that's a compact 36 inch high mold board. and then we're going have 1018. So that's a 36 inch mold board, 10 foot center mold board and four foot wings, 18 foot overall.
00:53:44
Jordan Smith
And then I think maybe our most unique and maybe even slightly industry redefining SKU is gonna be our compact 22 foot.
00:53:55
Jordan Smith
No one that I know of has ever made a 22 foot compact plow.
00:53:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh.
00:53:58
Jordan Smith
So it's 36 inches high. It has a 10 foot moldboard. It has six foot van wings on each side.
00:54:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
oh
00:54:05
Jordan Smith
So it's a 22 foot compact. You can run it on like a cat 910 cat 914 cases. New 421 is a perfect match for that unit.
00:54:13
RICK JAMES
Thank you.
00:54:14
Jordan Smith
And i think the beautiful use case for this 22 foot compact is that, you know, you you see all these guys on, on Instagram, LinkedIn, they're doing these 50, 60 acre distribution centers.
00:54:28
Jordan Smith
I know, i know Jeremy, you have one of those too, but What a lot of guys are actually doing is like they're doing a little manufacturing facility that's got 15 loading docks and they got to get under 15 kingpins or or they're doing a 10 acre distribution center.
00:54:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:54:42
Jordan Smith
Like that's the more normal, what I would say, right, on a route, exactly.
00:54:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
On a route. Hmm.
00:54:46
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:54:47
Jordan Smith
And what we've done with this C22 Phantom is we've allowed van clearance with a much smaller loader that's much more practical to use on other types of sites.
00:54:58
Jordan Smith
Because let's be real, a 26 foot van wing, like you're kind of doing a giant site or nothing because it's not super maneuverable.
00:55:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:06
Jordan Smith
And don't get me wrong, we have a 26 foot full 48 inch tall moldboard van wing plow that that a lot of people are used to running and seeing with the incumbent product that we've been selling. And it's a great product, but it's it's made for a specific case.
00:55:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's site specific. It's not versatile.
00:55:19
Jordan Smith
It's big distribution centers.
00:55:21
Jordan Smith
Exactly. This C-22, I'm extremely excited about because now we can take a, what I would say like is an every man's loader and put an every man's plow on it. You can do route work with it. You can do Walmart parking lots. You can do bank parking lots.
00:55:37
Jordan Smith
And by the way, also you get a little distribution center. You could go plow a 10 acre distribution center, get under all the kingpins and plow the whole site.
00:55:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
00:55:44
Jordan Smith
And by the way, you can also do that for a total investment of under 200 grand for the loader and the plow, as opposed to needing to buy $200,000 plow with a 50 plus thousand dollar van wing attachment to do those bigger sites.
00:55:59
Jordan Smith
um I think this is going to be a big one, not only for people doing route work, but for guys in transitional snow markets.
00:56:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:56:06
Jordan Smith
Like, I think you could do a 40-acre distribution center in St.
00:56:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:56:10
Jordan Smith
Louis, Missouri with this compact 22 because they only get 15 inches of snow a year.
00:56:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, this is going to be huge.
00:56:15
Jordan Smith
You'd probably, I think it's going to be absolutely huge.
00:56:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
that That is definitely going to be huge.
00:56:20
Jordan Smith
So,
00:56:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. that're Good for you guys.
00:56:22
Jordan Smith
<unk> We're going to do some case studies on it this winter. i wish we had a little bit more data, ah but <unk> we're going we bought a couple case 421s and we're going to run these C22s on them. And we are just going to compare the productivity and versatility of a 421 with a C22 versus like, ah you know, a 621 with a conventional 22 foot 48 inch tall moldboard wing plow versus like a cat or a case 321 or cat 908 with a 16 footer. Like this falls right in the middle.
00:57:00
Jordan Smith
Can it do all the detail work that the small one does, but also, you know, get the kingpins like the big one? I think so, but we're going to test it this winter and see.
00:57:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Did you guys, did did Storm or anybody have these C-22s last year for the soft launch?
00:57:15
Jordan Smith
ah Jeremy, did you guys have one or was that
00:57:20
RICK JAMES
What's that?
00:57:21
Jordan Smith
C18? Did you guys have a C22 or was that a C18 you guys had?
00:57:21
RICK JAMES
10-18?
00:57:24
Jordan Smith
I can't remember.
00:57:24
RICK JAMES
We had a CA a team. I think Putts had 22. Yeah.
00:57:27
Jordan Smith
That's right. Putsy had the 22. He didn't get to run it that many times, though, cause you guys had a slow end of your winter.
00:57:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Well, he got the run of it.
00:57:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's just the new Fargo.
00:57:36
RICK JAMES
No, he got it for a couple. We had the last couple storms were actually our biggest ones of year. So he actually ran them from and really liked it.
00:57:43
Jordan Smith
That's true. Yeah.
00:57:44
RICK JAMES
So.
00:57:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
But did you guys run them in storm Jordan?
00:57:48
Jordan Smith
we we We didn't.
00:57:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
00:57:49
Jordan Smith
it It was one of those situations where we prioritized our own fleet last. So once we started shipping soft launch product out to partners, we deprioritized our own units.
00:58:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha. Okay.
00:58:03
Jordan Smith
so So the ones we started with are the ones that we stuck with for the season in Mankato here. Um, but, but I just remember Kyle, uh, Kyle, in Ohio had a C22 and he actually was supposed to have a 521. He was going to run it on and, or a 421, I mean, and it, something happened with have nothing ready. So he actually ended up running his on a 621. So he's running a compact 22 foot on a 621.
00:58:29
Jordan Smith
And he said it was just an amazing combo. So I think, I thought that was kind of a cool testimonial to the durability of what we built into our compact plow line. Like you can take one of our compact plows and run it on a 621 loader and it will hold up to the abuse.
00:58:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:58:43
Jordan Smith
And and I think a couple of the storms you ran in them were like eight, nine, 10 inches of very wet, heavy snow. He sent some really cool videos from that too. So he he loved it, um did very well with it. And he was, you know candidly running it on too big of a loader, but it handled it just fine.
00:59:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, I mean, I think that 421, as soon as Case can keep up with the demand that that loader has now coming for it because it fits that bill between it's a beefier 321 because the 321 is great.
00:59:00
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:59:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's a great, absolutely awesome snow loader, but it is a little bit light. And you if you need more power and a little bit heavier machine, that 421 fits the bill so perfectly that you don't have to jump up to a 521.
00:59:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
And I see this combination, the c twenty two with that. I just see that taken. Like, that's just going to be so popular with guys.
00:59:36
Jordan Smith
i I think so too. And again, that's kind of what our case study is going to be around is is is that 421 with the C22 or C18, if you don't need van clearance, a C18 is great.
00:59:49
Jordan Smith
A little bit shorter wings are a little bit easier to maneuver in tight spaces with. like Is that the perfect utility machine where you can do a bank parking lot with no space all the way up to a small distribution center? I think the answer is going to be yes, but we got to prove it out. So be keeping ah an eye out for videos and case study that this winter.
01:00:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:00:08
Jordan Smith
Cause that's like, I mean, we literally bought these 421s just to to do this case study. and we're going to compare it again with the more conventional route is you have your compact, your small compact, like a cat 906 case 321 case 221.
01:00:22
Jordan Smith
And then you have your case 621 or your 930 cat or whatever brand you run. and And there's kind of a gap in the middle that no one's filling. And I'm really curious if that gap in the middle is actually the sweet spot where people could eliminate dual running, you know, a big and a small together and just run ah a midsize.
01:00:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes, I think that's I think people are going to be looking to do that as, you know, two machines are way more expensive than the right size machine in the middle. So, I mean, if you can get the right setup that that hits home in the middle, you don't need to get a smaller one and a bigger one to do it.
01:00:51
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
01:00:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
So efficiency, that's the way everything's trending. So it makes sense. So I think you guys are going to hit a home run with that.
01:01:04
Jordan Smith
the The only other thing I would say is we we did like like obviously the prevalency of distribution centers is growing.
01:01:17
Jordan Smith
So even even smaller startup contractors are ending up with a distribution center in their hometown and they might have a shot at getting that, but they might not want to invest in a full-blown bandwing plow because again, a lot of these small town distribution centers are 10 to 15 acres.
01:01:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:01:32
Jordan Smith
they're not It's not worth investing in a $300,000 setup for that, just for that So what we've done is actually every single skew um from the 16 foot compact all the way up to the 26 foot full size, they all have a tapered wing.
01:01:49
Jordan Smith
So any phantom plow can reach underneath ah a van trailer. Now I will say a four foot wing is not gonna get all the way to the backside of the kingpin, but it'll get up to the front of the kingpin.
01:01:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
01:01:59
Jordan Smith
Uh, we had a couple soft launch partners last year say like, Hey, there's a couple storms where, you know, the snow hadn't really drifted under the Kingpin and actually the 16 foot compact did just fine getting a little bit of snow that was underneath the trailer. Uh, and, and they liked the fact that they could get underneath those trailers with any of our plows.
01:02:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
So now you guys, ah you're doing the wing plows. You got the new wing plows. Is there anything else with the line coming out? Because I heard a rumor. I saw a couple, maybe, you know, some specially painted products out there.
01:02:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
Is there something else coming?
01:02:39
Jordan Smith
Yes, there is. And this is one that really hasn't been teased yet. So this is like breaking news flash here. um we We did enter this season, this upcoming season, knowing that we, like a lot of our customers that come to us, they come to us for their full needs.
01:02:57
Jordan Smith
Everything that they need to to run their heavy equipment attachments, they come to Storm and we take care of them.
01:03:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:03:03
Jordan Smith
And historically, we've been able to do that because we've been distributing someone else's product that had a full lineup. um Obviously, we we were fortunate to be able to engineer and develop the Phantom in the way that we did and the timing that we did to have that ready for market this year, thanks to our soft launch partners.
01:03:21
Jordan Smith
um But as we looked at the fixed-wing pushbox market, which is a dire like a ah dire need, you know even companies that are running Hydraulic wing plows, like there's still times when you absolutely should should supplement with a push box because it makes sense financially.
01:03:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:03:40
Jordan Smith
It makes sense from a simplicity standpoint. You're not always going to have enough competent or well-trained operators to get the most out of a wing plow anyway. So push boxes are a big piece of this equation.
01:03:51
Jordan Smith
But also, you know, we, we, we work with a joke with our team internally. Like we work with a lot of bougie customers that like their Instagram image and they want their stuff to all match and look the same.
01:04:02
Jordan Smith
So we looked at the market and said, who, you know, who makes the best push box? I think listeners of this, listeners of this show will have no qualms with the idea that our Arctic has built and engineered the best mousetrap on the market when it comes to fixed wing push boxes.
01:04:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
01:04:16
Jordan Smith
And
01:04:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
Hands down.
01:04:17
Jordan Smith
Thanks to Snow Jobs, we have developed a great relationship with the Straits over the last three years.
01:04:18
RICK JAMES
That's awesome.
01:04:23
Jordan Smith
um Ironically, which was really kicked off at Syma three years ago. So this is coming full circle, but we've been working closely with the Arctic team to come out with a Phantom Edition sectional.
01:04:34
Jordan Smith
So we will have a color matched, branding matched Phantom sectionals along with our Phantom Hydraulic Wing Plow line starting here in 2026.
01:04:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
01:04:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Good for you guys. Good for Arctic. That makes sense. And they these are these are jet black.
01:04:51
RICK JAMES
Very awesome.
01:04:54
Jordan Smith
Yep, they're black and black and gray or black and silver, just like our Phantom Plow. So if you're running a Phantom Hydraulic Wing Plow and you put it next to a Phantom box, we'll have it at Syma too, so you guys can come check it out.
01:05:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
I saw a couple.
01:05:05
Jordan Smith
hum
01:05:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
I saw a couple on the paint line in ah ah in the background of a photo, and I'm like, did we order more Snow Jobs Edition, Arctic? Because I ain't paying for those.
01:05:15
Jordan Smith
Yeah, I think...
01:05:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah They're a jet black. They looked really good.
01:05:19
Jordan Smith
Yeah, it's it's the same it's the same hammered black powder as our Phantom Wing Plows, and then it's the same hammered silver or or hammered gray for the push frame and for the shoes.
01:05:19
RICK JAMES
awesome
01:05:32
Jordan Smith
so it
01:05:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, that's cool.
01:05:33
Jordan Smith
So it's all color match, exactly.
01:05:34
RICK JAMES
So Storm's going to have a full fleet South Arctic Black Phantom Arctics in their facility now too?
01:05:42
Jordan Smith
We will. Yep, we will. Yeah, so so we we will have a full, plenty of inventory of Arctic sectionals for anyone that needs. And and obviously, there's lots of good dealers for that product out there. So we're not trying to snipe other people's business necessarily. But we do also understand, again, that our customers that buy our wing plows are looking to supplement their fleet with push boxes as well. And for those that have those needs, we're here for you.
01:06:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
01:06:09
Jordan Smith
I i should ah should also mention we wanted to to try to differentiate a few other things besides just paint.
01:06:10
RICK JAMES
That's cool.
01:06:17
Jordan Smith
So we did do paint. We have some cool decals, Phantom Edition. i think they look pretty badass. I think you guys will like them. um But another thing is because... the product we're coming from had a carbide edge system where you get, you know, a thousand hours of edge life. We thought maybe our incumbent customer base might want a little bit longer edge life. So we did make, not carbide embedded, but we did make laser welded carbide edges standard on our Phantom Edition.
01:06:47
Jordan Smith
So if you buy a a Phantom Edition sectional from Storm, it will have carbide embedding, or sorry, carbide laser welded on.
01:06:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
01:06:55
Jordan Smith
One differentiator with carbide being laser welded on as opposed to embedded is because it's on the surface instead of in the middle of the steel, you don't tend to get the scratching that you can see with a carbide embedding.
01:07:09
Jordan Smith
You also don't get quite as much service life. So just being straight up about that, you're not going to get quite as much service life improvement with laser welded versus embedded, but it's kind of in the middle, right? It's going to get you that three, four, five year cycle.
01:07:20
RICK JAMES
I really like that laser. i like i like that brand that we've been using that for years here and I i really ah like those better than the embedded honestly.
01:07:22
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
01:07:29
Jordan Smith
Yeah, it holds up really nice. um So that's one differentiator. And then the other one was, you know, just to help to help people hopefully prevent them from breaking blocks. We did make the bottom blocks two inch thick as standard on our Phantom lineup. So not huge things because the Arctic product doesn't need a lot of improvements because it's great from the factory. But we've just made a couple minor tweaks to to just differentiate them slightly besides just the paint.
01:07:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's great. Good for you guys, man. You guys are one-stop shopping. it's ah It's pretty awesome. ah we're We're very happy for you guys. We're very proud of you guys. I mean, this is going to be awesome. It's going to be industry changing, which is what you've always set out to do, right?
01:08:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
but You know, set the future standard.
01:08:13
Jordan Smith
That's right.
01:08:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
You know, you guys are doing it. you're You're not just talking about it. You're out there doing it. So good for you guys.
01:08:21
Jordan Smith
Well, and and I think this is just the start.
01:08:22
RICK JAMES
Busy booth.
01:08:24
Jordan Smith
Go ahead, Jeremy.
01:08:25
RICK JAMES
I said going be busy booth at the Simei. Everybody's checking this out, would assume.
01:08:30
Jordan Smith
I hope so.
01:08:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
I would say so. I would definitely say so. I mean, it it was at Storks. you know You always had 25, 30 people huddled around the thing.
01:08:35
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:08:36
Jordan Smith
Yeah.
01:08:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
You couldn't even see it if you couldn't get into the ah the front row of the pushing and shoving. You couldn't see it
01:08:44
Jordan Smith
That's right. Yeah, I'm excited. Team's excited. We're going huge group there. So make sure come make sure to come and say hi, check the stuff out. Even if you're not in the market to buy it, just come check it out and help spread the spread the hype. Our team is hyped and they love getting hyped with the industry. And like like I said, it's this is just a start. We're we're all about setting that future standard. We had to start somewhere.
01:09:08
Jordan Smith
You know, we we've been blessed to do very well distributing product for the past decade. We felt that between the feedback we've received and between some challenges with with tariffs and other things that it was time to to make a U S made product in this product segment. And so that's what we did. and no ah No ill will to our competitors.
01:09:29
Jordan Smith
I don't know if that's totally mutual, but from our side, no ill will that way. We still think it's a great product. We're still supporting that product. We're still here for all our customers that have bought that product from us. Nothing changes there. I've said that before. I'll say it again.
01:09:42
Jordan Smith
um If you talk to anyone from our team, business as usual when it comes to other product lines, but but the future for Storm is is an OEM product, and this is just the
Service, Support & Partnerships
01:09:53
Jordan Smith
start.
01:09:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
So I got one more question, though, for you because this this is actually important in my mind anyway. You guys started as a dealer. You built your reputation on a dealer service.
01:10:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Service has always been synonymous with storm. Everybody says it like I can't get parts anywhere. I can always call storm and I get them overnight. That's that's not open for even debate or dispute. Everybody says it.
01:10:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
You now a manufacturer. That same level of service that you've been producing for years on another product, I would assume that that same level of service and parts availability is going to come with this. Do you have a ah network set up or they have to all go through Minnesota with Storm?
01:10:33
Jordan Smith
Yeah, great question. It's something that we, so just to frame it up, like, I think we've done a great job supporting customers from thousands of miles away because of the miracles of overnight shipping and air freight.
01:10:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:10:49
Jordan Smith
Um,
01:10:52
Jordan Smith
And we're gonna continue doing that. However, we also understand that people sometimes need local service or or want local service. So our intent over the next number of years is to continue scaling out um locations throughout the snow belt.
01:11:08
Jordan Smith
And I think my ultimate goal would be is that we could be within two to three hours of every major snow market, at least east of the Mississippi River. Once you get west, it's it's hard to touch that because the density is so low. but So as of right now, many of you know, we've been partnered with S&S in Scranton, Pennsylvania for many years that will continue.
01:11:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:11:29
Jordan Smith
They will have not only the incumbent product, but also the new Phantom sectional and Phantom parts service plows all available there.
01:11:40
Jordan Smith
Last year, we also partnered up with Northeast De-Icing Solutions to offer the same type of cooperative setup in Massachusetts, there in Uxbridge. And this year we've added a third option in the Northeast or in the Great Plains, depending how you want to define it. We've teamed up with Kyle and his team at UD Maintenance in Amherst, Ohio.
01:12:01
Jordan Smith
So now we have coverage, you know, Cleveland, California. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Canton, kind of that market. And it's it's a little bit of a drive from those places, but it's accessible if someone needs something same day instead of next day.
01:12:14
Jordan Smith
um and And I think the intent would be to to continue. I don't think. I know the intent will be to continue scaling out partners and locations like that throughout the snow belt to get more more coverage.
01:12:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Awesome Very cool Excited for you guys This is huge
01:12:26
RICK JAMES
Awesome. Yep.
01:12:31
Jordan Smith
Yeah, we're pumped. it's ah it's almost It's almost too close to home for us to to totally appreciate the significance and how much work has gone in because it's just been embedded into our lives for the last you know eight, nine months here. It's just all we've been working on is getting ready for this and the soft launch and ramping up manufacturing and ramping up, you know, part support and a new website launch that we're doing and, you know, hype videos.
01:12:58
Jordan Smith
And then at the same time, we're, you know, trying to keep storm chasing going and doing our snow job stuff. And there's just, there's a lot going on, but it's, it's all super fun and we're all super excited and we appreciate all the support, you know, snow jobs being at the top of that
01:13:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
a lot.
Mission Statement & Event Anticipation
01:13:13
Jordan Smith
list.
01:13:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, it's no problem. Oh, it's no problem at all, man. We're, we're like, I said the, from day one, what have we said about this show? You know, get exposure for real snow guys and help the good guys win. There are good guys out there and you know, people doing stuff the right way. That's, that's what we're about. So, I mean, we couldn't be happier for you guys and we're very proud of you guys. So good luck and know,
01:13:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
i think I think the booth at Sima will be mobbed. And, you know, after that, you come relax and you come to the party with the best cups ever. And, you know, ah we'll see you guys there. But, yeah, we're looking forward to seeing you guys at Sima.
01:13:54
Jordan Smith
Awesome. That's all I got boys.
01:13:56
RICK JAMES
All right.
01:13:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
Anything else, Jay?
01:13:59
RICK JAMES
I don't know. Nothing really.
01:14:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right.
01:14:02
RICK JAMES
thinking good.
01:14:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, cool. Then we'll wrap it there. Jordan, thanks for coming on as always. Appreciate it. And that'll do it for this very special. It wasn't dustings, but I guess it turned into a product profile.
01:14:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
So you guys got the bonus. This was your, ah this was your first look, the, the product launch drop, the information dump. So now you know it, if you're going to Simon, check it out.
01:14:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jordan, you remember the booth number there? I got it written down.
01:14:28
RICK JAMES
I don't think we can call it a dusting.
01:14:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
i
01:14:30
RICK JAMES
went from a dusting to a storm with this big announcement.
01:14:33
Jordan Smith
Woo!
01:14:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
01:14:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:14:33
Jordan Smith
Marketing magic.
01:14:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, wow.
01:14:36
Jordan Smith
Went from dustings to a storm.
01:14:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
The cannon has fired.
01:14:37
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:14:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
but
01:14:39
Jordan Smith
ah
01:14:39
RICK JAMES
ah
01:14:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
but That's awesome. Good one. oh geez. That's really wow.
01:14:44
Jordan Smith
love it.
01:14:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
Dusting to the storm. I love that.
01:14:47
Jordan Smith
I don't know the booth number, but to be honest, Steve, it's so big you can't miss it.
01:14:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, you're going to see it. You're going to see it. Just look for the mob of people that the the last couple of years has always been at the storm booth.
01:14:53
Jordan Smith
I think it's
01:14:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
So just check that out.
01:14:58
Jordan Smith
I think it's one of the biggest booths at the show. And we actually, we have two booths. We have the storm booth and then we have the storm Academy and storm chasing booth too. Across the aisle from one another.
01:15:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Very cool. You guys hate money.
01:15:11
Jordan Smith
We do, we're spending all of it.
01:15:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah ah so
01:15:13
Jordan Smith
So please buy plows.
01:15:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
01:15:15
Jordan Smith
Please come by our plows so we can eat.
01:15:15
RICK JAMES
Oh, yep.
01:15:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, man.
01:15:17
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:15:18
Jordan Smith
fact
01:15:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
You can't go wrong. We like Jeremy and I, you know, we call it as we see it. If this thing was shit, we would have told you it was shit because that's exactly what we told Jordan. Don't send it. if It's not ready because we're going to say it. And ah this thing was head and shoulders above any other wing plow we've ever run.
01:15:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
um And the scrape, I'm not prepared as i will go to my grave. I'm not prepared to say it scrapes as good as an Arctic, but it's the closest thing I've ever seen to an Arctic.
01:15:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
And it's a wing plow. So you're adding that kind of versatility.
01:15:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
So check it out. Make sure you hit the booth. Make sure you come by and say hello. Jordan, congratulations to you and the team again. We're excited for you guys, and we'll see in a couple days.
01:15:54
Jordan Smith
I love it.
01:16:05
Jordan Smith
Appreciate it.
01:16:05
RICK JAMES
Yes, sir.
01:16:05
Jordan Smith
See boys.
01:16:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right. That's it, Snow Jobs Nation. We're going to wrap this dustings. Everybody have a safe weekend. All right. If you're traveling to Simon next week, have safe travels. We will see you there. And keep pushing.