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S3-129: Extra Mile Snow, West Bend WI/ Wolf America Loaders
0 Playsin 6 hours
The guys welcome Aron Rodman, owner, and his Operations Manager Harry Steldt to the show to hear about Extra Mile's transition to being a snow only company, as well as their experiences with Wolf America loaders that they are now the sole north american dealer for. These loaders got some attention at SIMA Show in June, and we wanted the guys to answer some listener questions about them!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:02
Speaker
This No Jobs podcast episode is brought to you by Top Gun Backblades.
00:00:08
Speaker
you ready for the best damn lot of Give me a hell, me a yell. Stand up right now. And give hell, give
00:00:22
Speaker
Stand up right now. Get to go. ain't moving slow. She's taking control. Pushing the pedal to the floor.
Snow Season Anticipation
00:00:41
Speaker
Let's get it, Snow Jobs Nation. We are back again bringing you episode 129 of the Snow Jobs Podcast main show powered by Top Gun Backblades. As always, I'm Steve. I'm talking to the juice box guy. You know who's with me. I'm one of the baddest motherfuckers of all time. i' One of the best singers and one of the best looking motherfuckers you've ever seen. Hold my drink, bitch.
00:00:59
Speaker
Chuck Norris of Snow. Mr. Jeremy Lindstrom, Glacier Snow Manager. What's up, Jay? Steve-O, not a lot. How about you? Oh, not much, brother. Not much. Another week.
00:01:09
Speaker
Another week. Getting it done. Another week closer to snow. Yeah. Yeah. I can wait. ah Really? You're not excited? Come on. No. Not really.
00:01:20
Speaker
hu I'd much had rather have winter than than summer. Much rather have it. Yeah. No, it's... It'll come. It always comes. So I'm not... Whatever.
00:01:32
Speaker
You hope it comes now. You're in you're in a snow drought for two years now. You're hoping it comes. Yeah. Two-year drought, yeah, so it kind of gets you out of the, i don't know, not whatever. It just kind of takes fun out of it.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, this is it, though. This your bumper year. Yeah. yeah right that's You and Minnesota. He'll come. Yeah, that's it. He'll come. Cool. What else is going on?
00:01:56
Speaker
Nothing, man. Nothing at all. Just working, getting a little ah i wasn a little vacation time in with the family. ah Other than that, you know same shit, different day. ah How's the ah dust control in Fargo going?
00:02:09
Speaker
Going in a couple minutes, right? ah Yeah, that's the plan. Yeah, it's been pretty slow. I mean, not slow. We're just caught up, I guess. for But yeah, we're kind of waiting on some big jobs to get done. So yeah, we've got some big jobs out there you yet to do. We've just got to wait for the contractors to pull it. But man, otherwise, yeah, we're we're still finding jobs here and there, but just not as busy as we were. But it is July. It usually slows down until fall, and then it picks up again for harvest. Yeah.
00:02:36
Speaker
Oh, so it it actually slows down in the hottest part of the summer when it's dustiest? Yeah. Yeah, but it's been wet here, too. We've we've had a lot of rain, so it's been pretty wet. All right. All right. Losing all of our moisture for winter. We're getting it all in the summer.
00:02:51
Speaker
or Or you're just in a zone now where it's going to be moisture all the way through next spring. Atmosphere? I think so. I'll
Guests and Snow Industry Community
00:03:01
Speaker
have to kind of want call the weatherman. Call the weather guys, and you know hopefully they get it right for you. Josh! Yep, that's probably more likely.
00:03:11
Speaker
I will say this. I am impressed as hell. The weather dudes called both of them and said, i am here. What do I got coming? And they were exactly right on both timing and what was coming.
00:03:24
Speaker
So in the summer, there are no problems. Summer, they can predict the storms, no problems down to the minute of what's coming and when. But winter seems to be the curveball.
00:03:36
Speaker
Well, it's that half a degree difference will make a like world change. I called Mark the one day when I was driving home from the airport, dropping ah um the wife and kids off at the airport so they could go visit her family.
00:03:49
Speaker
And I called Mark because it looked like absolute death and destruction coming. And Mark called that to a T. And then I called Nick a couple days later about another. We've been getting some nasty storms ah up here, ah really nasty.
00:04:03
Speaker
And I called Nick about something else. He's like, all right, here here's what you got. Two to four, you are going to be inundated with rain, blah, blah, blah. You're going to have an open zone from like five to eight that is not going to rain. It's going to keep clearing. and But be in by eight o'clock because then you're in for it.
00:04:21
Speaker
And like 758, boom, here it came. So he was down to the minute. i just I don't know why that doesn't translate to snow.
00:04:33
Speaker
They want to talk about them. Maybe they just want some airtime. ah We love the doctors. we love the doctors.
00:04:41
Speaker
Oh, man. All right. So what are we doing today? Today, guys, we have Aaron Rodman and Harry Stelt from Extra Mile Snow out of West Bend, Wisconsin. ah Aaron is the owner. Harry is the operations manager.
00:04:54
Speaker
ah For those of you guys who don't remember, these are the guys that absolutely went above and beyond in true snow guy fashion. ah They rescued Steve 007 Smythe of Storm Equipment ah when his truck broke down ah while trying to visit the Western Factory yeah last year.
00:05:09
Speaker
These guys were awesome. they Steve was going to be stuck in Wisconsin for this truck for like a couple weeks. They actually gave Steve one of their trucks to drive home to Minnesota so he wouldn't be stranded in Wisconsin with nothing to do.
00:05:21
Speaker
So we wanted to get these guys on. ah They're really cool guys. And we're also, yeah, we're also really looking. What's that? or Or they want to get them out of their state.
00:05:33
Speaker
Probably. That could be two. That could be two. 007, bro. Always spying.
00:05:40
Speaker
ah uh but the other thing we're really looking forward to hearing from these guys about uh because extra mile not only does snow but they are also the guys who are a dealer for those wolf loaders that caught so many guys eyes at the simon show in june um we've had quite a few questions about those loaders extra miles been using them in their fleet and in their operation for a couple years now uh before they became a dealer so we look forward to being able to give them some time to tell everybody about the wolf loaders how they've worked out for them and uh get you guys some of the information that you wanted on them uh but before we get to the boys as always we're going to hear from team top gun come back to a quick week review gentlemen let me tell you about the best kept secret in the snow game top gun back blades our all-american blade is the largest and strongest pickup truck plow on planet earth we're talking about a 16 to 20 foot wide blade that makes other snow plows look like toys
00:06:31
Speaker
This is what peak efficiency feels like. Now, you can do more with less. We're currently offering the Fly High Edition plows with exclusive perks in honor of our late founder, Jason Yonkers. Quantities are extremely limited. Ask about our new skid steer attachment.
00:06:43
Speaker
Get your order started at topgunblades.com or check us out on Instagram and YouTube at Top Gun Blades. Welcome to Team Top Gun. All right, guys, we're back. We can review real quick. So last week, as we said, we did the sidewalk machine review with Josh, David, and Ian.
00:06:57
Speaker
ah We talked about our own experiences with everything from entry-level stand-on machines to compact tractors that Jeremy and Putz are famous for. We had a lot of great feedback on that one. So we're going to keep going on those ah those group topics like that. Everybody seems to like the roundtable group discussion type things, no matter what the subject.
00:07:15
Speaker
ah So going to keep doing those for you. um Thanks to Putz, David, and Ian for giving us the time and sharing their knowledge and experiences with those machines. can't ah Can't really do it without the, ah you know, me and Jeremy can sit here and talk, but it's really about getting everybody else out there that all have different experiences and ah knowledge bases to get the information out there.
00:07:35
Speaker
Let's see. For all of you that have been asking us, and you have, vi DM, text, and the Snow Jobs Nation Facebook group, which there was a whole thread on there dedicated to this question. ah After Syma's show this year, Western had their Salter rate control system.
00:07:51
Speaker
ah for their salt spreaders that is even retrofittable. We are very happy to announce that your questions are about to be answered. The gracious folks over there at Western have ah allowed us to sit down with Seth Bergerud, who is the product specialist for that actual rate controller. He's going to come on with us and talk about it, give us all the information that you guys want to hear.
00:08:12
Speaker
And I answer all the questions that we've received about it so far. So we're going to pick the best couple questions and give it to them. And we'll get it. We'll get into it with that because you guys had a lot of questions with that. And, you know, maybe that's why they didn't let Steve into the factory. Maybe because they were developing that rate control system.
00:08:28
Speaker
That could be. That could be. Didn't want 007 poking around. But we're just kidding. We're recording that with him in the next week. And i look for that to be dropped sometime in the next two weeks.
00:08:39
Speaker
And again, that is in direct response to all you guys hammering us with questions about that. And we literally sent that to Western and said, hey, listen, everybody's asking us after Simon's show about this.
00:08:52
Speaker
you know, let's hit the ground running for you and and get the word out. So answer these guys' questions and see if it's if it's, you know, good for them to purchase or or works for them. What you got, Jay? You got anything?
00:09:04
Speaker
Just our sale's still going on in our store. through ju july sal The sale, the 4th of July sale that is extended the entire month. Yeah. Love it. Buy it.
00:09:15
Speaker
Buy the stuff. You guys are going to be sorry in November when it gets cold and you don't have your snow job sweatshirt you know or your Carhartt. I hear there's going to be a Carhartt shortage this this year.
00:09:28
Speaker
That's what the word is. Carhartt shortage. yeah Everybody, let's let's do like a COVID scramble to get our Carhartts right now. and i'm I'm creating the shortage right now. All you to do is say there's going to be a shortage. Everybody will run.
00:09:40
Speaker
Everybody will them. Yeah. Yep. We'll see. We'll see. But as Jeremy said, the Snowjob Nation store, as always,
Extra Mile Snow's History and Strategy
00:09:48
Speaker
stocked and ready for your orders. ah Get your gear now.
00:09:52
Speaker
And that's it, I think. So let's hear from our partners. And we will be right back with you guys and hear from these boys. Hey, guys. Steve here. We're always looking for ways to save on labor and increase safety for our people.
00:10:04
Speaker
Last year, I purchased a game-changing snowblower from my company that does just that. It's called the MuskOx. It's patented backdrag feature and design lets us get right up to our HOA garage doors and tight spots, clean them all right down to the pavement without scratching.
00:10:19
Speaker
This beast can also scrape hard pack going forward if you need it to. It's truly a dual-threat blower. Give MuskOx a call. Their staff are extremely knowledgeable and have been amazing with us. MuskOx, snowblowers that backdrag.
00:10:33
Speaker
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00:10:48
Speaker
Don't miss our latest innovation as we introduce the Razorback, the first-ever sectional moldboard truck plow. Join us in shaping the future of snow removal. Discover more at www.articsnowproducts.com.
00:11:02
Speaker
All right, gang, we are back. So let's let's just do this. Let's welcome the Extra Mile Snowboys, Aaron and Harry. Guys, welcome to the Snow Jobs. How are we doing? Thanks for having us.
00:11:14
Speaker
No problem at all. No problem at all. it's It's been a long time coming because we wanted to do that ever since you guys went above and beyond for Steve. That was super cool you guys to do that. that's That's so snow guy to do that.
00:11:26
Speaker
yeah I got i gotta to throw a plug out here for Steve. He is the best thing for your vehicle fleet maintenance that you could ever have. you know Like a month later when this truck came back, I thought it was a different truck. I mean, I had to double check this thing like under the hood, everything like I mean, I think that thing was steam cleaned. He must have cleaned the engine. There might even been new spark plug wires on there.
00:11:51
Speaker
This is a truck that only had like 6,000 miles on it to start out with. Like it looked better than it did coming off the showroom. So you guys get the chance. What I should have done is given them one of our really crappy trucks. Because that thing would have came back four years newer.
00:12:07
Speaker
Oh, that's great. That's great. You know what? One hand washes the other, man. Paying it forward. Every once in a while, it comes back in the right way. That's good. I'm glad but they did that. But that's that's Steve. that That's how he is, and that's how Storm is. So ah that that's not surprising coming from them. But, you know, what was surprising is that you guys just – It's not surprising for snow guys, but people outside our industry would not understand that kind of bending over backwards to help a quote-unquote maybe competitor or ah you know a guy outside the company. But ah you know kudos to you guys for doing that. That was super super awesome and just ah you know renews faith in people, honestly. That actually kind of opened up a nice relationship, and we've seen that with so many other people too in the in the snow industry. yeah i mean, are we really competitors? i mean, unless you guys –
00:12:54
Speaker
I mean, even our local guys here we work with really well, and everyone helps everyone. And, you know, sooner or later something breaks down and someone's like another company, hey, can you go salt this for me real quick? It's all I had left. Our salt are broke.
00:13:07
Speaker
um You know, these relationships are what it's all about. Amen. It really gets us through the hard times. We're all eating the same shitburger. it There's no reason to fight. Mine came with orange juice this year too. Nice.
00:13:23
Speaker
and na ah Jeremy, you want to take us away, brother? Yeah, you bet. Hey, guys, why don't you ah tell everybody about Extra Mile, how it got started, and what you guys are all about?
00:13:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so Extra Miles started 25 years ago. Sadly, without Harry, he didn't come until bit later. But 20-some years ago, I started mowing lawns.
00:13:47
Speaker
People would say, do you know how to do this? And this is like before Google and whatnot. So I'd just say, yes, go to the library. Remember that thing? Go to the library. Yeah. Go to the library, get myself, you know, ah three steps to building a patio book or something like that. And, you know, learn how to do one thing, keep spiraling into a next. And so we were all all seasons, you know, maintenance, fertilizing, hardscapes, snow.
00:14:13
Speaker
Snow is always what I like best. Always. mean When I was in middle school, my buddy Matt and I, we'd run around the neighborhood shoveling all the old people's driveways, figure out who gave us 12 cents and who gave us 12 bucks. And then we'd hit the $12 ones each storm and get the other ones off the plate.
00:14:32
Speaker
You know, and and I always said, you know, it would be great if we could just be snow only. Like never heard of that back then, 20 years ago. And everyone, you the older guys I talked to, no, you can't do it. Won't work. Won't work.
00:14:43
Speaker
Through some circumstances about 15 years ago, decided to jump into it, even though everyone said it won't work. And it just took off. All sudden we could buy equipment that was not, I didn't have to like figure out, okay, this is the best snow equipment, but I'll take the second best because I can use that in the summer too.
00:15:02
Speaker
You know, we could get focused on equipment. We could all a sudden I'm getting my contracts out before all the cuts all the competitors get their contracts out. So we're we're getting jobs. And it just seemed for every twenty thousand dollars less in landscape work we did, we made thirty thousand more in snow because we were just on top of it. And they're better. And Uh, it's just kept going and we've gotten, we've gotten more involved in the industry through connections like loaning out trucks and being members in SIMA and even stuff like this podcast where, um people say, what do you do all summer? And I mean, uh, we, we probably just finished cleaning up and fixing up our last busted plow a week ago. And it's for, you know, it's middle of July, you know, there's, there's plenty to, plenty to keep us busy. And, uh,
00:15:51
Speaker
We've been really innovative. One of the things I looked at early on, it was really help. It hurt not being part of a snow company earlier to learn from someone else and learn from a boss from when you were you know younger and starting.
00:16:06
Speaker
But at the same time, it made me question, well, why are guys doing this? like I'm looking around and everything's still getting done like it's 1960. like We are in an amazing time in the snow industry right now.
00:16:19
Speaker
um You know, from its beginning until like 15 years ago, you had a salter and you had a plow in a truck. And that's that's about it. Like I saw people still plowing with wheel loader buckets.
00:16:31
Speaker
yeah That sounds painful. I mean, really painful. Yeah. Just as much blacktop in the pile of snow. Oh, man. Yeah, different story. But, man, I hit a manhole cover with one once and actually bent the frame on a wheel loader. I'm probably lucky to be alive after that one. You are.
00:16:51
Speaker
but um But, ah you know, one day we're overwhelmed and we go grab our only skid loader is an open cab bobcat. And we just start plowing with the bucket. And like instantly we were like, why?
00:17:04
Speaker
Why have we been letting this thing sit here all winter? No one in our area had been using skid loaders yet. And so open cab. So we use it the rest of the winter. We end up having to put we put a tarp on our lap because the snow would come over the bucket, land on our lap, and then the warmth of your legs would melt it And so then you're cold because it's wet.
00:17:24
Speaker
But then 10 minutes later, you can't bend your legs because your pants are frozen. And so next year we bought, but the tarp helped a little. um yeah So next, next year we bought a skid loader with a cab and then year or two, we, for a couple of years, we'd rent a half dozen extra skid loaders.
00:17:43
Speaker
Then we finally got a job that would pay for a wheel loader. And oh my gosh, did it all change once we got a wheel loader? We, we bought a, we, we leased the wheel loader and i don't even remember what we had for a plow on it. we We probably leased an Arctic or something like that.
00:17:58
Speaker
And, uh, we We thought we would just use it for the one job, but ah we we finished that job so fast and we were we found we could hammer out a bank or a Taco Bell in like three minutes with those things. And where we found we were making our money was all these little jobs that are around the big job. it not The big job just paid for the machine payment.
00:18:21
Speaker
And then where we made our money was all these little jobs around it. And then over the next 15 years, we just... ah We kept picking up a job next door to that one and next door to that one. And we've got, I think, the best niche in the industry. We we only cover a five-mile radius.
00:18:36
Speaker
And we do what, Harry? 250 acres? yeah Yeah. 250 acres in that five-mile radius, which is probably... 70% of the commercial pavement in the in the in the city of West Bend here, just far enough away from Milwaukee that the big boys don't want to come up here to do it themselves. So we've made friends with them and they just hire us. you know Hey guys, why come up here for one job? Just just hire us.
00:19:00
Speaker
We'll make sure there's enough money left over for you at the end. And it's really taken off. And from there, well we needed additional operations management help, which brought in Harry.
00:19:14
Speaker
Very cool. Very cool. That's the part where you speak up. You can speak now, Harry. yeah yeah um I was kind of, I started early in the snow game too. ah My dad would drop me off with a snowblower and I'd be doing all the but driveways and in the, you know, neighborhood. Yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
When I turned 15, I finally talked dad into buying me a truck. ah So before I even had my license, seven foot straight blade, you know, joystick control. And that's what we did. We used driveways doing that.
00:19:47
Speaker
Went to school, played baseball and decided, hey, I'm going to start my own company. So started my own company, had that for four years, rented a ah building from Aaron. And i think it was in October, four or five years ago now, he walked down by me and he said, I want to buy your business.
00:20:05
Speaker
I was pretty much a you know solo guy. My dad loved helping me. So he'd come out. i had a buddy who would help. um But at the time, my my wife was looking to buy a house and that was a an easy way to do it.
00:20:17
Speaker
So it's it's been great ever since. um And I love doing it. It's fun. It's awesome. It's great. both the It's so funny, too, because you both said that you love doing snow at a young age.
00:20:30
Speaker
Do you think that that you think that's how it is for most hardcore snow guys? Like you either love it when you're a kid and start doing it or you don't ever get into it with that kind of love. I mean, you think somebody somebody's like 35 and discovers their love for snow?
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah. I think say thirty and think by 35, they've already decided whether they want to go to Florida or not. eat Exactly. but If you're just developing a love for snow at 35, it's because you're fucked and you had nothing else to do.
00:20:59
Speaker
yeah I remember in my in my early twenty s when we were starting this, I mean, I couldn't, we didn't even have a plow truck. We hired somebody else to do the plow. It was just me at the time. I hired someone else, another contractor in town to do the plowing.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'd do all the snowblowing. And, and I'm doing, I'm, I'm snow blowing parking lots that are the size of stuff that we'd put a skid loader out on right now. And at some point I bought an extra snowblower and my wife and I, we had just had one, maybe two kids at the time.
00:21:26
Speaker
We would get a babysitter. She'd come out with me and it was like a date night. We, we had, we had a blast. We'd go snowblow driveways together, get some food, hang out in the truck and, uh, you Yeah, I don't really remember much. It was so long and so middle the night, I don't remember much more of it. Don't let her go.
00:21:45
Speaker
no. She's the keeper. it's ah It's a lot like farming. know Since you mentioned the wife, ah a snow plower's wife is a lot like a farmer's wife. I mean, this industry is so much like farming. I refer to i refer to us often as snow farmers because it's really ah very similar lifestyle. It's true. It is.
00:22:05
Speaker
Very true. Unpredicted. I think part of it too at a young age you get you know you start with a shovel right and you're like okay this is cool and then you finally get that first snow thrower and you're really throwing it so it's like wow this is cool then you get your first plow truck and you're like wow I can really push a lot of snow and then it kind of stems from there to skid loaders to wheel loaders you start running the big stuff you know we had 926 with foot plus that i sat in for a couple days and it's just like is there anything cooler than moving yeah you know look how far we've come type deal oh man at 15 we didn't even know that a 24 foot plow existed it didn't i remember i remember us a couple of years back before we watched it or bought it watch sitting there for like an hour watching was it dirt ninja yeah he's got some recording of and just an hour oh yeah i'm like
00:22:57
Speaker
I'm like, this isn't really that big. And then I see him go past these semi trailers that look like ants. and And I mean, at at, you know, like I'm 46, so like at 40 years old, I mean, the amount of geeking out we're doing over these these cool toys is is phenomenal. It's like what I see my little three year old nephew doing with a Tonka truck. and yeah you You don't grow out of it.
00:23:21
Speaker
Or you do, you got problems. Yeah. It's it's funny mention that Dirt Ninja guy because that guy, I think he's actually local. I think he's a New Yorker. um I've watched his videos with the Metal Plus.
00:23:34
Speaker
He is actually a ninja with that thing. like He is so good with that. He makes it seem a lot easier than it actually is. And once you finally jump behind one, you're sitting there and you're like, man, that guy, you didn't appreciate how good that Dirt Ninja guy on YouTube is with those things.
00:23:50
Speaker
He's, he is definitely, he's earned that ninja name. That's for sure. I've spent many hours watching those videos just in awe of, you know, you don't realize how big a parking lot is. And all of a sudden you, you know, I've jumped on and you look at the parking lot overhead and you're like, wow, that's a 40 acre spot. And it's him and one other guy. And he was just cruising through it. He is maximizing production rates. Like that is the guy of metal plus actually ever wanted to figure out what their true production rate.
00:24:19
Speaker
That's the guy they should get the rates from because I haven't seen anybody. Yeah. run a metal plus better than that. That guy was crushing, like you said, some seriously big stuff in a very small time because his efficiency was off the chart.
00:24:32
Speaker
but What did we do with Cabrini Church in that time? We had we had a 24-foot metal plasin, like a little 813 on a 906. Picking up the trails. yeah it It had to be less than an hour.
00:24:46
Speaker
and it's oh It was like 17 minutes or something. It was it was something crazy. It's ah like a five-acre parking lot. Not a huge one, but... but how many how many trucks How many trucks and how long would that have taken you to do it with trucks? Uh...
00:25:02
Speaker
we Two trucks would be there for probably an hour and a half each to do it. yeah I mean, it was like 17 minutes with those two machines there. We've got some video of it because it was just that cool.
00:25:14
Speaker
i mean The 24-foot plow, the windrow coming off a 24-foot plow. like You should have someone with a surfboard and a snowsuit just like surfing off the side of this thing as it's rolling there.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah. ah The machines are definitely force multipliers. That's for sure. i love the ah I love the company structure that you just you take that five-mile radius and you hammer everything and inside it. It sounds very familiar to me.
00:25:42
Speaker
I love that that. And it works. It works. I do the same thing. couple years ago, we were felt like we were growing too much, so I set down the parameters of, okay, we're only going to take on a job if it's like within a city block, a couple hundred yards of a job we already do.
00:26:00
Speaker
We still grew because I failed to realize we had so much stuff in our city yeah that there wasn't anything that fell out of those parameters. So we had to we looked at some different different strategy moving forth a little bit.
00:26:16
Speaker
You know, and that's how you build friends, too, though. Like, I've had jobs come my way really wanting, you know, us. And I've just said, listen, that's outside of our zone. I appreciate the call. Here's what I can do for you.
00:26:28
Speaker
I can recommend two other guys, two other companies that are that do work in that immediate area and are very, very good. You you won't be able to go wrong with either one of them. Get prices from both them. And hey, what's wrong with this property that you're throwing? it Nothing's wrong with it except it's out of my area. I'm not driving 20 minutes away.
00:26:45
Speaker
to to do that. It's just not going to happen. So, but that, and then, they' oh shit, thank you very much. You know, and that's, you build relationships. Like you said, it's all about the relationships. and We work that same way and that's it. That's actually worked out really well and the customers actually receive it really well. I i tell them, you know we'll have someone who owns a half dozen shopping malls in the metro Milwaukee area and I'll tell them I'm going to service this one up here in West Bend better than anyone on any of your other ones, but I'm not going to be able to do the rest.
00:27:13
Speaker
But because of that, it is worth your time to use separate vendors and they're and I'll set them up with a separate vendor to use elsewhere. And yeah then that ends up working both ways. Absolutely. yeah All and tells that guy, oh, hey, that one's in West Bend.
00:27:28
Speaker
This is the only guy you should use. He's going to kill it for you. 100 percent. Absolutely right. I agree. So you guys, as far as West Bend, what's what's your market like as far as your annual snowfall and types of storms you guys get up there?
00:27:42
Speaker
fifty engine 53 is the historic average. okay Like 2 is the recent average. ah It was actually 2, but we're coming off at 2...
Weather and Service Challenges
00:27:55
Speaker
i maria around low 30 inch winters and even at that we've been hitting this double whammy of really warm fall and really warm spring so out of that 30 to 40 inches the first eight inches of the season is melting before we can even do anything with it the last eight inches where it's it's pretty similar um so hoping to get out of that funk nothing that i can do about it but uh, you know, it's, it's cyclical.
00:28:22
Speaker
Uh, you know, 15 years ago, we had some hundred, we had 200 plus winters in a row, you know? So it, It comes and goes. ah Two winters ago, we had, what was it? In one week, we had 29, 30 inches all over the course of a week. One of those was 20 inches in in in a like a 36-hour period.
00:28:43
Speaker
So we had some flukes like that here and there. We're just close enough to Lake Michigan that we'll get some lake effect or what we refer to as some wraparound snow afterwards and just far enough that sometimes half the city has it and half the city doesn't.
00:29:01
Speaker
That's interesting. So you might only have to plow half your route? Well, that only comes up with our ski hill. Yeah, we had a fluke incident. Yeah. here.
00:29:11
Speaker
There's a hill on the north side of town um and they were blowing snow. I live right across the street from it and I could see the snow going up and it was just going right into West Bend.
00:29:22
Speaker
and I called one of the guys in town on the north side and i'm like, hey, is it snowing? and He was like, you know what it is. so I jumped on the cameras because you know I can look at some cameras at work and nothing.
00:29:35
Speaker
i was like, okay, there's got to be you know some sort of situation going on with them creating the moisture going up in the air and dropping you know five miles away and sure enough we ended up having to go out and service pretty much just the north side of town that night wow and then you started slipping that those ski slope guys an envelope cash like right yeah yeah every night boys every night Let's do it.
00:30:01
Speaker
Those guys are great. They actually rent a couple of our machines over the summer to take care of the the properties over there. But yeah we we talked to, we use TrueWeather. And so we we started talking to them because this happens a couple times each year.
00:30:14
Speaker
and we were never able to put together why it doesn't show up on the radar. There's nothing that shows on the radar. And I'll call these guys and be, hey, it's snowing. And they're like, oh, there's nothing on the radar. And it's like a one and a half mile wide swath that goes south for about six miles. Like I can tell you, i mean, in in town here, Paradise Drive. It stops at Paradise Drive every time. And our properties on the one side of the street need it. And the properties from there south.
00:30:41
Speaker
Don't. and They did some research and found that something like ski hills and also like wastewater treatment plants where you get the moisture coming up from all the warm wastewater. to the blooms yeah it It's not necessarily the moisture from those that's making the snow, but that's kind of triggering something in the atmosphere that causes the that small locale to drop the little bit of moisture that has that it has sooner than it normally would.
00:31:07
Speaker
That's crazy. It doesn't bother me. I mean, we make like another 20 grand. Absolutely. time it happens. Just try and get those guys to angle their snow cannons at your most profitable sites. The weather's got to be just right. It's got to be like 30 degrees, high humidity, and a wind coming from north to south.
00:31:26
Speaker
so That's interesting. So it goes this way. We've got to figure it out. That's interesting. Good for you guys. That's pretty funny. That's crazy. It was weird the first couple of years until we could figure it out finally why it was happening.
00:31:38
Speaker
I bet. What else you got these guys, Jack? Doctors figured it out. Doctors figured it out. The doctors. um we Do we want to go into equipment yet or no?
00:31:50
Speaker
um I want to hear i want to hear what kind of sites they... What's their red and butter? Contracts. What kind of contracts are guys running out there? Seasonals? Hourly? There's a good mix. What do you think? seventy thirty Yeah, we got 25 to 30 are a set price per year.
00:32:06
Speaker
ah we the Most of the rest are our per push. We've gotten rid of everything that's hourly or per pound. When we started years ago,
00:32:17
Speaker
running better equipment, ah we found those hourly ones were killing us. After one winter, we were like, holy smokes, we just spent $10,000 on equipment on this job yeah to get it done faster and now made 10 grand less because we got it done faster. amen And then there's also a lot of, we've been working with SaltWise Wisconsin.
00:32:37
Speaker
we We've cut our salt, our chloride usage well over the last probably seven years, we've cut our salt usage down by 50% and had zero ah customers notice zero difference. If anything, it's better because we're paying better, closer attention to it and circling back more often.
Customer Satisfaction and Equipment Strategy
00:32:55
Speaker
um So we also noticed that with better equipment, better plowing techniques, ah better salting techniques that allow us to get it melted quicker with less, that we're also getting the hose that we're still building per pound and that incentive to reduce your chlorides is no longer there. So okay we've kind of taken the approach. Our customers are paying for a clear parking lot. It should be no concern to them whatsoever, whether we're out there with 12 hair dryers and getting it done or whether we use 5,000 pounds of salt or 2,500 pounds of salt. If by six in the morning they got bare pavement, they got what they were asking for.
00:33:34
Speaker
yeah so So, again, getting out of that 1960s and 70s equipment and into new stuff is is is making that all happen. So i got a little sidetracked from contracts. Oh, good. um ah but So we do keep it mixed.
00:33:49
Speaker
Like on these low low snow years, those seasonal contracts have made our payments and kept us all with a paycheck. We run... but But those per push ones keep us begging for more snow. So that's that's nice to have. And we run also about 60 guys in the winter and six in the summer.
00:34:08
Speaker
So most most of our winter help, it's guys who excavators, farmers,
00:34:16
Speaker
HVAC guys, contractors. We've had teachers. ah ah Jeff's a road engineer. Guys are a way smarter than us that still like to plow and run a big shoe.
00:34:28
Speaker
That's great. Filling up our sidewalk crews with with ah home homeschool kids. they They love to get out and make some money during the winter. Home run. you know bar farm and Farm kids.
00:34:41
Speaker
um I say kids, but I mean, 14 to 20 years old is is the most. and they And they all seem to have a million younger brothers and sisters and a million cousins.
00:34:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Nice. So it's just two years. Every two years they move away and new what their younger sibling or cousin starts up. We've been really blessed that way. That's awesome. Good for you guys.
00:35:03
Speaker
Kind of going with the contracts, I think sites was a question too, right? Yeah, what's your bread and butter? What are you guys doing? what do you concentrate on? um So we do pretty much like all the large facilities in West Bend, know, all your big box stores.
00:35:18
Speaker
Those are kind of the the the ones that pay for your equipment, right? They kind of keep you going. um But we really like those smaller properties, the in and out, the, you know, less than half hour plows, ye in and out with that, with the skids, sidewalk guys, can consult a ton of them, you know, in a short amount of time.
00:35:37
Speaker
um We do our HOAs. Thanks to Steve. we we I talked Aaron into buying us some muskoxes. Nice. We got those. it mustk mustk There's more than one. Is it muskoxin? think it's plural. like that.
00:35:56
Speaker
We got a couple of those. heard A herd. Yeah. So, you know, we do our fair share of HOAs. ah um We do a lot of churches in town. So, you know, Sunday mornings are always fun to make sure that those are are always ready to go. yo yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yep. So ah we have ah we have a good mix. um Anything from a 10-acre site to, you know, yourre your four pushes with a plow truck and you're out of there.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah. So it kind of varies. Yeah. Oh, that's good. It's a good mix. when when we were When I was talking about growing a little bit before and adding sites, we came to this realization about three years ago that we're spending all this time trying to get the new site next door to somewhere we already have.
00:36:41
Speaker
But at the same time, we have a lot of our customers that are basically begging us to come plow a second and third time and willing to pay us a second and third time.
00:36:52
Speaker
And not only that, that second and third time doesn't have to be during that five to seven a.m. m crunch time. Like they're willing to pay us full price to stop back at 10 o'clock and in the morning and ah at two in the morning.
00:37:05
Speaker
And we found we found that. we weren't getting the repeat services done that they were looking for because we were so spread thin trying to get everyone done by 7 a.m. m And then people are exhausted, want to get going home. And um we our profit has gone up quite a bit since we've really focused on And sure that the customers who actually want additional services are getting it like that should be and is become our are one of our biggest priorities for a customer. If you want us to plow you three times, you just moved up to the top of our list for favorite customer and we are going to service the heck out you just like what you want.
00:37:47
Speaker
and only have one customer to have to build in instead of three separate ones and only one place to be at seven in the morning instead of three places. And that's, that's been huge. Banks and restaurants are a big one for that. Oh yeah.
00:38:01
Speaker
That's great. That's awesome. So those are, those are like for time ones that you're talking about? Like, yeah. Yeah. got Yeah. For time. That's phenomenal. I mean, even if it's not though, if it's a seasonal, I'm bidding it the same though. Like, uh, um, I'm bidding it it may be a seasonal, but I'm bidding it as figuring in financially that we're going show up three times. So from a, from a revenue generating standpoint that, that comes out the same.
00:38:28
Speaker
And we started putting caps on our seasonal ones a couple of years back, like 50, 50 inches, which is an average year. And We're not making a killing ah over and above that and that cap, but it not it's just enough to keep you going.
00:38:41
Speaker
you know Yeah. Pay for overhead. That hundred year, that hundred inch year, it's enough to keep us from going under for something like that. Yep. Amen. Jay, you want to go to your favorite part of the show?
00:38:55
Speaker
I do. I was excited to get there early. so Yeah. You know me and my equipment. and All right, boys. Sponsored by Dinesh Leasing. The Jeremy Lindstrom equipment segment. You got it.
00:39:06
Speaker
Why don't you tell me everything about your equipment? You have loaders, sidewalk machines, salters. I mean, let me know it all. Trucks that you rent Steve. yeah Yeah. I guess we'll start top down. We'll start with the biggest, down to the you know all the shovels that go missing every year.
00:39:22
Speaker
yeah. Wait, what? but what No about that. No one told me about that.
00:39:28
Speaker
ah but yeah So overall, we're pretty much running cat and case equipment, um mostly case big machines, 521s. We put the Arctics on those. same thing. Way to go.
00:39:44
Speaker
same thing a bunch of cat nineos sixes arc architect same thing way to go Um, we, we've started in the transition of using some of the Western trace edge paws now as well.
00:39:58
Speaker
Uh, had good luck with those. Uh, so that's, that's been a good thing for us. Uh, we run all track skids. Uh, we, so we had two 59s. We just bought only two 55s, uh, cage paws on those mix good mix with those. We've had a lot of good luck with the cage paws.
00:40:17
Speaker
Um, wolf plot, wolf, Obviously, wolf loaders now. We've got we got the dealership for those, so we implemented using those. Put both Western and Arctic's on those.
00:40:28
Speaker
um Sidewalk equipment, John Deere's, 1585s, 1025. ten twenty five We have, it's got to be, what, five, six miles worth of city sidewalk we do. Oh, why not? It's a lot. So they get through they get put through their paces. Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
we have a we We have, I think, 26 single-stage snowblowers ah that are five years old with 20 hours on them. For some reason, the shovel crew just would rather shovel. They don't want to pull. Really?
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, those those John Deere's are hitting the long stretches. So all of our city sidewalks are done by those John Deere's. So it's it's just the building fronts and whatnot. Gotcha. and So by the time they get it out of the truck, it's quicker to just grab the shovel and do it type spaces.
00:41:14
Speaker
and refuse so yeah My guys are the same way. Yep.
00:41:18
Speaker
We've been using brine on all of our so all of our building sidewalks. People love that. It's a lot cleaner. um You know, you get into your big box stores and they're not having to polish their floors as much because they're dragging in granular everywhere.
00:41:33
Speaker
yeah We use push sprayers on those, 10-gallon SnowX push sprayers. Sidewalk guys love them. they' They're not lugging around 50-pound bags all over the place trying to spread it like chicken feed.
00:41:48
Speaker
From an operational standpoint, it's a lot cheaper. that That liquid brine will go a lot longer. seems to last a lot farther than what your bag's sold to go because guys, you know how they do it, just dump it over it.
00:42:00
Speaker
um that your You know, paint the whole sidewalk blue and it's good for the next three snowstorms. um The liquid you can over apply and you don't have, you know, residuals really sitting there where it's visual. So a lot of customers like that.
00:42:15
Speaker
We run a mix of different trucks. Fifteen hundred. uh, sidewalk truck, Chevy 1500 sidewalk trucks, um, five fifties, six hundreds for salt trucks. We've got a couple of three quarter tons for salt trucks.
00:42:30
Speaker
Um, all, all with, oh yeah. Uh, all with, uh, wideouts. We were on Western wideouts and, um, all Helix salt spreaders.
00:42:41
Speaker
We have six snow Raiders. Um, Kind of a cool thing we started doing a while back is we bought 20 foot shipping containers, started plotman putting those out on job sites. And it was nice, right? It's kind of a mobile workstation. You put your extra snowblowers, shovels,
00:42:59
Speaker
Bags of salt, we outfitted it with two 250-gallon totes of liquid brine. So the Snow Raiders can fill right up off of those. If you've got some sidewalk trucks out in about through town and they they run out, they can stop and get filled off of those. So that's been really helpful.
00:43:15
Speaker
did you see Have you ever seen the ah the pictures of what Jake Audette up in Maine, he uses the shipping containers? He has a local artist paint murals. um and like But it's a big advertisement for his company, but it's a beautiful mural of loaders pushing snow and all all sorts of stuff. It's pretty cool.
00:43:35
Speaker
So, yeah, the shipping containers are a great idea. On those shipping containers, you know, every now and then there's a new piece of safety advice you have to tell people that you never imagined you'd have to realize. Uh-oh.
00:43:48
Speaker
We have a very intelligent and skilled young man who was working on – you know, you get cold, you start – Long shift, you don't think as, you that's why say injuries happen after a long shift. You're tired and whatnot.
00:44:01
Speaker
It was cold. And one of our guys went inside the shipping container and decided he was going to warm himself up off the exhaust and the engine block of a store. Door closed and everything. And ah boy i i don't know so I don't know. He's alive. was completely fine.
00:44:21
Speaker
The story could have ended up. Oh, yeah. a So easily. so So easily make sure that everyone knows never, never, never. You're running the machine inside of the enclosed enclosed trailer or or or shipping container. But I mean, that that young man and his family are good friends with all of us here. And like it was just one of those things where we looked at each other and we're like,
00:44:47
Speaker
We literally could have lost another human being tonight. hundred something that was 100%. For the most part, out of our control, and we never would have thought about having that talk with safety.
00:44:59
Speaker
ah but it just It was an eye-opener for us about things that we really do need to cover, especially with the teenagers that are working here.
00:45:10
Speaker
ah Yeah. And the teenagers are different today than they were when we were teenagers. Like I'm not and I'm not just saying that. I think it's a pretty widely known fact, right? I'm not disparaging teenagers today, but they are coming up in a different generation where they didn't go to the school of hard knocks. So to say they learned everything from YouTube and their phone.
00:45:29
Speaker
Like we actually were out there learning this stuff. Like, okay, I, you know, I hurt myself once doing this way, but I lived, I learned the lesson, put that in the operations manual for the future.
00:45:40
Speaker
Well, this teenager did just learn that way and put it into his operation. yeah see And I don't mean to laugh, but I mean, it's, it could have been tragic. Like, Holy crap.
00:45:52
Speaker
I mean, I, there's, this industry is riddled with, scenarios where that could be the case like found a big wheel loader plowing walmart And the amount of people that run right past me or right behind me. And I think nowhere else in the construction industry would anyone ever be allowed to be, would even another worker be allowed to be that close to a machine that big without orange vests and hard hats and and ah and a so and a fence put out to to close off the area.
00:46:23
Speaker
Yet for some reason, the snow industry slips right through And we're able to do it in parking lots filled with little kids running around.
Introduction to Wolf Loaders
00:46:31
Speaker
I mean, little Aziz, my son was moving a snow pile back and,
00:46:37
Speaker
ah dig digs this big snow pile back and finds that there's a giant cave inside of it that the kids had made yeah the apartment complex to ah do exactly what I would have done, made a giant snow fort.
00:46:50
Speaker
So no one ever told us ahead of time, hey, go dut walk through a full circle around every snow pile before you move it. So fortunately, nothing bad happened on the first time.
00:47:01
Speaker
But, you know, i i can see how things like that would happen in this industry. that's a I mean, that's a great that's a great thing to bring up because that, that can happen to literally any snow guy out there with any pile.
00:47:14
Speaker
Could you imagine living the rest of your life knowing that you did? Oh my God. How do you do it? How do you go on? It's, uh, it's awful. We would blow these snow piles out of apartments back every time and all the kids would go out and dig in there. So I actually saw it. So every time I go out at the big blower, I got to go check all those little holes out or whatever, make sure we, you know,
00:47:33
Speaker
a blower catches somebody you ain' ain't coming back i mean that you know i i so not being from fargo my limited experience with fargo is from that movie when we were in high school and i am i'm sorry but i have to my mind reverts back to person going through a snowblower just like it did through a person through a chipper in the fargo movie yeah yeah pretty much probably to profile fargo that way but Luckily the shear bolts are a lot less on the, uh, on the snowblower. I think you might, you might be lucky enough to do a shear bolt.
00:48:05
Speaker
There's actually a story. I think it was at the Farway airport some years ago, many years ago, kid, a new guy there wanted to run the big blower, run, run big blower. And the guys are like, fine, let them run the big blower. But they, they put a five gallon bucket of, uh, uh,
00:48:21
Speaker
transmission fluid ah in front of it. And it went through the blower. And that guy was like white. He is like... the ah That's really mean. That's the story I've heard. that so This fall, my sons and I, we went out to North Carolina. We brought a Mini-X out there and one of the other guys who had worked here and we were digging through stuff to and cleaning up after all the hurricane stuff.
00:48:47
Speaker
And I'm digging out around a house and and there's a hand sticking out. And this is like three weeks after the floods. I turn white like that guy you were just talking about.
00:49:00
Speaker
i go down there and everything's, don't worry, it wasn't an actual person. It was some Halloween prop of this like bloody, nasty hand that was life-size and it was sticking out of the dirt where I had just dug with the mini, just like if someone's hand was like, like no one put it there.
00:49:18
Speaker
Oh, man. that's That's crazy. You know what? We need to transition this to something else. Yeah, let's change the subject here. We're getting down a morbid road here. Anything else on equipment that you guys have or trucks? Anything we missed?
00:49:31
Speaker
No, that pretty much covered it all. How many shovels went missing this year? Oh, man, it's always a guess, right? you I keep thinking, like, we should put some trackers on these things, you know? mean, you drive through town and it's leaning up against a building or somebody jammed it in the snowbank next to, you know, we we put salt buckets around, too. So then...
00:49:51
Speaker
um which actually has helped in seemingly to knock down a lot of our calls too, because the salt bucket's sitting at a job site. Someone can walk out a couple, you know, slings of salt scooper.
00:50:02
Speaker
um But, you know, you find them everywhere, right? Laying in the ditch against the buildings. um we got a stockpile of them but you know we use expensive shovels too because we want to you know they last they work good use snow plows yeah those yellow those things are the best dude yeah use a bunch of those and then oh no except for charlie yeah you got you yeah you remember that metal shovel from home alone yes uh you know we we've got one guy because those are lighter he brings that with him everywhere yep ah It's just the homeal alone shovel yeah um Home Alone He's the detail guy. He's our he's our sidewalk ah ops guy.
00:50:40
Speaker
So he cruises around in a little two-door Jeep, north side, south side, all over the place doing the you know final touch-ups and making sure it's all good. Gotcha. i like what though When Jeremy told me about one guy, yeah well who who who paints the names, ah assigns the shovels to individual guys and puts the names on them so he knows when they find those shovels who lost it?
00:51:02
Speaker
i I got to choose my battle. that's i'll but be I'll be honest with you. I'll just spend the extra $1,500 a year on shovels, and I don't want to know. i don't want to know whose shovel is at their house given to their kid or whatever.
00:51:16
Speaker
or it'd be funny though you can make it you can make a fun thing out of it ah yeah we've we've had them stolen off of our machines you know the machines will sit there somebody will come grab one or oh yeah uh you know late night some guys with a pellet gun they've shot out our windows on the wheel loaders before really oh yeah oh that's see that's not good Oh yeah. You competition? I don't know. It wasn't. It was some good, I'm sure. And the craziest thing about that whole issue was that it was a case machine, an older one.
00:51:50
Speaker
There was one door glass left in the U.S. in Florida. Well, we got that shipped up here, and you can guess what that looked like in the box when it arrived at our place. sure pristine. Shattered. All thousand pieces looked wonderful. yeah Oh, my God. Then we had to wait for one. I think it came from from Germany or something like that, and that one ended up getting here. so You know, that's not the only window on a machine we've got shot now with a gun. No, oh I feel like we're living in the hood up here or something. Wow. and we
00:52:21
Speaker
so Someone out back was firing off a nine millimeter and yeah not using safe practices. And, uh, shot a hole in that you know it's too bad that this is a podcast so no one can see your eyes light up yeah like oh wow that's uh plowing in new york city catching nine millimeter oh man so speaking of competition you brought it up we actually just thought of another one too oh okay keep going of a mini x with a bb gal too These guys better get these guys some some armor, some vests.
00:52:55
Speaker
Wisconsin's a little loose, you know. It's the wild west of the Midwest. That's awesome. So you you brought up the competition, though, possibly shooting out your windows. How how is the competition in your area?
00:53:12
Speaker
So we have... it's awesome yeah to keep us myself busy So we've got a big salt bin. I think we can put 2000 ton in there. So we sell to a lot of our local guys in the town here.
00:53:27
Speaker
um You know, you get you get your Joe blowing a truck, but you know, you got some guys that run good size operations, sure trucks, a bunch of skids. um And, you you know, thankful Aaron's been doing this long enough that a lot of those companies now are um people that used to work for Aaron.
00:53:43
Speaker
um who've kind of ventured off and started their own or just cool. like Aaron's known for, you know, half a lifetime. So um there's really the relationships are there. Yeah, but they're not. so awesome so Yeah, no, I know. I know.
00:53:57
Speaker
They're buying, they're buy and they're buying actually a lot of our used equipment. They'll buy, no um they'll kind of watch, let it ask us, Hey, you know, when you sell this in five years, let me know we're interested in it. Um,
00:54:10
Speaker
that. We work together really well. yeah oh great We'll get call each other. you know we get a phone call from a job looking for a bid that I know Brandt takes care of or somebody else. And ah I'll call that that contractor first and say, hey, do you want to try and work this out with them? and Or i'll I'll even be able to talk to the contractor and say, hey, those problems you think you're having, those are the same things that you're going to have no matter who's doing it you know that's That's just the way snow works.
00:54:40
Speaker
um you know i Do you want to try and work this out with them first? And if the answer is no, we're going somewhere else. you know then we'll throw a bit in, but we'll try and do what we can to preserve that. That's the way to do it.
00:54:53
Speaker
Bad things happen if we take everything off the table for everyone around here. oh hundred percent Oh, 100%. There's plenty of work. plenty of work but that How you're describing what you guys do is exactly the way to handle it. I love it. That's awesome.
00:55:07
Speaker
got the approval we're good all right awesome you guys you guys obviously don't need our approval you guys are killing it but uh but that's i mean that's important for guys to hear like there's a courtesy there's not you know because some guys are just hungry they're they're starting out they're going to take any phone call they get and they're not even thinking about the possible ramifications of what they're doing like just out of courtesy just a courtesy like ah we we get a call or an email the first question we ask is who is your previous snow contractor if we don't know and why are you making why are you looking to make a change and those are the first two questions and if if we know the contractor because generally anything in our little bubble we're gonna know we call that guy say dude what's going on with these guys they're looking for a bid from us and we try and work it out with with them like you said i i think that's the best way to handle it
00:55:58
Speaker
and most sometimes even sometimes you even hear from them like oh no aaron you don't ever want to work for this guy we're yeah that's great absolutely yep you know 100 years or whatever keep the lines of communication open absolutely that that that that courtesy interestingly enough is is kind of why we ended up becoming the wolf dealer as well so they're working well for us people were asking and uh um you know we found i don't if you want to talk about that yet but we we've we've found a huge niche we we're able to help other people out with that as well we definitely do i want to hit uh one more thing we do a question the five and five that we definitely want to get your answers on and then we'll go right into the wolf because we definitely want to hear about that as well so you want to take us away jay well want to go ahead go what do you got i know the answer about the equipment yet do you guys run snow tires on all your stuff or
00:56:52
Speaker
What are you guys running? Yep. ah Order everything standard snow tire from big machines to, you know, the 906s. We only run track machines now.
00:57:03
Speaker
okay For us, it works, right? It's a little bit slower production, but, you know, kind of to double on the back end, we rent just about everything out track machine wise to local guys for doing, you know, lawn installs.
00:57:17
Speaker
um So we can make little bit extra money. ah you know you're covering your payment right so then when it's really time to make money they're they're there for us um great and those things don't come back all busted up and shit not normally we we've kind of we we have repeat renters right so okay cool so they count on it yeah a lot of the same guys um we have a concrete guy who the first year i was told like oh yeah they're the concrete guy wants it and i'm thinking this thing is going to come back and there's just going to be, you know, it's going to be full concrete. You know it is.
00:57:51
Speaker
It sticks on everything. He brought that machine back and it looked like it was showroom floor quality. Oh, that's good. That's awesome. Extra check next to that guy's name for the next year going forward. Hell yeah. Same same thing with, you know, a couple of the, uh-oh, there he is. he's back.
00:58:07
Speaker
He's back. You know, so we've we've kind of, you know, geared it more towards the contractor end versus, you know, renting them out to homeowners necessarily. ah We will, we got guys who, you know, Hey, this guy's my buddy. He wants to rent one. He runs one, you know, for the company he works for. Okay. Gotcha. You know, so.
00:58:27
Speaker
Can I throw a plug in on the snow tires? Sure. Absolutely. but ah So we have run them when we had wheeled machines. Night and day difference. I mean, it's – and then same on the wheel loaders. If somebody – boy, when it was a couple years before we put our first set on, and we put one set on, and, like, after one or two storms, immediately made the phone call to get tires for it.
00:58:50
Speaker
everything else uh if you're gonna get expensive but if you well if you're a company that has one machine and is at the point where you need another machine just put snow tires on it i mean it is amen it's like adding you know on a 26 000 pound wheel loader it's like adding another six pounds six thousand pounds of weight and then another 50 horse to the engine i mean it is it's It's not even questionable. The only way you could say, and don't feel the need to run snow tires is if you never even once have run a machine with them on.
00:59:25
Speaker
100% agree. um familiar On the you know Arctic website, it always gives you you know suggested weight for the plow. They should add, you know do you have snow tires? Yes or no? Because you can put one size bigger on and you don't feel any difference.
00:59:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, same for those Metal Plus. We had Metal Plus telling us that 926 was too small for the machine for that 24 foot. And it it handled it just fine. It was perfect size in my mind. Yep.
00:59:53
Speaker
100% boys. we completely agree on that. That's for sure. Wait, Jay, you good? Five and five? Yeah, we go fire five and five. All right, cool. Where do you guys want to see your company going in the next five years? What are you looking at?
01:00:07
Speaker
florida We're going to plow snow in Florida. hey Well, they got more than Fargo this year. so the chase no You know, a lot of those places down South, there was a couple local guys by us that, you know, made some extra money and went down there. So it was kind of cool to see, um,
01:00:26
Speaker
ah i agree with I agree with Harry there. I'd like us to be more profitable, but not necessarily by adding more jobs, by doing things like what i was talking about, repeating services at our customers and whatnot.
01:00:39
Speaker
More profitable, less stress. ah if If somebody, something, some job is just making too much stress, I think it's time to go. Amen. And I like what Harry said about some storm chasing. i would like we've We've got the equipment and guys who can truck it that I'd like to say, hey, let's Fargo got pounded.
01:01:00
Speaker
Come on, find me a couple jobs that we can head out there and help you out with. We've got nothing. ah It's all about the relationships. That's cool.
01:01:11
Speaker
That's awesome. no that's That's what it is about though, the where you you don't always have to expand the business. You can just tighten it up and make more profit. You know, that's everything. She's got to get get bigger, bigger, bigger at some point. I mean, it's hard to find enough guys the way it is and all that fun stuff. So yeah under milk is super profitable is two guys in a two wheel drive pickup truck with two snowblowers in the back.
01:01:36
Speaker
Those two guys. And I'm not even saying working for our company. Like if you're 19 years old, Buy two snowblowers and yeah I mean, you can make a couple grand night.
01:01:47
Speaker
I mean, it's easily we can't. There's no one around here will do driveways. We're getting rid of all our driveways. Everyone else is too. And ah we got customers call us to do a driveway or we don't do them. Call this guy. Well, i already called that guy.
01:01:59
Speaker
He told me to call you. And the customers just keep getting sent in this big spiral because they can't even find anyone to do their driveways. I know. I know we've told, we've told people that we've told the younger guys like, dude, stop trying to break into the commercial market.
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. Find the neighborhood or two neighborhoods that are target rich environments that you can sign up 25, 30 driveways and spend an hour and a half there, two hours and walk out of there with five or $6,000 night. You know what I mean?
01:02:25
Speaker
That's, that, that's, that's the way to do it. Cause there is nobody doing driveways anymore. Nobody. um So my part of the five and five, what has been the best decision you guys made in the last five years to get yourself to where you are now?
01:02:44
Speaker
I should have read the notes ahead of time. Well, let's see. I came on five years ago. Hiring Harry. Hiring Harry. There it is.
01:02:58
Speaker
um From from my my operational standpoint, I would definitely just kind of go back to that same, you know, instead of expanding, going after every single job of really just tightening up, ah you know, the whole route density, right? Yeah, 100%.
01:03:17
Speaker
my My route that I manage is, i don't know, um a mile and a quarter from east to west, and I've got 30 jobs almost right on the same road. Um, so really just kind of looking at that, the route density there, um, that's how you're going to be most profitable, right? You're not bouncing city to city.
01:03:38
Speaker
Uh, you know, you're not driving past jobs. Um, you're, you're literally just going up the, up the East or up the North side of the road, coming back, hitting the South side of road, you know, four and a half hours on assault route in and out and you're done.
01:03:53
Speaker
um I think ah like kind of going back to that you know the those young guys who just want to jump into the commercial space, you got to start small. but With snow, as soon as you get above you know what your capacity is and what you can handle, yeah the calls start rolling in, the anxiety, the stress. you know it's a stressful It's a stressful job the way that it is. you know um jarre Jeremy's got a huge fleet of guys. run...
01:04:20
Speaker
iran 30 guys and loaders and you know just that just in that eight hours sometimes of being out feels like you've been out for two and a half days and then it's finally over and you can breathe again.
01:04:33
Speaker
So for from my ah my thoughts, I think just keeping that route those routes tight, um really being profitable and in that area where where you're not you know losing money essentially on drive time.
01:04:48
Speaker
Very cool. Aaron, what about you as the boss man making the big financial decisions? What do you think has been your best decision in the last five years to get you to this point? Yeah, I'll go a different route with this. It's going to be ah choosing to act in integrity and honor God in how I interact with employees, our customers, and our financial decisions.
01:05:13
Speaker
Love it. Very cool. And it's worked. You guys are killing it. oh So it it's definitely worked. um You know what I think we should do, Jay? I think we should let these guys get a quick drink. We'll hit these commercials real quick. We'll come back and then we'll get into the Wolf Loaders. Nice little segue there.
01:05:31
Speaker
Cool, boys. We'll be back in like 45 seconds. All right, guys. Let's do some commercials here from our partners. Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best-kept secret in the snow game, Top Gun Backblades.
01:05:42
Speaker
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01:05:56
Speaker
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01:06:09
Speaker
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01:06:22
Speaker
Experience innovation at www.razorbackplow.com. dot com Alright guys, we are back. so So as we said, Simon's show last month was ah you know was ah ah there was a lot of, mean not a lot, but a couple new products that really got guys talking.
01:06:40
Speaker
And one of those was the Wolf Loaders. um So these are the guys. like you wanted You wanted information on the Western Salt Spreader Controller? We're getting that for you. These are the guys for the Wolf Loaders. They're the only ones I know of that are using them ah in their fleet for a couple years now.
01:06:56
Speaker
And they're also a dealer. So Boys, tell tell everybody what they need to know about the Wolf. How has your experience been? And what information what what information you want to get out there? All right, cool. um So, yeah, we started with the Wolf America Wheel Loaders. Found our company. and was Just to get it right out there, ah these are manufactured in China.
01:07:14
Speaker
We're importing them here. We are working with the manufacturer. They let us spec out, like, anything. Like, we looked at some different crappy companies and found a great one that...
01:07:26
Speaker
is for lack of better word produces a very Americanized machine something that we're comfortable that doesn't feel like we're in an old matchbox car hu like if I slapped a new Holland or case sticker on the side of this thing from 20 feet away you guys wouldn't even question that that's what it is um What brought this about, though, is is looking through data we have. Like, okay, we're plowing. I'm going to pick a round number.
01:07:54
Speaker
We're plowing 20 days a year yeah for like an 8 12-hour shift. So are our CAT 906s, our CASE 221s that we've traditionally been running,
01:08:06
Speaker
you know, those used to be like prior to COVID and going into COVID, they were about 75 grand with snow tires. Those same machines now are upwards of 130 grand a piece. Oh yeah.
01:08:18
Speaker
And So the ones we have, we're still running, they're working well, they're great machines. But I, from a, from the guy who signs the checks standpoint, I'm looking at this thinking when it's time to flip these machines, I don't think we can any longer pay 130 grand for a machine that gets run 20 days a year.
01:08:38
Speaker
And even if we could, I can't in good conscience say that that's a wise financial decision for us. Um, So we're looking around for some used stuff.
01:08:49
Speaker
There's like no middle ground. It's like 120 grand plus for brand new or 40 grand and down for something that's seven years old with 3,500 hours on it.
01:09:01
Speaker
yeah And nothing in that middle ground. There's no, nobody is producing a machine that fits in that middle ground, which leaves like 60 to window in there.
01:09:14
Speaker
So ah in in running these machines, we've fit we've filled that middle ground. And so, I mean, round number, whether you go with a telescopic boom or just a standard boom, something comparable to your case 221, we're selling these out the door for 65 grand with snow tires, heaters, air conditioners, just like fully loaded ride control.
01:09:41
Speaker
And I mean, I sit in them myself and plow all winter. We're not, we didn't get in this to be a dealer. we We're a snowplow company. we We want more toys to play with. And at the end of the year, we can't get more toys. We added a job and can't get another wheel loader for it or a,
01:09:57
Speaker
we have We have jobs that have a skid loader on it that are dedicated to it that a wheel loader really would be what's best, but that job doesn't bring in enough money to just leave a wheel loader there.
01:10:08
Speaker
yeah So we found an option. We can get, we push 12 and i always forget Arctic's goofy size 13. 13. We push ld thirteens and foot douglas dynamicslows with them and get no more or no less snow plowed in an evening than we do with with the competitors models, which also for the most part, none of them are American either, just from countries that like better, apparently. Yeah. and I mean, my cats all came from Great Britain. Our cases come from Italy. yeah
01:10:44
Speaker
you know, we go on and on. But um so we've found this middle ground that works for us. They've got Cummins engines in them. So anyone can work on those. They're covered by the global Cummins warranty.
01:10:57
Speaker
ah No def fluid. And we stock almost every part in-house here. what i the The company that makes these for us is amazing. um I'd say five days. I can have something air mailed in here or drop shipped in five days.
Wolf Loaders' Market Impact
01:11:13
Speaker
But I try and have it here. So for parts... I can just pull it out of my inventory, send it to you. um have extra machines. We'll pull a part off a machine and just send it if need be. um And so we we have one year service warranties on them.
01:11:28
Speaker
And what we're doing, we're not looking to take over the world. We're looking to help fill a hole in the snow industry. I think there's two big holes in the snow industry. One is salt meters on your salters and the other is an affordable wheel loader.
01:11:41
Speaker
And as as you just brought up in your next show, you're tackling one of those two. And the other one here, we go these these wheel loaders, my guys who moved up from a skid loader to one of these wheel loaders are absolutely thrilled. They love it. It's easier to get through a shift in a wheel loader. You get more done.
01:12:00
Speaker
you're You're up high. Sorry, I think I rambled on the warranty. So we're just telling people bring it. They're super easy to work on. They're not loaded up with computers. You don't need proprietary scan tools for stuff.
01:12:12
Speaker
um If there is an issue, either fix it yourself and send me a bill for a reasonable amount, you 100 bucks an hour on your time or take it to your local ag dealer or implement dealer. These can all be worked on anywhere.
01:12:26
Speaker
um yeah we'll We'll give that dealer a credit card before working on it so that they are reassured that they're getting paid. We'll send the parts right to them so they've got it.
01:12:37
Speaker
And, you know, we for the price point on these things, if you have a fleet where you run five, ten of them, Buy one extra if you're that worried and you're still going to be. I mean, if you're fear swapping over a fleet of 10 machines, I mean, you're looking at saving over half a million dollars.
01:12:54
Speaker
Yeah. Does it say cat on the side? No, it doesn't. But half a million dollars, what what do you want to do with it? Whether it's you personally as you add it to wages, put up another building at your shop, you know, or just get more done for less. And that's the route we're really going with these machines.
01:13:12
Speaker
That's cool. So you guys have been using these in your fleet before you became a dealer. That's kind of why you became a dealer? ah one let's So we were we ordered them, used them in our fleet, kind of at the same time we became a dealer.
01:13:27
Speaker
Okay. And then um it kind of just seemed logical for us to become a dealer. we only dealer We're the only dealer in the United States for these. So it's it's Wolf America.
01:13:38
Speaker
um And so it kind of became logical with the the manufacturer for us to just set up as a dealer right away. However, logically, most people want to see us run these through the winter ah before they...
01:13:51
Speaker
before they take absolutely and it might as well let us be the guinea pigs so we've we've spent this last year especially getting lots of lots of content online uh videos harry can talk more to the social media because i'm i'm just stupid when it comes to all of that i mean he almost had to walk me through getting onto this thing with you guys
01:14:14
Speaker
ah I'm not that old, but it just passed me by. I hear you. No, I had to learn it for this show. Otherwise, I was in the same boat. Yeah, yeah. so ah But we're we're having fun it's another way we're having fun as as a company, too. and And again, especially for a younger guy getting so a younger guy getting in, a wheel loader is out of – it's not a possibility for them at this point for the most part.
01:14:39
Speaker
So we just dropped the price of that to less than the price of a new skid loader. hu Oh, 100%. I mean, and it's half, you're getting it to half the price at $65,000. So you're half the price of $908 a $321 new.
01:14:54
Speaker
comes with snow tires comes snow tires so decent care i'd crawled there crawled around on it and uh it was it was a decent loader mean it really mean like you said you can get whatever paint color possibly you want to on it yeah can know we got about a dozen different colors so it takes me i should let you know it takes me 90 days from the time you tell me you want one we have some in stock uh but it's a 90 day turnaround. Like if you guys call me today, say you want one, they assemble them as we order them. So 45 days to assemble, then 45 days in in shipping to to get it here.
01:15:30
Speaker
So it'd be 90 days. So what we're really trying to harp on to everybody and is is to get that order in now so that you have it here by winter. And 90 days, honestly, that's less than what it's been from most of the big- Oh yeah, 100%, I was just gonna say that.
01:15:47
Speaker
So the in your fleet, what's the most amount of hours you have on one of these?
01:15:54
Speaker
Ballpark. Doesn't have to be. I'd say 100. How much? 100? 100. Yeah, 100 our fleet, and then um between ones that we've sold. ah one Yeah, the highest hours that you know of out there with with one of these wolves.
01:16:08
Speaker
I talked to a guy who's got 500 hours. Okay. Actually actually i out east by you. He's really happy with it. What did he call me about? Brake pads. Set brake pads. That seems pretty logical there. Gotcha. Yep. Uh, Perry sold one to a guy on a farm.
01:16:26
Speaker
Uh, he put a hundred hours on just in the first two weeks or something like this. Moving, moving crap, filling the spreaders up. Um, We'll go back to the brake pads for a second. Sure.
01:16:37
Speaker
The tinfoil that goes. Oh, yeah, Matt Young's tinfoil comment. ah It's not tinfoil. We'll put that straight. It's just ah it's a metal shroud.
01:16:49
Speaker
Yeah. um you know And it's there basically to protect those brake pads. Two bolts take them off, can change brake pads, don't have to take the wheel off. So it makes it a little bit more convenient. That's a home run. We didn't have any issues with those running down the road, getting covered in salt.
01:17:03
Speaker
You know, we're like every other snow contractor. We'll wash stuff when it's needed. But, you know, for for the sake of it, they did their job. They're not moving. It's just a metal shroud. Gotcha. One other thing to kind of touch on, too, ah something that we offer with these, is if guys are interested, we'll pay for their travel to come to our shop, run them around,
01:17:24
Speaker
And it it you know if they buy it, we'll take their travel off of the off of the purchase price. Nice. And they do come with a left armrest for Jeremy, too. There you go. Just everybody knows. And the lighting package is decent, too, on that isn't it?
01:17:40
Speaker
Yep. It comes with LED lights, front and rear, standard backup camera. um and Right seats. We've really Americanized these. I'm going to throw this out there to you guys. we're Very North Americanized. There you go. There you go. I remember our Canadian friend, except for all your enemies in Toronto, apparently. No enemies. didn't even apologize to you afterwards?
01:18:04
Speaker
What's that? They didn't even apologize to you afterwards? No. Well, no. drive well no under no i don't i don't think they i don't think we spoke the same language, honestly. don but um um But I'm going to throw something out there to you guys.
01:18:20
Speaker
So you guys should probably, if you're interested, send one of these to Storm Academy. that's but I've talked to Steve a lot about it. Yeah.
01:18:31
Speaker
Get them a demo down there. let Let all these different companies that are from all over the country in Canada that are coming down to do training, let them get in there and see. That might really help you take off. Yeah, there's there's probably a 98% chance one will sit up there for the vast majority of their cool academies.
01:18:50
Speaker
ah Let a lot of those guys go up there. It's a short drive for us, so it's not too bad for for me to go up there. um And they've said that, you know, in talks with Steve, he he's he's all on board. So it's just getting the you know machine loaded up and getting it up there.
01:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, if
Sales Strategies and Customer Engagement
01:19:06
Speaker
you guys are close enough, you could even bring it back and forth. You don't even have to leave it sitting there between classes. You could do that. Honestly, we'd probably just leave it sit up there. Someone's going to come. These things are great. Someone's going to come through there. i mean like We've got some demo models with 50. Yeah, we're we're setting up a program where basically we run them one or two years, and then and then we sell them at a discounted rate.
01:19:26
Speaker
So, I mean we'll probably leave a machine up there that's got 50 hours on it with ah the discounted price of about 50 grand. Someone's just going to go home with that. Cool. That's awesome.
01:19:37
Speaker
I said raffle tickets. We'll raffle it off. There you go. There go. So what, um since you guys have been running these or you know people out there that have some higher hour counts, know, up into the 500s, any common problems with them so far that you've found or not really?
01:19:54
Speaker
ah the The one common problem is fixed on all the new ones. and it's It's minor. It's a windshield wiper motor. So okay we were having an issue on several of them with the ah when the heavier snow would come.
01:20:07
Speaker
Well, twofold, actually, with either heavier snow or guys leaving the wipers on when the window is going dry. ah yeah The motor was overheating like an hateer and and blowing a fuse. um like as I talked to the manufacturer.
01:20:20
Speaker
ah It wasn't quite as simple as just for replace a new, swap it out with a new motor. ah So there's a new windshield to accommodate the shape of the new motor. And now that issue is solved, you know, but even on the wiper motor parts on these, I would say are about 30% of the cost of what you're used to for anything else.
01:20:41
Speaker
They sent me a box of like 20 wiper motors. They're $30 a piece. I mean, it's $30. ah You know, ah ah wheel a snow tire on the rim is like $400. You know, every our big thing that happens on anybody's machine every winter, ah you get a 50 mile an hour wind out there, you open the door.
01:21:04
Speaker
And yeah yeah but you know where I'm going. That th door rips out of your hands, slams back and shatters maybe like three, four times a year that happens. That's a $700 door on any any e manufacturer's machine.
01:21:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah. All glass for the entire cab cost me 400 bucks or 300 bucks before the tariffs. So, I mean, you're probably looking at like 150 What is my sales cost would be for that for that window. So these are very affordable to big maintain, to keep up, to replace parts, and just so easy to work on as well.
01:21:40
Speaker
Picture like working on a 1990 pickup truck. You know, this one's like a brand new machine, like 20, 26, 25, whatever we're at now. But just like in the old days where you opened the hood and you actually had room to work on there. Mm-hmm, yeah. Like, I can't tell you how many times our new machines have come, our cats, our cases, whatever we're running. And we've just been like, we don't even use half the features on this thing. I don't, I don't, I'm going to use the return to dig on this thing. Maybe you guys do. And I should start, but I mean, save me the two grand and don't put return to dig on there. you know, I don't, you know, and a myriad of other features that we never use.
01:22:22
Speaker
like you said, if you're just plowing snow and that's all you're doing with this, it might be a viable option to to do that. In our market, we put between 30 to 70 hours on our machines this year.
01:22:33
Speaker
Yep. In a normal year, I'd like that to be about 150. okay But even at that, I mean, there's i mean my gosh, you could you could get that much out of a Briggs and Stratton engine. I mean, i it comes they're overbuilt for 20 days a year. That's for sure. Yeah. in a quarry uh heaters good and everything heaters are good oh that was one of the listener questions yeah you're gonna so it's got a don't know the technical term a diesel burner it's a diesel supplement heater so it basically is a heater that runs off of your diesel um you can sit in there in shorts and t-shirt when it's five degrees out and you'll have no issues um five minutes it'll be that hot in five minutes yep
01:23:16
Speaker
nice They start on the cold. ah Actually, can say this? sign but They start better than our unnamed name brand machines in the cold. That's the Cummins. That's the Cummins. Yeah. ah Let me ask you, if you don't mind, I got a couple of listener questions that guys sent in because we they knew we were going to be talking about this.
01:23:36
Speaker
ah What is the ground speed? 22, 22 miles an hour. 22 miles an hour. And is that the transmission is what? So it's a four speed. So you get two on the low side and two on the high side.
01:23:48
Speaker
Okay. And it is shipped, uh, Yeah, it's it's a shift on the fly on, okay you know, the one and two, and then it's just a lever to go between low and high. Gotcha. Okay.
01:24:00
Speaker
um And then one guy is asking, and he said the seat, this the he said at Simon he was able to sit in it. The seat wasn't the most comfortable. Are you able, it is an air ride seat, but the actual seat itself was not the most comfortable, which is understandable.
01:24:15
Speaker
Are you able to switch out the seat for a more comfortable seat on that pedestal? and More than likely. we We haven't had the need to. At SEMA, obviously that there was no air in the seat because they've been sitting there for a couple days.
01:24:29
Speaker
Sure. um We had to have batteries disconnected. and Oh, I know. that Fuel tanks sucked. So it did when you did get in there, it did feel like a little bit of a jar when we sat down. But it you know it's an air ride seat. there It'll feel quite a bit better. Yeah, if you wanted to swap it out, you know you can pretty much design...
01:24:47
Speaker
you know, anything to sit on a platform pedestal where you can put a different seat on. So if you wanted to, I'm sure you'd be able to customize it and do that. We get one of those old tractor seats that's just the shape of your butt. There you go.
01:24:59
Speaker
Bicycle seat. Yeah. it's It's got auxiliary hydraulics too, right? yeah Skid loader. A big thing people ask about, a skid loader quick attach.
01:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, the skid plate. It'll it'll accept any of your skid loader attachments. Does it come with a bucket? It does. It comes with a bucket. is it Is one of the options, ah is this standard or do you have to order it with a third valve hydraulic?
01:25:32
Speaker
I can't make out what you're saying, Harry. Can you sit a little closer there so I can pick it up? Is that good? Yeah, there you go. yeahp yeah um You can run your you know just left and right. um but obviously if you wanted run a metal plus on there you just have to run your electrical up to the you know a switch essentially um so you could run a metal plus on there with just adding your electric um okay you know to control wings like but it comes standard with ah third hydraulics right yeah yep we have all that on there and and you can get it in pretty much any color under the sun that you want
01:26:07
Speaker
Pretty much. I think there's a half a dozen different colors. The all black ones that we've got have looked pretty slick, but obviously middle of the night snow plowing. but Brad thinks that's a great idea. That's Jeremy's ballpark. Warning lights. Yeah. And reflective decals on would be sweet. There you go.
01:26:27
Speaker
Yeah, so buddy, I mean, we've we've had them in and ah jet black, white and black, looking more like a bobcat, yellow, red. We've got another guy talking to us about green, but um ah blues, any of your fairly standard colors, we can get at no cost.
01:26:45
Speaker
I'm going to have to try one of these. I've been talking about getting a Yanmar, getting my hands on like a Yanmar to try that out. Because again, it's it's like not half the price, but it's probably two thirds of the price of like one of the case 321s.
01:27:00
Speaker
And I've been saying that. So maybe this is what I'll have to try instead. I should mention also the other model that we had at Simon was an 825T. ah That's basically the exact same machine, except it's telescopic.
01:27:14
Speaker
So you reach that arm out there and is it 59?
01:27:18
Speaker
14.6 to the hinge pin. So yeah, yourre that gives you a reach of 15.6. So ah one of the guys in Milwaukee here bought two of those. He's using one of them in his salt bin. He loads a lot of internationals and quad axle trucks as well.
01:27:33
Speaker
um So he likes that extra reach for that. or We've always got back to the safety issues ah we were talking about earlier on. We'll we'll be digging into what starts as a 2,000 ton salt pile and couple storms into it you've got a cliff of salt that's like 20 feet high yelp you guys ever go into that with a skid loader and just feel like that whole thing's gonna came in on you and maybe tip your machine over i've done it yeah you've done it no i'm i've had that feeling before okay well i mean i i think there's enough weight on those piles that that could happen so we're constantly going and just knocking that down so we don't show up and see some machine with just a tire sticking out but uh you know a telescopic's good for that as well you can reach up there and get all jeremy doesn't load salt with skid loaders so he doesn't have any any experience with that climbing the mountain we don't have any we don't have any skids anymore here so
01:28:30
Speaker
ah what else What else should guys out there know as far as if they if they're interested more in the wolf loader? Where are the videos, Harry, that the guys can check out? There's a Facebook and an Instagram page.
01:28:42
Speaker
we're working on We're working on getting the YouTube fully set up. ah Last year with the low snow, it was tough to get out there and get videos. sure um So there's a bunch of videos out there digging into stones, dirt, some drone footage we got of in a backfill pile that we have.
01:29:00
Speaker
um So that's kind of this winter is is one of those ones where you know I'm just going to start sticking GoPros all over these things and you know Just ah a 30-second clip is what a guy wants, right? you know It shows you know what are the two things. It starts in the cold and it pushes snow.
01:29:17
Speaker
There is some of that on YouTube also. If you go on YouTube, type in Wolf America or just even on Google, hit Wolf America. You'll get to our webpage, wolfamerica.com. Also, you'll find videos on there now. that was What's your Instagram for for Wolf?
01:29:34
Speaker
It's just Wolf America Wheel Loaders. Okay. I'm going to double that. Wolf America Wheel Loaders. He'll double check that. ah Does it have, ah does it come with a radio? It does. Bluetooth radio, I believe. Oh, hey. All right.
01:29:48
Speaker
And just to go a little bit retro, one of the things that's funny that it does have that we actually found we really like, Remember those old ceiling vents where you spin the knob and you can make it angle forward or backwards?
01:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's ah's it's got one of those. It's got an actual fan in there. i said that that air ride seat, the ride control. The defroster works well? What was that?
01:30:12
Speaker
The defroster works well? Oh, defroster. Yes. yeah It's got a separate and i actually got a separate heater for the defroster to be blowing onto the ah blows straight up right onto the window.
01:30:24
Speaker
Fantastic. um Honestly, that that diesel heater, though, that thing gets so warm. that You have to turn it down. It gets that warm. it gets you it is the perfect i like it either It gets you the perfect weather for being able to be in a T-shirt with the window open and the heat where you're not constantly having to go back and forth.
01:30:45
Speaker
Very cool. Wasn't there a couple of different options too where you could get the joystick that's got everything on it? Otherwise you can have the one with the two controllers if I remember right at the show. We were just offering one joystick option. However, okay it's a different joystick on the telescopic than it is on the 200. That might be what you're thinking. and They look a little different because the one has the buttons on it to extend the boom out and whatnot.
01:31:12
Speaker
Okay. That's probably I'm thinking. Hmm. I did hear from a guy that says he thinks that with the – because the wheelbase, if I'm not mistaken, the wheelbase is a little longer than most loaders.
01:31:26
Speaker
So does that add the stability, and does that add add to your low-end torque? Absolutely. Yeah? i'm in ah In another brand, I hooked up the same 12-foot plow to it.
01:31:39
Speaker
um You know how it is when you go down the road and your plow's a little heavy and you're kind of doing that, bouncing forward and back. On the Wolf machines, the wheelbase is a touch longer, so you almost get rid of that.
01:31:50
Speaker
um So in my in my opinion, I think you can run you know a little bit bigger plow on there. We had 12-foot Douglas plows in the 13 LDs, and no no no ah issues with running a plow that size. The machine weighs 12,500, so it's a little smaller than your 908s, more of a 906 comparable. um But stance-wise, you sit a little bit higher, so you can even see a little bit more.
01:32:15
Speaker
Great. And it has ride control, you said? Yep. Sweet. Awesome. Got any other questions, Jay? No, think it's a good little unit there. Like you said, it's a good price point for guys to get into. and Why not give it a shot?
01:32:30
Speaker
and We've talked to some of the other manufacturers stateside, too, and we're no one's really got a good reason why there's nothing there's no there's no middle ground, nothing nothing to fill that void there. so Because when one manufacturer ups their price, they all up their price to keep pace. So one's not cheaper than the other, and they all make more money no matter what brand you buy.
01:32:50
Speaker
That's my guess. So I mean – so but i it the way kind of the way i'm looking at this i mean you guys are, we're all similar age here. 15 years ago, no one would buy a Kia.
01:33:02
Speaker
Like, yeah, yeah for a car, you know, you'd you'd be like, you'd you'd show up with one, you'd get made fun of, or you'd be like, dude, you're going to die in that thing. And so now 15 years later, ah my kid bought a Kia brand new for 18 grand, five year five-year bumper-to-bumper warranty or more. And I was like,
01:33:21
Speaker
wow, good job. You made it. Good job. And, uh, and Ford doesn't even make cars anymore. Um, you know, I, I, you've, you're seeing the markets go this direction and in other areas, it's happened in vehicles.
01:33:34
Speaker
You're
Manufacturing and Market Trends
01:33:35
Speaker
seeing it five years ago. You didn't see these little tiny Chinese ride on skid loaders and 3000 pound mini excavators and stuff. You didn't see them anywhere. And now they're everywhere on marketplace for a couple grand. And,
01:33:49
Speaker
um You know, the risk in ordering a bunch of those isn't that big, but I think no one really wants to take the one of the take the risk in doing this on the larger machines because we got to shell out all the money. Boy, you want to talk about an unnerving feeling, starting start writing $100,000 wire transfers to China all the time. Pray that something shows up.
01:34:11
Speaker
That's a little scary. Oh, man, our first go around, we're so used to everything being next day on Amazon. you know I wire all this money to China and then I have to wait three months to see that something's actually going to show up.
01:34:25
Speaker
you Oh man, I was, what have I done? yes Very, very much. relief When I got a call that that thing was at the port in LA.
01:34:37
Speaker
like I'm like, that just see it I just, then someone says, how do you know something's even in that container? And I'm like, well, I never even. Oh man. go but like oh man ah the company where who's manufacturing and farm very trustworthy they are really excited to work with us and get these into the american market um really excited we're willing they're willing to bend over backwards they're helping us out with a lot and that's awesome i think this wolf america is something we're going to be seeing more of in the future years great guys well how do how do guys find you if they're interested in hearing more about the wolf loaders
01:35:13
Speaker
Wolfamerica.com. okay All the info is right on there. Wolfamerica Wheel Loaders on Instagram. It's on Facebook. okay Phone number and telephone number is right on the website. Email is on the website.
01:35:27
Speaker
You can always call Steve Smythe and oh yeah you know bombard his phone with 100 phone calls. and He'll point you our way. Don't go that way. i'll He'll be mad at me. well well go go that way. Steve doesn't get mad. He loves it.
01:35:44
Speaker
He loves it. Oh man. Well, I think that mean Jeremy, we were trying to get this so that, um, that by the time you would come here to look at one, you already know you want it. You've you've got the pricing ahead of time. That's all listed on the website.
01:36:00
Speaker
Uh, we've got videos of it, a couple, you know, you need someone to talk to who's run one and let us know. And we want the only drawback that to be that you want to fire one up and see how it feels. So to overcome that,
01:36:14
Speaker
We'll pay for your travel out here. ah You end up buying it, we take it right off. Whether that's an airplane, whether that's your truck and trailer coming from Maine to here or Washington State to here and a couple hotels, well we'll cover that to get you out here. You can go back in our yard,
Closing Remarks and Feedback
01:36:31
Speaker
dig in some dirt piles, some gravel piles.
01:36:34
Speaker
We can put a pusher on. You can run around and feel that it's stable. I don't know, we dump some mulch or gravel. You can push that around with a pusher. Cool. Something. um But but we we didn't we haven't been a dealer. We've been flowers the last 25 years.
01:36:49
Speaker
We know what we want in equipment. We know what bothers us from dealers, like looking at stuff and wondering how much does that cost and then having to email someone, wait for answers. like We just want that all up front and Want make this really easy for people who want to get in one of these machines or 10 of these machines. Sounds cool. yeah Huge fleet discounts if you're looking at a bunch of them.
01:37:10
Speaker
Huge fleet discounts. Cool. And you guys said you have some bigger companies that have bought a couple, right? Right, Harry? Didn't you tell me that? We got a ah big company in Milwaukee. He runs the telescopic style. They started with two of them. He's super happy with them, and I'm sure that they'll probably be moving forward with it. Cool. So if anybody is interested, you can put them in touch with each other. That way you can hear from them. Absolutely. There you go. He did a real nice piece on our Instagram. It's Brad Davis at Davis Seasonal.
01:37:41
Speaker
Okay. Did nice little, you know, kind of talking review. Testimonial. Yep. Yep. yep Cool. And Brad a cat and kate case person through and through. It was a, it surprised me when he said that he's willing to try out two of these and he is thrilled with them. Money talks.
01:38:02
Speaker
Money talks. There's a lot you can do with an extra hundred grand. Yeah, absolutely. All right, boys. Jay, you got anything else for these guys before we cut them loose? No, I don't think so. It was a good show, and it was good to learn more about the Wolves, and hopefully some guys get them out there for or guys will take a chance on them.
01:38:21
Speaker
Absolutely. This was fun. Have us back on for some other topics. we would we would Absolutely. We definitely will, boys. Well, thanks for coming on with us, and thanks for taking care of Steve Smythe when he was ah down and out with a broken GM.
01:38:35
Speaker
ah And, now yeah, we'll definitely have you back. We appreciate – we loved hearing about Extra Mile, and we definitely appreciate you guys giving them the information that the yeah the listeners wanted about the Wolf Loaders. And best of luck to you guys with both, all right?
01:38:49
Speaker
So, all right. Well, that's going to do it then. We're going to wrap episode 129 of the Snow Jaws podcast main show. As always, thank Aaron and Harry for their time. It is valuable.
01:38:59
Speaker
Thank you for all that information. For guys out there interested in the wolf loaders, definitely get a hold of them and ill check it out and see if it's for you. ah That's it. Everybody be safe out there.
01:39:11
Speaker
Have a great weekend or a great week rather. Keep pushing.