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S2-60: MTG Landscaping, Painesville Ohio
1k Plays7 months ago
The guys sit down with Mike Gregal and Nick Mezacapa of MTG to hear about their growing business and what they've learned along the way as they built up their snow business in Ohio.
Mike also wants to give a huge shout out to his crew at MTG, without them none of their success would be possible!
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Milestone Celebration
00:00:02
Speaker
The Snow Jobs Podcast episode is brought to you by Top Gun Backblades. All right, here we go. Snow Jobs Nation episode 60, 6-0. That is right. Of the Snow Jobs Podcast powered by Top Gun Backblades is off and running.
00:00:28
Speaker
You know who we are. I'm talking to the Juicebox guy. And. I'm one of the baddest motherfuckers of all time. One of the best singers and one of the best looking motherfuckers you've ever seen. Hold my drink, bitch. That's right. Steve and Jeremy back with you again. Episode 60, 60 fucking episodes. Gotta love it. Oh, yeah.
Merchandise and Travel Plans Discussion
00:00:47
Speaker
You know, you're doing the introductions anymore. You're just kind of skipping by it, huh? You know, like if they don't know us by now, you know, I want to keep it fresh. You got to do something a little different every now and then, right?
00:00:57
Speaker
I guess you get bored. If you're, if you're doing 47 pushes a year, you know, you gotta have a eight push winner. Otherwise you get bored doing 47 pushes all the time. No, no, we don't know. We keep it fresh. That's for sure. It's snow removal. Something happens every time. There you go. Oh, that's true. Life poles, you know, dents on trucks.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yep. It all happens, brother. Oh, everything's good. Yeah, all good here. All good in the hood. Good. Very good. Very good. Who you representing today? Who you got on? I got Wynwood. Wynwood? Christian Lefty. Christian, I can use a few more. Send him over. Yeah. What do you got on the hat there? Is that Young? Young. Matt Young. Oh, yeah. I haven't worn my Mattie Young hat yet. I wear it all the time. I like it.
00:01:45
Speaker
I got my bad-ass muskox hat. I love these hats. I wore that yesterday. Dude, they're sick. I love them. They go with everything. And they're my favorite color black, so they go with everything. And I'm also repping Mr. Doing Business, making deals. Doyle from Innovative Lawn and Landscape. Got his nice, comfy sweatshirt on.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yup. Gotta love it. You finally got it, huh? You finally got his stuff. After a year, a box showed up and it had like a year's worth of stuff in it, so he made up for it. Probation. Probation. Make sure you're worth it, you know? You just can't. That's it, you know? He had to make sure we were the real deal before he sent anything out. Jeremy got his stuff, though. Wow. He also came out here, too, so... Yup. Well, that's true. That's true.
00:02:30
Speaker
Oh, well, maybe next year. We'll see. Next year, we're going to be doing some traveling. So, yeah, Fargo might
Time Management and Guest Introduction
00:02:36
Speaker
be. I might have to come to Fargo. Oh, God. Do a plush. You'd be in the hotel the whole time, but he's still tired. I will be tired. I guarantee it. I would love for you to do a day in my schedule. I would love. We can't all go to our nice office and our nice heated shop and do nothing all day, every day, all winter. You know that. Yeah. How much have I done that? This winter.
00:03:00
Speaker
I didn't see you last year when I was fucking working. You started it. I'll finish it. I'll finish it. All right. Shit. All right, guys. So listen, today we're in Ohio. All right. We have Mike Gregel and Nick Mezacappa from MTG landscaping out of Painsville. We're really pumped to hear from these guys. They are two young guys. They got a nice little company going, want to hear their story. And they've been like, oh, gee, supporters, like big supporters of the show since day one. You know how I know that?
00:03:30
Speaker
Because if you happen to drive by their shop on their front door, their new shop, you will see Snow Jobs podcast and Snow Jobs Nation stickers on their front door. All right. That is pretty trippy for us. So I think that's awesome. And, you know, you got to reward that kind of loyalty. You show us something like that. You know, that's kind of a golden ticket. You're going to you're going to move up the list.
00:03:51
Speaker
All right, so we want to thank them for listening and we really want to hear what they do and how they're going about it. They just moved into a new shop and that's always a fun experience if you've never done it.
00:04:02
Speaker
So yeah, it's just, it's a really cool thing for us to see that, you know, snow guys are so proud of this show that, you know, they put on our stickers, they put on our, our apparel. And, uh, you know, it's great because that's why we're
Promotions and Previous Episode Recap
00:04:13
Speaker
doing this. We're doing this for all the snow guys out there, you know, and it's great that you guys think so highly of what we're doing. So we're super, super happy to have these guys on with us and hear about their journey so far. But as always, before we get to them, let's hear from team Top Gun and do our weekend review back in 30.
00:04:30
Speaker
Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best-kept secret in the snow game. Top Gun Backblades. 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. 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 Yawker. Quantities are extremely limited. Ask about our new skid steer attachment.
00:04:54
Speaker
Get your order started at TopGunBlades.com or check us out on Instagram and YouTube at TopGunBlades. Welcome to Team Top Gun. All right, gang, we're back. So the week in review last week, we had Scott Lezak of Castle Rocks Landscaping in Allentown, Pennsylvania on with us. That was a great time. That was a great time. Great conversation. You know, I know Jeremy loved it. I loved it. That was good, right, Jack? I mean, yeah, real good. He knows his numbers. He knows his numbers. He knows his stuff. He knows the stuff. He's definitely.
00:05:24
Speaker
got his shit together. Yeah. Like when you compare him to me, it's like, I just feel more and more like I just fly by the seat of my pants most of the time. Like he knows every nut, bolt number, every tiny little thing. It's impressive. Good for him. Yeah, definitely.
00:05:41
Speaker
Definitely a good one. He knows the stuff and he's got a good operation going there, that's for sure.
Trade Shows and Web Meetings
00:05:47
Speaker
A little bit growing. Yeah, we're definitely going to have him involved in some stuff going forward. He's very well spoken, has a lot of knowledge and willing to help everybody get better, which is what it's all about. Oh yeah, for sure.
00:06:00
Speaker
outstanding. I just heard my German Shepherd force their way out of the cage upstairs. So if we get some barking in the background, you know, when a car goes by, it might happen, but we're going to roll anyway. So listen, thank you, Scott, for coming on with us last week. You know, you guys are absolutely crushing it out there. You're growing like crazy. You know, we wish them all the continued success in the future.
00:06:21
Speaker
What's going on in Snow Jobs Nation? As always, week after week leading up to it. Stork Snow Alliance Day, April 13th. Get your tickets if there's still any left. Don't miss it. It's going to be a fantastic day of learning, networking. We're really looking forward to meeting so many of you guys that have reached out to us over the year and been such big supporters. It's always nice to meet you and say thanks.
00:06:45
Speaker
We put it on the radar last week, Friday, May 3rd, Northeast De-Icing Solutions up in Massachusetts. It's going to be doing their Brine demo day slash grand opening slash networking event. That's going to be a good day too. So make sure you get registered for that through Northeast De-Icing Solutions. You can find them on Instagram and we'll put more information about that day up as it becomes available.
00:07:09
Speaker
Guys, what's that? Am I going to that? If you want to go to that, we'll see. When is it? May 3rd, Friday. Friday. It's a Friday. It's better for Jordan on a Friday. Liquid, you know, king of liquids is going. I'll have to hop a flight with them. There you go. Get on VSI airlines or, you know, storm, storm air, whatever. Storm air. Storm air. Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
Storm real air. Yeah, definitely. I mean, if we can, that would be three months in a row. We've been able to get together. That'll make April, May, and then June for Simon. If we decide to go, if we decide to go, that's going to be a game time decision. I don't know if it's worth it to travel for a one day trade show one day.
00:07:55
Speaker
Ridiculous I'm gonna keep beating that drum till they make it two full days Old man group that doesn't care about anything, but their old style You watch it's gonna happen They're gonna have to they're gonna have to give the people what they want and they want we want two full days a trade show and it's not just us It's everybody we've talked to
00:08:14
Speaker
Including the manufacturers. Manufacturers probably don't because they're going to double the fucking price on the boots probably if they go two full days. The manufacturer said the cost of an extra half a day. Why not? They don't care. They'd rather be there for a full second day than a half day. Every manufacturer we've spoken to has said the same thing. The whole thing the manufacturers don't want to do two full days is BS.
00:08:37
Speaker
So make it two days, please. Uh, Saima going forward. Uh, it's tough to travel for one day. Seems like that hit a nerve with you. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it. It's a lot of travel for one day of walking around and like, how quick did it go last year? Cause it's not even like a full day. Isn't it only six hours the full day? Yeah. It wasn't that long. I don't see it. It was like 10 to four. Yeah. It was like 10 to four or something. Yeah, we were. Yeah.
00:09:03
Speaker
It was something like that. We were there the whole time, but I think we spent more time at the bar with the Muskox gang after the show than we did at the trade show. Yeah, that's possible. That was a good time. Those guys are great. They got a crew.
00:09:21
Speaker
Guys, make sure you head over to the website, sign up for our email updates so you can get notified when we're doing our web meetings and webinars. April's here basically in a week, so we're going to kick back off with those, so don't miss out on them.
00:09:34
Speaker
The ones we did in the fall were extremely popular. You know, we were told they were very helpful to a lot of guys who attended them. So that's what we're looking to do. You know, anything we can do to help and help everybody grow and get better. And we learned from you guys as well. So that that's what it's all about. You know, sharing is caring, as my first grade teacher would tell me. Try and tell my wife that, but she's out. She doesn't, she doesn't agree.
00:09:57
Speaker
I don't know. But guys, seriously though, we're definitely stronger as a group with snow professionals and when we share information and ideas, and that's what those web meetings and webinars are all about. So take one tip from each attendee, and by the end of the session, you got a whole bunch of things you can try and adapt and implement to help strengthen your snow business. So if anybody's out there worried about attending that don't want to attend for fear of lack of their own experience or whatever, these are not that.
00:10:24
Speaker
Everybody in there is super chill, laid back, hysterical. It's been the most welcoming atmosphere and extremely informative and
MTG Landscaping Introduction
00:10:33
Speaker
helpful. So sign up for the email updates to our mailing list and that way when we announce them, you can sign up, come hang out for a few hours and see what you can add or get picked up from those webinars.
00:10:44
Speaker
As always, get your merch, head on over to snowjobsnationstore.com or on our website, all right? You can get them both places. Get those boxes out of Jeremy's office, all right? Yeah. That's it. You got anything else, buddy?
00:10:59
Speaker
No, no, I don't. I just want him to get rid of these boxes. There you go. Jeremy, we got to make a t-shirt with that same Jeremy disappeared in a pile of boxes. Yeah, no, man. All right. Well, let's hear from the team over at Muskox. Uh, love those guys. Thank them for their support, their continued support. And, uh, we'll be back in 30 to get it on with Mike and Nick. Hey guys, Steve here. We're always looking for ways to save on labor and increase safety for our people.
00:11:27
Speaker
Last year, I purchased a game-changing snowblower from my company that does just that. It's called the Muskox. It's patented back drag 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. This beast can also scrape hard pack going forward if you needed 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 back drag.
00:11:54
Speaker
All right guys, we're back. So let's welcome to the show, Mike and Nick of MTG landscaping. Welcome to the snow jobs, boys. How are we doing? Another day and another day with no snow. No, we're used to like 60 inches and I think we've got like 23. So 60. Yeah, like kind of five year average.
00:12:18
Speaker
Wow.
Mike's Business Journey and Challenges
00:12:19
Speaker
Wow. That's good. The snow belt of Ohio. Yeah. The lake hasn't been produced in this year at all? No, she's been quiet. It's bullshit. Isn't that always supposed to produce no matter what? You would think, you know, I grew up in Ohio my whole life and I remember getting called off school left and right. Nowadays, these kids don't get snow days. So I don't know. That's awful. That's awful. I'm sorry to hear that. Well,
00:12:48
Speaker
Oh, you know, I mean, at least you had time to do other things. Then if you weren't plowing, you had time to move into the new, uh, the new abodes there. Yeah. I mean, if it was a regular winner, we definitely were not moving shafts. I would not put that stress with running a snow and ice company. I wouldn't mix those together. All right. Cool. All right. Yeah. You want to take us away, bud? All right. Yeah. How about Mike and Nick? Why don't you guys tell us about the MTG landscaping, how you guys started and what you're all about?
00:13:16
Speaker
Um, I started this in 2015 in high school, just getting side money for pizza after school. And the buddies, the buddies after class, you just go knock on doors, drive around the strobe blade on the 96 Chevy, just look for whoever needed it, get done. And then ended up saving money up throughout that whole winter.
00:13:35
Speaker
And coming in my senior year, I had enough money to buy a plow and a mount, but I didn't realize a wiring harness for a truck was $800. So I'm very thankful for my one teacher, Mr. Arrigo. He actually ended up buying me my wiring harness my senior year. He's like, I know you're up to no good right now, but I know you're going to figure it out later in life. So like, here's my gift to you. That's awesome. Come full circle. Cause he also owns a pool business.
00:14:02
Speaker
And last year we were regrading and putting a drainage system in a backyard and they were having issues with their pool. Sure. That's phenomenal. Lunchtime comes around. I'm gone for like an hour, meeting with clients next day or running the job with another guy. And he's like, you've never guessed who's here, Mr. Arrigo. And I'm like, that's crazy. To have him see us where we were then to now is just a good feeling.
00:14:23
Speaker
And what was his name? Because he deserves some recognition there. Rigo? Yeah, marker Rigo. And what's his company? Get a plug for his company in there. I must say pools. There you go. That's awesome. What is it with teachers in Ohio? Didn't Kyle Martin say his teachers in Ohio let him develop a whole schedule for when it was snowing that he didn't have to come in?
00:14:42
Speaker
Yep, sure did. I'm moving to Ohio. My kids are going to be educated in Ohio. The teachers sound awesome there. Better New York. New York's awful. New York's awful. As long as the grades were there, my mom would let me come into school an hour too late. That's great. So your teacher bought you an $800 wiring harness. That's phenomenal. Good for him, man. He'd buy you a jail nowadays if he did that.
00:15:06
Speaker
Probably. When it happened, he's like, don't tell anybody, don't tell anybody. I was like, I'll take it to the grave with me. And then I was like, you know what? It's 10 years. And then I'll tell everybody. Yeah, contest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sorry mark, but yeah. Appreciate it. No, that's phenomenal, dude. That's awesome. That's paying it forward. That's great. Good for him, man. And that made a huge impact on you. 100%, 100%. I don't know. I'll probably amongst him, but it made a big difference in your life. So good for him. That's awesome to hear. Yeah, I got to say this.
00:15:35
Speaker
and you and Nick went to school together? Yes, he's actually two years older than me. And he's also my stepbrother. Gotcha. Nice. So he has to work with you. That's great. That's awesome. Cool, guys. That's really cool. Just don't get an argument before Christmas or Thanksgiving or something, huh? Yeah, no, you want to keep your civil terms. No, we've been along, man. We've been along.
00:16:02
Speaker
That's awesome. So yeah, keep telling us, sorry, we got off track. That blew me out of the water a little bit. So after 2017, I graduated high school in 2016. I was working at a smaller landscaping company. Winter time came around and I was like, you know what? I'm going to still file for myself. Like I feel like there's better income that way. So I did it following year. Uh, I ended up buying another truck. Oh, I had two trucks at the time, but the one was a lifted diesel truck. That's been through four or five owners.
00:16:31
Speaker
probably doesn't need to have a plow on it. And then the one winner, my only truck went down and I was like, wow, I need to have another truck. I want to stay in this. So I ended up trading that truck over the summer, bought a Dodge Dakota. God bless that thing. That thing went through hell. We did the one route was 120 houses, which Nick plowed it. It had a six foot plow on it and a back drag blade. It got
00:16:56
Speaker
I'm a Dodge Dakota. So if you put a back plow in a front claw on a V6 Dodge Dakota, you're going to end up with three different motors in that winter.
Business Expansion and Client Focus Shift
00:17:11
Speaker
Motors? Oh yeah. Three different engines. Holy shit. Yeah. So after that winter, we put the fourth motor in it and sold it.
00:17:19
Speaker
Now I was like, I need more heavy duty trucks. Dodge Dakota. Now like remind me, cause that's been a while. Oh, that's like not even a, that's not even a 1500, right? That's like a Ford ranger class type thing. No, Ford rangers at least have worked. You're sending a prayer every time Nick's going out, I'm like, dude, please just get terrible. I was plowing with a rod knock one time. It was bad. Oh. Yeah, it was just like this the whole night.
00:17:52
Speaker
I was working for a larger, much larger landscaping company during that year. Got to see two different aspects of the business on a small scale and a larger scale. Decided in 2019, I was working at a company and during spring cleanups, my phone was just ringing left and right. And I'm like, this is not fair to the business owner for me being on my phone as much. So I told him, I was like, hey, at the end of this week, I'm going to do my own thing.
00:18:16
Speaker
He's sort of supported us, sort of not. And I went gung-ho on that. I took my other foreman, Pat. He was following me for the first two winners as long as Nick. And he came on me full time and started the landscaping with me. Nick was getting certified in mechanics at school during that time.
00:18:34
Speaker
You kind of gotta, if you're repairing a Dodge Dakota with two plows on it all the time. Amen. We were sitting there on YouTube before a snowstorm trying to figure out where these sensors are. And I'm like, yeah, this thing's fucked. Jesus, that's great. We ended up going full time in 2019, uh, quite a couple more strokes throughout that time. Let me see if the exact timeline of that.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, 29 to a full time. We had three trucks at that time in 2020. I heard two more guys on the landscaping and we started growing more out of lawn mowing, still keep the lawn maintenance, but we started growing into more landscape installs, mulch trimming. And that was fun. And then 2021, we added two more trucks and our first skid steer that winter, I learned a lot. I got my ass handed to me left and right on that one. How's that?
00:19:29
Speaker
You ever heard the saying, don't let the tail wag the dog? Yeah. Well, that winner, a lot of people kept telling me that. And I kept ignoring them. I was like, you know what? Fuck it. We got all this stuff coming in. Like, we're going to figure it out. All we got to do is buy a truck and find a guy. Just go on Facebook Marketplace. We'll find another truck. Just keep going. So at that point, we had 10 trucks. And we were doing almost over 500 residential houses on top of 20 commercial. And that winner.
00:19:58
Speaker
We got hit with two storms back to back that were about 18 inches and a lot broke. Equipment wise, they were older stuff. And then we had about $30,000 in cloud damage between those two storms. Wow. Because we're just hiring as quick as we can get a truck and a route together. So you learn from that experience. Yeah, there was just a lot of unexpected bills that came on that winter and taught me a lot about business and life. I mean, we were, had a very good bank account put together and we went to almost zero.
00:20:28
Speaker
Wow. Came to the end of that winter and I was like, fuck, I need to figure out how we're going to sustain this or everything I've built is gone. So I put an aspect, I got to change our clientele, our strategy of marketing for snow plowing, get rid of the residential. It wasn't worth it. I mean, I would get done plowing parking lots in 10 hours and then still go plowing another 12 to 24 doing houses because these guys were missing all these houses.
00:20:56
Speaker
By the end of that winter, I ended up in the hospital with heart pain and it was stress related. And I was like, you know what, I know where it's coming from. I was like, that's the number one problem we got right now. So then that following winter, I let everybody know like, Hey, we're going to stick to our landscaping customers only. They've been with us since the start. It's not fair to them, but everybody else that's joined on in the past couple of years, like I'll recommend you to contractors. I feel are good snow plowing contractors.
00:21:25
Speaker
but we can no longer service you. So then after that winter, which was the last winter, I went down to about 50 houses and started using subcontractors to pull the residential, pull all our trucks and machinery to do our commercial. So then we did that in 2021, 22, grew that and bought two more machines, a front end loader and a track skid.
00:21:51
Speaker
And I was like, all right, well, we just fell flat on our face last winter. We're going swinging for the fences this winter. And I think it was a huge change because our commercial clients I had that winter, when we went almost broke, would pay on a net 60. You can't run a business on a net 60. And especially like these past couple of slower winters, I've given our year round guy salary just to keep them busy and also keep income for them.
00:22:19
Speaker
So when you have winners like that, when you're working all those hours, it just, it adds up and we learned a lot. That's what you call tuition. Yeah. Some people go to college, some people go to college, some people get business started and have a good thing going and then get a punch of reality right to the face. You know, if you can come through that and you're still in business after you survive it, you know, that's the best lesson you could possibly get early on.
Business Philosophy and Current Services
00:22:46
Speaker
to come out of it on the other side and you're still there and you're able to, okay, I just got to, you know, pull my boots up and get back to work. And now we're going to, we're not going to do this again. We're going to do this. And that's great that you shifted gears. Good for you. Yeah. Like Garrett said from GM outdoor services, there's no plan B I'm so invested at this point. There's so much blood, sweat and tears and miss holidays, relationships that have gone out the window.
00:23:12
Speaker
So many things that have been involved in building this business, I'm not going to quit even if we're getting feet to the ground. It's just how many times you get punched in the mouth and still stand there and smile. Yeah, that's awesome. Good for you, man. I think when Garrett said that, that resonated in a lot of guys.
00:23:29
Speaker
You want to be successful, there can be no plan B. This has to work. This is the only option. So if you have a plan B, if you have a plan B, you almost have an excuse built in. So yeah. So I always have a plan B. I always have a plan B. You're full of excuses. You're full of excuses. There's some plan B's that you want to have, but it's not a plan B for business. There you go. There you go.
00:23:55
Speaker
So, so now that you guys are back, you know, back plugging along here, what services are you guys currently offering? What are you guys doing? You're doing hardscaping, you're doing everything. What are you doing? We do everything because we start with the lawn mowing and then we got into doing the installs. And then in the last two years, I had a love for excavation and I wanted it. We had these heavy machines already sitting around from the winter.
00:24:16
Speaker
Why not start learning how to use them in the summer? That's what Google and YouTube's for. That's what networking with other guys are for. All of my buddies who are working in the union, bidding drainage jobs I've never done before, just getting my feet wet. And I think that's the part of the business that we're focused on growing now.
00:24:34
Speaker
And for the snow plowing, we shifted it. Yeah. I mean, strictly the mostly commercial industrial sites, zero tolerance, stuff to keep us busy, but also clients that respected the service and wanted to pay for the service. Amen. I stopped trying to accommodate everybody. I think that's something that I tried to do when I was younger, which I was a yes guy. You need a spot. Yes. You need a spot. Yes. And then I'm not looking and I'm like, dude, holy shit, we got all these accounts and we only got this equipment. And then, yeah, you're just hiring the random people.
00:25:03
Speaker
It just creates a lot of cannon worms that I now know how to sort of avoid.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. A lot of guys do that to start off. I think that's a natural pitfall, right, Jay? It is. It's, but you know, you got to know when to say no. And that's something hard to learn. I mean, I, I still don't say no to a lot of shit. I should say no to just because I know I can do it. I just got to figure out how to do it. I think that's a major, that's a major pitfall though, for guys that have that mentality. Like, cause I think even Garrett said it like,
00:25:34
Speaker
not having a plan B means you don't say no. We can get anything done. We're going full steam ahead. And then before you know it, you look around and you're like, holy shit, what have I, you know, what have I done? I'm way over my head here. So I think that that's the most important lesson is knowing it's okay to say no.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, some of the excavation jobs we get on and we'll get to the job site. The first thing Nick says when he gets out of the truck, when are you going to say no? Let's take a second. Let's look at it. We got this. You're supposed to look at a job before you take it.
00:26:13
Speaker
Here's a hundred feet of drainage pipe he says yes, yeah, we got this deal Guys you guys do a lot of grading and stuff and lawn installs shit like that sod Yeah, we were busy last year our crew me and his crew we were
00:26:29
Speaker
I mean, every day we were upgrading. It was very good. The track skid was barely ever at the shop last year. I felt bad for it. You guys run Harley Rake, stuff like that, Rockhounds, something like that? Yep, both of them. Best. Aren't they the best, man? They are. Oh, once you get the flow of a Harley Rake, you just feel like God walking on water.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, they actually make you look a lot better than you actually are as an operator. They really do. That's why I love them. That's why I love them. It makes me look a lot better than I actually am. And when it's real dry, it's like powder where you're going. It's crazy. That's the problem that we had last year with we had plenty of rain, but then we had dry periods and we're trying to do this one major backyard that we were doing and you couldn't see.
00:27:12
Speaker
And if you went too far, you went right off the cliff, basically, you know, a hundred feet down and you couldn't see anything. There was a cloud of smoke. So you do 10 feet. You'd have to stop for like 10 seconds, let the dust cloud for getting settled. And then you were back at it for another 10 feet. But yeah, they, those are great attachments. Well, you did say a hundred feet down. Oh yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
Okay. You want to see? I want to see a hundred feet. No problem. No problem. I'll show you. I'll take a picture right from the edge. Looking straight down.
00:27:51
Speaker
I think I still know the guy. We have things out here called hills, mountains, stuff like that. I don't have those. No, no. Flat ground. Yeah, flat. We're flat. Three foot difference in grade is considered a mountain in North Dakota. Oh yeah. You've got to crawl up a ditch. Oh, you're tired. Oh, man.
00:28:18
Speaker
So what else, what else we got here, Jay? So what do you know? We kind of talked about the snow. How much are you getting? What's your, what's your average? You said 60. Usually the last winter we were, I think a little under 30 inches. And then this winter we're at about 23 right now. Ooh.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah, so it's ugly. That might be your new average, man. I hope not. Two years in a row, 30 and 20. Yeah, don't say that. Don't say that. Ed, it's changing. It's definitely changing. Phew, that stinks. So you were below half two years in a row? Yeah. So next year, you got to really hope for a banner winter there next year. Get it back up. Because that's how it really works, right? Three or five year cycles. That's what I've learned. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
So that's cool. Very cool. What type of sites are you guys doing for snow? Do industrial, medical, some office, little strip plazas, gas stations, banks, middle mixture of everything. All right. Very cool. Are you guys doing those, are those, uh, like single source owner properties or are you doing broker properties? What are you doing? Try to stay away from the broker properties. Amen.
00:29:33
Speaker
Don't want to join the con club. Amen. Looked more for property management or the actual owners of the business. Is this our first episode? You're dropping shit on me. I guess so. I don't know. Feels like it. That's fucking great. Oh, man. All right, cool. Well, it sounds like you guys are on the right track. That's for sure.
MTG's Equipment and Challenges
00:29:57
Speaker
Trying. Trying to take a little bit of advice from everybody and everybody's different attacks on the snow.
00:30:03
Speaker
and pointing to our own. Definitely. All right, Jay. It's your show, bro. Hi, guys. Tell me about your equipment, kind of equipment you're running, kind of plows, salt, something stuff. But let's hear it. We got seven plow trucks. We got five F-250s, an F-550, and then the old heavy Chevy.
00:30:31
Speaker
And then we have three heavy machines, CAT-906, CAT-289, and CAT-262. And then we usually have about three or four some contractors on with us per storm. Nice. And then we also had, we just got a Snow Raider this year, put a whopping four hours on it. So, you know, she's been through a lot this winter. Is that a Snow Raider or an SR mag?
00:30:58
Speaker
The OG Snow Raider. The OG? You'll have no problems with those things. If I spent 20 grand for a machine to put four hours in in this winter, I would not have been too happy with myself. Is that what they're up to now for the Snow Raider? The mags, I mean, depending on the attachments, I know they're north of 17. Oh, yeah, yeah, the mags. I thought you meant you spent 20 grand on a regular OG Snow Raider. I was like, man, we got faking. I got a brand new Snow Raider for it was like $11,000.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah, we do. We loved ours. It was great for us. Very reliable. I mean, are they still putting a Honda engine on it? No, mine has a Kohler on it. Oh, it's got a Kohler now? Honda must have just cut everybody off. Honda and Kawasaki must have just cut everybody off. Nobody's using the engines. They can't get them.
00:31:52
Speaker
Did you see that new boss thing that they just released? The Scout? The smaller version of the Snow Raider?
00:31:59
Speaker
Yup. And then they also released something new with the BBX. Yes. Excited to see that. Yeah. I want to see that. Yeah. It's got a lot of tech. Yup. Well, yes and no. I mean, the one thing you can pretty much be assured with is those bigger guys don't usually release stuff until they get it figured out as far as the apps and shit go.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty excited to see it. Obviously, once you put hands on it, it's different. But the fact that I can track my material and basically, you know, GPS, all that stuff, I think, what is it, the VBX plus? Is that what it's called? Yeah, something like that. I can't wait. I'm hoping we can get hands on one to try it out, put it in the hands of the legend for a little bit and see how he likes it there. And if he likes it, it's going to sell. That's bottom line.
00:32:48
Speaker
It's true.
00:32:53
Speaker
I mean, if the price point is what they're saying for a two and a half yarder for $13,000 with that system and no subscription fee for the tracking software, I can't see how it won't. Yeah. Are they talking about putting a brine option on the new VBXs? That I don't know. I haven't gotten that. They just released it last week at that truck show. So I don't have a lot of information yet, but we're going to try and get some more info on it.
00:33:21
Speaker
If Boss is listening, then send us some info. Give us a call so we can know what's going on with this thing. I like simple. I like simple and that seems like it's a pretty simple idea, but it basically covers bases for guys that want a little more tracking ability and stuff like that. I wish Western had it because I'm kind of a Western guy hardcore.
00:33:46
Speaker
You know, everything will come, everything will come in time and hopefully get cheaper in price, which we all know is a lie, but we can hope. What are you guys, uh, what are the plows on your trucks? What do you guys run in plow wise? Oh, we started with the good old Myers because they were right off the road and you can buy them for like 50 bucks. So it was a no brainer, right? Somebody calls me all night. My pump's blown up. All right. Go back to the shop. Change it.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yup. Absolutely. I mean, that was simpler times and I always thought simpler was better, but when those plows move so slow and you can move a regular plow five times by the time you angle left once on a Myers.
00:34:39
Speaker
You're timing it with a sundial So then we ended up switching the Fisher and Western and then over the last year I bought a truck that had a boss on it sort of liked it The Fisher supports not as close as the boss dealers So I started switching over a couple of the trucks the boss the guy seemed to really like yeah, so like my boss
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, I like the hookup. They get you sometimes, but it's simple. Yeah. I should have Bosses love Boss. I mean, you love what you love, but if you got the dealer support, that's the biggest thing. If you got a good dealer and it's local to you, I don't care what brand it would be. I would be going with it myself. As long as it's not Myers.
00:35:24
Speaker
You got to have something reliable that's beefy enough to hold up to continued commercial abuse. Like you said, sometimes you're putting guys in these trucks for so long sometimes. You're seeing leprechauns and shit on your route after 24 hours. You may tag some stuff and you want that plow to hold up without the whole front end of your truck getting ripped off.
00:35:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah. We folded a couple of those plows for sure. The Meyers? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The slob has lifted up and it's still on the ground. I'm like, yep, drop it off. That's going to scrap yard. Go back on Marketplace. Find another Meyers plow. I'm picking up right now. I put a Meyers on the front of my son's power wheels a couple of years ago. That was about it, man. Meyers is not that sweet. They're not existing around here.
00:36:12
Speaker
They just got bought out by a German company over the last couple of years and they've changed names. Interesting. I didn't even hear that. I didn't either.
00:36:21
Speaker
I don't know how to pronounce it and I don't want to sound like an idiot. Oh, good. It starts with an A. Okay. A German company. There you go. We'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that. What are you guys? Yeah, go ahead, Jay. What are you running on? The loaders for pushers, push boxes. We haven't gotten to nothing extravagant yet. The skid steer has been at an HOA the one year in an apartment complex this year. So we just have the nine foot hydraulic straight blade on it, which is sweet. It does a great job.
00:36:51
Speaker
And then for the track skid and the front end loader, we have a Boss SK box and then a Pro-Tech. Very simple, nothing crazy. How's the SK box? How's that been? Because we talked about that, but we don't know anybody running them. How's that been for you? I like it a lot. I think once the rubber cutting edge is smoked on it, I'm definitely going to put a metal cutting edge because the rubber is just terrible. If you don't have a salt truck right behind it, good luck.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah, both our boxes have the back drag blades on so they can get up to garage doors and everything.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough with the rubber edges, man. If you got pavement below freezing, it's tough. You put a steel edge on there and there's no trip edge. Look out. You're going to feel that. Just make sure you know where those edges are that you normally clip.
00:37:54
Speaker
They'll, they'll shatter an edge at some point. Sometimes good. The rubber edge boxes. We used to call them Zambonis because all they're doing is shining up ice, man. That's all they're doing. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No problem. I mean, with those last couple of winters, when it's so warm, yeah, they scrape beautiful and it's 40 degrees out and there's still snow on the ground.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. If it's below freezing pavement, then that's the real test. Yeah. What are you guys running for Salters? We have two BBXs, then we have a Boss Forge, and then we have a Salt Dog insert on a flatbed, and then we also have a Salt Dog under tailgate spread around the 550.
00:38:39
Speaker
How's all that running? Any favorites, anything you don't like? I like the VPX controller a lot. I like the boss spreader. How it's the whole auger design is down the whole belly of the spreader. I also like that has the auto unclog built into it. The salt box is clogged a lot. Like if you, it's like a black and all is clogged. How about the tailgate spreader? Is that? Oh, that one. Oh, it could be the Beck could be frozen and that thing's still in salt.
00:39:07
Speaker
Really? Yeah. Yeah. It's really good now.
00:39:14
Speaker
That's awesome. That's on your 550. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you got just a tip bed one or you tip. I like it. It's nice. You can get a good five yards, six yards of salt in there. Depends on how much you want to be a degenerate that night. How many cops you want to meet? Yeah, I don't know. Good luck in the middle of the night. I mean, we've done some dumb shit with driving machines from
00:39:42
Speaker
three or four cities just down the street. I mean, yeah, the cops like it. I think they always call it the midnight run. Blowing through stoplights. Yeah, it's part of the game. We follow all traffic control devices at all times for this. I mean, for the record, honestly, no.
00:40:05
Speaker
man. What else? So you got, you got one snow Raider this year. And then ATV also that has a boss hydraulic plow to best. I still love the ATVs for a great time. Dude. It's great. They're fast. You couldn't do that in Jeremy land. You guys would be icicles. You don't see any of those things around here.
00:40:32
Speaker
No. When I was a teenager, like my first quad, I was working for a friend of mine that he started a business really young and he kind of took on a lot of snow and he had a HOA complex, but he couldn't do the driveways and the sidewalks fast enough with the trucks. So he said, hey, you got a plow on your quad. You love plowing with that thing. You want to come do driveways.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, all right. I said, yeah, I'll help you out. And I have no idea he wanted me to do like 150 driveways. It's like, holy shit. But that thing was awesome. It was so maneuverable, so quick. You were banging this stuff out, and all you had to do was push it out in the street, and the trucks were picking it up.
00:41:14
Speaker
That I love. I still love ATVs and you can use them in the summer if you want, you know, it's a business write off for a business expense, but you know, Yeah, we use ours in the summer to spray weeds at commercial and industrial sites. Nice, smart. I love that. Yeah, the ATVs are great. Hey, go out today and just go spray on the ATV. I mean, you're not really going to have that bad of a day at work. Not at all.
00:41:39
Speaker
Not at all. Have you guys looked at the UTVs? Any of that yet? Or the ATV solves all your needs, really? I wouldn't say it solves all my needs. The last snowstorm that we actually had, the one city walk that we plowed at the end of the snowstorm, I damn near ripped the mop right off the four-wheeler. One of the sewer caps caught it, and I almost went right over the handlebars. That is the danger. That is definitely the danger. The water caps and the sewer caps. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it'll build some character.
00:42:11
Speaker
You're running, you're running any snow tires on anything? No, that was an interesting story. Yeah. We just grew the tracks on the skid to improve those. And that worked great. Cool. Last year when we bought the track skid, the day we got it, or when we got the track skid in the nine of six, we bought them the same day cats, like we'll deliver it to your shop. I'm like, Oh, it's bad ass. Like this is sweet. He texted me like, Hey, we're on the way. We dropped them off.
00:42:40
Speaker
And he drops off the track machine, drops off the loader. That night I get a notification, hey, it's supposed to snow. I'm like, oh shit. Thank God I already bought the boxes for these machines. So we dropped off the skin at the HOA and then we dropped the loader off at the industrial site. First call in the morning is Nick. He's like, hey, I have no traction. Like I've almost taken out like 10 garage doors. I'm slipping inside. I'm like, I don't know, man. Just try and figure it out. Just figure it out. Call me if you hit anything.
00:43:07
Speaker
And then I get a call from the loader operator. He's like, Hey, I have no heat. And I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. So that ended up in like $26,000 worth of repairs all covered by cat. And thank God for our salesman. He let us get a rental machine. We had to drive to Youngstown the one time to pick it up, but they always had a rental for us, but we didn't get to use our loader until the last snow storm last year, until the end of March.
00:43:31
Speaker
Save dollars on it. Yeah. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. That was a brand new loader that had no heat. No, she's actually got some hours on it. She got about 10,000 miles on it. Okay. But I got it. I think it was like 44,000. So I see like, I was like, I'm in, I got the cat warranty on it for two years. I'm sold. Can't beat it. Yep. As long as they're going to warranty it. Sure as shit. First night it went out. It was gone all winter after that.
00:43:59
Speaker
And then, but going back to the snow tires, we ended up ordering an Amazon tire river and we had about five guys in the shop for about eight hours taking turns.
00:44:11
Speaker
Heating this rubber knife up and just cutting the tracks.
Future Plans and Business Insights
00:44:14
Speaker
We made our own zigzag pattern. Called Nathan X, kind of went out calling. He's like, oh, this thing's got traction like no other. It's a whole different machine. I'm like, well, hot damn. Maybe we don't need snow tracks. Yeah. That's what it is. No, I definitely recommend buying him. It's a lot less labor intensive. Yeah. That's awesome, though. Brandon Riley, I think he grew a bunch of his tires, too, I think. I don't remember. I think he said he did back in the day he did. Maybe. I don't remember if Brandon said that.
00:44:40
Speaker
What we were doing, I was like, I hope this is professional in some aspect because this just does not seem right. Let's cut up our tires. Brand new tracks. Just got delivered from Kat. With brand new tracks, we're just cutting right into them. It works, right? There you go. It's legit. Save you a couple thousand dollars. Awesome. You got anything else for equipment, Jay? You want to hear about?
00:45:10
Speaker
Oh, you guys aren't any liquids or anything. No, no, I was gone. Hold on doing liquids this year and getting balls deep in it. And as soon as I was about to pull the trigger on it, the shop opportunity came up and I was like, I think it's better business move to better decision. You can always get into liquids. Yes. And the biggest problems that shop before we had a bunch of shop neighbors, it was only 2000 square feet. Our salt domes on our industrial site, as long as we all hold our contract, we can keep it there.
00:45:37
Speaker
We really didn't have a designated site yet. Now that we have this shop, now our plan over this off season is to set up another salt dome here, and then also put a brine tank here and brine maker. They had roughly some salt this winter. Well, that's the key, right? Yeah. So how big of a shop did he move into compared to the last one?
00:45:58
Speaker
Oh, this one's about 5,000 square feet. And then it's got two acres of land with it. Oh, that's awesome. I feel like a little kid. It's everything you dreamed up when you first started business. Pull in, see your trucks and equipment. Makes you proud.
00:46:12
Speaker
Good for you, man. That's awesome to hear. Yeah, it was. I like that you posted the videos and stuff and you were sending us the stuff as you were in the process of getting making the shop yours, you know, all the painting and stuff. That was cool. It came out great. It came out great. I was trying to have fun with it while it was miserable.
00:46:28
Speaker
dealing with it. I was trying to have a little fun. I was good. It was good. I liked it. And, uh, you know, it's great to hear it's really, it's great to hear you guys are doing well and you're, you know, you're taking off. That's always a big deal. You move into a new shop, especially if it more than doubles your space and got to got a lot of room to grow. Then if it's got two acres with it. Yeah, definitely plan on putting up some domes and bins for mulch top soil. Very cool.
00:46:57
Speaker
You guys run, so you're running granular salt. Are you running treated salt or straight salt? What are you doing? Straight bulk salt. Straight bulk. You said you're close to Morton, the Morton mine. I'm going to get clear line sometimes, but other than that, I'm just regular. Yeah. Okay. So how much are you paying being so close to the Morton mine? How much are you paying for a yard of salt? We're getting 65 a ton dropped to our shop or dropped to our salt dome.
00:47:27
Speaker
Pretty damn good. The year we fell flat on our face, I mean, we were paying almost double the salt price at a salt supplier, so I was like... Oh, shit. You always will. Absolutely. I tell guys that all the time. Like, if you can just get some mafia block and get some kind of cover for it, you will save money. You will pay that mafia block the cover, whatever it's going to cost you, three, four grand to do it.
00:47:50
Speaker
Because around here, I don't know about out there, but around here, the concrete companies, they have the leftover stuff in every truck load. They're giving away for 30 bucks. Mafia block, if you can pick them up, you have the truck that can haul them. We figured it out. It'll pay for itself.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah. $65 a yard is pretty damn good for salt. I think what did Billy Moore say? 58 up in Detroit. I think that's what he was saying. Yeah. So that's, that's pretty good too. But yeah, I mean, Jeremy, you even want to, what were you paying this year? Thank God you didn't have to use any salt this year, Jay. Did you really? Yeah. We sold 11 inches. Yeah. We had a lot of rain and ice events. So yeah, no, we, we saw plenty. Yeah. And what, what are you paying a yard?
00:48:37
Speaker
quite a bit.
00:48:41
Speaker
Is it triple? Is it triple that? Oh, at least triple. Yeah. Oh my. Yeah. We're running. We're running different salt. We're running three point salt. So we're running some. We'll bring you some Lowe's. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trucking. So it kills you. So yeah, absolutely. Not close to any rivers or mines or anything. So to earn some miles away. Trucking for sure. Trade them for corn.
00:49:09
Speaker
Trade them for corn. There you go. That would be a lot of corn. Corny, we're shit. Corny or... I think it was like four bucks a bushel right now or something. So that whole giant mountain of corn that you moved a couple of weeks ago, was that like 60 bucks in corn? I think 45. $45 in corn? Holy shit. That sucks.
00:49:31
Speaker
Man, so what are you guys? So you're looking to get into liquids. That's definitely in your future. Yes Cool. Very cool. I think it's a smart business move Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think is here is that more. It's not Martin. Sorry. It's a Martin. So pretty clean that you're getting is it clean? That's a good Brian. Yeah Okay, I hear contract structures like out there I
00:50:00
Speaker
Uh, we're about 70% seasonal, 30% per time. Nice. Nice. That's good. Yes. So actually winners like this. Absolutely. Always good. You guys do like floors or caps or anything or just straight seasonal, whatever comes. Oh, we do caps after 25 events. It's per time. Gotcha. Cool. How many events do you get to this year?
00:50:24
Speaker
Like three or four. Okay. I think we solved it about 15 times and then yeah, we went all two or three. Well, that's, that's events. You know, if you've solved it 15 times, that goes towards the total. Yep. At least it should. That's cool. Yeah. Very cool. What'd you have, Jam? Sorry. No, it's how many guys you're running? How many? During snow storms, there's about 15 of us. Summer time, there's six guys plus me. Cool. This year I'm going to try and work on managing more and being involved with all the crews.
00:50:55
Speaker
A lot of stuff on the books for the year. Yeah, we're starting to fill up pretty fast, which is exciting. We got in with the home developer. He wanted us just brush hog a field and then it turned into, Hey, do you want to dig these retention ponds? Hey, do you want to demo this house? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I've only demoed like garage or sheds and I've only dug like little holes. He's like, yeah, it's just on a bigger scale. So he's confident in our ability and our drive. And we've been taking care of his lawn for.
00:51:23
Speaker
I think about four years now. So he already has that trust built with us. Good. Which is exciting. Yeah. I'm focused on more landing excavation site work jobs. Sure. And then still keeping the weekly guys busy with the weekly maintenance. Getting a big purchases lined up that you want to make. Oh, my girlfriend was shooting me.
00:51:43
Speaker
Don't get yourself in trouble. Don't get yourself in trouble. After I proposed, my plan is to get a 308 excavator cat. Propose what? A new business decision? Don't do that. That's the only proposal you should be making. She's a trooper. I've had guys put in the middle of a snowstorm and she's hopped in a truck. So is his girlfriend.
00:52:11
Speaker
24 hours at a time. That's good. All right. They're clear. They're good. They're improved. They got stuck in a side of a ditch. Didn't call me. Didn't let me know. They call him. And then like 12 hours goes by and everything is dwindling down. She's like, oh, hey, by the way, we were stuck in this culvert ditch. These people were taking pictures and saw us. I was like, how'd you get out? She's like, oh, we called Nick. I was like, oh, yeah, hell yeah. No one let me know.
00:52:38
Speaker
Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Do you guys use a contracted weather forecast service?
00:52:45
Speaker
Absolutely not. You have better chance paying the weather rock. Yeah, there you go. Well, we can make them happen. Every time I'm about to spend two or three grand on a weather service, it's like, how many times has the weatherman been right my whole life? Don't spend that kind of money on a weather service. No. There are options out there that are way cheaper
Market Competition and Operational Tools
00:53:09
Speaker
than that. There are options out there for under a thousand.
00:53:12
Speaker
The whole year for the whole year. That's way better than two or three thousand. Yeah, no, I've I've heard of that company or those companies I can't yeah, I can't fathom I they're very good. I will say that they're very good at what they do But nothing is worth that for me that that kind of money that they're demanding. Nope Nope, I can look out my window the same way. I
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah. You guys have a lot of competition for snow in your area. What's that like? Yeah, it's a doggy dog world. In Northeast Ohio, I feel like there's a lot of professional businesses and then there's also, I would want to say it like this, but like trucks in the truck. Yeah. Guys with no insurance, guys plowing with trucks that shouldn't be on the road. Like Dodge Dakotas.
00:54:01
Speaker
Yeah. There was one truck worse than that. And that was a $500 F two 50. I bought off marketplace. We put like four or five brain into it to get winter ready.
00:54:19
Speaker
And then my mechanic's like, hey, there's massive holes in the frame. I was like, hell yeah. Well, how bad is he? He's like, I mean, I probably wouldn't have it on the road. I was like, patch it up. We'll see where it gets to us. So it lasted another three or four winters. And then, yeah, it was last winter towards the end of the storm. I saw one of the guys go clean up a parking lot with it. And he calls me and he's like, I'm going over the train tracks and the cab's like shaking off the frame. And I'm like, yeah, it might be time to put her down.
00:54:47
Speaker
Oh, shit. Jeremy, that was beautiful. That was a beautiful shot. Very good timing. I was trying to make a shot. That was great. Wow. That's awesome. You got to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. Yeah, absolutely you do. But yeah, that's...
00:55:04
Speaker
That's the problem. And they're probably doing it dirt cheap because they're just trying to get in the door or do what they do. And they don't have the overhead because you're right. Most of them don't have insurance. Especially with insurance. I mean, that's a huge thing. It's not cheap running a snow business, especially when we're a lot of these contracts where you're held liable for a lot of the work.
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah. What kind of retail spaces are you doing? Did you say you said some medical facilities and stuff? Yeah. So we take care of a chiropractor, a couple animal veterinary clinics, which they treat as like a hospital shopping centers.
00:55:40
Speaker
And then take care of some right aids out in Cleveland. You have a couple of subs too, you said? Yeah. So in the last two years, to get out of the residential aisle, send two subs to go knock out the houses. Then when they're done, if they want to keep plowing, I'll send them to wherever parking lots are needed. And then we have two guys that will help us during a storm with the commercial lots. Gotcha. Very cool. Very cool. What else you got, Jake?
00:56:06
Speaker
Going back to the competition part of it in Northeast Ohio, I feel like a lot of the clients are either looking for the cheapest price or they're looking for a valuable service that it's looking to go above and beyond. And I feel like we are able to do that. We use Yeti's snow software, so we're able to get it all down with psych maps and then we wouldn't go to a bed. I'll tell them like, Hey, we can get up a psych map drawing before we
00:56:32
Speaker
lock in a number and I'll show them the site map if they want to make tweaks to where the piles are at. I try and mark like the handicap, the fire hydrant, all the red flag areas. I think that helps make a huge difference with the customer because once the guys are done, it sends, we haven't sent, we haven't set up to send emails after each service. Even if the client doesn't request it, it just shows, Hey, we were here because it requests a before and after picture and I'd rather cover my ass.
00:56:59
Speaker
I'd rather be annoying in the inbox of emails that they want to put it to spam, but at least they understand that we're there. Yeah. How has Yeti been? How have you liked it? I really love it. Ever since last year when I took it on, when we went mostly commercial, I think it's been a game changer, especially like middle of the night when you have a random guy that doesn't apply for you all the time, get in the truck in a route and saves the two or three hours of explaining a route to like, Hey, you get here and have questions, call me, but everything like,
00:57:28
Speaker
the hot spots, what needs to be done there is in the details, like where the snow piles up there and pictures, it's all broken down to make it almost so easy a preschooler can do it. Good. That's awesome to hear. Yeah, we we've heard good things about Yeti. Not bad on the first point. It's about 100 bucks a month and it sucks because you sort of keep it during the summer. But I think during the summer we're going to try and use it for our commercial landscaping accounts. Yeah.
00:57:57
Speaker
Definitely. Get as much out of it as you can if you're paying for it. Cool. Yeah. Like the snow raider is going to be spraying weeds this summer. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. How do you think that's going to turn on grass? I would stay, I don't know. I would hopefully stay on like the cement. Okay. Yeah. Cause it's got, it's, I don't remember the exact distance of the hose, but I feel like if as long as it's on the cement, we should be good. Have you used those on dry pavement yet?
00:58:24
Speaker
Now. All right. Have whoever's operating it wear a helmet. Put a helmet on. That thing is like, you've been to bars with like Bronco riding at the bar, like the mechanical bull. Yeah. Oh yeah. And they only get worse as they get bigger. The Snow Raider was herky jerky bad on dry payment, but then you get bigger, heavier. The Ventrac will straight up pitch you off 10 feet off the machine.
00:58:52
Speaker
If you start going a little too fast on dry pavement, you try and turn on a dime, you better anticipate. That's all. How do you like the Ventracs compared to the Snow Raiders? You can't compare. They're two different class machines, honestly. Preface that by saying that the Snow Raider we had was awesome. We loved it. It was bulletproof. The exact pad spreader that was on the front of it was tremendous. That was an easy to use, easy to fill spreader. No problems with it.
00:59:21
Speaker
It just happened that the year we had them, we got two monster storms and it's a straight blade and we could only win rows so high.
Efficiency in Snow Removal and Future Aspirations
00:59:31
Speaker
And to try and win row 30 inches new snow after you already have 22 on the wind rows that are existing, it couldn't do it and it could only push forward so far with that kind of snow. So we said, we gotta be more versatile. We gotta have the ability to change attachments. So we went to the SSVs and
00:59:51
Speaker
They're just, they're tanks. I mean, but they're, they're a lot more expensive. You know, the snow Raiders are like what I would call entry level. And that's how they're priced. The SSV nicely appointed is going to run you three times what you paid, you know, for the snow Raider. If you're paying 11 for, for a snow Raider, you're paying 30 for an SSV with all the trimmings. You know, I think the drop spreader alone is $6,500 or $5,800. So it's, it's pricey, but it's a different, it's a totally different class of machine.
01:00:20
Speaker
You're in a lot more different type of snow work done too with just one machine. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. You can do everything. If you're, if you're slow on doing curb to curbs, you know, after a storm, you can ride the damn thing right down the curb line and handle all that with an SSV.
01:00:37
Speaker
It has the, we have V blades, we have blowers, we have brooms. The brooms are the best brooms made. I don't care what anybody says. The Ventrac brooms, they have it figured out. They, they know what they're doing. Those are by far the, I mean, Jeremy, you're not a huge Ventrac guy anymore, but you would say that too. What happened to the Ventracs there, Jeremy?
01:00:56
Speaker
No, not too cold. It's too cold. It's too cold. No, because the machine itself fucking bulletproof. Great machine. It just, we, we wrote all of ours. So they just didn't have the speed. They didn't have the speed to go down the road. That's what John Deere's do. So, but as, as a machine bulletproof, those things didn't break little John Deere's down the road. Oh shit. Yeah. Hell yeah. They do everything out there. They're used to seeing tractors on the road all year round. Yeah.
01:01:30
Speaker
But yeah, no, I mean, listen, the Snow Raider, you can't go wrong as you get into different sites or whatever that you need different abilities to do different things. If you get into a site that's zero tolerance and you got to clear the sidewalks every inch or two, there's nothing better than that broom. And you're dropping brine or you're dropping granular behind you as you're brooming in one pass, you're saving yourself an astronomical amount of time. But with that comes the price tag because they are not cheap.
01:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm right.
01:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, but you're saving also a lot of labor and putting that Sure, you are. And that's how we base our decisions because it's they're being completely honest where I thought when I first heard of sidewalk machines and everything, they're saying it's going to replace five to six shovelers.
01:02:12
Speaker
I thought they were full of shit, honestly, but now, you know, seven, eight years later, they, I think they're underselling it. I think you're replacing more like seven to 10 shovelers with what you can do with a guy that really knows that machine and is comfortable with it. Like we got a guy that takes care of an entire HOA complex, which I don't remember offhand how many feet of sidewall, how many linear feet of sidewalk it was, but he's doing it all in 45 minutes with one SSV on three inches of snow. He's just very comfortable and he's moving.
01:02:42
Speaker
and he's dropping salt behind him, he's got the salt to speed ratio dialed in, that he knows what notch to have the spreader on, and he flies, and it's one guy. Where normally, I think the last company that was in that complex had seven guys in there for three and a half hours, shoveling. It'll pay for itself, but you gotta have the capital to do it. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back in 30 seconds here, guys.
01:03:11
Speaker
Plowwright Marking States, made in the USA. For professionals, by professionals. Check us out at plow-wright.com. All right, we're back. We are back. Jeremy, what do you think, man? Five and five? Yeah, you bet.
01:03:30
Speaker
All right, Mike, Nick, where you guys want to see your company go on the next five years? What are you looking at growing or where do you where do you see yourselves? I'll let Nick go first. We're trying to be the best, you know, company around. Love it. Yeah. Simple. It's so simple. We're going to do the best. Good for you, man. Yeah. What do you think, Mike? I would agree with that statement. But I for my five year goal would be the majority of commercial snow falling business.
01:03:58
Speaker
eventually bite the bullet and tell the residential customers that we can't, but also still have a base of customers that we're able to get through low snow winters. And then also still grow and maintain the landscaping, but hopefully eventually hire a supervisor to do that so we can focus on building the excavating site work side. Nice. Very cool.
01:04:22
Speaker
Now, what do you think in the last five years or even three years, whatever you want to do, what has been the most important decision that you've made that's come out huge for your company success-wise? Don't let the tail wag the dog. There you go. You learned that one? Yeah. I'll be right back with one of my future children. Good for you. And always start with a Dodge Dakota. I don't want to do that one again.
01:04:49
Speaker
I really couldn't. I hope she's still driving somewhere, but I don't think she is. She was angry. I could tell you that with a front blade and a back blade. That truck could not have been happy. What was this? What did the suspension look like? It wasn't bad. Oh, I mean, it was total riding when the both plows are up, but when they're down, you're sitting pretty good.
01:05:14
Speaker
Oh man. That's the first I've heard of a Dodge Dakota with the front and rear blade. I have never heard that. That is definitely a first. It wasn't like a crazy rear blade.
01:05:26
Speaker
That's not a nice Dakota. Oh, the first storm he goes out, he was pulling snow and he's like, dude, it's like lifting the truck off the ground. I'm like, yeah, the truck weighs like a thousand pounds. But you get it, but you got in all these tight driveways, you felt like unstoppable. Just being a dog shit out of that thing. I tell you, one of the best things, like there are guys around here that still use Jeep Wranglers with plows to do driveways. And they say they can get in and out of everywhere and they have great traction, right? Yep.
01:05:55
Speaker
I've seen a couple of companies around here use them for like loading docks and detailed areas and commercial lots. And I'm like, Godspeed to that frame and that transmission. Oh, man. You guys got anything for us? Questions, anything? No, it's all good. I don't think so. No. All right. Jay, you got anything else, bud?
01:06:16
Speaker
I guess the only other thing I'd have is, I'm sure they have any, you've told us some good stories.
Anecdotes and Challenging Jobs
01:06:21
Speaker
They definitely have. Any good story you want to leave? I can give you a couple if you want. The one year when we were getting into commercial snow or a third year in, we were subbing for one of the local guys and he sent me and Nick out to do 15 schools in downtown Cleveland that hadn't been plowed in like three days.
01:06:45
Speaker
It was on a Sunday and we got there and there was about, I would say 14 to 15 inches per parking lot. First parking lot we get to, the guy that we're subbing from was there with us. He's like, oh yeah, I'm going to go get one another of my drivers and I'll come right back. I was like, okay, sounds good. Next thing I know he's gone. Oh, absolutely not. Never saw him again. So first parking lot. Yeah, that's exactly what he said.
01:07:07
Speaker
Here's parking lot, there's no plow stakes. I'm like, what the hell? Second parking lot, no plow stakes. He doesn't have site maps or nothing. So I'm using Google images, just guessing where these curves are at, guessing. Just playing guessing game for 18 hours.
01:07:20
Speaker
Oh, I said, hey, why is there no stakes on the property goes? Oh, it's against the Cleveland City schools like rules. They're used as weapons. I mean, one of our counts this year, we've had to restake it three times because the kids are going around sword fighting with them. And I'm no shit. I had to have them send out an email to all the residents saying like,
01:07:48
Speaker
We're not, I'm not paying, but I think each time we had to do it, it's like 120 bucks a stake property. Wow. And we're getting stakes for 40 cents a stake. I mean, it's just ridiculous. That's pretty crazy. So did you make it through those, uh, those lots? How long did it take you? 18 hours. He got stuck on the side street. Some random guy helped him shovel out. I had a lifted truck at that time. So I was able to sort of coast over the snow.
01:08:15
Speaker
We almost lost a salt spreader because we didn't know where the curb was at. He was doing about 35 through the parking lot.
01:08:22
Speaker
Nice curve to stop the truck instantly. All four ratchet straps just unpopped. And I'm like, yep, thank God we're in Cleveland because we might need another Myers Plow. Because that did not look good. Wow. But yeah, we got that done. And then the one winner, we had $30,000 in plow damage. That was interesting. We had an all-in-one night, we had one of our drivers hit a cop car, which was our client. And he's standing there drinking his morning coffee. And as he hits the car, the guy just leaves.
01:08:51
Speaker
That's a hit and run in anybody's book. That plow driver did not see it as that. So he left and kept continued plowing. I had to put that fire out with that client. I told him to go back to the house so we can get this all situated. On his way back there, he's just beating the dog shit out of the truck, ends up blowing the motor in it. For seven years, don't get me wrong, it's a 96 Chevy. It was our first ever plowed truck. It was our dummy truck. You're the first guy here, first year. That's where you're going in. Puts it out first storm.
01:09:20
Speaker
So I put him in another truck after, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go plow with this kid for a couple hours to see what he's doing wrong, trying to address the situation. We probably got here for like six hours. He's in the seat for three, I'm in the seat for three. Not even an hour of me believing him back on his own route, he calls me, hey, I'm pinned against a gate, a white vinyl fence. I said, the route you're on is wide open driveways, how the hell did you end up all the way over there? It's like, I misread the plow markers. So that's not good.
01:09:50
Speaker
So I called Nick to go get him. Nick's clawing an HOA down the road. He drives his skits here all the way down the street. Probably a good 10, 15 minutes down the road. Gets there to pull him out. Nick calls me. He's like, oh, so the only option of getting this truck off this fence is we're taking out the rest of this fence. And it's just like 2 a.m. in the morning. He was on the fence. He was like in the middle of the fence. Like he took a panel out and he was like in the middle of the fence.
01:10:16
Speaker
Yeah. So he's there in a wheel skid with no snow tires. It's a fucking blizzard out. I'm like, dude, just stay on pavement, hook them up, yank them out. Do whatever you got to do. I'll figure it out with the client. Well, that decision cost me $4,000. We ripped out, I think, four panels to get them back to pavement. Wow. I wouldn't say it's funny. I mean, looking back on it now, it is. In the moment, it wasn't funny.
01:10:43
Speaker
Well, it's funny because it doesn't happen to everybody. And you know what? Listen, you survived all this shit. I've fought long enough. The one night was like 42 hours straight and I was delirious. I was panic mode, stressed. Like we're doing way too much with way too little. My dad calls to check in on him. He's like, Hey, how are you doing? I was like, dude, I don't know what the fuck to do anymore. He's like, I'm at, I'm at a wash. He's like, pick me up. I've never plowed or salted, but I'll figure it out.
01:11:11
Speaker
So I pick him up and I'm just riding in the passenger seat, like, yeah, here, turn the dial to this, turn this. And then I just set the dials to preset numbers. I was like, just hit on and off as we're pulling through these spots. I was like, your handicapped spots, those are your hotspots. Blast them. The back farther the property, you can lightly code. But that was an interesting experience.
01:11:30
Speaker
It really has all been an interesting
Conclusion and Acknowledgement
01:11:33
Speaker
experience. Oh, you came out on the right side. That's the most important thing Yeah, I mean when the going gets tough, you just gotta fight through it You got to see that vision no matter how blurry it might be during that time. Hey, man All right, Jay you good. You got anything else for these guys? I'm good. You guys got anything else for us? I Don't think so. All right
01:11:54
Speaker
All right. Well, then we'll wrap it there. So guys, that's going to be a wrap for episode 60. Jeremy and I want to thank Mike and Nick for coming on with us today. As always, you know, want to wish MTG the best for the future. I mean, they've already gotten into every sticky situation you can do and they've come out on top. So, you know, it's all uphill or up all downhill from here for them. They're going to be doing well. And we look forward to seeing your progress, guys. And if you need more stickers, just let us know.
01:12:22
Speaker
I need one from the other shop door on this side. All right. We'll get you some stickers sent out. We'll get your address. But all right, guys, we are out. We will see you next week. Everybody be safe out there. Keep pushing.