He LEARNED the HARD way. Starting a dumpster company #2 4K

you told me on the phone that when you first got into it it was a lot it was a the the learning curve was a lot steeper than what you were anticipating because the guy from maxd made it sound like you hook up a trailer you go to work yeah what is what did you learn that says hey that's not even close to being true everything's expensive and that may be a time because of the time he I I don't remember when that video was made but two or three years ago yeah so that might have been before Co probably so everything has gotten expensive a dumpster that dumpster is $5500 to buy that dumpster how much ises it to cost to to dump it 100 and it's about a 100 bucks for just the minimum dump fee and that's not going to a transfer station that's going to the dedicated pits right for me it's the transfer station it's more than that with you you must have created an account at the transfer stations a bulk count because I don't know a transfer station that I could dump that thing for 100 bucks at I do have a yeah yeah okay so there you go what we're talking about is a transfer station's going to cost you a lot more but we actually have pits at least around the Twin Cities here where you drive in there and I mean it's cheap you but you got to dry and you're going to be blowing tires every time you go into those pits too cuz every you pick up every nail that everybody else has dropped off transer stations are not immune to that either no oh the nails if I if if if I gave one piece of advice yes to somebody don't get the cheapest tires you can find get the the upgraded the what are the 10 plier 14 plier whatever they are the the heavier Duty I actually have two different tires here this one is a load range E I believe mhm that's just a standard trailer tire and then this is the upgraded like 12 or 14 by G-rated why would you do that they're harder so stuff doesn't stick into them mhm and it may be the alignment on this trailer but that this tire specifically was wearing extremely fast so your expenses are going to be in tires and there's ways to what about marketing how did you how have you acquired your business so I live as you saw I live on a very busy road Road mhm and I have a very stealthy dumpster M can't tell they stick out like a sore thumb so I kind of stumbled I got lucky on that um so do you just use your house you park your you park your your and that's where you get a lot of your phone calls so you your marketing budget is next to nothing then I don't pay anything for advertising I pay for Stu I so I have a website that they do a little bit of search engine optimization yep but they haven't done anything since I set set that website up they haven't changed anything Keith calus has a new book that just came out and he talks about that's called Gorilla Marketing you know marketing for next to nothing and I was actually looking through his book and I love it because it's just got a lot of really just you know I read a lot of these books Ryan and it's just like okay I could have skipped 50 chapters of this book I had one paragraph that I got that's all he did it's like one paragraph do this do this do this do this do this it's all about Gorilla Marketing it's a great book for guys that that got no money to to start marketing and I would recommend it I'm I I think it's a phenomenal thing and what you did by doing this brilliant what about your website how's that work for you that's really good actually it's uh that's under that's one of the big ones uh it's built by so I buy the domain or whatever I own the domain yep it's built by dumpster rental systems hm and they cost it costs me 150 bucks a month to have them take care of everything I can go on there I can do they they track my dumpsters customers can go on that website they can book straight from there they I can go in there I can book them they they collect credit cards everything like that wait minut they do all the processing absolutely what is the name of it dumpster rental systems would you use it again then absolutely so did you say that would be one of the the good things that you learned in this in this whole thing is just start with dumpster rental systems for for doing just dumpsters absolutely huh and I would okay I would say because that they have a Facebook page and they they put you in there I would say doing that is pretty good because you can you can meet a lot of Professionals in the industry that are did you learn a lot from going on your fa on the Facebook pages cuz you're active in a lot of the Facebook groups very active in a lot lot of Facebook groups yeah I learn a lot you can I never would say like anybody knows everything there's always going to be somebody that knows more than you and if you can tap into those guys that have been doing it for a little while you know what I've learned friendly since I since I started making videos I have learned so much more from my audience because there's more than one way to skin a cat there's aund ways to skin a 100 cats right and I'll just tell you right now I don't think there's a right way and a wrong way although everybody that has an opinion will tell you different yeah exactly and you know what they say about opinions yeah um but yeah the one of the cool things i' I have a friend that lives in New Jersey that he saw my dumpster from a friend Snapchat that's a so he's a mut we have a mutual friend and he went on there and he he just messaged me he was like Hey like hey if you ever need anything just reach out to to me and we talk all the time what does that mean so he's got he's got his own um R dumpster rental okay so what you're telling me is you actually work with another company and it happens to be a friend of yours yep but you guys bounce ideas off from each other yeah friendly competition it's not so much competition he's in New Jersey he's in New Jersey but what I'm saying to these guys is absolutely do that absolutely I have I have competition yep that we dump at the same transfer date transfer station um he sends me business I send him business I send him a lot more business because I only have so many dumpsters yes and then there's other guy there's even other guys that they don't really send me business but I send them because they'll help me with other stuff that's a great point because I'll tell you as contractors there's more than enough work to go go around we are more valuable than lawyers and attorneys we are we a good contractor is one of the most valuable things and one of the most scarce things in America and the problem is a guy like you guy like me and a guy like him don't value themselves enough you will pay $250 for an attorney and that's cheap a good attorney is $400 to $500 but when you open up the Yellow Pages that's a book that has all the phone numbers in it when you open up one of those the section for lawyers and attorneys is going to be this thick yeah it's going to be covered in lawyers and attorneys but they have a degree we have something they don't have scarcity because we are willing to work we all need to band together and start raising our prices on everything on everything and then as far as working with your competition a great example that I do personally is uh just in social media the my my uh friendly competition is Dan from tools in action that guy and I brainstorm every single week and we are competition but we talk all the time we have both learned and grown so much from what he's done what I've done and then I talk with guys like Vince vcg construction you know shout out to him awesome dude so you find a network of people and they're out there I don't care what industry you're in dumpsters Landscaping making Tall Grass short there's going to be a whole network of people that want somebody else to go what am I doing wrong what am I doing right what are you doing and have somebody else willing to go yeah let's share some stories and let's just a rising tide raises All Ships there is nothing wrong with working together I think that's powerful absolutely so I don't only I don't just do dumpsters I also plow snow just like you mhm and first Arctic owner right there yeah just go back to Dan from tools in action Dan rescued my snow s plow from Stanley falling off of Stanley trailer my his snowplow I was delivering it to him from uh Chicago and it was falling off so I had to pull in Dan's house and I'm like Dan Ryan snowplow is going to fall off the back of my trailer cuz my shot my wasn't a shock strap it was a different strap so yes but go on what were you saying so I also plow snow I went from having four accounts last winter of my own I was doing some other stuff but four accounts of my own I now have 14 this winter just from I I didn't knock on a single door I didn't I didn't go talk to anybody I just no other contractors really just gave me work one guy one guy came on and said hey I'm getting out of this I got some accounts over here I talked to him well lo and behold he had seven accounts that were literally right across the street for my accounts so I took those over I'm taking those go over I've got a another um contractor that they don't have the time to do some some uh decent size accounts so I said yeah I can do that and didn't try really just didn't try if you just are friendly with people and help people out when you can and yep that goes a long way social media can be used for good it doesn't have to be argumentive and all that stuff oh yeah the people that are arguing or or saying bad things honestly they're just telling you their story I feel bad for them because they'll come in and say oh you're wrong oh blah blah blah blah and I'm like oh my God how would you like to have to live in that guy's head there are people that are wrong though on social media too so they're not all wrong no yeah but you know what you don't have to pick you can always be constructive and I actually curb that with a little bit but we covered a lot of ground today yeah so buy a dumpster that is expandable can operate okay use that uh website builder who was that company dumpster rental systems dumpster rental systems DRS for short DRS for short hop on the Facebook groups is there a Facebook group you'd recommend more than others no okay hop on Facebook you join one and they'll start showing up start showing up start working with people in your neighborhood uh start talking to people not you know don't be afraid to talk to other you know your competition so to speak because they're going to help you grow y guerilla marketing you did a great gorilla marketing strategy and then Keith calus's new book uh has some great Gorilla Marketing strategies it's like only that thick and it's probably like 15 20 bucks I don't know what it is but there's some great strategies in there that can help you guys grow and I'm I'm just trying to share with you guys whatever else did we miss anything else Ryan um Tires Tires yeah the tires tires are huge spend money and then yeah it's going to be more expensive than what you anticipated isn't it it always is is yep and is there anything else you want to add yeah gross gross income is not net income overhead allocate for overhead yes a lot don't you don't need a shop you don't need any of that for this you're going to store the dumpsters in the customer's drive them yep and if you're not you need somewhere to keep them but it doesn't have to be extravagant so if you're not familiar with overhead allocation the simplest thing you can do is there's a number of different ways just Google how to overhead but this is the thing that bites most new business owners in the butt their phone cost them money truck insurance costs them money and what they're doing is they're looking at oh you know my my trailer costs this much my gas costs this much and it cost me this much to dump this off and then that's how they do their pricing and XYZ companies doing this well that doesn't mean XYZ companies allocated their overhead the right way and your Al your overhead isn't the same my overhead isn't the same as your overhead and yours isn't the same as the guy blowing leaves next door right I agreed so make sure you allocate for that overhead because that's what's going to really ultimately drive your profits so you're gross take away your your uh expenses minus your overhead is really what you get to put in your back pocket and then go from there yep are we good and remember to account for Uncle Sam 33% at least Y and insurance that's an overhead y y so yeah I don't know I can't think of anything else all right if we missed anything it's you guys that do dumpsters you guys that have experience running businesses I put it in the comments down below because like I said a rising tide raises All Ships the concept the idea behind this it wasn't to pick on this trailer to to to promote that trailer or anything it was a eye openening Real World Experience what did you learn starting this business from scratch because you watched a video where some guy in a maxd said was so easy to do and it really wasn't as easy as you made it out to sound it's not hard work but it's not you're not getting rich overnight you're not making a million dollar next year right maybe but I don't think so right all right that's it for this one God bless you guys and go get them we'll see you on another one thanks Ryan appreciate you coming all the way out and if you're in Minnesota and you need a dumpster check out Nic dumpster minnesota.com 612- 685 939 99 just don't call him too late he's got kids