5 Ways to Stretch Your Snow Budget

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hi, This is Todd from True North outdoor and today I want to go through 5 strategies you can use to stretch your snow budget. 

before we go on with the video, we want to let you know that we’ve posted the transcript into the notes section below for easy reference.  

Strategy 1: Bundle

There are really four different ways you can use bundling to lower your snow removal cossts.  

The first three are things you can do on your own and the fourth way is a way to to bundle with others.  

First you can bundle years and services.  First if you can do a three year contract, at the very least, you can try and lock in your prices for three years.  

Right now it seems hard to believe but before the coronavirus, in the snow business we were facing year over year price increases due to both labor inflation and the rising costs of deicing salt.  

Not only could locking in your price save you from future price increases, you may even be able to use a multi-year option as a way to get some price concessions.  

Make it an option on your contracts and see what you get.  

Secondly is bundling snow with other services like landscaping.  

You might be able to get a discount on both contracts or be able to get a part of what you spend on snow to give you a credit towards landscaping services or visa versa.  

For instance in some cases we’ve provided a rebate from our snow billing to be used towards doing landscape upgrades.   

Third is if you manage multiples sites.  

Ask if there’s a discount for doing multiple sites.  

One thing to consider is that some sites might be easier for a contractor bundle because they already have strong service footprint.  

It may make sense to only bundle sites that are in the same general vicinity for this purpose.  

Fourth, bundle with your neighbors.  

If you have a small site, one of the most effective ways to get lower prices is to reduce the travel time for snow vendors by getting adjacent sites to band together and get serviced as a group.  

This is because one of the most expensive factors in servicing small sites is traveling between them when snowy roads chokes traffic.  

If you’re interested in trying to put together a group of your neighbors, let us know and we can help facilitate that kind of initiative.  

Ok, strategy number 2.  Revisit your scope.

When people write their scope, they are usually thinking about achieving the highest levels of service possible and so they often stipulate requirements that can add additional costs to your snow removal.  

A common example of this is snow piling points.  Moving snow gets exponentially harder the farther away from it’s point of origin you need to take it.  

I call this the ‘snowman’ effect.  We all know how easy it is start rolling the ball of a snowman but the bigger it gets, the more you have to work.  

This is exactly what happens when you try and plow snow 50, 100 or 150’ away from it’s point of origin because you have to plow that snow and all the snow in between it to that point crating piles of snow that are so large it has to be carried in many small swipes taking much more time.  

Another factor is the deicer option you choose.  

Unless you have a  really good reason for choosing a premium deicer, you should at least get pricing options for less expensive alternatives like regular rock salt.  

Strategy number 3:    Service Level Variance

Unless your entire facility is open 24hours a day, 7 days a week, you might want to consider separating your site by service levels.  

For instance, your site may be open 24×7 but over the weekend theres only a skeleton crew there so you maybe just service a smaller portion of the site during this time.  

These same principles hold true for services performed during the overnight hours as well as how the site use might change over the year.  

This may be the case for some retail sites that have full parking lots leading up to christmas but need a lot less of their parking spaces after.  

Only service the areas you need to when you need to at the levels you need to.  

Strategy Number 4 Contract Structure and Terms

This is maybe the part of snow budgets where you can get the most creative.  

See if your contractor will offer you a flat, all inclusive fee to perform snow services for the entire year.  

This can be a good strategy if your main goal is to stay within a designated budget.  

See if they will give you some kind of discount or cap on services if you hit a certain amount of money spent. 

See if you can get a discount for prepaying for snow services or paying within a quick turnaround.

See if you can get a contractor to defer a part of their billing from a high year into the next season.  

See if your contractor will give you a discount on services if you offer some kind of revenue guarantee.

Honestly, there is no limits here and it’s only constrained by the creativity and flexibility of the parties. 

 It is part of the reason why True North has come up with some unique ways to structure our snow removal contracts.  

 

Strategy Number 5, Think outside the box

If you have excess space or access to a vacant lot, see if the contractor would take part of their payment in trade for rental space or for using as a staging/storage area.  

If you have a good or service that might be beneficial to the contractor, consider offering a portion of your payment in trade.  

If you have access to a little spare labor at your site, consider insourcing the sidewalks.  

Depending on your site you could cut 25% or more from your bill by just doing the sidewalks in-house.  

Ask your contractor how they could help you save money.  Especially if they’ve been on the site for more than a year, see what recommendations they can offer.

If you want to reach out to us to ask any questions about this video or talk about how we might be able to help you stretch your snow budget, drop us a line @ kc@truenorthoutdoor.  

We’ve also put the transcript of this video in the notes section below for your reference, along with other links and information you might find useful.  Thanks for watching.  We’ll catch you next time.  Bye.