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Growing Your Business |
A Municipal Sweeping PerspectiveAfter 32 of sweeping in the industry, here are the thoughts of Hank Rodio on the topic of transitioning into municipal sweeping.by Hank Rodiowith Ranger Kidwell-Ross I already had a landscaping business when I bought a Tennant sweeper in 1994 and started cleaning parking lots. Then, in 1996, I bought a parking area sweeper, and a year later added an Athey-Mobil to handle spring sand cleanup. As time went on, I started using the broom sweeper in milling operations and heavy construction clean up applications as well. Along the way, I found it made sense to get a union affiliation in order to gain access to union roadwork. Today, I've ended my specialization in parking area sweeping and have moved more toward the broom sweeper marketplace. I now operate 3 mechanical broom sweepers, contracting them out for a range of heavy-duty sweeping services such as road construction and sweeping behind milling machines.
Over my 32 plus year career in business, there is no question that I have had the most trouble with parking lot sweeper employees Ð i.e., accidents, theft, lawsuits, personality conflicts and relatively very poor workmanship. Today, my parking lot sweeping isn't the traditional picking up of litter at strip malls and so forth, but consists mainly of school districts, office buildings and industry. My primary work is sweeping for milling operations and construction. Now, with my union affiliation, I can get involved with roadwork. Because these jobs pay a prevailing wage rate, the quality of people I can hire has improved. Although maintenance costs are higher for broom sweepers, especially in milling operations, there is more money to work with. Still, it's difficult to get the work and pay all of those costs we're supposed to be paying. Like in parking lot sweeping, there are sweeping contractors who either have no real understanding of their expenses or are not paying the overhead they're required to pay. We've run up against bids where, if the competitor is paying the prevailing wage and associated benefits like they're required to do, as well as dumping fees, etc., they only have $10 - $15 an hour left to run the sweeper. That is, of course, not realistic. I haven't found much of a loyalty base in road sweeping, any more than there was in dealing with the property managers. I'd say that less than 1% of customers are loyal if they can save money by going somewhere else. Plus, a lot of the work in my geographical area is gotten as a result of 'who knows who.' My best results have come from going out and hooking up with the foremen on a project and convincing him we're the guys to handle the job. You have to go out and make contacts; then, even if they have their own sweeper you'll be the one they call if their machine breaks down. One thing to make no mistake about: for milling work you simply must have a sweeper that's extremely dependable and performs at the top of its game at all times. I've done milling sweeping where we work for 10 hours at a stretch and dump every couple of minutes. Milling machines can go about 110' per minute, and they might have 2 machines going to get a 10' swath. If your sweeper breaks down or can't handle the pace, there's no hesitation for the foreman to call another sweeping contractor to come and take over. That's good only when you're the one who's being called. You may reach Hank Rodio via email. Ranger Kidwell-Ross is editor of WorldSweeper.com. You may reach him via the contact form on this website. |
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Parking Area Sweeping Contents
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I moved away from parking area clean up primarily because I had a terrible time getting good employees in this area. I would buy expensive Schwarze vacuum sweepers for $90,000 plus (including interest) apiece, and the people who applied to operate them were, by and large, from the bottom of society. They'd show up for interviews wearing Department of Corrections' ankle bracelets, be on parole or have suspended licenses. Although I paid good wages, I couldn't find people I could trust with my equipment.