The Plow Profits Podcast

Tony Bonventre AI (00:00)
Welcome to the Plow Profits Podcast, Season One, Episode One.

Tony Bonventre (00:33)
Good morning and welcome to the Plough Prophets. I'm Tony and I'm with Joey.

Joey Mooch (00:38)
Good morning. How's everything?

Tony Bonventre (00:39)
Good. Just getting ready to start our ⁓ new podcast.

Joey Mooch (00:43)
That's it. I'm Joe Muchacharo. A lot of people refer to me as Joey Much here with Tony excited to bring up some very valuable points that I think need to be addressed in this industry.

Tony Bonventre (00:56)
Yeah, the podcast exists to bring some clarity back to this business. Yeah, we're going to.

Joey Mooch (01:00)
which is I think

much over needed.

Tony Bonventre (01:03)
So the show's not about pointing fingers, but it's more about education. Almost every level of service can be achieved, you gotta be willing to pay for it.

Joey Mooch (01:11)
Absolutely. With the cheap pricing, free snowpile expectations that are coming along with lot of these contracts and unrealistic.

Numbers that come along with a lot of it are things that think a lot of contractors are uneducated on their actual scope of work when they're getting these contracts and it's becoming a ongoing national issue. I think the end person who's seeing the worst part of it is the end provider.

Tony Bonventre (01:37)
Yeah, property managers, they're often sold a level of service that the math just can't support.

Joey Mooch (01:43)
Absolutely, absolutely. That's definitely where, where this industry has taken a nasty turn to, unfortunately.

Tony Bonventre (01:49)
Yeah, that's the gap was where the frustration lives for everybody So the pop profit

Joey Mooch (01:54)
Definitely. I think,

I think it's not just there's one person to blame. think it's a national issue with uneducation amongst facility managers. people that are, you know, obviously don't have a background, you know, you know, can't tell you how many times I've dealt with like a company.

you know, not saying name or anyone, but you know, where I'm talking to someone who lives in Texas about a storm mobile contract, you know, so they, they're at realistic expectations and understanding of the scope is just not there. so, you know, there's, there's multiple issues and then obviously there's also a big issue, I think with, you know, people that get in the middle of the contracts and take a big hefty portion for themselves as just kind of a brokerage fee.

So I think there's just an ongoing issue that a lot of people are just frustrated with, no one's addressing.

Tony Bonventre (02:37)
Absolutely. The, uh, well, you know, the, property managers don't turn around and start out with their contract saying, uh, we want, we want a cheap contract. That's not where they begin. Um, you know, they, they, but the problem is that is where they're beginning. Cause they're putting out these bids and they're just putting in their, um, RFP. We're looking to have the snowplow, you know, no, um, expectation.

as to what that actually means and

You know, they're looking more for like contractors to control the weather. Like do you find that too? You know, we just don't want it to snow. But getting back to my other point, the whole problem is in the RFP process. You know, the right from the beginning, the RFP goes out and you will plow snow on our parking lot. No mention of how much equipment or how much manpower.

Joey Mooch (03:11)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Tony Bonventre (03:30)
There's no mention of salt or how much salt needs to be applied. It's just a straight bid, give me a number. And then the national companies that are out there, they just put a number on there and I don't know if it's a self-performed number and then they try to sub it out on a self-performance number. I don't know how that's working right now.

Joey Mooch (03:50)
Yeah, no, think a lot of people are unclear on the formulas that are provided by a lot of these companies lately. But I mean, you know, in some of it doesn't make sense. Some of them are great. Some of them are awesome. And then, you know, you look at some of the other ones and you're just like, wait, where do come up with this? You know?

like one to four numbers that are ⁓ ridiculously cheap for a huge parking lot. four to eight numbers that are only a $300 increase. just didn't unrealistic numbers. It's seen across the board.

Tony Bonventre (04:22)
Yeah, I, I, ⁓ I was looking at one contract and the, ⁓ numbers on it were zero to six.

Joey Mooch (04:31)
Yeah, I've never

seen that before in my life, you know?

Tony Bonventre (04:34)
What is zero

to six? How exactly do you handle that? Well, I think the contractor's gonna put numbers on it for six inches, right?

Joey Mooch (04:42)
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean you'd have to, right?

Tony Bonventre (04:45)
Right.

So somebody gets a half inch of snow, they're paying for six inches of snow plowing and doesn't even make any sense.

Joey Mooch (04:50)
Exactly. Yeah, it's

unrealistic right there.

Tony Bonventre (04:54)
They probably should just write how much are you gonna charge to plow whatever's on the ground, one inch, two inch, three inch, and each time you do that. Putting a thing on there for six inches of a plow, it doesn't make any sense anyway. I know the zero to six is based more on a snowfall, storm total, not so much a purplish. ⁓

Joey Mooch (05:16)
Yeah,

I've also heard a lot of the nationals that are doing a one to four, four to eight, eight to 12. They're really pricing it one to three, three to six inch, you know, not push numbers, just inch numbers.

And ⁓ they're like kind of playing the gamble that do fall in between. You know, that's really what they're hoping. you, if they get a 3.6 storm, they got you covered up to, up to freaking four inches. You know I mean? And they're giving themselves an inch of where they're hopefully a couple of storms. They make an extra, you know, over the contractor, the contractors paying out on the same, on the same payment as a, as a two inch storm. And they're billing out for the next segment, but not showing it off to the contractor. So there's been a lot of creative

angles I'm seeing that they're playing. I gotta give a lot of credit. mean, it definitely takes some, some, ⁓ some ingenuity to sit down and come up with some of the stuff that I'm seeing, you know, or my, my favorite I've seen this year was, per hour plow truck and skid steer pricing. The rates were like under a hundred dollars for both. And it was net 90 days. Af per invoice approval. So if what the hell does that mean?

You know, I mean if your voice isn't approved, is the full where I want to get big, you know

Tony Bonventre (06:20)
Right.

Right,

well we don't have any money right now, so let's just not approve any invoices because then the clock doesn't start.

Joey Mooch (06:30)
Exactly.

what, like in, you know, I just, hope other people are reading and find writing like I am. I mean, it's, I hope guys aren't falling over and sinker and signing these deals because that could be a detrimental deal to someone that you're starting out, you know, I mean, stretching out your overhead that long. And it's, you got a bad winter. It's going to hurt.

Tony Bonventre (06:49)
Right? I, uh, you know, I was looking at some numbers and just to talk about this a little bit, um, you know, I, where does the gap exist? So these are real numbers, a gas station in Selkirk, New York, $119 a parking lot push and $29 for the walk service.

I'm not sure what to even think about that. It's a medium sized gas station, some kind of farm, something like that. But it's in Selkirk, $119 a push. Guys are getting driveways $119 around here.

Joey Mooch (07:27)
I don't understand that either. mean, that's the part to me where I just, I, and the crazy thing is, is I see the same numbers, the Ferreres in Connecticut, the same way. And then I see the contracts get taken and I'm just like, how, how, where, where, where do you justify this? You know, I mean,

Tony Bonventre (07:42)
Right, well,

we got a Lowe's in Half Moon, New York that's 324,000 square feet and it's $34,000 for the season. And guy's got a loader and a skid steer there and a truck. That number, it just doesn't math right.

Joey Mooch (07:58)
Yeah, I, I, part that bothers me was I'll never forget it was on Christmas day. I was sitting with my girlfriend's family and her uncle used to do a lot of snow plowing in the area. And he was telling me that he was doing a Lowe's Plaza here in 1995 for $120,000. And I know that it was awarded for under 30 grand this year. So, and I see the price of the equipment through the roof, the, the cost, you know, another variable that people don't take into consideration is, know, you got diesel

exhaust fluid you have to put in these machines and now you have you know all these extra freaking things that come along with it that you have to keep on staffing on end and the cost goes up on our end but the price is going down that far I just don't I don't see the gap I don't understand it

Tony Bonventre (08:43)
Yeah, same here. Same town, Walmart, in Half Moon. It's 560,000 square foot parking lot, 39,000 for the season. That's five more acres for 5,000 more dollars for the entire season.

Joey Mooch (08:56)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that means maybe some of this.

Tony Bonventre (08:57)
It doesn't make sense to me. drove by there yesterday

and there was a, a fairly new front end loader with a nice brand new boss, like maybe 16, 17 foot boss, push around the front. yeah, I'm just looking at some of this and saying, how are they paying people to do it? If it's 39,000 for the season? I mean, we all know half moons, like a 60 inch market.

Joey Mooch (09:05)
you

you

Yeah, that makes no sense to me. I mean, it's hard to accommodate those numbers in Connecticut on a 30 inch market. You know what I mean?

Tony Bonventre (09:27)
Right, yeah, I mean when I calculate the numbers I get five tons for an application times say 40 apps for the year. That's $20,000 just to buy the salt. The loader, if they're renting it, is 20,000. The mini loader.

Joey Mooch (09:34)
you

The solid spreader to put

it down is 12 grain.

Tony Bonventre (09:43)
Right, the mini loader next to it is 15,000, you know, and then like you said, 12 grand to have a truck that's assigned to that place for the year. That's $67,000 before labor, fuel, insurance, management.

Joey Mooch (09:57)
Yep.

Tony Bonventre (09:59)
That's a big gap between 67,000 and 39,000.

And then the manager is going to wonder why.

that the manager is going to wonder why the ⁓ property didn't get plowed to the standards that he wanted it.

Joey Mooch (10:13)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's, it's, there's going to be, there's a default line and everything, you know, and people don't understand that. And that's where I just don't see that people see, mean, you're going to come to a point where the contractor is going to show up and start doing it for free. You know what I mean? When he, he staffed out, I don't understand. mean, it just, it's the...

Tony Bonventre (10:16)
Right.

Joey Mooch (10:35)
There's a few people in the industry that are addressing it. It's, I believe a lot of it's this no snow that we had the last couple of years where we've had the mild winters that it's just kind of put people in the rhythm that all the, you know, climate's changing and, know, making this like it's a, like it's a, like it's a crap stable and not like it's a actual business model anymore.

Tony Bonventre (10:55)
100%. I agree. It is a craps table. The last three years, people have been rolling numbers. They've got their numbers up on the craps table. People rolling numbers. But this December, we got a new shooter that's throwing sevens like crazy. ⁓ I think it's, have you driven around, Joey? Have looked around at any sites?

Joey Mooch (11:12)
Yeah, very good.

I mean, I'm seeing Wendy's in Connecticut that are just not even being attempted anymore. Like it's like these guys just don't even show up or you don't see any salt in the parking lot. You don't see any calcium, you know, I'm seeing so many people cut corners this year where you just see straight rock salt on these beautiful concrete sidewalks. And I'm just like, my God. Like I, I mean, but at the same token, I understand it. You know, I, it's like you can't throw shame when

What's the guy going to do? You know, he's he can't afford $20 or not a bag, ice, melt, calcium, you know, when he's doing it for $30,000. But at the same token, why put yourself in that situation? You know?

Tony Bonventre (11:50)
Right.

Well, do you think any of this is based on contractors not understanding their pricing or do you think a lot of it is that they're just being given pricing that they have no choice and they just either have to decline it or take it.

Joey Mooch (12:11)
I think it's two issues to be exact.

I honestly, think a big play in this whole thing that a lot of people don't address is the social media side of it. You know, there's so the social media presence in the snow removal is 10 times bigger than it was eight years ago. You know, where there's it's it's it's kind of a cool image, you know. So I feel like a lot of these guys are just like, you know, we can make our truck payments. We can make our equipment payments going through the wintertime and keep keep our payroll flow off of these numbers, you know, not factoring in the actual expenses it's going to take.

each snowstorm and then they're sitting there again in a month like what the fuck you know what what's going on you know and I I think that that's

Tony Bonventre (12:51)
Right.

Yeah. So I'll explain a little about the, ⁓ you know, how the national model works. and again, I'm not trying to attack the, ⁓ the nationals on this. so what happens is the contract goes out and the property manager pays a national company for things like reporting and compliance and software and insurance and oversight.

And there is a ⁓ value attached to that. know, the problem though is, once all that comes off, the sub gets what's left. The expectations, they stay at the top of the chart, but ⁓ the sub's only getting the leftover money. So the budget flows to the bottom and you can't expect top tier performance on leftover money. However, that is what the...

contractors are getting, you know.

Joey Mooch (13:37)
no, couldn't agree more. And I think that that's a big issue that I'm starting to see. And then plus on top of that, you know, a lot of these national companies come in, they hold November and December's payment and don't want to start paying out until January to these guys, you know, so they, they start getting hammered in a month, like December, you know, their spring cleanup money is gone. You know, they're, they're, they're hurting right now now they're playing catch up the whole rest of the year. And they're not really rebounding themselves. And then what's that

to do to them next year, you know, all it's going to take is one winner for this to really change that look for a lot of these guys, you know, mean, up and realistically, we haven't had an active December like we just had in a very long time, you know, and it's really gonna.

Make a big deciphering, I think in this, rest of the service, you know, you're going to start seeing guys cut back on salt usage. You're going to start seeing guys start getting skimpy on, you know, application times and, and everything. Cause it's not cause they want to, it's because they're just what their books are allowing them to be able to do, you know.

Tony Bonventre (14:38)
Well, I often wonder if the, property manager, not the, ⁓ you know, the property manager building owner, the end customer, I often wonder if they actually realize how much of the, the top tier money, goes to the original contractor, you know, the national, snow company that has the, the, you know, the large amount of contracts.

How much money they're keeping and how much is not going to the boots on the ground company that's there I just ⁓ I Don't think they know

Joey Mooch (15:08)
that could. No, I couldn't agree more. I don't think they do either.

And then another big part of it that I swear is like, you know, it's nothing against the national companies. It's a national model. Like it just doesn't work in the pricing side of it.

You know, and you're bundling 300 sites together and putting a number on it of say, $39 million, $40 million. If it's, you know, use a, ⁓ a hardware store, for example, you know what I mean? And, ⁓

and say somewhere like that, right? So now they come in, they put a bundle number on that. Well, you know, how does that work when it's completely different in each region? You know, how about when you're in areas where there's a lot more times of a salt shortage, you know I mean? And now there's a variable in your price that goes up $85 a ton, you know, and now the end user is eating that.

Tony Bonventre (16:01)
Oh yeah, absolutely. you know, I, I begin to wonder, um, again, like I said about the pricing and what the, uh, end user knows. I heard a story recently, one guy was telling me that he's out plowing the parking lot and the building manager of the facility comes out and says to him, I'm paying you $150,000 for this site.

I expect it to be amazing what's going on out here. He elected not to tell him that he was only getting $74,000 for the site. That's just a huge, huge amount that's being lost and they can't get that work done.

Joey Mooch (16:41)
No, it's very true. mean, it's, it's very, it's very unrealistic. You know, I mean, it's, it's, see the quality of the contracts. There's a little, Connecticut's a pretty big snow market. I mean, it doesn't, it's not a huge snow total state, but there's a lot of pretty sophisticated infrastructures.

a lot of aerospace that goes down here, a lot of companies that are willing to pay a decent number. And you could see the difference in the guys that are working on a national contract, versus the sites that are kind of directed through the facility owners.

And you drive down the road and you look at the difference in the quality and it shows, you know what I mean? And it's because it's, it's, there's no, you know, if one company is going to take 30%, another company is going to take 30 % and then the end user is going to get the contract. What's left for that guy. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, it's, don't know.

Tony Bonventre (17:32)
Right.

Well then, and you know, look at all the technology that's out there right now. You got these crazy, plows with technology and, spreaders that talk to computers that talk to sprayers that, that, that rate how fast the trucks going and what the production is and all that stuff costs money. And when 90 % of the money is going to a company that had a, you know,

a good crew of people that could find more people and it didn't matter. So right now I'm looking at that this model is this. A large national company goes out, bids a ton of freaking properties, gets them all. The next thing on the list for that company to do is find people to plow them.

And the only thing that they do is put it out there and say, who's going to plow it cheap, right? They get the cheapest guys they can put them out onto the contract. And the customer is rarely very happy with it, but they're getting it done.

Joey Mooch (18:24)
Yeah.

Tony Bonventre (18:35)
⁓ At the end of the day, there is a little less care for the property manager because he knows that he has the insurance certificate of whoever the poor guy is that said he would take this on. And now the insurance and liability has been shifted to this small guy who may not have known that there was not enough money in this budget for him to do this contract.

Joey Mooch (18:58)
Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, that's that's the terrible.

side of this, you know, and I always thinking to get into the duration too, like New York city. And I do a lot of work with some companies on summertime work at work in New York. And I was one of them's a multimillion dollar construction company. And he was explaining to me, was national companies literally fail constantly in New York city. Because one thing I think that doesn't ever get taken into consideration in New York for contractors is tolls.

You I mean, you, got a tri axle truck coming through with a salter to do a big contract and you're, you're carrying fricking, you know, 12 yards of salt on you and you're going through the George Washington bridge, you're paying $150 to get that truck across the bridge, both ways. You know what I mean? And, and that's one thing that is just completely why I always say the regional model needs to be brought back into effect and the national model needs to be reflected.

Tony Bonventre (19:47)
Right.

Joey Mooch (19:58)
off

of a bunch of regional models put together because you know that's a prime example is that that's a variable that I just don't think it's it's taken into consideration you know like think about it you're gonna go pay a $20 total you're gonna go do a crumble of farms for 110 bucks you're gonna go pay a $25 toll every time you got to get across the bridge we go do that what's left for you now now you know

Tony Bonventre (20:22)
Right, well like,

we've discussed it before that, you know, well, how are these numbers so much lower? What got removed? Like, the thing that got removed was overhead, but it didn't get removed, it just got removed from the number.

Joey Mooch (20:31)
Yeah.

Exactly. No, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.

Tony Bonventre (20:36)
Then then we throw

things in there like zero tolerance, bear at all times, ice free conditions. mean, zero tolerance isn't really clearly defined anywhere, but they sure enforce it.

Joey Mooch (20:47)
Yeah. No, I mean, I mean, look, if zero tolerance in my eyes, if you're doing zero tolerance, then it's.

seasonal time and material or you're doing per push and time material because if you're, they're expecting for, you know, zero ice conditions at all times and you're going to not expect an application and come back in the morning and do another application and you're expecting someone to sit there, then that, falls in the ice watch category, you know? I mean, and that's one thing that these guys don't realize is who's going to be able to afford to every night after a snowstorm when the sun doesn't pop out and dry it up.

to be able to have a crew guys sit there all night long on a seasonal number that's really not that great as it is. You know what I mean? I mean, it's unrealistic. It's unrealistic.

Tony Bonventre (21:31)
Yes.

Yeah. Seasonal is, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't take refreeze into account. doesn't take poor drainage systems into account. It doesn't take the traffic on the roads of the guys trying to move between sites into account. It doesn't take.

Joey Mooch (21:46)
Well, that's the problem

is you don't see 90 % of this from Google Maps. You know what I mean?

Tony Bonventre (21:50)
Right.

Temperature swings. mean, there's all kinds of stuff that a seasonal doesn't take into account. I'd almost like to meet the first guy who said, I have an idea. No matter what you have there, I am going to do your account all inclusive on a seasonal number. What was he thinking?

Joey Mooch (22:11)
I want to meet, I want to meet these guys that are doing contracts for $65,000, but they pull up with a brand new Komatsu and brand new $60,000 metal plus. And you know, it's a one year contract for them. And I just, I really want to understand how they do it. I want to, that's the part to me. I'm just sitting there. like, what? Huh?

Tony Bonventre (22:26)
Yeah.

Joey Mooch (22:31)
You it's, it's, don't, I don't understand it. I don't understand that. You know, I mean, you look at the guys that are leaders in this industry that are doing these contracts the right way, you know, and guys I look up to and they have all this equipment, but they, look at the facilities they're on and you know, they're getting paid the right amount of money to do it. What they're doing. You know what I mean? I mean, it's, it's, there's

Tony Bonventre (22:50)
Right.

Joey Mooch (22:53)
It's I don't know and then I see it on the lower level too and I see these guys with brand new metal pluses brain you this brain you that and it's you know contractors awarded for $32,000 where did you?

Tony Bonventre (23:03)
Right. And the ⁓

plow costs 60.

Joey Mooch (23:07)
Yeah. Yeah. And, know, it's a one year contract. It's not like you got it signed on a five year deal with a 10 % increase each year. You know what I mean? It's it's you're, you're sitting there doing is hoping that you get, have some more for that machine to go again the next year and you're on a five year finance deal with, don't, I don't know. I don't know.

Tony Bonventre (23:16)
Alright.

Yeah, their accountant and their CFO is like pulling their hair out saying this math doesn't work. The math doesn't work.

Joey Mooch (23:30)
That's

no, it doesn't. I, that's where I, but I, that's where I don't understand. I don't, that's the, that's the other gap in this industry that just boggles my mind, you know? And then you see him pull up with a $22,000 VSI brine sprayer and then another truck with a brand new fricking $12,000 hilltips out there. I'm like,

Tony Bonventre (23:42)
All

Joey Mooch (23:50)
What are you doing a hundred thousand of these at this place to pay your overhead? Where were you? don't know. I don't know. I don't know

Tony Bonventre (23:58)
Oh,

yeah, I don't get it either. You know, the pricing though, you know, not being, you know, on a seasonal and the numbers not being taken into account, the everything to me appears that it's based on what the annual snowfall is. That's what they, want to base the number on. And I know listeners are probably saying right now, what else are you going to base it on?

I think that is probably one of the least important numbers. you're in Buffalo, New York like today or Syracuse today, right? They're getting 39 inches of snow since two days ago. That's one event. It came in 20 hours. Yeah, it's gonna be a big cleanup. But if you get 32 inches of snow in Trenton, New Jersey,

Joey Mooch (24:28)
It really is.

Tony Bonventre (24:49)
on 37 events. What's going to cost more?

Joey Mooch (24:53)
Exactly, you know.

Tony Bonventre (24:54)
You know, they're not to.

Joey Mooch (24:54)
I mean, honestly,

the only thing that's keeping those guys alive at that point is praying for stone removals, you know, hoping that the facilities can't hold the capacity of the snow and they got to truck it out and haul it out. And they make some of their money back, they're losing in their snow removal. mean, that's the only thing that makes any sense in my mind, you know, which is still makes zero sense because, you know, you're owning a $250,000 loader.

Tony Bonventre (25:12)
Right. Yeah.

Joey Mooch (25:18)
that you're putting hours on services, not cheap on the fricking things. You know what I mean? And now you got to burden fuel at six gallons an hour. You know what I mean? It's what do you, how do you, how do you sustain it? You know, I don't know.

Tony Bonventre (25:33)
Well, I was talking to a guy, not long ago who was down in Florida who lives there. but he works for, know, a national facilities management company. And, you know, we're just having a chat and he's telling me he was bidding some snow removal and they, you know, I'm like, well, what kind of calculator are you using? know, w w you know, what's your production rates and, how much salt you're putting per application and this and that. And he's like, no, no, no, no.

We have a different formula. What's a different formula? He's like, it's a square foot times inches times months that it snows times 10 cents. And that's what we're charging. I'm like, whoa, wow.

Joey Mooch (26:12)
That's insane. Look how many variables you're leaving out.

Tony Bonventre (26:15)
A million? I mean...

Joey Mooch (26:17)
I mean, you know,

like, here's the way, look at it for like a freight or shipping hub, right?

They have massive salt bins on the facilities and almost all of them. Right. So any contractor that's going to come in and properly. Provided a good end service, right? Is going to either one have a good deal on buying massive amounts of bulk salt. So they are locked in on a set price throughout the season or two, they're going to have to put 350 tons of salt into the bin. Right. Now they're going to have to get majority of their equipment on site where a lot of these, if they're not owning them and they're

doing the lease on them, you're looking at first month, last month to get the piece of equipment there, right? Now you're putting all, adjusting all your insurance, like our pigments for everything. You're adjusting all this. This is all going on November, December. This is before it even you see a snowflake. You know what I mean? And so now you get a management company where it's holding back November, December's payment. And you know, you're getting paid finally starting in January. Look at your money and your overhead you have out of your pocket already, just to be able to.

sustain and be locked in, you know, I mean, you're, know, a lot of these guys, no one's going to take a gamble of, think we've all learned our lesson from the salt shortages. You know, you're not going to sit there and take a gamble and hope that you're going to be able to live tri-axle by tri-axle each storm, unless you're locked in on a pier, you know, and it's seeing it right now. I'm seeing it up in upstate New York. It looks like these guys are getting killed. I'm seeing $190 a ton for treated salt. Like that's, that's insane.

that's almost double what it cost this year, you know? And I feel bad when I see that because I'm sure there's 90 % of these national contracts do not have a clause in place for, you know, assault increase.

Tony Bonventre (27:59)
Right. And everyone knows this problem. Everyone knows all these problems. We're all familiar of them. We complain about them. And I feel that, you know, the plow profits, one of our goals is going to be to try to help fix it. not so much complain about it, but we're, we're going to bring some valuable ideas.

and some valuable education training with our guests that will be property managers and snow contractors and, you know, national snow and ice managers. we'll bring them right on. We'll talk to them and, you know, see what they're thinking. Maybe they can give us some insight as to, what's actually going on. you know, how they're bidding these things and, who bears the responsibility of some of the overhead and the insurance costs and

You know, the snow stakes and everything that just gets overlooked. you know, we should be able to, ⁓ define service levels, you know, service levels. I just feel like that is a huge problem by itself. The, the communication breakdown on what the service levels are between the national snow company or, know, the primary contractor, the facility manager, and then the.

snow contract are actually there.

Joey Mooch (29:09)
Yeah, no, seriously.

Tony Bonventre (29:10)
you know, maybe there's a better way to price things. Maybe it's more of a tiered pricing. mean, some of the pricing models aren't horrible. The ones that, you know, contain a floor and ceiling and, and, but I think it can't just be a floor and ceiling. It's gotta be a floor, a ceiling, but then include the things like refreeze and drainage problems and traffic and ice watches that, know, are

non-related to a snow event all that has to be in there is time and material but you can have tiered pricing for the basic snow like we're gonna give you you know a seasonal number that 0 to 30 inches is X and 30 to 60 inches is Y and anything over 60 is this much

Or maybe once it's over 60 we switch to time and material because you know we've covered our costs, we've covered our overhead, you know now it's time to just plow and get things done. Clear triggers in these contracts would help things. How many contracts do you have that the trigger isn't clear?

Joey Mooch (30:17)
⁓ not really any.

Tony Bonventre (30:19)
That's good. But you know, how many

of you think are out there that the trigger isn't clear for other

Joey Mooch (30:23)
A million.

I mean, I've seen it, you know?

Tony Bonventre (30:26)
You know, ⁓

Joey Mooch (30:26)
I mean, that's,

that's the only way that I've ever seen. I'm like, how do you make money on these $109 gas stations? You know, do you, what do you, what do you got to do here? You got to have a really good plow operator that could plow the whole lot in like 30 minutes. Leave, drive down the street and come back in 30 minutes and get a push out of it every hour. mean, yeah. Like how, how are you going to, it's the only, I mean, I don't know.

Tony Bonventre (30:45)
Yeah. Right. You got a six inch storm and you plow it 12 times.

Joey Mooch (30:55)
I don't know.

Tony Bonventre (30:58)
Well,

and, and on the zero tolerance properties, I, know what I think about zero tolerance is, well, first, let me tell you my joke on zero tolerance. Zero tolerance to me is that the site manager is not going to have any tolerance for anything. Like that's what it means to me. This guy has no tolerance. he's going to complain about everything.

So, but that's not what it means. And we know that it means basically, almost bare pavement at all times, almost always clear, almost always ice free. that's, that's your tolerance. But what I believe about zero tolerance is it shouldn't be a zero tolerance contract. It should be a limited zero tolerance contract, meaning there are zero tolerance zones. Right? So, Hey, this front entrance,

⁓ into this place and this front door and this particular loading dock has to be treated as a priority of zero tolerance. mean zero tolerance should not cover the entire site.

Joey Mooch (31:57)
So.

I just pulled this contract up and this was one that I actually seen pricing come across. And this was the pricing structure of a company that I really, really liked their idea. Right? So what they do is they ask, they give you tasks, one to three inch. So they want you to perform, give them a number on what each one to three inch storm would cost you. Right. And then they sit, they, they give you 10 one to three inch storms factored into it. So you multiply.

by

10 times that number, you come up with that number. this, example, this contract was 21.99 each. So multiplied that by 10 came out to be $21,199, right? Then another one, was six to 12 inch.

Or no, was three to six, same thing, up, multiplied that by eight, then you went to eight to 12, they gave you five events at that, so your number on that times that equals that, And then you have your sanding and salting, which your number on that came out to be, they gave you, where is it?

They put you down for 25 applications for the season, right? So you gave them that number of times that you add the whole thing up with an increase and of 4.85 % at the end of the season. And I'm like looking at this, I'm like, this makes sense. Like I could understand why they came off of that. These numbers didn't just come out of somewhere. You know what I mean? But they, they factored in, you know, and they, give you at least a realistic breakdown so they could at least see where their money's going. But it's, it's based off of something. It's not just a seasonal.

number that's coming out of the air is what I'm saying. You know, it's like, at least here.

Tony Bonventre (33:35)
Yeah, more and more I've been,

more and more I've been seeing contracts like that, that are, you know, more transparent. And like, I think that's the way things are going to eventually go a little bit. but there's definitely going to be more creativity in these different contracts.

Joey Mooch (33:53)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, but you know, at least just

I feel like it eliminates a lot of questions when you put it in a perspective like that, you know, where facility managers can see like, okay, well, this is where this number came from. You know, this is why we're here at this number. You know, it's not like they just sit there and they're like, Oh, look at this guy. just got paid. Go freaking X amount X, Y, and Z. And he didn't, he plowed snow three times last year. We had a mild winter. Yeah. Well that guy still had a hundred thousand dollars in equipment payments and overhead. You know what I mean? Like whether it's snowed or not, there's still.

a

lot of expense there. The guy still has 300 tons of salt sitting in that salt bin over there that's been paid for. You know what I mean? So what it's it's that's the part that I think is not transparent.

Tony Bonventre (34:36)
Absolutely.

Joey Mooch (34:38)
Well.

Tony Bonventre (34:38)
All right.

the property managers, we get them on the show. should be fun. That should be interesting. as well as, ⁓ I'm to try to get some of the national snow contractors, representatives from them to see if we could sneak them on the call. We might have to do that voice, this cover up for them.

Joey Mooch (34:56)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Tony Bonventre (34:58)
This is John from Xsnowremoval.

Joey Mooch (35:03)
Yeah

Tony Bonventre (35:04)
We're protecting his identity.

Joey Mooch (35:06)
Yeah, everybody have to.

Tony Bonventre (35:07)
Yeah, so, ⁓ yeah, so that's, that's what we're going to do. I mean, ⁓ I think a big part of it, I I'm looking forward to, I want to ask like property managers. I want to come right out and ask them, you know, do you know what your contractor actually gets? Like, are you aware? Like the, I think they don't, you know, I mean, ⁓

Joey Mooch (35:27)
There's no way they know.

Tony Bonventre (35:31)
I use the example the other day with somebody, you know, someone shows up at my house, you know, you know, national lawn mowing company, shows up, you know, they have like a brighter view of things and, ⁓ they show up at my house and they say, Hey, we're going to give you a quote for your lawn. And it's.

$100 a week. We're gonna cut your lawn and I'm like, well you guys are the best right? Yes. We're the best. We're the best in the country All right, cool, and I hire them and then some guy that I recognize from town, you know shows up at my house with a push mower and You know his kid and you know, they weed whack mo they do an okay job. They get the job done They've met the requirement. They mowed my grass

They didn't bag anything. didn't, you know, do the greatest job blowing things off. Didn't pony weeds out or anything. Uh, however, you know, I'm talking to them at the end and I'm like, I'm surprised that you're, uh, you know, you guys have such an old truck and everything. I you guys were the best company out there. That's why I hired you. And you know, that's why I'm paying you a hundred dollars a week. And then they look at me and say a hundred dollars a week. We're only getting $25 a week. Yeah.

I think I would feel ripped off.

Joey Mooch (36:43)
Yeah, absolutely. That's very true.

Tony Bonventre (36:45)
Right?

So if, you know, there's a DHL site, very random, you know, company that I'm going to use for this example is there's a DHL site and there's a manager sitting in his office and his job is to manage this facility and a company, called, Mr. National snow company.

Turns around and he gets the contract for all of the DHLs in the country. And then he's getting a hundred grand for that site.

⁓ He's getting a hundred grand for that site And then he has a conversation with the snow contractor that gets put on his job and that guy is getting a total of I Don't know 45,000 I feel like that DHL manager is gonna be pretty pissed off

So, you know

Right. Right. I think, ⁓ over time, one of the things I'm looking forward to is I think the race to the bottom started. I think the race to the bottom has ended, especially with the current weather we've had, the no snow model has just broken. is snowing. but I can't wait to, as we go through our podcast and episodes,

think we should start to announce the winners of that race. Who won? Who got to the bottom?

Right?

You know, snow has gotten so cheap at this point and, know, it just needs to flip now. It needs to turn around. You've mentioned earlier that, you know, 1990s money was better than, ⁓ the money that people are getting today.

Yeah, 100 % that the the the the newer equipment with better production coming out of them is definitely but

Exactly. Exactly.

Uh-huh. Yeah. You know, I mean...

This cheap snow model is just not sustainable. We all know that the bottom's gonna fall out and we've got a lot to do to try to bring it back and educate property managers. They should feel more informed and not blamed so much. I don't blame the property managers.

You know, they're only doing what they're being told by the people talking to them. And the people talking to them are the national snow companies. know, contractors, I mean, they're just trying, they're in an area and there's only five sites there. And the only way they can get one of them is to turn around and agree to the ridiculous terms, you know, or just don't do it at all.

I know it's easy for guys to say, just don't plow. But you know, people need to feed their families.

Absolutely. Yeah. mean, lots of guys are just taking the work and I think part, I mean, yeah, part of it is they don't know their numbers. They don't know that it's a bad deal, but I don't think it's even a hundred percent that, right? You know, I think some of it is guys just want the work. They just want to do it back to your thing with, you know, you're going to talk more about that. The, uh, the Facebook profiles where guys are, you know,

out like, like the young girls on a bar at night, they're standing in front of their loader, holding the leg up, looking at the camera, taking a picture with the Walmart sign behind them.

Joey Mooch (39:53)
Yeah, I don't understand. And that's like, dude, you got a $22,000 snow pusher there. You got a brand new loader that's got to be either leased or anything. So you're still looking at four grand a month for no matter what you're looking at it. And and you're doing it for $36,000. Where where where's what's going on here? You know?

Tony Bonventre (40:13)
Right now, I mean, what kind of status is that when you turn around and.

Joey Mooch (40:16)
I dropped the Western plow off the other

day just to get a cutting edge. I had new headlights that I already owned. So I just had them installed on the, on the plow update to new headlights. So that installed new fluid change, everything 1200 bucks. So, you know, that's something that in my eyes, if you're a reputable contractor, you're going to do, ⁓ get all your stuff service properly.

That's an expense you're have every year. I mean, we're just swamped as it is with keeping all up with the rest of our stuff. 90 % time we do it ourselves and what we save ourselves 250 bucks. know what I mean? Sometimes it's just easier to source it out, it's just, that's the 1,250 bucks for a power service. Your salter, if you're...

You're going to run into an issue with a salter within three years. Bearings, chain, something. So factor that into it, right? Nevermind the freaking 10 grand it's going to cost you for any decent V-Box spreader. So you're looking at that and then you're looking at, you know, the truck you're putting it on. You know what I mean? These trucks are anywhere from 60 to $100,000 now.

So you fact, you need, you need one of everything I just mentioned. Plus, you know, if you're going to do more than one side, you're to need multiple of those. So how are you going to sustain just a truck being $120,000 when you're getting $60,000 of the contract.

Forget about the loader. You can't even pay for the loader now. I don't get it. I don't get it. You know, unless these guys are just making a fortune on mowing lawns in fall cleanups and they're just taking the loss in the wintertime. I don't know if it's, if it's that, I don't get it. But that's, that's the only thing that I can wrap my head around.

Tony Bonventre (41:42)
Right?

Yeah, I mean, there's there are some contracts out there that that pay well. I mean, there's some guys that they know their numbers and they're getting their numbers and I don't think many exist in the world where they're subcontracting for a national company. I don't think those really good contracts exist that much in there not without

some creative billing like plowing a gas station 12 times on a six inch snowstorm

Joey Mooch (42:23)
Yeah, that's very true.

Tony Bonventre (42:25)
you know, but, you know, let's talk, ⁓ at the end here on how, you know, we're going to make a difference, like how we're going to, try to help educate and, you know, expose some things to the property managers that we have on as guests, and talk to them about, you know, what, goes into their snow program and, what it takes to,

You know, fully staff up and, perform the services at their facility. Right. I think they don't know. I think it should be fun. And, you know, it's going to be an education thing. not going to beat anybody up, you know? So if you're thinking about being a guest on our show, as a property manager, this is going to be a very productive time, productive conversation, educational conversation.

Joey Mooch (42:51)
Yeah.

Tony Bonventre (43:10)
Some back and forth. I mean, we'd like to learn from you guys as well. What you guys are thinking when you're bidding these out what's important to you. The communication breakdown is incredible.

Joey Mooch (43:20)
Yeah, absolutely. Now there's a lot of questions that I think everybody has that I'm excited to try to get some answers for.

Tony Bonventre (43:27)
Yeah. So if you're a property manager, you know, you can, ⁓ get in touch with me, at tony at snow operations group.com. If you want to send me a email, if you're interested in being a guest, we'd love to have you.

Joey Mooch (43:41)
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to getting a couple on here and seeing just as many different angles of this industry as we can.

Tony Bonventre (43:49)
Yeah, there's, I mean, it's unlimited. and I'm sure that many manager to manager all have different theories. you know, on what, you know, what type of things, ⁓ they think about with, ⁓ there's no, you know, we can get better contracts and better alignment. You know, their expectations of the service would be better.

Joey Mooch (44:08)
Absolutely, no I couldn't agree more.

Tony Bonventre (44:10)
We've talked about some real pricing and you know.

And we've talked about, ⁓ you know, just what the problem is. We, we're not going to go over that every week. We already know most plow guys know what they, ⁓ what the problems are. now our next episodes are going to be all about fixing it. each episode, we will spend a little time discussing, you know, different parts of a contract or different parts of a service level agreements.

episode two, on top of having a guest, we will also, discuss what the different service levels, are and what they actually cost, you know, you know, it's kind of like going to the car wash when you, ⁓ go to the car wash and there's, ⁓ you know, the bronze wash, the silver wash and, you know, the gold wash and then the crazy platinum wash, you know,

Customers have a choice. mean, if you have a lay down yard for empty tractor trailers that just sit in the middle of a gravel pit, your level of service is probably not going to be the gold level service in that parking lot, right? But if you are a pharmaceutical company that's ⁓ welcoming,

Joey Mooch (45:15)
Absolutely.

Tony Bonventre (45:23)
representatives from other countries at a grand entrance to your facility to discuss billion dollar deals where you might want that gold service.

Joey Mooch (45:33)
I mean, I've, I've came across emergency response contracts that we pulled up on this year where it just got, they just hire anyone on the plot truck these days because I mean, snow piled up and pushed into handicapped spots. You know what I mean? Like just the common sense part of it's kind of gone through it in some of this industry. And it just, it's, that's where I think a big part of this is there's no vetting that goes on. don't think there's any, any contract vetting of some of these contracts.

Tony Bonventre (45:58)
Well, I remember

a long time ago with, you know, some companies that were out there, like us maintenance companies that were out there, they used to really vet. I mean, they would call you up and, they were like, we have a.

CVS in, you know, whatever town USA, how long have you been plowing? You know, how many trucks do you have? how many employees on staff? Can we see your financials and proof of financial stability? can we, we need to get a copy of your COI and verify it.

You know, we need six references to do a CVS. This is how it was like 15 years ago when these national companies first started. was a million questions. Now, now it's like, do you have a federal ID number and do you have a certificate of insurance? We really don't care what the, what the business you're in is. We just, know, ⁓

Joey Mooch (46:58)
I've

heard stories of guys just getting phone calls at 1.30 in the morning after they've been done piling for two days and they're just like, we'll...

whatever it takes to get you to go do this account. They'll send them Venmo payments from businesses, from national companies, Venmo companies. I've heard some crazy, crazy things that some of these companies have had to go to extremes to get their contracts done. It's pretty insane. Some of it is unintentionally. I think a lot of it is not intentional. Then there's another side of this whole business that is just straight

pure greed that I feel that I don't think a lot of people are seeing. I think there's multiple different angles. I think part of it is some companies just struggle with the growth. They're growing at a rapid rate and they're having a hard time keeping up, which is understandable. But then when it just...

You know, there's definitely I've heard multiple people with like angles of like, it doesn't snow in November and December in Connecticut. Let's try to find a contractor in December so we can keep November and December's payments, you know, on 300 contracts. That's a couple extra million dollars they just put in their pocket. You know what I mean?

Tony Bonventre (48:05)
I think.

I think greed is definitely the case. I definitely think it greed is. I mean, how much money does a company that, you know, if you think about it, what, what did they actually do? Like they, they send out reports, maybe,

Joey Mooch (48:13)
Yeah, absolutely.

Tony Bonventre (48:28)
They make sure that the guy has insurance, right? They utilize somebody else's software usually, but they make sure that the software is getting used. They make sure that there's an insurance policy in effect. And I don't even know about oversight. I really don't. There's very few companies that have service managers out and about.

during a snowstorm. Very few.

Joey Mooch (48:54)
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Tony Bonventre (48:56)
But this

is how it gets sold, you know, to, um, Amazon, so to speak. This is how it gets sold to them. We're going to have a portal. That's a lot. I'm being a national guy right now. Right.

We're going to have a portal that's live. We're going to offer reporting on how often you got plowed. We're going to show you photos and videos and, what the weather was and, and everything we're going to report every year. So much data. You're not going to know what to do with it. And then we're going to make sure that all our operators and drivers are licensed.

to drive the vehicles that they're driving and make sure they're properly permitted to be operating the equipment that they're operating. And we're going to make sure that your billing is being done in a timely fashion and you have the bills right up to date and that the operator has the proper insurance. And then we're going to make sure that they're going out when it snows and we're going to monitor the weather for them and all that. we're, you know,

we're gonna keep about you know, 58 % of the money.

Joey Mooch (50:08)
Yeah, yeah, where does that come from?

Tony Bonventre (50:11)
Right. 58 % of the money that's already 20 % lower than it should be.

Joey Mooch (50:18)
Yeah, no, I agree. doesn't make the, that's the margins that I don't understand, man. You know, I try to stay away from it as much as I can.

Tony Bonventre (50:24)
However, everything

I just mentioned, I mean, that is a service that is needed for that large national chain. They need to have that service. I just don't think, it costs that much to provide that service, and I don't think the value's there.

And I think no less than 80%, you know, maybe 75 to 80 % of the money on that contract should be making their, making its way to the contractor that's actually performing the services. So he has enough money to do it. But I think that once a large company turns around and says, Hey, we need to use a national, we use company that's gonna, you know, one stop shopping for us.

Well, I don't think that the service provider plowing the snow should have to bear all of the cost of the reporting compliance, software, insurance, oversight, everything like that. Why doesn't the national company pay? So here's my question to the national companies. Why are you not billing your customer?

for all the services you're providing. Why are you billing your contractor for it? Because that's what you're doing.

Joey Mooch (51:38)
Yeah, no, couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.

Tony Bonventre (51:41)
You know, contractor doesn't care if the reports are getting sent to the, mean, it's, you know, these are not services that the local contractor would be providing constantly to a direct contract. If they were doing it, it's just not there, but well, what else you got?

Joey Mooch (51:58)
think that's pretty much it, man. I think we finally get a little bit of break in this weather. It's been a very active December. Guys have been pushing through hard and we've been killing it. mean, know, a couple adjustments had to be made. Some equipment went down. Stupid bullshit like everyone has to deal with, you know, start of the season. But I think we've got a good game plan and we've been, you know, our biggest and...

Tony Bonventre (52:03)
Yep.

Joey Mooch (52:25)
⁓ you know most intense operation facilities that were operating 24 seven we've been ⁓ really having a really good grasp on and the guys have been just really doing a great job on pushing through on all of them so i've been excited about that you know

Tony Bonventre (52:39)
I think you're excited because you're going to go someplace warm.

Joey Mooch (52:42)
Yeah,

yeah, I'm excited to get the fuck away from this shit for a little bit. Gonna be going to Punta Cana here with my girlfriend and her family for the first time. The trip that's been going on for seven years that I've yet to be able to break away from. So shout out to my guys for being as good as they are. And we've really just got a good thing going. These guys really treat this place like it's their own. So, you know, that's nice where I could get away for a couple of days and.

Obviously, I've looked into a flight on standby for almost every day. If I have to to get home, if there is a massive event, you know, I would be obviously coming home right away for that. ⁓

Tony Bonventre (53:18)
Yeah,

it's looking pretty good right now. At least that's what the weather guys are saying. ⁓

Joey Mooch (53:23)
Yeah, I feel

like the last, every, every, I mean, shit, what we were, it was Christmas day and we weren't really, they, I think they were still saying one to three inches. then Christmas night at like eight o'clock reports came in five to eight. And then the next morning they went up to eight to 10. And, ⁓ that was a very active storm. were.

That was like our first actual big push, of course. Of course it goes on that way, right? The year that you take down a bunch more sites and bigger sites, your first storm, big storm, you're going to have to push is going to be eight 10 inches. But I almost like it better that way sometimes because it just kind of slows operations down and you gotta just keep pushing and get it done. And that's it, you know.

Tony Bonventre (54:04)
Absolutely. So yeah, I'm a little jealous that the possibility exists that our next ⁓ podcast you'll be sitting on a beach.

Joey Mooch (54:05)
So.

Yeah, yeah, that will be the case. We'll be tuning in from the beach to the hard rock. So I'm excited for that. So, all right,

Tony Bonventre (54:19)
Nice. All right. Well, with that,

I will say from the plow profits, we are going to have a next episode will be coming up. Like I said, we'll have a guest and we'll be discussing what difference it, you know, what the different service levels actually are and what they actually cost and ⁓ how there's a difference between the service levels and how that equates into the cost.

Joey Mooch (54:43)
Absolutely.

Tony Bonventre (54:43)
But

until then raise your plow, raise your profits, raise your price.

Joey Mooch (54:49)
That's right, I'm with you.

Tony Bonventre (54:51)
Take care. So long, guys. Have a good week.

Joey Mooch (54:51)
See you.

Use wall.