Would you use this service if you had access to it?

Question

If you were a contractor or a real estate agent or a property investor or a landlord etc in the state of Minnesota, would you use the service of a junk removal company on a contract basis if that company was able to work within your budget and get projects completed on time?

Scott Mac · Answer

I'm not in your state, but clarifying your Vision for this business might help others respond better, and give you a better, more accurate picture of the demand.

Here are some of my thoughts.

"Junk": Hoarder type junk, or typical junk left behind by low income renters, such as clothes, mattresses, kids toys, old food, etc..., or are you talking about removing "Scrap" from demo jobs, such as old cabinets, old furnaces, old water heaters, old wallboard, lath and plaster demo, etc.. (???)

Will you have insurance for your business and workers comp for your workers, or just winging it with a Craig's list ad.

Are you talking a cash side gig for yourself, or W2 workers and billing for service.

Will you do any demo, such as disconnect a furnace, or water heater, or remove cabinets from the walls before hauling off.

Will you remove debris and unwanted things and leave the room "Broom Clean" or will you just walk it out.

Will you haul outdoor demo, such as mature bushes, tree limbs, etc...and will you also remove them from the ground or tree.

Good Luck!

Christopher Kinnaman · Answer

Also, you mentioned having a W-2. Yes even if it is just myself there's still going to be w-2s and there will be w2's for anybody that is working with me or a 1099 if they're a subcontractor which I'm trying to stay away from having those. It is however going to be a family-owned and operated business but once again anybody working for me it doesn't matter what their position is will have a W-2

Christopher Kinnaman · Answer

Yes there will be insurance. Even if the only employee is myself there will still be insurance. Everything will be broom clean unless otherwise specified by the customer. Yes there will be demo work if needed. If there are things such as brush that needs to be ripped out of the ground and hauled away we will do that too. If a customer is walking me through the property and they say that cabinets need to be taken off the walls, guess what.. those cabinets are coming off the walls. Basically it's my job to do whatever I can to make sure that the customer is 100% happy before I leave that job.

so once again insurance, yes. Demo work, yes. Broom clean, yes. Is this just a side job for now? The short answer for that is yes however I'm working very hard on making it full time.

Corey Hawkinson · Answer

@Christopher Kinnaman I agree with Randy. I don’t see the need for an ongoing contract. I am in Minnesota and have used junk removal, but only when needed which is unpredictable from my perspective as a landlord.

Scott Mac · Answer

Naming it something like

============

Kinnaman Real Estate Demo and Hauling

Serving X County since 2020

Call (or text) us for a free bid (123) 456-7890

===========

might get the point across quickly.

Christopher Kinnaman · Answer

Thanks for the info. It's much appreciated

James Hamling · Answer

As for pricing, it just needs to be simple, simple enough that it fit's on 1 sheet of paper, and that the average half-whit can look at that paper and get a good idea of what there project is going to cost in 5 minutes or less.

And have your set retail price, off this simple pricing model that you can put right on website for all to see, THEN have a "For The Pro's" call-to-action for contacting you to find what THERE discount will be from that. This is a model all GC's know and use from our material suppliers, we get a multiplier based upon our volume for our discounting from retail. EZ, now you don't have to make a different price for every person who contacts, you can give them there individual multiplier discount based upon volume.

As far as doing PPC, I would say that's a complete waste of $. You want GC's and Realtors, it's simple, we are all listed, put together an e-mail and say your looking to earn our life-time business and for that willing to make the first job discounted all the way to a net-$0, just for trying out the service. BUT be careful, you WILL get replies so don't shoot it to 1,000 then have to say sorry you got 245 replies and can only do 20 per week. Start simple, 100, test reply rate for 1 day, 3 day, 1 week. Then do another e-mail next week. Track response and scale your e-blast based upon response.

I guarantee you will only have to do this max of 1yr, after that will have such client list that it goes into maintaining clients and slowly adding as can scale up. And especially add in Property Management, PM will probably be #1 client to be honest, we run into such need for then anyone else.

Keep it simple.

Christopher Kinnaman · Answer

@James Hamling yes I totally understand what it is that you're talking about. I'm currently working with a marketing firm that is putting together a simple website as well as running Google ads and also just generally trying to build up my online presence. Another thing that they are actually working on is putting together a Google my business page. On the website, they are going to have a book appointment function on there to make it as easy as possible for the customer. What I was getting at with my posting on here is if a contractor or real estate agent or whatever wanted to use my service and let's say the first time I talked to them in their job happens to be let's say half a load or a full load. Let's go with a full load just for simple purposes and that full load happens to come out at $500 let's say and I tell them that moving forward every time it's a full load is going to cost $500, would you use that service? Of course I know that there are things that are going to affect that price such as weight and how many stairs and general labor involved as well as how bulky the actual items are but in reality I want to do what I can to try and make my prices as consistent as possible. Especially if the same person is calling me up a couple times a month or even once a month. If somebody is consistently using my service I want to try and keep the prices the same for that particular person as much as possible. I also want to try and be as transparent with that person as much as possible.

James Hamling · Answer

I know what you mean Christopher; Contract as in contracted set prices/discount level, so have a known pricing matrix going into any job such as set per labor hr rate, known flat fee per ___ item etc..

And answer is YES, 100%. There is few to none in the disposal side of things with organization or systemization of such, so yeah, would make things much easier to send job referrals.

What would be also nice to have is a simple website, think WIX type, that has simple "book a job" or request online form.

Functions like scheduling such things, via phone is just antiquated and not time efficient for anyone, not to mention lack of documentation.

Would you use this service if you had access to it?

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