When the city of Boise, Idaho wanted to restrict sweeper operation, Ranger Kidwell-Ross (then-editor of American Sweeper Magazine and WSA’s current Executive Director) wrote a detailed letter to city officials asking for street sweepers to be exempted from the newly-installed noise ordinance. This article contains that letter, which contains information WSA members may use.
The internet provides many new opportunities for learning. A website that caught our eye is called Veri, which is a site dedicated to both the learning and sharing of knowledge. There are a number of business-oriented ones that sweeping contractors might find useful.
Title: Puerto Rico’s Sweep and Vac Combines Contracting With Equipment Sales
In the 1970s, Carlos Nevares made decisions for the sanitation department of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In that position, he became familiar with a wide variety of equipment, including a number of types of sweepers. His long term goal became to get into the sweeping business, but he wasn’t motivated to do so until he saw a magazine ad for an entirely new type of sweeper.
“All of the sweepers I’d seen you had to tweak them every day to get them to work right,” said Nevares. “Then, in 1988 I saw an ad for a Schwarze air sweeper and was impressed enough that I visited the company in 1989. We talked business and essentially by buying the sweeper I became the dealer for Puerto Rico. I believe that today I’m the Schwarze company’s oldest dealership.”
An experienced contractor tells how to put forth a professional image on paper.
Boise contractors band together to create a dramatic media event against a crippling proposed noise ordinance. Although this happened some years ago, if you are having trouble with noise restrictions you will be able to glean a host of usable information from what Idaho’s Pavement and Parking Area Maintenance Association wrote about why sweepers should be exempt from noise ordinances.
Title: Canada’s Arrowhead Parking Services Sweeps the High Road, Gives Scofflaws the Boot and Much More
Paul Lemmon, the president of Arrowhead Parking Services, entered the sweeping industry via an unlikely background. Drawing on his background in law enforcement – which included stints with both Canadian Customs and with Immigration – he started as a consultant helping customers make sure their business signage conformed to legal guidelines.
However, after a few years of listening to customers’ needs, he decided to expand his firm into more hands-on areas of actually installing any needed signage. Then, it wasn’t much of a leap to start assisting in another pervasive area of need, construction and parking lot sweeping.
Yellow pages guru, Barry Maher, tells it like it is when it comes to yellow pages advertising.
The article offers a link that allows you to submit your website to a variety of search engines, including Yahoo!, Bing, Google and more. It’s easy to do and it’s FREE!
Title: From Startup to Success With a 40-Year-Old Sweeping Company
It’s quite a stretch from being a wholesale mortgage broker in Nevada to running a sweeping contracting business in Oregon, but that’s how Eddie Hamilton got his start in the industry.
Soon after having surgery for skin cancer he got a call asking him to come to Oregon to ‘package up’ a business so it could be sold. Knowing nothing about sweeping – but figuring that business was business – Hamilton saw the opportunity as something he could do and a way to get out of the mortgage business. Two years later, Hamilton decided to buy the company he’d made a success.
In today’s economy, the central constant is change. Reports from across the country confirm that bidding has become more challenging, with general declines taking place in both average price per sweep and service level per customer.
Many contractors are responding by expanding their service areas and/or scope of work. At the same time, they are finding themselves competing with more other contractors than ever before, as well as with other types of service companies.
