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ADVICE- I started a crane, scaffolding and earth moving machines rental business

alemoney

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Good morning everyone, i'm 26 years old from Italy. I started a cranes, scaffolding and earth moving machines rental business. I have 3 cranes, 2 self- assembling with arm 26 meters and 18 meters, and 1 tower crane with an arm of 45 meters. 1 skid steer, 2 mini excavators, 1 telescopic hanler and 3.000 meters of scaffolding. I'm finalizing the web site. I started 1 month ago, i found 2 customers for now. Luckily i don't have many fixed costs. How can i increase the number of customers and make the company known? thank you
 
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BlokeInProgress

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Question, how did you find those heavy machinery? The answer to this question may give you some idea.
 
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Guest-5ty5s4

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Good morning everyone, i'm 26 years old from Italy. I started a cranes, scaffolding and earth moving machines rental business. I have 3 cranes, 2 self- assembling with arm 26 meters and 18 meters, and 1 tower crane with an arm of 45 meters. 1 skid steer, 2 mini excavators, 1 telescopic hanler and 3.000 meters of scaffolding. I'm finalizing the web site. I started 1 month ago, i found 2 customers for now. Luckily i don't have many fixed costs. How can i increase the number of customers and make the company known? thank you
Phenomenal job, great business. My advice to you is to advertise a lot in local publications, attend trade shows, start dialing the phone, and find out about work / projects that are happening in different industries where that equipment is used.

Is there a big oil refinery being built near you? Maybe a hospital being constructed? Gotta get a pulse on whatever the biggest industry action is and meet key players, then you want to get a sales guy on your team to delegate lots of the phone calling, driving and handshaking, and trade show attendance too.
 
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Antifragile

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Good morning everyone, i'm 26 years old from Italy. I started a cranes, scaffolding and earth moving machines rental business. I have 3 cranes, 2 self- assembling with arm 26 meters and 18 meters, and 1 tower crane with an arm of 45 meters. 1 skid steer, 2 mini excavators, 1 telescopic hanler and 3.000 meters of scaffolding. I'm finalizing the web site. I started 1 month ago, i found 2 customers for now. Luckily i don't have many fixed costs. How can i increase the number of customers and make the company known? thank you

First, make sure you have safety processes and insurance in place. Even if you are just "renting them out". But especially if you ever venture into hiring a crew and running it as a construction business. We recently had a tragedy in a local market here where a father lost his sons due to a crane collapse

Then to grow your business, I'd ask @Andy Black for help with google ads. We have a hardscaping business that gets a lot of calls and my partner John actually took Andy's course.

+ the rest of the advice above from @thechosen1 and others. Call, call more... and then call even more. Phone is your friend.
 

Andy Black

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We recently had a tragedy in a local market here where a father lost his sons due to a crane collapse
That's awful.. Every parent's nightmare.

We have a hardscaping business that gets a lot of calls and my partner John actually took Andy's course.
Ha. I didn't know that. Good to hear.


@alemoney ... there's a link in my signature to all my Google Ads threads, plus an inbound/marketing braindump. I've also linked to the paid membership.
 
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Kak

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I think you should sell all those ridiculous machines and buy a laptop. It’s not fastlane unless it violates all of the CENTS commandments.

Control- you need to be beholden to elance or fiverr for fastlane. Obviously you can’t rent machines out on these platforms.

Entry- it has to be super easy so anyone can do it. Machines are expensive, it’s way too hard to buy machines.

Need- it needs to be something that no one needs. People need equipment.

Time- your income needs to be dictated by your time input. Machines make the money for you, so that’s bad.

Scale- if it’s scalable, it isn’t fastlane. Machines themselves are even big. Think smaller. This is clearly scalable.

When you make money with your laptop, you should also buy crypto as an investment and hope it goes up.
 
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Kak

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Oh man.

Advertise and sell. Make your name known locally.

I would call all of the construction companies around town and let them know that you have X and you will give them a square deal when they need something.

It’s a great sales method too because you’re not trying to get them right now. Just letting them know. I’d be happy to know there was another option in the area.

Ask if you can send them a list of stuff you have via email and build an email list that reminds them at least once a month that they have this service available to them.

Cool business @alemoney
 
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David Fitz

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How did you get the money to pay for these machines?
 

Parks

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Ask yourself who are the people who can use the equipment you have? What are they doing and when do they need your equipment?

For cranes for examples, will you be providing the crane operator with the rental or are you renting to a company who already has a crane operator? If it's the 2nd case I'd imagine they would need you more so in an emergency when their own crane is in the shop etc.

Your business isn't innovative in any sense quite yet, so learn from others that are already doing equipment rentals across the world and then find more ways to introduce value, then expand in locations or franchise.
 

woken

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First, make sure you have safety processes and insurance in place.
This. Have two insurances if at all possible. I’ve visited Italy over 30 times in the last 4 years and I swear I’ve never seen construction workers wearing safety equipment. 20m in the air on a scaffold with no harness? no problem.

Yesterday I passed near an excavator on the road just working there with no barriers around it or anything for that matter.

I love tangible businesses. You’ll do well, even though most say Italy’s construction era is over for now, which is kind of true, new things are still built but more importantly repair work will definitely always be there.


Also, try to make the hiring process as straightforward and easy as possible. Very very important.
Just by showing up you’ll actually make a good reputation. (they’re installing lamp posts on our road in Italy; they put 3 posts in, took them 2 weeks in July. Last week they put the cables in, and hopefully by January they’ll also put the light bulbs in)
 
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ninjanags

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Good morning everyone, i'm 26 years old from Italy. I started a cranes, scaffolding and earth moving machines rental business. I have 3 cranes, 2 self- assembling with arm 26 meters and 18 meters, and 1 tower crane with an arm of 45 meters. 1 skid steer, 2 mini excavators, 1 telescopic hanler and 3.000 meters of scaffolding. I'm finalizing the web site. I started 1 month ago, i found 2 customers for now. Luckily i don't have many fixed costs. How can i increase the number of customers and make the company known? thank you

Hey man,

Good for you on starting your business. It can be a life changing event and something not everyone can handle so good for you making the leap. Hopefully I can offer a little bit of advice as I actually own a earth moving rental business myself.
There has been some good advice so far in this thread as far as insurance and having your affairs in order as far as that goes, I think really having all that prepared is the key here first before you really go after customer acquistion. I'll expand on that.

First, have a rock solid lease (rental) agreement, you need all the info of what you are renting, who you are renting to, note that this person renting from you is responsible for this machine and all that entails, and that your company is not responsible for any liability that occurs during rental. If you dont have this in place, you're playing a very dangerous game of hoping something doesnt happen. Not good. Also one thing to look into as far as insurance goes, I know where I am located (Canada), homeowners or people renting under a personal name can not get insurance for coverage of damage or loss of the machine. They need to have a commercial type policy to rent machinery. And you DO NOT want to offer them insurance under yours, it would basically void your coverage if you're caught doing that. Make it known to them that they are responsible for getting their own insurance, yours is basically a backup in case, not the main one to go through. As if something happens and you go through your insurance, your premiums are going up every year till that insurance company recoups their loss. Most big companies like a United Rentals do self-insure. Basically they charge people for "protection insurance" but they pool this money into a fund to pay for repairs or damage that occurs, that doesnt mean they still dont go after the lessee if significant damage occurs to get their money. Just something to keep in mind, dont want to let some guy rent a machine from you, damage your machine and find out he doesnt have coverage after the fact. Too late now and good luck getting your money in a timely fashion.

Next, keeping machines in good working condition and ready to go back out on rent once they come back. Alot to unpack here, are you mechanically inclined enough to do basic mechanics and maintenance on your machines? If not are you gonna have someone that you have easy access to or hire on to your business that does? This involves repairs, cleaning, fueling, etc. How about delivery? Do you have a truck and trailer or access to one? Some contractors have their own, some dont and will require delivery. You obviously charge for this but it helps with the customer experience and becoming known as a reputable dealer if you have a one stop shop for all these services people need for a rental.
From experience people treat rental machinery different than their own, they think "oh its not my machine, I dont care that much I'm paying this guy so he can handle it". That means machines coming back packed with dirt, not fueled up back to original level, not greased, not maintained essentially. Happens the majority of the time. So be prepared for that.

All this aside, you must have done some market research before starting your business in the location you did? What is the economics of the region? Are there alot of contractors or people doing work that need the machines you are offering? Is there competition already? What does the competition offer for machines that you dont? Alot of questions to ask. You must have a solid reason to start where you did. Also look at the future and how can I expand into different product lines. We dont do cranes as there are many other crane operation companies already in the area, but we do have alot of compaction equipment, all size of excavators, off highway rock trucks, wheel loaders, etc. Its a big undertaking but worth it as barrier to entry for a fleet of machines is many millions of dollars for just one location.

Thats probably a start, if you have any questions let me know.

Hope it works out for you.
 

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