This winter has proven to be an expensive one we won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Multiple areas of the country have experienced blizzards, ice storms, higher than average snow fall, and now higher gasoline prices.
It’s important to adapt your current business practices so that you are still making a profit in these new conditions.
There’s a few things you can add to your contracts like: blizzard clauses, ice storm clauses, and fuel surcharge clauses.
Blizzards seem to have become a given during a snow season now. Before, it was a rarity for a blizzard to happen, but now we have experienced them for the past two years in Kansas City. A way to protect your business if a blizzard happens is to add a blizzard clause into your snow removal contracts. This type of clause really saves you in your seasonal contracts. The most popular blizzards clauses state that you charge hourly after it gets to a certain snow depth or if it has been defined by weather professionals as a blizzard. The definition of a blizzard according to Wikipedia is “a snow storm that must have winds in excess of 56 km/h (35 mph) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or less and must last for a prolonged period of time — typically three hours or more”. It’s important to add a blizzard clause to your contract so your customers understand how having to keep large equipment ready (large loaders, dump trucks for hauling snow, and large pushers) really does cost you a lot more money. You will also find that in a blizzard, you will need much larger equipment on a smaller property that you hadn’t originally planned for. (CrewTracker has a built in blizzard option).
Fuel is only getting more expensive. To support the growing fuel prices, it’s a good idea to put in a fuel surcharge clause. By setting a fuel surge clause, you let your clients know that when fuel reaching a certain amount that you have to raise your prices accordingly. This clause really comes into play when you have to remove snow from a property.
The question for these week is…. At what price does fuel have to reach for more companies to start using snow melters to get rid of extra snow on properties? (after all, snow melters are better for the environment then dumping snow in other places)