By Neal Glatt

Are you anxious about the weather and if we’ll get enough snow this season?  It’s been a slow start for most snow contractors this year and many are starting to get concerned.  But there are others who don’t need any snow at all.  Let me tell you how they’re still making money…

This past summer, while presenting at one of our Snowfighters Institute events, a contractor asked me about selling more seasonal contracts.  He wanted to get paid even if it never snowed, but his market wasn’t accustomed to seasonal pricing.  How could he get fixed income when it wasn’t the norm?

Another contractor joined in wanting to get his customers to pay more when it snowed a lot because they had too many flat-rate contracts.  How can we get both fixed payments AND overage payments for lots of service in our market?

It turns out, nobody in the group was really satisfied with their contract mix and structures.  They all had pros and cons, but everyone wanted to influence at least some customers into something more favorable for their portfolio.

So we listed every type of contract that we knew of and discussed all of the options.  Per Inch.  Per Hour.  Per Push.  Per Application.  Per Service.  Flat-Rate Seasonal.  Adjustable Seasonal.  Contracts with Retainers.  Overages for Number of Services.  Overages for Snowfall.  Overages for Stacking or Hauling.  Overages by Date.  And on and on….

Some were new concepts that we had to explain and explore as a group.  But when it was all said and done, we had dozens of options to mix and match contract payment options and triggers.

Then we worked on the tactics of how to discover what mattered most to customers and position various contract proposals so that we’d end up with a balanced portfolio that meant never having to worry about how much it snowed.  We even walked through how to utilize the historical snowfall reports (that were customized for each attendee) to get the numbers right and make a compelling argument to convince clients.

I wasn’t surprised when an attendee emailed me before Thanksgiving to tell me that he surpassed his sales goal by over $200,000 despite only working with the company for six months because of the training he received (his first two days of employment were spent in our class!)  And I know that the portfolio is balanced so that his success won’t go unpaid just because snow hasn’t shown up yet.

If your portfolio isn’t working so far this winter, maybe you need to sign up for one of our 2022 events.  The full schedule is available now at www.SnowfightersInstitute.com, but space is limited and filling up quickly, so sign up today.  It just may be the most rewarding Christmas present you can buy yourself.