Dumpster rental school

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I'm just starting out. How do I grow my business and get some customers?

You have your truck, your dumpsters, and you’ve figured out all the boring stuff like insurance and licenses. Now what? It’s time to get some customers! But how?

Most of the roll-off world operates without long-term contracts. Unlike the residential or commercial (front-load) industry, it’s common for roll-off dumpsters to be rented one dumpster at a time for temporary jobs like construction and demolition projects. While you might not be getting guaranteed long-term engagements with your customers, there is one positive: the barrier to growing your business is low.

Dumpster rental sales and marketing is normally focused on three sales channels: Google and Facebook Ads, Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and the most under-appreciated method, old-fashioned direct sales. Shaking hands and making phone calls!

As a new roll off business, some of your best potential new customers are residential and commercial contractors, builders, and demolition companies. Even better, they’re easy to find. Drive any road in a growing community and you’ll find scores of construction sites and each one has a contractor’s sign out front. Take down a phone number and give your potential customer a call, or even better, walk up to the jobsite and introduce yourself. We’ve even heard of new business owners driving around in their truck with an empty dumpster ready for delivery. When you find a job site with loose trash, stop by, introduce your company, and offer to deliver the new dumpster on the spot. There you go – your first job.

Famous investor Paul Graham said, “Do Things that Don’t Scale.” We’re a huge fan of this approach at Hauler. He means that when your company is small and growing, you need to do the things that might not make sense once you’re busy and you’ve already grown some. When you’re busy running 10 drivers and 500 dumpsters you probably won’t have time to grow your business door-to-door, but for now, get after it!

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