How to Make Money with a Skid Steer in 2024?

Steer Your Way Into Cash

I purchased my first skid steer in 2001 and have been consistently making money with it ever since. It wasn’t always an easy process, but I have to admit, it taught me a lot about sales and marketing.

If you have also been dreaming about making a living in the skid steer business, I’m here to help.

In this article, I’m going to teach you the ins and outs of landing jobs for your skid steer business and how to make money year after year.

Key Takeaways:

- Use tools such as Google Trends to determine the best service to offer in your area.

- Get your business in front of customers by building an online presence.

- Figure out your costs and start booking work.

Step 1: Pick Your Niche

You won't find much success advertising snow clearing in Florida. 

So, as a starting point, you’ll need to understand what sort of jobs are in demand in your target area.

You should use actual data to help pick your niche. The internet is full of hints if you look around.

Use Google Trends

When people are in need of a solution, the first thing they do is type their problem into Google.

Therefore, it’s possible to use data from Google Trends to understand the most likely location of the highest demand for skid steer services and which services those might be.

Using Google Trends is surprisingly easy to do. It doesn’t require signing up; it’s free to use, and the interface is quite simple.

Google Trends - Know Where to Start Your Skid Steer Business & What to Offer

Let’s say I’m starting my skid steer business in Denver, Colorado. I’m willing to commute a few hours for the right job and am wondering where I should concentrate my efforts when looking for work for my skid steer.

When I look at Google Trends, I can filter the data to look at the web search volume related to “skid steers” in Denver, CO, and surrounding cities.

The first thing Google Trends shows me is the “interest over time.” Naturally, we want the interest to be increasing over time. This is a good indication that there may be a higher need for skid steer services in the area.

Next, we can see the “interest by city.” This will tell us what cities have the highest search volume for “skid steer” related searches.

We then have the “Related Topics” and “Related Queries” section.

This is the most important part, as it shows us the topics related to “skid steers” that are breaking out in Google search.

Any topic that is “breaking out” in Google Trends is growing by more than 5000%. Now, that's important data!

So now in only a matter of minutes, we know how much interest there is in skid steer related searches in our work area, what cities in our area the highest demand is in, and what skid steer services are being demanded.

Understanding The Data With An Example

In the screenshots below, I’ve compiled data on the search term “skid steers” in the Denver area.

Firstly, we can clearly see that the interest over time for “skid steer” related search queries is very steady in our example work area.   

However, we have the highest interest by city in Gillette, Laramie, and Commerce City. These would be the cities we would want to concentrate our marketing efforts in.

The topic and search query report heavily suggests that “brush cutter” and “skid steer brush cutter” are breaking out in these cities.

Now we can conclude that people in Gillette, Commerce City, and Laramie are intensely searching for skid steer brush cutters online! We can now direct our business efforts directly at them.

Step 2: Marketing Your Skid Steer Business

Once you know where the demand for your service is, the next step is to get your message in front of the right people, at the right time, with the right message.

I’m a huge advocate of doing your marketing online. After all, when people are looking to hire someone to cut springtime brush on their acreage, they are more often than not searching on Google.

Website

It’s 2024; therefore, every business needs a website. There is no way around it.

This doesn’t need to be a difficult or complicated process. Many website builders such as wix.com will let you build your business website for free using a simple drag and drop builder.

Try building it yourself. If you are not pleased with the result, you can hire a contractor to build the site for you.

There are plenty of talented contractors on upwork.com that can build you a professional website in a few hours for only a few hundred dollars. I would consider this expense a necessary investment in the future of your own business.

Google Ads

What I’m about to say may sound slightly intimidating, but stick with me, it’s actually very easy.

You need to run Google Search Text ads in your target market to advertise your skid steer business properly. 

When people are searching for a service, usually, the first thing they do is type their search into Google. 

If an ad for your website comes up at the top of the search results page, people are likely to click on it and inquire about your service. 

You can tell Google exactly where what searches you want to appear for, and where you want your customers to be, and you’ll only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You are in complete control of your budget and daily costs.

If you want to learn the basics of Google ads, you can purchase a short course on udemy.com. Otherwise, you might consider hiring a Google ads expert to set up your advertising on upwork.com.

Google often provides a $100 credit to new customers. This $100 credit is likely enough to get you your first few customers.

Example

In our previous example, we determined that there is likely a demand for skid steer brush cutting service in the Denver, CO area.

Once we have our website up and running, we ensure that we have a page that advertises our skid steer brush cutting service.

We can then set up an ad on Google to only display to customers in the Gillette, Laramie, and Commerce City area. The ad can be triggered when customers in our target cities search for “skid steer brush cutting service.”

Google will then show our ad to customers searching for our brush cutting service. When customers click on our ad they will be brought to oour website with all of our business information.

If we pay Google $1 for a click, we will get 100 potential customers to view our service. If even one out of every hundred customers buys our service, we will get a positive return on our ad spend.

Facebook Page

72.13% of American internet users use Facebook regularly, and spend an average of 30.9 minutes on the platform every day (socialpilot.co).

Given Facebook’s massive usage, it only makes sense to have a Facebook business page to advertise your new skid steer business.

Your Facebook business page provides customers information about your location, services, hours, prices, etc. You also have the opportunity to showcase photos of your skid steer, and customer reviews.

Although customers aren’t known for searching directly for services on Facebook, it is still an excellent way to very cheaply get your business seen by potential customers in your target geographical area.

Building brand awareness through social media marketing is one of the keys to long-term success with your skid steer business.

Example

In a matter of a few hours, we can build a Facebook business page for our new Denver, CO-based skid steer business.

We can make sure our Facebook page showcases all the benefits of our brushing cutting business service with pictures and videos.

To ensure our business is seen by all of our potential customers, we can create a post featuring information about our brush cutting service.

We can then “boost” the Facebook post. When we boost the post, we tell Facebook that we only want the post to be boosted in our target geographical area (Gillette, Laramie, and Commerce City).

But just as importantly, we can specify who we want to see our post. For example, we might choose to boost the post to customers who have shown interest in skid steers, brush cutters, forestry, etc.

Now, as our potential customers are scrolling through their Facebook feeds, they will come across our post showcasing our skid steer service.

Potential customers will become familiar with your brand and service and will be much more likely to click on your Google ad and hire you when they eventually are searching for a brush cutting service.

Other Marketing Ideas

There are more ways to market your skid steer business than there is room on this page.

In the digital world, there are Microsoft ads, LinkedIn ads, Reddit ads, Instagram ads, Youtube ads, Snapchat ads, TikTok ads, and more.

All of these are potentially valuable ways to showcase your new skid steer business.

Although I’m a big advocate for advertising your business on the internet, there are, of course, very viable ways to market your skid steer business offline as well.

Some ideas that come to mind are mail advertising, cold calling, hosting an event, local classifieds, advertising in local newspapers, billboards, placing advertisements on your vehicle, wearing company clothing, etc.

Step 3: Determine Your Pricing

Before you start selling your skid steer service, you’re going to have to determine how much you need to charge your customers. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, but I can provide some guidance to help get you on your way.

A Simple Pricing Formula

We need to ensure that all of our overhead and running costs are covered each month. We also want to ensure that we are paying ourselves, as well as growing our business. So here is how I would consider pricing our service:

Overhead costs + Running Costs + Labour + Business Profit Margin, divided by average hours billed each month, equals the Hourly Rate.

Overhead Costs

Our monthly overhead costs never change. But the amount of jobs/hours we bill customers for each month is variable, so we have to start with a prediction. 

In our case, let’s assume we will get 15 hours of work each week to start out.

- $75,000 Skid Steer financed over 15 years at 5% interest ($560/month payment)

- $17,388 Blue Diamond Severe Duty Brush Cutter financed over 5 years at 5% interest ($567/month payment)

- $50,000 used truck and trailer financed over 7 years at 5% interest ($305/month payment).

- Shop space for storage ($750/month payment)

- Insurance ($250/month payment)

- Website and Digital Marketing ($200/month payment)

- Business Cell Phone ($30/month payment)

Given the above variables, your total monthly overhead for your skid steer business is $2662 per month.

If we divide our overhead by our expected hours of work per month ($2662 / 60 hours/month) we can determine that we need to charge our customers $44/hour to cover our overhead.

Running Costs

Our running costs are variable and only occur while the skid steer is being operated. They mostly consist of our fuel burn and maintenance costs.

We will estimate fuel burn at 2 gallons per hour, and the price of fuel to be $4 per gallon. Therefore we should charge an additional $8 per hour when the skid steer is operated.

Maintenance is a bit trickier to figure out. As a starting point, we will plan 10% a year maintenance cost on the value of our skid steer, brush cutter, truck, and trailer together.

The combined value of our machinery is $142,300. If we plan 10% maintenance, we will budget $14,230 or $1185/month. 

If we are operating our machinery 60 hours per month, our Maintenance running cost would be roughly $20/hour.

We can now add our fuel and maintenance “running costs” to our overhead hourly costs. 

$44/hour overhead, plus $8/hour fuel and $20/hour maintenance gives us a total overhead plus running cost of $72/hour.

Labour

You are either going to have to pay yourself or someone else to run your skid steer once you’ve been hired to do the work.

I had a quick look at “indeed.com" to determine what the average wage of a skid steer operator is in Denver, CO, and came up with $22/hour.

Therefore, we will add $ 22/hour to our overhead and running costs. 

This brings our new hourly rate to $94/hour. ($72 overhead/running cost + $22/hour labor).

Business Profit Margin

The last figure we need to add to arrive at the hourly rate for our skid steer brush cutting service is our business profit margin.

Our profit margin is what the business keeps at the end of the month. We can decide how large or small we want our margin to be.

Your business's profit margin is also used as a buffer against uncertainty. 

For example, if you have a bad month with less work, or unexpectedly overrun your maintenance budget, your business profit margin will abosrb the loss. 

The larger your profit margin, the bigger your safety net is. On the other hand, the smaller your profit margin is, the more work you're likely to get.

In our example, we will assume that we want a 40% profit margin on our work. Therefore we would add $37.6 to our hourly running cost of $94. ($94 x 0.4 = profit ($37.6) + $94 = $131.6).

So we now know we can plan on charging our customers $131.6 per hour for our skid steer brush cutting service.

Step 4: Take Sales Calls, Quote Customers & Book Work

In steps 1 to 3, we figured out where we have the best opportunity to make money, how we can market our new services, and how much we should charge our customers.

The last step is to turn on our ads and get ready to take sales calls, inquiries, and customers requesting quotes.

Sales Calls

I can’t overstate the importance of being able to answer every sales call you receive. After all, you went through the effort of sourcing equipment and setting up marketing. If you miss calls from potential customers it was all a waste!

When speaking to your new potential customer, be sure to listen to their pain points. What is most important to them? Is it a potential deadline they need the work done by? Is it cost? Be sure to address their pain points and assure them that you’ll be able to handle it professionally and efficiently.

Quote Customers

From my experience, most customers will want a written quote before they will hire you. The trick here is to get them an accurate and professional quote as quickly as possible.

Don’t wait until tomorrow to send to create and send the quote. You’ll want to be faster than all of your potential competitors.

Be sure the quote is made with professional software such as Quickbooks. It should have your business logo, address, and contact details.

Lastly, always follow up with your quotes by the next day. Pick up the phone and find out if your customer has any concerns and address them immediately. 

This is an excellent opportunity to show how reliable and professional you are.

Book Work

Once the customer has decided to use your service, put their work in your calendar and start getting ready.

Research the work area, grease and lube your machinery and show up on time.

It’s now time to show the world what you do best. Impressing the customer with your professionalism should now be your ultimate goal. 

You’ll want them to put you on speed dial for next time they have a job. Better yet if they tell their industry contacts about how well you’ve done.

Conclusion

I’ve been consistently making money with my skid steer for the last 23 years, and there is no reason why you can’t too.

In fact, with how easy it is to reach potential customers online, I’d say making money with your skid steer is easier than ever.

Come up with a plan, design your marketing, figure out your costs, talk to your customers, and then do the best job you can do!