Summer means snow planning

The 2023-24 snow season was the worst in years across much of the snowbelt. But the show must go on for snow removal firms. No two winters are ever the same, and contractors need to be ready for whatever comes their way.

“Last season saw the least amount of snow we’ve had in my 27 years in business,” says Scott Hartmann, owner of Scott’s Lawn Care in Maple Plain, Minn. “Up until the last big storm we had, we only had 13 inches. So we ended up with around 23 for the season. Our average is around 52.”

But the season before last, the Minneapolis area received nearly double its yearly average.

“These things are always in the back of your mind, but we always plan for an average year,” Hartmann says. “From a financial standpoint alone, we like to be conservative and actually plan for slightly below average. But we’re always prepared for whatever happens.”

While the broader consensus of the 2023-24 snow season was pretty dismal, there were geographic pockets that fared much better. Case in point: Southeastern Kentucky. Located in the country’s transition zone, that area typically sees around 10 inches of snow a year.

“Last winter was average to slightly above average,” says Alex Brown, owner of Brown Landscape Management in Ashland, Ky. “That was nice because we don’t count on snow removal revenue when putting our budget together.” Roughly 10% of Brown Landscape Management’s total revenue comes from snow removal.

Up in New England, where snow removal accounts for a much bigger slice of the revenue pie, companies like Landscape America are trying to keep its eyes on the ultimate prize, which is keeping properties safe while keeping its operation profitable.

“In terms of snow accumulation, the last two winters have actually been below average,” says Andy McDuff, co-owner and vice president of Landscape America in Wrentham, Mass. “That has left a lot of people feeling pretty negatively about snow removal. But for us, it’s been OK. Part of that is because we’ve been able to add accounts and grow acreage-wise. Also, the number of ice events has remained average, and salting is where we get a lot of our revenue anyway.” Roughly 40% of Landscape America’s total revenue comes from snow removal.

It’s an interesting dynamic. Below-average winters can encourage clients to lean more toward per-push contracts, whereas contractors want to steer more toward fixed contracts. To iron everything out and end up with a healthy mix of contract types, contractors need to stay ahead of the game.

In Minnesota, Hartmann and his leadership team start planning for snow season in July, reconnecting with vendors and re-examining contracts and pricing. Then, the entire month of August is deemed “Snow Month” at Scott’s Lawn Care. “We usually get 80% of our contracts renewed in August,” Hartmann says, adding that 60% of them are fixed.

Roughly 90% of Scott’s Lawn Care’s customers are commercial, and 90% have both summer and winter contracts. “We don’t often take on new winter work unless the client also signs up for summer,” Hartmann says. “With snow, you have a limited window of time to get the work done. The more work we take on, the more people we need to try and hire. We need to prioritize the customers we’re also doing summer work for.”

In an area where winters are typically on the lighter side, Brown Landscape Management has a lot of per-push contracts. Over the past couple of years, however, they’ve nailed down a couple of large fixed contracts for larger retail customers. The “guaranteed” revenue from these fixed contracts helps Brown better plan seasonal equipment rentals without the fear of losing money. “Then, if we do get a decent amount of snow like we did last year, our per-push contracts are where we hit turbo,” Brown says.

Up in Massachusetts, McDuff says a good rule of thumb has been to secure enough fixed contracts that winter overhead is largely covered. However, after two light winters in a row, more commercial clients are looking to get a bit more sophisticated with their contracts.

For instance, a fixed contract may end up with a wider degree of variability within it. There might be a floor and a ceiling for both plowing and deicing events. That might drive down the guaranteed money if it’s a lighter winter, but the income is still predictable. More importantly, Landscape America is protected by the ceiling if it’s a heavier winter. “If we end up having 40 salting events, we don’t have to worry about the last 10 coming out of our pockets,” McDuff points out.

“At the end of the day, we want to cater to whatever makes it easiest for our clients,” McDuff adds. “However customers want to pay for our services doesn’t really matter to us. As long as we’re tracking everything correctly, we’ll be compensated and we’ll be OK — and it’s fair for everybody.”

Personnel planning

Like Scott’s Lawn Care, Landscape America likes to get the majority of its contracts in place in late-summer. Doing so allows the leadership team to proceed with staffing up for the winter.

Recruiting actually starts right after the 4th of July. Landscape America strives to quickly secure the service partners (subcontractors), area-level managers and skilled equipment operators it is confident it will need for the coming season.

“July-August is when people who take the snow business seriously are looking for work,” McDuff says. “We want to hire those people who take it seriously, so it’s important that we’re out recruiting on social media and elsewhere at this time.”

July-August is also when Landscape America is conducting performance reviews of its employees. This is where conversations are happening with employees who could move into new snow-season roles. “Then we can look at what it would take to make those personnel moves happen, such as certain training, obtaining licenses, etc.,” McDuff says.

All in all, Landscape America likes to have its winter teams in place by October 1 when training begins.

Things never go as perfectly as one would like, though, and there is always some hiring and training that goes on well into the fall. That’s just the nature of the beast in the snow removal business, especially in a tight labor market.

Fine-tuning the fleet

Late-summer planning is also essential when it comes to equipment strategy. At Landscape America, the fleet manager starts digging into the winter fleet right away in July, getting everything cleaned up and making sure it’s ready for another season. The fleet manager also starts getting parts inventories in place.

“We like to have everything teed up and ready to go so all of our teams are fully functional by Oct. 1,” McDuff says. “We also need to give our fleet manager enough lead time in case anything needs to be replaced. That’s why he starts going through everything right away in July.”

There are several ways a contractor can go about adding new equipment to their fleet. Some combination of owning, leasing and renting seems to be a popular approach — at least with respect to any off-road equipment used to move snow.

“We generally like to own our equipment if we’re likely to get good use out of it,” Hartmann says. “Our skid loaders hold their value really well. So even if we have a year when they aren’t used as often, that’s OK because that just means we aren’t putting hours on them. Then, if we ever feel like we might need another piece of equipment due to a new contract or whatever, we tend to lease it for that first season if we don’t have a full route for it. If it works out well and it looks like we’ll have a consistent need for it going forward, we’ll often move to buy it after that first season.”

Landscape America leans a little more heavily on leases and rentals.

“Before we close out a snow season, we like to lock everything back in for the following winter,” McDuff says. “We also like to assume some amount of growth when planning our leases and rentals. Then, by late-August when most of our contracts are in, we start putting the finishing touches on the final pieces, such as one more skid-steer or pusher box we think we’re going to need. For the most part, we want everything ready to go by Oct. 1.”

For companies like Brown Landscape Management that are in the transition zone and don’t do a large volume of snow business, switching equipment over to snow removal is more of a last-minute type of thing. Brown says his crews won’t really start getting equipment ready until they are wrapping up leaf season in late-November. One thing that helps is that they use what Brown calls multi-use trucks.

“Most of our mow trucks are also our snow trucks,” Brown says, adding they have either plow mounts or interchangeable beds, which makes it easier to change from one season to the next. “In a matter of an hour, we can transform a leaf truck into a salt truck. Come mid-November when fall cleanups start slowing down, we usually just go ahead and covert two of our six trucks right away. That way we’re ready to go if we get an early snowfall.”

Brown Landscape has shifted more toward using off-road equipment to plow parking lots and sidewalks. “We still like our trucks for salting, but if we can use a small loader or tractor to plow six or seven lots, that’s what we’re looking to do,” Brown says. “We own some of that equipment, but we also rent about half of our snow fleet.”

With winter as unpredictable as it can be, Brown says renting can get tricky. It’s important to try and negotiate favorable terms so you aren’t stuck paying a ton of money if you have a light winter and don’t put many hours on a machine.

On the other hand, if it’s a heavier winter and you do rack up a lot of hours, you don’t want to be paying a ridiculous amount, either, unless you have enough per-push contracts to offset the added rental cost with additional revenue.

The author is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin.