Mike Andes walks through a new 5x10 dump trailer at Augusta Lawn Care's Mount Vernon location, showing the hydraulic lift, manual valve, and tailgate spreader. The shop is also installing 10 yards of crushed-concrete gravel and a storage container as it expands to a second corporate location.
Questions this video answers
10 yards of crushed concrete gravel (with fabric underneath).
5 ft wide by 10 ft long (5x10).
Two 3,500-pound axles (implied) and a carrying capacity stated as £7,000 (spoken).
Base rent $300 per month for the location; $50 additional per month for each truck beyond two (example: $500/month for six trucks).
Chapters
Hey everyone, it's Mike with landscapebusinesscourse.com today I am showing you a new piece of equipment we bought for the Mount Vernon location. So two videos ago, you saw me introducing this new location to you. Then the other day I introduced the truck to you. And now I'll introduce the trailer to you. I know this is a little bit different of content than I usually make, but when I started the first location for Augusta, and even when the franchisees are starting their locations, you know, we were already significantly over a million dollars in revenue by the time we actually, you know, I started making content. So this is the dump trail. I'm going to show you a little bit around it today. Why we bought that size and all that good stuff. But this is the Mount Vernon location. Give you a bit of an Update. We've installed 10 yards of gravel. This is crushed concrete. And we also put fabric underneath. That way it doesn't just disappear down into the soil. So you can see over here we have a fabric road fabric that we put underneath woven material to keep the weeds but more importantly, keeping the gravel from just disintegrating down into the soil. And then here we're going to. We still got more gravel we're going to put in here. We're going to install the gravel going back into this shop area here. Have the other trucks parked here and the container is being delivered here. Tomorrow it's going to be right there. So bit of an update on the shop, but today we have got this 5 by 10 dump trailer. Gusta yellow and 7 pin connector. You open this bad boy up. How this works, if I can get it to stay.
Is we got a controller. You can see it's brand new, but you basically got up and down. So if I push up.
Just dumps.
Like so.
And then down. Quick trick, actually. I found out today you can actually just release this valve here.
And it'll make the trailer go down just by gravity by taking out the air in there, the hydraulics. That's kind of cool. If you run out of battery and you only have an up and down switch. So that's that.
Cool. So that's pretty cool because you can lock it up. We've had issues before with people opening these up at night and stealing out the batteries and tie away chains here, this is where you would charge this bad boy up or the dump trailer. So this is a 5 by 10. So it's not super big. It's only 10ft long, 5ft wide. And because it's quite a bit shorter than our other ones. These are actually, they're not ladders. They look like ladders, but they're actually ramps. And they go onto the back here. They would connect onto the back here. And if you wanted to ever drive something up inside there, we really don't ever have the intention of doing that. But it might be useful for putting in wheelbarrows in and out of there, debris or material. So after that goes, this just opens up.
And then you're good to go. You see inside you got your tie downs. If you ever did put a piece of equipment, but honestly five feet wide, you, you're not gonna get a very big piece of equipment. Like the trailers that we use at the beer shop, they are 7 by 14, same type of trailer, but 7 by 14. And that's because that way you can haul a skid steer, excavator, track loader, stuff like that. So again, you got two, three 500 pound axles on this. So it can carry £7,000. And this little gizmo on the back is pretty cool because you can actually make this gate to where it locks. Then you can dump gravel and then just drive away and it slowly spreads it. So that's what that little mechanism on the bottom here is. You just unlock this and then the tail instead of the gate opening up like regular, like a barn door, it would actually open up like this and then you'd use the chain on here.
To lock it in and then it would just stop. At a certain point you could drive and it just continually spread. And another thing is on here, when you open these doors up, we put these carabiners on here because we want to make sure when we come around and open it, they stay locked and open. Because if they don't, you can be around the other side dumping from the front and not notice that the gates actually open or start closing and then pinch off and hit the ground. If you've done it before, you know what I'm talking about. So yeah, pretty cool system we got going. I got a step go up there. That's about it. Nothing super fancy. We got some new equipment. Rake, shovel, pickaxe, weed your head, some blades, hedger attachment. So I know this is super new, different kind of content. I usually make this type. A dump tray like this is not going to make your business more successful. It's not going to make you a bunch of money. What really moves the needle, I should say is going to be your marketing, your systems and your team. But this is kind of new content for me because I want to show the progression of a business as it's growing from nothing, which is literally just a few weeks ago, months ago. Now we have our second truck. This will be developed here. In a little bit more we'll have a storage container, a couple more trucks. So I want to kind of show that whole process and show that hey, like it's not just doesn't the systems that we talk about don't just work for big businesses, these work for small businesses getting started, ramping up quick, quickly and becoming scalable and profitable. And so this is kind of the evolution of it all. Over here again is where we dump all our clippings. And then over here is where we dump our brush. And then the landowner is responsible for burning it and managing all of our waste. If you didn't watch a couple videos ago, we pay $300 per month for this location. And then as we add more trucks beyond two, it's $50 more per month. So at $500 per month, we have six trucks. Trucks here. Really, really good deal for the fact that they cover all the dumping costs as long as it's organic material, either branches and stuff that they can burn or lawn clippings. So we're still got a lot of work to do here. Got the gravel to install another 12 yards coming in this week and then probably another 12 yards before the rainy season just to make sure we don't get any mud. And then also out front there, we are going to get a gate along our personal entrance there just to lock it up, make it, make sure it's secure. But I hope you guys enjoy this. Let me know in the comments if you want to see more of this stuff. Like, to me this is like background. Doesn't really matter, doesn't move the needle. But I know for a lot of you, the smaller companies, you know this is more inspiring to you than when I Talk about even P4P or like Team stuff or team development, teamwork and culture. Because you might only have one or two employees and so this might be more helpful for you. Let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see. But we're going to be sharing as much as we possibly can of the Mount Vernon location. It's a corporately owned store, so it's like our 18th or 17th or 18th store for Augusta Lawn Care. But it's only our second corporately owned store. So I can actually a big reason for us starting this one. So I can show you the financials, I can show you behind the scenes as we buy all the equipment, hire new people. So as we begin to grow the company here in Mount Vernon, I'll share as much as I possibly can and I look forward to doing that with you guys. Take care everyone and have a great day. Check out landscapebusinesscourse.com and let me know in the comments below. Again, if you want to see specific stuff here at the Mount Vernon location. Take care of.
