TimAllenEquipment: March 2018

Friday, March 30, 2018

What time of year will you have the hardest time making a reservation?

I’ll admit it, I am a data junky.

When you are as passionate about bringing value to your time as I am, you know standing in line isn’t time well spent.

So that begs the question, when is the hardest time to get an equipment reservation? What do I need to know?

For the past 5 years May is the busiest month, meaning you’ll have the hardest time finding the equipment you need. UNLESS, you were smart enough to make a reservation.

It is almost like a crystal ball, those who are smart enough to make the reservation will end the year being one of the most profitable businesses, one of the folks with the best yard, one of the folks with the most quality time to spend with their families.

The most surprising part? You don’t need to make a reservation a month in advance, a week will usually do it, and even a couple of days will be more successful than not.

It makes a person wonder, is it that simple elsewhere in life? Is it really that easy?

My experience has been yes; Show up for the appointment, on time. Be the person that asks, if you don’t ask, you don’t receive. Spend a few minute’s learning something new. Be the one that reaches out to help instead of trying to grab something for yourself.

The year will play out like this. In April we will see the cream of the crop making reservations and getting started on getting things done. In May, those same folks will be making money, creating better spaces and generating positive word of mouth, free marketing. Others will be chasing their tail disappointed that there isn’t more available and blaming others for the lack of resources. In June the early second wind that was behind in May will have made reservations and finally getting their projects underway. Those who are in 3rd position will begin to give up, and making a lot of excuses for why they didn’t get more done. The early adopters are looking forward to some weekends off, spending time with family, and seeing the fruits of their work play out. The remainder of the season is spent repeating itself.

The early adopters are making more money, have more time off, and are much more relaxed.

The slow adopters are chasing their tail, make less money and have much more stress trying to explain to their customers why the neighbors job is done but theirs isn’t.

I guess that is one of the secrets. Successful people don’t actually work harder, they just plan better.

We’ve spent all Winter getting ready. The next step is yours.

Friday newsletter special !!! We’ve got 2 brand new Kubota KX 033 excavators available. I’m going to offer one for a weekend (Sat. Morning - Mon. Morning) special. 1st come, only served. Pay for one day, keep it for two, don’t put more than 8 hours on the hour meter. Trailer not included, but available at the normal rate.

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Thursday, March 29, 2018

How hard do you really want to work?

As a kid growing up I had to dig a lot of fence post holes, and I mean a lot.

These would each be 16-18” in diameter, I’d stuff either a railroad tie or a portion of a telephone pole that I would have to mop God knows what onto the cut ends, into the hole.

With the post in the hole I’d then level it up, dump rock around it, pound it with a 2x4 until that was packed about 2/3 full and then use the dirt I’d dug out to fill in the rest and have a mound that would supposedly run the water away from the hole.

A horse arena, corral for the cattle that had separate area’s for certain cows, a tunnel that would send cows to a squeeze shoot, one that would send them to a ramp they’d walk up to get into the truck, a ½ acre garden, pig pen, and more.

Each post dug by hand.

At 17 years old I took off for Monterey Ca.in my ’69 Thunderbird to visit a sister and on the way I noticed a tractor with this amazing device on the back that appeared would dig holes for you! While we didn’t own a tractor, I couldn’t wait to get back and tell my Dad about it. Maybe I would get lucky?

His reply, what would I need that for when I have you?

And that is why we now have almost any auger known to man in our rental fleet.

From a hand held clam shell for the guy that thinks the price is too high for powered equipment, to an auger attachment for a full size skid steer that will dig a 24” hole 5’ deep and many options in between you’ve got options for making digging a hole easier.

So the question remains, how hard do you really want to work? With all the options we make available, the choice is yours.

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Either your Mom, a teacher, or a mentor told you this...

Keep learning.

Today around 10am I’m going to be talking to a group of plumbing contractors out at the fairgrounds. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to decide what information would be most useful to them.

Do you remember sitting through a painfully boring meeting, someone standing up front speaking what either seemed like some other language or was so monotone and the content so bland it was hard to take?

Well I’ve decided one of the best things I can do is to poll the audience before I start saying anything.

This has worked many times in the past for me and the biggest reason is, if you don’t already know your audience, you are almost certainly going to miss and end up spewing stuff they have no interest in.

Continuing education is something your Mom likely told you to do. There is always something more that can be learned, or if you’re like me, I need reminders every so often. Now days in many trades it is mandatory.

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but a trade association for your profession is one of the best resources for this kind of thing. I found the one for me with a simple Google search, and is has been paying off ever since.

In todays fast paced world if you aren’t putting effort into this, chances are good your profession is pulling away from you. In reality though, it is much easier than it seems, don’t over complicate it.

An owners manual. A YouTube video. Local continuing education class. Video tutorials put on by product manufacturers. Community education classes out at UCC.

These are examples that can make all of the difference. It will bring more value to that time you have so little of. Add these up over the years and you’ll pull away from those who don’t.

If you’re a plumber, maybe I’ll see you out there today.

Either way, keep on learning my friend.

-Tim-

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Friday, March 23, 2018

Welcome to seat 11E

Stuck in the middle is never fun, if you doubt it, just hop on an airplane and see for yourself. That being said, your neighbors can make all the difference.

While the plane is a short but closer than most neighborly interactions, your neighbors at home can be a different story.

I remember a time when we were living in a Farm Home (low income housing) house in the Green District. It was a time I probably won’t forget.

One neighbor with young kids drives by so fast I literally saw her miss her own driveway.

Another, the kids drop a bag of pot over the fence when they were startled and our dog ate it (he ate everything).

This list is nearly endless.

When we had the chance to move out we did, but that chance was truly an example of preparation and opportunity coming together.

The things that made this possible were;

Treating the grandchildren of the seller (whom we did’t know) well enough that their mom talked about it to her parents (the sellers). They were thankful enough they gave us a great price.

Having kept our credit clean.

Didn’t go into debt.

Going to meet the sellers when we believed we stood no chance of being able to buy for financial reasons (overcoming fear).

Took the chance and bought before our current home was sold (taking calculated risk) and had saved up enough money to pay several month’s of dual payments.

I’ve been trying to teach my kids that it is these little things that make the difference over time. Frequently folks who don’t do these things will say the people were just lucky, then later lucky again when they became “an overnight success”.

If you’re reading this, you have probably already experienced similar things yourself. What I’m wondering is how you pass it along to your kids?

Are you passing it along?

As it comes to bad neighbors you’ve only really got two choices. Move, or make your space a better and more private place. Either way, remember, we’ve got the tools and equipment to make the job easier.

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Where in Wisconsin were we?

In an interesting twist, we’re just getting back from Northwoods Wisconsin. The Case Equipment Tomahawk Customer Center to be exact.

https://www.casece.com/northamerica/en-us/inside-case/customer-centers/tomahawk-customer-center/experience

Staying current, watching trends, and learning more about the equipment we rent to you is an ongoing concern. When an opportunity presents itself to learn more, we go there. This trip was pretty epic.

Did you know a 109,000# excavator won’t dig through permanent-frost? Well I guess it kind of can with one shark fin looking tooth, but forget using a bucket.

I was pretty stunned to see just how much the Case equipment has changed in just 10-15 years. More and more electronically controlled automatic controls (my favorite being “load control” that eases bouncing over obstacles when you are shuttling loads across rough terrain or things like curbs and speed bumps. It allows the hydraulics to absorb the impact instead of holding stiff.

The bull dozer we are considering is way more user friendly to operate than the previous version. A 15 speed transmission that you can shift on the fly with a button is one example. The joystick style 6 way blade control is another. This is more like pilot controls than the levers you might be used to pulling and pushing, which means way less effort, over a long day I can see this saving you a lot of energy and wear and tear on your body.

Some things on the horizon (already being used in the professional operator environment, but not quite rental ready yet) is GPS blade positioning for grading with a bull dozer, and 2D grading for excavators digging trenches. This takes the guess work out and eliminates needing another body to check grade, or you getting on and off the machine to check grade.

Most changes seem to revolve around making you more productive.

Currently the Case equipment we have in our fleet is 2 of the 580M extend-a-hoe, and the 14,000# bull dozer. Look for that to both update and grow over the course of the next year or so.

One last note.

Working in 0-20deg. temps isn’t fun, we’ve got it pretty good in our area in my opinion.

-Tim-

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Monday, March 19, 2018

Why so secretive?

I know every generation says this, and while I agree that everything old is new again, there is one thing that makes this “time” different.

If you’ll pay attention and get this, it could be very valuable to you.

One of the things I have intentionally put to use in my business is paying attention to what is going on over on the East Coast or even Southern California. How many times have you heard someone say this area is 10 or 20 years behind the rest of the nation?

That my friend is like borrowing Marty McFly’s time machine.

In most geographical markets you’ve got to anticipate what the next trend will be, not so here, we get to simply copy what is trending elsewhere and we look like wizards.

An area I’m seeing our business community lag in is the understanding that speed to market is now more valuable (in most cases) than taking the time to patent, build a perfected product, and more that people let delay bringing a product to market.

Investing in the market, the ability to communicate via email instead of snail mail and viral social media posts are all examples of how this “time” is different. Things are moving much faster now. The savvy person understands that doesn’t change the fundamentals, it just means they can be applied in a different fashion.

Now days bringing a mediocre product to market can outpace secret perfected businesses. The feedback loop is so fast that the mediocre product will have generated revenue, made corrections and established majority market share all before the perfected product ever came to market.

You can keep your (business/product) secrets, but you will typically do so at your own demise.

Put this together with what I mentioned earlier about eliminating 10% of what you are doing and replace it using these two lessons. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty confident it could be a game changer for you.

For many of you, our rental inventory can help with that. “Try before you buy” and rent the equipment that you’d need to try something new. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and well…..

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Saturday, March 17, 2018

What was written?

I remember reading many years ago that what gets written down gets done.

This is something that I can say is certainly true. It is why I have a “to-do” list that is created at the beginning of every week. On my list are things I need to get done this week and to get on the list it needs to be something that gets me closer to my goals.

Life will fill in any uncommitted time, it just happens. The 7 winners of our Tim Allen @ the Hult Center ticket give away can attest to that.

You can either let life run you or you chose to run life, and something as simple as a weekly to-do list can make the difference.

This week like the past few, most of my list has revolved around payments, shipping, confirming model numbers and more all related to the new equipment we are purchasing to add to our rental inventory. Adding $600,000 plus worth of equipment takes some effort.

5 New excavators

1 9000# skid steer

1 3500# stand on skid steer

1 Tractor

1 60’ boom lift

2 walk behind trenchers

2 rough terrain scissor lifts

1 wood splitter

1 sod cutter

2 drain snakes

1 laser level

1 locator system

1 rototiller

1 mud buggy (picture an oversized wheel barrow on tracks that drives to the desired location and you can tip it using hydraulics to the left, front, or right side)

1 tall grass mower

All of this will be coming in over the next 6 weeks or so.

The sad part is, many who want to rent this equipment will just assume it will be there when they drive in to rent it. The smart folks will have called in and reserved it.

The reservation will be written, the equipment will be available for them when they want it.

If my projections are correct based on over all economic conditions, County permit values, conversations with contractors and other customers, this will be a busy year. Whatever your plans are for property improvements or repair, you’d best get ahead of it this year.

To delay could add untold challenges.

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours

Win tickets to see the other Tim Allen at the Hult Center!

Corny maybe, but I loved the TV show “Home Improvement”.

I’m sure the similar name of the lead actor played a role, but the guy played with tools and “hopped up” everything he put his hands to.

The lawn mower.

Dishwasher.

Belt sander.

If it was mechanical, he’d figure out a way to give it MORE POWER! Usually in a spectacular failure fashion, but fun none the less.

This coming weekend, (the other) Tim Allen is doing his standup routine at the Hult Center, and today is your last day to enter to win tickets from us.

The local radio stations have been marketing this for us and the commercial is pretty good. There is a signup box at both the Roseburg store and the Myrtle Creek/Tri City store. If he is someone you’d like to see, please figure out a way to get into one of the stores and get signed up today.

I did try to get him to work with us at any level related to our equipment, and really wish we could have gotten somewhere. I’d have really enjoyed him driving an excavator or skid steer around on the back lot.

Really there isn’t much value in this one for most of you on the list today, but you are getting to learn more about me and the failure’s and success I experienced along the way.

Like the other Tim Allen I love MORE POWER and have built some pretty cool stuff over the years. If you too are into hot rodding, let me hear about it.

You won’t find any performance modifications on our rental equipment, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them!

Have a tool or equipment need coming up? We’d appreciate your business

Roseburg 541-492-7368

Myrtle Creek 541-863-4385

Roseburg Rental Website, you can request a reservation here even after hours