As difficult as it can be, it is always a good idea to start your own company, especially learning how to start a demolition business. As long as you will invest time and effort. Otherwise, every single idea you have for entrepreneurship will be worthless.
With this in mind, the steps for starting a business are usually the same, but variations start to apply when the niche is defined when you must work around licenses and documents, and how you will decide to approach your main goal.
Among recommendations, starting with a business plan is simple yet crucial and should never be omitted. Next, you pretty much have a map road of how to approach the rest of your ideas, but before jumping to all that or being able to give you a more thoughtful answer, we will guide you with the steps we have proven to be needed:
Understanding the Industry
The demolition and wrecking business mainly demolish and rebuild buildings and structures and sometimes sell salvaged material. This industry also offers other services such as clearing and recycling debris, interior strip-outs, handling asbestos and hazardous substances, concrete cutting, and even explosive demolition.
We want to clarify all this: it involves more than just the usual demolition people think about. In addition, it is important that it is clear that excavation and land clearing work are not part of the demolition or wrecking industry.
However, understanding the industry is more than just learning about the services and things you can offer. You must know as well that the industry has seen little growth and is expected to continue to grow beyond its pre-recession level, which means it is slow now, but with a lot of potential.
As the residential and non-residential construction values rise, so does the demand for demolition of existing structures. This leads to increased income for demolition and wrecking businesses.
Economic growth encourages new commercial and retail construction, land development, and construction markets.
The global demolition and wrecking business will continue to grow, especially in developed countries like the United States, which is why we would encourage you not to quit on the idea and still give it a big go.
Always Conduct Your Market Research
And when doing so, focus on demographics and psychographics.
Most people consider this step to be a “find your competitors ad how they are doing” thing, but it is much more than that.
On the other hand, this is more about focusing on your possible clients and who could need your services. And for some piece of advice: construction companies and real-estate investors are not the only ones who can hire the services and demographics of demolition and wrecking company employees.
A wide variety of clients, both individual and corporate, cannot dispose of their facilities without the assistance of a licensed demolition and wrecking firm.
In fact, demolition and wrecking companies should target farmers, construction companies, property management companies, real estate developers, and other players in the realty industry.
If you want to define the demographics of your demolition and wrecking company, you need to make it comprehensive.
Choose Which Niche to Focus On
This is where some things start to change.
The majority of the demolition and wrecking companies offer the same general services as a normal demolition and wrecking business. It seems there aren’t any niches in this industry.
On the other hand, demolition and wrecking companies might choose to concentrate in certain key areas or niches such as:
- Analysis and planning for pre-demolition.
- Complete or selective demolition of buildings.
- Complete or selective demolition.
- Rehabilitation and demolition of damaged sites after an industrial explosion or fire.
- Environmental cleanup.
- Destruction of buildings and structures by implosion.
- Material removal, disposal, and sale from demolition sites, even recycling.
Many more could be included in this niche, and deep research will be necessary.
Now, You Worry About Competitors
Focusing on what you’re curious about, yes, it is time to go over your competitors.
It isn’t a secret that you will compete with other businesses and even the government in the same business area, no matter what line of business your tent is in. The demolition and wrecking industry is not an exception.
The degree of competition in the demolition industry depends on where the business is located, the niche you operate in, and the size of your demolition company. You will likely experience little to no competition if you create a niche instead of focusing on general service.
If you’re the only demolition and wrecking business in your area that specializes in selective dismantling, preservation, and restoration of historic buildings (just as an example), then you can monopolize the market for quite some time before other companies start to enter the fray or notice how successful it is.
It is important that you note that competitions in demolition and wrecking depend on the size of your business.
Franchising or Not?
It is cheaper to start a business from scratch than to buy a franchise when you are starting one, but franchising can save you the trouble of many headaches and having to bill awareness by yourself.
But if you ask us, it is much easier and stress-free to start a wrecking business from scratch without having to rely on a brand name because you don’t have to follow its rule or limit yourself to some aspects.
Your services will be more popular if they are affordable and reasonably priced than if you have a well-known brand, so you ought to keep this in mind.
It is important to note that many of the most successful demolition companies in the world started from scratch. They were able to build solid brands.
It takes hard work, dedication, and determination to be a business successful. You can start your own company and become waste management and collection company in your field of expertise.
Consider All Challenges You Will Face
One of the biggest challenges when you start your own company in this niche, is the lack of established companies in your market. This is why it is so important to create your own.
Focus on individuals, households, and start-ups who require the services you’re about to offer or already are.
Other threats and challenges you will face can include mature markets, a bad economy, stiff competition, rising fuel prices, and volatile costs.
Also, unfavorable governments, seasonal fluctuation, demographic or social issues, economic downturns that will likely affect consumer spending, and the emergence of new competition within the same area as yours.
These challenges and threats are not something you can control. You must remain optimistic that everything will work out for your benefit or find a solution to survive them but not try to have some kind of control.
Pick Your Legal Entity
The legal entity that you choose to start a demolition business will significantly impact how large the company can grow.
Some of your competitors design their services and businesses for a regional market, while others are designed for a national market.
You have the choice of a general partnership, limited liability company, also known as an LLC, or sole ownership for a business-like demolition.
A sole proprietorship is the best business structure for small-scale demolition and wrecking companies, especially if you have modest start-up capital. For obvious reasons, people prefer limited liability companies.
If your goal is to expand the business and possibly operate in other countries around the globe, then a sole proprietorship is not an option. You can choose to be a limited liability company, LLC, or general partnership instead, which we highly recommend considering in this case.
An example is setting up an LLC to protect you from personal liability. You are only responsible for the money you have invested in the limited liability company in case something goes wrong.
This is not true for general partnerships and sole proprietorships. Limited liability companies are easier to manage and require fewer formalities such as shareholders’ meetings, board of directors, or other managerial formalities.
These are just a few of the things you need to consider when choosing a legal entity to manage your demolition company without any issues or at least some that could be avoided.
Pick Your Business Name
Names are a common choice when it comes to business, and it is only natural to reach this point.
Being creative will help you create a sense of the business’s identity. When naming a business, it is common for people to follow the trends in their industry. However, we recommend you keep it simple yet memorable.
Don’t go for the common ones or if you do, always add something that says, “this is me, no one else,” for when your company is at another level.
Find the Right Insurance Policies
You can’t run a business in the United States or anywhere else around the globe without basic insurance coverage, and even when some people might skip this, you better not.
It is important to set aside a budget and consult an insurance broker to help select the right insurance policies for your demolition entrepreneurship to guarantee everyone will be saved and any damage will be covered.
Consider this: the niche you picked is quite dangerous without proper measures.
These are the basics of insurance you need to have if you’re looking to start your own demolition or wrecking business in America. Not all of them, but you better start with the basic ones based on your guider and lawyer advice:
- General insurance.
- Health insurance.
- Liability insurance.
- Risk Insurance.
- Workers Compensation.
- Disability insurance with overhead expenses.
- Group insurance for business owners.
- Payment protection insurance.
Get the Professional Certification You Need
Because, yes, you need it.
It is strongly recommended that you seek professional certifications if you plan to start a demolition business in the USA. This will show your dedication to the company and how you are building a reliable brand for your prospects.
These are just a few of the certifications that you can earn if you’re looking to start, and we would recommend placing your attention on them even before the previous steps:
- LEED Certified.
- Gold Seal Certified; Certified by COR.
All demolition and wrecking businesses, particularly those that operate hazardous waste management, must obtain the required certifications.
It all falls down to the sub-niche you pick, as well as some regulations and certifications that will naturally change or add.
Get Your Legal Documents Set
It is vital to have all the documentation necessary and as basic as this sounds, and people should know, please, set everything properly.
Some documents are basic, and you don’t have to do much paperwork, but some usually miss the actually important ones.
Without the right documentation, you will not be able to run any American business.
So, write this down as these are the essential legal documents you will need to have in order to operate your demolition company legally or, at least, most of them:
- Liability and business insurance.
- Commercial vehicle operator’s register for haulage trucks.
- Appropriate driver’s licenses for drivers.
- Assistant licenses.
- Certificate of health inspection.
- Proper identification, proof of ownership, and a vehicle license are required.
- A copy of the license for the service support facility.
- Identification of the Tax Payer.
- Certificate of incorporation.
- Business License.
- Business Plan.
- Non-disclosure agreement.
- Employment Agreement (offer letters).
Go Get Your Capital
It can be costly to start a well-equipped company in this field since it does require capital to set everything up. This is especially true if you want to open a large demolition company that has the ability to serve your immediate area and engage in waste management.
You will need to secure a landed facility, haulage trucks, heavy-duty tractors, and a fleet of heavy-duty tractors. However, if you start your business small with one tractor and haulage truck, it may not be necessary to source capital to finance the business. For the rest, lenders will be inevitable.
When financing a business, the most important thing to do is create a great business plan. You don’t have to work hard to convince your bank, friends, and investors to invest in your company if you have a well-written and functional plan that lets them see how you visualize your business realistically.
These are just a few of the options available to you when looking for capital for your demolishment business:
- Personal savings.
- Raising money for investors and business partners.
- Selling shares to interested buyers.
- Application for a loan from your bank.
- Get soft loans from family and friends.
- Find private lenders or angel investors.
It Is Time to Employ New People to Set Your Team
You will need the following equipment to start a standard demolition business that can remove, dispose and sell materials from demolition sites. These machines can still be bought fairly used if you have a limited budget.
However, you truly need manforce for this type of company, and without it, equipment is nothing as well.
But before jumping to all the people you will need to hire, you need to picture this.
If you have the capital to manage a large, well-equipped demolition business with a standard waste recycle plant, you might consider a long lease or purchasing a piece of land. This will allow you to do long-term planning, expansion, and structuring.
Before you decide on the number of employees, you will need to start the business, and it is important to assess your finances.
You will need to hire the following professionals to start a normal company of this type on a larger scale: Chief Operating Officer, Transport and Logistics Manager and Marketing and Sales Executive, Accountant, Hazardous and non-hazardous waste operators/cleaners, and many more as you see fit.
You will need at least 5-15 key staff members to run a standard, medium-sized demolition, and wrecking business. You will need to be willing to pay for experts in order to complete certain job functions.
You may not have the business structure or financial resources to retain all the professionals you need. This is why it is important to make plans to partner up with experts in the field.
Create Your Marketing Plan
Because there is no barrier to entry for the type of business you picked, there will always be others in the field. Creativity and innovation are key if you want to create a niche for yourself in the market available in your city, state, or country.
When you’re creating your marketing plans for your demolition or wrecking business, be sure to create a strong personal profile and company profile. It is important that you clearly communicate your past accomplishments in demolition in concrete terms.
This will increase your marketability and help you market your services, so you truly need to find this important.
Please note that in most cases, when you bid for demolition contracts from corporate organizations or industries, you will be called upon to defend your proposal. So you must be pretty good with presentations.
These are some platforms that you can use to promote your demolition services, and we would recommend using them to boost your opportunities and bring more prospective leads your way:
- Send introductory letters along with your brochure to construction companies locally.
- Promptness when bidding on demolition.
- You can open your company by throwing a party to attract the attention of residents who are your first targets.
- Advertise your services in local newspapers and radio stations.
- Listing your products and business on yellow pages.
- Make use of the internet to promote your company. Digital marketing is basically everything.
- Direct marketing and sales are your best options.
- Encourage word-of-mouth marketing referrals since they will bring over 50% of your leads.
- You can hire the services of business developers and marketing executives to do direct marketing.
Strategize to Increase Brand Awareness
If you’re not intentional about building your brand awareness and communicating your corporate image, you shouldn’t be in business.
The secret to larger corporations is their willingness to spend a lot of money year after year to increase their brand awareness and continue communicating their corporate identity in the way they want.
Suppose you want to expand your business beyond the local area where you operate and make it a national or international brand. In that case, you will need to be willing to invest in promotion and advertising.
You should use both electronic and print media to promote your company’s brand and corporate identity. It is not only cost-effective to use social media platforms and the internet to promote your brands, but it also has a wide reach.
Another strategy is to sponsor relevant community-based programs, TV, radio, and advertise your business in relevant magazines, newspapers, and radio. These are some of the platforms that you can use to build your brand and promote and advertise your company.
Advertisements can be placed in magazines, newspapers, and radio stations if you need ideas. When going back to the previous step, remember you can encourage word-of-mouth publicity from loyal customers.
On the other hand, once more, make use of the internet and social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to promote your company.
Make sure your billboards and banners are strategically placed around your city, and this will help with the general marketing as well.
Next, take the time to distribute your flyers and handbills to the targeted areas within and around our neighborhood, and call your neighbors, friends, and anyone on your mailing list to inform them about your online casino and gambling company.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Demolition Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Demolition Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Demolition Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.