Category Archives: construction equipment

Applying solid techniques can make selling of heavy equipment an easier job

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Many people have found selling to be the most difficult work and they usually give it up in just few days from taking a job that involves them to sell the products. They somehow do not find it convenient and remain unhappy with their job. It is only during the time when they are able to make a sale that they get a bit charged up but most of the time they are haunted with the thought of quitting the job and taking something else in its place. Truly, selling is not everybody’s cup of tea. Though it is a requirement that all should be comfortable doing with but the fact is that only a handful of men and women are good in sales and the rest takes up some other job.

Well, life becomes more difficult when one is linked to selling heavy equipment. Selling heavy equipment not only requires good skill but one should adopt some solid techniques to ensure that he converts the possibility of a sale into a definite one. So just mastering the skill to sell might not be enough when it comes to selling heavy equipment but one has to move an extra mile and also learn the “solid techniques”.

Let’s talk in brief about the techniques one can use while selling heavy equipment.

Keep your presentations simple and use more pictures and diagrams:-

If you feel that you have a great job by preparing a presentation that includes jargons which is understood by people from the construction industry then you will be surprised to know that your work has higher chances of backfiring. Please understand everybody likes to understand things in a simpler way. If you make it look complex you have simply lost it. Try and show your work with the help of diagrams and pictures which will relate easily with what you want to explain. Speak only to the point. You need not explain every detail as they may not be interested to know every small thing. So focus on what the users want and it will be transformed into a closed deal.

Make use of social media to reach out to a good chunk of people:-

This is an important technique and a must use when you are into selling of heavy equipment. People should know about you. You can’t knock the door of every construction company checking if they are in need of any heavy equipment. What best you can do is create a business profile in a popular social networking website and add people who are connected to this industry. This will work big time for you and you will see people talking you whenever they see a need to buy a machine.

Keep posting pictures of any new arrivals on your company’s website:-

People are usually attracted to know if there are any new arrivals in the market. You can update pictures of machines that have been just launched by the company and also state on your website the offers/discounts that you can offer. This will let others come to you to buy the machines.

 

 

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Renting a track loader

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Renting business has gained a lot of momentum in the last few years and this has led to many people taking advantage of this opportunity and letting out their heavy equipment to people who need them for their business. So if you have any heavy equipment that is being unused and you want to get rid of it, rather than doing it away completely, the better option is to rent it out. By renting it to a person, you not only earn recurring rental income but can also sell the equipment at a better price in the future. All you got to do is refurbish the machine and put it on sale. Heavy equipment that can be quickly rented are basically multifunctional. For instance, a track loader is one such heavy equipment that is viable to do every kind of construction activity which is out of its genre. It may not be the perfect tool and one would prefer to use a machine that is especially designed for a particular work but to buy different equipment for every other work is definitely not practical and also not monetarily feasible for any big construction company.

So a track loader can be called the blue eyed candy and the most preferred amongst all heavy equipment. So renting a track loader will never be an issue. You will for sure get many people who will be willing to use the machine by paying you the amount you demand. Just make sure that you do not keep the price so high that people will find it difficult to take. Since it will not produce better results than heavy equipment that is specifically designed to for a particular genre of work, you should quote an amount that people will become ready to pay.

You can advertise your wish to let out the machine on an online portal or can check with few of your pals who are connected with this industry if at all they know anybody who is looking for a track loader. It may not be a one day process as it takes time to get the right person for the machine. You got to be sure that the person will use the machine with care and there will not be any major wear and tear on it. This is perhaps the most critical part in the entire process of renting heavy equipment. Finding the right guy for your heavy equipment is important.

The other important aspect is if the taker will be ready to pay the rental price of the loader. You may quote an amount but it is very likely that the prospective taker will negotiate on it and will try to bring the price down. So you should be ready for negotiations as well and therefore should always quote the price on the higher side. Presently owners of heavy equipment are finding online portals as the most convenient tool to list their machines. You should supposedly not have any issues in renting a track loader on any online portal.

Cost cutting measure is important in construction business

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Every industry has its share of good and bad days. So when they are enjoying their good days it is crucial that they keep enough reserves for any possible decline in their business and when they encounter any fall then they should be quick to adopt cost cutting measure. It is been widely observed that companies take time to adopt cost cutting measures due to which they get themselves into deeper mess and eventually some has to wind up their businesses.

Cost cutting measures do not primarily involve sacking employees though that is considered as one of the measures but that should be the last option. By sacking employees, you will be losing resources that have been with your company for many years and who know the business well. When the tide will turn, you again have to recruit new guys and train them. You may not get back the same human resources that you had sacked once. So keep that as your last option.

Bring down unnecessary expenses:-

You got to track down the overall operating and non-operating expenses in your company and have to cut down the costs that you feel is completely unnecessary. If you check your records, you will come across a lot of such expenses that should not have been done in the first place. Since you never bother to check the records, it must have occurred but this is what you need to curtail. You need to cut down all the expenses that are either not needed or not much needed by the company. Only spend the money on important things and things that are absolutely necessary for the smooth running of the business.

Rent out or sell heavy equipment that are redundant for your business:-

If you take a day’s time and check which all heavy equipment are indeed functioning, you may be surprised to know that out of the entire lot of heavy equipment you possess, you use only half the machines for your projects. Rest of the machines are not working but you still spend a good deal of money on maintaining them. That is again costing your business. Hence, it is important that you take stock of the heavy equipment that are not in use and may remain out of use of many more months so that they can be rented out to guys who need them. In case, if the machines have gone redundant, then it is advisable that you get rid of them. In this way, you will make some money for your business.

Sack employees if you really have to:-

Well, this should be the last option in your kitty. You can do this only if you feel that this is the only step you have to save your company from getting wrapped up. However, you have to take immense care before you lay off your employees. It is important that you remove people who are not good workers and often have been a pain to the company. Check their performance sheet and then take a calculated decision. Remember, once you lose them there are not much chance to get them back.

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Construction sector is a booming one for small time contractors

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Construction industry is one of those industries that is known for making not so rich people ultra-rich. It is just that they need to know how to work in this industry keeping your discipline intact. If you are a person who is disciplined and also focused to your work, you can yield good results and the industry will always reward you for your hard work. Other than being focused, there are few more things that are quite essential when it comes to making it big in the construction sector. Particularly for small time contractors who are striving hard to make it big, they need to follow some very basic and simple rules that can help them a long way in achieving what they have desired from this sector.

Maintain a good rapport with your competitors:-

This industry is full of competition where every other guy is ready to take away your business if you hold things loosely. It becomes very difficult to maintain good relation with your competitors but you still have to do so. You never know when one of your competitor with whom you have a good relation may come with an offer for you that can give a new dimension to your business. Having a strenuous relationship never helps anywhere and especially in a sector like this, you got to be very careful before you speak anything that may deteriorate your bonding with the next person.

Knowing the industry well:-

It is often said that you should do something that you know you can do well. This is very much applicable for the construction sector. Just because this industry can reward you lot more than any other industry can does not mean that you should just jump into it without giving a second thought. If you do not much about the construction business, it is advisable that you stay out of it or get into it only after you have learned the trick of the trade. Entering the industry before that can only make things messy for you.

Have a mentor to guide you:-

It is very important to find someone who can guide you all the way through. It is never easy to be in such a dynamic industry without getting proper guidance from an expert mind. Having a mentor who can walk you through the difficult phases in your business is really worthy. You may not be able to evaluate how much your mentor’s advice will save you from any sort of miseries. It is however difficult to find such a person but you have to keep trying. Ideally, one can find such a person during his initial days of struggle. It is only during that phase of his life that you get to meet good, bad and ugly guys. You then have to check on whom can you trust the most and once you have found the person, you can rely on him for any kind of advice.

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Heavy Equipment Recruiters

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Construction companies are always on the look of operators who are good in working with different kinds of heavy equipment. They do not experience finding fresh guys from institutions that teaches students to become competent operators However, they lack experience and this is why they also need people who are experienced in this profession. Someone who has worked for more than 5 years is good enough for the companies to hire them at a level above the juniors. The only problem they encounter is that they have no idea from where and how to get these experienced operators working for their company. This is where the concept of heavy equipment recruiters becomes instrumental. They are the ones who can act as a bridge and can get the operators looking for a job and the construction companies looking to hire operators at a same place so that both can meet each other’s needs.

 

Things that are required to become a heavy equipment recruiter may not be as simple as it appears to be. A person who wants to act as a bridge between the construction companies and heavy equipment operators should have ready information about who needs whom. If it is difficult for the construction company to find operators, it is also hard for the heavy equipment recruiters to do so. They follow few very basic rules that get them the lead and thus they can make the resource available to their clients.

 

Letting others know what they are into:-

Heavy equipment recruiters have to start with letting others know the type of business they are into. This will only help them to get clients who understand their business and will contact them to hire operators for them. This is perhaps the first most crucial step that they need to be taking and must ensure that they pervade the word about their work to every big and small construction company. Once the companies know them, they will place their requirement with them and they in turn will circulate an advertisement mentioning the requirement of the client. As per the requirement, eligible operators will either call them up will send them Resume to the recruiters. They can then call them up for an interview on a date when the representative of the construction company is also available so that he can take the interview of the candidate and if things go well, the company will get an operator.

Recruiting may not be a day’s affair:-

The role of the heavy equipment recruiters becomes essential when the recruitment process is not just a day’s affair. At times, it takes the entire week as the date of the construction company interviewing the candidate may not match as per the convenience of the candidate. It becomes the responsibility of the recruiters to call up the candidate and settle things well in advance. It should not happen that the construction company comes up to the venue for the interview and they end up with no candidates. That may not go well with the company and they may think of ending their relationship with the heavy equipment recruiters.

 

Hire experienced technicians to take care of heavy equipment

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One of the biggest hindrances that many construction companies encounter is the abrupt breaking down of the heavy equipment which ultimately leads to no business activity in that area for the next few days. It is quite evident that not every construction company can afford to deploy more than one heavy equipment in one location. They simply do not have enough heavy machinery to manage their business affairs on the jobsite and on top of that if they experience a break down with any of the machines that are currently in use, they suffer heavy loss for the number of days the machine remains inactive. Taking this into consideration, the way out of this mess is to ensure that you have someone to repair the machine whenever it breaks down.

The easy solution will be to hire technicians who will be a call away from the jobsite and can fix things instantly. If for some reason the machine needs any crucial part to be replaced then that should be done without any further delay which means immediately. Such should be the instruction coming from the higher management that as soon as there is a problem you have men to resolve it and this is how things will be in place.

Now when we talk about hiring technicians, it is prudent that one should hire experienced technicians who have worked earlier with most of the heavy machines that are normally used in a construction jobsite. The benefit in hiring such technicians will be that they will take less time to resolve the problem and also they will provide with highly effective solutions. This is perhaps something that we can’t expect from an inexperience technicians. They will relatively take more time to identify the issue whereas the experienced ones by then will be over and done with it. It will make life lot easy for the people directly involved in the business. An operator will be always at ease as he knows at the back of his mind that there is someone to help him if the machine goes bad. So he can work without any limitations.

So when we talk about hiring experienced guys does not mean that you only have a bunch of experienced men working for you. This may create a level of uneasiness amongst the technicians and in order to avoid this scenario, it is advisable that there should be a mixture of both experienced as well as inexperienced technicians. In this way, people who want to become good technician gets employment and you on the other hand can get a bit of cheap labor. Remember, experienced technicians charges good chunk of money as their compensation which most construction companies find difficult to give. Therefore, they are compelled to have a mixture of experienced and inexperienced men in their company so that they do not have to pay more for their services.

Alternatively, there is a high risk that the experienced guys may switch companies for better salary and benefits. So, having a mixture helps them to a larger extent.

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How to clean a machine with a power washer

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Heavy equipment have to go through a lot of dirt and stains on a daily basis. The kind of work it goes through can only suggest the amount of mud it has all over its body and through that one can also understand the mud it has eaten and must be rotting inside its body. It is said that heavy equipment should be cleaned on a regular basis and if not done then there are higher chances of it getting damaged. People spend a lot for buying a machine and they can’t see it rotting just because it has eaten a lot of dirt and the guys are finding it hard to remove it from the machine.

Well, there is a very simple solution to this problem and that is to clean the machine using a power washer. It is also known as “Pressure Washer”. It gives you the access to reach those areas which are ideally not possible for human hands to reach. Well, in order to clean the interiors of the machine, you do not have to open apart each and every piece of it and then spray the dirt out. All you can do now is just use the power washer and get rid of stains and dirt that is in and around the machine.

It is also very simple to use a power washer and can be done by you or by your children (only if they are young enough to understand how it works). Also, it does not put a lot of stress on you. You have to select the time on the power washer that you think you will take to wash the entire machine and you also got to make sure that you have sufficient gallons of water that will sustain till the time you are cleaning the machine. The garden hose should be ¾-in diameter as that should suffice to connect to the washer’s inlet. You also got to make sure that you have tightened the hose connection so that no air passes in the line.

You need to ensure that you have set the spray want to 0 pressure so that there are no kick-backs when the power washer is started. Once you are done with this, you have to turn on the water faucet completely. Once you do that, slowly squeeze the spray wand so that you can wash out the air from the stuff. You can then start the engine and allow it to warm-up for a minute after which you can adjust the pressure and the settings on the spray making it ready to shoot water.

While you are working on the power washer, it is advisable that you keep the user manual handy as different power washers work differently. So you may need them when you are actually working with it. You may also ready it first and then try the washer. It may seem difficult but the moment you use it for the first time, things will turn out to be quite smooth for you.

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Top 5 favorite pieces of heavy equipment

When it comes to the construction industry, every machine has its value and people prefer to make the maximum use of the machine they get to use. For instance, if they are given the work to bulldoze an existing structure so that they can build something else in its place. They can get this part of the work done using a bulldozer manufactured by an ace company. In this situation, they will not be making use of any other heavy equipment as it will simply not be the relevant instrument to get the work done. You have to make use of a bulldozer for that work and can’t use an excavator or a truck for that matter. Similarly, you have to use a truck to haul materials from one place to the other. Here you can’t use a dozer. The construction companies are very specific with their wants and they do not ever compromise when it comes to the need of heavy equipment.

We will be speaking on the top 5 favorite heavy equipment that are liked and are equally in high demand by the owners of different construction companies.

Excavator:-

An excavator is one such machine that has no alternative. You can’t make use of any other heavy equipment for the work that is done with the help of an excavator. It will help you to dig deep in the ground and make a big hole so that you can lay a strong foundation. Today most of the major construction companies are making use of excavators to dig deep in a given plot of land and take all the mud out of it. Once the ground is dug deep, then start laying the foundation for the building. So the much needed heavy equipment is the excavator as without it, you can’t have rock solid foundations.

Bulldozers:-

The need of a bulldozer can’t be ignored. They are used to bulldoze any permanent existing structure into debris so that something new can be built in its place. They are probably the one which are used much before an excavator is brought on the site. However, it is used only in places where you already have a structure which needs to be demolished.

Graders:-

We all love to travel on flat roads. Bouncy roads can have a direct impact on our minds. We definitely do not like to have bumpy rides and in order to have a smooth road, we need graders in place. It has a single large blade that is attached to the front of the machine and using that it flattens the ground or the road making travelling far comfortable for us.

Dump trucks:-

There is a very important reason why dump trucks are considered as the most favorite heavy equipment. Well, once you demolish a structure or excavate a land or simply clean up the forest, we got to do something with the leftover material. This is why you need the dump truck which will facilitate in taking the debris and dumping them in the dump-yard.

Forklifts:-

Forklifts are much needed equipment in any worksite. You will always have the need to lift several pounds of materials at a go and this is where you will find the forklifts to be instrumental.

 

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Preventable accident heavy equipment safety

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Safety has always been a big concern in any construction jobsite. Even though people take utmost caution and follow all the necessary safety procedures, accidents happen. Some companies have even called upon experts who have done detailed study in jobsite related accidents and they have to say that it is sometimes mere ignorance on the part of the employees that they are so engrossed with their work following which they forget to follow certain procedure and the accident occurs. At times it is also due to lack of communication.

For instance, when heavy equipment is supposed to work at a site and everybody needs to clear off the area while the machine is working, it has been seen that many workers just do not know about it beforehand and they continue with their work. It is only when they get to know from other workmen that they move away from the area. The experts say that they need to be communicated about the evacuation before the machine is moved into the area and not after the workers see it inside the zone they are working in.

Make announcement that is loud and clear:-

In order to ensure that your heavy equipment does not pose any risk to the employees nor does it become a victim of any accident, it is necessary that an announcement is made on the jobsite informing all that the machine will be working for “X” number of hours and till that time, workers will not work in that area. In this way, you can prevent any accident from happening. You can make use of big speakers to make announcements so that it gets into the ears of everybody and nobody wanders near to the site.

Ensure that the brakes are in order:-

Make it a general practice every time before you start your day. Start the heavy equipment and move it a bit. Go to and from and apply brakes while it is in motion. In this way, you will ensure if the brakes are in order. It has often been witnessed that an accident has occurred as the operator was not able to stop the machine even though he applied brakes with all his might. Please understand that heavy equipment go under arduous work and there is a possibility that some function will just desist to work. Therefore checking if everything is in place should be your first task before you begin with the day.

Regular maintenance of the machine:-

Regular maintenance of the heavy equipment is of utmost importance. You never know for what reason the machine might stop working or if some functions of the machine fail to work, it can lead to serious problem. For instance, if an excavator while excavating earth pulls the dirt out and while loading in on a truck, something goes wrong and it just throws everything out on the ground where people are working, it can lead to injuries. Maintaining a machine means treating the equipment completely and if there is any sort of issue then weeding it out completely should be a priority.

New Caterpillar Excavators

New advanced excavators are the need of the hour as the construction industry needs is in dire need of such machines that has the capability of excavating earth in just few hours. The existing ones which most of the companies have are also competent enough to do the same work but the only difference is that they consume lot of fuel and the productivity is not that high as compared to the fuel consumption. This clearly indicates that the construction companies are not making enough profits which they could make if they have excavators that consumes less fuel and is more productive.

Keeping the needs of the construction companies into consideration, Caterpillar has come up with various models of new machines that are known to be highly productive and more reliable that all its previous models. They are also more technologically sound and gives more comfort to the person operating the machine. Simultaneously, the newer models of excavators can sustain rough weather conditions like working for hours in the hot summer or in the monsoon where the land is muddy and have high chances of dirt making its way into the interiors of the machine and during the chilled winters where the excavators is used to plough the snow out of the roads.

Caterpillar has produced many new excavators, some big in size and some are the smaller ones. The small excavators also popularly known as mini excavators are widely used by big construction companies. They find these machines to be very economical, user friendly and more reliable. At the same time, it can be used in sites where big excavators find it difficult to enter. These small machines due to its small size can easily enter small sites and does the work with equal effect as compared to the bigger ones. Caterpillar is concentrating to develop more of these mini excavators as it found this machine to be the blue eyed candy boy amongst construction companies and therefore they are focusing on making it more technologically advanced.

Though these mini excavators can’t completely replace the bigger ones as they have their own importance in the construction industry, it is just that they are easy to maneuver and can access sites which are not possible for the larger version of excavators. If we speak about the maintenance of these machines, they are not at all complex and can be done in a day. Servicing is however equally important in lengthening the life of the equipment. One has to ensure that he needs to service the machine at regular intervals as and when it is advised to him by the mechanic or mentioned in the service manual. Delays are understandable but it should not be a prolonged one.

The mini excavators are also quite affordable as it is normally within the budget of every owner of a construction company. They ideally do not have to take a loan to procure that machine and even if they do go for a loan, it can be cleared off in no time.

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