The Most Hands-Off Solo Side Hustle to Start Right Now Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

What is your revenue per month on  average? 5,500 to 7,500. And you still have a full-time job? Still have a  full-time job. Yep. Very minimal work on my end. How much total time do you spend  on the business? 2 to 4 hours. [music] So, you're making 200 plus an hour on this  business. It's pretty risk-free. There is not a whole lot that can go wrong.

Can you  get [music] financing on these? Absolutely. So, in about five minutes, a guy named Nathan  is going to walk through that door. And he's flying here from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And  he makes thousands of dollars a month in profit, working 5 hours a week doing trailer rentals. 31  years old. He has a full-time job and two kids. And his business is almost 100% automated, very  low risk to start, low cost to start.

You can find out if there's demand before you have to launch.  There's just a lot to love about the trailer rental business. So, I flew Nathan here so we  could learn all about it. Let's go. All right. So, how long have you had the auction job? Coming up  on seven years now. Okay. Yep. And how long have you been doing the trailer rental business? 15  months.

Oh, wow. Wow. Same age as my daughter. We started that like 2 days after she was born,  technically. What first gave you the idea to start this? I have an issue like most young men my age  of scrolling Facebook Marketplace and saw a guy listing a trailer rental business for sale locally  on Facebook Marketplace. on Facebook. Yep. And I realized I'd rented in the past a boat from him  randomly a couple years before.

So just reached out. He was selling 10 trailers and then his book  of business for the last couple years as he was moving a couple hours west of Pennsylvania and  just wanted to size down. Now in a business like that, how much can you actually sell your book  of business versus he's just selling the assets? That's a great question and I think it depends how  much information you have on those customers.

and he didn't have any email addresses. It was just  a home address and a landline or cell phone. So, obviously immediately looking in, you realize  it's fairly antiquated. Yeah, he's selling his trailers. I mean, with a maybe a little bit of  goodwill baked in there. I was the only one that was really serious about making an offer on  it, so I kind of negotiated to just buy the trailers for what he was saying they were valued  at, which was 35,000.

Um, the 10 trailers. Yeah, they were older, used trailers, heavily used.  Are we talking like dump trailers, uh, flatbeds, box trailers? A good mix of everything. That  was his goal was to try and provide a little broad range of trailers. So, there were five  enclosed trailers, several open trailers, utility and equipment trailer. The only thing  that out of that list you mentioned that wasn't in there was a dump trailer.

Okay. Okay. This is  Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yes. How many people live there in the county? It's 500,000. Okay. I don't  know exactly in the town, but it's a midsize town. It's nothing okay like Philly or here. And how  was he finding customers? He did have a website, just a WordPress website with a lot of characters  on it and back links. So, he ranked in the area if you search for trailer rentals, but  that was really how he was finding it, just having people.

Google business profile. Mhm.  Okay. Good reviews. Mixed. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he's unsophisticated. Sounds like he doesn't  have like a CRM, customer relationship management software. Or did he? He I mean, you might say he  did, but it wasn't sophisticated in anything other than he could type in somebody's name and see  if they were in there previously.

There wasn't an anything automated that you could hook up to  reach. Okay. So, he had a website, Google business profile. Did he have a lot of reviews or a lot of  pictures or he had a lot of reviews. He was doing it for probably 10 years in the area. What would  you say his rating was when you bought it? He had two businesses and he separated out the trailers  into their own.

So, they were like a 4.2 star and then the other rentals were a bit lower than  that. And boat rentals. Yeah. Boat and some small equipment. But he didn't want to sell that side of  the business. No. And he's still doing the trailer rentals um just on a smaller scale 2 hours away.  Okay. Yep. Do you guys have like a non-compete or anything or is it just he's so far away you're  not worried about it?

It was kind of a Goodwill offering in the fact that there's no non-compete  cuz he's still doing it. The way I structured the initial purchase, he was asking for $20,000  on top of the trailers for his customer list, and I made a deal with him that I'd just give him  a referral fee for any previous renter that was on his list or that he referred through his current  or through his updated Yeah.

Yeah. business. So that way he would still get a kickback if somebody  from my area called him to rent a trailer. So I was giving him or I still am giving him 35% of  the first rental that anybody he refers. Okay. So you ended up spending 35,000 on these. Yep. Okay.  What was he doing in revenue? Like if he were to be able to value the revenue side of the business,  how big was that?

Those 10 trailers averaged over the last two years 28,000 a year total. All All 10  of them? Yep. All 10 of them combined. Okay. And did he have like good books or was was he filing  taxes on that or I hope he was filing taxes. Yeah, the books weren't good. The way I was able to  feel comfortable going about that was fairly familiar with how much used items sell for on  marketplace between the auction and just been flipping stuff on Facebook for a while.

I figured  that the 35,000 just for those trailers was the price that I could sell them all for individually  if we started it and it flopped. Yeah. Yeah. And if you really wanted to, you could have pieced  together 10 trailers. But this is better than that cuz what about the phone number? Where does  the phone number go? He kept his phone number, kept his business name and everything.

Okay. I  just took a customer list from him and so then he just set up a phone call forwarding service.  Okay. To my number if somebody calls in. So you took over the website, swapped out the phone  number with yours or he still has his website. Everything. So you put it in your own business  name, own business name, new Google business profile. Yeah.

Everything on that side was fresh.  Okay. For me. So are you getting anything? Like do you have any shot of getting leads on day one if  you don't do anything? Or do you you kind of have to start from scratch? How do you mean start from  scratch? Cuz like you're not getting calls cuz he keeps the phone number, keeps the website. Sure.  But is there is he forwarding leads to you like, "Hey, can I rent a trailer?"

Not there anymore,  but let me give you his name. Yeah. So, he is forwarding from day one, which is how  I got my first rental. Obviously, immediately once we bought the trailers, then I was putting  up a Google business profile. I interviewed a couple different software companies to do the  website and backend stuff to start getting SEO traction. Okay.

What did you name the business?  Lanko Trailer Reynolds. That's what they call Langster County. Yep. It's a pretty common easy  to know exactly what we do and where we're loot rentals.com. It's lorotraers.com. Okay. Yeah. What  was his name for it? Cross Keys Rentals. Okay. Are you having to pay him a referral fee when he  sends leads your way? Yep.

Yeah. For the first the first time somebody rents with me, that comes from  him. I give him a 35% kickback. Okay. And to date, over 15 months, I think there's been 20 right  about 20 referrals, it's total 1,200 bucks. Oh, okay. So, it's not not that much. No. Hey,  if you're digging this episode, please hit subscribe real quick. Nathan had 6 hours of flight  delays today.

And if you don't hit subscribe, then all of that was a waste on 28,000 a year that  he was doing. It's got to be mostly profit, right? Cuz you buy the thing and it's your time. There's  no gas. There's I mean, wear and tear, minimal, I'm guessing. Yep. Insurance. Yes. He told me  he wasn't even worrying about insurance. I mean, it sounds silly, but honestly, it's kind of not.

I think like if you were to selfinsure, because after 6 months or 12 or 24 months, what you would  have paid in insurance would buy another trailer. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely right.  And in Pennsylvania, the tow vehicles insurance policy has to cover liability for whatever  it's pulling. It won't necessar necessarily cover collision, but it has to cover the liability  there.

So, you're saying the the vehicle insurance in Pennsylvania has to cover whatever it's towing.  Mhm. That's for Pennsylvania. I don't know if that's okay. Every state. So, they legally don't  have to have insurance on the trailer. Yeah. No, he didn't. Yep. Do you have insurance? I do. Yeah.  How much does that run? So for general liability for the business itself and then insurance on  the trailers, which there's 13 of them right now, it's 3,800 bucks a year.

So about It's not bad.  Yeah, just under right around 350 a trailer. Where was he keeping all these? He was keeping them on  a property that he owned. It was only 7 minutes up the road from my house. And then I ended up  renting that old space. Okay. From him. I guess that would be the other overhead is where to keep  these things. Yep. Yeah. Are you still renting that space today?

I'm not. No, it wasn't a great  setup. It was just a really long skinny property, so every trailer had to be stacked up behind  each other. So, I had to also run a little skid loader to move them all in between rentals. It I  could set out a max of three trailers at a time to get picked up before I'd have to go over pull  other trailers out back. That got a little fast, huh?

Yeah, it was it was a great way to start  and kind of experiment with the contactless side where I was still coming to the yard,  seeing the trailers every now and then, meeting a renter. But since then, I've found  about a halfacre gravel a lot that I rent, which is just a better setup for contactless. What  were you paying him and then what are you paying now?

So, I was paying him 400 bucks a month. Okay.  Which was pretty reasonable. And now I'm paying 800. Okay. But it's much better configured. Yes.  It's just a a flat square halfacre gravel lot. So there's plenty of access to park the trailers all  along one side and then as people come in to pick up or drop off, they have plenty of space to turn  around.

Okay. Yeah. So it's much better set up. So 300ish a month for insurance, 800 for the lot, no  employees. Nope. So we're at 1,100 a month whether you rent anything out or not. Yep. Before we get  to like the your current numbers, how did like the first three months go? What are your action plans?  You hire a software company, you get a website up, you make the name, then what?

So, there are  several different trailer rental specific CRM website builders out there. So, I interviewed  each of them and found a company called Rent Flow Solutions. And they more or less handle everything  from the website design, SEO, and help to set up automations or they can make it as automated as  as you're wanting the business to be. Okay.

So, I got with them and that was kind of how the Google  side started picking up. Okay. Because they helped create your Google business profile. I still  created that myself, but once I had the domain, their automations helped you start getting reviews  and replying to reviews. Yeah, exactly. They they did the whole website build for me. All I had to  do is send them the description and pictures of the trailers and they at least got it showing up  on Google.

So, that call started coming in. Okay. Do you remember what your first month's revenue  was? The first month's revenue was 2,300 bucks. Wow. Okay. Pretty good. It covered the expenses,  which was my only goal. I mean, already you're on track to meet what he did the year before cuz  he he's doing 28,000 a year. That's about 2,300 a month. Yeah. And that was only a a half month  that we started.

Wow. So, it's on track for 4,000 a month. Oh, wow. Okay. So, what about your your  second month, aka your first full month? The first full months was right about 4,000. Wow. So you're  beating him by 50%. I mean he's doing 28k. Yeah. So the one thing to consider in Pennsylvania at  least is it is a little bit more seasonal because of so yeah it's not like an the summer time  are the months where it's usually a little bit better and then the open trailers stay pretty slow  during the winter months cuz it's more just if

you have good days people will use them but if it's  snowing they don't want an open trailer. Okay. So, how many of those leads that you first got were  from him versus from your brand new website and Google business profile? I wish I had that exact  number. Mostly your own stuff, right? Yes. If you don't give me 20 leads, I want to say that first  month, we had about 20 rentals on the first total month.

Okay. And of those, I would say three  to five max were from him. Oh, wow. Okay. So, you're averaging like 200 bucks a rental? Yes.  How much per day per trailer on average? A good ballpark is probably 90 bucks is the median that  I rent for. It's anywhere between 50 and 150 for my trailers and 2 days on average. So it depends  what kind of trailer they're renting.

If they're renting an enclosed trailer, they'll average 4 and  1/2 days. Uh if they're renting an open trailer, it's 1 and 1/2 days cuz they might just need to go  pick up a riding lawnmower, you know? Yeah. Pretty simple, quick move. Or their car broke down and  they're just towing it to the shop. Okay. just a single day, couple hour rental. Yeah. Whereas a  lot of times the enclosed trailers end up being moves or guys taking motorcycles out to Sturgis,  things like that where they're on a trip.

Yeah. Okay. So, in these first few months, you were  doing everything yourself. Were you meeting people on the lot? How was that going? The first  several I met people there, just did it manually in person. And then once the website and some  of the automations had started, I started doing hide a key boxes on the trailers with a lock  on them. And then when somebody would show up, they'd get pickup instructions with where that key  was hidden for their rental.

So they could come up and pick it up without having to meet me. Yeah.  The one downside that I learned pretty quickly of meeting people is like you found out today, you're  on their time. So if they're running late, then you're stuck there at the yard for an hour when  you didn't have to be. Yeah. And you're just like, "Yeah, not the best use of my time."

You can walk  around, kick tires, but you can only do that for so long before toiling your thumbs. So, phase one  was you meeting people there doing it manually. Yep. Phase two was a lock box. Hey, here's the  code. Yep. Let me know if you have any questions. What about phase three? Phase three was beginning  of this year when I got the New Yard lease set up.

All the trailers have their own designated  spot. They all have locks on them with their own keys. And then I've got a big sign kind of message  board type thing with lock boxes on them for each trailer. They're all numbered. And when somebody  books on the website or if they call me to book, I'll process the card information over the phone.  Then the automated system kicks in and they uh do the rental agreement right from their phone.

Then  it texts them 24 hours before their pickup time, the pickup instructions with the lockbox  number and their trailer. So, they show up, unlock the trailer, hook up, and go. So, it's  completely automated. Completely. Yeah. I mean, I'll still field calls, but that's the extent of  what I'm doing. Just oneoff questions. Yep. Hey, I can't find is it this one or that one or Yeah.

More it's just people calling in trying to get a price or see if I have availability before they  check the website. Okay. So, how much did it cost you to get phase three set up with like the lock  boxes and the the majority of the cost is uh the 800 bucks to rent the lot? The lock boxes, they're  30 bucks a piece on Amazon. I spent 350 bucks on print shop to make like an official sign that  looks good.

Built a little wooden placard overhang board for it to sit on. So, couple hundred bucks  there. Each each lock is 65 bucks on the trailers. Okay. And then I have cameras out there, but  fenced in. It's not fenced in. It's open. Uh but it's not road frontage. So you wouldn't see it  if you're driving past the lot, which is why it's cheaper. Obviously, road frontage would probably  bring in more rentals.

Yeah. But I just I hadn't found that. Yeah. It's not easy to find a gravel  lot that's for rent that has good frontage, right? Yeah. And that's within my price range for renting  out trailers, right? You know, as a side hustle, right? Okay. So, 4,000 first full month. Was  the rest of the summer kind of similarish? The next several months were. And then I think through  October was good and then the winter months were a little slower.

They dropped down to the lowest  was just over $2,000. Could be worse. They were between $2 and $3,000. Kind of paid for itself,  but definitely a little bit slower. Yeah. Um, but that was also what I was expecting from  what I had heard from him. So, my my only goal at the time was just to cover the 1,200 bucks  in fixed expenses that I knew it was going to have.

Okay. What about any like maintenance, any  repairs, flat tires? So, really with trailers, which is the whole reason why I got into it, it's  there's no engines. So, there's typically also minimal hydraulics. You know, a dump trailer will  have some hydraulics, but it's all minimal. So, your real maintenance comes from tires and then  bearings typically and suspension parts.

Okay. Past that, there is not a whole lot that can go  wrong with the trailer unless it's user error, obviously. Yeah. Do they have to take pictures  before and after? Yep. when they come pick up, get the code, they take before pictures, it checks  the trailer out of our system, and then same thing when they're back, take after pictures, and then  we have a I hold a security deposit on our card, so then I can verify trailer's in same condition  it left in once they wrap up.

Okay. Have you ever had any claims like someone bumped into something  or I've had damages to the trailers? For sure. That's something you have to definitely disconnect  yourself with, the trailers. Um, which I'm glad I bought the first ones used for that reason because  they already had dents and scratches throughout, but it's going to happen. Thankfully, typically  trailers are pretty sturdy and it's just part of it.

You know that they're going to get banged  up a little bit and as long as it's not major, it's tough to put a trailer out of commission  like that. The enclosed trailers have a little bit more debts and dings cuz they're larger,  but that's what the security deposits for. So when you do have incidents, you just use the  security deposit. Yep. Yeah. Always my goal is to be fair to everybody involved and I always make  sure to voice that to the renter.

I'm not looking to make any money on their damages, but I'm also  not looking to eat the cost myself. How much is the deposit? And are you always claiming that when  you have a damage or do you just lose sometimes? So a good rule of thumb, at least that I do for  the deposit is two times the daily rate. So, if it's cheap little trailer, that could be a  h 100red bucks or up to 250.

I usually don't go past that. And then the vast the vast majority  of damages, at least since I've been doing it, are under that threshold. Yeah. Every now and then  I had two breakdowns that were larger than that, but they were both easy to work out with the  renters. Okay. They're cool about it. Apologetic or Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they kind  of know if it's more than 250 bucks.

That's a big enough bump on the trailer that they know  they caused it. So, I'm sure there will be a day where I'll have to eat something. But you  haven't yet? No. Wow. No. So, your maintenance costs have effectively been zero other than  like Sorry, not maintenance. Your damages, your repairs are effectively zero. They net  even. Yeah. But you are having to spend money to maintain them.

The bearings, the tires. How much  have you spent on that? For the first full year, that was 8,000. Okay. I spent maintenance  and that was also a little higher than normal because I frontloaded buying a bunch of extra  parts. And I um work with a mobile mechanic in the area to have him do all the maintenance so  that my goal with it was to be get it to where it's as handsoff for me as possible.

Yeah. And  then do you think that 8,000 a year is like you can expect that or was that artificially high  because they were all used? I think that's a safe bet. Yeah. Going forward, I have a couple  more trailers now. And as rentals increase, the maintenance goes up because it's you can do it  off of the mileage of the trailers. So, you know, bearings are every 12,000 mi for example.

So,  the more they're getting rented out, the more I'm going to have him in there replacing them. How do  you keep track of the miles? So, all the trailers, I put a GPS on all of them. Okay. You know where  they're at? Yeah, it's pretty simple GPS. It just pings twice a day. So, there's plenty of different  GPS's that guys use in the industry. Some of them ping every five minutes, and guys like to  sit there and see exactly where they're at, but I just need a a ballpark of where they're  at to track mileage.

And then obviously that's a worst case scenario if a trailer would happen  to get stolen. Obviously, that's the one of the never happens. No, it's not happened. And I get  that question a fair amount, but I'd say it's kind of there's levels of insulation with it where when  somebody books on the system, they have to upload their driver's license and insurance to the rental  agreement form.

So, I already have that on there and they won't get a pickup instructions text with  the code until that's done and they're paid. Okay. Then once they're on site, there's obviously  cameras there. So, their vehicle themselves are on camera. Yeah. All the trailers are locked. Of  course, if somebody breaks in and breaks one off, they could take it, but then you're hoping the GPS  is Yeah.

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The links in the description below. So  the website and software is right about 200 bucks a month. Okay, so we're at 1,100 for insurance and  rent plus 200 for website, 1,300. What about like your cameras and your GPS software? The cameras,  they're 50 bucks a month. I have four of them. 50 for all four? Yes. Okay. And the GPS software.  The GPS, they're an upfront 150 to buy it.

And the batteries are good for 4 years. Oh, okay. So,  nothing ongoing. Nope. All right. And then 8,000 a yearish for the maintenance, which would be  what, 700 a month? 800? Right about there. Wait, no, no. 500 like 650 a month, give or take.  So, we're at like 2,000 a month for overhead, including maintenance and repairs. Okay. Yeah.  Right now, it's right right between 2 to 2500.

Okay. depending how how much the transed is. Yeah.  Okay. And then what is your revenue per month on average? The last several months it fluctuates  between 5,500 to 7500. Oh, nice. Okay. Call it 6,500. So you're netting 4,000 a month, give  or take? Yep. 40,000 a year. That's beautiful. And you still have a full-time job. Still have a  full-time job.

Yep. I'm I'll be at the yard for maybe two to three hours a week is typically what  I imagine I spend on it right now. How much total time do you spend on the business? Like cuz you're  not only working on it when you're at the yard, right? Like if you were to add up all the hours  in a week, is it 5, 10? Definitely less. I think that's where it's closer to 2 to four hours.

The  main thing that I am doing is just taking calls. Okay. I'll get several a day and if I I'm booking  somebody on it, it might be a 10-minute phone call. But the system kind of takes over from  there once I mark them. The only things I do, I swing by on my way home from work, usually  two times a week, just look over the trailers. Yeah. While I'm there or if somebody drug a light  connector, something that's easy to quickly swap out, I might spend 30 minutes.

Okay. Swapping  something out while I'm there. So five hours a week give or take on the business? Two and a half  to five. Wow. Okay. So thousand bucks a week net profit on average lumpy. 1 thousand bucks a week.  Four or five hours a week. So you're making 200 plus an hour on this business after. Like don't  get me wrong, you had to set stuff up. You had to negotiate with the guy.

You had to get a lot. Find  a lot. Make the board. Make the thing that covers the board to keep people out of the rain. There's  hours that went into it before, but you got it to the point where it's somewhat passive and making  you 250 bucks an hour, right, for your time. Yeah, a lot of the the time was front-loaded, just  getting systems in place, but once they are now, it's very minimal work on my end.

How big could  it get in Lancaster County if you wanted to just go all out? That's a good question. I go back and  forth on what's the right way to grow it without leaving my current job. Whether that's continuing  to add more trailers, which there's definitely room to do that. And I think it's pretty easy as  demand comes in for certain trailers. I'll mark down when somebody anytime somebody calls and I  don't have the trailer they're asking for.

We'll have a running list in my phone and then I'll look  to add that next. Or I think honestly you could do a bunch of little transplant locations of 10 to 13  trailers. Keep the footprint small and just take the exact same repeatable system and put it 30  minutes away. That's also something that I've been Yeah. Have your mobile mechanic go out there once  a week or so.

The mechanic already already travels so he can just spend a day there, a day in Lester.  If you like could only have one trailer to offer, what would it be? probably for my area. It's going  to depend where you're at geographically, but a dump trailer, okay, it was a little bit slower to  get started, but once people know you have that, okay, that rents out by far the most on my lot as  far as number of rentals, but they're averaging one and a half days.

Okay. And it's seasonal,  so that's really heavy summertime out. Junk removal stuff. Is that what they're using? Junk,  landscape, concrete, asphalt. It's hydraulic, right? You just Yep. What do those cost? That was  8300. Oh, new. Wow. Okay. And then I mean that'll last 10 plus years. Yeah. If you keep maintaining  it, it'll have no problem. And what do you rent that one for?

95 a day. Wow. Okay. Do you have  like a metric where it's like like 10%, right? Like I spent n grand on this. I need to rent it  for 1%. 90 bucks a day, you know? Yeah. I'll base it off of what the other larger companies in the  area are doing, but a decent rule of thumb is one and a half times or one and a half percent of  the purchase price. Yeah.

So, if it's a $4,000 trailer, 60 bucks, you could probably do a little  bit higher than that on the cheaper trailers, but for a $10,000 trailer, at least for me, that's  pretty accurate for 50 a day, which means in 75 days of renting it out, you get all your money  back. Yep. And it's And then you pure profit, quote unquote, pure profit from then on out.

it  is. And you still you own the asset that you could go and sell for 20 to max 40% less than you paid  for it. They really don't devalue very fast. Can you get financing on these? Absolutely. Yeah. Do  you I took out a heliloc for the initial purchase? Yeah. So you borrowed against your house? Yep.  Okay. Was that difficult? No. Interest. It was something I Yeah.

I think the initial rate was  two and a half per percent. Wow. For their first nine months. Yeah. And then it jumped up to six  and a half. Okay. Okay. So that's how you bought the business. So you didn't really have the cash  or even if you did, you didn't want to use it, so you bought it against your house. When  you get these financed, do you usually finance them through like the dealership  you buy it from or through a bank or what?

So, I only used the helock for the initial ones  when I financed and then since then I've replaced all the old trailers that we had initially bought.  They've just been from the money in and the Okay. from the business. Yeah. Yeah. So, you've replaced  all of the original first 10? I have one little cheap trailer that's still original that's in good  shape that I have to replace, but all the other nine.

Okay. So dump trailers, you're in your area.  If you had to pick one, it would be that. What about number two and three? Probably a car hauler.  Kind of similar an open trailer. So when it's bad weather in the winter, it's not going to move up  north. Mhm. Um but here it would move year round. That's a very often rented trailer. And then an  enclosed trailer after that.

Preferably for me. Yeah. Like a 20 or 24 ft enclosed trailer. Those  for whatever reason do great. Hm. What are people using those for? Moving. Moving. Hauling. You can  haul cars in them if you want them enclosed. Yeah, that's more or less. Yeah. The extent of it, but  a lot of times they're on trips. People will take them on vacations or motorcycle guys love to rent  a big enclosed trailer and put three or four bikes in there for them and their friends to transport  them to Daytona or Yeah.

South Dakota. And then they'll drive them while they're out there. Okay.  Have you um do you have issues with people backing it in like reparking it or pulling it out or do is  the type of person renting a trailer the type of person that kind of knows how to pull a trailer?  Typically they know how to pull a trailer, but there's definitely people that don't.

In that instance, I'm thankful now that our yard is big enough that you can turn it around  and if worse comes to worse and somebody I had somebody call me saying like, "I can't do this.  There's no way." Yeah. So, in that instance, I just had them pull to the side to where  it's not out of the Yeah. Just drop it there, I'll I'll get it next time I'm over there.

And  as long as there's it's out of the way for people to turn around. Yeah. Or if I'm worried enough on  the phone talking with them, just feeling it out, you can kind of tell if somebody's asking for a  big enclosed trailer and they're pulling it in, you know, saying they're going to pull it in a car  and they've never towed before. That's kind of an easy one to weed out over the phone.

Do you want  to grow more by buying more trailers or by renting out other things or trailers in other cities? That  was going to be a question that I would ask you. Sure. My initial thought was to do transplant  locations since I already travel through a lot of Northeast PA. it would be easy for me to work  them into my roots during the week to just check here and there and take the exact same systems  that we're already doing.

Just put it to another geographic location or obviously once you start  in the rental game you can expand into equipment uh is big sector and it's kind of endless as to  the size that you could go or I experimented with a golf cart this summer with rent. I know.  Yeah. Interesting. Yep. Um, I know guys that do RVs or at least the pool behind campers.

So,  there's plenty of avenues to expand just a single location, but those expansion opportunities if  you're going past just the regular trailers, how I have them set up right now, all require  typically time. There's more moving parts like they break more. Yep. And those people for  will often want them delivered. Yeah. campers, golf carts, which is what I learned testing that  out this summer.

They most 95% of the people that are inquiring about them just when I'm dropped  off. And at least right now, that's not the game that I want to be in. Yeah. But I would consider  it for next year, knowing that now to hire younger guy to work several hours a week on the side  for me. Yeah. To run those, pick those up. What do people rent golf carts for?

From what I've  seen, it's usually between 100 to 200 bucks a day. But what's the use? Oh, what's the use? Yeah.  Events, campgrounds. Okay. Like you're you're an event organizer and you're coming to the area  for an event and you need a way to get around the event that or even just weddings, things that  are happening. A lot of that's that industry is happening outside on farms nowadays.

So, people  will rent them. Okay. For those type of types of events. And then also a lot of inquiries come from  people that are camping nearby in the area, want a golf cart for the week while they're in town.  Okay. Do you ever rent on Facebook Marketplace? Yeah, so Google makes up about 55% of where the  leads come and then Facebook for the last 15 months is about 14%.

Okay. Where's everything  else? Just organic. Organic word of mouth referrals or repeat customers. And then there's a  couple specific trailer rental platforms that you can post your own trailers on. Um, you don't even  have to have a business. You can do it kind of with their rental agreements if you want to test  it out. Um, if you have something sitting around, okay?

Hey, if you know someone like Nathan or if  you're like Nathan and you started a business that made thousands of dollars in a period of months,  I want you right here at my house on this podcast. So, go to tko yes.com, fill out the form, and  we'll have you on the pod. I mean, I'd be curious to see what would happen if you posted a bunch of  different things on Facebook Marketplace just to see what the demand is like as if you already had  it like skid steer for rent 450 a day.

I've rented a skid steer on Facebook Marketplace. I've rented  an excavator on Facebook Marketplace. That's where I think to get them. But like you got to drop it  off, pick it up usually. Yeah. And how and you got to fill it up with gas. How many things can go  wrong on that? Yeah. And you need to at least give the person running it a quick tutorial on how to  use it.

Yeah. And at least for where I'm at right now, that's not something that I wanted to do  during the day. I would have to find an operator if I wanted to expand into that. Yeah. Cuz it's  like on one hand, if you were to open multiple locations, then you could say, well, that's a  whole different business. But on the other hand, if you were to stay in the one location and  put a boat on there or an RV, I think that's more of a different business than just adding  another location would be 100%.

Because there, how many other things can you rent out that don't  have moving parts? They're kind of hard to find. There's not not many. So, if I were you, based on  all the facts you just told me, and you have such a system dialed in, I would just open a new lot or  just see what I could do to get more people to my current lot. What percentage of the space are you  taking up there?

probably 50%. Okay. So, there's still room there. And I because I'm a habitual  buyer and seller of things, I've bought a bunch of trailers this summer and I'll I'll post them  there or have them on the lot for rent for 2 3 months just to test and then sell it. Okay. After.  So, it could be if you filled it up at your same occupancy, your same volume, it could be $100,000  of profit from that one halfacre lot.

Yeah, you could find a way to do that for sure. If I were  you, I would get to that like as soon as possible and then find the next best city, you know, in  your area. And you probably didn't even do any like competitive research, I'm guessing, like when  you bought this. Like I looked around uh for sure and just saw what anybody renting trailers around  the area was doing, how many reviews they had, what their kind of setup looked like, and  nobody was doing contact lists.

And at least I'm obviously a little on the younger side still  where I know everybody my age and younger would prefer that type of method. Grab and go. It's on  your own time. So I just thought it was a missed opportunity. Yeah. There. What I was wondering  is like do you have any bearing on in Lancaster, you know, there's this many total trailers for  rent in the market against this population versus a city half hour down the road has this many  trail.

Like do you know if the supply and demand of trailers in your market is high or low compared  to other markets? I don't have an idea there. You might learn that the average market has half as  much competition or twice as much. So you might be like, dude, this is easy mode. I'm going to go an  hour down the road and you're that's like average competition and you do half as well.

Or you  might learn, man, I'm playing this on hard mode. You go a half hour down the road and it's just it  explodes because that's more of a a normal market. Yeah, I'd be curious to know that like you could  just scrape every trailer place divided by the population and assume that like the demographics  are similar. So they might not be like if the one city has an average income of 40,000 the other  one has 80,000 it could be totally different.

So I would find sister cities of Lancaster that  have comparable population sizes and comparable demographics and then try to get a bearing for  not just how many competitors but how many total trailers are there for rent in that area. just by  calling up looking at their website. All right, looks like you know they have this many  spots. Four gone right now.

Yeah. And get like a metric of like person per trailer and  then try to get like a baseline. All right, here's eight cities all in Pennsylvania or  Pennsylvania, Ohio. They're all in like 60,000 average income and you know it's like 4,000  residents per trailer. Uh wow, this one's only this one's 9,000 residents per trailer. I need  to go there next.

It's a little out of the way, but twice I'll I'm twice as likely to have success  there than I am, though. Yeah, that makes sense. That's a good point. Yeah. I mean, you could do  that research in an hour. Yeah. Okay. So, 4,000 a month. Had you ever done any businesses before  this or was like your first this your first? So, this was the first like official LLC we set  up.

I've have a habit of not staying still. So, I mean, I flipped stuff for a while. I managed  an office location for a company for a period of time. Sold Cutco Knives. So, how were you at that?  Pretty good. Yeah. I did it full-time for four years. Wow. Uh, right. Legit. Through high school  and then right after. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of working for yourself.

Yeah. But no, no, like  running a business. Yeah. By any technical term, what advice would you give to people that want  to start this business? So, it's pretty risk-free in the fact that you can go out and buy a used  trailer for a cheap price if you look long enough and you can throw it up on Facebook and even just  these other rental software platforms out there that don't charge anything upfront.

They just take  a commission off of when what are the names of those? Neighbors trailer rentals. Uh big rentals.  There's big loads. That's what's top of mind. So, three websites there plus Facebook Marketplace.  You're saying you can test test the market with all of those without spending any money on a  website on Google. Yeah. And they'll they'll send you their leads.

Yeah. I mean, this sounds maybe  sounds a little untraditional, but if you really wanted to launch this without spending a couple  grand on a trailer, you could list a trailer for rent that you could rent, right? Like, let's  say there's a box trailer for 90 bucks a day. You go to neighbor and all those websites, you you  list a box for 90 bucks a day.

You're not trying to make money, right? And just see how it goes.  Go pick up that one, drop it off. Like you you're breaking even. You're losing a little money, but  it's like, you know what? Actually, I don't like this at all. I'm glad I didn't spend n grand on a  trailer. Or, you know what? This is kind of fun, and if I own that trailer, I'd actually be making  90 bucks and not just giving it right back to, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I just like to  think of ways that you can completely derisk. Yeah, I think definitely posting it on on Facebook  is an easy way to just check some ballpark demand. You didn't need to rent one. Just post some get  a stock image of a trailer and post it. Just see how many people are reaching out to you on  that and even just see take a look at what other people are doing cuz there's going to be other  people posting their own trailers on Facebook for rent.

It's fairly common. But of it being  fairly common, not a lot of people, I feel like, take it very seriously. Yeah. And just test it  with one trailer on the side half-hazard for a couple months and then move on. Yeah. Okay. Do  you boost your Facebook Marketplace listings? I've done it just a little bit. I mean, total over  the past 15 months, spend a hundred bucks.

So, I I really don't anymore. Sounds like you don't  really need to. No. And I don't do any paid ads on Google. Okay. Uh, it's just all kind of organic.  Okay. Any other tips, advice? If you want to take it seriously, get out in your local community and  just let people know that you're renting trailers. We're with other businesses. Tell them you'll set  them up on like a little business program where they get a 10% discount if they rent for anytime  they rent for 3 days.

And you'll make their booking super easy. They can just text you, you  know, something simple like that. If you just have a a dump trailer, reach out to the landscaping  company, somebody who might need to use that several times throughout the summer. And typically  once somebody rents from you once, they're in the door. They're going to use you again.

Yeah. Um so  they're pretty likely to repeat. Beautiful. Where can people find you or your business? You can  find me on Twitter or X. That's going to have to be linked in the show notes. No, it's fine.  We'll link it. I don't know what it is off hand. I put together a free just basic starter guide um  that you can go online and download at uh trailer rental.guide.

Okay. Put in your email and I'll  send that to you. I've just been compiling what I've been learning on the fly for the past 15  months. Um but that's enough to get somebody to their first trailer and renting it. Or you if you  have a direct question, you can email me nathan langotrailers.com. Beautiful. Thank you, Nathan.  Thank you. If you like this content, please share with a friend, hit a like or a comment below,  and we'll see you next time on the Kerner