How to Turn Ice into Gold
In this episode of the Green Industry Perspectives Podcast, Ty Deemer welcomes Chris Dix, Manager of Membership and Management at the Snow and Ice Management Association (SIMA).
Chris shares how SIMA gives Snow and Ice companies the resources and training to be successful. They provide networking opportunities, safety certifications, talks from industry leaders, and tools to help small businesses. Chris spent over a decade in the insurance industry, and has many unique insights on safety and risk management for the Snow and Ice industry.
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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- The role company managers play in employee safety
- The importance of communication between sales and operations
- Why financial acumen and controlled business growth is vital
- Why Chris is excited for in-person events to begin in 2021
LINKS TO LOVE:
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Announcer:
You are listening to the Green Industry Perspectives Podcast presented by SingleOps. A podcast created for green industry professionals looking for best practices, tactics, and tips in running their tree care or landscape business.
Ty Deemer:
All right everyone. Welcome back to Green Industry Perspectives. We’re in our fourth season and we’re taking a little switch up this week. We’re going to talk about a little snow and ice. We have Chris Dix coming onto the show. He is the manager of membership and development at the Snow and Ice Management Association. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Dix:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m grateful for the time and to be on your podcast. Appreciate it.
Ty Deemer:
Absolutely. So Chris, like our audience knows, we always start each episode with the exact same question to really just dive straight in, to value for our audience. It’s pretty straight forward question. Chris, in your experience working with companies in the snow and ice space, what are the top two to three common threads that you’ve seen in successful and really innovative companies in this space?
Chris Dix:
Yeah, sure thing, Ty. I didn’t come from this industry, so it’s almost like learning through a fire hose and just active listening, but for the last two or three years, some common threads that I’ve seen in this industry would definitely be financial acumen and controlled growth. I don’t believe there to be a lack of opportunity in the snow and ice maintenance industry. So a lot of businesses find themselves with a lot of opportunity and just getting really good at controlling their expenses and focusing on controlled growth is number one. And especially as seasons sway, some seasonal snowfall totals will be well above average. Some will be like the last two or three years along the east coast, very minimal. So financial acumen is number one, for sure. But a commitment to safety with your frontline workers is so important. And with that a laser focus on your frontline staff, making sure that they have the tools they need to be successful and then to grow in the industry.
Ty Deemer:
Great. Those are awesome. And I’m sure we’ll definitely dive into those a little bit more as we go later in the conversation. You did mention that you’re relatively new to the industry, have been here for the last two to three years. I’d love for you to just provide your background and then also talk about SIMA and what you all do from a day-to-day basis.
Chris Dix:
Yeah, sure thing. So after I graduated college, 12 years ago, I spent the last, well before these three years, the last 12 years of that, in insurance and payroll technology sales now based out of Wisconsin, but I’d covered the Midwest and the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic. It wasn’t necessarily my career goal or vision to get into insurance. And I think most other insurance professionals might echo that same thing. While that career was financially rewarding, I didn’t see myself continuing along that path. And what happened next was kind of a perfect storm, pun intended. In 2016, the Snow and Ice Management Association, or SIMA, reached out to me. They were acquiring Snow Business magazine to bring under its portfolio of assets and outreach for the industry. And with that came employees in multiple states and some employee health care plan compliance needs. Just so happens that my solution was a good fit for them at the time. And that’s how I met the staff at SIMA.
Chris Dix:
A few years later, I saw a job opening for a role that I was relatively qualified for in terms of soft skills and customer service and sales. And here I am three years later, it’s been a wonderful change, working with this group of people, the nonprofit sector. I’m pretty passionate about supporting businesses, kind of a leadership first mentality. And getting to work so closely with one industry and our members has been a blessing for me. With my insurance background, kind of ties nicely into the risk of this industry, which is probably one of the wildest and most risky industries there could be around. But on a day-to-day basis, our staff, it’s a small staff of 12 that supports over 1,700 customers at any given time across the U S and Canada.
Chris Dix:
And our main goal is to empower snow and ice professionals for success through a multitude of channels, like networking opportunities, safety and training certifications are a part of that. And then our in-person events kind of bring the whole thing together of helping small companies learn from big companies, bump into some of the industry leaders. Spend a day or two of educational opportunities and getting honed on what it is mean to grow to your business. So we run lean and mean, we’re a small staff but we do, in my opinion, a lot of different things for the industry.
Ty Deemer:
Great. Yeah, so as we transition through the rest of the show, this is kind of a unique episode for Green Industry Perspectives because we’re talking more of snow and ice white perspective, so to speak, and we’ve never really had a guest touch on what the snow season looked like this past year or so. It is interesting timing. We’re moving into spring, it’s warming up outside, but I’m curious to hear SIMA’s perspective. What were some of the takeaways of this year, snow and ice season, and how did the season go in general.
Chris Dix:
Yeah, I’ve got three winter seasons now of full focus on snow. I’d never spent so much time thinking about really seasons or the weather as I did until my employment with SIMA. So this past season, from my perspective, the US and Canada, the majority had either above average or average seasonal snowfall totals, which was much different than again, a broad brush, the last two years was seemingly kind of light compared to historical years.
Chris Dix:
What was interesting about this year specifically was that the majority of the snowfall in the Midwest, in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast up to the eastern shore of Canada was in February. It was a wild back half of the year. And a lot of our members, their teams were just taxed. Physically taxed, mentally taxed. If you think about it, snow and ice maintenance is really the first responders to first responders. So they’re keeping roadways, sidewalks, parking lots open for hospitals, for any campus, any stores, logistical centers. You think about just the last six to eight weeks, me in Wisconsin, you look out my driveway and 6-8 weeks ago, it was four feet of snow and 10 degrees and now here we are 50-60 degrees and it’s the grass is green and the trees are blooming.
Chris Dix:
So I guess my biggest takeaway for this this winter would be that snow is good for our snow and ice members. It’s good for their businesses. It can be a challenge to kind of balance low seasons, high snowfall seasons. But I’ve just become super grateful for the hardworking women and men that make up this industry, that go out at two in the morning, that are constantly on alert for incoming events and just work to keep their customers’ sites and all of us in the public safe.
Ty Deemer:
I am curious what the breakdown of companies that offer snow and ice services. We know just from working in the green industry in the Northeast, a lot of companies that operate tree services during the summer and the spring and the fall, they shift in the winter to do snow operations. Is that pretty typical of the makeup of who offers snow services? Or are there companies that just offer snow services during the winter months? Or is it more of a combination of both?
Chris Dix:
I would say the bulk offer multiple services – design/build, lawn maintenance, standard spring, summer and fall services. So the majority do offer a multitude of line items, but there are quite a few companies that strictly focus full-time on snow year round. I mean, snow is often a natural progression for companies, especially that are just getting started, to keep their employees working full-time, keep their staff moving and keep revenue either high or kind of consistent through the winter months. But it can be a challenge for new companies getting into it, learning different contract structures and how to break into the industry and how to do that crowd. But I’d say the bulk do multiple services throughout the year.
Ty Deemer:
Got it. Yeah. So that’s kind of a good follow-up question. There’s probably people listening to this podcast, maybe they’re in Florida and California, and they don’t really need to listen to this episode because it’s going to be warm there all year round. But a lot of our listeners are in the Northeast and maybe they don’t offer snow removal or ice management services to date, but maybe they’re interested in starting offering one of those services. Maybe talk to some of the benefits. You mentioned one about being able to employ a full staff you’re around and not have some of the issues that arise with seasonal employments. But what are some of the benefits in your mind of why a landscape design boat company should begin offering snow services during their typical off season?
Chris Dix:
Yeah. I can say with a high degree of certainty that there is no lack of opportunity in the snow and ice maintenance industry. I think there’s a lack of organizations that are able to handle all the work and specifically people that have the skills and knowledge and that see snow as a full-time career. I know, I didn’t think about that when I was growing up in Wisconsin. I saw a plow truck and I just thought, oh, that’s, that looks like a little bit of fun. Until I learned now firsthand how much planning, preparation and investment goes into that trade. So there’s no lack of opportunity in the industry. I would say that if someone’s just looking to get started, not a self plug, but a great place to start would be go to SIMA’s web space. We offer so many things for free, like best practice checklists and templates and things to consider, and ways to network with other folks that are doing what you’re doing or have been successful doing what you’re doing that could help guide you along the way.
Ty Deemer:
What do you view are some of the hardest or most difficult challenges operating snow and ice business are. What do you view the biggest challenges your customers interact with every day.
Chris Dix:
Well, the fact that it’s very unpredictable, I don’t know that I have the mental wherewithal to do that. I’ve never tested myself in that manner before so I don’t know that. But it’s very unpredictable when the work is actually being performed. And with that, pending where you’re located, having a staff or having the employees to be able to accomplish the work, specifically like sidewalk crews or shovel crews, can be a challenge in this industry. And then invariability with seasonal snowfall totals can be something that takes a little bit of time to figure out how to balance your overhead with expected revenue based on contract structure. That can be a bit of a challenge for some people. And then there are years with potentially salt shortages. This year with supply and demand, obviously COVID being a weird year, threw a lot of wrenches into the season. But grateful that snow and ice maintenance was seen as an essential service across the U S and Canada.
Ty Deemer:
Yeah, absolutely. And to your point about all of those numbers, that goes back to your initial point about financial acumen and understanding how to grow throughout a season. So that’s really interesting. You also mentioned training in general, and I think across the green industries, snow and ice industry, training is crucial to any business. There’s an element of risk involved anytime you go out and you perform an outdoor service. And SIMA’s website talks about training a ton. I just did a quick glance over and you had to do have a ton of resources. What are some of the most important aspects of training when it comes to snow operations?
Chris Dix:
The short answer is all of them, much like what your group does with tree care, design/build, and even lawn maintenance. There’s so many ways to get hurt or to break things. What we call best practices are what comes to mind for me. And it’s basically a culmination of all the different areas from operations leaders, front lines workers, even your account managers and dispatch team, on how to create redundancies or fail safes. So those best practice checklists are what comes to mind for me. But I think the most important part from my vantage point would be ensuring that our frontline workers are equipped with the proper equipment and plan in case things do and will go wrong. So ensuring they know what to do and have the confidence to mitigate that issue or to move forward is paramount to success.
Chris Dix:
And really just making sure the whole team is cohesive and willing to assist. I mean, if you think about tree care, no two trees are alike, they are similar in how you would care for them or take them down. But parking lots, parking structures, sidewalks, roadways, all very different based on either asphalt, concrete, how you service them, light poles, cars, when cars come in, it’s kind of wild. So it’s all vastly different on the process as well. So just having a plan for each property and communicating that across all levels of the organization I think is key to success and safety.
Ty Deemer:
And I am curious, too, because we hear a lot in, especially in the tree care space, how important equipment is and just how crucial it can be to not only doing more with less in terms of a team, or really just making sure you’re investing smart with equipment, maybe not always buying the newest, but maybe finding the best value in maybe a used product. How important is equipment and finding the right pieces to support your team in the snow and ice industry?
Chris Dix:
I have a little limited experience with that, but from what I understand, one of the reasons why our trade events are so popular to come to is that we bring in all the manufacturers and suppliers. And each job requires or could offer a multitude of tools to get it done more effectively and efficiently and safely for the work team workforce. So it’s incredibly important. There is a multitude of blade options for plows and pushers and different kinds of sidewalk equipment, even different types of chlorides and salts to manage a hard pack and ice. So that’s a never ending work in progress for our members to really fine tune. And it could change based on the job that they’ve acquired of the contract that they’ve won. So it’s a never ending process of refining what’s on the market, what’s coming out on the market, who engineered it for what purpose. And we’d like to think we’ve got a bit of assistance in helping people find what’s out there and choose what’s right for them.
Ty Deemer:
Cool. And that’s a kind of a good segue to our next topic of talking about what sales and business development looks like for companies that offer snow operations. You mentioned earlier in the episode that there really is no shortage of opportunity to become involved with snow operations. Is that purely because there’s just a high demands and need for companies to do snow removal projects?
Chris Dix:
Yeah, well, it has to happen. We were kind of thinking about this at the onset of COVID with people safer-at-home orders and what have you. Even if it’s not a fully packed shopping mall, or if it isn’t a fully packed retirement community, all it takes is one person to get into an accident, slip and fall, get injured or slide their vehicle into a piece of property to really cause a little bit of problems and headache. So it’s a needed service. And I didn’t realize what that actually meant when I heard that when I started working here until I took a plane ride and I looked at all of the pavement from Milwaukee to where I was headed when we took off. It’s unbelievable how much opportunity is out there. It’s just a matter of what niche do you want to get into and where do you see yourself moving.
Ty Deemer:
I think it’s interesting because the topic reminds me of in the landscaping space, deciding what type of services you want to offer, right? Like some landscapers choose that I want to be a commercial maintenance landscape provider. Some choose to do residential properties. Is that the same for a snow and ice management company? Do they have to decide what type of snow services they offer and what their target customer is? Is there that type of breakdown in that space as well?
Chris Dix:
Yeah, very much so. There are small outfits that strictly focus on residential and they might pound out a hundred in a day. Whereas there are larger organizations that focus strictly on medical facilities, college campuses, large industrial distribution centers. So it’s very much a matter of where you’d like to get into and what you want to specialize in.
Ty Deemer:
Awesome. And then in general, with your work with SIMA and working with a lot of customers, what do you view, or what have you all heard are some of the biggest pain points when you talk to contractors in terms of sales and business develop?
Chris Dix:
A common theme that we’re hearing right now is the handoff between the sales function and the operations team. And I can only speak from limited experience here, and it’s kind of a broad brush stroke against overall contractors to say that this everyone’s having this problem, but ensuring that sales and the operations team are speaking the same verbiage and language, and they both fully understand the client’s expectations. Which comes down to the scope of work in their contracts, their level of service, and that the work can actually be performed leaving enough gross profit or margin for the business to be successful based on variability of snow all throughout the year. So really making sure that sales and operations hang out on a daily basis and they’re using the same tools and technology and even spreadsheets in some cases to make sure that we’re handing off an understood contract with the right levels of service and scope of work.
Ty Deemer:
Yeah, I’m sure that gets pretty complicated, too, when you talk about like salt quantities and I’m sure there’s a lot of moving parts to that as well.
Chris Dix:
Very much so.
Ty Deemer:
Gotcha. We have a few other topics, but I want to circle back to something that you mentioned at the beginning of the show, financial accurate acumen and controlled growth. When you sit down and your team creates content for snow and ice management teams, what are some of the numbers that they need to be tracking every day to run an effective snow business?
Chris Dix:
We actually just put together a piece on that, as we speak. I don’t mean to read word for word. But getting really good at just the basics of accounting, looking at your income statement, your balance sheet and your cash flow and knowing how to those things over time. And you mentioned one thing about the desire to buy the newest latest equipment because it looks good, it’s flashy for customers, people in the marketplace see it. But maybe we could get by with lightly used equipment that still looks good and functions well. So controlling how much overhead and assets we have and how we finance those things is really, really important.
Chris Dix:
One thing that our industry is looking at right now is how can we become more efficient? You said doing more with less, with a challenge in the workforce, people not necessarily knowing that snow is a full-time career, how can we get more out of the equipment and require less maybe physical taxation on our people, but giving them tools to be more effective and efficient and then limiting our need for labor spend. This is something that’s everyone’s focusing on right now.
Ty Deemer:
That’s really cool. And I love how it can kind of be focused on two different areas. One, the simplicity of just knowing what your accounts receivable is and knowing what money you have coming in versus what you have going out. But then diving into the weeds of really tracking all of the different production rates and quantities in a company. That’s how you and also how you grow intelligently. And there’s so many systems out there today, whether you’re just getting started and you need to use Google sheets and Google calendar to stay organized, but then there are full service systems that allow you to do that and have that communication between your sales team and your ops team. That’s definitely how you can grow for sure.
Ty Deemer:
The other interesting part about what SIMA does is you do offer opportunities for people within the industry to get together and learn from each other. So what is the plan as we kind of hopefully all take the step out of COVID and begin being able to meet together? Does SIMA have any events planned for the rest of the year?
Chris Dix:
We do. As COVID taught us how to innovate in a way we didn’t think we would have to, we’ve created two different silos of event opportunities. And not unlike most companies we have virtual event opportunities which recreate the networking, the peer connection and education of in-person events. So we’ve created a silo for that and some of those to members are completely free events. Six times throughout the year. They’re topical. Right now, we’re in April, which is typically post-season wrap up and review conversation. And then hopefully trying to renew with some of our contracts early. We’re trying to follow that life cycle throughout the year as we move into the next snow season with these free virtual events.
Chris Dix:
But we also have some in-person opportunities. Normally we host one large trade show for our members to come to. This year because of health restrictions and event size restrictions, we’re doing three across the U S. Technically a fourth, but the first one would be July 27th through the 29th in Minneapolis. It’s a two day event of education, networking trade show. Our second would be August 17th through the 20th in Cleveland, same format. And August 31st through September 2nd in Philadelphia.
Chris Dix:
And we think we might find that our membership and industry likes, us being satellited across the U S versus requiring members from Calgary or British Columbia and Canada to fly down to the U S and spend a couple hundred bucks or a thousand bucks getting here and staying. But those are our in person events. We are limited in size at present. We do think, and I can’t say for certain, but we do have an inclination that by these event dates, there may be lessened event size restrictions or none, but at today’s date, they are restricted to a certain number of people. So if you’re interested, feel free to check out our webspace simon.org and register sooner than later.
Ty Deemer:
Absolutely. I know I speak from just from my company’s behalf, we’re all ready for events to be back. Ready to see our customers in person again and get everybody together. So that’s exciting. Few more questions before we wrap up. I typically ask this question in terms of if you could look back at the beginning of your career, what would you tell yourself now? But because you have only been in the snow and ice industry for a shorter amount of time, I am curious, if you could go back and tell yourself three years ago, what would you tell yourself about the industry that you’ve learned in the last three years? Maybe what surprised you the most about your work at SIMA.
Chris Dix:
What surprises me the most is how much professionalism there actually is behind this industry. It’s still a business. It’s still an organization made up of people and financials and products in a service that you’re delivering to customers. And with that, I am just incredibly grateful for the work that our members perform. And when I think about it, like I mentioned earlier, they really are the first responders. The first responders that allow our police and EMTs and firefighters to get where they need to go safely. And they allow you and I to walk on a sidewalk without falling over and hurting ourselves. The amount of professionalism and planning that goes into a successful business is mind boggling. And it takes a village. So I’m very, very grateful for that.
Ty Deemer:
I can resonate with that a lot. When you think about the green industry or the snow and ice industry as a whole, you kind of have some assumptions when you get involved with it. I grew up and I was on a landscape crew when I was in high school, that was my summer job. And I viewed it, at that time, oh we’re going to a yard and we’re going to go make it look really great. But when you get into the weeds of these businesses, it is so much more than that. And it might be why a lot of people got involved in the industry because they love making a backyard look beautiful. But the business side of it is so complex. And I love how you touched on it earlier, when you talk about how sales and operations communicates with one another. There are so many moving parts to these different jobs, and no job is the same. And the complexities of that and how these businesses in the space are trying to level up in their processes and how to respond to all of that is so impressive.
Chris Dix:
I agree 100%.
Ty Deemer:
Great. So I always like asking guests this question because we spend a good bit of the show reflecting, thinking on different topics that have gone on in the past. But it’s more of a forward thinking question. What comes next for you or SIMA? What are you most excited about right now?
Chris Dix:
Personally, I’m very excited about my future with this organization. I’ve only ever really aggressively chased sales quotas for the last 12 years. And being able to have visibility into the fact that it’s going to snow next year, people are going to need SIMA’s training and resources. People are going to want to use our association to pursue certifications. And it’s just been great to be a necessity and to get so ingrained in the industry has been something that I’ve really wanted to feel.
Chris Dix:
I’m excited for, like you said, in-person events to get back to normal. Our team has been running a little while and trying to accommodate our mission, which is empowering snow and ice professionals for success, without being able to have an in-person event that brings everyone together and that our members rely on quite frankly. So I see nothing but positive growth for not only this association, but our members, the industry. And it’s just really cool to watch these companies as they invest in their people, their workforce, their process, to say that we had a small part in that. I don’t see that ever ceasing to continue for SIMA.
Ty Deemer:
Absolutely. And then right Before we give you an opportunity to let people know how to get plugged in with SIMA, how to have access to the resources. I’m curious, we’re in April and like you said, we can fully expect in 5-6 months for snow to be on the ground in different parts of the country. What would be your playbook to a company that is thinking about starting a snow operation for the first time, or maybe really doubling down investing in it? What are a few things that you think they could be doing now to really prepare for that snow that we know is going to come later on in the year?
Chris Dix:
Yeah. If you’re thinking about just getting started in snow and ice and this is your first time doing it, there are so many people that are willing to connect with you in probably your local market space. I would find somebody near you or close to you that’s been doing this for a while and connect with that person. Or maybe a group of people, create a peer network of your own to help you with that. The second thing, and this isn’t a self plug, but SIMA, as a nonprofit, our mission is really leading with helping first. Revenue is important for any business, but I would go to SIMA.org and I would download the 52 week timeline best practice. It’ll give you a good breakdown every week of the year and where we could be in terms of prospecting business.
Chris Dix:
Maybe it’s from your existing account base. Maybe you’re going to go out to the white of things, in cold prospect. But right now is a great time to open doors and then come the summer and fall be thinking about getting contracts in place so you can get that equipment, get your salt ready, if that’s part of your arsenal, and then train your teams on how to do the job effectively from now until then would be the two things. Check with peers and then check out some of SIMA’s free resources to get you started.
Ty Deemer:
That 52 week planning resource sounds like a great thing and we’ll link to that in the show notes, because that’ll just be a good gauge for anyone listening to think about, how do I compare? Even if you have a snow operation that you’re running successfully, that’ll be a great resource for them. So thanks for shouting that out and we’ll link to it. Chris, finally, if someone’s listening to this episode and is thinking I want to leverage some of the resources that SIMA has and the association, how can they begin getting involved with SIMA and leveraging your team?
Chris Dix:
If you’re interested in just to see how the power of this industry’s association can benefit your business, your employees or your customers, just check out SIMA.org. I know I mentioned there’s so many free resources out there to tap into like those best practice checklists, but also you can subscribe to Snow Business magazine, entirely free, comes out six times a year. We ship that out all across the U S and Canada to about 30,000 or so direct request subscribers. And if you feel that a formal partnership with SIMA makes sense, it’s 350 U S no tax for one year of membership, which you either join through our web space or you can give me a shout out on email at any time. I’m happy to help you.
Chris Dix:
Obviously, for additional fees, we do offer industry leading certification programs, some professionally facilitated peer groups, which are very impactful. I’ve sat on a few of those and my head always leaves a little bit spinning, but excited. I did mention our three in-person trade events. We are hosting a fourth event. It’s at the Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, June 21st to 22nd. That’s more meant for executives and leaders in the industry to connect and get away for a couple of days. And as of today, all the registration for our in-person events is open. But start with what’s free SIMA.org and if you need to give me a shout, I’m happy to help along your journey towards whatever you’re hoping to accomplish.
Ty Deemer:
And we’ll be sure to provide a ton of links to everyone in the show notes of the episode, just so you can go ahead and directly click and leverage those resources. Chris, we covered a bunch of great topics today. Definitely a different episode because we were shifting away from the springtime and things are growing and green to what goes on during the colder months. But really enjoyed learning about SIMA, your background and everything y’all are working on. So thank you so much for being on the show and look forward to maybe seeing you at an event later this year.
Chris Dix:
Yes, sure thing. I appreciate your time as well and thanks for the invite. Anytime we are happy to help.
Ty Deemer:
Absolutely. Thank you.
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