Nelson’s takes pride in providing quality and prompt services to its customers, in the snow
removal season, even when salt prices rose and supply was short, Nelson’s refuses to raise prices during the dead of winter.
removal season, even when salt prices rose and supply was short, Nelson’s refuses to raise prices during the dead of winter.There was a nice write up with Nelson’s mentioned in Turf Magazine.
Carefully metering out salt was a lesson learned a long time ago by Gabriel Nelson. The president of Nelson’s Landscaping & Snow Removal Services says he learned in winters past to “miser the salt till the end.”
The southeast Wisconsin businessman says another company in the area ended up spreading table salt last winter, but Nelson’s Landscaping ended the season with a half-dozen pallets of bagged road salt to spare. It was a narrow escape from what he called a “brutal” season.
“I don’t care what kind of winter warrior you think you are, it was just plain brutal,” he says of the 2013-14 season. “It wasn’t the amount of snow, because we love that part. It was the arctic air. It was the duration of the arctic air that was the worst. It felt like an eternity and we deal with cold weather every year.”
The season taxed his team of 24 employees, who either work in the office or shop or man snow-clearing equipment. His fleet of machinery includes ag tractors with plows, pickups with blades, medium- and large-capacity dump trucks and 4WD scrapers and loaders.
Nelson did not, and will not, raise prices on customers in the dead of winter, he says. However, with the learning experience of another business cycle under his belt, he is making “adjustments” to his contracts to incorporate the lessons of last winter into next season’s agreements.
“The snow industry is not for everyone,” he says from the perspective of someone who has been clearing away the white stuff since 1999. “I have seen grown men cry and drop to their knees begging to go home. Wisconsin weather has that effect on those who don’t belong behind a plow. Snow careers can be quick and swift.”
Cold Lessons Learned
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