How to Take Advantage of Opportunities and Expand Your Pumping Business​

Pumpers share unique stories about finding the right time to expand their businesses

How to Take Advantage of Opportunities and Expand Your Pumping Business​

Rex King Jr. sold off an arm of his company to fund the purchase of a jet/vac truck with a hydroexcavation package, paving the way for municipal jobs with bigger profit margins. (Photo By Amy Voigt)

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One of the most consequential decisions you face as the owner of a septic pumping operation is whether or not you should expand your service offerings to reach out to another niche. Sometimes the choice is prudent and purposeful, but more often than not, it’s a matter of taking the bull by the horns.

Each month, Pumper magazine profiles a couple septic-pumping operations to share their stories, strategies and advice. During the course of our recent conversations with company owners, we’ve heard some good stories about capitalizing on opportunities in the onsite septic system industry.

Henry Damm, for instance, originally had a motto of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” for his successful septic-pumping and onsite installation business, Big Bore Drilling Certified Septic & Hydroflushing in Fresno, California. But big changes came for Big Bore Drilling when happenstance spurred Damm’s entry into the waterjetting and hydroexcavation business.


Henry Damm (left), owner, and his son, Jason Damm (right), with their newest pumper truck in the yard at Big Bore Drilling Certified Septic & Hydroflushing, a central California company located in Fresno, that does hydroexcavating and has been providing septic installation, pumping, repairs, and certifications since 1959. (Photo by Lezlie Sterling)
Henry Damm (left), owner, and his son, Jason Damm (right), with their newest pumper truck in the yard at Big Bore Drilling Certified Septic & Hydroflushing, a central California company located in Fresno, that does hydroexcavating and has been providing septic installation, pumping, repairs, and certifications since 1959. (Photo by Lezlie Sterling)

He was working for a local plumbing contractor, pumping out septic tanks and performing septic system repairs, when the plumber was bought out by a national chain that didn’t want to do waterjetting. “So he asked me to buy some of his equipment,” Damm says. “I bought the Myers jetter, and the next day, we cleaned a line at a local college.

“We basically learned how to use it through on-the-job experience, but the machine paid for itself after two weeks,” he says. “Then we realized that a lot of people were moving dirt from point A to point B on farm pipelines and dairy lines. So around 2001, we bought a Vac-Con vacuum truck to suck up the dirt as we jetted. And when that truck wore out, we replaced it with the Vactor.”

Expanding into pipeline cleaning jobs made sense because it complemented Big Bore Drilling’s existing services. It also allowed the company to leverage its existing customer base because many existing farm and dairy customers already used the company to clean and repair their septic tanks, Damm explains.

Looking ahead, Damm says he’s comfortable where the company is right now, but he’s also not opposed to further growth. In that vein, he envisions hydroexcavating and pipeline waterjetting becoming bigger contributors to the company’s bottom line. Those services will help offset the loss of customers created as the city converts more homes from septic to sewer service, he adds, noting that his own house is now served by sewer service instead of a septic system.

“I also hope to buy a camera van and start a second leg in that (pipeline jetting) industry,” he says. “I’d like to provide both pipeline cleaning and video services for municipalities that don’t have that equipment. The septic business keeps moving away from us. We have to go out farther and farther because sewer lines keep taking customers away as the city grows. That used to concern me, but it’s never really affected our work, aside from the fact that we have to travel farther.”

Respond to your customers' demands

When Rick Miene’s company — Miene Septic Service of Robins, Iowa — started installing septic systems, it created a cascading effect of new site work opportunities. Jumping in headfirst, Miene started doing his own grading and then offered that as an added service.

“Then we just started buying more attachments and doing more for people, and really trying to accommodate them while they were already under construction. We could get their properties into better shape for their needs,” he says.

After pursuing septic system installations, Miene Septic Service found a lot of different ways to use its excavation equipment and generate revenue. (Photo by Scott Morgan)
After pursuing septic system installations, Miene Septic Service found a lot of different ways to use its excavation equipment and generate revenue. (Photo by Scott Morgan)

By the late 1990s, they’d accumulated several pieces of equipment and grew the staff to handle the workload. “It was starting to become a real, ‘Wow, what did we get into?’” Miene says. “But things were just working.”

Once they bought the big excavator, they began digging basements and putting in small ponds or occasionally installing waterlines and sewer lines. Working for developers, they saw the need for land-clearing equipment, so they picked up a number of forestry attachments for their skid-steers and doing everything from building driveways to clearing fully timbered areas.

When work slows down in the winter, they put plow blades on the trucks and wheeled skid-steer and offer snow removal services. Employees typically take vacations or work on an on-call basis during the off-season.

Miene says his crew thrives on unusual challenges. For example, in 2016 they had a contract to install a commercial septic system at a new facility for the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids. They were eventually asked to also build an amphitheater at the facility using natural stone from the adjacent hillside. “That’s the neat thing,” he says. “One day it might be one thing, the next something totally different and once in a while something totally off the wall.”

In another interesting twist, a residential customer had them install his septic system, which led to grading work, then building a pond — and then to his eventual employment with the company. Miene now calls Kyle Mekvinda the rock of the company. “He’s the go-to guy — positive about everything and great with customers.”

Pursue bigger profit margins

Rex King Jr.’s story is a little different. His game-changing move actually occurred when he sold the portable restroom arm of his drain cleaning and septic pumping company, King’s Sanitary Service in Bristolville, Ohio.

The sale dramatically altered the face of the company he acquired in 2012. By selling roughly 400 restrooms and a luxury restroom trailer to a competitor, he shed a seasonal business with lower profit margins. And by using the proceeds to increase marketing efforts, update aging equipment, and invest in a jet/vac truck with a hydroexcavating package, he positioned King’s Sanitary Service for growth in market sectors that offered higher profits and greater business volume: cleaning sewer lines and exposing utility lines for neighboring municipalities.

“It definitely was a big move for us,” says King, who owns the business along with his father, Rex King Sr., and a silent partner. “There was money to be made in portable restrooms, but not year-round. And it required a lot of work for profit margins that weren’t high enough. Now I feel like we’re well-positioned for growth in municipal work.”

To avoid going too far into debt, King Jr. bought a used jet/vac truck for $80,000 instead of spending more than $400,000 on a new unit. “When you’re entering a new market, you don’t spend a lot of money as if it’s going to be a sure thing,” he says. “You’ve got to be financially prudent.”

The company makeover reflects key attributes that have enabled King to increase gross revenue by more than 100 percent since he acquired a local company and renamed it King’s Sanitary Service: a conservative fiscal approach; an eye for new, high-potential markets; a willingness to take calculated risks; understanding the importance of embracing and investing in newer technology; and strong support from family, both financial and otherwise.



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