How do they know where to find these oppotunities?

[B.C.C. Lapp]

I met a guy the other day and somehow the subject of cutting firewood came up and he told me he and a partner had owned a large processor in Mercer County Pa and they made hundreds of cords a year and sold it to, get this, a company on the island of Tahiti.   It came straight off the processor into the kiln and from there into semi trailers and from there went to a shipping port somewheres.  

I knew another guy that was using his processor to cut cookies, not regular firewood,  of black cherry wood and he was loading it into large canvass bags that held roughly a facecord type amount of volume. He was loading these bags on semi flat beds and it was all going to Texas to a place that smoked meats.  They wanted cherry and cant get much if any there. 

My question is how in the world does a guy find markets like this to sell wood?   Ive looked around on the internet of course but can't seem to get the right search going or something.  
 I got a woodyard, I got practically unlimited supply of hard wood. I have some capital to get better equipment,  but the only market I have is local and that's limited.  And I don't like delivering straight to customers except the campgrounds and places that resell. I have found other businesses treat my business with respect.   They just treat it like any other expense.   Home owners and campers are way more problematic and the amounts sold at a time are small.

So how in the heck does a guy find a good market?  Where do you go to find these opportunities?

[Southside]

Honest guess - the guy went Tahiti on vacation and had a conversation that led to an opportunity?  The other possibility is through the state AG department.  I know here in Virginia there is an office within the AG department that solicits international and domestic AG opportunities, their job is to find guys like you and folks like the Texas customer and get you together.  I did work with them once on a project that involved a couple of companies from Bangladesh.  In that case it didn't pan out but those guys came here multiple times, we came up with plans, etc.  One even called again last fall trying to see if there may be opportunities, sometimes these things take time but I would reach out to the AG or Forestry folks at the capitol level and see what might exist. 

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Thank you Southside. That's a great idea. I never would have thought of that.  i just  sent an email to a guy I know personally in the County extension office to see if he know's who else I can reach out to in the AG dept. I appreciate the suggestion.

[hedgerow]

Thank you Southside. That's a great idea. I never would have thought of that.  i just  sent an email to a guy I know personally in the County extension office to see if he know's who else I can reach out to in the AG dept. I appreciate the suggestion.

Another contact I would throw out would be one of your colleges in your state is probably very deep into Ag or in your area forestry. In my state the UNL college is the go to for AG related. They have departments that do just what your wanting to do. Sometimes just being in the right place at the right time helps. When I was in the fuel hauling business. I was loading at terminal we normally loaded at night when no one was around. Was running late one morning and the manager was there. He came out of the office and said to me you haul out of Wichita Ks? I said yes about six months a year. That five minute talk ended up keeping one driver and truck busy for the next ten years and another one hauling some also. 

[GRANITEstateMP]

B.C.C. Lapp,

I took Southsides comment as a reason to take a vacation to Tahiti

[KEC]

There are restaurants that may pay well for custom-length firewood for a big fireplace. Some restaurants and caterers who smoke meat might pay a fair rate for wood for smoking. They may want certain species.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

B.C.C. Lapp,

I took Southsides comment as a reason to take a vacation to Tahiti

Me and Mrs. Lapp, in Tahiti?        

[thecfarm]

Look at Old Greenhorn and his mushroom logs!!!
I bet he would of never thought he would be doing this 5 years ago.
Jeff and the FF!!!

[21incher]

Look at Old Greenhorn and his mushroom logs!!!
I bet he would of never thought he would be doing this 5 years ago.
Jeff and the FF!!!

Now we have to hope thecfarm can find a market for his rocks  .

[GRANITEstateMP]

If you don't take Mrs. Lapp to Tahiti for this work related vacation, she might up and take half of your saved up working capital!

It'd just be a bonus if you found a new nitch market

[OH logger]

Seems like for me it's about who you know and networking.   I seem to spend a lot of time on the phone.  Helps me find better log markets and firewood markets and the like.  Asking the right questions and listentin close help too.  Good luck 

[thecfarm]

I've told some people about the rocks!!! 
No takers. Yet.
And they are free!!!!

[Old Greenhorn]

I have had 2 businesses in my lifetime. I had a machine shop over 35 years ago and in the beginning I was struggling to make it work. I had plenty of customers and they were all happy with my work, but they strung me out on paying to the point that I was financing their business and having trouble paying my bills on time. Too much nonsense getting money and not enough buffer in the bank account, plus my profit margin was not as good as it needed to be. One of my first better 'opportunities' came from an oddball situation. I was at my day job and my boss was on the phone talking to a buddy of his that used to work for our shop, he was now on his own.  So the boss says into the phone 'yeah, hold on a second" and then he says to all the guys in the office "Hey, anybody know somebody who might be able to do some specialty knurling?" I piped up and asked what he had, I might be able to help. One thing led to another and I wound up with a gravy job that made me good regular money for several years. In fact I had it tuned up so well  that my wife would run the job on the weekends and read her book while the machine was running. It wasn't a big money deal, but one of those dependable things that was easy money every time and order came in. But the big one for that business was another oddball phone call I got after I went full time self-employed and was beginning to suck wind. I had a mentor friend. He was actually my Assistant Scoutmaster but he had more businesses and experience that anyone I have ever known.  At the time he had the only chrome plating shop in the eastern US that was certified to do Rolls Royce work and he did a lot of plating. His shop was in Harlem, NYC. He also had a custom hardware client he did work for. They had a problem and my friend Dick thought it was something I might be able to help them fix. Well it turned out they had some special order stuff that was a mess. I couldn't fix it, but I could make new parts that were they way they wanted. They gave me a shot and the rest was history. They gave me as much work as I could handle, they paid me on delivery, they never quibbled on price and in more than a few cases they raised the prices they paid by a significant amount. I recall one time where I quoted a price and they sent back a PO with the amount doubled. They told me they were sure I underbid the job but I did not. So all that from just a phone call on a whim. 5 years of bliss. Yes, of course, things changed at that customer and they got a 'new guy' in who had big ideas to order all their stuff from India in big quantities and save lots of money. (98% of what I did for them was in sold brass). Well, when 'the boat' showed up, all the stuff they got was junk (hollow cast or spun brass they couldn't sell to their high end customers, Walmart type stuff). By then they had put me out of business and wound up folding themselves eventually. All their work was high end. a lot of what I made wound up in millionaires homes, ex presidents, big celebrities, royalty families in the mid east and stuff like that. It was fun while it lasted, and good money. But I went back to working for the man with a regular paycheck and benefits.

Now I have a retirement business and it's very different. I do a lot of different things that I enjoy (and ZERO machine shop work). The money is not the main thing anymore, but I do need the money to live so this is not a hobby. So I set it up to get a little cash coming in. I landed on that mushroom log thing as just 'another little thing to add some cash here and there'. But I took it seriously and got educated on the market, how the logs are used, what makes for the best logs, and who the knowledgeable folks are. I went to classes to get learned up and talked to a lot of folks. For me, it's a two part deal. I need to find the buyers, of course, but I also needed to find log sources because I am not a big landowner.  When I was ready to start cutting and selling I was getting logs helter skeltor, all over the place, a few here and a few there. It was as much work to FIND the logs as it was cut cut and sell or deliver. Then I got a call from Bargemonkey that he has a 100acre parcel to clear and it was full of what I needed, I could take all I could get. A few weeks later a guy called me wanting 1,000 logs for NYC. Well that dwindled down to about 500 , but was still a lot of logs on top of my other orders (I did over 1,500 that year). Barge gave me time to work that property for those logs before he moved the big iron in and tore it all up. He saved my ash. I had put my name on the Cornell state map for supplying logs, made contacts with folks from Cornell that teach and talk all around the state and that map is always up on the internet with my contact info and dot on the map. Cornell also did a big thing for publicity or education and they sent a guy to follow me for a day and do a video on the whole process of cutting the logs and the trail they took to the city where folks inoculated them. The video is still up on their site. I keep getting cold calls off that map, not a lot, but they keep coming. There are only 6 suppliers on that map in all of NY state. I also was asked, as one of the few guys that does this to be on a couple of radio shows and I have clients who call me because they heard those shows on podcasts. Yesterday I got a call from a guy that got my name from somebody at Cornell and he wanted 1,000 logs available in the first week of March. There is no way I can do that, but boy would I love to. I could coast for a few months and make a trip or two I really want to make. But I am an old man working alone. I already have winter cut orders for about 500 logs, so another 1,000 is just outside what I could do. Quality might drop and I will be killing myself getting it done. Not to mention I have to find all those trees and might be taking trees that should be left. (Right now, every tree I take needs to be removed because of damage, threat, or general health and condition. All TSI work.)

So I told you all that to tell you this: Those weird opportunities do happen, but you have to 'encourage them' by doing a lot of networking. Getting out to meet people, talk about 'stuff' like what you do or can do, or what resources you have. Smart folks remember that and some time later, if they have your number, they might give you a call. I know Barge was sending trailer loads of firewood the NYC restaurants and getting stupid stupid stupid money for it. But everything in NYC is controlled and 'supervised' by guys with bent noses and one has to be careful when they start to protest about getting 'their cut' or blocking access because your driver isn't in the union or other such stuff. I'm not sure if they are still doing that.
You just gotta do a lot of talking and meeting folks, and yeah, the travel might be a good idea. Bring plenty of cards and add your country code to your phone number.

 Ray, i really think offering your rocks for free is what is hurting you. You need to put a decent price on them so peoplel will know they are highly valuable.

[Ljohnsaw]

I answered an ad on Facebook or CL probably 4 or 5 years ago. Needed someone to assemble a Lifetime plastic shed. The guy paid $25/hr to me and my daughter.

I do all sorts of odd jobs for him now. But only in the winter when I'm not working on my cabin due to snow. Even facing his outdoor kitchen with rock. He raised my rate to $35/hr to keep me interested. Been cutting up oaks that either fell in some of the last storms or taking down some questionable ones and assembling pipe sheds.

That led to a couple neighbors and their odd jobs. I think I'm not charging enough!    

[mike_belben]

Few yrs ago a friend of mine wanted me to call a guy he went to church with. My friend said this guy and his son are building a pond, taking down big trees and really dont know what theyre doing and i dont want any of them getting hurt.

I called, we met up, talk a while.  He says what can ya do for me? I said i can teach your son how not to die cutting timber.   

Fast forward a couple years and im his industrial educator, land manager, logger, dirtwork, food plot planting tractor guy etc etc. Always pays me about 3x more than what im content with.  Im about to start an LLC to deliver and install decorative stone/boulders for him.  Pretty much the only person i work for now

Its still who ya know.

[barbender]

 OG, I agree about Ray's rocks. If he put them at the end of his driveway with a sign saying, "$5 each", people would probably steal them

[thecfarm]

The rocks I want to give away or sell for $5,    I can't move with a 40hp tractor. These are 4 feet across and bigger. Kinda hard for the average person to load those in an SUV.   
Three foot ones I can move.

These was going into a road over a wet hole.
That is a yellow yard stick.

[thecfarm]

This is the road in progress.
You can see the rocks in the past post in the back ground.
I put in rocks 3 feet across and put smaller rocks in between the big ones and put a little dirt to smooth it out.
Keep me high and dry and the wife does not have to mow around these rocks.
But most came from a stone wall that I spent more than 40 years trimming around it.

[mike_belben]

Those would sell in new jersey.  And i have personally hauled stone from tennessee to new jersey by the semi load.  The buyer pays freight, you sell it on your landing.


Seriously.  To sell rock you would need a semi truck road access to a small lot thats good enough to load from both sides, a bunch of pallets, a bander, bunch of chicken wire/cheap fencing, and a small articulated wheel loader or skidsteer/telehandler with forks. 4k pick capacity will do any thing that fits on a pallet. 4x4 and 3 to 4 ft tall is standard for stacked rock with chicken wire. Wacker neuson small loader leases are common in my region. 

There are no loads to haul out of maine so freight would be cheap.  Maine imports its products then sends its trucks back empty, starving to cover fuel.  Theyll haul your stuff out for fuel alone. 

Stone center of NJ is who youd wanna sell to.  Thats gonna probably be one of the bigger suppliers for NYC.  Southern connecticut should be a similar type of market, and i have a super high end mason friend down there i could link you up with for leads.  NY money owns private hunks of public rivers, epstein kinda money, that sorta thing.

There is good money in rocks once you have the contacts.  Getting them grouped to like sizes abd palletized is all the complication there is to that end.  Providing a loading zone is the other part, and it doesnt take much.  You can rent a big track bobcat or telehandler for half a day to start out.   

Remember, its not the rock that is valuable.  Its the harvesting, grouping and palletizing in a place that can load a semi rain or shine that the market will pay for.  5 years ago a rock lease paid the landowner $10 or $20 a ton around here.  $100-160 a ton is what it takes to buy that pallet from the guy with a rockyard ready to load your order.  So thats 2500-4k ish per semi load.  Pretty good markup for the one doing the labor to take them from the hill to the pallet, grouped accordingly.  5-10x.

[John Mc]

OG, I agree about Ray's rocks. If he put them at the end of his driveway with a sign saying, "$5 each", people would probably steal them

A few years ago I read that in parts of New England rock theft was a problem. It seems some well-to-do landowners wanted stone-walls to give their property that authentic New England look. Apparently, some of those somewhere in the supply chain did not want to pay for the rocks, so they started stealing, tearing down old stone walls and hauling them off.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen them haul rocks here to shore up water fronts on rivers and ocean front. I remember years ago when some roads in the centre of the province where built to get at timber. The road sides were lined with boulders. Drive out them roads now, where did the rocks go?   It's the same out the D20, those woods are full of boulders, hardly see one along the road. I mean you could never burry them all under a road, enough to build road on top for 3 lanes wide. Most exposed rocks there now roadside are partially buried in undisturbed ground. Sure makes it easier to access the woods if you don't have to crawl machinery over boulders. :D

[Southside]

Ironically the dirt that makes up NJ used to be on Rays land until that big old glacier pushed it all south and left the rocks behind.  They are just catching up to their old friends now is all. 

[customsawyer]

One of the ways I get crazy orders is through my website. It amazes me how far customers have come to get some lumber. Just as shocking is the different places I have shipped lumber and timbers. Had a customer call from CA. and he needed wood shipped to OK.
If you are wanting to get your business out into the "World" then the World Wide Web is one way to do it.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Thanks customsawyer,.    But If I'm to be honest, well, I don't really want to take my business out into the world.    Its a big scary place out there and I'm just a po country boy trying to get by.

Nope, what I really want, and most likely will not get , is SOMEBODY ELSE that wants large quantities of all split, clean, hardwood firewood and wants to send me tri axles or semis for me to load and then they take it out into the big wide world where they will.  And I never leave the farm.   

Yeah, I know, its a lot to be wanting. Would be like like winning the lottery.

[Mooseherder]

I used to get a chuckle from seeing bundled kiln-dried firewood on pallets in retail stores for 4.99 a few years ago. On top of that some of it was from Estonia.  Last fall the big Blue home improvement store had 2 pallets of firewood bundles by the entry for 11.98 each. I took a picture to document the ridiculous-ness because the store was in northern Maine.  Convenience for someone wanting to have a fireplace or campfire event seems like a bargain I suppose for less than 25 dollars buying a couple of bundles,  especially if they're on vacation.