Austin Gray: [Applause] Welcome back to the OWNR OPS podcast. I'm your host, Austin Gray. In this episode, I have a special guest, Bodhi Gallo, joining us from New York. Bodhi is the dumpster rental guy on Twitter, and he rents dumpsters to local contractors and specializes in junk removal. He is also an SEO wizard when it comes to local SEO and how to rank number one in the Google Map Pack for your specific area. I'm excited for you guys to listen to this episode, so let's jump in!

Austin Gray: Bodhi Gallo is the dumpster rental guy on Twitter. We've been engaging back and forth over the last, I'd say, month or so, and I've just been enjoying following your journey. The content that you're putting out is really cool, and I like your business model. So I'm really excited to dive into this. I mean, I saw one of your pictures the other day, and it looks like you're optimizing for junk removal terms from a search perspective. Is that right?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, it totally depends. I optimize for junk removal and dumpster rental, but it totally depends. I subcontract out a lot of my dumpster rental work—I mean junk removal work. It totally depends on how big or small the job is. But for junk removal, I'm only really taking big jobs like estate cleanouts, demolition—we've demolished sheds, above-ground pools, stuff like that. That's the only type of jobs I really take; otherwise, I subcontract out a lot of my small junk removal jobs and just get a little, like, 20% off the top of it.

Austin Gray: Okay, so you're marketing junk removal, and then you have relationships with excavation contractors who you sub that out to?

Bodhi Gallo: No, we actually do the demolition. We don't do the small junk removal. So when someone calls wanting to remove two couches, I really just don't have the time for that, so I really don't do those types of jobs. But if something like demolition comes up, where we have to take down a shed, my partner and I actually go and take down the shed itself. He knows how to operate an excavator. We get two guys from his dad's company, and we go from there.

Austin Gray: Sweet. This is why I like following guys like you—following guys like Julius—because there are so many people, especially on Twitter, who are talking about buying businesses and just wanting to sit back and play armchair quarterback. You can't do that. It's impossible. I can do that with dumpsters, but you can only make so much money because dumpsters are a volume game, whereas demolition is really where the big money is. Same with estate cleanouts. I can charge $8,000 for a hoarder cleanout, whereas you could do, like, 10 dumpsters out of that and not make as much money.

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, that's why I love following you, because you're actually out there in the field doing the work.

Austin Gray: So why don't you take us back to the beginning and tell us how you got into this business?

Bodhi Gallo: So I was a senior in college, playing lacrosse, and my cousin was on my team. He's not really a school guy; he just made a bunch of money in the stock market. He said, "This dumpster business is for sale." My uncle owns a big asphalt company—they pave roads and parking lots; they don't do driveways. It's a huge asphalt company. He said, "Let's buy this dumpster rental business." They knew about my marketing background, working for other companies doing marketing, and we were like, "We would just kill it at this."

We bought an old F750 and 20 dumpsters from a 65-year-old guy who was looking to retire. We now have 50 dumpsters and two trucks running and we've just grown the revenue to a ridiculous amount from starting to finishing. We’ve been offered buyouts, but we haven't taken anything yet because we're so young and just feel like we can grow this way more than it's growing already.

Austin Gray: Can you share numbers associated with the acquisition?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, so we bought the company for $100,000—dirt cheap! Dirt cheap, like cheaper than equipment! We've been offered $750,000 to get bought out now. We've invested some money into it. Like I said, we got a new truck that's worth $130,000, so that adds some more market cap to us. Then we've added about 30 more dumpsters—some are brand new, some were used. It totally depends.

When I first got into the business, it was right during COVID, so the price of steel was crazy at the time; dumpsters were going for $7,000 when they used to go for $4,000. Now that that's leveled out, we actually just bought new dumpsters which are only $4,000 apiece, whereas during COVID they were $7,000. So I pretty much saved myself $15,000, and we've got a lot of used dumpsters. A lot of guys were liquidating—usually around this time of year, a lot of guys liquidate their dumpsters because winter is coming and they usually just can't make it if they don't have enough.

We bought from a guy who was offering others $300,000 and $180,000, but he couldn't find someone to buy him out. Luckily, we had the right connections to do this, so we got into the business.

Austin Gray: So you buy one F750, you said, and 20 dumpsters at that point for $100,000?

Bodhi Gallo: Yep, a 2006 F750 with 330,000 miles on it and a CAT C7 engine. It's bulletproof. A lot of the dumpsters we've been welding up because a lot of them needed work. It also came with a driver for the business too—a guy who's a retired Teamster. He's an absolute beast. I can have him work 60 hours a week, and he isn’t bad at all—it's crazy!

Austin Gray: So, take us through this business model. For anybody who is not familiar with the dumpster rental business, how do you generate revenue, and what can the business do with those 20 dumpsters?

Bodhi Gallo: The 20 dumpsters could generate a top line of about $180,000. It all depends on how often we flip them and how long they're rented for. It’s totally dependent on that. The only problem with that is contractors are my main customers, and they want to hold a dumpster for two weeks, sometimes up to a month, whereas homeowners get a three to five-day option. So I'm juggling a lot of the time.

The most you could do with 20 dumpsters is probably around $180,000 to $200,000, with a net profit of about $70,000 to $80,000 off that. In my first year, I really didn't pay myself much money. I made a bunch of money in stocks during college, so I invested pretty much all of that into the business. I really didn't pay myself the first year. Then we got more dumpsters and I was able to start paying myself some income after about a year and a half into the business.

Austin Gray: Sorry, what was your question?

Bodhi Gallo: My question is, what's ideal for you? You mentioned you rent to residential customers for three to five days, and then you also rent to contractors. They typically like to hold them, so is it better for you to rent for longer or is it better for you to turn them?

Bodhi Gallo: It's better for me to turn them. My bread-and-butter customers are roofers and residential homeowners. The thing about the homeowners is their dump is usually about one ton, so it’s very cheap to dump their waste. I get better margins with them because it's only three to five days. The good thing about roofers is they flip a roof in a day, so I have some roofers that do five a week. The downside of that is their dump fees are expensive.

I'm in New York, so I’m paying $124 a ton, whereas in other places they’re paying like $30 a ton down south. I looked into buying a business in South Carolina where they're paying like $115 a ton. The tonnage is very different, but it’s good for us because we can charge a higher drop-off fee.

In other places, you really can’t do that. A drop-off fee in Myrtle Beach was going for $180, while I charge a $300 drop-off fee. So it’s a way different thing. In my market, everyone pretty much charges the same prices. I know around the country it’s a race to the bottom in a lot of these markets, especially Texas. But in my market, we all charge the same prices— it’s pretty rigged that way.

We all work together: if I don't have a dumpster, I know I can call another company, and they'll give them a dumpster. Or I have relationships with people in New Jersey, so if I have a customer needing a dumpster in New Jersey, I just have someone else handle it.

Austin Gray: Take us through the revenue model.

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, so like I said, we charge a $300 drop-off fee, $124 per ton, and the end price is determined by the weight of the dumpster. I do about 140 to 175 dumps per month in my busy season— right up until Christmas time, usually. From January through February, and then until about March 14th, it significantly decreases to about 70 dumps a month. My average dump fee is about $500, but it mostly varies between roofing and residential work. A residential customer could be one ton, but a roofer could have six tons, so I average about $500 to $625 per dumpster in revenue. It’s just hard for me to tell, but I’d have to take the mean of all my weight and divide it up and whatnot— but it’s usually about $500 to $625 per dumpster.

Austin Gray: So you charge a drop-off fee of $300 and then a per-ton fee of $124?

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, and for those of you listening who don’t know what tons mean, it has to do with weight, correct?

Bodhi Gallo: Yep. So I always have an accounts receivable running—it's always on net 30. I incentivize a lot of homeowners to pay me cash. I'm usually just running on net 30 with all my contractors. I have a lot of their cards on file; some guys I don’t because some guys are just always playing catch-up.

So I have to charge them a little more money most of the time because I’ve got guys always playing catch-up with me, so it becomes a pain to chase down people for money. But if they’re giving me four to five dumpsters a week, I’m not going to complain, you know? I know I'm getting that money eventually. But like I said, people are always running a tab, and I'm always collecting money. After this phone call, I have to go see two people to collect money from.

Austin Gray: And this is because you’re picking up waste from a job site and transferring that to either a transfer station or the dump, essentially?

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, we have transfer stations here, no dumps. What does the transfer station charge you to dump that?

Bodhi Gallo: My market is very regulated. New York and New Jersey restrict where we can dump, and we can only dump at our dumps in our county, so we have no choice. I actually don't charge on the tonnage because everyone dumps for the same price. You can’t get around it. You can shop dumps like other markets, but where I am, you can’t.

So there's really no advantage in my market because we all have to charge the same price to dump. That’s why I just charge the tonnage—it's easier for me. I'm a smaller company, and I'm not going to make $6 extra per ton. I don’t really care about that. I’ll make an extra $12; it doesn’t matter to me.

So that’s why I charge that way. For homeowners, they’re usually at one ton max, so we net profit about $270 off a homeowner dump. It’s great. So you charge, the transport station charges you $124 per ton to dump, and you just pass that on to the customer?

Bodhi Gallo: Yep, exactly.

Austin Gray: Okay, and now that we understand the revenue model, you had 20 dumpsters, and then you said you wanted to grow the business. You bought another truck and more dumpsters. Talk us through that process.

Bodhi Gallo: So we went to the bank—we have a good relationship with the bank. We told them we were looking to get a new truck, and we went through financing. It’s a smaller bank—they're only in New York and New Jersey, and they work with a lot of contractor companies. The CEO is an ex-general contractor of the bank, so we went to them and they said we needed to put $25,000 down on the truck for a $130,000 truck.

So we did that. Our monthly payments are about $1,800 a month. We got a Kenworth T270 about two years ago. Then for the dumpsters, we bought both cash—not cash but cash on our account.

Austin Gray: How many more have you purchased on top of the 20 you already had?

Bodhi Gallo: I have 30 more now, and the sizes vary. Some guy was actually closing upstate from us, and he was selling out his business and all his assets. We picked up 15 dumpsters from him, and we bought a bunch more this past spring. We got all 20-yarders, all brand new, from Pennsylvania. This following spring, we're looking to buy more.

Austin Gray: You have 50 total dumpsters now. What does an average year look like, or what's this year going to look like for top-line revenue for those 50 dumpsters with the two trucks?

Bodhi Gallo: We're looking at about $750,000 top-line revenue this year. We might be a little under that, but that's what we're expecting to get into—around $750,000. That’s between all junk removal and dumpster jobs we've done. I think next year we could really push the envelope. My biggest problem, though, is in the summertime, I have like nine or ten drop-offs a day, and I only have five dumpsters in my yard.

For my business to be efficient, we really have to start early and manage the pick-up/drop-off cycle, which is a logistical nightmare. I’ve tweeted about that before, and it just gets super crazy and stressful because four roofers want a dumpster at 8 o'clock, another four want a dumpster at 9 o'clock, and if I don’t get the dumpsters there on time, I lose a recurring customer.

That’s going to happen, but you don’t want it to happen, you know? I usually prioritize the guys who give me the most volume and go from there. I think we’ll net around $350,000 from that $750,000.

The thing I don’t like about this business is the overhead is crazy. Insurance is getting super expensive—it’s only raising every single year—because a lot of guys are jumping into this business and really affecting the insurance models. Insurance is flying—only Progressive really gives people auto insurance now. It used to be Liberty Mutual, but so many guys are getting into this business that Liberty Mutual doesn’t even cover trash companies anymore.

So Progressive is the only one and they have a stronghold on the market clearly because they’re the only one that offers it. They’re making people pay like $2,000 to $2,500 per truck alone, so it really increases my overhead. It’s a really stressful thing, insurance, but you need it because someone ran into us. Someone ran through a stoplight and ran into our new truck like two months ago. Thank God we had insurance, you know. The guy actually submitted a claim. Even though it was his fault, we had no damage to our truck—just our hubcap. Still, it was just our premiums that went up.

Austin Gray: How big is your team right now?

Bodhi Gallo: I have one full-time driver, one part-time driver, and I manage all operations.

Austin Gray: So you manage the operations?

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, I manage all operations. I pretty much answer all phone calls, make the schedule, and collect the money.

Austin Gray: So you’re working around the clock?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, I’m working all the time. It’ll be seven o'clock, and I’m waiting for a contractor at Home Depot. Seven-thirty in the morning, and I’m going out to collect cash from someone. I definitely think I need to optimize the business. I have to get better systems in place. I shouldn't be leaving my house to go collect cash; I should have a Dropbox.

There’s stuff like that I really need to improve on, like billing people, because I could just have my driver do it. I don’t even have to call him anymore. All my dispatch is through this CRM called Roll Off. On Roll Off, I’m able to send my driver the list right through his app. Then, let’s say my driver gets a dump slip; he has to upload it to the Roll Off app after he gets the dump slip. It pretty much does all the billing itself—so it takes a picture of the dump slip, adds the drop-off fee to it, and all I have to do is press send, and it goes right to the customer.

So it’s really helped.

Austin Gray: That’s awesome!

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, it’s really helped out my accounts receivable because the quicker I bill the customers, the quicker I get the money.

Austin Gray: Have you met Chris Bird on Twitter? He’s a car wash guy.

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, I’ve talked to him before. He actually invested in some guy’s dumpster rental business out in Utah. I’ve talked to him about it before.

Austin Gray: Oh yeah, I remember. That's not even the reason I was bringing him up. Chris has become a friend at this point, and one thing he challenged me early on whenever I was running around town grabbing checks, trying to track down money and all that stuff, was to find somebody locally and pay them $25 or $30 an hour part-time for four hours a day, and just delegate that stuff to them.

We did that at the beginning of this year, and that was a game-changer for my business because it just freed up so much time. I like being out there in the field; I like being in tune with the operations. And I think that's a good use of our time as owner-operators in the early days of growing a business because somebody's got to drive that field work, right?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, and that’s why I started this podcast, man. I really enjoy following you because I think we share similar mindsets in that. But being able to free up the brain space and time of just running around grabbing checks and depositing stuff into the bank helped me so much focus on the field stuff. I have all that to credit to Chris, and that’s why I bring up his name because he challenged me early on to do that, but it could be something that might be worthwhile for you.

Bodhi Gallo: The thing I like about it, though, is I have so many connections with contractors within my community now. If I want to get into house flipping or if I want to renovate my house, I just have all these connections with these guys—I’m friends with them now. Sometimes I meet them at the bar— they’re at the bar on Fridays at 5 o'clock and we have a drink.

That’s what I like about it: I like having the person-to-person connection with these guys as an early startup in this business. One day, obviously, I’m not going to be able to do that, but I just like having that connection for now. Because for them to go to another company, it’s like we don’t talk anymore. A lot of these guys, I collect cash from, and we talk for 20 minutes in the parking lot about God knows what or how business is right now, or if it’s slow— all that stuff.

That’s what I do like about it, but there are times when I’m like, “This is not productive for me,” so I definitely should delegate it out. I actually have someone in mind I’m looking to do that with—someone I’m very trustworthy with.

Austin Gray: That’s awesome! For those of you listening, go back and listen to what Bod just said again because I believe that’s so important whenever you’re in the services or trades—building those relationships in the blue-collar industry go so far. When people see a young guy like yourself coming out to the job site, shaking their hand, looking them in the eye, sending them the invoice, and asking for the check; they see that you care, and they respect that.

Bodhi Gallo: Exactly, especially about the millennial and Gen Z generations.

Austin Gray: Yeah, because they know. People say that to me all the time, “Nobody wants to work anymore!” blah, blah, blah—I hear that all the time. And even for myself, I’m going to have to deal with that. One of my drivers is retiring next September, and for me to replace him is going to be tough because he’s an old-timer. He’s 65 years old, but he’s a beast—he loves working.

It’s just so hard to find someone that’s dependable like that now, so that’s going to be a really big issue for my business. A lot of the time, I can’t jump in the truck because I have other things going on, but I will jump in the truck. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. That’s another thing: my drivers can’t ever hold me accountable. They can’t say, “We need you,” because I can do everything they can with the truck.

Bodhi Gallo: I don’t ever want an employee to be able to hold me hostage like that.

Austin Gray: For sure!

Bodhi Gallo: Well, I hear that all the time, too. The boomer generation just consistently talks about, “Man, nobody wants to work anymore! Nobody wants to work!”

They like dealing with us, and it gives people like me and you an advantage, is what I think. These jobs are always going to be necessary. My good friend is an electrician, and my other friend is a carpenter. We’re always going to have work because no one wants to do this anymore; garbage is never going away—electrical is never going away—general contracting is never going away. So, we will always have work, no matter what.

Bodhi Gallo: Absolutely! I've used that to my advantage. When people talk about that, I just go along with it because my perspective is that if you’re going to work with me, I want to work. I’ll show up, and I’ll do what I’m going to do. Then you earn that contractor's trust and prove to them that you are willing to work, and you have their business here on out.

Bodhi Gallo: Exactly! I’ve built relationships with a lot of contractors where they don’t want a dumpster because they don’t want to have the dumpster in the driveway. They’ll do all the demo, and then we’ll come in on a Saturday morning. I’ll bring four guys with me, and we’ll just take all the demo outside the house, leave the truck right in the driveway, load it up, and leave.

For contractors, they pay a premium but they don’t care because they just pass it off to the homeowner they’re doing the work for. The homeowner doesn’t want a big, dumpy dumpster in their driveway. That’s been a very lucrative business for us; we make an extra $1,000 profit on a Saturday morning because we’re going in there, removing the trash. It’s good for the homeowner; it’s good for the contractor, and we always get a five-star review out of it.

Austin Gray: I love it! I love the fact that you just said five-star review. So let’s segue now into the marketing because you are right now getting a ton of traction on Twitter because of your marketing tweets. I want to spend the rest of this episode diving into your head and strategies that you’re using to grow this business.

So you bought this business and you have a background in marketing. Take us through the next step. What were the first things that you did digitally for this business?

Bodhi Gallo: We can really back up before I got into the business. In college, my freshman and sophomore year, I interned at a company called Active International—a marketing agency in Pearl River, New York. When I worked with them, I had two accounts: Kroger, the grocery store, and Firehouse Subs, the sandwich shop. Then I pivoted the following year to Benjamin Moore, the paint company. I don't know if they’re out in Utah, but they’re more of an East Coast brand owned by Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. I was a marketing manager for 10 of their stores in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

My boss was the head manager, but I was just the assistant. Then I got into the dumpster business. The first thing I did when I got into the dumpster business was because the business I bought had no website, no Facebook—absolutely nothing. I already knew a lot about this stuff, so I was like, "I could really grow this with marketing."

I built out a website, a Facebook page, and a Google My Business profile, and just went ham on Google Ads and SEO. I spent like $90,000 in my first two years on Google Ads, really focusing on growth. Once I was able to achieve top rank in my market for the Google Map Pack, I didn't spend a dime on ads this year, so we'll add another $60,000 in profit alone just from not having to spend any money on advertising at all.

This year, we sponsored like two golf tournaments because my cousin is a huge golfer—he's a very good golfer and is about to become an amateur pro—and he’s my partner in the business. So we just sponsored two golf tournaments, but otherwise, I didn't spend a dime on advertising this year and I pretty much just been coasting off of local SEO.

Austin Gray: How did you get to the top rank?

Bodhi Gallo: I got to the top of the Map Pack by exchanging backlinks with other guys in my town. Let’s say a contractor has a website, I exchange a backlink with him. I have PR articles on Patch.com, even on our town website, so just high authority backlinks.

I also have service pages built out for each area we service. I’ll use Congress dumpster rental as an example. My business is in Blauvelt, New York, but Congress is about 10 miles north of us. I built out a page for Congress dumpster rental and then I built out pages for: 10-yard dumpster rental Congress, 15-yard dumpster rental Congress, 20-yard dumpster rental Congress, etc. It’s just like a web effect, and then I backlink that to my product pages on my Google My Business profile.

For every town we service, I have [Town] dumpster rental. I have backlinks to Google My Business profiles—just stuff like that, and I really just outrank companies like Junk King and B there Dump That, who are just franchises that dominate local SEO in other markets. I'm above them in pretty much all parts of my town and all different towns in my community.

Austin Gray: Okay, I want to dive in there. Can you tell us specifically how to do that—the process for creating the backlinks from your service pages to your Google My Business profile? Can you dive deeper?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, it’s easy. On your Google My Business profile, there’s a products page. I don’t know if you’ve seen that before where you can add some like Excavating service on there. If you take a look—so for me, I have dumpster rental, and then I got 10 yard dumpster rental, 15 yard dumpster rental, 20 yard dumpster rental. For example, there's a "Learn More" link in that Google My Business profile.

On the learn more side of things, you could link to a page on your website that says 10 yard dumpster rental. You just copy and paste the URL, take the copy from that page, and use similar copy on your Google My Business profile’s product page.

Austin Gray: Does Google prioritize that if you have your website and your Google My Business services and products stating the same content?

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, because you’re actually linking the two to each other. This is just some special sauce I found out on my own that’s really helped me link, and I’ve actually been able to track it and see customers. Customers have told me that they’ve come from my products page, clicked on my website from there, and made a call.

Austin Gray: Now this is the gold—this is the opportunity. This is the reason why I started this podcast: to talk to people like you who see the same opportunity in creating a service business in your local market, where your only competition are likely baby boomers who don’t give a crap about digital marketing. If you bring a digital marketing mind to an unsexy service-based business, it is like—you’ve proven it— that you can rank number one in your local market.

I mean, you sent me an overview of the land clearing search terms the other day, and I haven’t done the specific things you’ve done, but we've invested in SEO and a professionally built website from day one—

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, which is huge! It’s interesting about my market. It’s a lot of third-generation businesses. I have all these old Italian companies in my market that end with "O’s." A lot of these guys made money already in the second generation, so now that they’re hearing about me and seeing my marketing stuff—like, I went to high school with some of these guys—it makes me laugh because I’m miles ahead of you guys with this stuff. You have to actually pay for it.

I actually made a tweet saying, "You may be able to outspend me in marketing, but you're never going to get to the top of SEO with me! I will always get the Map Pack."

Austin Gray: How else do you do that other than what you just mentioned?

Bodhi Gallo: Pretty much just exchanging backlinks with local contractors or news stations, stuff like Patch.com. Citation building is also really good for increasing your domain authority. I have some blog posts—they’re not as important as they used to be. When I first got into SEO about five years ago, blog posts were the game, but they’re not as important anymore.

Internal linking between your website is important—stuff like that. I use a lot of keywords like Congress dumpster rental and write blog posts about it. I write blog posts about shed demolition, all sorts of stuff like that.

Austin Gray: Why do you think blog posts aren't as important anymore?

Bodhi Gallo: It’s because Google dropped the Google Map Pack; that's pretty new. Google wants a stronghold on this thing. Ranking a website is a little less meaningful than it used to be because now it goes: Google LSAs, Google Ads, Google Map Pack, and then your website ranking. Most of the time, the top authority websites like Angie's Leads and those types of companies are at the top, so it’s much harder to rank your website.

Blog posts would only help your backlink authority—your website link ranking more than it would for your Google Map Pack ranking. Now the customer has to scroll through LSAs, Google Ads, and the Map Pack just to get to your website.

Most of the time, the top website is Waste Management, which isn’t even in my market; they just own the SEO—it's Waste Management, Angie's Leads, and then this company IWS, which is a waste management competitor.

Austin Gray: So you, in the beginning, prioritized spending on Google Ads for growth, and then prioritized getting to number one on the Map Pack, correct?

Bodhi Gallo: Yes, and that's really just helped me. There are other companies that actually have more reviews than me, but I still outrank them. I know people say Google prioritizes reviews—it definitely does—but it’s not as important as people think it is.

Like I said, B there Dump That and Junk King have one of them with 100 reviews and Junk King has 400 reviews, and I outrank both of them.

Austin Gray: You think the reason for that is because you’re going really hard on this backlink strategy?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, backlink strategy and service areas. The franchises have pretty broad service pages, so I can really deep dive into it.

Austin Gray: Can you break down the process of exchanging backlinks with contractors?

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, so I actually go as far as to tell my contractors: “Give me your username and password, and I’ll put it onto your website.” I actually make a page on their website that's not visible to customers about TNT Dumpster Rentals, which is my company.

I actually make that page on their website and then add a blog post about my company, Rockland County dumpster rental, and the areas we service, and then I hyperlink the two together.

Austin Gray: So there is an exchange of value; it’s increasing both their authority and yours. Are you giving them backlinks in return?

Bodhi Gallo: Yep! It increases domain authority and increases value for both of us. A lot of these guys don’t even want one in return—they’re like, “Dude, do whatever you want!” I’m just friends with these guys now.

Some of them are like, “Whatever you want to do to my website, I don’t care!”

Austin Gray: How many backlinks do you think it’s important to get if somebody has a website and their Google My Business set up?

Bodhi Gallo: I don’t think how many is important; it’s more about the quality of them than the quantity. It’s more about the quality of the backlinks. A good one is Patch.com; that’s a really great backlink.

I don’t know if you guys know what Patch is, but if you look it up, it’s just a local news source. It’s easy to make a blog post there. We have New City Patch, Rockland Patch—those are just counties in my city. It’s just like Patch.com, and you can easily make a nice blog post. That's a high domain authority backlink.

But it's all about connections—connection building.

Austin Gray: So go to Patch.com, just write a general description of what services you offer, and link back to your website?

Bodhi Gallo: Yep! Just create an account there.

Austin Gray: Now let me ask you this: whenever you create those backlinks, are you linking back to your homepage or are you linking to a specific service page?

Bodhi Gallo: It depends. I usually just link back to my homepage unless it’s, like, New City Patch. I would do the New City dumpster rental and link it back to that page because that’s where people search.

When they have a dump, they want a dumpster—New City—they actually search for New City dumpster rental. They don’t search for dumpster near me as much. I’m able to see that from the searches, what keywords I need to go through for my backlink strategy. It’s all about getting backlinks on high domain authority or local authority websites.

Bodhi Gallo: High domain or local authority websites. My main keyword on my website is Rockland County dumpster rental. Getting backlinks through sites like Rockland County roofing is great for that as well.

Austin Gray: Two things: I know Conor is working on a software product right now. He has been putting out some crazy valuable content regarding backlinks, so if you’re not following him, I think it’s just @ConorSherr—something like that.

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, he’s the man! I’ve been talking to him a lot; he’s really cool.

Austin Gray: I'll look up his link to his profile; I should probably have him on the podcast at this point to just talk backlinks. But have you found some of the backlinks that he’s posting to be valuable for local service businesses?

Bodhi Gallo: It’s funny you say that; I actually DM’d him the other day and was like, “Start dropping backlinks for local service businesses,” and he was like, “You could use all these for local service businesses.” He started dropping them like today, so I actually go through all his backlinks and create an Excel sheet on my end.

Then I just use it for my clients or my personal business from there—like all his backlinks he drops because he's dropping some high value in there. It’s cool he's doing that because a lot of SEOs get salty about that stuff, and I’ve been attacked on my Twitter before.

I stopped showing my business on Twitter; I wish I didn’t have to do that. Someone attacked me with like 21 one-star reviews, and I traced it back to Afghanistan. It was a day after I posted my business on Twitter, so then I kind of went crazy, took off all pictures of my business on Twitter, and blanked everything out now because I wish I didn’t have to do that.

Unfortunately, I can’t afford to get 21 one-star reviews that are fake, you know? Luckily, I caught it. It wasn’t just one; they did 20, so it's easy to get removed, but getting reviews removed is a pain, dude.

Austin Gray: It is so hard! That’s crazy!

Bodhi Gallo: Yeah, that’s why people always say to me, “Oh, Anon accounts are bad.” I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but I was posting my account like I was showing my dumpsters, my truck, everything. Now I have to black out all my branding, and I actually have a pretty cool logo, but I have to black out all my branding now and my stuff because I don’t want to get attacked online.

It’s not worth it for me— like I'm here to bring value; I’m not here to...

Austin Gray: Agreed!

Bodhi Gallo: Alright, Bodhi, you bought a dumpster rental business and are actively growing it. You have a marketing mind. If someone wants to start a local service business, what is the bare minimum they need to do from the very get-go from a marketing perspective?

Bodhi Gallo: Bare minimum: website, Google My Business profile, Facebook account. And what's good about the Facebook account is there are a ton of local groups that you could connect with people. I’m in a group called Rockland Mommies, and anytime someone says, “I need a dumpster rental,” I have like 10 moms who voucher for me in there.

Personal connections are huge! Next Door is another great app to post on. I've actually done a lot of cold messaging to contractors on Next Door for my dumpster rental business, just cold-messaging them and saying, “Hey, this is what I offer. This is my prices. I would love to work with you.”

Stuff like that has been huge for me, but the bare minimum is a Facebook account, website, Google My Business profile, and just posting. I really don’t post on Facebook or Instagram anymore; I really don’t need to. It’s more of a brand awareness thing at the end of the day.

Sometimes I get too busy; it gets pretty overwhelming. That’s why I don’t really run ads anymore either. But the next step for me is to get a truck for 30-yarders and 30-yard containers, which I don’t have yet. It’s just like a minimum $250,000 investment.

So right now, I’m happy where I am, but I’m not going to take that debt just yet until I have an opportunity where someone needs multiple 30-yard dumpsters.

Austin Gray: That was going to be my next question: what are your goals with this business? Do you want this to just be a cash-flowing business as is, or are you trying to take this to the next step at some point?

Bodhi Gallo: I have two thoughts. It’s tough for me. The overhead on this business is crazy. I get jealous of cleaners because they can do 75 more cleans and I could do dumpster rentals and make the same amount of money as me—so with way less overhead.

You don’t have to worry about drivers crashing into people or whatnot—less stress on their end. So for me, it’s tough. I like where I’m at right now. I’m not someone who likes being comfortable—I’m always reinvesting my money at all times. Like I just bought a rental property in Florida. I just had a bunch of cash and was like, “I don’t feel like having this cash right now,” so I always love reinvesting my money.

For me, it’s tough to say I have a very high cash-flowing business right now. I could model myself after B there Dump That, who only does 10, 15, and 20-yard dumpsters and be a guy for the residential homeowner, or I could go big time, get 30-yard dumpsters, and get a 30-yard truck.

But with that comes a lot more overhead and headaches. So I’m in a tough spot right now where I could keep reinvesting my profits into property or keep growing my business. It keeps me up at night; it’s tough to decide what I should or shouldn’t do.

The good thing is I’m only 24 years old, so within the next six years everything could change by the time I’m 30. For me, I have four streams of income right now, and I’m not sure it’s worth it to really jump to the next step, but it could be. I'm always looking for that.

Austin Gray: Do you have any interest in applying the same model that you’ve used for the dumpster rental business to other service-based business models?

Bodhi Gallo: I would like to. I would really like to do it for jet ski rental or dune buggy rentals—like stuff like that—in a high vacation spot. I would really like to do that because you don’t have to focus on a driver in those areas. I know Connor Sher was saying he has a scooter rental business he was telling me about.

I would really like a business model like that more than the dumpster model for sure. I think there’s pretty much low competition in those areas for SEO too, so I’m always looking for underpriced real estate and attention.

My marketing partner Andy Walker and I met in a stock group chat about value investing about seven years ago. We’re always interested in looking for underpriced stocks, underpriced anything. We call it "cigarette butt stocks."

Stuff like that is what we always look for: undervalued stuff that people think are overvalued. I always look for opportunities like that at all times. Another thing I could do for my dumpster business is buy out another business in my area.

I think it's more likely for me to grow than doing it myself—just buying out another one of these businesses and rolling it underneath my brand.

Austin Gray: Exactly! Or just keeping their brand, staying like that. Because there’s also digital arbitrage in that alone—where I could rank and keep their brand name as the DBA, keep it as their name, and just rank that business.

Instead of having one business on top of Google Maps, I could have two businesses on top of Google Maps and just double the calls; there’s more arbitrage there. You could also test pricing strategies.

Bodhi Gallo: Exactly! Yeah, there’s so much I could do in that area.

Austin Gray: This is awesome! Well, I appreciate you being on the OWNR OPS podcast, Bodhi. This has been fun; great speaking with you.

Bodhi Gallo: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners here?

Austin Gray: No—anyone that’s looking to get into the dumpster rental business: be willing to invest at least $100,000 of your own money into it. I wouldn’t finance dumpsters because if you’re not getting work, you’re going to be losing more money by overpaying and financing dumpsters.

That’s pretty much it, though. You need to do at least a $100,000 investment minimum because this isn’t a side hustle type of business. You’re really not going to make money doing this as a side hustle. You’re going to have to be able to go into this full-time.

A lot of weekend warriors jump into this business, and you’re able to buy their equipment cheap because they won’t last, especially with insurance, overhead, and whatnot. You have to go all-in or nothing on this type of business!

There you have it from the man himself, Bodhi Gallo, the dumpster rental guy! Where can people find you online?

Bodhi Gallo: You can find me on Twitter at @RentDumpsters. That’s pretty much the only social media I use. I’m off of everything else.

Austin Gray: I’m right there with you. I believe Twitter is a great place to network with other service-based business owners like yourself. Outside of that, I think all the other social media is a complete waste of time.

Bodhi Gallo: I only discovered Twitter in September. I was on another podcast, and they were like, “You should become the dumpster rental guy,” and I was like, “Okay, why not?” It’s just blown up pretty much, so it’s a beautiful thing.

Austin Gray: Well, thanks for being on the podcast! I really appreciate it.

Bodhi Gallo: Thank you for having me!

Austin Gray: We’ll talk soon.