Friendly Competition: Working Together

Having the capacity to take on big jobs opens up new opportunities. However, some requests may seem out of your league. Or are they? Collaborating with local competitors can help PROs win large contracts that neither business could handle alone.

With structured agreements and effective communication, portable restroom companies can mutually benefit from working together. The portable sanitation industry, like many other sectors, relies on subcontracting and joint bidding to maximize opportunities and compete with other enterprises. Here’s how you can partner strategically.

Why Collaborate? Benefits of Working Together

Teaming up with competitors may not be your first instinct, especially if you’re in an area where tensions with local rivals run high. However, a benefit of collaboration is that you can cover more ground and expand your service footprint. Cities, townships, and counties often request proposals for multiple service zones across parks, trails, and golf courses throughout the year.

Public and private events or disaster response contracts can exceed a portable restroom company’s available labor or equipment. It might even require insurance limits that solo operators can’t meet. Partnering with brokers or other businesses to meet volume demands and win bids enables both companies to get paid fairly for their time, rentals, and risks. With structured agreements, strategic partnerships provide PROs with a competitive edge.

How Partnering with Friendly Competition Works

There are no hard and fast rules or one “right” way to collaborate on big jobs. The customer provides their requirements, and business owners work out the terms behind the scenes. On paper, this typically looks like one PRO taking the lead on a job and subcontracting some of the work or units to another portable restroom business. PROs may also bid together using different arrangements, depending on their (or the customer’s) needs.

Here’s how these agreements work out:

• Subcontracting: This structure is the most common. One business might have the credentials or connections to seal the deal but lack the inventory or labor. They bid for the job, keep a finder’s fee percentage, and pay subcontractors a negotiated rate.
• Joint bidding: In a consortium or teaming contract, two or more PROs create a joint bid. This approach usually requires a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and helps PROs win large events or government contracts.
• Temporary co-branding: These are what make the news and are often seen after a natural disaster or for a large, local event. PROs form and promote a new brand for a one-time event, dubbed in headlines as “Two Local Portable Restroom Companies Team Up for FEMA Response.”

Tips for Portable Restroom Collaboration

Networking with PROs can help you solve challenges and form alliances. But collaboration involves more than a handshake. Once clients are involved, you’re talking about profits, liabilities, and servicing standards. Hashing these details out beforehand saves all parties a lot of trouble.

Keep the relationship friendly by:

• Defining service standards in writing
• Deciding who invoices and how profits are split
• Discussing repeat work and upselling opportunities before they happen
• Outlining responsibilities and ensuring insurance coverage

Work Together to Score Big Opportunities

In an ideal world, you can handle most jobs on your own and keep all the profits. But just because the timing isn’t right or you don’t have enough capacity doesn’t mean you should give up altogether. Portable restroom businesses of all sizes can turn challenges into opportunities by collaborating with friendly competitors.

Looking to Take Your Portable Restroom Business to the NEXT LEVEL? Download our FREE Guide: “Your Guide to Operating A Portable Restroom Business.”

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