Why Selling Guardrail is BETTER Than a Paper Route


Are you looking for a new and do-able way to earn extra household income? Would you like a great way to earn extra cash for college, a new car, or simply increase your spending money? How can you earn extra income if you live in a rural area, far from dense populations? How does one earn extra income when they live on a farm or in an agricultural area?
For a young person on a farm, for the mom who wants to bring in extra cash for the household or for the businessman who wants to invest in something solid, one of the best options available might be to sell Used Guardrail. It’s not your average paper route… its probably far more profitable.

What’s the deal with guardrail? How can it be profitable? For a couple of decades, Used Highway Guardrail has been making its way to the farm, helping ranchers and beef & dairy producers build their facilities with permanent fencing and barrier panel. The used guardrail panel is commonly used to corral beef cattle, rodeo bulls and diary cattle. The super-durable construction of Used Highway Guardrail means that it can last a life-time. Recently, guardrail is being used in hundreds of various applications in the farming, agricultural, real estate development and road management worlds. (See the benefits of Guardrail Fencing on www.livestocksteel.com).

“That’s fine,” you say, “but how does that help ME?”
The story is that Used Guardrail is helping families, farms, households and businesses build extra income.

Here’s how it works:

New guardrail panel is placed on our national highways according to the length of need determined by a state’s Department of Transportation. When the need arises to remove that guardrail, (such as road-widening projects, adding lanes of traffic or replacing wooden guardrail posts), the clean, straight, used guardrail is replaced with new panel, per DOT requirements. We at Livestock Steel are on the scene to win those jobs, and once we have removed the guardrail, we focus on making sure that it goes into the hands of every American who wants to re-use it for safety, for water breaks, for security barrier, for farming or other constructive purposes. That’s what we do!

New Life for Guardrail on the Farm:

When buying from Livestock Steel at wholesale prices, livestock producers often purchase more guardrail than they need. They have some surplus guardrail to use on future projects or to sell, the find out that they can sell it to their neighbors or to other farms and ranches at very helpful profits. Some folks will simply buy a partial truckload, drop it off in their yard, feedlot or sale barn. Then, these wise folks advertise the product and pocket the profit. This method works great as a secondary source of income because it takes up very little time. It does require a doable amount of up-front money and a confident effort, but it  often makes its investors a very respectable profit.

Most folks might ask: “But, why would someone buy from me if you are out there selling the exact same thing all over the country?” There are good answers to that good question.

Here are a few good reasons why local folk will buy from you:

  1. Location, Location, Location

    2. Chances are there is no one too close to your location who is selling our exact product. If you live in a part of the country where there is cattle – you’re in the right place already. We suggest you do a little research to see if there is anyone selling this product within 50 miles of where you are. If not, you’ve got a good start.

  2. Location, Location, Location

    3. If you are in reasonable driving distance of potential customers, most of them would rather drive to your location in order to have their material quickly and get back to the farm, making it work for them as soon as possible.

  3. Location, Location, Location

    4. Make your product visible. Post advertisements or place actual product samples in (secure), high-traffic locations, such as: local feed stores, grain elevators, sale barns and other excellent venues. The more you saturate your local area, the more folks are likely to call you about it. The old adage is true: “The more calls you take, the more sales you make.”

  4. “I Know You!”

    5. You will often know the folks who need or want guardrail products in your area. We all prefer to buy from people we know. Folks also like to help out their fellow local businesses and local causes they can believe in. Why not focus on some great purposes for which you can sell you used guardrail: Raise money for mission-work. Raise funds for folks to buy livestock and get into farming. You can also sell our used highway guardrail product to help pay for education and many other worth-while purposes. Make your customers aware that they are supporting local farming, local families and solid purposes.

  1. Seeing is Believing

    2. All of us like to see and touch the quality and condition of the materials you are selling. Customers also like to have a few options to choose from in length and perhaps quality. This way, they can pick out the exact type of product they want. Solid, useful things such as used guardrail products tend to sell much better when the product is sitting in your yard.

  2. Home Field Advantage

    3. You know your own local sale venues much better than we do — such as: Local sale barns, grain elevators, your best local sale papers, your favorite farm papers, various farm shows, your local Craig’s List postings and agricultural meetings. You will do a much better job at reaching the people from your area than we will.

  3. Small is Good

    4. Since we are a national used guardrail supply company, we have a minimum order quantity which keeps many customers from purchasing our products. Most folks who retail our product have no such minimum order restrictions. This makes it much easier for your customers to buy from you.

  4. Time is Money

    5. Once ordered from us, used guardrail materials will often take several weeks for a minimum or a partial order (1500-5000 feet) deliver to your location through our national supply system. Compare this delay to the convenience which you will offer your customers when they can purchase your used guardrail materials on the spot. Your local source wins almost every time, especially with orders under 1500 feet.

  5. Knowledge is Power

    6. Many people who need used guardrail may have never heard of the Used Guardrail source, Livestock Steel. Once you establish a customer base, your people will often continue to come to you for the same product rather than search for other venues. We have proven that repeat customers are the best ones to have.

  6. Local Steel = Local Growth

    7. When your neighbors purchase your locally based used guardrail product, it will encourage local cash-flow to remain in your local economy. You, your customers and your community will be significantly benefited because you are driving your local economy forward in healthy while also doing a great job at building the strength of agriculture in your community AND making you a profit — all at the same time.

Of course, folks need to know:

“Just how much I can make on this used guardrail product?”
Most folks who retail our used guardrail products make about 15 to 25 percent profit selling the full amount to local farms, ranchers, cattle producers and neighbors over a 3 to 9 month period. That’s a better average than the majority of real estate or stock exchange investments. Your Used Guardrail investment may only need to be for a few weeks or months before your money comes back. If this return is viewed over 12 months of investment, the annual return on your used guardrail can bear an average of more like 30% to 50%.

The common profit margin depends on the type and quantity of the product ordered. Your profit will often in the range of $500 up to $3,000 per order. One might compare this profit to an average summer job where a teen works 160 hours over the whole summer at $8/hour. In such an instance, the take-home pay might be $1,000 for the whole summer. (Less the cost of transportation?) A self-motivated teen could make two to three times as much retailing our used guardrail product. Plus, the actual handling and sales of guardrail takes relatively little time.

Used guardrail is a solid, very marketable asset. You will own the material. You can see it, touch it and know where it is. Its not shoved away in a distant fund, hidden in a bank or buried in an investment where it is out of your reach and out of your sight. With dangerous decisions being made in our national economy, having investment in


What is required?

Nothing sells itself. If someone is willing to advertise and get the word out, most can do quite well at selling guardrail. What’s more, the use of guardrail effectively helps to build our communities’ agriculture infrastructure.
 Selling used guardrail is rather simple. It has great potential for parents to teach their teens to manage value or for busy folks and parents to be able to make extra cash. One of the great benefits about guardrail is that it can be purchased in Less-Than-Truckload (6000-8000 pound) quantities, while still making a sizeable profit. This is also an excellent opportunity to teach a teen the business side of farming. It re-enforces how to handle both money and responsibility.


What you need to get started:

  • An area where you or someone able and trustworthy is willing to safely unload, store, show and load the guardrail product. This location does NOT need to be indoors, does not have to be temperature controlled nor does it even need to have a roof.

  • You’ll need to make a minimum investment of about $2000-$3000 or more in product. We can work with you about payment and times of delivery. It is perfectly fine with us if you want to start this small.

  • You will need a machine capable of unloading and loading the guardrail product. Many of our steel bundles can weigh around 3,700 pounds. We suggest machines which can safely handle four thousand pounds of lifting capacity with lifting forks. Many farms have machines which can handle this weight capacity. If the weight of these bundles becomes a crucial issue for you, please contact us to see if we can make special provisions to split and reduce the weights of the bundles.

  • Advertising: People who retail our products often advertise in their local newspapers, in farming papers and on internet-driven sites such as e-bay. It is very common to see Livestock Steel product advertised on Craig’s’ List. Anywhere cattlemen gather can become a great venue for selling this product. It is a common thing for us to also send customers looking for smaller orders directly to the folks we know who are retailing our product.

  • You need good, workable, extensive knowledge of the product. Spend some time on www.livestocksteel.com reading about the products and catching up on the articles. You can also call us up and talk with our knowledgeable staff. We can talk about the benefits of used highway guardrail products for a LONG time.

  • Most of all, you MUST believe in your product and have a cheerful, resilient attitude towards making it available. Stay with it, sow a lot of good seed and it will move forward. The product is a GOOD product to get behind because it is so durable, usable and affordable.

When you’re ready to give us a call, we will be happy to talk with you about making our used guardrail products go to work for you.


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