SPEAKER_07 0:28

How are we all today? Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Happy Zolday. Um, we've got Tracy Lindsey with us today, and he is going to get us started with a little background on himself. Tracy, tell us how how you got started in citywide. What were you doing before? And a little bit about your market and um anything you want to share with us. And then you guys all you know the drill, you've been on the calls before. I know it's two of your first times. So welcome Brett and Lance to the to the Z call. Um happy to have you guys on today. What will happen is Tracy will give us his introduction, and then you guys please just funnel in with your questions and anything you want to hear more from Tracy on. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:18

All right, Tracy, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

So by all means, other than uh my bank account number, you can ask me anything you like, and I'll be glad to share with you, okay? Um for most of my life, I was the guy that that designed and built supermarkets, shopping centers, restaurants, and things like that. I was a certified supermarket designer with the Food Marketing Institute. So if you ever want to know who to blame for putting the milk in the back left-hand corner of a grocery store, I was that guy. So had a lot of experience in AutoCAD, uh design, construction, equipment purchasing, maintenance, and all those types of things. One thing that I realized about doing that, either doing that uh uh for an owner or you know, companies like Whole Foods or Rooscrisp Steakhouse or Five Guys or Wild Oats or Fresh Times Farmers Markets and places like that, is once we won something and once we built it, that was it. I had to go out and find somebody else. The money was over with. And so I started looking for wanting to you know work for myself. What was the best model out there? And I started hearing a lot about recurring revenue. And you thought, well, you know, what could that possibly be? Never occurred to me in a million years that facility maintenance, especially janitorial, uh, could be so lucrative. And I started looking honestly at citywide three years ago. I did a lot of due diligence. I went on several of these calls, and after a year, I purchased the panhandle of Florida. So I have everything from Pensacola, if you're familiar with that northwest uh part of Florida underneath Alabama and Georgia, I got everything from Pensacola all to Lakes all the way to Lake City. Uh my territory is 350 miles wide. Now there's a lot of Air Force bases, a lot of pine forest and swamps and other things in there, but it's really a great territory to be in. So we literally, I just completed my two-year BHA meeting five minutes ago, that's our business health assessment uh with our business coach, uh Lance Pax. So we just finished that. We were doing that all day, which was a very good process to go through to learn everything. So uh a really great business. Uh glad that I made the move. Uh, everything we're beating the numbers that we projected, and it was so funny. Right in the middle of the call today, I got a call from a client that I literally have been going after since August of 2024. And he called today, and I'm getting a signed contract for a$5,000 a month uh janitorial contract with a manufacturer that makes uh transformers that go out on light poles. So uh so it was a good day today. But uh that was just a little bit about me. Uh any questions that I could answer for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Hey Tracy, I have a quick question. Um, so two years in, what was your territory size? What was your territory size when you took it over, and how many buildings over 10,000 square feet did you have?

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Excellent question. So, my territory size, when you purchase a territory from citywide, there's a defined territory. They do it by zip codes, counties, things, so it's very defined. In that they gave me a list of the potential 10,000 square foot plus buildings that were in there. And the reason why they do that, that's the sweet spot for you. Buildings that are 10,000 square feet generally are going to want service five nights a week. That service generally is falls between$2,000 and$3,000 a month in revenue. That was really the sweet spot. Uh, last week there was an inquiry actually by Jeff about, you know, when's the last time you went back and looked at your territory to define, you know, how many buildings that you have. And so we, you know, they didn't have AI wasn't big two years ago, but it is now. So one of my partners went on AI and we went through there and scrubbed through our whole territory. Well, guess what we found? There's 10,000, 10,000 square foot plus buildings in my territory. Great part about AI now is you can also they'll include with that the decision maker, their name, their phone number, and their email address. So I'm real excited about next week hitting the ground running with a new pocket full of contacts that we can go after for more business.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

Yes, go ahead, Scott. Hey Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Um can you so you're two years into it? Can you um I don't know just give like an overview maybe of like um startup and um who you hired initially, how long it took to kind of get rolling, and great questions growing off and it's one that I've asked before.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

So we opened March 18th of 2024, and my office is in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. And the reason why we opened it here is I vacation down here every year of my life to the Panama, Florida. If you're from the South, we affectionately call this area of the country the Redneck Riviera. It's got white sand beaches, emerald green waters, and so I purchased a home in Fort Walton Beach. And literally, my house is one mile down the road from my office that we have here. We opened up, and I'll never forget when my business coaches pulled out of the driveway, it was me. Okay. I had already hired a sales executive, and she was going through training, but it was me and a sales executive. I didn't have any ICs, I didn't have any customers I had relationships with, and I didn't have any customers. I really had nothing. Okay. So I went through 2024, um, learned a lot, did a few things right, uh, did a few things wrong, but it it was a good year, so it was a good start. 2025, we were 562 percent over 2024. So we hockey sticked in uh 2025. We started adding on some pretty large accounts, uh, some dialysis clinics, banks. Um, we uh started doing a hospital, and and I say this my my first account uh was$280 a month, and it was a used car dealership, and it was their little office. That was it.$280 a month. My my next account was$22,000 a month, and it's a hospital. Okay, so don't ever go into this thinking that you can't, because you can. I've never been in charge of cleaning before, I've never done this before, but there's a lot of great support that comes with citywide, a lot of information that you've got. Your business coaches, other franchisees are there to help. So literally, my second customer that I signed up, we went from cleaning the uh the office of a of a used car lot to cleaning operating rooms. So a pretty big swing between those two. So I think that comes with you know, not being afraid, not being afraid to fail, not asking, not talking, those type of things. So we started out, we did a lot of uh OS. If you're not familiar with our terminology uh yet, JS is janitorial service, OS is other services, all the other things that somebody may want. Literally in 2025, I uh hung hurricane for a condo that when one of the hurricanes got closed last summer. We went out and did that. We hung 116 hurricane shutters for this condo um uh in there. We did it in six hours and they paid me seven thousand dollars. I had four employees out there. Usually you do the math, okay? You do the math on that. So really get great numbers. Other things I've done is Florida State University has a campus in Panama City, and they have a hundred-foot-long wooden pier going out over the bay. They had reached out to me and hey, you know, understand you guys do a lot of things. We've got a fishing pier, can you rebuild it? Well, me again, not being afraid to say no, say sure. So uh we got a$25,000 job going out, rebuilding a fishing pier that they had condemned going out over the bay. So we've done a little bit of everything from construction cleans uh to carpet extractions to painting. We painted a retirement uh community. That was a$40,000 job uh for them. Uh right now I have quotes on a construction clean uh for one building over in Tallahassee. It's gonna be$150,000. We just completed another one over on the Air Force base today, matter of fact, for the new military tactical training center. So uh OS for us has really been great. We did close to half a million dollars in one year in 2025 at OS. And a lot of this is just word of mouth, people Googling us, finding us, and then going out and following up because what you find a lot of times nowadays is people don't follow up. And you've got to keep your ear open. My son runs track here in Fort Walton Beach for Fort Walton Beach High School. Went to a track meeting with the coach. Coach is talking about our track is deteriorating, we've got to get it clean and repaired and painted, and we can't find anybody to do it. Of course, I perked up and immediately started Googling my phone literally because I've never done a track before, you know, track maintenance companies. Found one, contacted them, had a phone call with them, sent them some paperwork, signed them up as an independent contractor, called up the coach. Hey, still interested in that? Yeah, we need someone. Went out there and met with her. Uh next week, I'm submitting a bid for$390,000 to redo the rubber track on high school. You take that from hanging hurricane shutters to rebuilding a pier to doing pressure washing. What I have found in talking to her was why couldn't you find anybody? She goes, Oh, I found someone and they gave me a bid, they just never called me back. They won't put me on their schedule, they won't get the work done, they won't follow through. So if you can find them, quote them, get them to agree to it, perform the work, people love you because a lot of times what clients are having a hard time doing is giving other people money. And if you take away all the obstacles that are to that, they'll be glad to give it to you.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

So that that peer, you kind of did the same thing, you just subbed that up, fund a company that does that, and had a handyman, found out, did my research.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Did I have to have a any kind of special marine license to go out and do anything on it? But being it was a repair job, I didn't have to have a permit for it. Uh, did my due diligence there, went out, walked it, identified every two by four piece of lumber and screw in it that needed to be replaced, uh, bit it all out, uh, put a 50% margin on it, and we knocked all of it out in the week. After that, I got contacted by Florida State to do a uh construction clean for a brand new building they had built, and then also go and do about a$6,000 strip and wax jobs in another one. Then they have a an apartment building that has 148 one, two, and four-bedroom apartments in it. Students move in and out every year, two years running now. First year, all I did was the the clean flip. But they students move out, we clean it, right? This last year we did the clean again for them, and we also went in there, did all the carpet extraction for them, and repainted the inside. So it ended up being an$80,000 job for them. So prove yourself one time, impress the customer, do what you're supposed to do, they're gonna call you back.

SPEAKER_06 14:55

Okay, um Brett Sewell. Hey, by the way, thank you so much for uh sharing your time and um experience with everybody. It's super valuable. Um I just wanted to hear get a little more color on you know the proposal and and winning the contract uh portion of the business here or of the cycle here. Um you mentioned uh sometimes there's alternative providers that just don't call the client back. Obviously, that's gonna have a certain result. But can you talk a little more about um who's the typical competitor that you might bump into? How often is there one or two or more others in the mix? Uh, what percentage are you winning? And what do you think are the top couple of reasons why you're selected versus an alternative data for the client?

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Sure. Um kind of go in the order, you know, uh of your of your questions there. Uh take the last one first. Why do customers go with us? I think it's because of the professionalism, the image that citywide projects. I mean, they've really got a great image, a great name. We got a website, we got all these things to back up. We're not chucking a truck, you know, those type of things. Um, you know, understanding the business and going to them. So ultimately, what I think wins customers over is the trust factor. Um you know, they you know, I I used to build a lot of supermarkets and restaurants, and I got interviewed one time. Um, we did we had built remodeled 927 restaurants and built 68 ground up ones in 10 months. And his magazine was reporting on that company and asked, you know, you're obviously hiring a lot of people, everything, you know, what's your secret? What do you look for when you partner with contractors or anything else? And I said, Well, I try not to hire wheelbarrows. And they said, What's that? I said, I try not to hire people that only go as far as I push them. So if you find that you're connecting or hiring independent or partnering with independent contractors that don't get up, that aren't exactly pushing you, and you're always having to call up, remind them, things like that, then that could be a problem. But this also goes for our clients as well. They're buying a service, they got plenty of other things to do. They don't want to think about janitorial, they don't want it to be a problem. So if you do the things you're supposed to do, things you're supposed to be contracted on, verify that they were done, and then follow up on the client on a regular basis to let them know that you're there, um you're you're doing a great job. In the eyes of the customers, they they will probably always use you. Now, competition-wise, what I have here, they're there are some lowball operators, you know, and we're stealing accounts from them. They're here. There's companies uh you know, to mention a few names, Janna King, Jana Pro, cover all, things like that. I've actually taken about seven accounts from them this year because a client called me up, and here's the main thing that you'll learn with citywide. You want a customer who has pain, somebody that's in pain, somebody that has a problem to solve. And that's what we're there to do is help them solve problems and save their time, which you'll learn is part of our pitch. In those instances, we won uh seven genital uh uh dialysis clinics over in Pensacola. And as I went around to each one of those locations, I was asking the managers, what's your problems? And it was they steal from us, they don't show up, they do a bad job. Uh one of them even said they have crackheads, they got crackheads working in our building. I said, No, you're joking, really? They said we got them on video standing behind the building smoking crack. So there are low-cost providers out there. You may not get that customer today, but they'll come, they will come back to you. They will come around. And so we were able to go in there, turn these uh clinics around and do a good job there. But there are a lot of other companies, you know, that are in this market, but the model, and I keep going back to that, the model of Citywide and what uh Jeff and the team have put together is a model that actually works. The process, procedures, you follow the model, you'll do good. I mean, that that's it, because it is proven, you know, over 60 years that if you do these things, then you'll win customers, you'll win trust, and you'll increase your business.

SPEAKER_06 19:47

What percentage of your proposals are turning into contracts for you?

SPEAKER_03 19:52

I would say, well, it's kind of it's kind of one of those things, uh, Brett, when I first started, I was throwing proposals at everything. I mean, literally, I just quote everything. Then I started realizing, actually, started listening to what the customers were telling me, which was part of what citywide teach you, if I would have listened right the first time, is what are they telling me? For instance, I walked into this church, met the lady, spent a lot of time measuring all, putting together a very precise quote and sending it to her, never heard from her. And I started wondering why. Then I started realizing as soon as I went in, the pastors, who's currently cleaning your building today? She said, Oh, one of the parishioners, one of the people that go to church there. I should have realized they're not going to take that job away from a parishioner and give it to me. So, really, I should have asked more questions of, hey, do you really want to replace her? What's really the problem with her? I should have dug deeper. So, what I've gotten better at now is qualifying potential accounts instead of chasing and just bidding everything and bidding those things that I know I'm actually going to win, that I have a good chance of winning, that they have pain, that they're actively out doing a proposal, that they're looking, they're doing every two, three years, a lot of these companies will go out and update and do a new RFP. So if they're doing RFP, they're seriously considering making a change. If they have pain, if their building's not getting clean, if their current provider is not performing, they are actively looking for someone. That's somebody you want. But somebody that's just shopping, that's just curious, uh you're not gonna get anywhere. I went over to Tallahassee and this lady, very nice building over there. It looks like an antebellum home. Place inside of it looked like a museum. Walked in and sat down with her, and she had a very immaculate list detailed out of how. How they wanted this building clean. And I said, Well, is there any issues with their current cleaner? And no, I love our current cleaner. I went, Okay. Well, why am I here? And she looked at me and said, Well, I need you to give me a price. I went, Why do you need a price? If you're happy with the job they're doing, why do you need a price with me? And she said, Well, my boss thinks we're overspending. I said, Okay, do me a favor. Tell me what the price is you're currently paying, and I'll send you a quote beating it up with it being about$1,000 a month higher. Then you could take it to your boss, show it to him, then you get to keep the cleaner that you love, and he knows that you're doing a good job. She sat back, looked at me, said, You would do that? I went, Yeah, whatever you need. I said, but because I know you're not serious about making a change. But I said, But if you ever need anything else OS-wise or anything else, painting or anything like that, you let me know. So I think you you learn not that every opportunity may not really be an opportunity. Just because someone says, come by and see me, I'd like you to give me a quote. Understanding why they want a quote is very important.

SPEAKER_06 23:12

Sounds like you've gotten better at the qualification part of it uh since you got started. So, what's your conversion rate over the last six months, let's say?

SPEAKER_03 23:21

I I would say I'm probably around 70%. The 30% I'm losing is on the RFP side, uh, where we're bidding against 10 other bidders. Uh, a few of those have been on schools or educational institutions that are uh state funded, state funded bids, RFPs, they always have to take the low bidder. And I can tell you right now, we're not always the low bidder because there's people out there that are hiring people that know nothing about cleaning, they're paying a minimum wage, they're using temporary services to staff their crews, but I know at the end of the day that some of those you win and some of those you lose.

SPEAKER_06 24:09

Yeah. Well, 70% win rate sounds quite good. Thank you very much. I'm gonna let some other folks ask some questions here. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 24:18

Go ahead, Andrew.

SPEAKER_08 24:20

Thanks. Hi, Tracy. Thanks for uh coming and talk to us today. Um I had a quick question. I'm looking for any insights you could share around as you started out, uh, and you're building out how you hired staff, and it and if you can give me any insights around you know the working capital and how much you had to fund it and when you started to to really you know start to break even and not have anything to fund for you know the employees and stuff like that. Any insights you could give me in that would be helpful.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

So for me, I have three other business partners where we're all equal partners in the business. I'm the operating partners and they're kind of the partners behind the scene. Uh, when we first got started uh in this, you have to realize that as franchises go, you're not gonna find, I challenge you to find any other franchise where the entry capital into getting of this is as low as citywide's with the highest potential of return that they have. And so I would say over in a two-year period, uh, that we probably have 350 invested into this. Okay. Now you have to realize I'm we didn't write a check day one. We bought our territory, we rented an office, we bought some laptops, we bought our office furniture. I was lucky to find an office here that someone had just moved out of. All the furniture was still in it. We bought all the furniture for 3,600 bucks. So we we lucked out on a few things like that. But that money was over that period of time, and so we're really right now at the two-year mark. Uh, we're we're are we have one nostril above the water. Okay. We're literally there. We're no longer having to put in more funds, you know, into the business. So the the say, as they say in business, you know, sales cures all ills. And it's the same thing here. We're very lean on what we do. Um, we very cautious about, you know, when we hire, uh, citywide gives you a really good model of, you know, you're gonna start out with a sales executive, everybody. That that's my I think now is you know, two sales executives on that. That that's a great thing to have. People that because immediately what you want to do is start generating revenue, right? Because if you're not out selling, you're sticking more of your own money back into the business. So uh for me, it was uh I hired a sales executive right at the beginning and got her on board. She stayed on board for two months, had some kind of personal issues and everything, and she quit. Went and hired a second sales executive, did all the testing and everything on him. Everything looked good, positive, interview, background, references, and all that. He got into the office and he literally would not pick the phone up, would not pick the phone up and call, would not get in his car and drive out to see customers. So within in a month, I made the hard but right decision to let him go. Okay. Had a third sales executive that was with me for six months. I realized after a period of time that all the sales he was getting were ones that I was giving to him, handing to him, doing the quotes for him, and then realized that he had some personal issues that were dragging over into work and decided that that was a risk for me. And I let him go. So now I have another sales executive that's been on board with me for seven months, that yesterday uh had another sale for a$3,000 church in Tallahassee that is experiencing some really good growth. So the people part of this, and even in doing our business health access assessment, is really going to be important. Finding that right sales executive up front is gonna be huge. Uh, one of the things that I did early on, and it's only because of my territory being 350 miles wide, is there's a lot of wind chill time. And so I was finding that literally I was driving down the road a lot, and that gets you away in front of the computer to do quotes or anything on that. So I hired a bookkeeper and an office manager in uh August of 24. And when I did that, that's when my sales, that's when my sales started to hockey stick. So instead of being strapped to the desk, I was actually out on the road calling on customers, selling citywide, and winning accounts. And once I started winning, then we were able to add on additional staff. So right now I'm sitting here at the end of two years. I have a bookkeeper office manager full-time. I have a sales executive in Tallahassee because that's what we consider the east side of our territory that's full-time. I have a facility service manager, Gavin, that I just brought on in um October of last year, and he's full-time. And then I had two part-time night managers uh working for so I have a staff of five people right now, but citywide will work with you, coach you on when the right time is to add these people on. Some of that depends on what your financing and things like that, your capital availability, what have you to get there. But uh immediately I started uh recruiting independent contractors, going out and getting a handyman, getting course janitorial companies, uh where I got a painter, electricians, plumbers, all these things. So we're aligned really well with a lot of different independent contractors right now. So if anybody literally called me today and I said I need something, I would be able to respond automatically that I've got someone that could take care of it. But then there's those opportunities like the high school track that come up and you go, Hey, you can do that. That could be easy, and then you find out I never knew that rubber tracks cost so much.

SPEAKER_05 30:48

All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Quick question, Tracy. On the on the staff piece, so you said you hired a bookkeeper and office manager, and you're more so out on the road. Are they helping they're helping putting quotes together, they're helping sending out proposals, they're doing those things for you. What is what are their roles exactly and how are they kind of loosening the burden for you? What are they doing?

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Well, obviously, it's not too safe to drive and work on a computer at the same time, and there's a lot of computer work that you got to do in this to get things done. So let's say I walked into a I I co-called on a potential client, okay, and I got a business card. I'd literally get in my car, take a picture of that business card, text it to Rose, my office manager bookkeeper, and say, enter them into CRM, which is the uh system that citywide does to track everything. And if you would go ahead and write up an email uh for me, thanking them for their time today, and then we'll follow up and put in there that I need to follow up with them on this date. So literally, while I'm driving to that next account, she's inputting all this data for me in there. Meantime, she's taking care of all of the bookkeeping roles that need to be done from getting uh onboard, helping me onboard independent contractors to getting invoices to paying bills, getting checks cut, things like that. All that freed me up to get out on the road and and and get in front of more customers.

SPEAKER_06 32:27

Um uh Tracy, uh would you be willing to share with us what your um EBITDA margins look like, let's say in county year 25, since that's your first full year in operation?

SPEAKER_03 32:38

My my average margin right now is thirty-two point four percent.

SPEAKER_06 32:42

Uh even uh EBITDA margin, please.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

My EVADI that I had on there today that we looked at, the EBADA on there was fifteen percent. Fifty percent of revenue.

SPEAKER_06 32:56

Does that include your salary or no?

SPEAKER_04 33:07

Your salary being in operating expensive Tracy for having the call. Um you mentioned onboarding uh independent contractors as well as you know hiring independent contractors. It sounds like you're doing that before uh you find them uh work. Um so I just kind of wanted to understand that process and the time frame. Uh and you know what what that kind of is it a formalized contract or sure great question.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Um it's a little bit of chicken or the egg, right? Yeah, yeah, because when you first start out, you have to realize you need to go into this with a lot of confidence. You're gonna go in realizing I have no customers. Okay, I don't have any other independent contractors, I don't have anything going on, but you're out recruiting independent contractors about what the potential is, and there's a really good pitch and everything about Citywide. So imagine for a second, Matthew, that you're a janitorial company, and I call you up and say, Hey, would be interested to see if you'd like to work with Citywide. Well, I have my own business. That's great. We want you to keep your existing business. I don't want you to give up anything that you're doing first, Matthew. But if you're looking to grow your business, I think we would be a uh a good opportunity to do that. Well, well, why can't I just go out and do it my own? Yeah, you can. I said, but imagine, Matthew, that you had somebody out there marketing for you, looking for new clients for you, visiting those buildings for you, putting together the floor plans, the map, the scope of work, the agreement, everything, determining and finalizing the price for you, and then that person called you up and made you a job offer. Matthew, I have a 10,000 square foot office building, needs to be cleaned three nights a week, and it's it's probably going to take you two hours a night to do it, and I'm gonna pay you$2,500 a month for it. Are you interested? You didn't have to do anything else. Are you interested? Would you like to talk about that? 100%. Well, most people say yes, and said here's the other part about it too. Benefit for you is you don't have to do collections. I do that. I'm gonna pay you on the 10th of every month for the prior month's work guaranteed, and what that means is I take all the risk. So if that client doesn't pay me, I still pay you. Okay. So what do you have to lose, Matthew, if you got someone finding the client, determining the scope, handling any of the problems that they have. So if they have any complaints, I'm taking care of all those complaints as well. I'm fielding those complaints. Okay. Would that be something that you're interested in?

SPEAKER_04 36:11

I believe I would be.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

It's kind of hard to say no to that. Now, well, I you know, I I have I I've had some contractors that say, hey, I'm too busy, it's too far, not the right size, it's the wrong hours, it's too many days a week. Matthew, that's okay. You can tell me no. It's okay to tell me no. No hard feelings, won't get mad at you, won't hold it against you, but I'm gonna call you up on a regular basis, Matthew, and make you a job offer with all the information in hand, with a floor plan, a scope of work, photos. I'll even take you by the building and walk you through it and let you see it and explain the scope of work to you. Okay. And then I'm gonna fill all those all those problems and questions for you. All you've got to do is bring your people every night, show up on time, do the work that is required of you to do, be professional, maintain a business license, have general liability shirts and workmen's comp. You got to have your own cleaning tools and your own cleaning chemicals, professional cleaning chemicals. Other than that, that that's what we're offering you. And I would say 99% of them said, Yeah, I want to talk to you more. Well, they come into the office and we'll go through the whole citywide model. We go through and do a pitch with them here in the office. Everything is about citywide. There's some onboarding documents that they sign, they get the paperwork from us. You're now in our system. So anytime, Matthew, these opportunities come up, all I'm gonna do is call you up, make a job offer, walk the building with you. If you agree to it, you sign one document as an exhibit A agreeing on the price and the scope of work that you're gonna do, and you're off to the races.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

Yeah, okay. And and um, as far as the uh, you know, the onboarding docs you mentioned, um, but what do those entail? Is it like a background check? Something like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Sure, that's part of it. You're we're gonna run a background check on you and any of your teams. We're gonna run one on you. You're gonna want run one on your teams, okay? You need to show those to me because legally I can't get a copy of them, but you're gonna show me that the people you got working in the new daycare that we got you working in, that none of the people in there are felons or sex offenders or anything like that because we want to be that's what we're selling to our clients that that your people are background check. You need to have general liability, you need to have a COI listing us as additionally insured, and you need to have workman's comp. State of Florida, if you're an individual, you can get a workman's comp exemption. I need that certificate from the state. You sign a waiver with me, have it notarized uh that uh that you're gonna sign a workman's comp waiver, and then we're off to the races.

SPEAKER_04 39:06

Got it. Okay, so you're protected. Yeah. All right. But there's no there's no um you know formal agreement to provide them, you know, it's sort of like a franchise model. It's not, I mean, they can turn it down a thousand times.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

You you're you're basically an independent contractor to us, okay. Now, the documents that you're gonna sign is gonna go through there and explain to you in detail, you know, all the things that you're required to do and the reasons why you would lose an account. Okay. The other thing it has in there is the security deposit fees that we charge. We're gonna charge you, and those are split up either over three, four, or six months. Well, Matthew, you asked me why do you have a security deposit? That's a good question. Let's assume, Matthew, one night you just don't show up to the job, you just disappear on me, okay? I now have to go out and get somebody to drop up a hat to go over there and clean that building. I got to pay them money. This money is gonna sit over in a separate account, and if you stay in good standing with us for a year, I'll give you that money back, okay? As long as there's no problems. But what this does is gives you skin in the game that you're gonna perform professionally to the way that we're asking you to do this.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

Makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

Sure. Hey Amir, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_05 40:33

Scott, I think you're next.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Yeah. Um can you share like uh if you're willing to, like year or two or 2025, like what your revenue was, your gross revenue, I guess?

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Uh yes, sir. Um I was probably in uh 24, about 350,000, and I did 1.4 million in JS and a half a million in OS in 2025. Okay. So we we we really took off uh in our sales numbers then. So it it was really a a good year.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah. You anticipate that kind of growth or close to it maybe for this year.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Yes, sir, I do. Well, I have it budgeted for this year, right? Okay, yeah, and and the only thing that's gonna keep me from not doing that is me. Not my boss, not Citywide, not Savannah, Adria, or even Lisa. The only person's gonna prevent me from doing that's me. So if I don't make it this year, the only person to blame is me. That's the beauty part about running your own business, is you get to make the call. You get to decide how long you want to work, how hard you're gonna work. Yeah, yeah. Has it been trying? Yeah. Have I played night manager, do, FSM, bookkeeper, bottle washer, bell ringer all at one time? Yeah. Have I had some 18-hour days? Yeah. I mean, seriously about this. I mean, have I done those type of things? Yeah. Uh I started a new car dealership. We started doing first night, very first night. The IC says, I can't find any place to get water. I go, well, there's a hose bib on the side of the building right here. We just need a hose. So I go and buy a hose from Home Depot, six-foot-long hose just to fill up a mite bucket for a back building, right? So they wouldn't have to haul across the parking lot. I go over and I screw it into the hose bib. On that last turn, the hose bib broke off in my hand, started shooting water out the wall, and started flooding the inside of the building.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Yep. I'm standing there, shoot, ruined shoes, soaking wet, everything. I went out to the street. I'm calling the city, getting them to come turn the water off. I'm calling the guy over the dealership, all that. I had extra crews come in. We pushed the water out of the building. We got fans in. Five o'clock in the morning, I got home. I got up at 6:30 in the morning, drove back to Panama City, an hour away. Went in, and when the uh guy over the dealership walked in, he goes, Well, you're the last son of a bitch I expected to see here this morning. He said, Really appreciate you sticking around here taking care of that for me. So, yeah, are there going to be problems? Yeah, are things gonna go wrong? Expect it. Just expect it. Don't freak out, yeah, don't get anxious, don't get worried about, just solve the problems, which is part of our pitch to our clients is we save them time and we solve problems. So, you know, and you know what the guy at the dealership told me? Really glad it was you because our last cleaner, if it were to have Happened to them, they would have just left. Okay. So do the right thing to keep your clients in mind and just realize that you get to make all the decisions.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Do you think you said you make about or net about 15%? Do you think as your volume goes up that percentage will increase with like efficiencies or is there a I think so?

SPEAKER_03 44:27

I'm learning a lot about you know my pricing model models, what I can get out of things, uh, what I can bid things for, if other people are bidding the job, who is bidding the job historically, where they have fallen on things, how much I think I might be able to get. There, there's a lot of room on OS. Okay, let's be honest. On things like there's a lot of room on that. On the janitorial side, if I was in a competitive RFP, I'm probably gonna take less of a margin, you know, just to get the revenue in, but always make sure, you know, that we're in the right place. And then, you know, then there's just times where you just say, hey, I'm not gonna do it for free. I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna do it just to do it, you know. So you get to make those decisions, you'll understand what your costs are and what margins you have and what your ICs are charging for it, and and things like that. And like I always say, you're the one who gets to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:32

Tracy, as you pointed out, uh, you know, the operator like yourself gets to decide um, you know, what the strategy is and how hard you want to work and everything. Um the assumption that you were gonna try to maximize the growth of the business. Um, you were not constrained on capital, you know, willing to willing to hire, work for card, all that sort of thing. How big a business do you feel you could build in your territory given the market, the size of the market, and the competition that's around you?

SPEAKER_03 46:04

On Google or well, on Chat GBT, I went and asked that question because you can ask me anything. How much janitorial business is taking place in the panhandle of Florida? Because right now, my 10-year plan is to get to$10 million a year. That's my plan. And I thought, well, if I could just do that, that would be great. According to ChatGBT in the panhandle of Florida, um, there's$278 million worth of janitorial business going on in the panhandle every year. I'm getting like 1% of it. That's all I'm getting. And Jeff continues to challenge all of us to think bigger of what we could do. You know, how could we, you know, do more and things like that. There, there's close to$1.7 million or$7 million. People in the panhandle of Florida, citywide, wants me to grow the business uh by a dollar per person every year. So that's kind of the model that I'm going off of is get growing at that rate, and that usually matches with our budget, our budget. And we actually exceeded budget this year, which we're really happy about that. But again, I think if unconstrained by dollars or anything, sky's the limit, you know, depends on how much you want to go after, you know, uh, those type of things. We're more cautious because we're starting out, we're making sure we're watching all the dollars uh that we're spending. But would I like to have a sales executive in every major market going out there with a night manager and five FSMs and doing things? Yeah, I would love to. But if you're adding those people on uh to make sure that you're not getting ahead of your skis, yeah, but if capital wasn't a constraint, there's probably no limit to what you could do.

SPEAKER_06 48:07

So no reason why you couldn't get 2% market share, 3%, 4% market share, or something like that kind of growth, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:15

I I I you know I I know it's gonna sound cocky, but no, I don't think there's any reason why not. I mean, it's a huge, huge market, and it is an underserved market, mainly because companies just do not follow up and do what they say they're gonna do, or they underperform, or the client ends up getting pain, or something comes up again is forbid, or a new building is getting built, or things like that. So there's always gonna be opportunities, I think, on the facility maintenance side, you know, with and looking back hindsight being 2020, when you start thinking about all the things that AI is gonna do, you know, uh all the jobs that are gonna be eliminated because of that. Um they're saying right now the trades are the most secure jobs there are plumbers, painters, electricians, uh janitorial carpenters, pressure washers, things like that. Um 100 years from now, maybe Elon Musk figures out a way to make a robot that can clean a toilet. I don't know. I I I don't know, but right now, in this place and time, what we're doing, I don't see that happening.

SPEAKER_05 49:37

I agree. Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 49:45

Tracy, obviously you were on this this side of the fence l like two years ago, happy second birthday. Um, but what kind of questions and everybody's asked a lot of fantastic questions, is there anything that you can pinpoint that you think, okay, I really I asked this, and this was helpful for me to know going into it, and we haven't discussed it yet today. Anything you can think of?

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Yeah, I I remember on the one of the calls that we did, and uh one of the franchisees was on there out of Tampa, and you know, I asked him, Do you have any regrets about joining citywide? And he said, Yeah, I got one. And I said, What is that? He said, I regret I didn't do it sooner, and honestly, that's all I can say. I mean, I I worked for someone else for 30 years. That's a long time to work for someone else, multiple different companies. I was laid off, I went through mergers and acquisitions. Um literally, while undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, I was let go from one company. Okay. I have experienced probably every gut punch that anybody, you know, could ever do. And I would say, working for myself, when I wake up in the morning, I know it's me that's going to make it happen. I know that me, that I ultimately I'm the decision maker, that I don't have to go to somebody for approval, that I get to decide my future. I get to decide whether I even get up out of the bed. That's a very freeing feeling, knowing that you can do whatever you want to today. And let me say, I got one of the most beautiful beaches one mile from my office. I'd love to be out there every day. I ride by it and see it sometimes, okay? But I'm not out every there every day because I choose to. So I I would say the question that that was the number one question that stuck with me. Was there any regrets? I honestly could say I wish I'd have met Jeff Odo 20 years ago and had been doing this since then. Uh, it was something that honestly I was looking for, and I always thought the answer was in a different type of job, a different type of company. Uh, I mean, I built all the things that I built. I've built something in 47 different states. Um, I have sold, I've sold electrical motors before. Uh, I've sold technology before, IT, things like that. I always thought, well, this will be the thing that will ultimately bring me satisfaction and pleasure, and nothing has done that yet, except for doing what I'm doing now. So personally, there's a lot to be said there. And, you know, the gains, the monetary part of it, if you follow the model, you do as they're suggested, listen to your coaches, uh, things like that, you're gonna go places with citywide. And you know, another thing I got to brag on some of the things that they had. We had a marketing meeting today. It was fantastic. They're the things that they've got, initiatives they got coming. Uh, there's a BDC department that you're going to use for your first year, business development uh uh department. My my first full 12 months, they resulted in 40% of the business I got. 40% came from them. Okay. Um, they've been great. Uh, NBD, the National Business Development Department. I'm currently quoting because of them a warehouse for a grocery chain to go in there and and clean this that could result in about a quarter million dollars of bottom line profit for me every year on a on a grocery warehouse. I didn't have to go out and look for they came in here. Quote quote this, put your number on this, okay? So the the the the Nash the National Business Development Team uh very helpful. Uh there's a lot of things. We do some daycares with them, the uh the Firstinius dialysis clinics. The only reason why I got those 20 grand a month in revenue is because we're a preferred account with that particular dialysis clinic, and they'll have top-down and preferred. So that gives you opportunity as well. So there's business coming to you that you're able to get you know from citywide, whether it's the BDC on the phone, uh, the marketing department with their efforts, or the the national business development team that they're bringing to you. If you're you know uh buying, you know, our territory when we got here already had adjacent city uh doing about 40 grand a month in business. And and we were able after a year to go in there and acquire that business uh for them. It was further, way further east of us, and we weren't quite ready to go that far. So we're able to, you know, acquire that business. Uh your business coach, you know, I've got a really great one in Lance. He's always there for me. I can send any problem or question to him, and he researches it and finds out uh the answer for me. But probably the thing that that I really like is the camaraderie with the other cities, uh, to be able to call up another franchise owner and just talk to them. Hey, I need 30 minutes of your time just to talk about whatever it may be, to go through a proposal, how would you do this if kind of thing, and understand what the other opportunities. I'll share this Scott Romero up in Memphis. Y'all heard about the big ice storm going through Memphis a couple weeks ago. Scott Romero, being the smart guy that he did a year before, got with every local farmer around Memphis that had a skid steer or a front end loader, had them all go out and buy a pallet of salt, attended a territory to each one of them in case Ice Storm cane. In case Ice Storm cane, he had the people in place, the equipment in place. Scott did$1.2 million in snow and ice removal in one week. One week. There's nothing that you cannot do with this model. You're not just cleaning toilets with this. Uh, one of the clients, we just did a a remodel for uh firehouse subs, and this is their their yearly fresh-up that they do that franchises require them to do. So about a$20,000 paint, fix, break kind of thing. And we did that for her. We're meeting her on Monday to do the second one, and she said, Hey, I've got you know a new location that we're gonna do, it's gonna be the end of the year. Would you be interested in building out the inside of this new location? That's$450,000 for one firehouse subs just in construction. So, guess what I'm gonna be doing at the end of the year? Right? So, when you think about this and all the 20 plus services that Citywide has, hurricane shutter install, rebuilding piers, uh stuff like that, that's not one of the 20 that they're talking about. They're talking about just kind of the the bread and butter kind of thing. There's a lot of things that you guys can do with this.

SPEAKER_07 57:32

Awesome, Tracy. Thank you so much. You know, uh a moving final couple of minutes with you and inspiring and encouraging and great advice. So I am congratulations on your last two years. Couldn't be more of a fan and supporter. Um, and thank you guys for asking such great questions to really get Tracy's wonderful advice in his years. So thank you all.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Tracy, thank you. The only thing that I think that would uh be a better career for you, besides being a citywide franchisee, might be podcaster or you know, radio show host because that voice. Savannah and I were just talking uh on the side about how we like how you say toilets.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Well, guys, I so you know I'm originally from Mississippi. You know, everybody remembers their first concert you went to, right? Everybody thinking about it? You got it in your head? Oh, yeah. My first concert I ever went to was Elvis Presley.

SPEAKER_07 58:35

I can't wait to tell my dad that.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

So I'm I'm officially a Mississippi boy, that's why I talk this way. I'm not able to get rid of it just yet.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Tracy, did you know my son's named Presley?

SPEAKER_03 58:48

Really?

SPEAKER_01 58:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

My second copy took me and my brother to go see Tom Jones.

SPEAKER_07 58:56

Oh, cool. I love it. All right, guys. Well, thank you guys so much. Tracy, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 59:03

Hey guys, look, my wishes. Go citywide or citywide Gulf Coast. You know, look on there. My phone number is on there. If you ever have any questions, don't feel feel free to reach out to me. And also on our website, you can see a lot of the work that we've done uh over this last two years, okay?

SPEAKER_07 59:24

Awesome. Thanks all right.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Thank you. Have a great day. Bye.

SPEAKER_07 59:29

You too.