The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Holy Crap! The Untold Story of a Dog Poop Empire | Will Milliken
Will transformed his background in digital marketing to create a thriving dog waste removal business, turning a simple concept into a multi-million dollar enterprise within just a few years. His journey proves that finding underserved niches and applying sound business principles can create extraordinary opportunities even in seemingly ordinary services.
• Started with digital marketing background before realizing owning service businesses would be more profitable
• Launched an electrical company that hit $1M in revenue within six months
• Created Swoop Scoop after noticing poor service from existing dog waste removal companies
• Built market awareness where none existed previously through door-to-door marketing and Facebook ads
• Grew from 20 to over 300 accounts in just three months using targeted digital marketing
• Operates on a subscription model with pre-billing to maintain healthy cash flow
• Differentiates through professional branding, uniformed employees, company vehicles, and quality assurance
• Created "Poop Scoop Millionaire" educational platform to teach others how to start similar businesses
• Built such strong brand recognition that "Swoop Scoop" has become synonymous with the service in his market
• Plans to scale to $10M annual revenue through continued geographic expansion
Connect with Will and learn more about starting your own pet waste removal business at scoopstart.com or through the Scoop Start YouTube channel.
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
So I got to go back to the beginning. So you're in high school, were you doing this shit? Then Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Alan, let's get ready to scoop up some knowledge, shall we?
Speaker 2:That's right, Alan. I was wondering what you were going to come out of the gate with on this one.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've been thinking about this one all flipping day.
Speaker 1:Will's going to be rolling his eyes. I had a guy say to me I was at a networking event. He said you know, I'm just like a kid in a candy store running my business. I'm like I'm thinking to myself, I feel like a ditch digger in a shit center. I'm like you're over there like ooh, I just love the biz and I'm like dude, I feel like I'm covered in shit and I'm like, oh my God, I wonder who. Oh my God, look at my next guest going to be coming on, Coming on the podcast. We got Will from Poop Scoop Millionaire is what he says, but he's from Swoop Scoop, so we're scooping poop for millions of dollars. So I used to tell people man, I just make my millions $80 a time in the handyman business. By the way, we ain't in 80 anymore. No, you're not.
Speaker 2:I am a customer and I can attest to that.
Speaker 1:Right, thank you, alan, and we appreciate you especially, but we need to get off of you a little bit and get on to Will you know?
Speaker 2:we didn't even get on me.
Speaker 1:No, that was enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually kind of have a funny story to tell that would actually relate to this podcast.
Speaker 1:All right, let's hear your story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think you're going to give me enough time to tell it.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good, great story, Alan. All right Will on Are you done yet We'll get back to your story. I'll let you later If time allows. Oh, we're going to break everybody Go ahead break.
Speaker 2:Cut for time. Alan's story Put it on.
Speaker 1:YouTube. Oh, here comes from the zoo to the wild Chris Lollabia's zoo story about his business, and now he grew his own business from the zoo to the wild. Get that on Amazon, Will man? Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3:Welcome to my world, Will. Yeah, appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. So let's talk about this, all right, so I got to go back to the beginning. So you're in high school. Were you doing this shit then? Or was this where you thought you were going to be, or did you have like other designs in life?
Speaker 3:No, I had no plans out of high school whatsoever. I was just going for it Went to college. Probably wasn't the right move. Graduated college and needed to make more money, so I decided to go into business. You're in the Northwest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're in Spokane, washington right on the border of Idaho and Washington. There you go. Well, go ahead, Alan. Beautiful part of the country.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. What Tell everybody they want? There you go well. Go ahead, beautiful part of the country. Go ahead. What tell everybody they want to know? Where are you from originally, alan?
Speaker 2:I was born in bellingham and raised in portland.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah, alan thinks northwest is the greatest place in the world. Will you have lived there all your life? Yes, so obviously will thinks it's the greatest place it's a wonderful place all right, let's get into this. All right, all right, so you go to school, get into business. Uh, did you take a corporate job gig after? Kind of give us that arc before you started this idea oh man, yeah, this whole thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I went to school, not even for business. I went to school for like social work or something. I had no idea what I was doing. I was like a whitewater raft guy. I just wanted to do fun stuff and figure out how to get paid for it. Graduated college and people wanted to pay me like 12 bucks an hour, so I thought that wasn't gonna work. So, oh so, 12 bucks an hour is the river guide, it's not the big bucks.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, not, not, not the big bucks not the big do the math, everybody probably great way to meet girls, though.
Speaker 3:Huh, it's true, it wasn't. It's like a nine to one girl the guy ratio in the social work program. It's pretty easy to buy books. My last year of school everybody just kind of passed you, talk about your feelings or whatever.
Speaker 2:I think to be in a social work, you actually have to have some compassion. I'm sensing a lack of that.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, we moved on immediately. A blunder.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's. That's hilarious, brother, that is awesome. You know we just like talking for our feelings and whatnot and I get an a all right. So next thing you come out of school, river guide. Money is not going to make it, so where'd you find your job? Or did you just immediately start like I'm gonna go figure this out myself? I?
Speaker 3:think I got like a job at like an insurance place or something and, uh, I luckily had a friend that was in digital marketing and kind of took me under his wing, so he had a worked for a digital marketing agency. So I switched over there as soon as I could, um, basically just started off doing marketing for local companies. Um, and I realized I'd make a lot more money if I just owned the local companies instead of just doing the marketing for them. So that was kind of the most recent pivot.
Speaker 1:So what businesses did you buy or start?
Speaker 3:I started an electrical company. So I partnered with a guy that was an electrician for like 30 plus years. That was my first, I guess, home service business. So we took that from zero to over a million dollars in the first like five or six months, which was pretty cool. And then at the same time I had my buddy from high school that saw how that business was taken off and he wanted to do something, but he didn't. He wasn't a handyman, he couldn't even back up a trailer, he wasn't an electrician or HVAC or anything. So we came up with this idea that we were going to try to pick up dog poop and make some money and see if we can make it work.
Speaker 2:Had anybody done that before?
Speaker 3:I think there's been some people that were doing it and actually at the time, uh, my wife was pregnant and I just wasn't doing it, so she had hired a pooper scooper and their business kind of sucked. So that's kind of where the idea came from and I thought we could do a better job.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's get into this niche because you know, you've heard of dog walkers, especially in big cities. I mean, you're out in the northwest spokane, admittedly not the biggest city in the nation, uh, not very densely packed, knowing enough about spokane. So it's not in new york city, it's not a, you know boston, it's not a northeast city, so you knew dog walkers but poop scooping. Let we talk to us about that market yeah, so it's actually kind of interesting.
Speaker 3:It's totally different than my electrical company. I got a garage door company also where the main focus is just getting on Google right, getting those top spots on Google. Nobody even knows what a pooper scooper business was, or at least when we first started, so we had to try to find ways to go out and get in front of people. So I think my buddy that I did the business with he started off by knocking on doors, passing out door hangers, and he kind of grinded his way to his first 10, 20 customers or so. And once we got there I thought, eh, maybe this thing's legit. I started throwing some money into Facebook ads and the thing took off like crazy. We went from 20 to over 300 accounts in like two or three months.
Speaker 1:So I think what's interesting about this is that you basically made a market. There was no market for it. Nobody knew this was a need. No, nobody went. Oh my god, I have got to have a red bmw because there's a market for red bmws. There's a market for cars, sports cars, there's a market for whatever.
Speaker 2:But in his case, nobody knew that somebody would actually come up and pick up their dog well, and he's providing a solution for something that just absolutely pisses me off, because I'm not a dog owner. I gotta listen to my neighbor's dogs barking, and then what makes it worse is then they take them for a walk so they can crap in my yard and I'm like how in what universe does this make sense? Crap in your own yard? I feel like you Get off my lawn you kids.
Speaker 2:Here's another little side business you could do. You could sell people like me bags of poop that you pick up so I can go spread it all over their yard. Oh, it would be a vengeance. We got a lot of it.
Speaker 1:You know what You've got. Another idea, not just a fertilizer bag situation.
Speaker 2:Actually, that is a good question to find out what they do with it.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's find out what do you do with it. What do you do with it Basically, waste management takes it and burns it because you can't use it for anything. Why?
Speaker 2:can't you use it for anything that's not very eco-friendly? Northwest I mean, come on, all right.
Speaker 1:Final one you can't say eco-friendly in Northwest, and then talk about I just wanted to get the dog shit so I could throw it on my neighbor's lawn.
Speaker 2:And light it on fire. That is nothing friendly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you could have a self-combustible bag that I can throw in their house. If there's one thing you have going for you in the Northwest, everybody out there is always known across the entire nation as being nice. They are nice. And you are, they're polite, they're polite, but you are out there saying hey Will give me the poop and I'm going to throw it all over my neighbor's yard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I was thinking we could get one of those big hydraulic dump trailers. So if you really don't like somebody, we can get a couple thousand pounds of it for you.
Speaker 2:Deliver it. That would really prove a point, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd probably get them kicked out of business. I think that would. So, alan, as we're kind of brainstorming great ideas, let's put that one out there.
Speaker 2:So it's not compostable or compostable. How do you say?
Speaker 3:that I mean you might be. I think the protein content is too high in the waste, so it ends up killing people's grass and stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen that. Now let's talk about business. Yeah, another reason why I love-. How about my buddy who never picks up his we went to people's yards and I see my buddy I'm talking about when I go to customer's house. You look in their backyard. They haven't cut the thing in forever. You look out there and there's just like yellow spots everywhere and it's where the grass has died. I didn't think about that. Yeah, horrible.
Speaker 3:I want to get your yard fast. I got a solution for you, ooh.
Speaker 1:Hmm, no, still can't do anything. All right, let's go back to this. So you had to make a market. I mean, that's where your digital marketing experience came in, and I knew I knew that's really where we're going to end up going, but we had to have some fun in the beginning. We talk about this is that you had to grow a market where there was no market to be had. You know we'll talk about, you know, another gun Revis shelf or shelf genie, or art of drawers. You know people don't know that they could have drawers that pull out in their kitchens. And so what do you do? You have to create a market so that people know to go to that market to buy that service. They don't know what's available to them.
Speaker 2:People don't know what they don't know People don't know that they have drawers you can pull out in your kitchen.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about in your. When you open up your, what kind of customers do you have? Did you have? Did I mention? Not many of my customers listen to this, so I can say it they are cheap, lazy and stupid. Thank you Everybody.
Speaker 2:There we go, that's right.
Speaker 1:When you open up the cabinet doors, you can pull out drawers in your cabinet doors. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Can you say it slower so I can get it? I don't think you got it yet, so let's go back to Will, shall we?
Speaker 1:Let's Will. How'd you grow that market?
Speaker 3:Yep Short story, I guess, was Facebook ads and really good timing, because when we started the business all the snow was melting, which leaves months and months and months of months of dog waste left behind. So people had a big pain point call it peak poop pain season. So we got we got pretty lucky with that. There you go.
Speaker 1:That's pretty good. I like that. That's great marketing, all right. So obviously so. You make the market. You got to figure out supply and demand. You got to figure out pricing. We always talk about knowing your numbers. I mean, talk to us a little bit about how you make those numbers work.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, there's some other companies throughout the country that we kind of try to copy off of. So basically the way that we price it is we have a subscription, so we'll either come out twice a week, once a week, once every other week, once a month, and then, based on the number of dogs that they have so one dog, two dog, three dog, four dog and then we just have a flat rate subscription that people get billed on the first of the month and we'll just come out and fulfill it the next month and then we pre-bill everything so that we don't have to chase down money or anything like that. Brilliant.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Get paid before you go, love that and then finding the labor. Yeah, I was curious about that yeah. Finding labor is actually uh pretty pretty easy um said the first guy ever on this podcast, by the way. We've been doing this for three and a half years will coming up on four never had somebody go man finding people's easy no, it is.
Speaker 3:It is easy for this business because it's not like I'm going out trying to find a journeyman electrician with 8 000 hours and all these crazy licensing. I just need somebody that can pick up dog poop. So the way that we went out about this was to try to make it the best, basically entry level labor job that you can have. So we pay a couple of dollars an hour more than FedEx or any of the lawn care companies around and provide benefits. We let people take their truck home, we let them work a flexible schedule Monday through Friday. So we have a lot of perks that, just because of how the business operates, that allows us to have a little bit more flexibility. We don't have any cost of goods sold really, other than labor. We're just picking up poop. So we have higher margins in some of these other businesses as well.
Speaker 1:So the people who go out W2, are they 1099? Do they go in your own truck? Talk a little bit about how that service goes and why people appreciate your service more than others.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I wanted to make things as quality as possible. So everybody has a company vehicle. They're all fully wrapped or fully branded. That's actually our third top channel for customer acquisition. Everybody's got uniforms, things like that, but yeah, they're all. There'll be two employees with benefits. At the beginning we did toy around with contractors just because we got over overflown. So basically we would just run our Monday through Friday people and then on the weekends we'd have them park the trucks on Friday and have our weekend crew come out. So we didn't have to buy twice as many trucks to keep up with the demand during peak.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute. Big question Ford or Chevy?
Speaker 3:What did we start with?
Speaker 2:I think we started with Chevy and then they sucked, so you went to Ford I think we got a bunch of.
Speaker 3:we got a bunch of Toyotas, we got a bunch of this episode is over, right, I guess?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to. I'm not going to get my story.
Speaker 1:I was waiting for him to say Kia and episode done.
Speaker 3:Okay, so our second location we don't take the waste with us. We found out that people actually don't care. We just put in the customer's trash can.
Speaker 1:So instead of buying whatever $30,000 trucks, we're buying $5,000 Chevy Sparks. Okay, oh, let's talk about that. So I assumed so. In my business, in the handyman business, one of the things that we do and pride ourselves on is we take all the debris away with us. You know the old ceiling fans, the old fixtures, whatever. So you are not. You're saying, hey look, we'll come there, we'll scoop it, but it's going in your refuse.
Speaker 3:At our second, our first location, we already have all the trucks, we got all the dumpsters, we got all the infrastructure set up, so we're just taking it.
Speaker 2:But every new location that we open, we're just going to put in the customer like they literally don't seem to care at all, maybe a couple percentage points.
Speaker 1:I was. I didn't know what a chevy spark was.
Speaker 2:But there's a little car, my friends, you don't put a 24 foot ladder on that thing without calling the car no no that's, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I often joked. I said you keep this up, man, I'm gonna stick you in that, in a b, in a mini ladder on top of that, and then you show up try to sell a job cargo doors on there yeah. So let's talk a little bit about some of the things you learned early on about the service. So, getting the customer, that's job one. Getting the money, getting the cash flow right well, that's actually that's job one. But serving and operating what did you learn as you try to scale that?
Speaker 3:yeah, it was definitely a lot of uh bottlenecks that we didn't necessarily expect, like when we were first starting off, like our customer acquisition costs were super low, we were making good money and it's all of a sudden one person can only handle about 150 accounts and now we got to hire like two or three people right off the bat. We kind of thought it was going to go forever, but there's actually quite a bit of seasonality in the business. So we pick up probably 80% of our customers quarter one and then the summertime is actually the slowest time of the year and we basically go down about 10% of our census and then it picks back up in the fall.
Speaker 1:Why do you think the summer is so? I love the seasonality because, again, when you look around all the world and of course we're on every continent, in the nation, a couple of galaxies, you like how I did that, yeah, every continent in the nation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just shows you how world I am here in the us, but no, everything's, you know. Hey, you're in atlanta, georgia, which is seasonally. You can work 12 months a year. I'm like, no, we have the same seasonality you have in michigan, you do in minnesota and new york, so why was the summer a slow season? This is really interesting to a lot of people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's probably a couple of reasons. One, people travel more in the summer. Two, people are outside more often, so maybe they want it cleaned up every day. Where we might not be able to accommodate that. You got kids that are home from school during the summer, so people just make their kids do it, so there's probably a combo of all those things. People are more likely to move during the summer than in the winter.
Speaker 1:Um, so all those things, I think, just kind of add up. So you get your core business and that is I'm going to come out there and I'm going to clean up your refuse. Is it, uh, residential commercial? What's the split on that?
Speaker 3:well, probably we do some commercial but I haven't really focused on it because it's an almost entirely different business probably like 97 residential, uh we can we do install like those uh dogway stations at like apartment complexes and stuff like that so that was my next question is as you've grown your business and looked at it, are there other adjunct things you add on, or you're just staying true to the core of your biz?
Speaker 3:right now. We're just now for the first time adding or trying to add another service, just some, something minor, some odor control for people.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you the bags of poop for vengeance Spite poop bags, Spite poop bags. Yeah huge market there, untap it.
Speaker 3:You can have it for free. I'll send it over. See See, I got free product.
Speaker 2:No tariffs.
Speaker 1:Honestly, hey, we'll talk offline about this one. Alan, that's a horrible idea.
Speaker 3:Hey Will between you and me I think I got an idea.
Speaker 2:So what's your average customer like? I can't imagine having a dog and not being willing to pick up the poop. Are they just two people that work a lot, or something like that?
Speaker 3:I mean there's a big mix of people. So number one there's people that hate picking up dog poop. Our top demographics probably females in their 30s and 40s. But you also have people that are disabled. You got married couples that both have to work a full-time job. They might not even get home until it's dark out. So busy professionals people that hate it. You got people with service animals that might be disabled. They might not be able to pick up after your dog.
Speaker 3:You got the elderly people that might not be able to pick up after their dog. So there's definitely a mix.
Speaker 2:I'd say there's more people, you charge them a lot more right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm just in a foul mood today.
Speaker 1:You are Again, alan. You're supposed to be nice. You're talking to another nice. He's from Washington. I mean in Washington, oregon. It's the same thing, oh God.
Speaker 2:Go Cougss. Right, there is a, there is a certain brotherhood there, but, uh, bite your tongue anyway. No, normally will.
Speaker 1:I'm the, I'm the nice one, and okay, and chris is the one that wants to slash everybody's tires well, that's why I said I'm doing this all offline because I'm getting that shit and that shit's getting spread and I've got two customers. I mean, uh, never mind, uh, let's keep going, shall we? So you got the customer acquisition. You guys are doing this, you're getting things going. You thought about the odor control Do you do? Where do you see this business growing to and what do you got for your plans going forward?
Speaker 3:I mean um, yeah, so right now, we got, you know, spokane location, we got our seattle location. We'll probably continue to open up throughout kind of the cutie sound region. Um, but I want to just keep it super simple. I don't want to offer a bunch of different services and things like that. It's hard enough to scale one service to multiple locations and millions of dollars versus doing a kajillion other things. So that's always a gold nugget, right?
Speaker 1:there, and that's. That's the question. That's the gold nugget for everybody. We always love to chase the shiny bubbles right. We always want to add on a service, as opposed to getting your service. Even better, to go in and really penetrate a market or I'm sure there's a lot more people in Spokane you could be servicing and for just this, as opposed to going well, I'm going to offer at least services, or I'm going to offer dog walking, or I'm going to offer dog grooming. That's not your core business, man. In your case, that's so easy to talk about, but for many of us, we can't see it, especially when you're in your own business. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3:Are you franchising? We're not right now, but I have a list of over 100 people that want to buy one, so that's always a good start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good sign, I think, if we so then, what's the what's the purpose of the YouTube channel that you're doing? I mean, you've got a lot of videos out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we we started a group called the poop scoop millionaire, so we basically teach people how to pick up dog poop on the internet, and that turned into a whole business. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:So there's an art to picking up poop.
Speaker 2:I love this.
Speaker 1:Because, honestly, I can't do it without gagging. I'm not going to lie I would actually be one of his customers if I had a dog. You don't have a dog, I don't have any animals.
Speaker 3:That's a good thing, but I can't do it, I'll buy you one I'd be gagging.
Speaker 1:Buy me one, so you, that's another. Right there you go, here you go. Your kids really want a dog. By the way, they're still claiming an emotional abuse at 26 and 23, that we never had a dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a little of that myself. Anyway, go ahead. So the video channel teaching people how to back to the original question five minutes ago. That's right. At least I'm on point what, what, yeah?
Speaker 3:So, yeah, how did that start? I think I did my first ever podcast with somebody that had a poop scoop company, maybe like 3000 followers on YouTube. Nothing, nothing crazy. And there's been poop scoopers across the country for years and years and years, but none of them really got very big.
Speaker 3:So when I came on the podcast and said we're making over a million dollars picking up dog poop, I had a ton of people reach out and that wanted to do like one on one coaching with me. Wasn't really interested in it. So I just kind of threw out a number. I'm like, okay, I'll talk to you for whatever 1500 bucks a month for a call or two. And we ended up making like over 20 grand in a couple of weeks. So I was like, huh, there might be, there might be something to this. I don't want to do one-on-one coaching, and I was a big follower of Alex Ramosi. He invested in the school platform. So I said, what the hell, let's give it a shot and see what happens. And it's basically been taken off like crazy. Like month after month, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2:Do you know the platform he's talking about?
Speaker 1:I do, Ramosi, but actually I cannot explain it probably as well as you can. Why don't you talk a little bit about what Hermosi does and how he?
Speaker 3:he markets himself. Uh, as far as the school platform, or him, yeah, the school platform, not the other stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Um, so yeah, basically the school platform is a community platform and they've put a lot of effort into it to make it as simple as possible so you can have courses, we can do live trainings, you can sell stuff on there and we basically just use it for courses and community. Community is really the big part, so it's almost like an online forum that people pay to get access to. So we're charging people yeah, 69 bucks a month to come in. They get access to all the courses. We do a couple live events every single month, like a live Q&A once a month, and then people can just like talk to each other about whatever problems are having with their business.
Speaker 1:Love that. I love the idea of building that community. So, franchising probably on the horizon, you're thinking about it, but this other idea that you've got, or what's happening, is that you're building this community of teaching people how to scoop poop.
Speaker 2:Yep, so you said a wrapped vehicle is your. Your third best lead generator, chris, you have vehicles where. Where does it rank for you?
Speaker 1:um, so for me it's a lot lower. It does a great job for brand recognition. Here in atlanta, again, we're five and a half million in the metro atlanta area, so it's pretty spread out when you only have 15 vans and a five and a half million, uh, radius. But, um, it does work and I, I totally insist on it and still say absolutely if you're not, if you're in business right now and you don't have at least a freaking magnet on the side of your truck, you're blowing it. If you're not wearing your logoed shirt every day everywhere you go, you're blowing it. I mean, I'm doing this podcast with the trusted toolbox on. I went, uh, to another big networking event where it was supposed to be suit and tie and I came in with my trusted toolbox and my coat and you know who got to talk the most well I don't know I got to.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's not the right word.
Speaker 2:I took over who spoke the most. That has nothing to do with what you're wearing oh you know they love me baby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dig me. Guys want to. I did it. You got to keep it logoed, baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll add a couple things about truck wraps too. If you have truck wraps, it actually allows you to charge higher prices because you look like a more professional company. I think that's something that often gets overlooked. And then for us, More than a magnet. Oh yeah, yeah, a lot more than a magnet. And then for us Facebook ads was like our number one thing. But we wrapped all our trucks with like dog poop stuff, took a picture of it, ran it on Facebook ads and that's our top performing ads.
Speaker 1:We're going to let Will keep talking, but I'm going to refute you right now. I said at least a magnet. I didn't say I do magnets, I wrap. I think you were a magnet supporter. No, I was not a magnet supporter. I am definitely all pro-rap.
Speaker 2:I think you're getting a kickback from the magnet people.
Speaker 1:I am not getting a kickback. You know what I said, at least a magnet, my friends. And you kick it down and you're like, yeah, chris, take that. You can't do that man. I am not a pooper scooper. I'm going back to Will. He said it the fee and earning the fee. You got to fit the part when people have, hey, I'm just gonna have this guy come pick up my pooper scooper stuff and they're thinking he's gonna look like a derelict who just came up on his bike. He went the back, grabbed a bag, grabbed some shit, put it in this dumpster. But these guys do it way different, I'm sure, and I'm sure the neighbors see that and that's how they get to earn the fee. Alan will, what do you think of?
Speaker 2:that you know he was a little sleepy before this podcast.
Speaker 1:I knew I had to poke him a couple times. You guys better be learning something. Get in that truck, man. Put the windows up because it's about to get saucy uh, but no, no, you're, you're.
Speaker 3:You're exactly right. Yeah, it's all about having a process for us. So clean our equipment with kind of great disinfectant in between each yards. We're not spreading Parvo or weird diseases between dogs. And we also take a gate photo every time before we leave so the customer knows we're not letting their dog out. So that's kind of a big pain.
Speaker 2:Did you learn that the hard way?
Speaker 3:No, no, thankfully that actually happened to me. I hired like a ac person and I let my dog out, so uh, but I didn't make a good little nugget for you, chris.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll give you my story, so you've never, never had to chase a dog through a neighborhood I'll be honest, I actually, uh, haven't really scooped much myself, if at all.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, so now I'm going to tell myself.
Speaker 1:So we were doing a bathroom remodel. I'm in year one, uh, seven months into it, and the lady's like do this remodel? I'm like, I'm just a handyman but I knew how to do remodels, because I knew how to do remodels. But I had to do the job. And she had this little dog and the little dog's name was truman and it was a little dog and it was a little yappy, little fucker and that fucking thing kept yapping at me. Every fucking day I went in his fucking house. Well, one day we're in there working and I have help right, I've got helpers working with me. Truman gets out of his cage, goes out the front door. I spend the next three hours running through the neighborhood it's a gated community that you know called St Marlon Running trying to find this little fucking dog, and he thought this was a great game. I am jumping over gates, I'm running through the backyard.
Speaker 2:So you could see him. He's just standing two steps ahead of you. Always, oh, and you're sweating. Oh, I'm just dying.
Speaker 1:I mean fat guy is running through this yard and I am rumbling, bumbling. I mean I'm not a small guy, man, I'm 6'2" 230. I mean I'm running, I'm bumbling, I'm stumbling, I'm chasing this dude down and I finally get him back right, get him back in, get him in the cage. I'm guessing you handled him gently. I did. I did not hurt the dog. I do love dogs. I love dogs to pieces. Truman, truman, you wife says she comes home, she's been working all day, she goes, she goes up, she inspects everything. She comes down, she goes huh, didn't get much done today, huh and what do you say to?
Speaker 1:that I just looked over and went truman. So, but back to your point. I think that's the kind of stuff that people want in their customer service. Right, they want to know that you did the job you were supposed to do in today's instant gratification world. Right, you got uber eats. You got uber this. You know exactly where your uber is before you're going to get it, and when they drop you off, they ask how do we do? And so when your guys are walking out of that property, they're getting a notification. Hey, we're done. That's a peace of mind for somebody who's sitting in an office going my little precious truman could potentially be running around and not pooping in my own yard. Oh my god, how could I do it?
Speaker 2:oh my god, just come, just come to my yard.
Speaker 1:I'm sure truman's there you know what he probably with all his friends.
Speaker 2:He was and the deer. They had a lot of fun yeah the deer. So how long you've been doing this?
Speaker 3:First full year was 2021.
Speaker 1:So in 2021, obviously everybody's home, COVID, Did you feel like that was a good point for you to start a business? I mean looking back, and I started my business in 2008,. Right beginning of the recession, I got my teeth kicked in, and not as much as Alan.
Speaker 1:Alan got his actually teeth head neck? I don't remember that. Yeah, okay, don't worry, we'll keep going. But the question was to will not you all right back to 2021? Did you find that starting a business at that time was good? Would you do it? I think it was actually really, really good.
Speaker 3:I think people had uh extra money, they had their stimulus checks coming out, so we just uh, I guess we took them.
Speaker 1:And I'll take those. Thank you, you know, here we are. You know we're talking to you. 2025, at the end of 2023, the stimulus check money ran out.
Speaker 2:Was that a?
Speaker 1:noticeable squeak. It was for me. So in 2024, I've talked about this Cause. Here we are at 25. People go hey man, how are you looking? Year over year? I said well, I'm looking great. I said, but last year sucked. Why? I said because everybody ran out of money. Savings was gone, credit card debt's the highest it's ever been. Interest rates started going up and everybody had already done everything they wanted to do in their house and they want to get out and travel.
Speaker 1:It's called we've covered this in therapy. We've got a guest here named will. Well, we're talking about will's business.
Speaker 2:I'm just I'm just telling that will what happens when shit hits the fan, and so has every shit ever hit the fan see, there's another, there's another revenue stream that's a great video, by the way.
Speaker 2:You should say we scoop it, we fan it it's gone okay, so you, uh, you haven't had this business very long and yet it sounds very sophisticated, and your background was in, you know sociology and you're a rafting instructor. I mean, did you have mentors or just sit there and think about what does a good business look like, or was it just the? Uh? I think you mentioned that you had a bad experience with somebody in this industry, and was it just a reaction to that?
Speaker 3:I think it was that, and then also my, my electrical company. I started probably four months before that, so with a pretty seasoned operator, so I basically just took all the stuff I learned there and applied it to, uh, dog poop scooping.
Speaker 1:I love that because there's such a parallel and I want to say will uh, kudos to you for taking the backhanded compliment from alan saying and you're a river guide I love river guys do you because you're not sounding very nice.
Speaker 2:That sounds like my favorite photo is a rafting trip in oregon and we hit a big rapid and the the guide was in the process of being ejected when the photo snapped. That's the best. Yeah, where's our guide.
Speaker 1:He's in front of us.
Speaker 2:I mean it was like a full, like a luge pose, except for just getting launched in the air.
Speaker 1:It was great I will say though uh, some of the best times I ever had was doing rafting, and we've only done it guided, and I told my wife I'm like let's do it unguided, and she goes not with you, I won't. Which is probably smart, by the way, probably smart, yeah, I wouldn't want you in stroke seat, you would not.
Speaker 2:We'll keep you as ballast. Oh God, yeah.
Speaker 1:No too much fun. All right, let's get back to the biz. All right, the biz Can. All right, the biz, can we please? Alan, you're so disruptor. Such a disruptor Will's trying to get his message out there, it was a big compliment he doesn't even know this is going to be a good message.
Speaker 2:I'm really impressed.
Speaker 1:All content's good content Will Tell Hermosi that he knows that.
Speaker 2:I mean he is running a very sophisticated business in an unsophisticated industry, I know, and he's kind of like, yeah, whatever. I mean that's the way he acts.
Speaker 1:But there's a lot more I got a feeling right now there's a lot more horsepower under the hood. Yes, let's talk about this. So what do you want to do with it? We want to go, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it'd be cool to make like 10 million dollars Picking up dog poop a year. That's probably where we're going.
Speaker 1:And that's the headline of the show. How to make 10 million a year Picking up dog poop.
Speaker 3:We'll probably do three this year, so we're getting there.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I mean again.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine what the impoverished countries would be thinking listening to this podcast? That our country would spend totally 10 million dollars just in washington state to pick up poop right just that they would probably use in their garden exactly right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't because it's too high protein maybe mix it in with something oh well, maybe you do.
Speaker 3:All right, let's figure it out. You let me know, I'll ship it. There we go, oh, oh All right we're formulating.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking we have chemists, we know. Okay, all right, we'll start working on it.
Speaker 1:I think there's an opportunity there. So your business strategy Family is always number one for all of us and I love saying that, but I didn't really mean that when I started my business, because I left the corporate world. I was making a shit ton of money and I left. I said, hey, baby, don't worry, I'm going to make a million dollars a year, I'm just going to kill it. Here I am 17 years later. No, I'm not. I mean I'm doing really well, but you know it. It's. It's definitely self-rewarding. I love everything I'm doing. I love having this podcast, love doing all we're doing. So tell me what you want to do. Uh, aside from the money, what's the? What's the? What are you looking to get done?
Speaker 3:uh, honestly, I just enjoy doing uh business stuff. So no matter what what business it is, I just like like building, building cool stuff, uh getting people jobs, helping people out. So yeah, I was kind of it's kind of I'm just doing whatever I want you know, I think, and that's awesome because, uh, you know, back in the day.
Speaker 2:How many people are just driving down the road listening to this and just green with envy you should be green with envy, because listen to will.
Speaker 1:I mean he found a niche, he built a market, he used his skill set, worked with seasoned operators to refine his market.
Speaker 2:Amazon can't take it away.
Speaker 1:And now right, I mean Amazon's not bringing robots out to scoop your shit.
Speaker 2:They could get it with drones. Ooh, drone poop scooping. There's a pool. You know what, alan?
Speaker 1:Alan, I got another idea. We can't tell, will. I'm thinking what we'll do is we'll create a drone with lasers and we'll just laser the poop out. We'll just shoot it. What could go wrong?
Speaker 2:Nothing could go wrong. I got a couple of neighbors that like to try it on.
Speaker 1:I know right, forget the poop. There's the dog, there's the neighbor Truman. Truman, I'm not killing you, but I'm definitely killing mom who says I think you did a lot done today. Huh, no, no. So I think that's the lesson that I think a lot of people need to understand is that if you're doing what you like to do, kind of the money happens.
Speaker 1:If you're trying to chase the money, it's really hard to make that work and feel fulfilled when you're done. And, honestly, I can't tell you how many times I have sat there like, if I'm either in all the roles I've filled in our company, if I'm in sales, or back when I was a tech, if I'm in sales going man, I got to win this job, I got to win this job. I'm the worst person in the world to have in your home because I'm not going. I really need to help this person. I really want to help this person because that's why I love what I do in my business, because we help people in their homes, you know, create the environment that they love to live in, you know, elevate their lifestyles. And if you're thinking, oh, I gotta make money.
Speaker 1:I gotta make money, you're blowing it man, in your case, you're not thinking like that. You're thinking, yeah, I have fun doing what I'm doing. I enjoy it. I mean that's fun, right, make sure you start over.
Speaker 3:I mean I definitely probably could have made moves to try to make more money, even if, like the Hoopscoop millionaire group, like I, teach people basically how to start a whole business for whatever 70 bucks Right 70 bucks a month.
Speaker 1:I mean it's brilliant, it's an American dream story really, I think again a totally different business model than anybody we've talked to specifically in a world that he could have gone franchised. We've talked to a lot of people who have done that. He found the market, he made the market. He can go franchise the market now. He still can.
Speaker 2:He's got 100 people who want to buy one. I think the price just went up after this podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, of course, because if you're listening, yeah, the price just went up. You mentioned, I think Will said that he would do this before the show. You mentioned Small Business Safari. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari. Remember to keep that positive attitude, which will reflect on a higher altitude as you're out there making it happen in the wild world of small business ownership, Until next time go make it a great day Adventure Team.
Speaker 2:Are your sales in person or over the phone?
Speaker 3:You can actually get a quote and sign up for services on our website without even talking to anybody. Is that how most people do it? Yeah, probably most. When we first started off, most people came to us through Facebook Messenger, actually because we found that our website just wasn't good enough and didn't have a high enough conversion rate. So that converted higher. But we've since refined it, so now we just try to push as much stuff through the website as possible. It keeps our customer service reps from having to do a bunch of extra kind of manual work.
Speaker 2:talking to people just bogs it down. So does that make you have to be the low cost service provider?
Speaker 3:I mean, you've got competition right, and so if yeah, I guess I'm creating my own competition too, but no, we charge a lot more than everybody else.
Speaker 2:So what? So what are you projecting on your website that says hey, I guess I'll, I'll go with these guys, even though they're more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, one. They might not even find some of our other competitors. We've bought up other companies and stuff so sometimes we might have, like the top whatever five listings on a particular search Five calls to get the same five people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we also have the biggest brand. So, like in Spokane, especially when I first started, there's maybe 10 to 20 searches a month for like pooper scooper service, compared to like a thousand searches a month for electrician. And now there's seven 800 searches a month for just swoop scoop. Oh wow, people associate the service with us and not that it's its own service in that area.
Speaker 1:if that makes sense, so swoop scoop has become the kleenex, or bandage tissues, right band-aid of band-aids. What's the other word? I mean kleenex is tissue paper, but what's the other word for band-aid bandage?
Speaker 2:okay, thank you, whatever, all right right, no I mean that's right. I mean there's there's certain things that the, the, the branding is so strong that that's the word that people use. Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up we just called it a coke when you wanted to go get a soda out west and northwest yeah, we call it pop.
Speaker 1:But uh, I'll tell you. There's another example capping in our own world. Um, they, the cement board that people are putting on homes is called. We all call it hardy board. Hardy board. Well, because they dominate the market. Well, there's three other competitors. There's two other competitors, three total, but they are such a dominant player we all say hardy board and it's like Kleenex, I mean, and that's the line we use yeah, because you say hardy board. I know what that means. Right yeah, so here we go. Poop scoop has become Swoop scoop.
Speaker 3:Swoop scoop. Swoop scoop Our own mini Kleenex vacuum in Spokane.
Speaker 1:There you go, swoop scoop. Hey, you can use that and don't worry, you don't have to throw Alan any money, he doesn't really.
Speaker 3:I just want a bag of poop, I can buy him, for I'll buy you a dog still, though, if you want.
Speaker 1:That's what you ought to be doing, so let's talk about that alternative marketing ideas that you've had. Have you done something like?
Speaker 2:adoption program sponsoring.
Speaker 3:I want an incontinent dog so I can go walk it on the property. Yeah, no, we try to partner with. So we have like a community give back program. So like once a month we'll donate like $1,000 to a charity and then we'll give them like a promo code. So if anybody signs up with the promo code, we'll donate an extra 50, basically forever. So we'll try to partner with like shelters and things like that. Um, especially like adoption shelters, because everybody's getting a new dog. We'll get our information passed out. Um, so that's worked. We've done a lot of stuff that doesn't work. Also, we we've got to deal with, uh, pizza hut and they let us put our dog poop coupons on the pizza boxes. Whoops, and uh, yeah, we got no customers from that spent like five grand. So that was kind of interesting. Uh, why? Why do you think that is other than what I?
Speaker 3:think I don't even know if they put them out, to be honest, but uh also also because uh people buying, yeah, pizza hut.
Speaker 1:Probably they're not necessarily our ideal customer, perhaps yeah, probably sitting in an apartment, and the last thing I want to think about while I'm eating pizza is my dog. Yeah, we not necessarily our ideal customer, perhaps.
Speaker 3:Yeah, probably sitting in an apartment, and the last thing I want to think about while I'm eating pizza is my dog. We got rejected by Domino's and Pizza Hut took us. You know what?
Speaker 1:Actually, the thing I do like better is people love their dogs, their cats, their animals and then their kids.
Speaker 2:For many, of them, of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the dogs and cats don't talk back you know we had brian gottlieb on many podcasts ago talking about making them a co-producer and if you made your customer a co-producer of you know, hey, I'm going to sponsor this shelter and we're going to, you know, save one euthanized dog a month, or? Or hey, we're going to give back to this community. I could see people going, how much is, or? Or hey, we're going to give back to this community. I? I could see people going, how much is your service? Yeah, we're, uh, 20 more than everybody else, or 30, or whatever the number is, I don't know. We're twice as much as some people. Twice, fine, but your first month, you know, this month, or every month you do it, this 20 bucks goes to them. I, I would see people doing it because they are ready. I mean, every time I've been to a festival, people are dropping money like it's going out of style for giving back to shelters, because a lot of people going to festivals here in Atlanta have dogs with them. I love the idea.
Speaker 2:I don't like it that they're bringing their dogs to a festival.
Speaker 1:It's annoying no, I love it no, they bark but they come up. They bark, but they come up, and then we have a little. What if I'm allergic, I mean, you know the last flight.
Speaker 2:When I came back from LA, it's like, oh, we have somebody with a peanut allergy on the plane. I'm like, well, what about my?
Speaker 1:freaking dog allergy and all the you kids. What happened to the nice Northwest. You know what. That's what happened. We've gotten Alan out of the Pacific Northwest. He's become like us down here in Atlanta. He's been hanging out with me too much.
Speaker 2:I've been hanging out with Chris.
Speaker 1:He's been gone too long he's been getting angry. Will. This has been awesome, dude. Tell everybody how we can find you, or find what you want people to find out about you, because I think it's an amazing story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So if you want to learn more, I guess, about the industry, we've got a website scoopstartcom. We've got the Scoop Start YouTube channel and then if you want to talk to me, pretty much the only way to talk to me is if you're in the Poop Scoop millionaire community. We've got like 800 other scoopers in there. Do not try to get a hold of me by. Those would be the top three places.
Speaker 1:Will just says no to poop scoop. What do those people do when they hit you?
Speaker 2:You're jealous of his million gatekeepers. I am too.
Speaker 1:I got one. Cindy is my gatekeeper, now I got like five. It's gotten too big. I've gotten too big on the pod where I've had to have Cindy start to be my gatekeeper boys.
Speaker 2:He's got five.
Speaker 1:Do you have a lot of?
Speaker 2:You got a lot of making up to do. I do, I know. All right, you need four more gatekeepers. Wow, just to be like Will. How long have you been doing your business?
Speaker 1:17 years. Geez, I'm not even close. Nope, the three or whatever, yeah, but I mean sounds great, but that's a great number. But let me tell you about my beers and the profit on the net. It doesn't matter. All right, guys, we learned something. It's up to you to learn something. Today. You figured out something else. We talked about a lot of shit today. I had to do it again. Yeah, come on, it's too easy, it's fine, all right, will we want to hit you with our famous four questions? What is a book you'd recommend to our audience?
Speaker 3:$100 million offers and leads. That's Hermosi. Yeah, I always tell people my favorite book is the Facebook because it makes me the most money. I don't read anything else.
Speaker 1:Now, that's a gold nugget. There is the answer. All right, number two what's the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 3:I don't have a favorite feature of my home because it poisoned me and I had to evacuate.
Speaker 1:All right, we talked about this before the podcast Guys. He is a victim of mold. We talked about this quite a bit and here's what happens when you're at home and the family starts not feeling good, you're not really sure why. There are people out there who will come in there and check out your air. I know this because I'm in the biz and I love hearing this story and he brought this up. You can have somebody come out there for a very low amount of money and they can do an air test, air quality test and they test the indoor air quality versus the outdoor.
Speaker 2:Now just because I'm suspicious of those people? No, don't be, because I'm assuming that the answer is going to be oh, your air sucks and it's going to cost you 12 grand.
Speaker 1:But these people don't sell the services, they just do the test. My point I don't trust it, you don't. You gotta trust this because I've had it done. Uh, guess what mold is everywhere, guys, it's outside, it's inside. Mold only affects you if it affects you, and when it affects you it's a negative, negative, negative, negative Allen thing.
Speaker 2:What's going to be the favorite feature of your new home?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you want to do in your new home?
Speaker 3:Yeah well, we'll see. We might have to rebuild the whole thing. We'll see how things end up going. Well, probably my favorite feature. It's right on top of the hill, nice neighborhood. Uh, it's got these uh, basically doors that basically open up the whole wall to the outside. That's probably our favorite feature yeah, like sliding glass. The sliding glass doors oh nice, those doors.
Speaker 1:All right. We are, uh, very proud of our customer service background. We talk about customer service a lot. We talked about a little bit in your world today as well, but we're just customer service freaks. Let's get it going. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer?
Speaker 3:I don't know if it might be considered customer service, but I hate not getting a flat rate price when I want to buy something. I hate paying by the hour, wow.
Speaker 2:Deep thoughts.
Speaker 1:That's something we could debate for a while we could I get what he's going at, because he's a little younger than you, alan, especially you Because you're old. I think a lot of the younger generation are used to Uber, eats and Uber, and just tell me how much it is. Yep, that looks like a valley to me. Great, don't nickel and dime me, do not. Where the older generation we used to go nope, we're gonna nickel and dime, we're gonna argue down, we're gonna beat you up or we're gonna say, nope, you didn't use that nail, you gotta take five cents off. I want it all off that sounds uh, like you.
Speaker 1:That is me. I put it, but I might as you. All right, let's keep going. We've already talked about the TI White Nightmare story, unless you have another one, but I think the mold is a pretty big one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're still in the middle of it. So you get weird symptoms with mold poisoning too. Like I shoot sparks and stuff out of my fingers and toes I don't know if you guys have heard of that I actually sparks and stuff out of my fingers and toes.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you guys have heard of that. Like I actually actually thought I was like schizo. I like didn't tell anybody and we hired a mold specialist to help flush it out of our system and I guess that's a symptom. So, like at night, if you touch your bed sheet it shoots out static electricity literal sparks, yeah, like static electricity comes out because of the build-up. So yeah, it's kind of it was weird, it was super weird wow.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go, he's shooting sparks off his fingers he may be, but he can shoot sparks through poop. No, it's not working, alright you know what let's?
Speaker 1:just get out of here, guys. If you didn't learn some shit today, that's on you, because we're talking about building a market, making it happen, using your skills to help you develop your business. Figure this thing out, man. Let's keep going, because every week, every day, every hour, every morning you wake up. It's a slog. We got to make it happen and we can get up there. Let's make it go. Cheers everybody.
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