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
Spray It, Don't Say It: Making Waves in Pressure Washing
Justin shares his entrepreneurial journey from math teacher to software sales professional to exterior cleaning business owner, revealing how a layoff turned his side hustle into a full-time venture.
• Started with just $4,000 investment and his wife's blessing to "go fail"
• Prioritized education by traveling to learn from industry veterans rather than figuring it out alone
• Discovered algae on roofs is a living organism eating away at shingles, requiring cleaning every 5-7 years
• Partnered with insurance companies who were looking to reduce their risk from unmaintained properties
• Built a custom pump system capable of cleaning 4-5 story buildings from the ground without ladders
• Broke his arm in a ladder accident, forcing him to hire and train others—accelerating business growth
• Doubled business in year two through networking, particularly through BNI membership
• Now considering vertical integration by acquiring a chemical distribution dealership
• Exploring development of a direct-to-consumer product to help homeowners properly clean exteriors
If you're facing algae streaks on your roof or need exterior cleaning services in the Atlanta area, reach out to Justin at myexteriorcleaner.com or find them on Instagram and LinkedIn.
#myexteriorcleaner
#heretohelp
myexteriorcleaner.com
#pressure#cleaner#clean#boats#BNI#algae#roofs#love#money#ladders#solutions#pressurewashing#pressurewashingsolutions#insurance#help
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.
or, like we talked about earlier, algae streaks on the roof. So that is a thing of regular maintenance. Up in the Pacific Northwest they probably look at us like what are you even doing? How do you not know? But down here folks didn't know. So you probably need your roof cleaned every five to seven years because algae will show up despite what the shingle manufacturers will tell you. So all the green crap on my roof is bad, it's live and it's eating your shingles.
Speaker 3:But you might be able to harvest it and use it for some of your great cooking. Alan, I think you can eat it, oh my God, or get it cleaned, or get some mushrooms, just replace a little bit of white wine.
Speaker 3:Send them to Scotland. At least he's not saying we're going to put something on your roof that's going to make it last forever, which is some of the things that have been coming out, and I've actually interviewed some of these guys on that product and, yes, I'm officially dissing it. I think it'll give you a little bit of life, but it's only going to be a little bit of life. It's not going to be that forever.
Speaker 2:It does give it a little bit more resilience to the UV, but not for long Are you starting to see, like if you do somebody's roof and suddenly everybody else goes hmm, that roof looks good and my roof looks like crap. Are you getting a lot of referral that way, just from people?
Speaker 1:Not enough to actually attribute. Really it is still kind of new. There's only, out of the 60 roofs we cleaned last year, I'd probably say 40 of them were one insurance carrier and I would call that the proactive insurance carrier. They're all going to come.
Speaker 3:It's seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not it's not regular.
Speaker 3:If you think about it, you don't think about your roof. A lot of times you don't think about your fascia, you don't think about your gutters. I think about mine all the time I look up at it and I'm like wow yeah, well, that's why you're the one of one in your neighborhood's gonna wash your roof, and I know you're how is their green up there?
Speaker 1:huh, then how's their green up there? He?
Speaker 2:didn't know. There was a solution and he's definitely I didn't know. There's a solution. I actually bought some crap at lowe's and shot it up there and it I think it was fertilizer, fertilizer.
Speaker 3: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, alan, alan, am I about to be scolded? You know, every once in a while we say don't leave it in the green room and it's taken me 20 minutes to get you to the damn microphone so we can get on with teaching people about what we're doing and how we're doing things. My God, alan, alan, you are mr chit chat, chit chat, chit, chat, chat, chit chat, chit chat well, you know why what?
Speaker 2:no, you know. Shortly after I talked about maybe we shouldn't be drinking quite so much bourbon, on our podcast, our guest shows up with a homemade kit for old fashions, with wellers and orange, the cherries, the homemade simple syrup and we and we said to that everybody don't be a quitter.
Speaker 3:Cheers, alan, let's get after it. Justin, thank you for joining us thank you guys for guys we got a great episode. Uh, got another in-person episode. Very excited about that. Before I get started, man, if you haven't gone out there and given us a review, love for you to go out there and review us. Just read a couple new ones. We got alan. People are saying we're funny. People are saying they're learning.
Speaker 2:That's what we're after look out, you're not reading the bad ones, right? Hey, I'm skipping them over.
Speaker 3:You know what? Why is it always five or one, five or one. You can never. Is there any is there? Does anybody ever do a three or four? Don't do that that, just do fives for us.
Speaker 1:We love you guys. As a former math teacher, it has to do with their number sense. They don't know that there are middle numbers.
Speaker 3:Oh, perfect. So now let me insult the entire audience. It's your number sense. You have a number problem, are you? Numberism Great.
Speaker 2:We're going to be a solid two.
Speaker 3:No, baby, we are a five. I'm telling you Been out there actually getting scheduled on other people's podcasts.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a big deal now, chris.
Speaker 3:Big deal, he's out there, we're getting out, there Are you being selective or are you just saying yes to everybody, like the big whore that you are? So I identify with that remark. Yes, sex trafficking. I'm podcast trafficking. So I guess we need Christy D Kufle to come back and save me. That's right. Come up there, she can pull you out, pull me, go undercover and say, chris, just say no. But I'm like I can't. I love the shiny light, I like that. They said they had candy. I wanted to go. I had to go to the podcast. So I did no selective uh, but I did, um, I did help a couple guys out. New podcast uh went on there. They're like I can't believe you do that. I'm like, hey, brother, I wish other people would have done that in the beginning. Uh, now we've got people you know, obviously we're getting. We're getting uh, five or six requests uh every two weeks. It's averaging like one every other day. Right now people want to come on so that's all.
Speaker 2:Does that math work? I think it does okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, and the mathposium begins.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to work on the fastest to three fingers. There we go. I got two pre-production fingers already from Chris.
Speaker 3:You did get it early, because I will say that he left it in the green room and he was being a little chit-chatty, a little chit-chatty, so it's time to get going now.
Speaker 2:It's not about Chris, daddy, so it's time to get going now. It's not about Chris, so I feel bad.
Speaker 3:You should feel bad, and you know what we're going to do right now. We're going to make it back about Chris. We're back everybody. What did Big?
Speaker 2:Daddy do this weekend.
Speaker 3:Big Daddy put the big boat in. The yacht is in and it took four people. The pontoon yacht, that's right, but don't get me wrong guys. It. But don't get me wrong guys. It is the Aqua Patio. It has a crank and sound system. I put the booster in there. I can annoy everybody on the lake at one shot, because you can get across our lake in about 2.2 minutes, god.
Speaker 2:No, it's a little bit better. That's why you don't go on a lake in the Atlanta area on a holiday weekend because of people like you, that's right baby.
Speaker 3:So that's why I took my talents to north carolina in the mountains. Oh so I'm. They hadn't heard of you yet, so I pissed it off. All the fishermen who are at their peaceful morning. Bass are out, they're trying to angle, teaching their young boys how to fish, and young girls are getting in and they're, and they're doing all that. I come by, go rodney dangerfield right with the big boat. I got the big horn too, the air horn. It sounds like the whole track we're coming through. That's me, the big daddy, the boat's in summer's here and we are rocking and rolling. I don't know when you guys are listening to this, but we are going to get this one going right after memorial day well and uh, speaking of which, what'd you do this weekend?
Speaker 1:well, uh, I didn't get to put my boat in. I do piss off a lot of fishermen, though, so we're in the same boat figuratively. On that one We've got a Mastercraft. We're a surf family, so we love their water and the magnet mat. So, but no, we.
Speaker 3:Paul, you know you piss them off way more than I do Absolutely, Because I'm at least playing music.
Speaker 1:But we turn down their music, yeah, or our music.
Speaker 3:But you, we turn down their music or our music. Yeah, but you give them a boat wake that's going to knock them right off their boat and into the fish.
Speaker 1:Pretty cool. We try not to Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But no, this last weekend was probably my wife and my last time that we are going to go up and celebrate Memorial Day weekend by going to the Indy 500 with her father, who has been doing it for the last like 30, 35 years or something with his fraternity group. So they rent a bus. We met them at quarter of five Indy morning, drove from Cincinnati all the way to Indy, hung out with a ton of people I think there were probably about 40 of us, 50, somewhere in there Hung out, pre-gamed, parked right next to the stadium, waited, ate some lunch. They brought out the Blackstone, cooked a little bit. Then we went up and we got to see Indy. My wife drew Erickson in the pool, which was pretty good, up until the last like five minutes. So she got second, which got her nothing, but it's better than her father. He pulled Andretti.
Speaker 3:He was the second one out, that's right All day, because the first one out was the guy warming up his tires. Yep, oh boy, how about warming up your tires getting ready for the Indy 500? You're the odds-on favorite to win the whole damn thing. And he slips and goes whoop-de-dang, boom into the wall. Crash done over, race over. He's crying in the cockpit on TV. He gets out.
Speaker 2:Haven't even dropped the flag yet. No, they were just waiting.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, that was. You want to talk about failure to launch. And so my brother, who is an indie enthusiast, writes that was inexcusable.
Speaker 1:He's a professional driver and mark or sorry, brady, tom brady stayed on the on the track longer than he did that's right there you go.
Speaker 3:I heard brady got booed. He did nice. Oh, thank god, I would boo him too, especially after the Atlanta thing. All right, let's get to business, shall we? Yeah, let's. I love this, justin and yes, I am jelly when it comes to going to the Indy 500. I heard it's a rite of passage and it's something that, if it's in your family tradition, it's just something you always look back on. And, finally, I know a lot of guys who've done it. So it's definitely on the list, but my big hookup in NASCAR is out now, so I'm going to have to wait for another hookup. I got to find more friends, yeah, you do need better friends, you need way better friends.
Speaker 1:I got pocket judges, we could introduce you to our crew. You just have to go to Cincinnati before.
Speaker 3:I have no problem with that?
Speaker 2:Cincinnati chilly. Yeah overrated Ouch. I don't know why they put it in Cincinnati you just alienate swaths of people.
Speaker 3:Let's do this Just like you in your boat, justin. Yes, sir, let's get on the boat and let's go make some wakes, shall we? So, justin, you have my exterior cleaner. You guys started this now going on, you say two years ago.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, we've been official for just a little over two years.
Speaker 3:All right, let's talk about this entrepreneurial journey. So you were not an entrepreneur in the beginning, absolutely not. So let's talk about what you did first, when you got out of school.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I went to school, got a degree in math. Did not want to grow up so I stayed in for my master's In math, Also math teaching, which led me to my first career. So, and then I spent six years teaching down the street for my alma mater over in Gwinnett County. Was great Swim coach, dive coach, phenomenal Kids were great but realized I wasn't there for the kids.
Speaker 3:I want to say thank you. We don't do this often, but we do. Thank you for your service. Isn't that the truth? Because I know Alan's son is a teacher as well. We know it. We've had hunter cluthion also, who has started a school, runs a school. Uh, it's definitely a labor of love. You're. You're not going to get rich monetarily doing what you're doing, um, but you are going to get rich and fulfilled if you find a passion and what's going on. Yeah, at least that's what we keep telling ellen's. All right, so you did it for six years in high school level.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, ninth through 11th grade math how fun. Yeah, it was absolutely terrific. I volunteered to teach the kids that were having trouble in math. So, year after year, oh, so you doubled down.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It was a lot of fun, though. I got to teach kids from 14 to like 21, which was phenomenal. They were a lot of fun. You could banter back and forth with them because they were basically adults at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get snarky Good sense of humor at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. The saddest thing that I lost from my time in the classroom is my quick wit. I'd like to still think that I have wit, at least a little bit maybe, but all the quickness is absolutely gone.
Speaker 2:You mean compared to them?
Speaker 1:Oh well, thanks, yeah, no. So that went on for about six years. I was training to be an assistant principal and then a principal and I basically saw my retirement right in front of my face, found out, realized that I wasn't there for the kids or their advancement anymore. I was only there for my career, and made the decision that if you're not there for the kids, open your space up for somebody else. So left that role and went into software sales. So started selling software to car dealers. You talk about double down. I said I want to learn how to sell and I want to do it to. The people that have to sell every day know how to say no. So um did exceptionally well there, top six in the nation, rookie of the year. They moved me out to Memphis. I wanted to get back here.
Speaker 1:Um unceremoniously left that job when my boss asked me to and uh uh and moved back to Atlanta, took a couple of other roles, sold boats for a little bit, sold international finance contracts, ended my tenure for somebody else at the Oracle behemoth so pretty phenomenal institution. They definitely take care of their people. Only thing I didn't want to do any longer is answer to shareholders. I wanted to answer to my customers and do what was best for them. So my wife and I started this company March 23rd of 2023. And one week later, oracle went through a round of layoffs and I was last hired, first fired. So it was put up or shut up time.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you thought you were going to do this as a side hustle, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:That was the original.
Speaker 3:All right, let's get into that a little bit. So obviously you've got if you can't tell it already, the guy's got a great sense of humor and a good gift to gab Clearly a salesman in the wool. You were selling the kids on math and that math was cool. You were hitting a hole. I'm going back to the saturday school rocks. Remember those? Oh god yeah he was making math cool, so cool, try so yeah, please don't sing don't sing, chris, I am only a bill, all right.
Speaker 3:So capital bill, okay, all right. So you got into sales. So you guys said, hey, I get this idea, let's start a pressure washing business. How would you come up with that idea? It's not a new idea, right? It's clear people are washing shit all over the place. We've had pressure washing franchises on, we've had pressure washing coaches on. Over the three and a half years we've done this. So what? Why there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, actually, if I last another year, um, then I think I become a pressure washing coach and a trainer and, uh, somebody that teaches on Instagram. I'm pretty sure that's the the trajectory. I'm supposed to write a workbook, um and no, um, but sorry, no, so, um. So originally it was a little bit, because I had some experience with it. You know, pressure washing with the dad, dad teaching you a little bit of things here and there. It was fun. It really wasn't that terrible. My wife loved it because it was low barrier to entry and so if I failed we were out four grand. So it really wasn't like terrible, failed, we were out four grand.
Speaker 2:So it really wasn't like terrible. Um. So, for all our listeners, when you're thinking about a business, just pick one that just doesn't seem that terrible. Is that what I'm hearing? So far.
Speaker 3:I mean he is checking all the boxes of my yeah, did you go? Look? I let's just say we went. We had a little bit differently. So I am so like wide-eyed. Right here my wife says uh, you're gonna lose four grand. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead go fail.
Speaker 3:Thanks, honey, thank you, um, can you unpack me my lunch? Yeah, baloney. Now you don't get baloney, go out there and fail. You get mustard and bread, that's you get all right. So justin goes out with this little lunch pail and tries and tries to get the four thousand dollar pressure washing business going as a side hustle All right. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And then one week later it's this is not a side hustle anymore, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we launched the business, launched the website, did the whole nine. Um bought a CRM like or licensed a CRM. We were going legit, but also as a side hustle and then um got laid off. We looked at each other, we sat down and said it's put up or shut up time. So, um, I went out, reach out to all the folks in the neighborhood, started pounding the pavement and filled our book in April and May, which was a pretty phenomenal and then I went. What are all these people complaining about? Why is it hard? That's BS, don't worry. August came and it really hurt. Um, but what happened in August? Uh, it's like everybody went back to school and stopped going outside and giving a crap about their uh seasonality.
Speaker 3:Ah, is that what happened? Yes, I was waiting for that. Okay, continue on season. Even inlanta, there's things called seasonality and the other thing that you are, uh, on your way to, and we're gonna get into that. So that's fall 23, correct, chris?
Speaker 2:chris would have been so pissed at you if it'd just been a straight upward. You know well this little twinkle in his eye. As soon as you said august, he's like aha, I was waiting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because there's another one coming. I know it's coming around the corner in a minute, but but so all right. So you hit august. You're like man, this is uh-oh. And so what was that uh-oh and how did you react to it?
Speaker 1:yeah, the uh-oh was we went from a full book book two weeks out, um, without really any marketing dollars or on the backbone of my website that was garbage, because I don't know what I'm doing to absolutely nothing. And then we continued to reach out to the neighborhood. Thank goodness, my wife's friends had some dirty homes and trusted me to clean them and tidy them up so that so the wife was listening.
Speaker 3:Thank god, your friends are pigs. Oh yeah, what's it?
Speaker 2:wow, well, she's not coming over. For no, she's not, she's not. I was thinking what a, what a great partner, you know, she just she is doing great.
Speaker 3:yeah, she just uh, you know, so you're reaching out to your friends, are? You doing this, all Facebook you doing what?
Speaker 1:what were some? Most of it was directly um text messaging. Wow, a lot of them already knew us or clearly knew us um, but knew that we had started the business and the fact that we had launched and sustained over the course of the summer. It was like, oh well, maybe he's got a lot of the kinks worked out so you had a logo truck, you had a good looking rig, we had magnets um, we still carry magnets right now.
Speaker 1:We're looking at um wrapping the box truck in june. Gotcha, yeah, yeah, this month all right.
Speaker 3:So, uh, you, obviously you dipped and you figure out. You got to do a little bit more. Yeah, uh, I think lesson I heard there is that word of mouth is good, you want to grow, you want to sustain. Word of mouth doesn't make it happen. Um, and with uh, people ask me, um, it wasn't on a podcast, it was at a meeting. Chris, I'm thinking about starting my business. What's the very first thing I should do? I said get a google my business page if you're a local service provider.
Speaker 3:The website will come later, don't? You don't need to drop 15, 20 grand on a website. You need to get that Google my business page now, because it's going to take you probably two months with Google to even get it. So you guys, get that. You had that at least, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes. So we had a Google my business. It wasn't we weren't super active on it, Um, but it was live. Uh, towards that fall we started. We got Google guaranteed, started running a couple in terms of LSAs still didn't know what I was doing Um, hired our first marketing company. That was terrific, Um, because I've never seen money get lit on fire that fast, Right, Um, with absolutely no return, Um, so that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And then the winter came. So the winter came and it went full on dry. So that was pretty difficult. We tried to hit social media pretty hard, tried to like schedule some posts and do some like slow burn activities, SEO and things of that nature. Didn't go quite well. But then January came, February came, jobs came, March came, we doubled March, we doubled June or sorry, March, April, May, June and we doubled the business. More than doubled I think we did two and a half X on first year's revenue in our second year, um, which was pretty phenomenal and I owe that a lot to I know you guys are huge proponents of networking Uh, we joined in November of 23,. We joined a BNI organization, so you did a.
Speaker 3:BNI in your local and you are, you're, you're here in the Atlanta area.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, we're just Northeast of town in the Decatur.
Speaker 3:Decatur area. Got it Okay, so you're in the Atlanta area.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, we're just northeast of town in the Decatur, decatur area. Got it Okay, yep, and, thankfully enough, a huge shout out to a owner of Squeegee Squad franchise over in DeKalb County, because he joined about a week or two right before I did and we do a lot of the same stuff. He's better at windows, I'm better at roofs and the rest of us are the rest of it. We pretty much do pretty well together, um, and he said there's enough business out here for all of us. We won't compete. This will be great.
Speaker 1:And so David and I have an exceptional relationship. Um, I use him on jobs for windows, he uses me on jobs for softwash and reaching four stories from the ground and the whole nine. Um, so it's uh, it's pretty phenomenal. Um, but joined the BNI organization about six months later. They actually asked me to be the treasurer because our treasurer was leaving, and so now I, um am the. I've been the treasurer for the last year and a half. Uh, and other than a little bit of marketing and hiring a second marketing company, that is the only real change in the business that we've made since year one, and we just keep on, keep on growing.
Speaker 3:So as you've grown, you obviously started out on the wand, right.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's what they say. You say on the tool yeah, I want to know when he blew his first hole in somebody's house with.
Speaker 1:you know, oops we actually specially purchased a metal stencil to spray our logo on concrete.
Speaker 3:Beautiful. I love that because I did come across a years ago. I came across a guy who looked like he was trying to put his name in this guy's sighting and I was like and he's the guy's like, what can you do with that? I said look at it, laugh with you, man. I said I don't know. I said there's no way I can blend that out. I said I just I'm not a pressure washer, but I can replace your siding if you want. If you can't get it back out, he goes can I paint it? I'm like it's vinyl siding, man, I don't think so, nope. So the answer was no, yep. And he has a vital sign. Oh my gosh. But this guy just absolutely tore into this sucker man, it was good stuff.
Speaker 1:That's one of my favorite things to see. So low barrier to entry means that a lot of people join it. I love all the landscapers. They'll do all of these great things, great things. They'll have it all over the side of the truck. And then the very last bullet point is pressure washing. You'll see a painter. Exact same thing, pressure washing. So what they don't realize is that anything above ground we use a soft pressure system, a low pressure system. It maxes out at like three times your garden hose. The only time that we use, or the only thing that we use, those pressure washer systems for, is to get height out of our water. It's not to apply with pressure. So we rely heavily on chemical.
Speaker 2:I think I'm using my pressure water wrong, because I just like blowing the crap off of things you like putting your name in the yeah, you do, I know you know, come on it's power you're feeling it so, uh, you started on the one, uh, and so now, how many crews do you have and how?
Speaker 3:when's the last time you actually had to go out there and do one yourself?
Speaker 1:oh, like last week there, but uh absolutely last.
Speaker 3:That's right. Two years into it and I still get out there.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah, so, um, we that's actually a fun story is how I got off the truck was, uh, last may I was setting up my ladder. It was a brand new ladder. I was trying to be, uh, real ballsy and move it away.
Speaker 3:That I should not have you were jumping, it weren't you? You?
Speaker 1:You hopped it. I tried to put it on the second story but I didn't have the leverage. I was using one of those gorilla ladders, the kind of A-frame.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, those are heavy as hell too, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I had it all the way out, 28-foot full stretch. And I was on one end trying to get it up on a second story ladder, like I'm a gorilla or something. I have no strength. I'm five foot seven. I haven't been to the gym in like three, four years, so I've got nothing on that. And then I went ah, you know what, I could probably just put it right here on the garage first, and so I rested on the garage and then my thought was I'll just hop up on the garage and then do it again and move it to the second story. So I take four steps. I was only four rungs up Ladder slipped, I jumped, fell on my left elbow and broke my humerus in half.
Speaker 1:That was last May, so I had a full book and went well. I think you call them Chris-isms. I had some expletives, thank you. You learned French. Oui, fucking, oui. Expletives, um, to, actually, you learned french um, we, fucking, we, yeah. So I stood up, cussed a little bit, uh, got back in my truck, drove to the hospital. Um, wife still yells at me for that. Um, I've got a really funny story if you really want to picture it. Um, but we. That can be another one of how I actually got there and the cluster that it was to actually get into the hospital. But long story short broke the humorous in half. Um, it's fun when your x-ray tech looks at you and goes, I'm not supposed to tell you anything, but, uh, you really fucking broke it.
Speaker 3:you really broke didn't need to go to school for that one, did you be? No, absolutely not so. Clue, gin the tea that my leg is right now, um but I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1:This is another. Uh, thank god for being I. So I had a, an excellent god son that helped me out for about a week to fill in, and then our property inspector, um, shout out to Rick. He has a couple of sons, um, but two of them that needed work over the summer, and so I put them on the truck and I rode with them every single day. Um showed them what to do, or showed them, talked them sorry, talked them through how to do it, how to do it the right way, how to use low pressure, still get all the dirt and the grime off. And that was my story for how I got off the truck. Once I went back to school, I got back on the truck. Now we've hired a couple of folks. I've got a former vet that just came home in March and he's running my truck now. Uh, we just promoted him last week to like lead tech, where he is the guy.
Speaker 2:So everybody talks to him, so falling off the ladder was a blessing in disguise. Oh yeah, helped you scale so that your scaling advice is hurt yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much. Uh, put up or shut up. No, it's for me. I have a I have a problem with, I have to. I can't like slow into anything. So I had to be fired. Oracle had to fire me, otherwise it was going to be a side business for life. I had to fall off the ladder, otherwise I was going to be a solopreneur for life.
Speaker 3:Wow so yeah, when you say business trajectories have a lot of ups and downs, ba-dum-pum, it happens. But wow, but wow. That is again a forced exit, a forced change. So I would highly recommend everybody, don't go break your body. Learn from this, but figure out how to teach and coach to be able to grow. Back to what you were joking about earlier. But that's how you grow. So right now you've got one truck rolling, you're running around, you're figuring out the advertising. I take it that's kind of where your role is now. Has it kind of moved to booking scheduling, advertising guy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've been full operation, or I've been full operations and sales like since the inception, but now it's it's gotten a little bit hairier right, so now I actually schedule people rather than just scheduling myself. So there's more things to think about. But yeah, so, still full operations and sales. I still say that my marketing expertise is not what I would use the word expertise for, so we do outsource that. We've got a company right now that we met through BNI. They're doing pretty good for us running a couple of ads focusing on SEO and they're helping make the phone ring, Hopefully learning a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3:What are your growth plans or growth path right now? I'm assuming you're just residential is we, do we do commercial? All right? Um, so, as commercial, is that going to be a bigger part of the biz? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. I built the system that I was talking about earlier. There are a couple of vendors and dealers out here that build systems that are not as reliable in general. That will help you reach three stories kind of. But we can clean four and five story apartment complexes from the ground, and that was strategic from me. So I found pumps all Canadian found engines, pulled them all together, built the motor, built the engine, built everything so that it would consistently get four to five stories all the time, so that my guys can safely. We want to be ladder free by the end of the year or at the end of 26, worst case, and so a part of that is making for certain my guys can get anything within the sight line from the ground safely.
Speaker 3:Think about that, alan. You're going to be sitting on the ground and you're like a sniper. He even said he's got a vet who's working on this. I mean you've got your wand and you're looking up for it. You're like hey, pigeon, take this. Is that what you're doing? I mean, you're shooting water up that high yeah, absolutely, Well. Water up that high yeah, absolutely. Chemicals first I take it and then wash them down yeah, so we do things a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:We actually do start with uh water. We use neutralizer all the way around on all landscape, wet all windows, because you definitely don't want any of that chemical to sit on any of that. It'll kill it, it'll it'll murder landscape and it'll etch glass. So we do a fair amount of proactive measures On the truck. We say that hope is not a tactic that we use. So we make sure that there's a quotable yeah, so we make sure that we wet everything down and then we spray chemical, let it do its business. And where?
Speaker 2:did you learn all that? I mean, you didn't get that from dad. No, no, dad actually taught me the exact wrong way. And the history of the podcast is if Chris started a pressure washer business, he would have written his name, he would have blown holes in the house and he probably would have etched a lot of glass right, and then you would have figured it out and 17 years later you'd have made a profit 100% 17 years later.
Speaker 3:So here you are Almost making a profit quarter. Okay, thank you. Hope is the what no. Hope is not a tactic, hope's not a strategy. Yeah right, or as my dad said when I was 17 hopes and wishes are granted at disney. If you want to get to work, you got to get to work, you want to make it happen you better write it down and make a plan yeah so how did you get that knowledge?
Speaker 1:yeah, so, uh, being that my background is education, I wanted to make sure that I knew what the hell I was doing. Um. So about three weeks in, when I was just spraying dirt and hoping, um, I said this is not going to work. It takes too long, this absolutely sucks. There's gotta be a better way. I did a fair amount of research. I drove down to uh, roanoke, alabama, and actually got trained by a guy that's been um. He's been in the industry. He's actually my age. He's been in the industry since inception.
Speaker 1:His father invented the roof washing, roof soft washing process back in the late 80s and early 90s, when the asphalt shingle companies changed over from limestone over to sand and now algae can grow in it. Those are the streaks that you see on everybody's roof. It's actually something live eating your roof. You need to get rid of it. Um, his dad is the one that invented it. I went and got trained by him. Um learned a couple of things he was doing wrong. Towards the end of the summer, we, um, we invested in more education, more training of that year with another guy that's been in the industry for 30 years, went through his whole online course. Um, just to make sure that we were fully beefed up, went to a? Um pressure washer conference, got a little bit more in terms of education, made sure, uh, that we knew what the hell we were doing.
Speaker 2:So the teacher became the student. Wow, and now going to be the teacher again. Going to be the teacher again, so, okay, so August is coming, yeah, absolutely. What are we doing different than you did the first year? Here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've added a little bit more in terms of networking. Where you and I met, we have joined a commercial real estate networking organization that is tied to everything commercial real estate and so we're trying to find and meet more folks there partnering with. We have found that we help insurance agents on the property and casualty side become solution providers for this epidemic that folks are running into.
Speaker 2:Is that a pun solution? Did we miss a pun there? Solution.
Speaker 3:Solution. He's a solution provider.
Speaker 2:You get it, I get it, I get it. That folks are running into Do we miss a pun there? He's a solution provider, you get it, I get it.
Speaker 3:It's pretty fun. Yeah, I was actually taking notes because I realized my note taker wasn't working, so I got to get these back on. Oh, are you AI? Now I'm your AI. Just don't look at me. I'm Chris. All right, so he's a solution provider. Yeah, the insurance.
Speaker 1:I'm a pressure washing engineer okay, sure, yeah, we, we try to. Not you wash it fake, apply stuff. Oh yeah, no, my, my wife wants to kill me all the time but I just say I, I spray water for a living, but yeah, so my wife's gonna kill me because I just consistently say that all we do is spray water for a living, but all right, yeah, you skipped over something.
Speaker 3:You said um, that let's. I want to get back to this. So 23 august, whoops 24 you had a banner year that you said all right. So the rest of us are getting our ass kicked in home services because of all the pull forward and the covid stuff was over. You thrived through that, so kudos to you for doing that. If that's really true, unless he's pulling smoke up my ass, alan. I, as you know, we talked to some of these guys before. I believe you um, no man.
Speaker 2:But well, there is something to be said about you know, when 2008 hit, which I don't remember, and we all just face-planted. If you started a business in 2008, you could have a trajectory. That's me, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's probably what I would say. So definitely not blowing smoke.
Speaker 3:No, you didn't, that's why I was joking, but that's exactly the corollary that I think a lot of people might have missed. So for us, established companies, when 20 hit, um, I would, as I've told people before, I was staring at option a, which is dude I'm out of business. I mean, I went through the three phases of truth. I ignored it, I denied it vehemently, and then I finally accepted it as intuitively obvious. And then I'm sitting there going, um, nobody, I could not sit there and go. Hey well, people are living in their house. Now they're going to need your help. Yeah well, they won't let me in their house. So how am I going to help them? We're done. I mean, this is, I don't have six months worth of payroll to make. And then I hear the government's going to help me. I'm like, yeah, that's, I've never heard that Were the government.
Speaker 3:were you here to help? Oh my God, I was able to keep the doors open and then we rocked it. And then what happened was, in 24, um, that all of the pull forward work had gone away. Um, people had done all their high priority work on their homes. People had, uh, remortgaged all their houses. People had already done everything they wanted to do and now they wanted to get back to travel when they had taken care of all this stuff. They wanted to get back to experiences and didn't want to work in the houses.
Speaker 3:So my 24 absolutely sucked, guys, and you want to go back, and you can go back and listen to. One of the episodes I talked to alan about is I was in a a funk in the christmas time because 24 just went so bad for me and I knew it was going to happen, but I didn't act like it was going to happen. So kudos to you for growing through that to get ready because you're on a pretty good long run now of what we're hoping that in 25, 26, especially in the Atlanta area, will be good. But even in the U? S, I think if you're in the home services business, you're in a good spot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, it's not going to be outsourced. People are going to be looking at it more. There is going to be a hybrid of work from home. It's going to balance back out again. I think we're switching the pendulum really hard back to office and I think it'll start to swing back. That's actually what I'm starting to feel, because nobody said it yet. They're actually just all getting pushed back. So I think that's great. That's why I wanted to make sure we came back to that and hit this again.
Speaker 1:So no, I appreciate that. Another huge shout out to my wife. So while she gives me crap a lot of the time and everything, she fully supports this, especially after we made it through the first like six years or sorry, six months, that's okay.
Speaker 3:I still think he's pulling smoke, yeah, and if she's listening.
Speaker 2:If she's probably listening, she's probably proud of him right now. Do you have a sister?
Speaker 1:No, she doesn't a good friend.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, she's got terrific friends, but they're all with houses cleaning day away, chris back, all right no, so back to my lonely room no, we did, uh, we did pretty well.
Speaker 1:But another thing that I think we coupled b and I with uh, something I haven't coined or anything, but I'll just call it a, give a factor, um, where, rather than coming around and saying, hey I'll pressure wash your driveway, hey I'll wash your house, or anything like that, do, do you want this crap done? We tried to take a more strategic approach at what are people really needing and wanting right now, and what we found was that a lot of insurance carriers were trying to offload a ton of their risk. So trampolines that folks haven't told them about. Pools, that they haven't told them about limbs that are hanging over a roof or, like we talked about earlier, algae streaks on the roof. So that is a thing of regular maintenance.
Speaker 1:Up in the Pacific Northwest they probably look at us like what are you even doing? How do you not know? But down here, folks didn't know. So you probably need your roof cleaned every five to seven years because algae will show up, despite what the shingle manufacturers will tell you. So all the green crap probably need your roof cleaned every five to seven years because algae will show up, despite what the uh shingle manufacturers will tell you. All the green crap on my roof is bad, it's live and it's eating your shingles.
Speaker 3:So so god but you might be able to harvest it and use it for some of your great cooking ellen. I think you can eat it, oh my god, or get it clean with some mushrooms.
Speaker 2:Oh, just replace a little bit of white wine, uh send them to scott.
Speaker 3:at least he's not saying we're going to put something on your roof that's going to make it last forever, which is some of the things that have been coming out, and I've actually interviewed some of these guys on that product and, yes, I'm officially dissing it. I think it'll give you a little bit of life, but it's only going to be a little bit of life. It's not going to be that uh forever. It does give it a little more uh, elasticity and a little bit more resilience to the uv, but not for long are you saying yes?
Speaker 2:are you starting to see like if you do somebody's roof and suddenly everybody else goes, that roof looks good and my roof looks like crap. Are you getting a lot of referral that way, just from people?
Speaker 1:not enough to actually attribute. Uh, really, it is still kind of new. Um, there's only, out of the 60 roofs we cleaned last year, I'd probably say 40 of them were one insurance carrier. Um, and I would call that the proactive insurance carrier. They're all going to come it's seven yeah um, but it's not it's not regular.
Speaker 3:If you think about it, you don't think about your roof. A lot of times, you don't think about your fascia, you don't think about your gutters, I think about mine all the time I look up at it and I'm like wow yeah, well, that's why you're the one of one in your neighborhood that's going to wash your roof, and I know you're how is their green up there?
Speaker 1:huh then, how's their green up there? He didn't know there was a solution and he's definitely I didn't know there was a solution.
Speaker 2:I actually bought some crap at Lowe's and shot it up there and I think it was fertilizer.
Speaker 3:Okay, I want to know how do you grow, how do you train your guys to shoot four stories and not like take an eye out. I mean that's got to be some serious talent, right? Probably has a kick. I know a little kick.
Speaker 1:It does. It does Absolutely, because it's also 15 gallons a minute. So your average pressure washer that you buy at home is two, three gallons a minute. So we're talking like five times when it comes to the volume coming out. That's why we look at former military right, they know how to wield guns. Yeah, yeah, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga. No, so most of it's my old teaching practice of you watch, I do, you do, I watch by. I can't remember what the actual thing is, but we just slow roll it out where they know what the hell is.
Speaker 1:They know what's happening first. They see it Right.
Speaker 3:So, uh, so what does success look like? Is it four or five trucks? Is it where you want to take your business? Did you written it down, business plan where you?
Speaker 1:at um, that's one another one that alice would uh kill me on. I've not written any business plan down at this point, which is really stupid. And alice in here, yeah, yeah, yeah, she'll tell you about all of him in a room, and then we can talk to her match game yeah, and bring him out where's the craziest place you've been, Whoopi? Oh, please don't do the match game. She'll find out that she doesn't deserve someone like me. Wow.
Speaker 3:Now. Is she in the business with you? Is she actually working and helping, or is she out there working in a different job?
Speaker 1:No, she's in a different role. She helps business owners choose the right benefits packages, both for employees, property and casualty insurance, business insurance, the whole nine.
Speaker 3:Small business or large, large, okay, nice, all right. So there's your health benefits. That's helping you, correct, definitely can't take that away. And she is a big supporter because it's allowing you to go chase your dream. So you got us where we are. We're talking about what we're doing for that no business plan, which is, which is guess, a definite recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awful, yeah, it's horrible for me yeah, so that's good.
Speaker 3:Hopefully this has been cathartic for you, don't you realize? Just, not only it's your wife, but now alan and chris are both telling you you're, you're so chris had a plan.
Speaker 2:his wife doesn't you love what he does?
Speaker 3:I mean, you know who's got a better gig, chris.
Speaker 1:Can I?
Speaker 3:go live with your boat. That's right, he goes to the.
Speaker 1:Now we are doing the matching, yeah it's a bad thing. No, we're looking at actually sitting down and fully doing an old school like actual business plan, because I know that we will actively need it. Um, most of our business plan at this point has been get Justin off the truck, um, and continue to double. So my first, my first line was if we can continue to double for seven to 10 years, we will reach our retirement goals, which would be phenomenal.
Speaker 2:So you kind of have just a super simple one correct Cause. You're, you're, you're actually looking at your numbers, yeah, you're comparing year over year. You kind of know where you want to be Right. You just haven't made it official?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we haven't written anything down.
Speaker 3:So welcome to Disneyland. So listen to your hopes and wishes. Um, my, my biggest thing I hope you take away from this one is get it written down, because if you do that, what you're going to do is you're going to back up into what it's going to take from a marketing. You now need to multiply yourself in other ways, and digital media is one way. With the advent of AI and what's happening, google, for the first time ever, has lost search share. The chatbots are actually doing their thing out there, but in BNI, in my case, I actually have three people in my company in BNI and I'm not one of them.
Speaker 3:It's a weekly commitment, it's a big-time commitment, but it's a great. It's one of those things. That's sweat equity. You're doing it so as you're thinking about that part, and then it's the operational part of this, and then it's the how do you keep those trucks running and those four-story pumps working? And then just kind of rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat and get that thing going. So those guys at the time yeah. Or you could look at it from another perspective. If you don't have goals and a plan, you have nothing to fall short of. So you've always got that going for you with no expectations. How could you not beat them right? Right, he seems much happier, he. He clearly is way happier because he just said I'm gonna hit my retirement goals. I'm like me too at 94, it's uh ignorance.
Speaker 2:I am becoming more and more of a subscriber to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this has been great, very interesting. I think we have talked about pressure washers and what's funny is that we talk about what you said. You said something that was very interesting. You found your flock and you've been playing in it and you've been going to learn over here. And then you realize, well, man, everybody's doing this. Well, guess what man? Everybody is over here. And then you realize, well, man, everybody's doing this. Well, guess what, man? Everybody's not doing this. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're one of the very few that are trying to invest back in your business and in yourself. And you think, well, everybody's got a podcast and, by the way, they don't know the way his name is most of them suck.
Speaker 3:His name is richard. He doesn't have a podcast. I found him. Uh, he's the only one. I know, there's only one. But when you find that flock, you really think, oh. And then you fall into this syndrome of well gosh, if everybody's doing, everybody's doing it. Man, I got competition all over the place and you realize, no, the competition really is the people who aren't doing what you're doing furthering your education and furthering your knowledge and trying to build that system that can be scalable. It's just not happening, man, and I'll tell you what those are. The people are going to fail, not the justins of the world I really appreciate that thank you that helps
Speaker 1:yeah, thank you I was going to go into the closet and like cry, but for a moment don't do that yet.
Speaker 3:Thank you for yeah, I was going to say uh, so is it 2, 30, 3, 30 or 4 30? When do you wake up and pull yourself up going? What the hell did I do to myself? Because I was just there last night 3, 30 in the morning answering in fact, I got it today. Why were you answering emails at 3 30?
Speaker 2:I said I was up wow, you need to outsource that, chris the pain and agony and anguish of starting my own business.
Speaker 3:You let me know who I can offload that to. That's the Trusted Toolbox, chris at thetrustedtoolboxcom, if you'd like to buy a great, successful handyman business. No, we're cranking, but no, I was not because I was wallowing. I was up and I just couldn't stop. I was going to do this let's be respectful of everybody's time and then I went screw it, I can't get, I get it. So I started firing off emails so I could get answers when I got to the office in the morning.
Speaker 1:That was a. That's actually an entry to working with Justin is. I will work all the time. It's always on my brain. I will send you a text message. I'll send you an email. If it's outside of hours, don't stress about replying, but I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to get it out there so that I don't forget about it.
Speaker 2:And I need to what is the etiquette to that now? Cause I mean, you know you're supposed to be connected 24 seven, but you get a. You get a text at 10 o'clock at night. Oh, I don't want, I don't want to set the precedent that I'm just sitting there waiting for your freaking text.
Speaker 3:No, I would tell you, I actually do talk about this in my own company is that we have to set boundaries.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you what if Chris answers a customer complaint, that truly is not an emergency at 3 o'clock on a Saturday. I've now set the bar for my company that anybody who does not respond at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon is not like Chris. Therefore, chris is the only one who can solve my problem. So what I've told everybody is that you set the expectation if not an emergency meaning there is not a smell of gas, there is not a leak that's going to take my house away, there is not a hole in my roof because something fell through, we're not an emergency service then that one waits till monday. Um, you can send a text message 24 hours later over the weekend and I'll get back to you on Monday. That's fine. But if you don't get back to them on Monday, then you have not done what the Trusted Toolbox and our Trusted Toolbox way is about, and that is within so many hours you're expected to hear back.
Speaker 3:And so we talk about email, text messages and phone calls, and we've tried to set that so it's more standardized, and I would tell you it feels like it's working better because it took me out of the main primary, uh, solvent role because I was jumping too fast instead of letting my team take care of something again. Not everything we do is an urgency. Just because a guy just etched his name in the side of a house does not mean by sunday morning at eight o'clock he needs to have his whole house resided. No, you probably can live with it. Yeah, it looks pretty silly, you're right, but you know, at the end of the day it's just not going to hurt anybody if you get it done in three weeks, not to mention do you want a rush job?
Speaker 1:That was the problem to begin with.
Speaker 3:Right. So did you want him to finish his name? That's right. What was? What was his last name? Nathanson, perfect, let me go after it like peeing in the snow. So with the goal, you're going to stay in the niches, bringing the riches right. You're going to stay in pressure washing commercial, residential, stay in that niche, keep rolling with it, not get that shiny object syndrome. Is that what?
Speaker 1:I'm hearing. I mean the answer to that is absolutely yes, maybe at a point yeah, so, um, I'm not sure if you guys are. Are y'all familiar with Alex Ramosi? Have you heard that name?
Speaker 3:I've heard the name.
Speaker 1:Okay. So he talks about, or references, the woman in the red dress from the Matrix a little bit ago, and something he's always talking about is entrepreneurs turn around and they're always looking at that woman in the red dress and it's pulling you a different direction. Yeah, as you get bigger, as you make a hundred grand, the woman's wearing a hundred grand. As you make a million, the woman's wearing a million dollars. And so the the no typically gets more and more difficult. So at this point I'd probably say I'm going to, I'll flip it just for a moment. I'll be that jerk teacher that answers a question with a question. Then so crates, so crates.
Speaker 3:He's going to ask us a question. Are you ready, Alan? You better be ready.
Speaker 2:I'm getting that breathalyzer. I just amused myself with a bill and ted reference. Yeah, I've been pretty impressed with it. Thank you, that would be a crazy adventure.
Speaker 1:That was an excellent adventure, um, no, so we have a couple of different opportunities that are at our disposable disposable right now, disposal right now. Um, so one of our suppliers, or our dealer, chemical distributor, whatever you want to call them, um is privately for sale right now and we would love to kind of acquire that and be a resource for training and education on the proper way to do things and, um, help people out in a different way. Um, or in addition to, and so we've looked at potentially acquiring a dealership. Um, and then I have been.
Speaker 1:I've got an appointment I think it's next week. I've got to look at my calendar but, uh, an appointment with a third engineer to develop our direct consumer product because, as Alan mentioned a little bit earlier today, um, he's probably using his pressure washer wrong. You probably only really need a garden hose and then you purchase something that was on the shelf, that was garbage and it didn't really help you. So we are in conversations with engineers to actually use my expertise and knowledge to develop a direct-to-consumer product. So should I, because they're adjacent, so should I, because they're adjacent, because they can potentially assist our business, get distracted by the woman in the red dress? Or is it time for me to pivot because my drive is somewhere else?
Speaker 3:Alan, I'm going to let you go first.
Speaker 1:My drive is somewhere else. I feel like I've. It's kind of like back when I was a math teacher. I was really really good at math and other kids weren't. That really sucks.
Speaker 2:So you feel like you've mastered pressure washing and now you're just kind of what's next?
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. No, I don't feel like I've mastered it. There will always be things to learn, um. But because I went through so many negative iterations on the front end and had so many hiccups and I was devoted to getting a proper education from the vets in the industry and they helped me learn a little bit, but trip up on some other things, I feel like my education background, mixed with what I've learned over the last two years, would help the average Joe, the average Chuck on a truck, so that they are not messing up, siding all over the place and not ruining all of these surfaces.
Speaker 2:So this is the classic scenario Do you stay, stay in your lane, focus on what you're good at, what you know, or do you diversify? Is that not right?
Speaker 3:so I guess that one. Um, so I could ask a couple uh. So back to our mastermind group. Let me ask a couple clarifying questions. Let's go rapid fire because we know we're coming to the end and then I want to make sure we got the right question and then we're going to go back and answer. That's what we do do in our mastermind. A couple of clarifying questions. Would this the first opportunity? Would this be a vertical integration to allow you to buy product at a cheaper rate and also sell? Yes, okay, the second opportunity where you develop this solution, is it mechanical or is it chemical?
Speaker 3:Mechanical mostly, mechanical mostly and would that help you vertically integrate as well? Um, are there two separate initiatives at the same time? Would it? Would it be like that, or are they the same people?
Speaker 1:uh, different people, potentially the same initiative. So my direct to consumer product would actually rely on me becoming a dealership? Um, because the chemical manufacturers that will allow you to white label will not allow you to white label and send everything not to a dealership.
Speaker 3:So you'd have to work on two different initiatives at the time with two different sets of people to develop a suit. Yeah, Gotcha, All right. So, um, let me reframe the question. Your question is is should I do this or should I stay in my lane? The question is should I pursue one or both or none of these? So I think that's the question I would ask, and then let's go ahead and answer that.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if we can answer it. I mean, we probably have a lot more questions to ask, but you know, one is do you have the resources to be able to do that?
Speaker 3:I would say number one's, financial, that's one. Number two, um, bandwidth, that's your time, because it sounds like we're draining on you. Our number one resource, yeah, and then three, uh, would be your team. Would they have to be involved as well?
Speaker 1:So answer to question one finances. I never worry about that because I know I can figure it out. I've got friends that are in M&A and we'll find the right people if we need to. I've got painful levels of confidence on that. The remind me of question two again you, your resource, your time. Yeah, my bandwidth is always stretched then, but I feel like with the proper team, which I know will take more of the bandwidth up front, I have a team that is beginning to build on the actual delivery side of the business and there's already a team in place at the dealership, and so as long as I could continue those relationships and or better them, I actually feel like it will take some stuff off of my plate because I'll have people to hand some of the other items to the admin.
Speaker 3:All right, and then back to your existing pressure washing team. You're saying you could build that up.
Speaker 1:We could we could absolutely build that up at the same time. I don't know if I feel right about building that and then also being potentially my customer's competitor at the same time, so it's very likely that I would spend that down while I um took on the dealership role entirely.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:So I don't like that one. To be honest with you, I'm going to shoot straight. You're right, I can't answer all the questions now. I know we're coming to the end, but the quick analysis would be I don't like going after two at the same time because I think it's going to stretch you thin. I definitely would keep growing that pressure washing business If you sound like you've got a vet and I don't know what it goes. But if you dangle the carrot, I'm going to give you more opportunity and I'll give you more piece of my biz and and not necessarily you can give them an ownership stake without giving an ownership stake. Right, you can do it in name only. Keep it, always. Keep it in your name anyway, it doesn't matter, and let them go run their pressure washing. You're you pilot, you're the beta, you're the test site. You're not competing against the people you're going to sell this against, because with the stuff you're talking about, this is opening up the region and the country and potentially worldwide, right, right. So I like the idea.
Speaker 3:With the, the chemicals, I think one of the things I would look at between the two of them is which one you think you're closer aligned with a solution. Quicker. It sounds to me like the chemicals and that's what it sounded like to me too, and if that's the one, then I would probably slow walk the mechanical or the uh, chemical slash mechanical one business, especially business to consumer, because I I just was going to open up a huge can of worms. We can't but go back and listen to mr wall storage uh, one of our episodes with rich Richard talking about how he had to build his and then sell through Amazon and the beast that becomes business to consumer is totally different than the business to consumer model you're working through that we work through in my business. So I like that staying close and I actually would say give it a green light. I would go after doing it. I would definitely put a lot of thought around the contingency of if my guys don't make it happen in my current business, which is paying bills and feeding my self-worth and my B&I. I would also tell you that you're probably going to be done with the treasure. You're probably going to have to slow down some of the networking to do the other stuff you're going to do and that's going to impact some things. So you've got to think about the unintended consequence that happens to the pressure-washing business, which I think can be avoided, can be mitigated Again. Get your number one to become a number one and then he gets his team going and he can run into a B&I meeting and he can become that guy. You can do some other things around there, but it's up to you to decide on that. I like the idea, man. I like that you're in that unique position. This is really cool and I appreciate you turning the tables and let's kind of workshop that a little bit here on the small business safari. But with that we've done our time, we've made it through here. Justin, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3:I don't want to go through the four questions because he turned the tables on us and we killed it. Baby, we probably didn't answer everything right. You know what I didn't think. I'll tell you what if we answered anything wrong. I challenge you, chris, at the trusted toolboxcom hit me up and we'll figure out. We'll get justin better advice. We already know a bunch of guys who've been on, who've been in this business a lot longer than us, but I think justin has a really unique opportunity that some of these guys would be going to. Ooh, I want to hear more about that. I know for a fact one of them will, because I just got done going back and forth with him. He wants to get me back on the pod to talk to him for a little while. So this has been great. Justin, how can everybody find you my exterior cleaner and connect with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have. I mean, we've got the domain myexteriorcleanercom, but then you can also follow us on our social channels. The handle is also myexteriorcleaner. We're probably most active on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:Dang it. Making successful happen. Making clean happen. Cleaning roofs, like your algae roof, alan. Oh my God, you pig. He could write his name in my roof. I wouldn't even know. I want to go over there and do that. Let's do it. Hey guys, great story here. Man, go listen to this one. This has been good. If you didn't learn something, then that's on you, because you spent 45 minutes with us. Maybe you put it at 1.25, which is what I usually do. You only spent 35 minutes with us. But go out there, man Rate review to check out our book, because nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We're actually getting some notices, getting some books sold. People are buying your book, I'm not kidding you. Yes, I'm getting royalty checks, baby.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari.
Speaker 3:Until next time we're out of here, your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in a wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.
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