Transcript
Speaker: Hi everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
Speaker: I'm joined here by Cindy at Nova Bin Wash.
Speaker: She's a partner at Nova Bin Wash.
Speaker: She owns a truck that they use to scoop up garbage bins and clean them out as a service.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: How did you hear about bin washing and why did you get into this business?
Speaker: Well, it's my daughter and I are...
Speaker: business partners and originally there was a third partner, Beth, and the three of us have owned a lot of small businesses for the last 20 years and we just happened to be looking for a business and my daughter was the customer of a, she had been cleaning service at her home and she told Beth and I about it.
Speaker: She said, you should see it.
Speaker: It's just amazing.
Speaker: They just pick up the bins and
Speaker: they go over the truck and hot water and they come out and you can stick your head in it and to smell it, it smells so good.
Speaker: So, but then we thought dealing with trash bins, that sounds disgusting.
Speaker: Well, they came so early to our house.
Speaker: She had never seen who the owners were.
Speaker: And one day she called and she said, I just saw them cleaning the bins.
Speaker: It's two women and all they had on were gloves.
Speaker: Like they didn't seem too afraid of the bin.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Anyway, we got to thinking about it seriously, and we just thought it was kind of a no-brainer, simple business.
Speaker: Every other business we'd owned had been a franchise.
Speaker: We were franchisees.
Speaker: And just the more we talked about it, we just thought, how hard would it be to build this business, come up with a logo and get the truck done, which we had already started to look into that to see how to do it.
Speaker: And there were a couple options in the United States.
Speaker: And find customers.
Speaker: We're familiar with marketing to our other businesses.
Speaker: So we just decided just to try it.
Speaker: Every time we looked at something else, we'd compare it to how simple this business looked.
Speaker: And we just said, we just have to, we have to try it.
Speaker: So that's how we got into it.
Speaker: And we are in the same, we work in the same area that that other company works.
Speaker: And there's plenty of customers for both of us.
Speaker: Oh, that's great.
Speaker: Do you mind if I ask you sort of what other businesses you've been involved in?
Speaker: The first business the three of us owned, it was Curves for Women Fitness franchises back in 2001.
Speaker: And I started one and my daughter was in college.
Speaker: She came home in the summer and worked with me and said, oh, I want to do this.
Speaker: And then Beth was a
Speaker: owned another business in the shopping center where I owned my first Curves.
Speaker: And she said, this seems great.
Speaker: Let's do, you know, I want to do this.
Speaker: We ended up being partners in a couple, but we ended up owning 16 Curves for women franchises.
Speaker: And then we went into the Massage Envy business.
Speaker: We owned three of those.
Speaker: Beth owned her own cooking school for kids.
Speaker: All three of us have owned mosquito, residential mosquito franchises.
Speaker: And we owned a dog grooming business and then we've owned this.
Speaker: No kidding.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I'm sure you've got tons of stories.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: And so, I mean, that tells me like you guys are old hands at this.
Speaker: You've kind of seen a lot of what there is to see in these small business arena.
Speaker: So selecting this business was a very informed decision and it was, you know what you were looking out for in general.
Speaker: And so that's really good.
Speaker: As far as you talked about buying the truck, getting it wrapped and branded, what was involved in that process?
Speaker: We talked to a couple manufacturers in the United States and we chose a guide out of Florida.
Speaker: His name is John Conway and he runs Sparkling Bins.
Speaker: And he was just very approachable, spent plenty of time helping us understand what the business was gonna be like, what to expect and explained that he had gotten into the business
Speaker: when he wanted his own bins clean, his wife wanted him to clean their bins.
Speaker: And he was like, there must be someone out there that will clean them for me.
Speaker: Because he didn't want to do them.
Speaker: And he found out the closest place was in the UK.
Speaker: So no one in the States was cleaning bins.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It is a very common service in the UK and other countries, especially.
Speaker: started investigating it, decided to build a truck himself, you know, figured, you know, buy a truck, put the equipment on.
Speaker: He's mechanically inclined and he started cleaning bins.
Speaker: Well, as that business grew, people, he's in Miami, people would see his truck and say, Hey, will you help me create a truck like that too?
Speaker: And he'd say, sure, but just don't come where I'm working.
Speaker: So he made deals with people to help him put a,
Speaker: put the truck together, but, um, protected his own territory.
Speaker: So he got, by the time we met him, he had been building trucks for people for, I think three years.
Speaker: And, and he'd been running his mosquito, our mosquito businesses, a bin cleaning business for five or six years, maybe.
Speaker: Anyway, he had a five truck bin cleaning business, uh, in what was it?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: In a 15 mile radius, five trucks in Miami, year long, you know, a full season.
Speaker: Like we only, we only work for nine months out of the year right now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So he was doing a full year.
Speaker: So he gave us just was very transparent about takes to get the business going and how much he was making.
Speaker: And then, so that was, he was doing both at the time.
Speaker: Now he, his wife runs the residential bin cleaning business and he has a shop where mechanics, the whole thing, and he's putting out bin cleaning trucks.
Speaker: So he's got two businesses now.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And he's really developed what the trucks can do.
Speaker: And he went, he started from like using a, I think, F-150 with the equipment in the trunk to now we have this,
Speaker: Isuzu truck, a 14 foot flatbed with all the equipment in front, you know, built in, you know, on the flatbed and then with aluminum sides that we brand and, you know, it's looks like a serious business.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He offers things as, as small as just a trailer, like a one bin cleaning trailer that can be attached, you know, that you pull with a truck to something as big as ours.
Speaker: And ours is old now.
Speaker: We've had it for three years, 2018.
Speaker: And now if we got a new one, the equipment has just become more developed.
Speaker: I think they actually do steam cleaning now.
Speaker: We heat our water to 200 degrees and we have two heads on our truck.
Speaker: but you can only run one at a time to get the full pressure.
Speaker: The newer trucks, he's developed it so they can run both at the same time.
Speaker: So of course it's more efficient.
Speaker: Yeah, that raises a question that as far as the depreciation on the truck, like how, is there like an expected service life?
Speaker: I know that it's a new business, so maybe it hasn't kind of been explored yet, but yeah, what do you expect?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I know our competitor has been in business for three years longer than we have, and they still are running the truck they started with.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I just think they've become more efficient, but most of the equipment is power washing equipment that's on the truck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The things that they do, it's adding, we have 500 gallons of clean water, 500 gallon capacity to carry water.
Speaker: the dirty water and you know, they've just, we've got the ability to blow out the lines in the winter on when it's freezing temperatures, those kinds of things.
Speaker: That's what they've, you know, they've just put it all together in this little package, but it's the things that they get better at really just have to do with I think, Oh, the truck now, the newer trucks,
Speaker: run off the engine of the Isuzu truck instead of having a Honda engine.
Speaker: Oh, so your truck has a separate, like a generator to run the power wash.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, it looks like a skid.
Speaker: It's called a skid.
Speaker: I've seen them in power washing stores, the exact equipment that we have sitting on our truck.
Speaker: if a guy wants to go into power washing houses he would have a very similar piece of equipment so now this is what john has i guess really streamlined that he can get rid of that honda engine and the truck itself is powering the equipment yeah did you see so first of all um as far as the the upfront costs
Speaker: A, like what kind of ballpark would someone be talking if they wanted to start up now?
Speaker: And B, did you see a lot of, was it highly variable between the various services you looked at or was it pretty much like the price is the price?
Speaker: The price of the truck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The prices kind of were all the same and a truck like ours costs,
Speaker: somewhere north of 100,000.
Speaker: We paid probably 112, but I think it's possible the newer ones are more expensive, but that's the ballpark.
Speaker: Let's say a little over 100, but the trailer type would be as low as maybe 50,000.
Speaker: So it's quite a range right now.
Speaker: And are there trailer kits that do two bins or just, or is it just the same?
Speaker: There are.
Speaker: Yeah, there are some that do two.
Speaker: We said that the trailer was not going to be optioned for us because it seemed like it would be difficult for getting in and out of tight spaces.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm sure efficiency has got to be a huge part of this business.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the speed at which you can get from place to place.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: And you, with your experience in small business, I'm sure that you've done the financing experience.
Speaker: You know, you got to know that inside and out by now.
Speaker: Is this something where someone can just walk into the bank and ask for a loan?
Speaker: And sort of like, what sort of, what would someone have to provide to justify that kind of financing?
Speaker: Well, since the business is the truck,
Speaker: And that's kind of the only thing that needs to be financed.
Speaker: And John has connections.
Speaker: So with truck financing companies, so he hooked us up and we were just based on our credit.
Speaker: We were able to finance the truck.
Speaker: I want to say, I can't remember how many years, but a very affordable,
Speaker: monthly payment that we felt we would be able to cover by very quickly by getting enough customers to cover it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So, trucks are hard to come by at the moment, by the way, just like new cars are.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Is it a lot of money down?
Speaker: Because of our credit, we didn't have to put any money down.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: That's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah, we were excited about that.
Speaker: So the money involved that we needed to start the business we had, um, and different people would do this differently, different ways.
Speaker: We were so early on in this idea in this country that people didn't really know that such a business existed.
Speaker: So we were kind of, um,
Speaker: introducing the idea to people.
Speaker: Now, people know it exists.
Speaker: It's really in three years, it's become much better.
Speaker: Well, you know, much more well known.
Speaker: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker: Like when you when you're marketing this to people, is it more often like, wow, I've been waiting for something like this?
Speaker: Or do you have to kind of explain the value proposition?
Speaker: Yeah, and now it's like, yeah, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker: But
Speaker: In the beginning, people were like, huh?
Speaker: You clean bins.
Speaker: Why would we want our bins cleaned?
Speaker: We put trash in them.
Speaker: Just kind of like, well, because they smell.
Speaker: But what we've learned is the best customer lives in an HOA and has to keep their trash bins in their garage.
Speaker: So people that keep their trash bins outside of their house, I could count on one hand how many of those customers we have.
Speaker: And so people that keep their bins in their garage, they know the value as soon as they hear there is such a business.
Speaker: People are busy.
Speaker: They don't wanna do this job themselves.
Speaker: The bins are so big now that you don't wanna stick your head in there and even pick things that are stuck to the bottom off.
Speaker: So they'd much rather just find somebody so often.
Speaker: Whenever anyone calls, I ask them, how did you hear about us?
Speaker: And in the beginning, it was pretty much, I didn't even know it existed.
Speaker: I was just hoping that someone would come do this.
Speaker: And now people all say, how'd you hear about us?
Speaker: And, oh, you know, I saw a truck.
Speaker: My neighbor, someone talked about it on Facebook.
Speaker: So they know it exists.
Speaker: They just didn't always know about us in particular, but they knew that they could Google something and find somebody in their neighborhood.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So what I started to say, let me just say, in the beginning, we spent all the money that we had put aside for this was pretty much spent on marketing.
Speaker: And we did things like ValPAC and Money Mailer and other print things to try to educate people.
Speaker: But that's a pretty expensive way to get the word out.
Speaker: We did a lot of guerrilla type marketing to just making decisions
Speaker: sticky note flyers and going into neighborhoods and sticking them on trash bins on trash day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's our least expensive way to get customers.
Speaker: And that works because that's, even if they don't become a customer there, you're starting to introduce people to the idea that there is such a business.
Speaker: But after the first year, we really cut back on advertising and just depended on mostly word of mouth and Facebook advertising.
Speaker: And that's how we do it now.
Speaker: We haven't spent a lot of money on advertising.
Speaker: I've done a little bit of like geofencing advertising just to see how that works where you can, it wasn't too expensive.
Speaker: So that's my big thing.
Speaker: I just don't wanna spend a lot of money on it because it's so hard to make sure that your advertising dollars are working in the neighborhood you want.
Speaker: So the geofencing,
Speaker: helps you to target very small areas right where you're working.
Speaker: And then my hope is that when we're advertising on Facebook, doing our ads, then they're also seeing Nova Binwash pop up just when they're on their phone doing whatever, just showing up as a second market.
Speaker: that narrow targeting has got to be because you know like we said efficiency is such an issue um so i i got a cousin who's in digital marketing and he actually was able to create an ad that was marketed so tight that he knew his son would see it and it was for his son's birthday and he and he like had somebody record a happy birthday thing as an ad and he targeted it to his son
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, you can really narrow it down.
Speaker: And that's got to be so valuable because A, it's cheaper than blasting.
Speaker: And B, you know, in your situation, you really don't want to blast a huge geographic area.
Speaker: You got to go service that huge geographic area.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we, in our first year, we went everywhere, wherever we got a call, because we
Speaker: needed to see where it was going to grow.
Speaker: And after, in the second year, we went to all those areas, but we were driving the truck.
Speaker: Beth was our business partner that was operating at the time.
Speaker: So she was driving the truck.
Speaker: So it was fine because we weren't paying someone, but come 2020, I took over the operations and we decided
Speaker: to cut off a lot of the area that didn't make sense.
Speaker: If we were gonna hire someone, did we wanna pay them to drive all the way to Arlington, Virginia from where we are?
Speaker: So we decided, nope, let's just narrow our focus to the most concentrated areas, which happened to be Loudoun County.
Speaker: We're in Loudoun County three weeks out of four and then Prince William County and a little bit of Falkier County.
Speaker: the other week.
Speaker: And the business has grown.
Speaker: We've doubled every year.
Speaker: This is the first year we're going to make a significant profit.
Speaker: Significant to us, but it is not necessarily, we have a full-time employee this year running the truck.
Speaker: So it was the first year that no one has to be there.
Speaker: Last year we had an employee, but I was still
Speaker: working one or two days a week.
Speaker: So if I were someone that wanted to do this business and just have me be the truck driver, which is the service person, this would be a decent amount.
Speaker: It would be a decent pay for this year.
Speaker: I expect it to double next year.
Speaker: But next year, we will also need to get a second truck.
Speaker: So, but what I'm starting to realize is that there are people coming into the business now that have a completely different approach than we have.
Speaker: So our approach has been kind of like build something.
Speaker: We wanted to prove it first.
Speaker: So we feel like we've proven it and that it is a good business.
Speaker: And, but we've just kind of scaling it slowly.
Speaker: Well, there are people coming in with a lot of capital
Speaker: And they are saying, we're getting 10 trucks.
Speaker: We're going to have a salesperson.
Speaker: We're going to just hit all the HOAs and make deals with the whole HOA to go through and clean all of the people in their whole neighborhood.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So they're coming at it from a different point of view than we were.
Speaker: We're kind of like a little guy just building a little business that...
Speaker: And our goal is to, I could, I can see myself running it with anywhere from three to 10 trucks.
Speaker: I could do that.
Speaker: I don't know if I want to, or just building it to the point that it's got value that we can sell it.
Speaker: And we actually have talked to, we're in conversation with two people right now about purchasing our business.
Speaker: So we're at the point to sell it or scale it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: you know, but I just, I think we're happy with what we've done.
Speaker: Uh, we feel like it's been a success, but when I hear some of these other guys and what they're doing, I'm thinking, oh gosh, we're just peanuts in comparison to them and what's possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But we started with, um, we didn't have that much capital that we were willing to put into it to start it.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: our dog grooming business, we were running at the same time and that actually died of COVID in 2020.
Speaker: So, so it kind of hit us financially in a way that we just didn't have a lot of extra money to be throwing at this.
Speaker: So we just said, let it just grow like it is.
Speaker: And, and it's been great.
Speaker: But if I had an extra, extra money, I, uh,
Speaker: I think it definitely, we could have bought another truck or two.
Speaker: I did look at it last year and I almost pulled the trigger and I thought, oh, just wait, just get one truck to capacity and then purchase another truck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's where we are.
Speaker: Have you considered targeting an institutional customer like an HOA?
Speaker: Because that seems like that would really drive you.
Speaker: Yeah, we have, but you have to lower your price to make that work.
Speaker: And we go between, all right, do we want to lower the price?
Speaker: Yes, you'll save on gas, but you will increase the wear and tear on the equipment.
Speaker: The more you do, the more wear and tear there is.
Speaker: And I don't know, we actually charge more than most people do.
Speaker: And we're kind of happy the way we do it compared to those people that you have to charge $10 or less if you're doing HOA.
Speaker: And yes, you have to target them.
Speaker: You have to get it in and we need a whole new truck to do that.
Speaker: So we just haven't gone there with this.
Speaker: But part of what we look at is we charge the
Speaker: $78 the first time they have their bins cleaned.
Speaker: And a lot of people don't do this.
Speaker: They'll just say, yeah, it's $78 if you want it done one time.
Speaker: Or if you sign up for monthly, then it's just going to be $25 a month.
Speaker: Our take on it is everybody pays $78 for two bins the first time.
Speaker: Then that makes them eligible to be a monthly
Speaker: bimonthly or quarterly customer.
Speaker: Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker: What drives that?
Speaker: So we have customers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, just because it takes, you're selling time, I think you're selling your time.
Speaker: And so it takes three to four times longer to clean a new set of bins than it does to do a monthly or bimonthly or quarterly service.
Speaker: Just because they're accumulated.
Speaker: So yeah, so it's, you know, it's, if it takes us 30 minutes,
Speaker: I want to be paid for that 30 minutes right then.
Speaker: And then when we come back for monthly, it'll take 10 minutes.
Speaker: But if we come back for quarterly, it takes 15 minutes.
Speaker: So you get paid according to what, how much time it takes because I mean, that's, that's what we're selling is our time and we're hiring someone to do it.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I don't ever feel bad if someone says, I just want a one-time cleaning.
Speaker: Great, I'll do one-time cleanings all day long.
Speaker: My stop then is I make $78 or grow $78.
Speaker: Rather than, it's just annoying when you go the first time and you've got a monthly customer and we did it the first year this way and that's what we learned is, okay, yes, they're signing up for $25 a month
Speaker: But that first time you think these people have not cleaned these bins for 10 years.
Speaker: It takes time and it can be pretty disgusting.
Speaker: And you're just working yourself and you don't know, unless you're taking, collecting all the money for the year up front, you don't know for sure they're going to stay a customer.
Speaker: So we just got annoyed with that.
Speaker: And we decided we wanted to
Speaker: just be paid for our time, appropriately for our time and not make people be in contracts.
Speaker: And that way we're not gonna sweat it if they decide not to be a customer.
Speaker: The fall off of customers is minimal.
Speaker: Once they start having their bins cleaned, they are hooked.
Speaker: So the only time we lose customers is if they're moving and very often they're moving in the area.
Speaker: So we just pick up cleaning in their new house.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: And a handful of people due to money issues because of COVID.
Speaker: But other than that, they become a customer, they stay a customer.
Speaker: And I consider we have a lot of customers, they just call us once or twice a year.
Speaker: If they want to pay $78, just each time we come out, I'm fine with that.
Speaker: Because $78 twice in a year is...
Speaker: pretty much the same as their, let's see, they could have their first cleaning and become a quarterly customer and have two more cleanings.
Speaker: So I'm going to them three times or I can go to them two times for the same money.
Speaker: It doesn't really matter to me.
Speaker: So we're happy with the way we have it figured out.
Speaker: A lot of people try to,
Speaker: have prices be so low because they think that's going to entice customers.
Speaker: But, and then it's hard to make money.
Speaker: And a lot of people have gotten out in this business and then out of the business because they just couldn't make a go of it because they weren't charging enough.
Speaker: And, and I don't believe in going in and undercutting prices in a neighborhood where somebody else is.
Speaker: because then you start a race to the bottom.
Speaker: And more and more people that are gonna get it, there will be more and more people getting into this business.
Speaker: It will be smart to just offer at least the same prices as other people or even higher and have it make a business that makes sense because you gotta make money.
Speaker: And in the beginning, the way we did it, there was no money.
Speaker: As owners, we haven't taken any money
Speaker: this would be the first year that we could do that.
Speaker: And that we'll be able to if we want, but at the same time, whatever we're making, we may decide just to buy another truck with.
Speaker: Yeah, how much, what are the variable costs?
Speaker: Like what I'm picturing just naively is you've got fuel, you've got cleaning supplies, you've got water.
Speaker: Occasionally the equipment breaks, you gotta fix it, you got marketing.
Speaker: Is there anything else that's, or which of those is the big one?
Speaker: Well, those are all the cost.
Speaker: But the one thing you didn't say that probably is the biggest cost is insurance.
Speaker: We have to have business insurance and, you know, liability insurance, possibly because it's a new business and they
Speaker: aren't all that familiar with it.
Speaker: It's kind of high.
Speaker: It's probably about $3,000 a year for just liability insurance.
Speaker: And then workers comp insurance, you have to have that.
Speaker: I figured out this year to go with a company for payroll that does
Speaker: I forget what it's called.
Speaker: It's kind of as needed.
Speaker: So I've saved a lot of money on workers' comp insurance instead of just buying a blanket policy.
Speaker: It just, every time payroll hits, they calculate the workers' comp on that payroll.
Speaker: In some states, and Virginia is one of them, even though we didn't have employees, we still had to have a workers' comp policy just because of the owners running the truck.
Speaker: even though we weren't covered by it.
Speaker: Don't ask me to explain, because they had to re-explain it to me every year.
Speaker: Like, tell me again why I have to have this when I don't have employees.
Speaker: They said, oh, it's a Virginia law.
Speaker: Anyway, so insurance is high.
Speaker: So our truck payment each month.
Speaker: And water is the least expensive.
Speaker: We get water here through fire hydrants.
Speaker: That's the bulk water system.
Speaker: And it costs like $3.50.
Speaker: for 500 gallons of water and pretty much have to get water every day, sometimes twice a day.
Speaker: And you just work around, you start the day looking where the water is that's close to you so that you can work it in the schedule into the route.
Speaker: And you have to call the city, I guess, to arrange for you to use their hydrants.
Speaker: Yes, yes, you have to.
Speaker: get a meter actually and that meter you we had a down payment a deposit on it that you don't get back until you end the business and give them back their meter so that was like $1,700 and it doesn't have to be that high they've got a $400 one that we started with but and you use a the hose like a garden hose
Speaker: but it takes forever to fill the tank.
Speaker: So then we went to the $1,700 meter, which is a fire hose.
Speaker: And it takes, from the time you get out of the truck, hook everything up and unhook everything and get back in the truck, it's 15 minutes stop.
Speaker: So that's very fast to fill out.
Speaker: That's a one a day, two a day kind of commitment.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Then to dump the water can be the trickiest part.
Speaker: we in in loudon county we have a we go to a sanitation the same place that the um oh what do you call them the septic guys go that are dumping their septic stuff and it doesn't cost us anything or they we just go to the same place and dump right there uh but you have to again you have to figure that into your route for the day and in other counties um it's a
Speaker: they'll let different people go to like car washes they make arrangements with the car wash I was never able to find one that would do that because the newer car washes recycle their water and if you have like a farmer if you happen to know a farmer farmers the water is gray water it's not black water so it's a farmer wouldn't mind if you want a water is is filled with it it would actually be good for it okay so that that's something that people definitely have to
Speaker: look into to know what regulations apply in their county.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: For dumping water.
Speaker: Some people pay to dump water.
Speaker: I've never had to pay for it.
Speaker: Some people go to RVs.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, if you use 500 gallons of water, you're going to have to dump 500 gallons of water.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because the truck is capturing the water.
Speaker: Obviously, there's some water that goes to the ground, but the
Speaker: Ben's getting held up over the hopper and that's where the water is dropping in as the high pressure.
Speaker: heads are cleaning the inside of the bin and it just waters going into the hopper.
Speaker: So yeah and the biggest right now, the cost of gasoline has definitely impacted us yeah.
Speaker: I would say.
Speaker: That's our, after the truck cost, gasoline is the second biggest cost.
Speaker: And it's gone up by a third this year since the gas prices jumped.
Speaker: And then what else in there?
Speaker: Marketing, yep.
Speaker: How many households do you service in a typical day?
Speaker: We average about 20 stops.
Speaker: today we have 25 stops.
Speaker: I kind of think of it in terms of how many times when I'm trying to figure out how long it's going to take for the day, how many times the bins are going to go up on the hopper.
Speaker: So if it's a recurring customer, that's going to go up once.
Speaker: If it's a new customer, I average twice, but sometimes they go up three times.
Speaker: So in how long it's going to take us to get the
Speaker: day done.
Speaker: And so it could be if it's 20 customers, but five of them are new customers, then that's the same.
Speaker: I count that as like, that could be, that's like 25 recurring stops.
Speaker: So we just, I just have a math way, a way of figuring out calculating how long it's going to take.
Speaker: And probably the most because of our routes are, we go to different neighborhoods.
Speaker: today will take him about six hours.
Speaker: If he were, if we just had an HOA kind of situation like we talked about, I've heard of people doing, they say they do like 50 stops in the same period of time that we could do, you know, our 20 stops.
Speaker: So, so this is just a guess, but I would think
Speaker: Well, so first of all, you mentioned 10 minutes and 30 minutes.
Speaker: Is that a typical rule of thumb for how long it takes to do a recurring bin versus a new bin?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: A monthly bin, and that takes us, one person who's doing two bins.
Speaker: If two people are driving the truck, then it's going to be a little bit shorter because we dry the bins, we hand dry it.
Speaker: So one person has to hand dry two bins.
Speaker: That probably, that takes as much or more time as it takes
Speaker: took to clean the bin with the heads.
Speaker: And you, so you mentioned that some of these do steam washing.
Speaker: Does that cut that time down?
Speaker: I, yeah, that's what they say.
Speaker: Cuts it down because number one, it's doing it at the same time.
Speaker: We do, we put the bins up and then we pull one lever.
Speaker: One bin is being cleaned, put that lever up, pull the other lever.
Speaker: Now the other bins being cleaned and then you put them down.
Speaker: And if it's a new bin, once you put them down, you are gonna be, we scrub them.
Speaker: We use, we just get in there and scrub every inch inside and out.
Speaker: We use Dawn soap.
Speaker: And that way I can see because of the bubbles that everything has been touched.
Speaker: And Dawn is a great degreaser.
Speaker: We don't use chemicals other than that.
Speaker: If we do use something
Speaker: like for odor neutralizer or sometimes pets or diapers might have more of a smell.
Speaker: We might use a odor neutralizer, but so, so the first time bins, we're scrubbing, they go back up, we bring them down.
Speaker: There may still be stuff that needs to be worked on.
Speaker: Like we might have to get a scraper.
Speaker: There might be paint in it that you have to do a little more detail work.
Speaker: Then up it goes again.
Speaker: And then once it's,
Speaker: as clean as we can get it, then we dry the whole thing and use an industrial deodorizer just to give it a nice smell and pull it up to the garage.
Speaker: So that takes longer.
Speaker: If it's a recurring bin, we just pull them down.
Speaker: Usually people leave them at the curb.
Speaker: We put them up on the truck, inside and out.
Speaker: The truck does the inside, then we power wash the outside.
Speaker: And then we're just drying it.
Speaker: and using the industrial deodorizer because once a bin's been cleaned thoroughly, like we do the first time, it's like, it may look dirty when you first look at it, but everything slides out with the 200 degree water.
Speaker: And it sanitizes and deodorizes at the same time, as long as the stuff hasn't been sitting in there for months at a time.
Speaker: So it's just quick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if you're, if you're considering scaling up when you buy the, when you buy the next truck, you're going to have a different calculus on your hands as far as like, how many can I do?
Speaker: But also like, how hard do I have to work this equipment for it to be profitable?
Speaker: Because I imagine it's going to be a little more expensive.
Speaker: So, so like when you're, when you're setting up these routes, you're not.
Speaker: What I've heard about that.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: I just have heard that the hoses don't last as long with the steam cleaning.
Speaker: So I don't know, it may just be a wash.
Speaker: If I had a new truck, I might even get one of the older trucks.
Speaker: I'm not sure unless, until I see how it works in person, I'm not sure that if I have to pay more and if it costs more to take, you know, replacement for replacement parts,
Speaker: It may be a wash.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just depends on what kind of routes you're doing.
Speaker: But so far, I'm perfectly happy with our truck.
Speaker: And I think we may save a minute or two here or there.
Speaker: And we're always trying to do that.
Speaker: But it depends on what it costs to save that minute or two.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is just a guess.
Speaker: And this kind of relates to that.
Speaker: But I would think that you don't have a ton of contact with the customer unless something's gone wrong.
Speaker: You know, they leave the bin, you pick it up, that's that.
Speaker: You probably need though, a little bit of cooperation from the customer as far as like, they gotta have the bins out on the day.
Speaker: They have to be empty.
Speaker: It probably helps to have them like oriented properly on the street.
Speaker: Do you do anything to like coach the customer to help you out?
Speaker: Yeah, we just ask them to leave them at the curb.
Speaker: A lot of people say, oh, my HOA won't let us do that because we go,
Speaker: do the cleaning the day after the bins have been emptied.
Speaker: So we say, if that's the case, feel free to leave them just outside your garage where we can easily access them.
Speaker: In other words, you know, if there's cars in the driveway, I don't want to bump into them as we're pulling the bins down, that sort of thing.
Speaker: But most people leave them at the curb and we just pull up and clean them and then we return them to the garage so they don't sit out all day in case the customer's not there.
Speaker: But what we learned is we kind of trained people in the beginning that we really weren't that serious when we said, leave your bins empty, empty, because there'd be so much stuff in their bins.
Speaker: And we'd sit there and we have a, you know, handheld grabber.
Speaker: We grab the pieces out like in the recycle bin, just empty cans and bottles.
Speaker: And finally this year we said, you know what, we got to retrain these.
Speaker: people because this is not working because it's taking us so much time to empty what they've left in their bins so our reminders we send out by text and email before they um before we come out the day before it says can you hear me i can hear you yeah okay great um it says uh we charge ten dollars a ten dollar service fee if the bin's
Speaker: are not empty or not waiting for us.
Speaker: And that changed everything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, have you ever had to, so like if you're on a route, if you're on a route and maybe somebody's like a little bit out of the way and they're sort of consistently like forgetting to put the bin out or something, have you ever had to like fire a customer?
Speaker: No, no, I haven't.
Speaker: But I'm charging the $10 for me.
Speaker: satisfies me because if they're out of the way, it costs us money in employee time and in driving time.
Speaker: And sometimes if the schedule is full, I won't add somebody to that day because I think I've got a full schedule.
Speaker: So if I can, you know, charge that $10, which I do, then they're, they may not be happy with it, but they're getting trained and I'm, it takes care of that for me.
Speaker: And honestly, sometimes when it's a full day, it actually helps when someone drops off the schedule.
Speaker: You're like, all right, we're going to get them done.
Speaker: Get everyone done.
Speaker: But it's changed a lot since I put that, since we've added that requirement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So any other like pleasant or unpleasant surprises, things you didn't expect going in?
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: It's a, it is actually a very easy business to run people because we can text with people and email with people.
Speaker: We do everything online.
Speaker: We have a very good software system that everything's in one place.
Speaker: And this, that is critical, by the way, you have to have a good customer management software for this.
Speaker: And so it does the routing.
Speaker: We do the billing through it.
Speaker: So customers, if they're like on a regular basis these days, people's credit cards get changed because of fraud and this and that.
Speaker: So when I go to do the billing and that happens, I just send them a link to their file.
Speaker: Here's, use this link to update your card.
Speaker: It's all very automated.
Speaker: So that's all very smooth.
Speaker: And I think people like it and we like it.
Speaker: there's not a lot of contact having to talk to them.
Speaker: And we just, I don't know.
Speaker: It's super simple.
Speaker: I don't have complaints.
Speaker: It's very satisfying to clean, take something that's so dirty and make it so clean.
Speaker: And people are delighted.
Speaker: As you noticed, we have a lot of five-star reviews because people are just tickled that this is,
Speaker: done so nicely, they didn't have to do it.
Speaker: Their garage not only doesn't smell bad anymore, but it can smell good because of our deodorizer that we use has just got a very pleasant smell.
Speaker: And it's again, it's industrial, so it doesn't dissipate right away.
Speaker: Yeah, my wife, we were in an HOA in our last house and my wife was constantly complaining about the garage being disgusting.
Speaker: And I know she was signed up 100%.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And people get super excited about it.
Speaker: It's really fun.
Speaker: So it's a fun business.
Speaker: All the businesses that we've owned, we've always had to deal with complaints.
Speaker: And this one, we haven't.
Speaker: There's just nothing to complain about.
Speaker: Your bins are super clean.
Speaker: Although we did have one complaint.
Speaker: I have to take that back.
Speaker: One day, a guy,
Speaker: who hired us to do two bins.
Speaker: And my guy, my technician got there.
Speaker: He did the two bins that were in front of the guy's mailbox, but the trash company had put the bins down cattywampus.
Speaker: And so the guy complained because we only cleaned one of his bins and then we cleaned his neighbor's bin.
Speaker: We're like, okay, well, lucky neighbor, we'll come right back and clean your other bin.
Speaker: You know, it's not a big deal.
Speaker: So, and that has happened.
Speaker: that's probably the thing that the detail that has to, you really have to pay attention to is probably four times we have cleaned the wrong bins because of where they get set down or we just, it just happened the other day, last week actually, two houses, townhouses, very close to each other with the alleyway where you clean, the number on the house is on the front of the house, then you have to go around to the alleyway
Speaker: And there are bins sitting on the, at the curb.
Speaker: So my guy said, okay, well, that's it.
Speaker: Well, he just kind of made an assumption because there was a day after bins were emptied.
Speaker: It was the only been sitting out.
Speaker: Well, it turns out our customer had left their bins by the side of their house for us.
Speaker: And this was their neighbor.
Speaker: So we cleaned their neighbor's bins, but they called us.
Speaker: They're not upset.
Speaker: They're like, Hey,
Speaker: You didn't clean our bins.
Speaker: You cleaned our neighbor bins.
Speaker: We're like, oh, lucky neighbor.
Speaker: We'll be right back.
Speaker: So it's not a big deal.
Speaker: That's the worst thing that's happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just a pretty straightforward model as long as you're showing up and doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then as with any business, the trickiest thing, if you don't want to do it yourself, is getting good employees.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How have you approached that?
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: The first last year was the first time we hired employees and it was tricky because they have to have a good driving record they can't your insurance will not allow you to hire someone with certain things on their driving record so.
Speaker: We had to collect driving records, submit them to our insurance company all that, and it was it wasn't easy, I have to admit this year we got super lucky and I am used a recruiter who.
Speaker: was actually focusing on service drivers for service companies, hiring drivers for service companies.
Speaker: So he did all that work and he just found me a guy that has been wonderful.
Speaker: So he's the one that went through the applicants and did the advertising and checked all the driving records and all that and came up with this guy.
Speaker: And so it's worked out well, but if I, I always do dread when I need more, if somebody,
Speaker: last year we went through, we had two different fellows and, you know, that's the trickiest part.
Speaker: So you have to just go in with eyes wide open.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're talking about it not being a, really a problem with the customer.
Speaker: What sort of headaches did you run into?
Speaker: Was it just like sort of not showing up for work or what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not really wanting to work.
Speaker: long hours.
Speaker: This, this can be like one day might be six hours.
Speaker: The next day might be 10 hours.
Speaker: It's inconsistent.
Speaker: It's hot in the summer.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Like I, I went out just for a quality control day with my technician last week.
Speaker: And I said, where'd your glasses go?
Speaker: He said, they just slipped off my face.
Speaker: You know, he was so sweaty.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: It's hot.
Speaker: It has to be someone that doesn't mind that.
Speaker: It's manual labor, but it's not hard.
Speaker: I actually did it myself for much.
Speaker: The last six weeks, I didn't have someone last year.
Speaker: I said, I'm just going to do it myself.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: You're outside.
Speaker: You're taking something dirty, making it clean.
Speaker: That is very satisfying to me.
Speaker: Challenging yourself to do it more efficiently each time
Speaker: that sort of thing.
Speaker: So the right personality, it's a good job.
Speaker: My person that I have now, he likes the flexibility of it.
Speaker: He knows how long it takes him to do whatever the route might be.
Speaker: So I let him, I just say, when are you starting today?
Speaker: And I know that he knows that whenever he starts, he's got to be done by sunset.
Speaker: And he figures that out and we never run out.
Speaker: He's never not done that.
Speaker: So he likes to be able to have some say over his schedule.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And he likes being outside.
Speaker: So it's fine.
Speaker: And he's very personable.
Speaker: So if he does run into a customer, they're always very impressed with what a gentleman he is.
Speaker: So that's nice.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Well, this sounds like just an awesome business.
Speaker: And I really think the folks in the group are going to enjoy this.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker: It's Cindy at Nova Bin Wash.
Speaker: If you're in the area in Northern Virginia, be sure to check them out and sign up.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us, Cindy.
Speaker: Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker: And I never mind talking with people that are serious about getting in the business and need some help figuring things out.
Speaker: So I'm happy to take calls if anyone is going to take action on this.
Speaker: Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker: I so appreciate that.
Speaker: And I'm sure the guys will too.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Yeah, nice.
Speaker: You're welcome.
