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EXIT Podcast Episode 13: Carpet Cleaning
264 Plays3 years ago
Jeff & Rita Ebberts have been in the carpet cleaning business for over 35 years. We get into the details of that industry, but the real treasure here is what they've learned from struggle. They've had to move to a new city & start over from nothing twice. They invented a new cleaning solution, fought a seven-year legal battle with their franchisor over the IP, represented themselves after their lawyers quit the case, & won. Incredible story, don't miss this one.
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Transcript
Meet the Eberts: Carpet Cleaning Innovators
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Dr. Bennett.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm joined here by Jeff Eberts and Rita Eberts.
00:00:22
Speaker
They've owned and operated carbonated solutions since 2007.
00:00:25
Speaker
They've been in the carpet cleaning business for 35 years.
00:00:29
Speaker
They invented a new cleaning solution that we'll talk more about in a bit.
00:00:32
Speaker
They also went toe-to-toe with a big bad corporation in a lawsuit over that cleaning solution and won.
00:00:38
Speaker
They've had to leave behind a successful business and rebuild it from the bottom up in a very different market.
00:00:42
Speaker
So I wanted to have them on, not just to talk about the ins and outs of the carpet cleaning business, but also just what it's like to get knocked down, pick yourself up, and then crush your enemies and see them driven before you.
00:00:54
Speaker
So welcome to the show.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:57
Speaker
Pleasure.
00:00:58
Speaker
Pleasure.
00:00:59
Speaker
So from what I understand, you started with a carpet cleaning franchise in California.
00:01:05
Speaker
Was that a good way to get started in the industry?
00:01:07
Speaker
Did they make certain things easier on you?
00:01:09
Speaker
Or would you tell someone, just go independent if you're starting out?
From Construction to Carpet Cleaning: Jeff's Career Shift
00:01:13
Speaker
Well, depends on what you wanted to do.
00:01:16
Speaker
In this case, it was all pretty much new and innovative and was everything you thought you wanted.
00:01:26
Speaker
A lot of freedom of activity on your part.
00:01:30
Speaker
We didn't have the creativity when we first started.
00:01:33
Speaker
We were kind of a little bit terrified.
00:01:37
Speaker
And so initially, the idea of a franchise was very comforting and reassuring because it was kind of set up for us.
00:01:47
Speaker
And so all we had to do was follow their plan and we would be successful.
00:01:51
Speaker
So the story goes.
00:01:53
Speaker
But it took a lot of the terror out of the situation for us.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, we were young and married, just small kids and just getting on with life.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:08
Speaker
So I can see how it just, it cuts so much of the uncertainty and the anxiety out of the decision, especially if you're, I mean, were you, were you always set on like, I'm going to be an entrepreneur or were you just sort of like, I'm looking for a way to support my family?
00:02:24
Speaker
Looking for a way to support my family.
00:02:26
Speaker
I was actually a builder and just had become a general contractor in Oregon when Jimmy Carter raised the interest rates to 21% and put us out of business.
00:02:36
Speaker
Me and thousands of other people.
00:02:39
Speaker
So that just killed the whole industry.
00:02:42
Speaker
And I stepped from that to this company.
00:02:46
Speaker
through a few various almost accidents and I can get out and make an honest living.
00:02:51
Speaker
And if I worked hard, I could make even better.
00:02:54
Speaker
So you've actually had to do this more than once where you're sort of stepping out into the dark.
00:02:59
Speaker
It seems like
Faith and Relocation: Moving to California
00:03:00
Speaker
always.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
We are really good at bootstrapping.
00:03:03
Speaker
We've got that down to a science.
00:03:06
Speaker
Wow.
00:03:07
Speaker
So when you, so, I mean, I want to talk about your, your later experience, but, but I didn't even know about this one.
00:03:13
Speaker
So when you switched from the construction industry to this, were there lessons learned that translated or was it totally unfamiliar territory?
00:03:30
Speaker
Well, we were also developing a lot of faith in
00:03:36
Speaker
spiritual things at the same time.
00:03:41
Speaker
So it was more about prayerfully considering what do we do now?
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
We followed the best that we could, the promptings or inclinations that we had.
00:03:54
Speaker
And we went from Oregon where the economy collapsed almost overnight, it seemed like to Southern California, which didn't catch up to that for almost 10 years.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:05
Speaker
before it really hit them that hard.
00:04:08
Speaker
So we were just doing our best to listen and work hard.
00:04:13
Speaker
We had friends in Oregon who were carpet cleaning franchisees.
00:04:20
Speaker
And when the economy collapsed in the building industry for us, Jeff filled in and did some work for him as a technician.
00:04:33
Speaker
And that's how we initially got interest in that building, particularly in Oregon, was very seasonal.
00:04:40
Speaker
And so, you know, it was always a feast or famine experience.
00:04:44
Speaker
And we discovered that the carpet cleaning was far more consistent.
00:04:49
Speaker
And at the time we had, you know, a young family to raise.
00:04:53
Speaker
And so we were we were looking for another opportunity.
00:04:57
Speaker
And that was what prompted our move to Southern California because we would never have gone there otherwise.
00:05:03
Speaker
Why is that?
00:05:09
Speaker
Well, because when you grow up in Oregon and Northern California, Southern California is a terrible place to be.
00:05:15
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:05:18
Speaker
Just a bias that is held by many in the Pacific Northwest.
00:05:22
Speaker
Southern California is no man's land, and we actually fell in love with it.
Independent Carpet Cleaning: Costs and Benefits
00:05:28
Speaker
But we were in Palm Desert, which is, if you've ever been there, it's absolutely gorgeous, and we loved it.
00:05:35
Speaker
And it was very lucrative for us.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, so what did it take in terms of, or maybe I could just frame it this way.
00:05:44
Speaker
What would it take now in terms of like startup costs and time commitment if you were to have to do this at that age, that position of life again?
00:05:56
Speaker
What do you think would be involved in that?
00:06:00
Speaker
Well, if you had to start up a franchise, you're talking about a lot of out-of-pocket money.
00:06:07
Speaker
If you have to start up what we're doing now, it's probably the most affordable thing in the carpet cleaning industry to do and gives you the ability to give better results than your competition.
00:06:20
Speaker
So it's kind of wherever you're talking about on our history, we have been learning and still are learning and things are still progressing.
00:06:34
Speaker
So.
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, tell me about that offer.
00:06:38
Speaker
So what is the situation that you have that's different than a franchise?
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, for one, franchising, you have bosses.
00:06:53
Speaker
who tentatively stay out of the way, but they tack on fees, costs, overhead.
00:07:02
Speaker
They change things on you that you have to adjust to.
00:07:06
Speaker
All of it costs money and time.
00:07:11
Speaker
And when you're self-employed, you can manage all of that yourself.
00:07:17
Speaker
And the things that they promised to bring you, you can do yourself once you've done it, once you know how.
00:07:23
Speaker
you're educated, it's quite easy.
00:07:27
Speaker
The things that work.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:30
Speaker
So when you're in a service business like carpet cleaning is, it's about giving service.
00:07:38
Speaker
And what we've learned is that our customers look for us, period.
00:07:43
Speaker
They love our product.
00:07:45
Speaker
They love what we give, but it's the service that they're after.
00:07:48
Speaker
And a franchisor can't give you that.
00:07:52
Speaker
You either can develop that yourself and present yourself that way or not.
00:08:00
Speaker
But a franchise doesn't do that for you.
00:08:03
Speaker
They do give you an identity, hopefully, that has a good reputation.
00:08:11
Speaker
They supposedly give you turnkey advertising and all that kind of stuff.
00:08:15
Speaker
But, you know, we found out that our own ideas were better.
00:08:20
Speaker
And basically everything they give you costs money.
The Eberts' Unique Carpet Cleaning Method
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:26
Speaker
And when you're building that reputational equity.
00:08:29
Speaker
you're building it for them because it's their wrap on the van or whatever it is.
00:08:37
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:08:37
Speaker
So it, it, it, is there specialized equipment?
00:08:41
Speaker
What, what's like, if you wanted to just go buy this stuff and you didn't want to work with a franchise I'm guessing that's a van, that's some vacuums, like some wet vacs, like what's involved in the business?
00:08:54
Speaker
Well, it depends on how you want to do it.
00:08:57
Speaker
There's equipment involved in several different kinds.
00:09:01
Speaker
There's multiple franchises out there.
00:09:04
Speaker
And if you want hot water extraction, then yeah, you got to do the vans and the hoses and all that kind of stuff.
00:09:14
Speaker
We started with a station wagon.
00:09:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:19
Speaker
With magnetic signs on the doors.
00:09:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:22
Speaker
And what was in the back of the station wagon?
00:09:26
Speaker
At that point, there was just, it was carbonated tanks, buffer, vacuum, bonnets, you know, the very, very basic stuff.
00:09:37
Speaker
But the thing is, what we wound up doing, the rest of the industry doesn't even know anything about, even today.
00:09:47
Speaker
I mean, they really don't understand it.
00:09:49
Speaker
And it's primarily because of the cleaner that we use.
00:09:52
Speaker
Okay, are more aggressive at cleaning than a extraction unit with 400 inches water lift, you know it.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'd have to show you to prove it, but we can do better than that with a buffer and a bonnet because of this clean so
00:10:11
Speaker
And sorry, a buffer and a bonnet.
00:10:13
Speaker
Can you tell me what that is?
00:10:16
Speaker
A buffer, floor buffer, 175 RPM, regular clean tile and in maintenance place, you know, down the hallway they go and they just basically clean floors and mostly they use them on hard floors.
00:10:30
Speaker
but you get a bonnet, which looks like a little shag rug.
00:10:33
Speaker
It's a thick absorbent pad.
00:10:37
Speaker
And that's what picks up the cleaner.
00:10:41
Speaker
Because the, well, the cleaner that we use doesn't need to be rinsed.
00:10:45
Speaker
There's no soaps, detergents, surfactants, no additives whatsoever.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:52
Speaker
So it doesn't need to come back out of the carpet.
00:10:55
Speaker
Doesn't need to, huh?
00:10:56
Speaker
And so what we do is like, say you have a, just a 10 by 10 rug that's dirty.
00:11:02
Speaker
You vacuum it thoroughly with a good vacuum, which we have and get all the loose stuff out of it.
00:11:08
Speaker
And then you spray down enough cleaner to thoroughly
00:11:12
Speaker
um, penetrate the carpet pile, but you don't want to get the pad underneath wet because even that 400 inch water lift doesn't get that thing dry.
00:11:21
Speaker
Once they get the pad wet, it's going to stay wet.
00:11:24
Speaker
And so we want, and we're there to clean the carpet.
00:11:26
Speaker
And so you get the carpet pile good, good and saturated.
00:11:30
Speaker
And then you put a bonnet and a buffer on top of that and everything that the cleaner touches, it puts into solution.
00:11:40
Speaker
And the bonnet absorbs it.
00:11:43
Speaker
And with 175 RPM, you got about a hundred pounds of pressure and torque.
00:11:49
Speaker
And it just does a great job.
00:11:51
Speaker
It's like being down on your hands and knees with scrubbing, except the buffer does all the work.
00:11:57
Speaker
It absorbs almost all of it back in the carpets mildly damp when you're done, dries in hours.
00:12:03
Speaker
doesn't leave residues, everything that's gone stays gone.
00:12:07
Speaker
Well, the other advantage is, is that you're not hauling hoses in and out of people's houses and having to run water down their sewer.
00:12:16
Speaker
And you can go up to a seven story or 10 story building and take all of your stuff and not have to worry about that
00:12:24
Speaker
that truck that's sitting there running all of this equipment.
00:12:29
Speaker
So it's portable, but it's also extremely convenient.
00:12:34
Speaker
And the principle is kind of like using a sponge on your counter.
00:12:40
Speaker
You know, it's about absorption rather than extraction.
00:12:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:46
Speaker
So you're not like sucking up the water, like a vacuum.
00:12:48
Speaker
You're just, you're sort of, uh, uh, pounding a sponge into it and using that to suck it up.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's absorption rather than extraction.
Building Trust: Customer Relations and Challenges
00:12:58
Speaker
Well, the interesting thing is you've seen the commercials where they squirt a cleaner on it and the stain disappears.
00:13:06
Speaker
And that's not what happens with ours.
00:13:08
Speaker
You squirt the cleaner on it and the liquid emulsifies the dirt and it stays trapped in the solution until you pick it up.
00:13:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:19
Speaker
Got it.
00:13:20
Speaker
It's easier to show you than it is to tell you.
00:13:22
Speaker
Well, maybe I'll post a, if you've got like a YouTube video or something, I'll post it along with the podcast.
00:13:29
Speaker
So when you, if someone's starting this out, is that an expensive set of equipment?
00:13:39
Speaker
Like give me like a ballpark figure of like what it would cost to buy the like bare bones, minimum viable to start that business.
00:13:48
Speaker
Oh, let's see.
00:13:49
Speaker
What was it about?
00:13:50
Speaker
That was a long time ago.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:54
Speaker
You're probably, I would say about $7,500 maybe.
00:14:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:00
Speaker
Top of the line stuff.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:03
Speaker
That would, that would get you, you know, adequate to make a living.
00:14:08
Speaker
And that's your equipment, not this, not the, the older, the hoses and whatnot.
00:14:13
Speaker
Right.
00:14:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:14
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:14:15
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:14:17
Speaker
So, and when someone's getting started, is there a lot of like, as far as the learning curve that a new guy has to overcome before they can operate the way you do, is that a lot to do with like technique or is it mostly just sort of building a reputation and a customer base?
00:14:39
Speaker
Probably a little of both when they're starting.
00:14:42
Speaker
There's definitely a technique.
00:14:44
Speaker
I mean, it's real easy to put a buffer through somebody's wall if you're not careful or pull their stereo equipment down.
00:14:51
Speaker
You can rearrange wiring really quickly with a buffer.
00:14:55
Speaker
So there is a little bit of technique.
00:14:57
Speaker
But when we started, he kind of learned on the job.
00:15:03
Speaker
And it was pretty quick.
00:15:04
Speaker
You were able to make money immediately.
00:15:07
Speaker
We've often joked that this is the only time we have ever...
00:15:11
Speaker
would wake up broke and at the end of the day have four or five hundred dollars in our pocket yeah so yeah that that was it was kind of nice that is nothing like the building trade i can tell you that well because there it's this big long project based right yeah this is just you're in and out
00:15:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
So in terms of, so that's kind of like fixed costs.
00:15:38
Speaker
Tell me about a typical job in terms of like the variable costs, how long it takes as far as labor, how do you drop an estimate?
00:15:48
Speaker
Well, basically, mostly what we do and have done for the longest time is everything is compiled into square footage.
00:15:58
Speaker
I will clean X amount of square foot carpet for X amount of money, basically 23 cents a square foot times, however much I do.
00:16:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:09
Speaker
That's residential because it's a lot more fiddling around with residential than there is in commercial.
00:16:15
Speaker
Commercial is a little less expensive, but, but that pretty well,
00:16:21
Speaker
takes into consideration everything you've got going.
00:16:24
Speaker
That's your personal overhead, the insurances that you have.
00:16:30
Speaker
Maintenance in this kind of cleaning is really minimal compared to the other.
00:16:37
Speaker
If you have a steam cleaning truck, you've got daily maintenance that you've got to do.
00:16:42
Speaker
And with what we do, it's clean the pads, get ready for tomorrow, that's it.
00:16:49
Speaker
And maybe once every six, eight months, you'll do a major go through just to make sure and look at stuff.
00:16:53
Speaker
But otherwise, it's just get ready for tomorrow and done.
00:16:57
Speaker
So you're spending a lot more time on revenue generating activity.
00:17:02
Speaker
And family.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
It doesn't follow you home quite as much as the other would.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Family Challenges Prompt a Move to Oklahoma
00:17:10
Speaker
So do you try to build a book of recurring customers?
00:17:15
Speaker
Do you have a lot of churn or is it mostly sort of your stable, steady clients?
00:17:23
Speaker
It's always growing.
00:17:25
Speaker
And we send out reminders to the clients
00:17:29
Speaker
people that repeat customers.
00:17:31
Speaker
And we have a good return.
00:17:33
Speaker
We have a pretty high return.
00:17:34
Speaker
Always have had.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, we've always had a good.
00:17:37
Speaker
In fact, when we left Southern California, we had customers call us in Oklahoma and say, how many people would we have to put together to bring you back for a visit?
00:17:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they become very loyal.
00:17:52
Speaker
And, you know, that this is such a good they know it's not going to destroy their carpets.
00:17:57
Speaker
And they know, they know us, they know we're not going to come in and steal from them.
00:18:02
Speaker
And, you know, they just, they trust us.
00:18:06
Speaker
That is kind of paramount that people send you keys in the mail to their home.
00:18:13
Speaker
And to know that they can do that without problem or worry.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
So that's something that you have to prove over time, I guess, but it is.
00:18:26
Speaker
Everyone that I've talked to that's in a trade or a service-oriented business like this has said something similar, that it's so much to do with personality and you can pull in a premium just by
00:18:43
Speaker
wearing a polo, wearing some nice khakis, you know, looking clean, you know, there's a huge premium for that kind of thing.
00:18:53
Speaker
So like when you interact with the customer, like are you doing a lot of talking as you're cleaning or are you kind of doing it overnight or like how does it work?
00:19:04
Speaker
Well, it's different here.
00:19:07
Speaker
We're in Oklahoma.
00:19:08
Speaker
It's different in Oklahoma than it was in Southern California.
00:19:13
Speaker
In Southern California, it was the khaki and everything you just said.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:17
Speaker
In Oklahoma, you listen a lot.
00:19:21
Speaker
Everybody likes to talk.
00:19:24
Speaker
So, and a good listener is a premium.
00:19:26
Speaker
You know, I just, yeah, really, I'll ask a couple leading questions and then I'll go ahead and clean their carpets while they fill me in.
00:19:31
Speaker
So it's just, people are interesting no matter where you're at.
00:19:37
Speaker
One of the things that we found was really successful in our advertising was to include a picture of Jeff or at one point, one of our sons worked with us to include his picture so that people knew who was coming to their door.
00:19:55
Speaker
That matters.
00:19:57
Speaker
And so we made sure that it was very clean cut and not somebody that, because most of the people we deal with are women.
00:20:08
Speaker
they want to know, they want to be comfortable with who's coming to the door.
00:20:11
Speaker
And so, you know, well-groomed matters no matter where you live.
00:20:16
Speaker
It's true.
00:20:19
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:21
Speaker
So you had, this is a good, I think this is a good point to talk about this.
00:20:26
Speaker
You had a thriving business in California.
00:20:29
Speaker
Certain somebody gets himself kicked out of the California public school system and you had to leave all that behind.
00:20:38
Speaker
Adam's told me the story from his perspective.
00:20:42
Speaker
I can't imagine what it was like for you.
00:20:45
Speaker
Can you tell us about that experience?
00:20:50
Speaker
Oh, goodness.
00:20:52
Speaker
Well, we have five children.
00:20:55
Speaker
And number one son and number three son were challenging at best.
00:21:05
Speaker
And Southern California was a great opportunity to get into trouble.
00:21:09
Speaker
There was no shortage of people to get into trouble with.
00:21:13
Speaker
And number three son, the one you've referenced, our middle child,
00:21:23
Speaker
We lived in a subdivision that was very close to the high school.
00:21:26
Speaker
And between our subdivision and the high school was a date orchard.
00:21:31
Speaker
Dates are a big crop in the Southern California desert.
00:21:36
Speaker
And this was a beautiful date orchard.
00:21:38
Speaker
Every kid on the way to high school or during high school or after school would go to the date orchard to hang out and do things they shouldn't do.
00:21:48
Speaker
There were a lot of homeless people who would be there or had been there during the night.
00:21:58
Speaker
And there were old mattresses and box springs.
00:22:03
Speaker
And the kids found that it was really cool to jump on those things because it created sparks.
00:22:10
Speaker
And you have to understand that date trees, the way they keep the bugs off of date trees is to spray them with sulfur.
00:22:19
Speaker
So what you have are giant matches sitting there in nice neat little rows.
00:22:26
Speaker
And the kids just think this is a blast.
00:22:30
Speaker
And they were smoking.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, they were smoking and doing things they shouldn't ought to be doing.
00:22:36
Speaker
Sure.
00:22:37
Speaker
And dumping on these mattresses to get some sparks going and get the mattresses smoking.
00:22:45
Speaker
And then the school bell would ring and they'd bury it in sand and rush off and...
00:22:51
Speaker
Anyway, apparently at one point they didn't bury it sufficiently.
00:22:55
Speaker
And, um, that whole date orchard went up in flames.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
All those matches exploded.
00:23:07
Speaker
And, and, um,
00:23:10
Speaker
The owner of the date orchard had written us, well, there were two young men involved.
00:23:16
Speaker
There was our son and another young man who were involved in this particular instance.
Innovation and Legal Battles: Defending Their Product
00:23:23
Speaker
Our son had, they had covered it all up.
00:23:25
Speaker
They'd gone back to school.
00:23:28
Speaker
He had a dentist appointment that day in a different town.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so my husband had picked him up.
00:23:34
Speaker
And when I smelled the smoke and saw the black smoke in the sky, my first thought was, oh, thank goodness he's not there.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, that was until they knocked on my door and said, hey, somebody said your son was at the date orchard today.
00:23:54
Speaker
And he said, yeah, I was.
00:23:58
Speaker
It went downhill from there.
00:24:00
Speaker
The date orchard was a total loss, valued at about $750,000 at the time.
00:24:07
Speaker
Wow.
00:24:09
Speaker
And the owner of the date orchard contacted us and said, I'd like to thank your son and whoever else did this because I was going to have to pay to bring this date orchard down so I could build a housing development.
00:24:22
Speaker
But the people who leased the land aren't so thrilled.
00:24:28
Speaker
So there was that looming.
00:24:30
Speaker
And then it took three days for the city to put out that fire.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so when we were told that we were going to be billed for the fire suppression, we decided that was probably a good time to slip away.
00:24:50
Speaker
There was no way we could pay those kind of bills.
00:24:52
Speaker
It was just not going to happen.
00:24:54
Speaker
And they were determined to make an example of our son in particular, because he actually stepped up and said, yeah, I was there.
00:25:04
Speaker
The other kid pointed his finger at him.
00:25:07
Speaker
And so anyway, it was awful.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker
And we had planned to, we had thought we would leave beforehand.
00:25:17
Speaker
We saw what actually made us realize we needed to leave Southern California was on the last day of our second oldest son's junior year of high school.
00:25:32
Speaker
He was picked as a random gang initiation rite.
00:25:39
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:25:39
Speaker
And he was waylaid in that date orchard.
00:25:44
Speaker
And this group of gang gangsters had steel-toed boots on, got him to the ground and just kicked the heck out of his head and face and...
00:25:58
Speaker
My goodness.
00:25:58
Speaker
It was all totally random.
00:25:59
Speaker
He just happened to be in the wrong place and he got picked.
00:26:04
Speaker
And we realized at that point in time, he is okay.
00:26:07
Speaker
But we realized, hey, we've got three more kids to get through these schools.
00:26:11
Speaker
We've got to get out of here.
00:26:13
Speaker
No kidding.
00:26:14
Speaker
But it was kind of like, where do we go?
00:26:16
Speaker
What do we do?
00:26:17
Speaker
I was going to ask why Oklahoma?
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, we're still asking that.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
No, it was kind of handed to me.
00:26:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:29
Speaker
She was dragging her feet a lot more than she's saying.
00:26:31
Speaker
I was dragging my feet a lot.
00:26:32
Speaker
I was trying to get going, but there's a lot of country clubs.
00:26:35
Speaker
There's a lot of money in Palm Desert and surrounding areas.
00:26:41
Speaker
And I did a lot of the carpet cleaning there.
00:26:43
Speaker
And in one instance, I went into the gate guard, a really talkative lady.
00:26:52
Speaker
who escorted me in to show me the property that I was gonna be cleaning.
00:26:56
Speaker
And we were talking and I was talking about finding a new location.
00:26:59
Speaker
She said, well, if you ever get to Ardmore, Oklahoma, it's the most beautiful place in the world.
00:27:04
Speaker
You might wanna take a look.
00:27:07
Speaker
And so I thought, okay,
00:27:08
Speaker
By golly, that's good timing.
00:27:10
Speaker
I think we'll go take a look.
00:27:11
Speaker
Wow.
00:27:12
Speaker
And that's actually what started that ball rolling for Oklahoma and for Ardmore, which is where we landed, where we wound up.
00:27:20
Speaker
What clinched it for me, though, was, you know, we were in Southern California.
00:27:26
Speaker
And I took a trip by myself with a friend out to Ardmore because I I didn't want to be influenced by my husband, who was ready to leave and go.
00:27:38
Speaker
I was still dragging my feet and
00:27:43
Speaker
What you learn in Oklahoma and a lot of the Midwest is that Wednesday night is church night.
00:27:49
Speaker
And it doesn't matter what church you go to, you are expected to be in church on Wednesday night.
00:27:54
Speaker
There are no school activities that happen on Wednesday night.
00:27:59
Speaker
Everybody is expected to be at church.
00:28:01
Speaker
And so on a Wednesday night, I went out to church and there was this group of teenagers that were there at the church.
00:28:09
Speaker
And every one of them looked me in the eye and
00:28:12
Speaker
And greeted me and welcomed me and called me ma'am.
00:28:16
Speaker
And they weren't being facetious.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I looked around and I thought, oh my gosh, this is where I want my kids to finish growing up.
00:28:24
Speaker
Because it was so amazing.
00:28:27
Speaker
They were clear-eyed.
00:28:29
Speaker
They were clean cut.
00:28:32
Speaker
They were just an exemplary bunch of kids.
00:28:35
Speaker
And it just seemed like, okay, I'm sold.
00:28:39
Speaker
Let's go.
00:28:41
Speaker
And they turned old Adam around.
00:28:43
Speaker
Well, eventually.
00:28:47
Speaker
It still took a while.
00:28:48
Speaker
It took a little while.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, he groused at us for the first year or so.
00:28:52
Speaker
He wouldn't let us tell anyone he was from Oklahoma until he graduated from high school.
00:28:57
Speaker
He said, I'm from California.
00:28:59
Speaker
I'm not from Oklahoma.
00:29:01
Speaker
But after he graduated from high school and took a trip, when he came back, he was so thrilled to be back where people wave at you and talk to you and smile at you.
00:29:13
Speaker
And he said, I'm from Oklahoma.
00:29:16
Speaker
So, yeah, it's it was an interesting experience.
00:29:20
Speaker
But Oklahoma was at the time.
00:29:25
Speaker
because we were still a franchise, there were no franchises for what we were doing available west of the Rockies.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so we kind of had to look beyond that in order to find a place where we could continue being franchisees.
00:29:46
Speaker
So you did continue with the franchise.
00:29:49
Speaker
Sorry, you did continue with the franchise when you moved to Ardmore.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yes, we did.
00:29:56
Speaker
But there were things happening that pretty much told us right up front, and I had pursued it with the powers that be, that the company was going to be making some massive changes.
00:30:10
Speaker
And we just didn't want any part of it.
00:30:12
Speaker
Got it.
00:30:13
Speaker
So you were already kind of planning your exit from that.
00:30:15
Speaker
We started from there.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:17
Speaker
So we got to Oklahoma and said, okay, now we got the kids, we got here.
00:30:22
Speaker
Now what do we do?
00:30:24
Speaker
And me being an inquisitive kind of guy, came up with a process and a way to do what I had been doing a lot better than doing before.
00:30:40
Speaker
I wanted to ask you about that because I often ask people, if you had to start your business over from the beginning, what would you do differently?
00:30:46
Speaker
And you've actually had to do that.
00:30:48
Speaker
You've had to take your know-how and I don't know, did you take the equipment?
00:30:54
Speaker
Well, the equipment's pretty generic.
00:30:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't proprietary.
00:30:59
Speaker
No.
00:30:59
Speaker
And we got basically you spray this cleaner on the floor, you use a buffer that you can get anywhere, you use bonnets you can get anywhere.
00:31:10
Speaker
So really, it's just a few of the products.
00:31:13
Speaker
And
00:31:15
Speaker
I knew I had to leave or separate.
00:31:17
Speaker
And I said, okay, so what am I going to do?
00:31:21
Speaker
And so I thought about it for a while and I went to a chemical company and I bought a few large samples and I put together what I thought would be the nucleus of a good start for experimentation and went into a rental that
00:31:41
Speaker
was white Berber carpet with teenage boys playing the Game Boy and eating their food on the floor.
00:31:47
Speaker
It was pretty atrocious.
00:31:49
Speaker
It was a rental.
00:31:50
Speaker
And I knew how it was going to turn out.
00:31:52
Speaker
And so I used my concoction on it, my version of what was going on.
00:31:59
Speaker
And dang, it worked better than anything I'd ever used in my life.
00:32:04
Speaker
And I thought, wow, did I just knock this ball out of the park?
00:32:09
Speaker
And
00:32:10
Speaker
So from there on, it was experimentation.
00:32:13
Speaker
It was adjustment.
00:32:14
Speaker
It was what did I do and how do I do it even better?
00:32:18
Speaker
And through that process, we came up with a really simple but very effective product for cleaning carpet and upholstery.
00:32:30
Speaker
And I'm sure that there's elements of that that you can't discuss, but maybe...
00:32:37
Speaker
How did you like just the idea that you would just sort of stumble onto a new like chemical compound or something?
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:45
Speaker
How did you, how did that eureka happen?
00:32:50
Speaker
All that we had been taught, everything I'd been told about cleaning and the soaps and detergents and things that everybody uses.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I didn't like any of them.
00:33:00
Speaker
And so what I was looking for was a carbonated solution that gave me a base of
00:33:07
Speaker
that I could add things to that wouldn't get in the way.
00:33:11
Speaker
That was my thinking, that was my thought process at the time.
00:33:14
Speaker
And what I discovered was that, wait a minute, if I get stuff out of the way, I may not need additives.
00:33:24
Speaker
And that's the thought that I chased.
00:33:26
Speaker
And that's what brought me to this project we got now that is, we actually got a patent on it.
00:33:35
Speaker
The same with our little spray rig that allows it to be so efficient.
00:33:39
Speaker
So we got two patents actually.
00:33:41
Speaker
And it was just good enough that I didn't need to do anything.
00:33:48
Speaker
Well, how would I, how would I put this?
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
if you had a carpet cleaner come into his, to your house and take his cleaner and fill a glass and drink it, would you be surprised?
00:34:04
Speaker
Right.
00:34:04
Speaker
Right.
00:34:04
Speaker
I was going to ask you about that.
00:34:05
Speaker
I hear that Adam has, has sort of drunk it as part of a pitch.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
It is that safe.
00:34:11
Speaker
If you've ever had a diet Coke, you've had more questionable stuff than, than Mike, my cleaner.
00:34:19
Speaker
It really is that clean.
00:34:21
Speaker
And when we can get it or was using it, we use, uh,
00:34:27
Speaker
food grade chemicals.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:30
Speaker
And yeah, it's, and so it's, I tell everybody it's like a bumblebee, you know, aerodynamically, they can't fly, but look at them go.
00:34:39
Speaker
You know, if I tell you what's in my cleaner, you'll say that won't work, but watch it work.
00:34:43
Speaker
It just really does a great job.
00:34:44
Speaker
So at that point we were off and running.
00:34:47
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, it was just kind of like, okay, what do we do with this?
00:34:53
Speaker
But it came after a lot of thought and pondering and concern and prayers.
00:35:01
Speaker
And it just was... It was a gift.
00:35:06
Speaker
When you get a gift, you don't say, no, that's silly.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker
Even if you don't see how it's going to work or you think it can't possibly work.
00:35:15
Speaker
Well, it did work.
00:35:16
Speaker
It worked really well.
00:35:17
Speaker
How soon after the catastrophe in California did this idea materialize?
00:35:28
Speaker
We were here maybe what?
00:35:29
Speaker
It was about four, maybe five years.
00:35:32
Speaker
That long?
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:34
Speaker
Well, because we moved out, we moved to Oklahoma in 96 and we got a patent in 2000.
00:35:39
Speaker
We applied for the patent in 2000 and got it in 2001.
00:35:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:48
Speaker
And so you spent quite a while building the business in according to the standard model while you were developing this.
00:35:56
Speaker
And so I take it that normal carpet cleaner isn't carbonated.
00:36:00
Speaker
Is the carbonation a big part of the change?
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, it is, you know, the self-carbonated thing.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:36:10
Speaker
There's some similarities.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:15
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm trying to talk around like I don't want to do anything like proprietary, but but but it's just so interesting to me.
00:36:24
Speaker
Maybe maybe I'll ask you about it later.
00:36:27
Speaker
So you come up with this innovation that dramatically improves the process.
00:36:34
Speaker
When did you first realize you were going to have trouble with your franchisor?
00:36:40
Speaker
It wasn't long.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, we, that was almost immediate.
00:36:47
Speaker
I tried to do some things that would help because I thought that, you know, well, nevermind what I thought.
00:36:56
Speaker
It was naive on my part.
00:37:00
Speaker
And it was, it was, well,
00:37:07
Speaker
I don't know how you'd put this without putting it.
00:37:09
Speaker
I'll have to think about that.
A Legal Victory and Lessons Learned
00:37:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:15
Speaker
Well, so don't worry about that.
00:37:19
Speaker
Suffice to say, you realize you were going to have some trouble with your franchisor.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:24
Speaker
And over the rights to this intellectual property.
00:37:31
Speaker
Well, see, now that was how that came about.
00:37:37
Speaker
that that became in jeopardy was surprising.
00:37:41
Speaker
We had gone through all this stuff.
00:37:42
Speaker
We'd moved from Southern California.
00:37:44
Speaker
We had come out here.
00:37:45
Speaker
We reestablished and opened a new territory for the existing franchise and had gone through all this and they took a hard left and we weren't gonna follow them.
00:37:55
Speaker
And so we had to separate and we found this and we were set up and we were gonna go and we were gonna do this instead.
00:38:01
Speaker
And they decided, and what I tell everybody is, and the way I put it, which is more for comic relief, I guess, is that they felt that because they were the nucleus for my discovery, that associating with them gave me the nucleus of my content here.
00:38:24
Speaker
That they should own the rights to it.
00:38:26
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:38:29
Speaker
And what we discovered is that if you have something I want, and I have money, all I have to do is file a lawsuit against you that doesn't get thrown out immediately.
00:38:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:38:43
Speaker
If that happens, then my attorneys file motion after motion after motion after motion.
00:38:47
Speaker
And your attorneys charge you three to $500 an hour to respond.
00:38:53
Speaker
Of course.
00:38:53
Speaker
How long are you going to stay in the fight?
00:38:56
Speaker
Right.
00:38:56
Speaker
And that was going to be my next question is,
00:38:59
Speaker
you know, tell me about this legal battle because one of the ways these big companies can win is they just keep everybody bleeding and they know they can bleed longer than you can.
00:39:09
Speaker
And so, so how did you survive that process and come out on top?
00:39:15
Speaker
A lot of prayer, a lot of fasting, a lot of effort, but the thing is, you know, it was, it took a long time.
00:39:27
Speaker
And for the first three years, we were very much on the defense.
00:39:33
Speaker
Go ahead and talk about it now.
00:39:37
Speaker
Well, yes.
00:39:39
Speaker
We initially naively thought that they would sit down and talk with us and that we would be able to come to some kind of mutual.
00:39:50
Speaker
We kind of thought they might want what we had and we were wrong.
00:39:56
Speaker
What we realized is that they thought they could take what we had.
00:40:00
Speaker
And so the very first thing they did was challenge it at the patent office.
00:40:06
Speaker
It was a multi-pronged attack.
00:40:08
Speaker
And they were, you know, I mean, we're a mom and pop in Oklahoma for crying out loud.
00:40:13
Speaker
How long are we going to be able to survive?
00:40:19
Speaker
And like Jeff said, honestly, we felt some divine intervention throughout the whole process or we wouldn't have survived.
00:40:31
Speaker
Can you say more about that?
00:40:32
Speaker
Well, we felt in, no, we didn't feel.
00:40:36
Speaker
We knew that this whole thing was, we felt a gift and we felt obliged to defend it.
00:40:47
Speaker
We didn't feel, we never ever felt impressed to get out of the fight because we felt like it was given to us.
00:40:59
Speaker
Jeff is smart, but he's not that smart.
00:41:05
Speaker
It was a gift.
00:41:06
Speaker
And we felt like, okay, we will defend it until we are told not to.
00:41:12
Speaker
And there were many times that we...
00:41:22
Speaker
Our attorneys would counsel one way and we would say, nope, we need to do something different.
00:41:29
Speaker
And what we presented, there were a couple of times where we said, this is what we feel needs to happen.
00:41:36
Speaker
And our attorneys felt so strongly to the contrary that they wrote it down so that we couldn't come back at them.
00:41:43
Speaker
And it turned out that what we suggested was exactly right.
00:41:48
Speaker
So, so we navigated that on a lot of blind faith.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't blind faith, but it, at times, it was terrifying.
00:41:58
Speaker
It was very intimidating.
00:42:01
Speaker
We, we learned a lot.
00:42:05
Speaker
At times we represented ourselves because they would wear out our law firm and they'd say, we can't keep up with this.
00:42:12
Speaker
You're on your own until you find somebody else.
00:42:16
Speaker
And we would respond to motions.
00:42:19
Speaker
Can you imagine defending yourself in federal court in another state?
00:42:24
Speaker
With a against against a giant corp.
00:42:26
Speaker
No, I can't.
00:42:27
Speaker
I can't imagine large corporation.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, against a corporation that's owned by a larger corporation.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:33
Speaker
And, you know, they were, they should have been able to annihilate us a number of times.
00:42:41
Speaker
And, and we're still kind of dumbfounded that they couldn't, you know, it's one of those things you look back and you go,
00:42:48
Speaker
how on earth did we cross the Red Sea?
00:42:51
Speaker
And that's kind of what it felt like.
00:42:53
Speaker
And this was not, I mean, this was seven years, right?
00:42:56
Speaker
Correct.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, we were in our seventh year when it came to an end.
00:42:59
Speaker
My goodness, can't imagine it.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was tons of fun.
00:43:05
Speaker
What was really... And we were going hand to mouth.
00:43:09
Speaker
They forced us... We actually filed three bankruptcies overall.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, three bankruptcies.
00:43:16
Speaker
And got the patents out of the hands of our company and back into our hands.
00:43:21
Speaker
And that actually worked.
00:43:23
Speaker
Everybody told us don't do that, but we did it.
00:43:24
Speaker
And it actually worked and the law upheld it.
00:43:27
Speaker
And so it was basically...
00:43:31
Speaker
I'd get up in the morning going, oh, what am I going to do today?
00:43:33
Speaker
Oh, nothing.
00:43:34
Speaker
I'm being sued.
00:43:35
Speaker
And so you have to wrestle with that every single day.
00:43:40
Speaker
But when we started representing ourselves, we took a look at it.
00:43:45
Speaker
My wife being so darn tenacious, she basically said, all right, if I've got to do this, I need to know.
00:43:51
Speaker
And so she started looking into stuff and we started filing motions on our own.
00:43:56
Speaker
And if you want to needle the big guy,
00:44:00
Speaker
do it on your own because they can't stop you.
00:44:04
Speaker
And the judges tend to bend over backwards for the guy representing him so it doesn't have legal representation because they can get into trouble if they do.
00:44:14
Speaker
And so they let you get away with a little bit more.
00:44:17
Speaker
And we started, she would call up their attorney and just, that was funny.
00:44:22
Speaker
I would needle him because he couldn't talk to me when we had representation.
00:44:27
Speaker
But when we suddenly were representing ourselves, he couldn't not take my phone calls or answer my emails.
00:44:34
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:34
Speaker
So I made sure that I just sent the most inane questions and just, you know, I wanted to know about form.
Family Dynamics and Future Outlook
00:44:43
Speaker
What font should I use for for filling out this motion?
00:44:49
Speaker
everything I could think of that would annoy him.
00:44:52
Speaker
And I was very successful.
00:44:54
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:44:55
Speaker
That's hilarious.
00:44:56
Speaker
A little bit of satisfaction.
00:44:57
Speaker
We had been suffering through for over, what, three and a half, almost four years at that point.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:03
Speaker
So we were just trying to make them back off and play fair.
00:45:07
Speaker
But as we did this,
00:45:09
Speaker
we discovered that at law, they have a lot of liabilities if they didn't do things right because of their corporate organizations.
00:45:22
Speaker
So we started taking a hard look at that.
00:45:25
Speaker
And we started coming up with counterclaims.
00:45:29
Speaker
And that's when things really got kind of utterly surprising.
00:45:34
Speaker
You know, we came up with, I got...
00:45:40
Speaker
down to a point where we were still representing ourselves.
00:45:42
Speaker
We just missed out on, and we had to come up with somebody that was reputable, and I had this one guy give me a list of names of people in the area where the court was going to be, and he gave me five or six names, and I just went straight to the last name on the list, and I called him.
00:46:01
Speaker
And we had a great conversation.
00:46:04
Speaker
And he took care of a couple of things and said, yeah, we'll take it out of nowhere.
00:46:09
Speaker
And then I found out that he was the head of a patent department in a leading law firm in the area that we were going to.
00:46:16
Speaker
You know, I had no idea who I was talking to.
00:46:18
Speaker
Wow.
00:46:19
Speaker
I probably would have been afraid to call him if I didn't know.
00:46:23
Speaker
But they decided they didn't like the way that we were being treated and they were going to take a shot at helping us out.
00:46:29
Speaker
And so when we sent him, he said, send me your filing.
00:46:34
Speaker
Send me your filings.
00:46:36
Speaker
And when they do that on existing cases, he said, sometimes we even get enough filings to fill a file cabinet drawer.
00:46:45
Speaker
Sure.
00:46:46
Speaker
In our case, he said, you sent your filings and we had 12 linear feet of filing.
00:46:55
Speaker
That's what the war, that was the war we were living with every day.
00:46:59
Speaker
And it was real.
00:47:01
Speaker
It was just a lot to it.
00:47:02
Speaker
They were shaking their head going, holy cow.
00:47:04
Speaker
So they took all these filings to another law firm and had them evaluate the case with the claims that we had put together.
00:47:14
Speaker
And the response that came back and then probably what made them decide to take the case was that, yeah, you're going to win this.
00:47:24
Speaker
You've got good claims and you should probably ask for tens of millions of dollars.
00:47:31
Speaker
Wow.
00:47:31
Speaker
And yeah, he said, now don't go buy an island off the coast of Florida right now.
00:47:35
Speaker
Which was a good thing we didn't.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
But yeah, we're more than happy to take care of this.
00:47:41
Speaker
So.
00:47:42
Speaker
But the other thing that happened at that point in time was because they suddenly, with all the research that was being done, they discovered a lot of federal claims that were then included in our counterclaims and allowed us to suddenly, instead of being the defendants, we became the plaintiff.
00:48:03
Speaker
And that changed the whole thing.
00:48:05
Speaker
So in the last year and a half, we were the plaintiff in the case that they had been trying to beat us to death with.
00:48:10
Speaker
Wow.
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:12
Speaker
And it was just, all of it was about listening to the best that we could, listening to the promptings and the spirit and giving the best that we had.
00:48:27
Speaker
I mean, that's just incredible.
00:48:30
Speaker
I, and, and, you know, it, that is such a scary, like in a vacuum, you
00:48:36
Speaker
the idea of just representing yourself?
00:48:39
Speaker
Because like, there are so many landmines you could have stepped on, right?
00:48:42
Speaker
And just torpedo.
00:48:44
Speaker
At that point, we figured it'd probably be a relief.
00:48:49
Speaker
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of stewardship and some of the power that's in that, I think, is you had this sense that this idea did not belong to you.
00:49:01
Speaker
Right.
00:49:03
Speaker
And so like you didn't have the right necessarily to hand it over.
00:49:07
Speaker
Like it's because it wasn't yours.
00:49:12
Speaker
And I think about the sacrifices that people are willing to make for their kids that maybe they're not willing to make on their own behalf.
00:49:20
Speaker
And the refining effect that that can have on people because there's so many people who know like
00:49:28
Speaker
I mean, I'm going through this right now.
00:49:29
Speaker
Like I, I, I should work out.
00:49:33
Speaker
I don't care enough about my body and my health to do it, but I need to show my kids.
00:49:39
Speaker
And so I go do it.
00:49:41
Speaker
And so there's, there's a, I just think that's a really powerful concept.
00:49:45
Speaker
And it's really interesting to hear how that animated your struggle
Going Online: Challenges and Opportunities
00:49:50
Speaker
here.
00:49:50
Speaker
Cause I mean, it seems like if, if you hadn't,
00:49:54
Speaker
If you had just felt like this is your thing, then like the sort of rational math in your head would be like, well, just give up whatever, you know.
00:50:07
Speaker
But you fought and you won.
00:50:09
Speaker
Let me just kind of throw in here.
00:50:11
Speaker
When he first started doing this, I was not behind it at all.
00:50:16
Speaker
I thought, okay, he's a dreamer and go ahead and dream a little bit.
00:50:20
Speaker
That's fine.
00:50:23
Speaker
But I never dreamed that he would get... I didn't think it would be possible to get a patent.
00:50:28
Speaker
I wasn't engaged at all.
00:50:31
Speaker
I wrote the patent.
00:50:32
Speaker
He wrote the patent as well.
00:50:35
Speaker
And so...
00:50:38
Speaker
because I'm a little more tech savvy than he is, he had me file it online.
00:50:45
Speaker
And it was a very interesting experience because I still was thinking, well, okay, it's gonna cost a few hundred dollars, but you know, that's fine.
00:50:54
Speaker
It'll make him feel good and I'll go ahead and do it.
00:50:58
Speaker
And when I hit the send button on that patent application, I literally heard, you just got a patent.
00:51:09
Speaker
And I thought to myself, oh, my goodness, we just got and I like the word you use.
00:51:14
Speaker
We just got a stewardship.
00:51:17
Speaker
And and and that is exactly what it was when it came time when we got to the end of our lawsuit.
00:51:25
Speaker
And I don't know how much Adam shared with you.
00:51:28
Speaker
They were going we were we were out where the lawsuit was being held in Utah.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:35
Speaker
And a jury was going, we were going for a jury trial and we were doing all the pre-trial stuff.
00:51:43
Speaker
And I was watching our judge who was listening to our attorney give what he intended to present.
00:51:52
Speaker
And I knew the minute that the judge saw we were going to win.
00:51:58
Speaker
we were going to have a jury seated on the following Tuesday.
00:52:04
Speaker
They were already bringing in the witnesses, and I knew that the judge knew we were going to win, and he demanded that we settle.
00:52:13
Speaker
And he did a number of things that were really interesting, but
00:52:20
Speaker
When we decided to settle, our attorney said, what do you want?
00:52:25
Speaker
And our feeling was, you have taken this case on good faith.
00:52:31
Speaker
You get whatever you need.
00:52:33
Speaker
All we have ever wanted is the right to be in business.
00:52:39
Speaker
And maybe we should have been a little more specific because that's all we got.
00:52:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:46
Speaker
was the right to be in business, but we got the right to be in business and the satisfaction of knowing that we didn't, we didn't, we, I feel we did not fail in our stewardship.
00:52:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:00
Speaker
Well, we had, we got a look at the judicial system from every angle imaginable.
00:53:07
Speaker
And some of the judges that we talked to or that we had our case before seem to be excellent people.
00:53:16
Speaker
And others, I mean, they're human.
00:53:19
Speaker
And this guy, when my wife mentioned that she saw that the judge understood, he stopped our attorney, you know, less than five, maybe 10 minutes later, he stopped our attorney in mid-presentation.
00:53:33
Speaker
And told him, he said, while it's true that you may gain an exorbitant award from the jury, because they were asking more than we ever thought possible.
00:53:44
Speaker
And they were asking for big bucks.
00:53:45
Speaker
And he said, it may be true that you will gain this award.
00:53:50
Speaker
What you need to understand is that I'm going to commute it.
00:53:54
Speaker
And that caused everybody to go, huh?
00:53:57
Speaker
And he said, you will probably disagree with that decision and file
00:54:02
Speaker
an appeal to the state appellate court and you have every right to do so.
00:54:07
Speaker
And ultimately you will probably be successful in that effort, but it'll take two years at least.
00:54:14
Speaker
And they need to understand at the end of that two years, they're gonna send it back to me.
00:54:21
Speaker
I think you should go to lunch and settle.
00:54:24
Speaker
And we found out a few things about the judge after the fact and their law firm and those kinds of things.
00:54:30
Speaker
You know, my goodness.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:33
Speaker
So we're not, we're not surprised by anything that goes on in Washington, DC.
00:54:38
Speaker
Nothing happens.
00:54:39
Speaker
They're surprising to us at all.
00:54:41
Speaker
You know, we we've seen all the, all the friendliness.
00:54:43
Speaker
I mean, we've seen that whole thing.
00:54:45
Speaker
So, so basically we were done and got most of the attorneys paid and taken care of and got a promise that they had to leave us alone and that we wouldn't, uh,
00:54:56
Speaker
rattle against them.
00:54:59
Speaker
By name.
00:55:00
Speaker
If there's a slip, make sure it's been edited out.
00:55:02
Speaker
Roger that.
00:55:03
Speaker
That's just such an incredible story.
00:55:04
Speaker
How did you feel?
00:55:05
Speaker
Another piece of this.
00:55:06
Speaker
When the fight is not your own, it seems like
00:55:27
Speaker
it's maybe easier to let go of the resentment.
00:55:33
Speaker
Was it, was it hard for you to just, I mean, did it set your teeth on edge for a long time thereafter or, or was it easy to put it behind you?
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah, that was a mixed bag of nuts.
00:55:47
Speaker
All right.
00:55:48
Speaker
Sure.
00:55:48
Speaker
Sure.
00:55:49
Speaker
Mainly because
00:55:51
Speaker
Well, we were relieved for one thing, finally, you know, our daughter growing up didn't ever know a time that we weren't doing this mess.
00:56:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:02
Speaker
And how badly it affected our family and the things that we had to forego and do to take care of it.
00:56:08
Speaker
But on the other hand, because we had been guided through this or sought guidance and gone through this, we were fully looking forward with expectation towards the future and still are.
00:56:24
Speaker
There's no reason not to be.
00:56:25
Speaker
Let me just qualify that.
00:56:29
Speaker
We don't have a retirement because of this experience.
00:56:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:34
Speaker
But...
00:56:37
Speaker
What we learned is that if you trust in the arm of flesh, you're going to be very, very disappointed.
00:56:48
Speaker
And I have no idea where our future is going to take us.
00:56:54
Speaker
We're getting to the point where we kind of need to have some plans.
00:56:58
Speaker
But I also know that intervention happens, and it happens in ways you don't expect.
00:57:07
Speaker
We had enough experiences during that lawsuit where we knew divine intervention was the only reason we were still in the game.
00:57:18
Speaker
And none of it you saw coming and none of it you saw coming.
00:57:21
Speaker
It always, it always was a surprise.
00:57:25
Speaker
And welcome.
00:57:26
Speaker
Very welcome.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:28
Speaker
I mean, the reason I ask about that is because I recently had, I mean, I lost my job recently and, and a big part of that struggle was for, for a lot of people is just the, the, the, the rage at the unfairness of it.
00:57:46
Speaker
And, um,
00:57:48
Speaker
And I found that knowing, knowing that God was with me and was part of that, uh, was part of that struggle, um, just made it so much easier to, to handle because I could, I could feel that there was a, a purpose behind it and a, and there was a meaning to it.
00:58:10
Speaker
It wasn't just, you know, damage.
00:58:14
Speaker
And, and I can see, you know, with, with your situation, um,
00:58:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly what you're saying, that you don't know how it's going to work out, but you've come so far and you've seen such miracles in the past that it's like, you know, how could it not?
00:58:37
Speaker
How could it not figure itself out?
00:58:39
Speaker
Well, we had some anxious moments.
00:58:41
Speaker
Don't think.
00:58:42
Speaker
Don't think.
00:58:43
Speaker
And I particularly had a lot of resentment at times because of how it was impacting my family, my kids, our daughter in particular.
00:58:57
Speaker
Although I see in hindsight, a lot of blessings that came as a result, but a lot of the ability to get rid of the animosity came in hindsight.
00:59:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:09
Speaker
it didn't happen as we were going through it.
00:59:12
Speaker
I was pretty angry a lot of the time.
00:59:16
Speaker
Even though I was recognizing blessings as they happened, I was still angry that we had to do this at all.
00:59:22
Speaker
And it's in hindsight, when you look back and you go, oh, okay, I see now.
00:59:28
Speaker
You're able to let go of some of that bitterness or all of the bitterness, actually.
00:59:35
Speaker
And, you know, there are things that I wish had turned out a little bit differently.
00:59:41
Speaker
But the blessings that resulted far outweigh
00:59:48
Speaker
And, you know, hey, this is a short life and then we move on.
00:59:51
Speaker
So what the heck.
00:59:53
Speaker
If we have to live in a cardboard box down by the river, well, that's the way it goes.
00:59:57
Speaker
I'll hear about that, I'm sure.
01:00:02
Speaker
I would rather, having learned and gone through what we've been and still are going through, I would rather...
01:00:09
Speaker
be broke all my life and die than be one of these rich guys going through his life and die because of his accountabilities, because he hasn't learned what we've learned.
01:00:20
Speaker
You know, existence doesn't stop when you exit mortality.
01:00:26
Speaker
The older you get, the more things you've seen.
01:00:30
Speaker
And that really, it is true.
01:00:33
Speaker
And I might not have believed that so much at 25.
01:00:37
Speaker
But I have seen so much between then and now that, yeah, there's no question.
01:00:43
Speaker
And these people that are running around right now in the news, for example, that have these bazillions of dollars and it's still not enough.
01:00:52
Speaker
You know, I would hate to have to stand somewhere and explain my behavior in that line.
01:00:59
Speaker
Well, and I'd also add that one of the huge benefits of this was that our family pulled together as a family.
01:01:07
Speaker
Our kids were rooting for us.
01:01:09
Speaker
They were as engaged as we were in the outcome.
01:01:13
Speaker
And it created, you know, we're close to our adult kids because they know and went through what we went through.
01:01:23
Speaker
We did it together collectively.
01:01:25
Speaker
And I think that was...
01:01:27
Speaker
significant.
01:01:29
Speaker
Particularly where we'd had a couple of kids who gave us a run for the money.
01:01:34
Speaker
It kind of purged that and made us a more solid family, which how can you ever think that that was a waste of time?
01:01:44
Speaker
Well, every teenager that I've known who had a problem with their parents
01:01:54
Speaker
so much of it was contempt.
01:01:56
Speaker
So much of it was like, I just don't, I just don't find anything about this person that I, that I respect or admire or, or, or want to emulate.
01:02:03
Speaker
And, and to watch someone show that kind of courage and that kind of tenacity, um, I, it doesn't surprise me that, that your kids, uh, found that respect and, and, and we're able to, to,
01:02:22
Speaker
sort of nose up and build that relationship with you because yeah, I mean, just hearing the story myself, it's like, that's so remarkable.
01:02:30
Speaker
And, and, and, you know, your kids got to watch their parents be remarkable people and have a remarkable experience.
01:02:36
Speaker
And so, and I, and I almost wonder if, because like, I don't think adolescent rebellion has always been like this.
01:02:46
Speaker
I think it's a relatively new thing and I'm thinking out loud here, but yeah,
01:02:52
Speaker
I wonder if it is just because parents are so, their real life and the real problems they're dealing with, their kids are just never privy to, they never see them.
01:03:03
Speaker
And, you know, they sort of leave for the day and that doesn't get to happen.
01:03:09
Speaker
They don't get to see it.
01:03:10
Speaker
And so for them to see you do that, I'm sure made a huge difference.
01:03:16
Speaker
That's a good observation and I think there's some truth to that.
01:03:21
Speaker
Our poor daughter, this started when she was beginning middle school and as we took her off to college for her first year of college, we dropped her off at the dorm and then went straight to the courthouse.
01:03:35
Speaker
And so she was engaged in that whole, all of her middle school, all of her high school.
01:03:42
Speaker
It was just, it was ridiculous is what it was.
01:03:47
Speaker
But we're all very close.
01:03:51
Speaker
And I've always said that there's nothing a teenager disrespects more than hypocrisy and his parents.
01:04:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:04:03
Speaker
And they saw that and we shared with them some of the spiritual things that were happening.
01:04:10
Speaker
And they saw that we were doing our best to be true to to what we believed was
01:04:18
Speaker
divine help and that we had a stewardship and um i think they respected that and they also hoped we'd have a great financial outcome i had promised geos for everybody at one point yeah that didn't materialize geos for everybody that's hilarious
01:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that too, just the sense of existential struggle, that's not something that most families experience together, at least in a way that they're honest about with their kids.
01:04:56
Speaker
And yeah, a sense that we need to figure this out, us, together.
01:05:02
Speaker
We need to figure this out or we are not going to be okay.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:09
Speaker
Incredible.
01:05:11
Speaker
Well, thank you so much.
01:05:12
Speaker
This was just a fascinating conversation.
01:05:15
Speaker
I can't wait to get it edited and thrown up for the guys to listen to.
01:05:22
Speaker
Tell me a little bit about, so you kind of intimated that this product is something that you are distributing to other carpet cleaning companies.
01:05:35
Speaker
Is that true?
01:05:37
Speaker
Um, it it's, we sell it online.
01:05:39
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:40
Speaker
You know, we, we clean carpets with it, but we get it out there and we have sold, uh, coast to coast, um, Canada.
01:05:49
Speaker
We had a patent in Canada and we've sold, I don't know, we've shipped to where Australia, but mainly it's, uh, we're more interested in the local market.
01:06:02
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:04
Speaker
the in the industry itself in this industry all of the teaching and leaning is towards the steam cleaning archaic non-thinking flood it suck it out all that you know it's just and that that's where everything goes yeah and occasionally you get people that really look at this and yeah i could do that and have a little system or something that they had tried or
01:06:31
Speaker
buy our product and discover that it works better than their steam cleaning stuff and then get the equipment to make it work even better yet.
01:06:40
Speaker
Because it makes, we rented a home's carpet cleaning system from a store downtown.
01:06:49
Speaker
You know, you go down there and you rent one of these little things and you bring it home and you back your own store and they sell you all these little soapy products.
01:06:56
Speaker
Sure.
01:06:56
Speaker
And we put our cleaner in there.
01:06:59
Speaker
And it made such a difference that that machine did a really nice job.
01:07:04
Speaker
The biggest thing it did was it left it too wet.
01:07:09
Speaker
But otherwise, it cleaned very well using our cleaner.
01:07:12
Speaker
Our cleaner is good no matter how you do it.
01:07:15
Speaker
But it's best if you do it with the buffer and the bonnet.
01:07:20
Speaker
Okay, so where can people find that product?
01:07:26
Speaker
At carbonatedsolution.com.
01:07:28
Speaker
carbonated solutions.com all right so i i i think there's going to be some interest in this and and and folks are going to want to check it out because we have several um
01:07:40
Speaker
sort of budding entrepreneurs looking for a hustle.
01:07:42
Speaker
So I'm going to send them to carbonatedsolutions.com to look into how they can get started.
01:07:48
Speaker
Our phone number's on there, I believe.
01:07:50
Speaker
And if they want to talk to Jeff, because we've been reluctant to put too many specifics on our website.
01:07:57
Speaker
So it's a very scaled down website in terms of information.
01:08:05
Speaker
We'd rather deal with people on a one-on-one basis and kind of try to help them address what they might need to get going.
01:08:13
Speaker
One of the biggest challenges that Jeff referenced is there's a whole industry that doesn't understand the industry.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:22
Speaker
And they don't want to understand it.
01:08:24
Speaker
They're much more.
01:08:26
Speaker
more comfortable saying, well, I have to have an $80,000 truck, I have to have all of this stuff.
01:08:32
Speaker
And no, you really don't.
01:08:34
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of people don't value something that they haven't paid tremendous dollars for.
01:08:43
Speaker
So, so we prefer to just talk to people on one on one basis as we can and and find out what, what they're trying to achieve so that we can suggest, here's a route for you to try.
01:08:55
Speaker
And so, if they don't find what they're looking for on the website, they can always call.
01:09:04
Speaker
Well, that's music to my ears.
01:09:04
Speaker
I love to be able to send somebody to someone.
01:09:06
Speaker
And I just am sort of a believer in doing things at a human scale.
01:09:11
Speaker
So that's fantastic.
01:09:13
Speaker
And I'm sure we'll have folks headed your way.
01:09:17
Speaker
If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at Exit, it's exitgroup.us.
01:09:20
Speaker
You can register there.
01:09:22
Speaker
Thanks a lot.
01:09:22
Speaker
We'll see you next time.