May 22, 2025 • 40 mins
After 35 years in the corporate world, Andy Brennan hit a crossroads. At 55, he walked away from a steady paycheck and a VP-level job—and took a leap of faith into small business ownership.
In this episode of Monkey Business Radio, Andy joins Chris and Dennis to talk about the journey from burnout to business ownership. They cover the early days of Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys, the value of planning (and re-planning), and how trust, partnership, and a simple business model laid the foundation for success.
You’ll hear how Andy and Dennis built the company out of a garage, used church bulletins and radio ads to land their first jobs, and why they chose to focus solely on gutters. They also share how the franchise idea came to life when customers started asking, “Can I do what you do?”
If you’ve ever thought about leaving the 9-to-5 behind—or wondered what it takes to build a business later in life—this one’s for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
What if the best years of your career weren't
behind you but ahead of you andcompletely your own?
In this episode, taking theLeap of Faith, we're joined by
Andy Brennan, co-founder of theCape Cod Gutter Monkeys and the
American Gutter Monkeys, wholeft a 35-year corporate career
at the age of 55 to start over.
No roadmap, no safety net, justa trusted partner, a simple
idea and a leap of faith.
(00:23):
Andy shares how he went from aprinting company to the rooftops
of Cape Cod and what it took tolaunch a new business later in
life, why customer service,humility and hustle still win
the day we talk risk rewardradio ads and the moment he
realized they had somethingworth franchising.
We have a great show for you,so grab a cup of coffee, sit
back, relax and welcome toMonkey Business Radio.
(00:51):
Hello everyone, welcome toepisode 15, taking the Leap of
Faith.
As always, I'm here with DennisSiggins.
How are you doing, Chris?
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys.
Hello, dennis, and we have aspecial guest We've been trying
to get him on the show for awhile His partner in crime, andy
Brennan of the Cape Cod GutterMonkeys and American Gutter
Monkeys.
Great to be here, guys.
Hey, andy, glad to have you onthe show.
(01:12):
We've been trying to drag Andyin here for a while.
We finally got him.
So here we go.
We're going to talk about thegenesis of the Cape Cod Gutter
Monkeys and then we kind of rollinto American kind of monkeys.
But why don't we start with?
Where do you want to startCollege?
I guess that's where you guysmet college roommates.
How about this?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Andy and I met in the fall of 1977 at Bentley College
.
We were roommates.
Andy was from East Walpole, Iwas from Framingham and housing
threw us in the same roomtogether and we've been friends
ever since.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Welcome to the show, Andy.
Hey, thank you A pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Usually as college roommate first freshman year.
Things don't work out, but youguys made it through that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Andy and I lived together for four years in
college and that was a long timeago and he still lets me hang
out with him.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
After all these years I still like the guy.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We still get along pretty well, andy after college.
I mean we had a great time incollege.
I think we learned a lot.
Andy was really a superstar atBentley's soccer program back in
the day, and after college Iwent one way and Andy went into
the corporate world.
Talk about that, andy.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, I kind of took the traditional approach.
After college you go into thecorporate world, go into the
nine to five type of job.
That's what I did.
I went into the printingbusiness and 35 years later I
was feeling the struggles ofcorporate life where you had
really no control over yourfuture and at the time there was
(02:36):
a lot of payroll freezes,mergers, acquisitions,
constricting job market, thingsthat made me think what do I
want to do for the rest of mylife?
I was 55 years old and was at acrossroads, didn't know what I
wanted to do next.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And then one day, Andy and I were talking and even
though we didn't work together,we went in separate directions.
I was self-employed my wholeadult life, but Andy and I, we
married our wives back in 1983.
And in 2013,.
Back in 1983.
(03:10):
And in 2013, Andy suggestedthat we bring our wives to
Hawaii to celebrate our 30thwedding anniversaries together,
which we did, and that's whereAndy started bringing up the
subject of maybe him and mestarting a business together on
the beaches of Maui.
I thought it was the margaritastalking and it wasn't.
That's where we started talkingabout starting a business
together which would evolve intothe Cape Cod gutter monkeys.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, for the last five years of my business life I
was always wanted to be inself-employed, but I said to
myself I have, you know, theknowledge, but what skills do I
have that I can actually go anddo my own job?
I'm not a carpenter.
I don't have the skills Dennishas.
That takes years to gain thosekind of skills.
What could I do that actually Icould go out and actually do my
(03:51):
own job.
And that's when Dennis and Istarted kicking ideas around and
boy I tell you, we came up witha beauty.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, we did.
This is the best business.
The Gutter Monkeys is the bestbusiness I've ever owned, and my
business partner for my wholelife was always my wife and she
came on board, and Andy's wife,nancy, came on board Two couples
that we had known each otherfor well over 30 years.
At the time, we trusted oneanother implicitly and it was a
(04:22):
great match.
It really worked out well andwe're still running a wonderful
business and it's expanded intoseveral other business
opportunities as well.
But it really did.
It started in Maui and when weget home and that was in 2013,
andy, it was in September, itwas January you called me and
(04:43):
then we started talking aboutthis business that would turn
into the gutter monkeys.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, the funny thing is we we literally just kicking
ideas around.
There was no exact plan.
We started in January, februaryhey, let's come up with a, what
kind of business do we want toget into?
And then it turned into well,let's, what are we going to come
up with?
A name and what are our colorsgoing to be.
And it took us months to comeup with a business plan and
still no exact plan of exactlywhen or if we're going to do
(05:12):
this.
It was just an idea at thispoint.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And you were doing all kinds of work.
Right, you were doing decks andpainting.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I was sort of semi-retired, so I was doing
handyman work.
I was in the trades most of mylife.
So so I was doing handyman work, I was in the trades most of my
life.
So I was doing light carpentryand you know, for families,
friends and neighbors, and wepretty much zeroed in on gutter
cleaning, repairs andmaintenance here in Cape Cod.
And so one of the first thingsAndy and I agreed to is that
(05:39):
Andy would work his corporatejob he lived in Walpole at the
time Monday to Friday and hewould come down every weekend
and we would do a job together.
So we were like we built anoutdoor shower, we were building
a deck.
The next weekend we might put aroof on a cottage.
I mean, we replaced somewindows just to see if Andy
really was going to adapt nicelyto working with our hands.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I've been sitting behind a desk for 35 years and,
you know, did I really want togo out and climb ladders and
jump on roofs and do thephysical work that's necessary
for the job?
And yeah, it was a good kind ofa good training ground.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But you adapted quickly.
Yeah, You're not afraid ofheights.
Yeah, First time I watched youwalk on a roof I think we did my
mom and dad's roof out inDennisport you walked on with a
crew and you couldn't tell Andy.
You couldn't tell that that washis first day on a roof.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So did you get the feeling of liberation?
I remember I kind of left mybusiness, sort of did a
semi-retirement and walking outthat door moving on to a new
project like the gutter monkeys.
It must've been prettyliberating.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Oh my God, it was the best feeling in the world Scary
.
You don't know where your nextpaycheck is coming from.
But my whole life was Monday toFriday.
I knew exactly what I was goingto get paid, no matter if I
missed days, if I was sick, itdidn't really matter.
But the liberation of actuallyknowing the harder you work, the
more money you make Wow, what aconcept.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Exactly Take control of your own life.
I remember I never left tostart my own company, but I went
to successively smallerstartups and each time I felt
more liberated and I got exactlydown to what you just said.
You know, I left the safety ofa 40 hour week to work in a
startup, but I felt like I hadmore control over my life and
where it was going and, at theend of the day, I was getting
(07:19):
paid for the amount of work Iwas, more time I was putting in.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So yeah, my, my big questions to myself was you know
, did my years of experience inthe corporate world?
Was that transferable toself-employment?
And?
And the answer to myself was Idon't think I could do it on my
own.
I needed a partner, you know.
I know I have a lot of skills,but self-employment, you know,
was pretty new to me.
I didn't know exactly, you know, how to handle that kind of
(07:43):
world.
So, you know, I knew, withDennis as my partner, we can do
anything Truly, we can doanything physically, you know,
and we had different skills butthey kind of merged well
together.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So tell me about I mean you must have the
conversation with Nancy, ofcourse giving up the paycheck
but all your friends and familyand stuff like that.
What was their reaction to youactually going off?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I had a couple of funny reactions where I was like
you know, what are you doing?
What are you wasting yourcollege education for?
But you know, dennis and I wentto business school.
And what better use of abusiness school degree than to
start a business from zero andgrow it to a multimillion dollar
company?
That's exactly why I went toBentley.
Yeah, and yeah, there was a lotof doubt In theory.
I quit my job, I sold my house,I moved down to the Cape and I
(08:29):
started a business all within ayear.
Not not a lot of people do thatwhen they're 55 years old.
But again, and then why did Ido it?
Because I was not happy in mycurrent job.
I mean, I just I saw the future.
I was 55 years old.
I said, hmm, what am I gonna dofor the next 10 years?
I just didn't have any faith inthe working for the man you
know.
So it's like.
Again, I wanted to do itbecause I was disappointed in my
(08:54):
current career, where it wasgoing and where I thought it was
going.
But without a partner, a solidpartner who could help me
navigate the stuff I didn't know, I wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There's no way.
I would have done it Until youstarted talking about it today.
You know, pre-show, I wasthinking about this as well.
You know, one thing I keptrunning up against when I wanted
to get out of my business wasyou got a master's degree in
computer engineering.
Why would you ever go to painthouses or install brick
sidewalks and things like that?
You have a master's degree.
The one thing that probablywould have got me over that was
a partner.
I didn't bump into that personwho had a similar way and wanted
(09:27):
to go into it with me or, youknow, kind of take each other
along down that path, and sothat was kind of one of the
things I missed, I think, is nothaving that partnership.
Yeah, I mean again.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
You got to take a chance in life, you know, and
what I did is I took a gamble onmyself.
I took a gamble on myself andDennis that you know this
company was going to succeed.
I really didn't doubt myself itwas.
You know people say, wow, whata gamble you took.
I almost I didn't see it as agamble.
I knew Dennis was a solidself-employed guy.
His whole life he ran manybusinesses.
(09:58):
I had no doubt that this wasgoing to be a success.
Didn't know exactly how well.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, you didn't so much take a risk as you assess
the risk, and there's adifference between a risk taker
and a risk assessor.
And I think what you did, andy,was you what we did I remember
talking about it was we built abusiness model that I eliminated
most of the normal risks andthe rest you just got to work
(10:26):
through them.
I mean, you did take a big riskbecause you probably had a
six-figure salary, probably hadyour name on the door and that's
a lot to walk away from.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, Like I said it was, if I was really happy in my
job, I wouldn't have done it.
You know, if I wasn't, thefuture was uncertain Again, a
lot of things back in that timewhere corporate life was going
downhill.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That's why I went into the startups.
After a while I looked aroundand said wait a minute.
The odds of me getting laid offor getting fired in this job,
this big company, is just asgreat as going to the startup.
I might as well just go to thestartup where there's some more
potential for return.
It worked out that way, butyeah, yeah, I can hear you.
So how did this kind of all?
What did it look like in theearly days?
What were you guys doing?
How'd you start out?
(11:08):
How fast did it evolve intosomething bigger than just the
two guys in a truck?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, I remember in August of 2014,.
We started our radio adcampaign.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Oh, so you started the radio ad right out of the
gate A month before.
A month before Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Then we also took out ad space in every church
bulletin, every Catholic churchbulletin on Cape Cod, and
there's something like 16different churches, yeah, and so
Because every good Catholicknows.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's what you read during the gospel, during the
homily.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You're out there reading the ads, I think that we
spent $2,500 a monthadvertising and the first month
in September, we did like $4,000in gross revenues, and then the
second month we did $7,000.
And the third month, I think,we did about $11,000 or
something.
But I do remember, andy, it wasback in maybe June that we
(12:03):
actually decided okay, we'regoing forward, forward.
We shook hands and we eachwrote a check for eight thousand
dollars and we opened up a bankaccount, a checking account, in
the business checkingdepartment over at rockland
trust, and that's how we startedthe business and that was a big
one, because before that, themonths before, was just kind of.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
we were just kind of playing around.
We said okay, let's come, saidokay, let's come up with a name,
let's come up with a concept,until we put the money down.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
It was all fun.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it was all fun until we said I guess we're
doing this, I'm quitting my job,right, I guess I am Again.
You can't do it without asupportive spouse, there's no
doubt.
Oh gosh, yeah, nancy was I.
And she says oh no, no, no no.
And you know it was the rightthing to do Wait patiently, plan
.
Like I said, this, all aboutthis is about planning.
We planned.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
We really did, yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And then, when we started September 1, 2014, we
were ready to go and, you know,again, advertising helped.
You know, we didn't knowexactly how we're going to get
the business, but we knew thatwe're a marketing company, we're
going to market ourselves andpeople are going to call us.
We don't sell people, we marketourselves.
People call us and we're thesolution to their problem.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Andy, talk about that last month of work in the
corporate world.
Remember you've often talkedabout that and I remember you
were calling me every other dayas you led up to giving your
notice and then preparing toleave the company.
Talk about those final twomonths.
Your superior at work one ofthe owners, told you you've got
(13:31):
to lay some people off andyou've got to fire some people
and you had just hired one ofthem.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
My goal was to give them like three weeks notice.
That's what my goal was.
I said I'll be fair.
I you know I liked the guy.
But he called me in once,probably six weeks before we
started a company.
He said, nope, you got to laythis guy off.
I said we just hired him.
How can I lay him off?
We got to lay him off.
I said, well, I'm going to letyou know I'm leaving, let me go
(13:54):
and we'll keep this guy.
And he goes.
No, don't be a martyr.
I said I'm not being a martyr,I'm leaving and I didn't want to
.
But you know, eventually it waslike, yeah, it's not printing,
it's not, I'm not going to begoing to the competitor, but
I'll give you six weeks notice.
And you know it worked outphenomenally.
(14:15):
It was like the timing wasperfect.
The timing was just perfect.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So how quickly did the business then kind of become
gutter cleaning exclusively andthen eventually gutter
installation.
How quickly did that occur?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Right away.
I mean, we started cleaninggutters and the ancillary work
started falling in our laps.
We would clean gutters, repairthem, flush them, tune them up.
And when you install gutters,oftentimes you take a gutter
down you find rotted wood behindit.
So we replace the rotted wood,we scrape, seal and paint the
fascia boards, hang a new gutter.
(14:47):
And sometimes the customerwould say they look so good, can
you paint the rest of my trim?
So we'd take that job.
Then we brought on Chris, whowas a nephew of Andy's.
He was our first hire and hecame on.
And then I think Adam was ournext hire, andy's son, and over
that first year I think we grewto maybe six, seven people in
(15:08):
the field.
Oh, that quick.
And then, yeah, within a year.
And then Babs, my wife, came on, and then Nancy came on a few
months later.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Well, that's a whole other thing, right?
When you start, not only areyou responsible for your
paycheck, but now you'reresponsible for other people's
paycheck.
That's a different level.
That's a different level ofstress at that point.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, I wouldn't say stress, it's a different level
of responsibility.
Yeah, yeah, that went up prettyquick.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
But when we first started again, we would take any
job.
Like when you first start dayone, the phone's not ringing and
people aren't calling becausethey don't know us yet.
So we took any job we could.
We took painting jobs,carpentry jobs, anything we
could, and it just grew fromthere.
You know what I'm saying.
It's one of those things thatwe had the skill to do a lot of
(15:51):
things and we did it Whatever ittook to get the company rolling
.
There was going to be valleys,there was going to be peaks and
again, proper planning helped usout a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
But also we never strayed from the fact that we're
a gutter company.
We didn't advertise carpentryor ancillary work like painting.
We didn't advertise it.
If it came our way we wouldtake it, but from a marketing
and branding standpoint, westayed true and we still have
stayed true to the fact thatwe're a gutter company, first
(16:20):
and foremost.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, so years later, when you got a slow point, you
didn't bail and start powerwashing houses or cleaning
windows or something like that.
You stuck to your mission.
You stuck to your branding andyour marketing.
Yeah, we stuck to our missionstatement, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
That's exactly right, because in any business, no
matter whether it's therestaurant world or the
automotive world, you're alwaysgoing to have busy seasons and
slow seasons, peaks and valleys,and so you always want to stay
true to your mission statement,to what it is that you do.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And having a partner helps with that, because you're
bouncing ideas off of each other.
You might have a doubt one day,but the other guy is there.
No, no, we got this, we gotthis, and back and forth, yeah
that's exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
You always have somebody to lean on.
And you know we said we had.
Our basic thing was that wecustomer services lacking in the
service business.
In the service area we like tocall people back the same day
when they call us.
If we don't answer the phoneright away and you know there's
a thousand landscapers on CapeCod but you try to get someone
to call you back it's almostimpossible.
So just common courtesy, commoncustomer services is so lacking
(17:22):
in the business.
So people used to thank us justfor showing up on time.
It was amazing.
We showed up at 8 o'clock andthey said oh wow, you showed up.
Yeah, isn't that what you'resupposed to do?
I mean, it's common sense.
But boy, I'll tell you peopleappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
We've talked about that in past podcasts about
customer service.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, we had traditional offices, Andy and I.
We always had a traditionalhave is that they oftentimes use
their cell phone as theirbusiness phone and when that's
(18:09):
in your pocket and it startsringing, they often feel they
have to answer that phone, asopposed to having an office that
is staffed by one or two ormore people.
So for the most part after thefirst four or five months, at
the very beginning it was justAndy, myself and an answering
machine.
But after a couple of months,when my wife Barbara came on,
(18:30):
she became our office managerand she'd done that before.
This was nothing new for her.
And then we brought Nancy onand then Bruce, our third
roommate from Bentley College.
He was working remotely runningour website.
So we really had a tightfive-person team early on and
that grew into what it is today.
(18:51):
But really the key wasold-school business.
That's what it is Answer thatphone.
If you're really busy and youcan't get to it, the machine
picks it up.
Then you call right back andwe've always run a traditional
office where you can take careof the customer's questions and
needs.
Somebody's always in the office.
I think that's one of thethings that separates us from so
(19:13):
many of the other businessesout there.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, another thing we touched on in past podcasts
was this idea of old school isinnovation.
Today, you know, answering thephone, having someone answer and
having a landline like that,that's an innovation because
people don't do that anymore andyet it, you know, really
resulted in some amazing growthin your early years because you
had someone answering the phone.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, our website has pictures of ourselves.
So you know, it's verificationwhen people like, oh, what about
the gutter monkeys?
Well, look at the website.
You'll see a picture of me,you'll see a picture of Dennis,
you'll see a picture ofeverybody in our office.
So we're here.
I go to a lot of websites and Ihave no idea if they're on Cape
Cod or in California.
You have no idea where they are, so we just like to let people
know who we are and where we are.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So at some point you started adding trucks.
I mean, at some point you guyshad to sit down once again and
say, okay, we're going to haveto take this to the next level.
We're a couple of trucks, weneed the extruders and so on,
and so forth.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So that's a whole other level of kind of ranching
up things.
Again, we try to do thingsbefore we have to.
So we were growing pretty fast.
So we were hiring people,probably earlier than we needed
to, but we wanted to train themand get them up and running.
So when the busy season hits,they were up and running.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, that's another interesting thing you guys have
touched on a couple of times isthis idea of acting before you
need you know, hiring the personbefore you need them, buying
the truck before you need itthat's a very hard thing, you
know now American gutter monkeyswe have go out, we have our
franchisees.
That's a very hard thing toconvey to a franchisee.
Is this idea of taking againtaking that leap of faith and
buying that truck before youneed it or hiring that employee
(20:40):
before you need them.
Well, especially post-COVID.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We cannot get the truck we want in three days.
Andy remember it was like 2019,Christmas week that's when we
always buy our trucks and webought a pair of 2020 trucks and
it was 2019, Christmas week.
We went in like on a Tuesdayand they had one of them in
stock on the lot and they saidcome back on Friday and pick
(21:04):
them both up.
And we came back three or fourdays later, picked up both
trucks and drove them back tothe shop.
Today, this year, 2000,.
Well, just past 2024, weordered two new trucks Christmas
week of 23.
We picked them up.
We took delivery something likeJune.
It takes six months If you wanta silver Tacoma in this
(21:28):
particular color, matchfour-door with a six-foot bed
that matches our fleet.
They just can't get them thatfast.
So you have to order thembefore you need them, and I
don't think it's necessarily somuch a leap of faith.
Is this confidence in yourbusiness model?
Yep, Yep.
And you have to understand thatpost-COVID getting trucks and
(21:49):
inventory in general isdifferent than pre-COVID, and
that's just an adjustment we allhad to make.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
You must have had some interesting conversations
leading up to COVID or in COVIDabout how to run the business,
whether the business is going tosurvive, et cetera, et cetera.
Or were you guys pretty muchlocked in at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Nobody can predict the future, and no one could
have predicted COVID.
But you know, if you run yourcompany as debt free as possible
, you know little humps in theroad aren't going to bother us.
If you have a business that youhave a lot of leases and rents
and you get into a COVIDsituation where you shut down
for months or weeks, that'sgoing to put you out of business
(22:25):
.
We didn't prepare for COVID,but we were prepared for
anything.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Again, another thing we touchon in this podcast a lot is that
ability to if your finances arein order, you have a lot of
latitude to kind of go, you know, go with the flow, take
whatever punch gets thrown atyou and be able to survive it.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And also we were able to pivot.
We never really planned tofranchise, it wasn't part of our
business plan.
But as the company grew, weadjusted and we pivoted with it.
And when customers are comingup to us and asking us if they
can geez, can they do what we do?
And Dennis and I said, yeah, Iguess we can.
You know, because it's a simplebusiness plan, it's not a
complicated business plan.
(23:05):
But you know, if you follow therules you could succeed also.
So that's how kind of wepivoted into American.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Gutter Monkeys.
Okay, so people started comingto you and saying can I do this
too?
A customer.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
A customer said wow, I love what you guys do.
You think we could get intothis kind of business and we'd
never thought about it before.
But we said, sure, let's comeup with something.
And we did.
And then that spun off toanother customer, another person
coming in, and then so on andso forth, and kind of American
gutter.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Monkeys was born.
Okay, how many years in wasthat about Two?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, two and a half Okay, wow.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That was fast.
We had bounced around manyideas.
There were a lot of ideas.
Whenever you're starting abusiness, no matter how much you
think you know, you only know asmall amount.
And then, as we move forward,we say, oh wow, there's
additional ancillary work ingutter cleaning, gutter tune-ups
, gutter repairs, gutterinstalls.
So then we bought an installtruck and, as that occurred, we
(24:01):
said, ok, there's an awful lotof carpentry involved in gutter
repairs and gutter installs,because we have to take old
gutters down, a lot of carpentryand repairs behind it.
So we started focusing onbuilding carpentry teams that
can do this type of work, andthere's no way we could have
anticipated and predicted thatat the beginning.
(24:22):
But you go in with some levelof flexibility and, yeah, it
worked out really well.
And you know, integrity is huge.
Skill set is one thing, but youcan't teach integrity and if
you surround yourself withpeople of integrity, your
problems will be minimized,because men of integrity will
always be true to theirintegrity and I think that,
(24:44):
especially here in the frontoffice, we've always surrounded
ourselves with men and women ofintegrity and it makes a huge
difference.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, you always say you know you're the average of
the five people you surroundyourself with.
So you had a good start becauseyou had your wives.
You had each other, your wives,so now you've got four people
and you start adding your familymembers in, so you're
surrounded by some pretty goodpeople right out of the gate.
So that's a huge advantage,yeah, it is.
And again it goes back tohaving a partner.
You know, it's just a goodpartner, someone you've known
(25:10):
since college.
It's huge.
So did you guys start breakinginto, developed roles yourselves
?
Right, you guys kind of wentAndy, you've done a lot of the
estimation work and things likethat.
Tennis, you've kind of run theteams and things like that.
That role sort of happenedpretty quickly or did it kind of
evolve over the years?
It definitely evolved over theyears because Dennis and I did
everything for the first six,seven years.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Like we were out on every truck we did, you know, we
touched every house and then aswe started to grow, that's when
we started, you know, having,you know, separate teams go out
and but we were pretty muchhands-on and then again we still
had to run the business.
But that's what our wives weredoing inside, doing all the
office stuff.
But, yeah, it was kind ofexciting being out in the road.
(25:53):
But eventually we startedtaking more of the running the
business and Dennis pulled offthe truck first and then,
probably a year later, I pulledoff the truck and now we're
pretty much running the wholebusiness as it is now okay and
sometimes the younger kids still.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Let us go out and play on the trucks it's getting
dangerous.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You guys are at the age you shouldn't be on ladders.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I hate to say um, it's no, it's not so much that
it's.
It's those little things, thetwisted ankles, and yeah little
aches and pains that hurt alittle bit more now than they
did 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You're even getting up on the.
What do you call it, that smallladder?
It's the pit bull or thechihuahua of the gutter industry
.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The step ladder is the chihuahua of the ladder
industry.
That's the one where everyonegets.
No one falls off a 40-footladder.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You essentially get bit in the ass by that ladder.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
But the beauty of this business is that the
learning curve is real quick.
You know, like I said, when Ifirst started, I said what can I
do in business that cantransfer my skills into a
self-employed business?
And boy, I tell you, guttercleaning is the perfect one.
Because you know, within sixmonths you're pretty much an
expert at the business.
And you know it's not rocketscience what we do, but we do a
(27:02):
service that people appreciate.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It's an amazing thing .
Yeah, that's what we try toexplain to our franchisees.
It's a great business to getinto the learning curve is very
quick.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Let's just take, for example we have a couple of
crews that primarily installgutters.
So one of them is a six-mancrew.
I can take a beginner and puthim on a gutter cleaning crew,
training for six weeks, and he'sgoing to be pretty competent
after six weeks.
And then I can rotate him ontoa gutter install crew and now
(27:32):
he's surrounded by five or sixhighly skilled guys.
So he just almost by justassociation, blends in nicely
and he picks up everything veryquickly.
And so once the company growsand you have many good people
out there, it's very easy tobring new guys in, train them,
(27:53):
teach them and then move themaround to different crews and
they assimilate very well.
It works well.
On the learning curve.
It's not as difficult and longas so many of the other trades.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, we talked to our friends the plumbers, the
electricians, and they wereshocked at how fast we're
growing, because we grew reallyfast there for a while.
It's because we can train a guyquickly and put him in a truck
and two guys in a truck and hecan go out and start making
money.
Where a plumber has to gothrough, you know,
apprenticeship and you know allthese stages and five years
later maybe he, that guy'smaking money for you.
(28:26):
We can put a two-man crew outthere fairly quickly and they're
making money for us within, youknow, two months, three months
they can be.
You know we can get a truckgoing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So we were able to expand really quickly that kind
of goes to the brilliance ofyour idea of sticking to gutters
and nothing else.
Because you can train them howto do gutters, you don't have to
treat them how to do roofing orfixing a chimney yes exactly.
You know you're not.
You don't have all those toolsyou got to introduce them to and
he might be a carpenter, but hedoesn't know anything about
roofs and blah, blah, blah.
You guys can go right to thegutters, that's all.
You train them and you teachthem how to get the ladders up
and do all that stuff, but yeah,and we hired a bunch of the
(29:01):
restaurant business.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
they're used to customers coming up to them and
complaining and you know, aboutwhatever.
And then they come out here andpeople are actually giving them
tips because they did the jobthat they were hired to do and
they were, you know, wow, thisis great, it would be in the
rain.
and people say this is stillbetter than my restaurant job
because I used to get yelled atall the time in my restaurant
job and it's like again, peopleappreciate doing a good job.
(29:24):
And you know, during COVID itactually helped because a lot of
people were staying home, theyhad extra money because they
weren't going out to dinner ordriving and they started taking
care of their houses and westayed outside and it didn't
affect us at all.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We had a good year in 2020.
It was still a growth year andI mean COVID definitely impacted
everybody, everybody in year,and I mean COVID definitely
impacted everybody, everybody inthe whole country.
The way he or she runs theirbusinesses.
It impacted us all.
But we did pretty well.
We had a good year in 2020.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
And then you started building sort of a little bit of
a real estate empire.
I mean, you went from yourhouse to a leased facility, a
rented facility, then you leasedsome space and then you built
this beautiful building here.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well, no, we actually bought three buildings.
This is our third one.
Oh really, I didn't know aboutthe other two, yeah, so we
started the business out of mygarage and very quickly we
bought a small bay over in theindustrial park in Sandwich Mass
here on the Cape and we outgrewthat one fast, like in a year,
year and a half.
So then we bought one that wasmuch bigger, about 2,700 square
(30:23):
feet, down here in Mashpee.
But man, we were growing sofast.
But at this point we're likefive years in and we said, okay,
we have a better assessment andwe could assess our needs.
It wasn't just the building weneeded.
Within the building, we neededparking, warehouse and office
space.
So we broke it down.
(30:43):
How many square feet of officespace do we need to grow to X?
How many square feet of parkingspace, warehouse space?
How many outdoor parking spacesdo we need?
Our second building had like 15spaces.
We thought we died and went toheaven, but we outgrew that so
rapidly.
So when we built this newbuilding we bought I think it's
(31:06):
about a one and three quarteracre parcel.
It's right here in Mashpee inthe industrial park.
We bought an acre and threequarter lot.
We built a very, very largebuilding with four overhead
doors, parking indoors for fourtrucks, a lot of square footage
on the floor for inventory lotsand lots of office space.
We have room enough to have apool table.
(31:28):
We have dartboards.
We have a gym.
We have a podcast station.
We have a podcast station.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So we overbuilt the old adage is a fish can only
grow as big as its fish bowl.
So we want to have a place thatwe're not moving again.
This is it.
This is a permanent place andwe love it here.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's a great thing about the franchise now with
American Gutter Monkeys.
Your fishbowl for Cape CodGutter Monkeys has pretty much
been Cape Cod.
I'm sure you went all over thebridge a little bit, but
probably it was Cape Cod.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
But now with the franchises, you're able such a
huge growth year in 24.
We were running out of parkingand we had like 28 parking
spaces and we only had maybe 20employees.
But then we had a growth yearand we added several more guys
in the field and a couple ofladies in the office and we
didn't have any more spacesbecause we have a dozen or more
(32:21):
trucks company trucks so we havea dozen well, we're up to 15
company trucks and we have Idon't know 25 or so employees in
the building.
We needed 40 parking spaces andwe only had 28.
So we took a quarter acrethat's on the other part of this
parcel here and we made anotherprobably 12, about another 24
(32:42):
parking spaces, and we madeanother probably 12, about
another 24 parking spaces.
So that's the beauty of lookingforward and we're able to
remedy that issue very quickly.
It only took our buddies nextdoor.
The Gavoni boys came over andthey had that thing cleared and
graveled and compacted in what?
Three days?
Yeah, couple of days, that'sall, and now we have another 24
parking spaces.
So, yeah, it's worked out verywell.
(33:03):
Don't go to where the puck is.
Go to where the puck is goingto be when you get there.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, exactly how many times have I heard that on
this?
Speaker 3 (33:10):
podcast.
The other thing that Dennis andI always say is don't be greedy
, don't be stupid.
There's a lot of smallcompanies that once they start
getting a little success, theygo out and start buying
miscellaneous cars and boats andstuff like that.
We always fed the company, feedthe company, pay yourself a
minimal salary and let thecompany grow, and it's worked
out real well so far.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So tell them that again Andy, Don't be greedy.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Don't be stupid, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And I talk to a lot of potential franchisees and
they keep asking well, why am Igoing to join you?
Why do I need you to do this,we to join you, why do I need
you to do this?
We've been touching on allthese points.
That last point always strikesme, just the parking.
How important parking?
Would you ever think of that onyour own?
Probably not.
But you guys have experiencedit firsthand.
You know what the effect of itis.
(33:56):
That's what you get when youkind of franchise or join us as
a franchisee.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
And again, coming from the corporate world, you
don't know a lot of these thingsabout liability insurance and
this insurance and thatinsurance, and boy you know,
just having someone hasknowledge of that.
And what do I got to buy andhow do I start my business and
what am I missing.
It's just, it's a wonderfulthing having someone to lean on.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So now you're into a whole nother thing.
You're starting to work withfranchisees and things like that
, so that's a whole notherkettle of fish.
Right, you got to kind of learnhow to do that, how to handle
franchisees who are, you know,they're not employees, so you
can't make them do things thatthey're supposed to be doing.
But that's a whole nother thing.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, the old thing is that.
You know we have a recipe thatyou know provided success.
If you change the recipe, Ican't guarantee you the output's
going to be the same as ours.
You know we have a recipe.
Follow the recipe.
It should work.
You know that's.
But we can't force them to dowhat we do.
But we're just showing.
You bought a franchise for therecipe, Right, and we're giving
you the recipe.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
You're kind of leading by example.
Yep, what else can you do Now?
I think, Chris, did you tell methat our newest franchisee,
Scott Wellington, isn't he goingto be on the show in a couple
weeks?
He's going to be on the shownext week.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
No, two weeks Two weeks from now he's going to be
on the show.
Yeah, and I was just talking tohim just now.
He's excited about it.
He's like a little kid in acandy shop, right now.
Oh my gosh, he's just in here,just now he's having a blast,
he's having fun and he's just.
You know, you can tell when hecomes in, sits down.
We were just talking, andy.
We were just talking.
What was the one thing, thislittle conversation with him?
(35:28):
All of a sudden he was like oh,I didn't realize that.
Oh, that's great to know.
That might have taken himmonths to figure out.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, uh, I think again comes back to having that
partner anything else you guyswant to kind of roll into, we
could talk business all day.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, we could do this, get a six pack of beer.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We won't go anywhere.
Okay, I'll go.
Actually, I noticed there's nobeer in your refrigerator.
Um no, yeah, yeah, is that oneof those liability things?
Oh, sometimes liability 101.
Yeah, you just didn't look inthe right refrigerator.
Yeah, is that one of thoseliability things?
Oh, sometimes there isLiability 101.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, you just didn't look in the right refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So let's talk.
People are always going to askyou oh, you left your corporate
job.
Who knows where you could havebeen?
You could have been a presidentof that paper company right now
.
Do you have any regrets aboutthat?
You would think back on thatand say, wow, I could have been
vice president of printing andcollating.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
But I still would have been listening to the man,
and there's nothing better thanworking for yourself.
Like I said, you have no ideawhere your next paycheck's
coming from, but boy, I controlmy future.
What a concept.
So we do have a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We do.
We have a lot of fun at worknow.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
And you can tell by our ads.
You know, a lot of radio adsyou hear nowadays are kind of
boring and you zone off halfwaythrough them.
Our radio ads is meant to befunny.
You know, you may not like it,but it's funny.
You know, I don't care what yousay.
Humor is a wonderful thing.
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, I mean, when I first started looking at
American gutter monkeys andjoining you guys, I mean this is
one thing that struck me rightaway.
I mean your friendships andhaving fun.
This is a great building, greatpeople.
You know, it is really a greatspot.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Life's too short If you're not having fun.
Get out.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah.
So what would you say tosomebody right now?
Okay, I'm thinking maybegetting out of my corporate job
right now.
You know, I don't know, I know.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
What would be the first thing?
You would as well invest inyourself, you know.
And then you've got to find theright partner.
Again, I don't know what youwant to do or what your skillset
are, but we talked to all kindsof people and business is
business.
It doesn't matter whether you'redoing gutter monkeys or you're
doing something else.
Business is business and theconcepts are all the same, you
know.
So try it.
Invest in yourself, don't?
(37:23):
I would hate to be now and say,oh, I regretted doing that 10
years ago.
I should have done that 10years ago.
You never know what the futureis going to bring you, but you
might as well dive into the deepend.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Sounds good, but to do it at 55, andy, as you did,
is huge.
It's most unusual because by 55, most people are looking down
the barrel of that gun andsaying I only have 10 years left
of this.
But I think the results weregreat.
I know you're thrilled withwhat you do every day and this
is the best business I've everbeen involved in.
(37:52):
This is so much fun and it's somuch fun on so many levels.
Yeah, it must be great drivingin here in the morning.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It really is.
There's beautiful buildings inhere.
Your truck's all in the parkinglot, your guy's going out in
the field.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Now, just for clarification to any listeners
out there Chris and I were highschool teammates.
Chris, we've known each othersince we were 14.
Andy, you and I met four yearslater we were 18 years old and
our other partner, bruce, we methim freshman year.
There's really nothing quitelike lifelong friends and the
integrity that they bring to thetable.
That's a huge part of what wedo here.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, yeah Shows in the business.
Your customers appreciate it.
I know that for a fact.
We go into any place.
We go into get your guttermonkey outfit on.
I live up in Worcester.
I go into Home Depot up thereand people are like oh, the
gutter monkeys, oh you do myplace in Hyannis.
Like yep, yep, yep, I do, yep,I do.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
They call that branding.
That's what they call that.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Although I've never been up on a ladder, I take
credit for it anyway there yougo as you should.
All right Well.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
I guess if you guys are tired of, talking.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
we'll move on.
Andy, you should come back.
You're free to come back,actually for any podcast, we'd
love to have you.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's been a pleasure.
It really has been fun.
Hey Chris, I get tired oftalking to Dennis, I don't blame
you.
Thank God, I got someone elseto talk to here.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Listen, no monkeys were harmed in the making of
this podcast.
Good night.
Thank you for tuning in toMonkey Business Radio.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please make sure to subscribe,
like and follow us wherever youget your podcasts.
It really helps us reach moreaspiring entrepreneurs like you,
and if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
(39:32):
leave a comment or reach out tous on social media.
We'd love to hear your thoughtsand keep the conversation going
.
Don't forget to leave us afive-star review if you found
the episode valuable, and makesure to share it with anyone who
might benefit from our tips andstories.
We'll see you next time.
This podcast is produced byAmerican Gutter Monkeys LLC.
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
(39:54):
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
What if the best years of your career weren't
behind you but ahead of you andcompletely your own?
In this episode, taking theLeap of Faith, we're joined by
Andy Brennan, co-founder of theCape Cod Gutter Monkeys and the
American Gutter Monkeys, wholeft a 35-year corporate career
at the age of 55 to start over.
No roadmap, no safety net, justa trusted partner, a simple
idea and a leap of faith.
(00:23):
Andy shares how he went from aprinting company to the rooftops
of Cape Cod and what it took tolaunch a new business later in
life, why customer service,humility and hustle still win
the day we talk risk rewardradio ads and the moment he
realized they had somethingworth franchising.
We have a great show for you,so grab a cup of coffee, sit
back, relax and welcome toMonkey Business Radio.
(00:51):
Hello everyone, welcome toepisode 15, taking the Leap of
Faith.
As always, I'm here with DennisSiggins.
How are you doing, Chris?
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys.
Hello, dennis, and we have aspecial guest We've been trying
to get him on the show for awhile His partner in crime, andy
Brennan of the Cape Cod GutterMonkeys and American Gutter
Monkeys.
Great to be here, guys.
Hey, andy, glad to have you onthe show.
(01:12):
We've been trying to drag Andyin here for a while.
We finally got him.
So here we go.
We're going to talk about thegenesis of the Cape Cod Gutter
Monkeys and then we kind of rollinto American kind of monkeys.
But why don't we start with?
Where do you want to startCollege?
I guess that's where you guysmet college roommates.
How about this?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Andy and I met in the fall of 1977 at Bentley College
.
We were roommates.
Andy was from East Walpole, Iwas from Framingham and housing
threw us in the same roomtogether and we've been friends
ever since.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Welcome to the show, Andy.
Hey, thank you A pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Usually as college roommate first freshman year.
Things don't work out, but youguys made it through that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Andy and I lived together for four years in
college and that was a long timeago and he still lets me hang
out with him.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
After all these years I still like the guy.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We still get along pretty well, andy after college.
I mean we had a great time incollege.
I think we learned a lot.
Andy was really a superstar atBentley's soccer program back in
the day, and after college Iwent one way and Andy went into
the corporate world.
Talk about that, andy.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, I kind of took the traditional approach.
After college you go into thecorporate world, go into the
nine to five type of job.
That's what I did.
I went into the printingbusiness and 35 years later I
was feeling the struggles ofcorporate life where you had
really no control over yourfuture and at the time there was
(02:36):
a lot of payroll freezes,mergers, acquisitions,
constricting job market, thingsthat made me think what do I
want to do for the rest of mylife?
I was 55 years old and was at acrossroads, didn't know what I
wanted to do next.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And then one day, Andy and I were talking and even
though we didn't work together,we went in separate directions.
I was self-employed my wholeadult life, but Andy and I, we
married our wives back in 1983.
And in 2013,.
Back in 1983.
(03:10):
And in 2013, Andy suggestedthat we bring our wives to
Hawaii to celebrate our 30thwedding anniversaries together,
which we did, and that's whereAndy started bringing up the
subject of maybe him and mestarting a business together on
the beaches of Maui.
I thought it was the margaritastalking and it wasn't.
That's where we started talkingabout starting a business
together which would evolve intothe Cape Cod gutter monkeys.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, for the last five years of my business life I
was always wanted to be inself-employed, but I said to
myself I have, you know, theknowledge, but what skills do I
have that I can actually go anddo my own job?
I'm not a carpenter.
I don't have the skills Dennishas.
That takes years to gain thosekind of skills.
What could I do that actually Icould go out and actually do my
(03:51):
own job.
And that's when Dennis and Istarted kicking ideas around and
boy I tell you, we came up witha beauty.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, we did.
This is the best business.
The Gutter Monkeys is the bestbusiness I've ever owned, and my
business partner for my wholelife was always my wife and she
came on board, and Andy's wife,nancy, came on board Two couples
that we had known each otherfor well over 30 years.
At the time, we trusted oneanother implicitly and it was a
(04:22):
great match.
It really worked out well andwe're still running a wonderful
business and it's expanded intoseveral other business
opportunities as well.
But it really did.
It started in Maui and when weget home and that was in 2013,
andy, it was in September, itwas January you called me and
(04:43):
then we started talking aboutthis business that would turn
into the gutter monkeys.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, the funny thing is we we literally just kicking
ideas around.
There was no exact plan.
We started in January, februaryhey, let's come up with a, what
kind of business do we want toget into?
And then it turned into well,let's, what are we going to come
up with?
A name and what are our colorsgoing to be.
And it took us months to comeup with a business plan and
still no exact plan of exactlywhen or if we're going to do
(05:12):
this.
It was just an idea at thispoint.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And you were doing all kinds of work.
Right, you were doing decks andpainting.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I was sort of semi-retired, so I was doing
handyman work.
I was in the trades most of mylife.
So so I was doing handyman work, I was in the trades most of my
life.
So I was doing light carpentryand you know, for families,
friends and neighbors, and wepretty much zeroed in on gutter
cleaning, repairs andmaintenance here in Cape Cod.
And so one of the first thingsAndy and I agreed to is that
(05:39):
Andy would work his corporatejob he lived in Walpole at the
time Monday to Friday and hewould come down every weekend
and we would do a job together.
So we were like we built anoutdoor shower, we were building
a deck.
The next weekend we might put aroof on a cottage.
I mean, we replaced somewindows just to see if Andy
really was going to adapt nicelyto working with our hands.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I've been sitting behind a desk for 35 years and,
you know, did I really want togo out and climb ladders and
jump on roofs and do thephysical work that's necessary
for the job?
And yeah, it was a good kind ofa good training ground.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But you adapted quickly.
Yeah, You're not afraid ofheights.
Yeah, First time I watched youwalk on a roof I think we did my
mom and dad's roof out inDennisport you walked on with a
crew and you couldn't tell Andy.
You couldn't tell that that washis first day on a roof.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So did you get the feeling of liberation?
I remember I kind of left mybusiness, sort of did a
semi-retirement and walking outthat door moving on to a new
project like the gutter monkeys.
It must've been prettyliberating.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Oh my God, it was the best feeling in the world Scary
.
You don't know where your nextpaycheck is coming from.
But my whole life was Monday toFriday.
I knew exactly what I was goingto get paid, no matter if I
missed days, if I was sick, itdidn't really matter.
But the liberation of actuallyknowing the harder you work, the
more money you make Wow, what aconcept.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Exactly Take control of your own life.
I remember I never left tostart my own company, but I went
to successively smallerstartups and each time I felt
more liberated and I got exactlydown to what you just said.
You know, I left the safety ofa 40 hour week to work in a
startup, but I felt like I hadmore control over my life and
where it was going and, at theend of the day, I was getting
(07:19):
paid for the amount of work Iwas, more time I was putting in.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So yeah, my, my big questions to myself was you know
, did my years of experience inthe corporate world?
Was that transferable toself-employment?
And?
And the answer to myself was Idon't think I could do it on my
own.
I needed a partner, you know.
I know I have a lot of skills,but self-employment, you know,
was pretty new to me.
I didn't know exactly, you know, how to handle that kind of
(07:43):
world.
So, you know, I knew, withDennis as my partner, we can do
anything Truly, we can doanything physically, you know,
and we had different skills butthey kind of merged well
together.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So tell me about I mean you must have the
conversation with Nancy, ofcourse giving up the paycheck
but all your friends and familyand stuff like that.
What was their reaction to youactually going off?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I had a couple of funny reactions where I was like
you know, what are you doing?
What are you wasting yourcollege education for?
But you know, dennis and I wentto business school.
And what better use of abusiness school degree than to
start a business from zero andgrow it to a multimillion dollar
company?
That's exactly why I went toBentley.
Yeah, and yeah, there was a lotof doubt In theory.
I quit my job, I sold my house,I moved down to the Cape and I
(08:29):
started a business all within ayear.
Not not a lot of people do thatwhen they're 55 years old.
But again, and then why did Ido it?
Because I was not happy in mycurrent job.
I mean, I just I saw the future.
I was 55 years old.
I said, hmm, what am I gonna dofor the next 10 years?
I just didn't have any faith inthe working for the man you
know.
So it's like.
Again, I wanted to do itbecause I was disappointed in my
(08:54):
current career, where it wasgoing and where I thought it was
going.
But without a partner, a solidpartner who could help me
navigate the stuff I didn't know, I wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There's no way.
I would have done it Until youstarted talking about it today.
You know, pre-show, I wasthinking about this as well.
You know, one thing I keptrunning up against when I wanted
to get out of my business wasyou got a master's degree in
computer engineering.
Why would you ever go to painthouses or install brick
sidewalks and things like that?
You have a master's degree.
The one thing that probablywould have got me over that was
a partner.
I didn't bump into that personwho had a similar way and wanted
(09:27):
to go into it with me or, youknow, kind of take each other
along down that path, and sothat was kind of one of the
things I missed, I think, is nothaving that partnership.
Yeah, I mean again.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
You got to take a chance in life, you know, and
what I did is I took a gamble onmyself.
I took a gamble on myself andDennis that you know this
company was going to succeed.
I really didn't doubt myself itwas.
You know people say, wow, whata gamble you took.
I almost I didn't see it as agamble.
I knew Dennis was a solidself-employed guy.
His whole life he ran manybusinesses.
(09:58):
I had no doubt that this wasgoing to be a success.
Didn't know exactly how well.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, you didn't so much take a risk as you assess
the risk, and there's adifference between a risk taker
and a risk assessor.
And I think what you did, andy,was you what we did I remember
talking about it was we built abusiness model that I eliminated
most of the normal risks andthe rest you just got to work
(10:26):
through them.
I mean, you did take a big riskbecause you probably had a
six-figure salary, probably hadyour name on the door and that's
a lot to walk away from.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, Like I said it was, if I was really happy in my
job, I wouldn't have done it.
You know, if I wasn't, thefuture was uncertain Again, a
lot of things back in that timewhere corporate life was going
downhill.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That's why I went into the startups.
After a while I looked aroundand said wait a minute.
The odds of me getting laid offor getting fired in this job,
this big company, is just asgreat as going to the startup.
I might as well just go to thestartup where there's some more
potential for return.
It worked out that way, butyeah, yeah, I can hear you.
So how did this kind of all?
What did it look like in theearly days?
What were you guys doing?
How'd you start out?
(11:08):
How fast did it evolve intosomething bigger than just the
two guys in a truck?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, I remember in August of 2014,.
We started our radio adcampaign.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Oh, so you started the radio ad right out of the
gate A month before.
A month before Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Then we also took out ad space in every church
bulletin, every Catholic churchbulletin on Cape Cod, and
there's something like 16different churches, yeah, and so
Because every good Catholicknows.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's what you read during the gospel, during the
homily.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You're out there reading the ads, I think that we
spent $2,500 a monthadvertising and the first month
in September, we did like $4,000in gross revenues, and then the
second month we did $7,000.
And the third month, I think,we did about $11,000 or
something.
But I do remember, andy, it wasback in maybe June that we
(12:03):
actually decided okay, we'regoing forward, forward.
We shook hands and we eachwrote a check for eight thousand
dollars and we opened up a bankaccount, a checking account, in
the business checkingdepartment over at rockland
trust, and that's how we startedthe business and that was a big
one, because before that, themonths before, was just kind of.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
we were just kind of playing around.
We said okay, let's come, saidokay, let's come up with a name,
let's come up with a concept,until we put the money down.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
It was all fun.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it was all fun until we said I guess we're
doing this, I'm quitting my job,right, I guess I am Again.
You can't do it without asupportive spouse, there's no
doubt.
Oh gosh, yeah, nancy was I.
And she says oh no, no, no no.
And you know it was the rightthing to do Wait patiently, plan
.
Like I said, this, all aboutthis is about planning.
We planned.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
We really did, yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And then, when we started September 1, 2014, we
were ready to go and, you know,again, advertising helped.
You know, we didn't knowexactly how we're going to get
the business, but we knew thatwe're a marketing company, we're
going to market ourselves andpeople are going to call us.
We don't sell people, we marketourselves.
People call us and we're thesolution to their problem.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Andy, talk about that last month of work in the
corporate world.
Remember you've often talkedabout that and I remember you
were calling me every other dayas you led up to giving your
notice and then preparing toleave the company.
Talk about those final twomonths.
Your superior at work one ofthe owners, told you you've got
(13:31):
to lay some people off andyou've got to fire some people
and you had just hired one ofthem.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
My goal was to give them like three weeks notice.
That's what my goal was.
I said I'll be fair.
I you know I liked the guy.
But he called me in once,probably six weeks before we
started a company.
He said, nope, you got to laythis guy off.
I said we just hired him.
How can I lay him off?
We got to lay him off.
I said, well, I'm going to letyou know I'm leaving, let me go
(13:54):
and we'll keep this guy.
And he goes.
No, don't be a martyr.
I said I'm not being a martyr,I'm leaving and I didn't want to
.
But you know, eventually it waslike, yeah, it's not printing,
it's not, I'm not going to begoing to the competitor, but
I'll give you six weeks notice.
And you know it worked outphenomenally.
(14:15):
It was like the timing wasperfect.
The timing was just perfect.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So how quickly did the business then kind of become
gutter cleaning exclusively andthen eventually gutter
installation.
How quickly did that occur?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Right away.
I mean, we started cleaninggutters and the ancillary work
started falling in our laps.
We would clean gutters, repairthem, flush them, tune them up.
And when you install gutters,oftentimes you take a gutter
down you find rotted wood behindit.
So we replace the rotted wood,we scrape, seal and paint the
fascia boards, hang a new gutter.
(14:47):
And sometimes the customerwould say they look so good, can
you paint the rest of my trim?
So we'd take that job.
Then we brought on Chris, whowas a nephew of Andy's.
He was our first hire and hecame on.
And then I think Adam was ournext hire, andy's son, and over
that first year I think we grewto maybe six, seven people in
(15:08):
the field.
Oh, that quick.
And then, yeah, within a year.
And then Babs, my wife, came on, and then Nancy came on a few
months later.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Well, that's a whole other thing, right?
When you start, not only areyou responsible for your
paycheck, but now you'reresponsible for other people's
paycheck.
That's a different level.
That's a different level ofstress at that point.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, I wouldn't say stress, it's a different level
of responsibility.
Yeah, yeah, that went up prettyquick.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
But when we first started again, we would take any
job.
Like when you first start dayone, the phone's not ringing and
people aren't calling becausethey don't know us yet.
So we took any job we could.
We took painting jobs,carpentry jobs, anything we
could, and it just grew fromthere.
You know what I'm saying.
It's one of those things thatwe had the skill to do a lot of
(15:51):
things and we did it Whatever ittook to get the company rolling
.
There was going to be valleys,there was going to be peaks and
again, proper planning helped usout a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
But also we never strayed from the fact that we're
a gutter company.
We didn't advertise carpentryor ancillary work like painting.
We didn't advertise it.
If it came our way we wouldtake it, but from a marketing
and branding standpoint, westayed true and we still have
stayed true to the fact thatwe're a gutter company, first
(16:20):
and foremost.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, so years later, when you got a slow point, you
didn't bail and start powerwashing houses or cleaning
windows or something like that.
You stuck to your mission.
You stuck to your branding andyour marketing.
Yeah, we stuck to our missionstatement, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
That's exactly right, because in any business, no
matter whether it's therestaurant world or the
automotive world, you're alwaysgoing to have busy seasons and
slow seasons, peaks and valleys,and so you always want to stay
true to your mission statement,to what it is that you do.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And having a partner helps with that, because you're
bouncing ideas off of each other.
You might have a doubt one day,but the other guy is there.
No, no, we got this, we gotthis, and back and forth, yeah
that's exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
You always have somebody to lean on.
And you know we said we had.
Our basic thing was that wecustomer services lacking in the
service business.
In the service area we like tocall people back the same day
when they call us.
If we don't answer the phoneright away and you know there's
a thousand landscapers on CapeCod but you try to get someone
to call you back it's almostimpossible.
So just common courtesy, commoncustomer services is so lacking
(17:22):
in the business.
So people used to thank us justfor showing up on time.
It was amazing.
We showed up at 8 o'clock andthey said oh wow, you showed up.
Yeah, isn't that what you'resupposed to do?
I mean, it's common sense.
But boy, I'll tell you peopleappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
We've talked about that in past podcasts about
customer service.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, we had traditional offices, Andy and I.
We always had a traditionalhave is that they oftentimes use
their cell phone as theirbusiness phone and when that's
(18:09):
in your pocket and it startsringing, they often feel they
have to answer that phone, asopposed to having an office that
is staffed by one or two ormore people.
So for the most part after thefirst four or five months, at
the very beginning it was justAndy, myself and an answering
machine.
But after a couple of months,when my wife Barbara came on,
(18:30):
she became our office managerand she'd done that before.
This was nothing new for her.
And then we brought Nancy onand then Bruce, our third
roommate from Bentley College.
He was working remotely runningour website.
So we really had a tightfive-person team early on and
that grew into what it is today.
(18:51):
But really the key wasold-school business.
That's what it is Answer thatphone.
If you're really busy and youcan't get to it, the machine
picks it up.
Then you call right back andwe've always run a traditional
office where you can take careof the customer's questions and
needs.
Somebody's always in the office.
I think that's one of thethings that separates us from so
(19:13):
many of the other businessesout there.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, another thing we touched on in past podcasts
was this idea of old school isinnovation.
Today, you know, answering thephone, having someone answer and
having a landline like that,that's an innovation because
people don't do that anymore andyet it, you know, really
resulted in some amazing growthin your early years because you
had someone answering the phone.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, our website has pictures of ourselves.
So you know, it's verificationwhen people like, oh, what about
the gutter monkeys?
Well, look at the website.
You'll see a picture of me,you'll see a picture of Dennis,
you'll see a picture ofeverybody in our office.
So we're here.
I go to a lot of websites and Ihave no idea if they're on Cape
Cod or in California.
You have no idea where they are, so we just like to let people
know who we are and where we are.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So at some point you started adding trucks.
I mean, at some point you guyshad to sit down once again and
say, okay, we're going to haveto take this to the next level.
We're a couple of trucks, weneed the extruders and so on,
and so forth.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So that's a whole other level of kind of ranching
up things.
Again, we try to do thingsbefore we have to.
So we were growing pretty fast.
So we were hiring people,probably earlier than we needed
to, but we wanted to train themand get them up and running.
So when the busy season hits,they were up and running.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, that's another interesting thing you guys have
touched on a couple of times isthis idea of acting before you
need you know, hiring the personbefore you need them, buying
the truck before you need itthat's a very hard thing, you
know now American gutter monkeyswe have go out, we have our
franchisees.
That's a very hard thing toconvey to a franchisee.
Is this idea of taking againtaking that leap of faith and
buying that truck before youneed it or hiring that employee
(20:40):
before you need them.
Well, especially post-COVID.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We cannot get the truck we want in three days.
Andy remember it was like 2019,Christmas week that's when we
always buy our trucks and webought a pair of 2020 trucks and
it was 2019, Christmas week.
We went in like on a Tuesdayand they had one of them in
stock on the lot and they saidcome back on Friday and pick
(21:04):
them both up.
And we came back three or fourdays later, picked up both
trucks and drove them back tothe shop.
Today, this year, 2000,.
Well, just past 2024, weordered two new trucks Christmas
week of 23.
We picked them up.
We took delivery something likeJune.
It takes six months If you wanta silver Tacoma in this
(21:28):
particular color, matchfour-door with a six-foot bed
that matches our fleet.
They just can't get them thatfast.
So you have to order thembefore you need them, and I
don't think it's necessarily somuch a leap of faith.
Is this confidence in yourbusiness model?
Yep, Yep.
And you have to understand thatpost-COVID getting trucks and
(21:49):
inventory in general isdifferent than pre-COVID, and
that's just an adjustment we allhad to make.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
You must have had some interesting conversations
leading up to COVID or in COVIDabout how to run the business,
whether the business is going tosurvive, et cetera, et cetera.
Or were you guys pretty muchlocked in at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Nobody can predict the future, and no one could
have predicted COVID.
But you know, if you run yourcompany as debt free as possible
, you know little humps in theroad aren't going to bother us.
If you have a business that youhave a lot of leases and rents
and you get into a COVIDsituation where you shut down
for months or weeks, that'sgoing to put you out of business
(22:25):
.
We didn't prepare for COVID,but we were prepared for
anything.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Again, another thing we touchon in this podcast a lot is that
ability to if your finances arein order, you have a lot of
latitude to kind of go, you know, go with the flow, take
whatever punch gets thrown atyou and be able to survive it.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And also we were able to pivot.
We never really planned tofranchise, it wasn't part of our
business plan.
But as the company grew, weadjusted and we pivoted with it.
And when customers are comingup to us and asking us if they
can geez, can they do what we do?
And Dennis and I said, yeah, Iguess we can.
You know, because it's a simplebusiness plan, it's not a
complicated business plan.
(23:05):
But you know, if you follow therules you could succeed also.
So that's how kind of wepivoted into American.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Gutter Monkeys.
Okay, so people started comingto you and saying can I do this
too?
A customer.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
A customer said wow, I love what you guys do.
You think we could get intothis kind of business and we'd
never thought about it before.
But we said, sure, let's comeup with something.
And we did.
And then that spun off toanother customer, another person
coming in, and then so on andso forth, and kind of American
gutter.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Monkeys was born.
Okay, how many years in wasthat about Two?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, two and a half Okay, wow.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That was fast.
We had bounced around manyideas.
There were a lot of ideas.
Whenever you're starting abusiness, no matter how much you
think you know, you only know asmall amount.
And then, as we move forward,we say, oh wow, there's
additional ancillary work ingutter cleaning, gutter tune-ups
, gutter repairs, gutterinstalls.
So then we bought an installtruck and, as that occurred, we
(24:01):
said, ok, there's an awful lotof carpentry involved in gutter
repairs and gutter installs,because we have to take old
gutters down, a lot of carpentryand repairs behind it.
So we started focusing onbuilding carpentry teams that
can do this type of work, andthere's no way we could have
anticipated and predicted thatat the beginning.
(24:22):
But you go in with some levelof flexibility and, yeah, it
worked out really well.
And you know, integrity is huge.
Skill set is one thing, but youcan't teach integrity and if
you surround yourself withpeople of integrity, your
problems will be minimized,because men of integrity will
always be true to theirintegrity and I think that,
(24:44):
especially here in the frontoffice, we've always surrounded
ourselves with men and women ofintegrity and it makes a huge
difference.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, you always say you know you're the average of
the five people you surroundyourself with.
So you had a good start becauseyou had your wives.
You had each other, your wives,so now you've got four people
and you start adding your familymembers in, so you're
surrounded by some pretty goodpeople right out of the gate.
So that's a huge advantage,yeah, it is.
And again it goes back tohaving a partner.
You know, it's just a goodpartner, someone you've known
(25:10):
since college.
It's huge.
So did you guys start breakinginto, developed roles yourselves
?
Right, you guys kind of wentAndy, you've done a lot of the
estimation work and things likethat.
Tennis, you've kind of run theteams and things like that.
That role sort of happenedpretty quickly or did it kind of
evolve over the years?
It definitely evolved over theyears because Dennis and I did
everything for the first six,seven years.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Like we were out on every truck we did, you know, we
touched every house and then aswe started to grow, that's when
we started, you know, having,you know, separate teams go out
and but we were pretty muchhands-on and then again we still
had to run the business.
But that's what our wives weredoing inside, doing all the
office stuff.
But, yeah, it was kind ofexciting being out in the road.
(25:53):
But eventually we startedtaking more of the running the
business and Dennis pulled offthe truck first and then,
probably a year later, I pulledoff the truck and now we're
pretty much running the wholebusiness as it is now okay and
sometimes the younger kids still.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Let us go out and play on the trucks it's getting
dangerous.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You guys are at the age you shouldn't be on ladders.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I hate to say um, it's no, it's not so much that
it's.
It's those little things, thetwisted ankles, and yeah little
aches and pains that hurt alittle bit more now than they
did 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You're even getting up on the.
What do you call it, that smallladder?
It's the pit bull or thechihuahua of the gutter industry
.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The step ladder is the chihuahua of the ladder
industry.
That's the one where everyonegets.
No one falls off a 40-footladder.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You essentially get bit in the ass by that ladder.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
But the beauty of this business is that the
learning curve is real quick.
You know, like I said, when Ifirst started, I said what can I
do in business that cantransfer my skills into a
self-employed business?
And boy, I tell you, guttercleaning is the perfect one.
Because you know, within sixmonths you're pretty much an
expert at the business.
And you know it's not rocketscience what we do, but we do a
(27:02):
service that people appreciate.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It's an amazing thing .
Yeah, that's what we try toexplain to our franchisees.
It's a great business to getinto the learning curve is very
quick.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Let's just take, for example we have a couple of
crews that primarily installgutters.
So one of them is a six-mancrew.
I can take a beginner and puthim on a gutter cleaning crew,
training for six weeks, and he'sgoing to be pretty competent
after six weeks.
And then I can rotate him ontoa gutter install crew and now
(27:32):
he's surrounded by five or sixhighly skilled guys.
So he just almost by justassociation, blends in nicely
and he picks up everything veryquickly.
And so once the company growsand you have many good people
out there, it's very easy tobring new guys in, train them,
(27:53):
teach them and then move themaround to different crews and
they assimilate very well.
It works well.
On the learning curve.
It's not as difficult and longas so many of the other trades.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, we talked to our friends the plumbers, the
electricians, and they wereshocked at how fast we're
growing, because we grew reallyfast there for a while.
It's because we can train a guyquickly and put him in a truck
and two guys in a truck and hecan go out and start making
money.
Where a plumber has to gothrough, you know,
apprenticeship and you know allthese stages and five years
later maybe he, that guy'smaking money for you.
(28:26):
We can put a two-man crew outthere fairly quickly and they're
making money for us within, youknow, two months, three months
they can be.
You know we can get a truckgoing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So we were able to expand really quickly that kind
of goes to the brilliance ofyour idea of sticking to gutters
and nothing else.
Because you can train them howto do gutters, you don't have to
treat them how to do roofing orfixing a chimney yes exactly.
You know you're not.
You don't have all those toolsyou got to introduce them to and
he might be a carpenter, but hedoesn't know anything about
roofs and blah, blah, blah.
You guys can go right to thegutters, that's all.
You train them and you teachthem how to get the ladders up
and do all that stuff, but yeah,and we hired a bunch of the
(29:01):
restaurant business.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
they're used to customers coming up to them and
complaining and you know, aboutwhatever.
And then they come out here andpeople are actually giving them
tips because they did the jobthat they were hired to do and
they were, you know, wow, thisis great, it would be in the
rain.
and people say this is stillbetter than my restaurant job
because I used to get yelled atall the time in my restaurant
job and it's like again, peopleappreciate doing a good job.
(29:24):
And you know, during COVID itactually helped because a lot of
people were staying home, theyhad extra money because they
weren't going out to dinner ordriving and they started taking
care of their houses and westayed outside and it didn't
affect us at all.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We had a good year in 2020.
It was still a growth year andI mean COVID definitely impacted
everybody, everybody in year,and I mean COVID definitely
impacted everybody, everybody inthe whole country.
The way he or she runs theirbusinesses.
It impacted us all.
But we did pretty well.
We had a good year in 2020.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
And then you started building sort of a little bit of
a real estate empire.
I mean, you went from yourhouse to a leased facility, a
rented facility, then you leasedsome space and then you built
this beautiful building here.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well, no, we actually bought three buildings.
This is our third one.
Oh really, I didn't know aboutthe other two, yeah, so we
started the business out of mygarage and very quickly we
bought a small bay over in theindustrial park in Sandwich Mass
here on the Cape and we outgrewthat one fast, like in a year,
year and a half.
So then we bought one that wasmuch bigger, about 2,700 square
(30:23):
feet, down here in Mashpee.
But man, we were growing sofast.
But at this point we're likefive years in and we said, okay,
we have a better assessment andwe could assess our needs.
It wasn't just the building weneeded.
Within the building, we neededparking, warehouse and office
space.
So we broke it down.
(30:43):
How many square feet of officespace do we need to grow to X?
How many square feet of parkingspace, warehouse space?
How many outdoor parking spacesdo we need?
Our second building had like 15spaces.
We thought we died and went toheaven, but we outgrew that so
rapidly.
So when we built this newbuilding we bought I think it's
(31:06):
about a one and three quarteracre parcel.
It's right here in Mashpee inthe industrial park.
We bought an acre and threequarter lot.
We built a very, very largebuilding with four overhead
doors, parking indoors for fourtrucks, a lot of square footage
on the floor for inventory lotsand lots of office space.
We have room enough to have apool table.
(31:28):
We have dartboards.
We have a gym.
We have a podcast station.
We have a podcast station.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So we overbuilt the old adage is a fish can only
grow as big as its fish bowl.
So we want to have a place thatwe're not moving again.
This is it.
This is a permanent place andwe love it here.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's a great thing about the franchise now with
American Gutter Monkeys.
Your fishbowl for Cape CodGutter Monkeys has pretty much
been Cape Cod.
I'm sure you went all over thebridge a little bit, but
probably it was Cape Cod.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
But now with the franchises, you're able such a
huge growth year in 24.
We were running out of parkingand we had like 28 parking
spaces and we only had maybe 20employees.
But then we had a growth yearand we added several more guys
in the field and a couple ofladies in the office and we
didn't have any more spacesbecause we have a dozen or more
(32:21):
trucks company trucks so we havea dozen well, we're up to 15
company trucks and we have Idon't know 25 or so employees in
the building.
We needed 40 parking spaces andwe only had 28.
So we took a quarter acrethat's on the other part of this
parcel here and we made anotherprobably 12, about another 24
(32:42):
parking spaces, and we madeanother probably 12, about
another 24 parking spaces.
So that's the beauty of lookingforward and we're able to
remedy that issue very quickly.
It only took our buddies nextdoor.
The Gavoni boys came over andthey had that thing cleared and
graveled and compacted in what?
Three days?
Yeah, couple of days, that'sall, and now we have another 24
parking spaces.
So, yeah, it's worked out verywell.
(33:03):
Don't go to where the puck is.
Go to where the puck is goingto be when you get there.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, exactly how many times have I heard that on
this?
Speaker 3 (33:10):
podcast.
The other thing that Dennis andI always say is don't be greedy
, don't be stupid.
There's a lot of smallcompanies that once they start
getting a little success, theygo out and start buying
miscellaneous cars and boats andstuff like that.
We always fed the company, feedthe company, pay yourself a
minimal salary and let thecompany grow, and it's worked
out real well so far.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So tell them that again Andy, Don't be greedy.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Don't be stupid, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And I talk to a lot of potential franchisees and
they keep asking well, why am Igoing to join you?
Why do I need you to do this,we to join you, why do I need
you to do this?
We've been touching on allthese points.
That last point always strikesme, just the parking.
How important parking?
Would you ever think of that onyour own?
Probably not.
But you guys have experiencedit firsthand.
You know what the effect of itis.
(33:56):
That's what you get when youkind of franchise or join us as
a franchisee.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
And again, coming from the corporate world, you
don't know a lot of these thingsabout liability insurance and
this insurance and thatinsurance, and boy you know,
just having someone hasknowledge of that.
And what do I got to buy andhow do I start my business and
what am I missing.
It's just, it's a wonderfulthing having someone to lean on.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So now you're into a whole nother thing.
You're starting to work withfranchisees and things like that
, so that's a whole notherkettle of fish.
Right, you got to kind of learnhow to do that, how to handle
franchisees who are, you know,they're not employees, so you
can't make them do things thatthey're supposed to be doing.
But that's a whole nother thing.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, the old thing is that.
You know we have a recipe thatyou know provided success.
If you change the recipe, Ican't guarantee you the output's
going to be the same as ours.
You know we have a recipe.
Follow the recipe.
It should work.
You know that's.
But we can't force them to dowhat we do.
But we're just showing.
You bought a franchise for therecipe, Right, and we're giving
you the recipe.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
You're kind of leading by example.
Yep, what else can you do Now?
I think, Chris, did you tell methat our newest franchisee,
Scott Wellington, isn't he goingto be on the show in a couple
weeks?
He's going to be on the shownext week.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
No, two weeks Two weeks from now he's going to be
on the show.
Yeah, and I was just talking tohim just now.
He's excited about it.
He's like a little kid in acandy shop, right now.
Oh my gosh, he's just in here,just now he's having a blast,
he's having fun and he's just.
You know, you can tell when hecomes in, sits down.
We were just talking, andy.
We were just talking.
What was the one thing, thislittle conversation with him?
(35:28):
All of a sudden he was like oh,I didn't realize that.
Oh, that's great to know.
That might have taken himmonths to figure out.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, uh, I think again comes back to having that
partner anything else you guyswant to kind of roll into, we
could talk business all day.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, we could do this, get a six pack of beer.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We won't go anywhere.
Okay, I'll go.
Actually, I noticed there's nobeer in your refrigerator.
Um no, yeah, yeah, is that oneof those liability things?
Oh, sometimes liability 101.
Yeah, you just didn't look inthe right refrigerator.
Yeah, is that one of thoseliability things?
Oh, sometimes there isLiability 101.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, you just didn't look in the right refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
So let's talk.
People are always going to askyou oh, you left your corporate
job.
Who knows where you could havebeen?
You could have been a presidentof that paper company right now
.
Do you have any regrets aboutthat?
You would think back on thatand say, wow, I could have been
vice president of printing andcollating.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
But I still would have been listening to the man,
and there's nothing better thanworking for yourself.
Like I said, you have no ideawhere your next paycheck's
coming from, but boy, I controlmy future.
What a concept.
So we do have a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We do.
We have a lot of fun at worknow.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
And you can tell by our ads.
You know, a lot of radio adsyou hear nowadays are kind of
boring and you zone off halfwaythrough them.
Our radio ads is meant to befunny.
You know, you may not like it,but it's funny.
You know, I don't care what yousay.
Humor is a wonderful thing.
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, I mean, when I first started looking at
American gutter monkeys andjoining you guys, I mean this is
one thing that struck me rightaway.
I mean your friendships andhaving fun.
This is a great building, greatpeople.
You know, it is really a greatspot.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Life's too short If you're not having fun.
Get out.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah.
So what would you say tosomebody right now?
Okay, I'm thinking maybegetting out of my corporate job
right now.
You know, I don't know, I know.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
What would be the first thing?
You would as well invest inyourself, you know.
And then you've got to find theright partner.
Again, I don't know what youwant to do or what your skillset
are, but we talked to all kindsof people and business is
business.
It doesn't matter whether you'redoing gutter monkeys or you're
doing something else.
Business is business and theconcepts are all the same, you
know.
So try it.
Invest in yourself, don't?
(37:23):
I would hate to be now and say,oh, I regretted doing that 10
years ago.
I should have done that 10years ago.
You never know what the futureis going to bring you, but you
might as well dive into the deepend.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Sounds good, but to do it at 55, andy, as you did,
is huge.
It's most unusual because by 55, most people are looking down
the barrel of that gun andsaying I only have 10 years left
of this.
But I think the results weregreat.
I know you're thrilled withwhat you do every day and this
is the best business I've everbeen involved in.
(37:52):
This is so much fun and it's somuch fun on so many levels.
Yeah, it must be great drivingin here in the morning.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It really is.
There's beautiful buildings inhere.
Your truck's all in the parkinglot, your guy's going out in
the field.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Now, just for clarification to any listeners
out there Chris and I were highschool teammates.
Chris, we've known each othersince we were 14.
Andy, you and I met four yearslater we were 18 years old and
our other partner, bruce, we methim freshman year.
There's really nothing quitelike lifelong friends and the
integrity that they bring to thetable.
That's a huge part of what wedo here.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, yeah Shows in the business.
Your customers appreciate it.
I know that for a fact.
We go into any place.
We go into get your guttermonkey outfit on.
I live up in Worcester.
I go into Home Depot up thereand people are like oh, the
gutter monkeys, oh you do myplace in Hyannis.
Like yep, yep, yep, I do, yep,I do.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
They call that branding.
That's what they call that.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Although I've never been up on a ladder, I take
credit for it anyway there yougo as you should.
All right Well.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
I guess if you guys are tired of, talking.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
we'll move on.
Andy, you should come back.
You're free to come back,actually for any podcast, we'd
love to have you.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's been a pleasure.
It really has been fun.
Hey Chris, I get tired oftalking to Dennis, I don't blame
you.
Thank God, I got someone elseto talk to here.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Listen, no monkeys were harmed in the making of
this podcast.
Good night.
Thank you for tuning in toMonkey Business Radio.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please make sure to subscribe,
like and follow us wherever youget your podcasts.
It really helps us reach moreaspiring entrepreneurs like you,
and if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
(39:32):
leave a comment or reach out tous on social media.
We'd love to hear your thoughtsand keep the conversation going
.
Don't forget to leave us afive-star review if you found
the episode valuable, and makesure to share it with anyone who
might benefit from our tips andstories.
We'll see you next time.
This podcast is produced byAmerican Gutter Monkeys LLC.
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
(39:54):
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
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