May 28, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of Monkey Business Radio, we sit down with Scott Wellington—longtime customer turned proud owner of Southeast Gutter Monkeys, the newest franchise in the American Gutter Monkeys network.
Scott opens up about why he and his family made the leap into business ownership and what stood out most wasn’t the startup kit, the tools, or the branding—it was the culture. From day one, what mattered most to Scott was how people were treated. The respect for employees, the trust built with customers, and the tight-knit, family-driven approach made AGM feel less like a franchise and more like a team.
We also explore what it means when team members stick around for a decade or more—and how that kind of loyalty reflects deeper values. Scott shares how the systems and training helped him avoid the usual startup stumbles, and why having a clear roadmap allowed him to focus on growing his business with confidence.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to build something meaningful with your family, work with purpose, and launch with real support behind you—this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ever thought about starting a new career, one where
you call the shots, work withyour family and build something
that's truly your own.
Today's episode is a specialone.
We're sitting down with ScottWellington, the newest
franchisee in the Gutter Monkeyfamily and owner of Southeast
Gutter Monkeys.
This one's personal Scott was alongtime customer.
Now he's running his ownfranchise with his wife Myra and
(00:23):
son Marcus by his side.
In this episode we dig intowhat made Scott take the leap
from a 20-year career in thestate system to starting a
home-based family business.
We talk about how he found theGutter Monkeys and what stood
out in the franchise model andwhy, after years and a tough job
, he saw this as a path to buildsomething real.
From ladder safety to boxtrucks, radio ads and customer
(00:44):
connection, scott shares whatit's really like to launch a
small business with big support.
If you're someone thinking abouta second career or wondering
what it takes to build wealthand legacy through business
ownership, this one is for you.
We have a great show for you,so grab a cup of coffee, sit
back, relax and welcome toMonkey Business Radio.
And welcome to Monkey BusinessRadio, hello everyone.
(01:07):
Welcome to episode 16, wherewe're welcoming the newest
franchise in the American guttermonkey family, the Southeast
Gutter Monkeys.
As always, I'm here with mygood friend Dennis Siggins of
the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys.
Chris, how are you doing Good?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Good, how are you, dennis?
Doing well, chris, we have kindof an old friend, customer and
our newest franchisee, scottyWellington, on board today.
Scott, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm doing fantastic, dennis.
Chris, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Good, I'm doing good, all right, great Scott, glad to
have you on the show, glad tobe here, me, and to get you here
for a bit.
We're all interested in yourstory.
Very interesting story actually.
Oh, story actually, oh, it's astory, it's a story.
So you're a couple of weeks in.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing fantastic.
We got some spring weathercoming in.
Today was gorgeous.
We were working out inMiddleborough cleaning gutters,
making it happen, and just theweather was cooperating and it
was just nice to be out.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, you had a tough start.
The weather's been pretty toughlast two months, Sure Four
months actually.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
January February was the coldest winter in 10 years.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And we turned right into March and the first two
weeks of April was just constantrain.
So Scotty did a lot of histraining during a difficult time
.
But Scotty, your son, marcus,has been an employee here at the
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys for ayear.
Yes, true, and he's yourbusiness partner.
He's got a wealth of experienceunder his belt.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
At this point, it's kind of your origin story, right
.
That's kind of how you foundthe Gutter Monkeys, right.
You know what?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Chris, it's absolutely true.
In a way, that's exactly howthat happened.
Back the truck up.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, back the truck up.
Yeah, back the truck up.
Back the truck up Go back aboutseven years.
How do we all meet?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, initially we were in need of gutters and I
know it was hearing theadvertisements on the radio
gutter monkeys right down theroad and we actually had a crew
come out to give us the quoteand we took up the business.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And we got the commercial version of the
gutters on our house and theylook beautiful.
And we got the commercialversion more jobs on your street
.
I remember diagonally across,the street.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, that's Mike and Mary.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Great people and we did so much work on your street
over the next couple of months.
It seemed like once a month.
We were on your streetthroughout that whole summer,
but that's how we first met Yep.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And fast forward seven or eight years, and here
we are.
Yeah, it's a big leap fromcleaning your gutters to
actually, uh, becoming a.
I don't know.
So what happened in thatinterim then?
Or what was the?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
uh, impetus for well, yeah, sure.
Well, you know, my son is agraduate of upper cape tech.
He studied the trades as acarpenter and he had a couple of
years out.
He worked on some cruisegeneral contracting, you know,
kind of cutting his teeth, andhe reached a point that he
wanted to try somethingdifferent.
And my wife and I were thinkingof options.
You know where would we go?
(04:10):
And Gutter Monkeys came to mind.
Right down the road had donework for us already, very
pleased, and we're like, well,why don't you give the Gutter
Monkeys a call?
And he did, and somehow we gotinto the car.
Oh, my wife was on the guttermonkey website and saw that
there were franchiseopportunities and it really
(04:30):
piqued her interest.
I was coming up to retirementwithin a year and it was an
opportunity and we bit.
We wanted to have aconversation with that and we
actually had the chance to sitdown with Dennis, andy and Bruce
, the principals of Cape Codgutter monkeys and American
gundermonkeys.
And the actually had the chanceto sit down with Dennis, andy
and Bruce, the principals ofCape Cod Gutter Monkeys and
American Gunder Monkeys, and therest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious the first meeting, or
first meeting or two, what wasthe thing that actually made you
walk away and say, hey, we cando this?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
You know, I'll tell you what.
Marcus had started working andwe were in the talks of possibly
becoming a franchisee and twothings struck us.
One that really struck my wifewas the culture here at the
Gutter Monkeys.
It's a family.
Marcus really liked it and thatwas a big sell Like working
here he loved working here.
(05:17):
He still misses.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He would love to go out.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
He's a good egg.
He would love to go out for alast hurrah with Mo or T-Dog or
something like that T-Bone, Ishould say and have a final
cleaning.
But he really liked the culturehere and we loved hearing the
feedback from our son, obviouslylooking to make a career for
himself, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You're going to start doing installs very soon and
you're going to have a lot ofjobs that are just too big for
your brand new small crew to doalone.
Yep, so Marcus is definitelygoing to have the opportunity to
work with a lot of his formercoworkers here.
That's absolutely going tohappen.
Yeah, yep, did they give him anickname yet?
Gosh, I thought Marcus is anickname.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
As far as we go, he does like Marcus.
Sometimes I call him Marky, youknow, but we haven't got a
nickname for him.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
yet You're going to have to work on that.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Nicknames are important, you know.
Sometimes it's a nicknamethat's not so good because
you're a knucklehead, butsometimes it's a nickname
because you know it's in respect.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes you have to earn that
nickname.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Sometimes you need to earn that nickname True, true,
very true.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So there's a couple other things that you were
probably looking at.
Right, I think one of thethings that we hear about often
is you know, what do I need toget into this business Was that?
You know, how did you look atthat, because we have sort of a
home-based model.
How did what are you startingwith, then?
You know what's your currentstatus.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, I'll say this I wasn't a carpenter by trade and
certainly never hung gutters.
And in fact, before beingintroduced to tools and systems
on how to put gutters up, youknow what's a chop saw.
I mean, I know what it is toever handle one Nah, not really.
But now I can tell you.
I know what a chop saw is.
I can bring it from one pointto the other, I can set it up on
a field stand, I know how tozero it and you know I've got
that stuff down to a point thatI'm comfortable.
So if I'm in a situation toneed a chop saw, I know how to
(07:06):
make a cut, I know how tomeasure it and I know how to
make it come out right.
But service trucks you knowthere's some other items that
you need.
Going into the franchise, ofcourse, you're going to have to
have a truck for service.
You're going to need a boxtruck.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You have a beautiful one sitting out in the parking
lot there, brand spanking newJust yeah, nick did a good job.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
He just got those graphics on and I'm very excited
.
It looks sharp.
But that's an expenditure,right.
I mean right off the rip.
You know you're looking at aservice truck.
You need at least a box truckand if it's not cash on hand,
you know you're financing it.
So you've already got a littlebit of overhead.
You've got to make sure ofthings.
So, yeah, in that respect, yeah, and the tools, hand tools and
(07:48):
other things like that, just tomake the jobs work, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And of course you had a lot of help with you know,
dennis, and those guys kind ofoh, this guy's brilliant, that's
a great story.
Dennis always told me I neverwould have realized it was just
ladders.
You know, the first time Ithink you went you bought all
the heavy-duty, massive laddersand stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, I was a roofer Before I was a gutter monkey.
I was a roofer for 30, 35 yearsand when Andy and I first
started the Cape Cod GutterMonkeys, I went out and
purchased a bunch of ladders offof Craigslist and what we
learned over that first year wasroofing ladders have a
different purpose.
They need to hold a man and abundle of shingles climbing up
(08:26):
and down.
A man weighs 200 pounds and abundle of shingles weighs 92
pounds.
That's a 300-pound payload.
If you throw a couple of ladderbrackets and a 24-foot plank
two men and six bundles you knowyou got a thousand pounds plus
on those ladders.
Gutter monkey ladders aredifferent.
You want lightweight, nimbleladders because you're going to
(08:47):
be moving them many, many timeson a single home to clean those
gutters.
Installing gutters is not thatmuch different.
You're moving ladders all thetime, so it's a different shape,
size and weight of ladders.
It's something that is soobvious.
I didn't see it when I firstcame into the business and I had
hung some gutters in my when Iused to build houses and I used
(09:08):
to primarily be a roofingcontractor, so I was no stranger
to gutters.
But since we focus solely ongutters in these last 11 years,
our gutter knowledge.
My gutter knowledge hasskyrocketed, you know, because
we do specialize One of thethings, scott, about.
Let's say that 16-foot box truckthat you recently had lettered
(09:29):
in.
Scotty mentioned Nick.
It's Nick Turkelson is our guy.
He does all of our signage,wraps our trucks.
He built the sign out in thefront of our building here.
Nick Turkelson, he's a greatguy if you need that type of
work done.
He does all of our trucks.
He did a couple of Scotty'strucks very recently, but that
box truck is a moving billboard.
(09:51):
Absolutely.
If you look on, you know, go toso many of the like the radio
stations.
We're on the iHearts, we're onthe Codcoms and the CCB medias,
we're on a lot of differentradio stations and even over the
bridge, atd, plm, cat Countrythese are big radio stations,
many of them, and they alsoprovide digital platforms and
other marketing tools that wecan all use.
(10:13):
And what is the value of animpression?
So if you're online, there'spop-up ads, there's all kinds of
different ads that you canpurchase, and my study has me
believing that a well-logoedtruck, especially a large box
truck that's logoed left, rightand back and even the front does
(10:34):
have the Gutter Monkey logo onit, can garner upwards in a
bedroom community, like we alllive here on Cape Cod.
5,000 views per day, that's abig piece of marketing.
That box truck pays for itselfin marketing alone and that's
something that can't beoverlooked is the value of the
(10:56):
marketing presence of yourtrucks.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
It's huge, that's the thing about all these things
like the ladders, the marketing,the branding and things like
that.
That's stuff that kind of AGMbrings to the table that you
don't have to.
You know that, scott, youdidn't have to worry about I
learned from mistakes.
I mean, all these things arelearned by doing so.
You know it's something youdon't have to worry about.
That came to you as part of thedeal.
You know you learned all thesethings as being part of AGM.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
We made all, we've already made them and we only
make it once.
Then you fix it and we moveforward.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So kind of de-risk your launch, you know you don't
have to worry about making allthose sort of mistakes.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
You know, I'll tell you what, chris.
That's a fantastic pointBecause when I was exploring
opening a franchise, obviouslythe other option would be
starting from scratch.
You know, and I would havepeople ask me why would you do a
franchise that's going to costyou money, why wouldn't you just
do it from the get-go?
And my response would be take alook at the business model.
(11:49):
If you're considering afranchise I don't know if it's
Gutter Monkeys or if it's amattress moving company or
whatever it might be what dothey bring to the table?
And I can tell you, the folkshere at Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys
had a business plan.
They had a marketing plan.
They, as Dennis just said, madethe mistakes, learned from them
and now you have best practicesin place.
(12:10):
One of the first things Ilearned ladders lightweight
green tip Werner ladder, and I'mgoing to need it in a 20, 24,
32, and what was the last?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
28.
Yeah, we also keep forties, ahandful of forties.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Those are tall ladders.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
We don't use them every day, but we have three or
four of them in the shop thatget used pretty regularly, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
But if you were starting from scratch, how would
you know that you'd be ended upgetting a fiberglass ladder and
trying to lug that thing around, and it's five times the weight
.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, it doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It, yeah, it doesn't sound fun.
It doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So you're starting out now.
You've got a home-based modelright.
You're at home right now.
You're working on your basementand stuff like that.
I was talking to you thismorning.
Sounds like the phone isringing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Phones are ringing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're busy this morning.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
The discussion was how do we set up our week?
I mean, obviously you have aterritory you need to work.
You don't want to spreadyourself out one day or one job
in Foxborough and then have yournext job in Middleborough and
then have your next job inWhitman or things like that.
There's so much travel timethat's involved.
You're chewing up your day justgetting from one point to the
(13:14):
other.
So that was one of the firstconsiderations, I guess how to
structure your weekno-transcript cleaning set up on
Monday and Tuesday, right, andthen be able to have your
installs as they start comingonline on Wednesday and Thursday
and then keep Friday as youroffice day.
And I think that worked welland that's how we're trying to
(13:38):
get our jobs set up for success.
Make sure that you go from yourfurthest point out, work your
way back and then you're back athome.
Yeah, and you added a fewpeople we did.
It was originally myself, mywife Myra, my son Marcus.
We have Myra's sister-in-law,barbara.
She's our office girl.
She works Mondays and Tuesdaysright now, and that just happens
(14:02):
to be our cleaning days wherewe should be out of the office
cleaning, so she has the abilityto man the phones at this point
, on those days.
We also have my nephew, trevor,who's working with us.
It's slow bringing him in andhe is a great worker.
I'm really blessed.
Anyone who owns a business,your employees if you find
yourself a good employee,someone who doesn't bang in sick
(14:24):
, comes to work on time and hasgood effort and a good, you know
good place in his mind for whathe's doing and keep them, do
what you do to keep them.
So yeah, I mean it's, it's asmall crew, but you know what
it's our crew.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's something I can actually say.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's our crew, right.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It's a family.
Yeah, it really is a family.
That's the impression you get,at least I get coming in here.
Of course, the podcast here isdone in Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys
headquarters AGM has a littleoffice here, but it's Cape Cod
Gutter Monkeys and it really isa family.
Here you come in all these guysWell, you've known these guys
for so long.
Yeah, we've had a lot of themBeen with you for a while, some
of the guys from the start right, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know, just to jump back to a question you had,
have, you know, not just one,but you have several employees
that have been here for sincethe beginning, 10 years ago,
maybe eight years ago.
I mean that's a testimony, foryou know how you run your
business.
For someone to stay for thelong haul, like that, I mean, I
(15:19):
think that's phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, we have good retention of our co-workers.
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys we'rein our 11th year.
Chris has been here 10 and ahalf years.
Adam's been with us 10 years.
Then it's James Mo Trev.
They've been here nine yearsgive or take.
Charlie and Bobby have beenhere seven years.
John yeah, we have a reallysolid, solid group of core
(15:44):
coworkers here that are justfantastic and it is like family
it's part of your model.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I mean, you've kind of built in that family that
togetherness.
That was part of the businessplan.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Way back in the beginning, when we started, andy
and I started forming thebusiness model long before we
ever cleaned a gutter.
There were a lot of things thatwe were focusing on, and one of
them was the culture of thecompany.
One of my last company beforethis one was on-time
construction and the sub companywas Blazing Guns Roofing.
We used to build houses andre-roof houses.
(16:16):
That was our world.
We had just a great culture.
We had a pool tournament everyFriday night.
We had a great pool table backin the shop and you know we had
Christmas parties and we.
It was just like family.
It was really great, a lot likewhat we have here.
This company obviously hasgrown significantly larger than
that company but, yeah, a lot ofit is about the people that you
work with every day yourcoworkers, but also then your
(16:39):
customers.
They're more important than theladders and the trucks, because
without your coworkers andwithout your customers, you
don't have any need for laddersand trucks.
And sometimes we forget thisyoung lady that came in earlier
today.
She was a young lady popped in,she was just visiting.
She was a small business ownerand she gave us a knock at the
door and she walked in and shelooked and she said, oh my gosh,
(17:00):
you're doing a podcast.
I said, yeah, actually we'regoing live here in about half an
hour and she was so intriguedand she would look at the pool
table over there and thedartboards.
This is amazing.
Sometimes we forget, like weget spoiled.
But Scotty did mention that.
Scotty, you've mentioned that tome many times over the past
year, longer, even WheneverMarcus started here a little
(17:21):
over a year ago.
You've commented on that howmuch he likes it here.
It's true, we try to keep a funatmosphere, a fun environment.
I think it's very important.
And as you're building a team,I mean back in the beginning it
was Andy and me and an old truck.
We had a 10-year-old truck andthat's how we started and within
a year or two we probably hadfour or five guys and my wife,
(17:41):
babs.
She was our office managerright out of the gate, and then
Nancy, andy's wife, came on andBabs and Nancy pretty much ran
the office.
We didn't need anybody else atthe time.
But even our office staff nowis very solid.
Yes, it's fun.
I enjoy coming to work everyday and that's huge.
I want to point out one thingthat, scotty, this came about
many months six, eight, 10months ago when you I believe
(18:05):
Myra was there, bruce, a bunchof us were sitting in Bruce's
office just talking and severalitems came up and I remember
walking over and I shook yourhand and went back and sat down
because you have a very highlevel of financial literacy.
It's not that common to meetsomebody that says the things
you do and understands thethings that you do, and I know
(18:27):
you have, prior to your work forthe state over at the prison
which you were at 20 plus years.
How many years 20 years, 20years in the jail, not?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
convicted by the way.
Oh, you were innocent the wholetime.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
All hearsay and allegation.
There's no guilty people here.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
You had a little bit of background in the financial
services I did.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Did you not?
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It was very apparent.
In this one conversation yousaid two or three things that
were eye-opening.
I really felt like I wastalking to somebody that has a
high level of financialknowledge and I walked up.
I stood up, I walked over shookyour hand and I sat back down
again.
That's huge.
Having a good financialbackground in anything you do is
(19:15):
so beneficial.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, we talk about that all the time on this
podcast.
How important it is.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
We do.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And I know I talk to a lot of potential franchisees
out there, kind of shaking thebushes looking for them, and one
of the biggest kind of thesaddest things I find is that we
find a lot of guys who have alot of potential, make great
gutter monkeys but they don'thave their financial house in
order or they don't understandthe model and it's very hard to
talk to them about some of thebenefits of the gutter monkeys
and having a franchise that youprobably picked up on pretty
(19:42):
quickly because of yourbackground.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well, and my wife, she also works as a yep she's a
project manager, so she sees alot of the finances as well.
Just something as basic as aprofit and loss statement what
are your numbers at any givenpoint during your month or
quarter or year?
And I know people that havesmall businesses and you'll ask
them what's your?
You know what's your profit andloss.
(20:05):
It's like I don't know.
It was like you need you kindof need to know that you really
kind of do.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And it all goes together Marketing sales, the
number of employees, monthlyP&Ls and how many trucks am I
going to need by the end of 2025?
I always do my forecast at theend of the year, and January 4th
of each year is when I do mybalance sheets and all that kind
(20:30):
of good stuff.
But I also I basically presentmy forecast for the coming year
on or about January 4th and Ialways look at where I want to
be in 12 months and do we haveenough trucks to get us there?
Do we have enough coworkersin-house right now or do I need
to look at two or three more?
And these are some of thethings that having a good high
(20:54):
level of financial literacy canreally help you.
It can help you forecast, itcan help you see things before
they get here, and there'sabsolutely a huge benefit to
that.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and I've seen your list basically forecast of
how many people you need to getthis sort of revenue how many
trucks?
How much.
Even you've got it down to evenhow much parking space you need
to have a crew of 15 people.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You just opened up some new parking.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
We did.
You know, it's really down tothat level.
If you want to hit X number ofdollars in revenue being a
gutter monkey, you're going toneed this much space, this many
people, these many parking spots.
You know, right down to thatlevel.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
That's the business growth chart that we talk about.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, and I'm sure Scott, you've seen that probably
and a lot of people again withproblems with their financial
literacy, they'll look at thatand it doesn't make a lot of
sense when we talk about in thisbusiness, about building real
wealth through businessownership, that's kind of what
we mean.
You know you're building realwealth as you start adding on
those things and start buildingout your business.
That was one of the things thatimpressed me.
I wish again too old, but Iwish I had actually found out
(21:53):
about this myself a few yearsback, because I would have
jumped into it.
And those are some of thethings that really made it
attractive to me is that levelof planning and stuff that's
been done Well.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I think there might be an adage back in the finance
days, and even if you have abusiness, you know hope is a bad
strategy when it comes toinvestments.
Hope is a bad strategy.
When you're creating a business, hope is great and you want
that to fall on your side.
But to enter into something andsay, well, I hope this works
(22:21):
out this way, or I really reallyhope things will work out that
way, that's a tough way to go atit.
It's a very tough way to go atit.
It's good.
Very tough way to go at it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, it's good to have a partner where you got an
idea.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So let's.
One of the questions I had foryou is we were the other day.
We went down and we recorded aradio ad, one of the gutter
monkey radio ads that you'rewell known for.
Dennis is well known for hisBobby Don spot on the Cape Cod.
Cape Cod.
Gutter monkeys got the radio ad, I guess, on.
And how did it sound your voiceon the radio?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
I'm kind of curious.
Well, I have heard my voice onthe radio.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And it's a little weird because I know when we
started the podcast, one of thebiggest issues I had with this
podcast is I hate the way myvoice sounds on the podcast and
everyone else is like it soundsfine.
It sounds fine Like Dennis'svoice is so much better than
mine After a while.
After a while oh gosh, itsounds normal.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
But right, it takes a while but how did it go?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
how was your uh first radio ad?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
oh well, I'll tell you what.
I had a blast recording that wewere um at plm, right, uh, we
did.
It probably was plm, butgetting into the studio and
getting past, like the shock,you know there's your microphone
right there and you know we'regoing live.
And you know there's yourmicrophone right there and you
know we're going live.
And you know, as soon as thatcomes up and you're starting to
speak, yeah, it's just like ohokay, this is very different
(23:39):
from anything I've ever donebefore, but to be honest with
you, it was.
It was a blast.
I had a good time, you didreally well.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I mean, I remember we did a take on your lines, you
did a second take and then itwent very smoothly after that.
I think you just got the bugsout and you did a really, really
solid job.
I know we've done I lose trackof things, but we've done
several right.
We've been in different radiostudios.
I know we were up to PLM.
I was up to ATD a couple ofweeks ago.
(24:06):
Those guys it was.
They're a fun group up there.
Atd is in Marshfield and I wason the morning business show
about two weeks ago and just funRadio people.
They have magical voices.
They're not like ours.
I'm a gutter monkey first andforemost, but they have their
regular voice and as soon asthey OK, we've got got to go
(24:28):
live, we got to do traffic onthe threes or weather on the
eights or whatever, and theyturn into that radio voice.
Larry over at a PLM, yeah, he'sgot a great radio voice and
he's funny.
He's a comedian, he's got somegood stuff and it can be a
little intimidating becauseyou're in his office, this is
(24:49):
his studio, this is his worldand we're just walking in off
the streets but we did.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
We've done many ads, yeah.
Yeah, I mean right there whenyou say I mean, what is
someone's context?
You're in a studio, you'resaying you are in a studio.
How many people are in a studioever?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
yeah I know especially for a new franchise.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean, you're a new franchisee and a week later
you're back.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You're in a studio doing ads.
How long would that without thehelp of a I'd probably still be
shopping it around.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean it's and I'll tell you another thing that's
great about radio and reallyit's really good Over the time
that the gutter monkey's beenbuilding up over the decade.
I mean there's somecatchphrases that are out there
that are just absolute gold.
I mean, when you think about it, we clean gutters so you don't
have to, we clean gutters so youdon't have to.
No monkeys were harmed in themaking of this commercial.
(25:32):
I mean people, I mean they loveit, or even if it annoys them,
there's like I can't believethat's such a hokey commercial.
Well, we're in your headbecause you're just telling us
our two biggest taglines, so itmust be working.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, we go out to dinner after these podcasts and
always like walking intorestaurants with these guys,
because the first thing you walkthrough the door and they're
like oh the gutter monkey's here.
Oh yeah, I'm a gutter monkey,have you had that experience yet
?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Well, I'll tell you what.
I did have a customer call in.
It was a new customer and shewas in the territory and needed
the cleaning done.
Really basic, the house wasn'tformidable, it was all lower.
I'm going to talk some gutterlingo right now.
It was all lowers.
It was a one story.
I mean, it was a ranch, prettystraightforward.
And she got to talking aboutwhat she needed done and she's
(26:19):
like hey, have I heard yourvoice before?
Hey, you sound familiar.
I mean she just stopped me andjust asked this question.
I was like, ah, it's a littlesheepish.
I'm like, oh, you know, it'slike.
Ah.
I said well, if you have toknow, I've done a couple of
commercials and I positioned it.
I was saying I'm BobbyDownspout's sidekick and, yeah,
you might've heard me on acouple of commercials.
She's like I knew it.
(26:39):
I said I heard you on CatCountry.
Yeah, I heard us on Cat Country.
Big radio station, you know tryand get my head back to normal
size, it's like, and she was asweetheart too.
It was a fantastic job that wedid, very appreciative.
We did a couple of minorrepairs in the cleaning and it's
funny, it does happen.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
We were in Turks and Caicos Two years ago, march.
You always have a t-shirt or aball cap that has gutter monkeys
on it when you're on vacationand this family saw us and
actually, chris, they're fromWorcester and they know us from
the radio stations out inWorcester.
The other day, sunday, we werea group of us, took a little
(27:19):
company break and we went up tothe Sox game four of us and we
were out on the four cornersoutside fenway just hanging out
and bruce was picking up somepeanuts in the shells big bag of
them.
You get them outside for 10bucks and the peanut vendor, he
saw bruce's ball cap and he saidare you the cape cod gutter
monkeys?
He said yeah, I am.
He goes.
(27:39):
Actually I'm not, I'm the guyin the office.
I sit in a seat, you know, andshining with my fanny all day.
But he goes those guys and guysand he points to Trevor and
Charlie and myself.
He goes, those guys areactually the real gutter monkeys
out in the field and he saysyou do my gutters.
This guy was from Yarmouth.
He's a guy, semi-retired, andthis is sort of his retirement
(27:59):
gig.
He goes up to the Sox game onthe weekends and he has a peanut
, he's a vendor's license andhe's out in front.
And then one of the Boston copscame over and he started
talking with us and he said youguys are the gutter monkeys.
And we said, yeah, because youcan see the ball caps.
He goes.
You do my gutters, he goeshouse.
(28:24):
But marketing is a wonderfulthing.
It's absolutely branding.
It's a wonderful thing.
It really is flattering whenyou're 75 miles from home and
you meet a couple of guys thatare customers of yours.
It really is, because it's nota regular occurrence, but it's
nice when it does happen.
And, as you said, chris, if Ihave a hoodie on and I'm going
(28:44):
into the market basket, you know, here and on the bridge here in
the Cape, yes, two or threepeople always say oh, I can see
the sweatshirt.
Oh, you're the gutter monkeys,yeah, you do my gutters.
It happens a lot, but andthat's just branding, that's
one-on-one.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Right and there's very consistent across all our
gutter monkey franchisees.
I mean we all refer to it asthe gutter monkeys.
We all have the same truck.
Your truck looks just like theother ones other than Southeast
gutter monkeys on it and whatnot.
It looks nice.
Especially when they're alllined up and stuff like that.
It's pretty impressive.
But yeah, bobby, but downspoutstories.
So yeah, I had the sameexperience in Worcester going
(29:18):
through Home Depot.
Yeah, it's kind of cool.
Even my mother listens to itand she's up that direction.
So I heard the gutter monkeystoday.
I always ask which one wasn't.
Oh, I don't remember, but Iheard it we're all better
monkeys she also hears thecompetitors too, and she'll tell
me when a competitor comes on.
They weren't you.
I heard them on the radio whatwas that?
About your number one fan upthere in ashland mass.
(29:39):
She saw that still in ashland,same house as when we were in
high school.
We used to go up there and weused to run up that hill.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Remember that hill, Ramblewood right.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, remember that hill Magunko.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Hill.
We used to have to run up there.
I remember it very well.
It was awful it was a long wayfrom school too.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, so let's get into a little bit more about you
know so, you're training,you're comfortable on ladders
now.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I guess you haven.
You know you start getting upto the heights, you think about
it.
You got to be careful.
You need to know your laddersafety, which is one of the
first things they the guttermonkeys, you know taught us
ladder safety.
I mean just the basics.
If you're carrying a ladderfrom point A to B, you know
there's a couple of ways you cando it.
One way is three points ofcontact.
I didn't know that.
What are you talking about?
It's a big ladder.
Should I have two people?
I mean, there's ways to safelyand efficiently move a ladder
(30:30):
and that's your business,because you're using ladders to
get up to the gutters to do yourcleanings.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and so some of your office stuff is getting set
up now, your back office toolsand things like that yeah, you
know scheduling.
I'm sure scheduling is a majorpart of this whole thing.
So, and of course, guttermonkeys have a scheduling system
and stuff that you're using.
Yep, there's a lot of backoffice things to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You know the accounting, the QuickBooks,
those items ledgers.
I'll tell you, even just havingthe daily schedule, when we
first went live, I had the dailyschedule.
It was on our laptop, but Iwasn't using the laptop.
I had notes, sticky notes, andonly after three customers I was
totally confused.
I'm like I got three people toschedule.
(31:10):
Well, who did I talk to?
What's the phone number?
I know I'm supposed to get theemail address, but yeah, there
are processes in place.
That makes your life a loteasier as you follow it.
And again, that's another thingto keep in mind with franchises
, if you have the marketing asyou were just talking about
marketing gold and the processesin place and you know the right
(31:30):
equipment for the job, it makesyour life a heck of a lot
easier.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, especially being in a startup.
You got so many things going on.
Oh my gosh, it's just one lessthing you had to worry about.
Yep, very true, very true.
So, going forward, looking downthe road a little bit, you have
sort of a three-month,six-month year growth plan.
What's your near-term thoughtson what you're hoping for this
summer and towards the end ofthe year, I guess?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Sure, you know I do have some ideas.
You know milestones, someplaces that I would like to see
the Southeast gutter monkeys beat certain time points, I mean
right now.
Initially we're just happy thatthe phones are ringing, right,
you know.
So that's step one.
You know I'd like to see, in ayear's time, for example, having
(32:17):
a shop within our territory.
Right now we're traveling fromAshby Our territory is off Cape,
which will present somechallenges when you start
thinking about the summer monthsgetting on and off the Cape on
the bridges.
Right sure, and that's evenbefore they decide to remake one
of the bridges coming up.
We'll see how that works out.
So yeah, I see myself in a year.
I'd like to see southeastgutter monkeys, at the very
least leasing out a baysomewhere within our territory.
(32:38):
Maybe it's in the Middleborough, taunton areas, rainham or
somewhere around there.
But I'll tell you what Iclipped out.
I think some people might callit a vision board.
I mean, there's different namesand there's different ways of
thinking about it, but you know,trying to envision where your
goal is, and I have a dry eraseboard in my office and in the
(32:58):
left, lower, left-hand corner Iactually have a clip out of a
shop like an actual.
Is it metal?
What is your shop?
Is it called a metal building?
What is?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
this building.
Yeah, it's called a steelbuilding.
We are in a Morton building.
I've built a few of these.
It's a post and beam frame, butexterior is steel.
Okay, gotcha Steel building,yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And I actually clipped out a picture of.
You know, it's not a four bayestablishment shop like what the
Cape Cod gutter monkeys have,but I've got a vision that I'd
like to have this shop.
It's got two bays, it's got anoffice.
You can see, on one side thereis an entrance.
I can envision a sign Southeastgutter monkeys out front and I
(33:40):
have that tape right on my dryerase board.
So yeah, you know, knock onwood, we got a good team.
We've got good employees wherewe know the trade.
We're always going to belearning more about the trade,
but I think it's a phenomenalstart and yeah, you know, three
years down the road, I thinkthat might be something that can
be accomplished.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That's interesting.
So, you got your family all in,and so you're on your way now.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
We're on our way.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, we're on our way, exciting.
Yeah, well, glad to have youhere.
I'm sure it's been great.
You know the little time we'vebeen able to spend to each other
.
You know kind of paths beencrossing, but glad we could get
you in today to talk about thisstuff.
Yeah, glad to be here.
So what do you think about Anysort of advice you would have
for other people that arethinking about not just maybe
(34:26):
being a gutter monkey, orcertainly we'd hope that people
would be considering that.
What is your advice?
First off, I kind of want to goback to that one point you made
because it kind of struck me asvery interesting.
It's like the first part thatyou made when you were talking
about this franchise opportunitywas the culture, which kind of
shocked me, because the firstpoints most people you think
about is can I make money doingit?
(34:47):
All those other sort of morenot mundane but more technical
issues.
But you started right away onthe culture.
You seem to think that that wasreally an important part of it
which I agree with I did.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I think, going into any type of venture with dollar
signs in your eyes and that'sthe only thing that you have in
your eyes, I think that you'regoing to miss some of the more
finer points of owning abusiness how you treat your
customers, the product thatyou're presenting, how you do
your work, the image you areshowing the public.
We have uniforms, right, wehave uniforms, and you're not
(35:19):
going in.
You know hobbling out of a beatup truck.
You know, with cans falling outof it, you're dressed in ripped
jeans and you know that allpackages itself into the culture
, which is great.
And again, it was already there.
I didn't have to guess, Ididn't have to think about it, I
didn't have to come up with it.
So, yeah, that's what I wouldsay about that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Dennis, how do you feel about the new Southeast
Guadalmonkeys?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Oh, I'm very excited.
Great location.
It's been a it's a big piece ofreal estate in between South
shore gutter monkeys and Southcoast gutter monkeys and we're
really looking forward to havingScotty and his team a
well-established business inthat area.
It cuts down on the travel thatthe South shore gutter monkeys
(36:04):
has to do they?
don't have to go over over intothose other towns and we
willingly do it, it's no problem.
But now we can become a littlebit more efficient, a little bit
more streamlined, and, yeah,I'm looking forward to it.
Scotty and Myra, they're verysmart people.
This was very apparent rightout of the gate, and the skill
set can be taught.
(36:25):
You know, scotty mentioned thatone of the first things he
noticed about our business modelwas we have a great culture.
Very interesting, because a lotof people don't look for that.
They look at the dollars andcents right away.
Dollars and cents are important,but sometimes, seeing things
from a different view, like, forexample, the culture we have in
(36:45):
our company.
Another thing, for example, theculture we have in our company,
another thing.
For example, when I'm hiringsomebody, I generally don't look
at their skill set first.
Skill set's good, but I look atpersonality first.
Yeah, it goes back to our moneyball.
Yeah, yeah, so many times Greatmovie, great book, great movie.
So many times I see smallbusiness owners looking for the
obvious.
So many times I see smallbusiness owners looking for the
obvious oh, I need a newcarpenter.
(37:08):
I'm looking for a carpenter,you know, just for the season.
Well, if you're looking for aseasonal carpenter, that's a
tough find.
So look long term.
You know you're looking longterm for a skill set to fill a
slot.
I look for the personality forit.
Now, yeah, when I want askilled carpenter, sure, I'm
going to interview and look tohire a skilled carpenter.
(37:29):
But in general, in all thecompanies I've ever owned, I try
to look for the personalityfirst.
We can teach carpentry.
If I bring a guy on and he's amiddle of the road carpenter,
he's not going to be a leadcarpenter.
I'm going to put him on a crewthat has two other good
carpenters and he's going tostep in line.
And that's how we develop skillsets by putting people around,
(37:50):
surrounding them with otherpeople of similar and maybe even
greater skill sets ofpersonality.
First and foremost is look forthat and in the case of what
Scotty mentioned before, thefirst thing he noticed, or one
of the first things that hementioned to me, was this
company here the gutter has abit of a different culture than
he's ever seen and he came outof a harsh culture.
(38:12):
I've met some of his co-workers.
I mean you have yes, I have, Iknow, and we're up to the
registry of motor vehicles.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You sure did.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Oh my gosh, that's a hardcore job that you guys do,
yep, managing inmates in aprison environment, that's a
tough culture.
That's a tough, tough job andwe don't have to do that.
We just hang gutters.
Gutters don't argue back,gutters don't have issues.
We're not dealing with thehuman element, we're dealing
with aluminum and yeah.
(38:40):
So you came out of anenvironment that I just have a
gentleman's exterior view of itall.
That's a pretty tough cultureyou came out of, and now you're
coming into something where youcan build the culture in your
own office however you want.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah, it's kind of the great thing about the gutter
monkeys too is it's sort of abusiness you don't need to start
at 22 years old.
It's all been kind of ramped upfor you.
It's all been kind of laid out.
The model has been laid out.
You can come into this job as asecond career, like you're
doing like a school teacher or afirefighter, you know and kind
(39:15):
of get into this business notknowing a lot Like you said you
didn't know a chop saw from ayou know what, a carrot grater
or something.
but you know you're about right,so you know you could kind of
get into it.
You can get into as a secondcareer.
And again, another thing that Ikind of wish I was a few years
younger because I would havejumped at the chance, because it
would have been perfect for asecond career for me.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, doing what I did for 20 years, I had its ups
and downs and it's like anyplace that you might work.
There's ups and downs.
The biggest difference for me Iknew I was coming up to
retirement.
It would be something totallydifferent, as it turns out, than
what I had been doing theprevious 20 years, but it's
almost like how you approach theday, the work I did.
It was tough but it was alsoshift work so you knew you were
(39:57):
going to be in at a certain timeand you would know.
Going in you'd sit down androll call and the next shift
needed 26 people and you took around, did a head count and it
was like four people in rollcall.
Well, your eight day shift isnow going to turn into a 16 day
shift and that happens a lot andthat wears down on you.
(40:17):
If you're someone who's singleman, woman, because there's a
lot of women that workcorrections as well If you're
single and you want to make somemoney, you can make a ton of
money.
You want to work 80 hours aweek, then come in on your days
off and work a couple doublesand add another 40 hours or
whatever it might be.
I mean you can, but if you'rewith a family it's very
difficult.
You know I miss.
You know I miss a lot of thingswith my kids and that's one of
(40:39):
the things I appreciate now withthe gutter monkeys is, you know
, just today, just goofing offwith my son.
I mean, we're in the truck, ittakes 45 minutes to get to our
first job, and I'm actuallytalking to this kid.
He's a good kid, yeah, you know, and it's stuff that you missed
over a 20 year period.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, yeah, you don't hear that a lot from people
running franchises.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Oh, I'm working there because I get to spend time
with my family.
It's usually tough opposite.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
It's tough and I was telling Marcus today, and I was
like you know what I like aboutthis.
I'll tell you what this is,what I like about this.
It's different than what I wasdoing in my previous job.
I wake up in the morning and Isee it's an opportunity.
I don't know what's going tohappen, but there's an
opportunity to talk to someone.
There's an opportunity to proveyour worth with what you're
(41:23):
doing installing gutters.
It's an ability to talk topeople and just be friendly,
talk, to just talk to them likewe're normal people right Every
day.
You know, I was like Marcus.
I'm telling you right now thatit's an opportunity.
Every day is an opportunity.
What's that opportunity, youknow, going to present?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
itself.
That's a great outlook.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
And how do you latch onto that and it's so different
than what I had done.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Kind of like what we talk about, you know, building
real wealth through businessownership.
That's what you're really doing.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
So yeah, chris, that's part of the package.
Yeah, I mean, if I could pickmy top 10 most important
components, that's in there.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Right, that's in there and that's kind of what
you're describing getting upevery day.
That's what you're doing, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
You know, I'm actually waking up earlier than
I ever had before just becauseof the way my shifts work, but
it is, get a couple cups ofcoffee, get the cobwebs out of
your head and it's like you knowwhat's my day going to be like
today.
You know what I'm going to beable to talk to.
You know Joan, I got a cleaningwith her.
She sounded great on the phone.
She needed something done atthe house, or cleaning, or
whatever it might be, and nowI'm going to have a chance to
talk to her in person.
You know, and you presentyourself, and I think that's the
(42:28):
.
When you talk about building acompany, you know, are you
seeing the dollar signs first?
Are you actually thinking aboutestablishing a company?
Cause this is, let's say this,you can start off and you know,
pay for all the marketing in theworld that you want, and if you
don't know how to speak to acustomer, then what do you got?
You want to be able to set up arelationship that we did a
cleaning and a small repair outin Canton recently and I got in
(42:51):
touch with her and the woman was.
She was distraught, she had someleaks in her gutters and she
can't seem to find anyone tocome up.
And she explained her story andI did some probing and I knew,
going in, that she had anothercompany that was helping her out
.
At the very least she had themfor two cleanings one's a spring
cleaning and a fall cleaning.
(43:11):
So we got up there, marcus andI.
We were able to quicklydiscover what the issue was.
We were able to take care of itright off.
We satisfied her needs and aswe were coming up to settle up,
she's like well, the next timeyou come, when you come here for
your next cleaning, I want youto take a look at all those
seams.
And I was like well, you didtell me that you had another
(43:32):
company coming in.
She's like no, no, no.
And I says you're doing all mywork now.
So the next time you come in,I'd like you to take a look at
this and this.
And then she's like hey, by anychance, do you happen to work
in Sharon?
I was like well, you know what?
That's part of our territory.
And she's like you know what?
Give me a bunch of yourbusiness cards, because I'm
going to make sure that all myfriends and my family knows who
you are and you'll take care oftheir business as well.
(43:53):
So that's your difference.
I mean, you know you're goingto take some pride in your work
and you're going to be able.
I need 140 social media posts.
You know?
What's more rewarding?
I think the latter, I thinkbeing, you know, talking to your
customers and makingrelationships, knowing that it's
(44:14):
not a one and done type ofthing, but you're actually going
to be able to work with themtwice, maybe three times a year
and if there's an issue withyour gutters, bang, that's who
you're going to call.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, we touch on this all the time.
You know this.
We bang that's who you're goingto call.
Yeah, we touch on this all thetime.
You know this.
We talk about innovation allthe time.
You know, being part of thispodcast is a lot about
innovation of the small business.
But a lot of these innovationsare these old school things you
know communications with yourcustomers talking to them,
meeting them in fantasticanswering the phone when people
call.
I called your number today andyou answered the phone.
I was like I'm going to callhim.
Oh, this is their work number.
He's probably not going to bein it on the phone.
(44:45):
There you were on the phone.
Yep, southeast gutter monkeys.
All right, so it's been reallyinteresting having you here,
scott.
I hope to have you back.
We should have you back like insix months or nine months and
you can tell us about how thingsare going and what's happening
in your area.
I know we're all excited aboutyou great gutter monkey already,
and it's going to be a lot offun having you on the team.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I tell you, looking forward to it yeah, great, all
right, bobby downspout of thegutter.
Monkeys saying no monkeys wereharmed in the making of this
podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yep, as always.
All right, we'll see you guysnext time.
All right, enjoy, all right,bye-bye.
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.
(45:33):
And if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
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.
(45:55):
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
Ever thought about starting a new career, one where
you call the shots, work withyour family and build something
that's truly your own.
Today's episode is a specialone.
We're sitting down with ScottWellington, the newest
franchisee in the Gutter Monkeyfamily and owner of Southeast
Gutter Monkeys.
This one's personal Scott was alongtime customer.
Now he's running his ownfranchise with his wife Myra and
(00:23):
son Marcus by his side.
In this episode we dig intowhat made Scott take the leap
from a 20-year career in thestate system to starting a
home-based family business.
We talk about how he found theGutter Monkeys and what stood
out in the franchise model andwhy, after years and a tough job
, he saw this as a path to buildsomething real.
From ladder safety to boxtrucks, radio ads and customer
(00:44):
connection, scott shares whatit's really like to launch a
small business with big support.
If you're someone thinking abouta second career or wondering
what it takes to build wealthand legacy through business
ownership, this one is for you.
We have a great show for you,so grab a cup of coffee, sit
back, relax and welcome toMonkey Business Radio.
And welcome to Monkey BusinessRadio, hello everyone.
(01:07):
Welcome to episode 16, wherewe're welcoming the newest
franchise in the American guttermonkey family, the Southeast
Gutter Monkeys.
As always, I'm here with mygood friend Dennis Siggins of
the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys.
Chris, how are you doing Good?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Good, how are you, dennis?
Doing well, chris, we have kindof an old friend, customer and
our newest franchisee, scottyWellington, on board today.
Scott, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm doing fantastic, dennis.
Chris, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Good, I'm doing good, all right, great Scott, glad to
have you on the show, glad tobe here, me, and to get you here
for a bit.
We're all interested in yourstory.
Very interesting story actually.
Oh, story actually, oh, it's astory, it's a story.
So you're a couple of weeks in.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing fantastic.
We got some spring weathercoming in.
Today was gorgeous.
We were working out inMiddleborough cleaning gutters,
making it happen, and just theweather was cooperating and it
was just nice to be out.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, you had a tough start.
The weather's been pretty toughlast two months, Sure Four
months actually.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
January February was the coldest winter in 10 years.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And we turned right into March and the first two
weeks of April was just constantrain.
So Scotty did a lot of histraining during a difficult time
.
But Scotty, your son, marcus,has been an employee here at the
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys for ayear.
Yes, true, and he's yourbusiness partner.
He's got a wealth of experienceunder his belt.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
At this point, it's kind of your origin story, right
.
That's kind of how you foundthe Gutter Monkeys, right.
You know what?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Chris, it's absolutely true.
In a way, that's exactly howthat happened.
Back the truck up.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, back the truck up.
Yeah, back the truck up.
Back the truck up Go back aboutseven years.
How do we all meet?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, initially we were in need of gutters and I
know it was hearing theadvertisements on the radio
gutter monkeys right down theroad and we actually had a crew
come out to give us the quoteand we took up the business.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And we got the commercial version of the
gutters on our house and theylook beautiful.
And we got the commercialversion more jobs on your street
.
I remember diagonally across,the street.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, that's Mike and Mary.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Great people and we did so much work on your street
over the next couple of months.
It seemed like once a month.
We were on your streetthroughout that whole summer,
but that's how we first met Yep.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And fast forward seven or eight years, and here
we are.
Yeah, it's a big leap fromcleaning your gutters to
actually, uh, becoming a.
I don't know.
So what happened in thatinterim then?
Or what was the?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
uh, impetus for well, yeah, sure.
Well, you know, my son is agraduate of upper cape tech.
He studied the trades as acarpenter and he had a couple of
years out.
He worked on some cruisegeneral contracting, you know,
kind of cutting his teeth, andhe reached a point that he
wanted to try somethingdifferent.
And my wife and I were thinkingof options.
You know where would we go?
(04:10):
And Gutter Monkeys came to mind.
Right down the road had donework for us already, very
pleased, and we're like, well,why don't you give the Gutter
Monkeys a call?
And he did, and somehow we gotinto the car.
Oh, my wife was on the guttermonkey website and saw that
there were franchiseopportunities and it really
(04:30):
piqued her interest.
I was coming up to retirementwithin a year and it was an
opportunity and we bit.
We wanted to have aconversation with that and we
actually had the chance to sitdown with Dennis, andy and Bruce
, the principals of Cape Codgutter monkeys and American
gundermonkeys.
And the actually had the chanceto sit down with Dennis, andy
and Bruce, the principals ofCape Cod Gutter Monkeys and
American Gunder Monkeys, and therest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious the first meeting, or
first meeting or two, what wasthe thing that actually made you
walk away and say, hey, we cando this?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
You know, I'll tell you what.
Marcus had started working andwe were in the talks of possibly
becoming a franchisee and twothings struck us.
One that really struck my wifewas the culture here at the
Gutter Monkeys.
It's a family.
Marcus really liked it and thatwas a big sell Like working
here he loved working here.
(05:17):
He still misses.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He would love to go out.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
He's a good egg.
He would love to go out for alast hurrah with Mo or T-Dog or
something like that T-Bone, Ishould say and have a final
cleaning.
But he really liked the culturehere and we loved hearing the
feedback from our son, obviouslylooking to make a career for
himself, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You're going to start doing installs very soon and
you're going to have a lot ofjobs that are just too big for
your brand new small crew to doalone.
Yep, so Marcus is definitelygoing to have the opportunity to
work with a lot of his formercoworkers here.
That's absolutely going tohappen.
Yeah, yep, did they give him anickname yet?
Gosh, I thought Marcus is anickname.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
As far as we go, he does like Marcus.
Sometimes I call him Marky, youknow, but we haven't got a
nickname for him.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
yet You're going to have to work on that.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Nicknames are important, you know.
Sometimes it's a nicknamethat's not so good because
you're a knucklehead, butsometimes it's a nickname
because you know it's in respect.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes you have to earn that
nickname.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Sometimes you need to earn that nickname True, true,
very true.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So there's a couple other things that you were
probably looking at.
Right, I think one of thethings that we hear about often
is you know, what do I need toget into this business Was that?
You know, how did you look atthat, because we have sort of a
home-based model.
How did what are you startingwith, then?
You know what's your currentstatus.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, I'll say this I wasn't a carpenter by trade and
certainly never hung gutters.
And in fact, before beingintroduced to tools and systems
on how to put gutters up, youknow what's a chop saw.
I mean, I know what it is toever handle one Nah, not really.
But now I can tell you.
I know what a chop saw is.
I can bring it from one pointto the other, I can set it up on
a field stand, I know how tozero it and you know I've got
that stuff down to a point thatI'm comfortable.
So if I'm in a situation toneed a chop saw, I know how to
(07:06):
make a cut, I know how tomeasure it and I know how to
make it come out right.
But service trucks you knowthere's some other items that
you need.
Going into the franchise, ofcourse, you're going to have to
have a truck for service.
You're going to need a boxtruck.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You have a beautiful one sitting out in the parking
lot there, brand spanking newJust yeah, nick did a good job.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
He just got those graphics on and I'm very excited
.
It looks sharp.
But that's an expenditure,right.
I mean right off the rip.
You know you're looking at aservice truck.
You need at least a box truckand if it's not cash on hand,
you know you're financing it.
So you've already got a littlebit of overhead.
You've got to make sure ofthings.
So, yeah, in that respect, yeah, and the tools, hand tools and
(07:48):
other things like that, just tomake the jobs work, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And of course you had a lot of help with you know,
dennis, and those guys kind ofoh, this guy's brilliant, that's
a great story.
Dennis always told me I neverwould have realized it was just
ladders.
You know, the first time Ithink you went you bought all
the heavy-duty, massive laddersand stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, I was a roofer Before I was a gutter monkey.
I was a roofer for 30, 35 yearsand when Andy and I first
started the Cape Cod GutterMonkeys, I went out and
purchased a bunch of ladders offof Craigslist and what we
learned over that first year wasroofing ladders have a
different purpose.
They need to hold a man and abundle of shingles climbing up
(08:26):
and down.
A man weighs 200 pounds and abundle of shingles weighs 92
pounds.
That's a 300-pound payload.
If you throw a couple of ladderbrackets and a 24-foot plank
two men and six bundles you knowyou got a thousand pounds plus
on those ladders.
Gutter monkey ladders aredifferent.
You want lightweight, nimbleladders because you're going to
(08:47):
be moving them many, many timeson a single home to clean those
gutters.
Installing gutters is not thatmuch different.
You're moving ladders all thetime, so it's a different shape,
size and weight of ladders.
It's something that is soobvious.
I didn't see it when I firstcame into the business and I had
hung some gutters in my when Iused to build houses and I used
(09:08):
to primarily be a roofingcontractor, so I was no stranger
to gutters.
But since we focus solely ongutters in these last 11 years,
our gutter knowledge.
My gutter knowledge hasskyrocketed, you know, because
we do specialize One of thethings, scott, about.
Let's say that 16-foot box truckthat you recently had lettered
(09:29):
in.
Scotty mentioned Nick.
It's Nick Turkelson is our guy.
He does all of our signage,wraps our trucks.
He built the sign out in thefront of our building here.
Nick Turkelson, he's a greatguy if you need that type of
work done.
He does all of our trucks.
He did a couple of Scotty'strucks very recently, but that
box truck is a moving billboard.
(09:51):
Absolutely.
If you look on, you know, go toso many of the like the radio
stations.
We're on the iHearts, we're onthe Codcoms and the CCB medias,
we're on a lot of differentradio stations and even over the
bridge, atd, plm, cat Countrythese are big radio stations,
many of them, and they alsoprovide digital platforms and
other marketing tools that wecan all use.
(10:13):
And what is the value of animpression?
So if you're online, there'spop-up ads, there's all kinds of
different ads that you canpurchase, and my study has me
believing that a well-logoedtruck, especially a large box
truck that's logoed left, rightand back and even the front does
(10:34):
have the Gutter Monkey logo onit, can garner upwards in a
bedroom community, like we alllive here on Cape Cod.
5,000 views per day, that's abig piece of marketing.
That box truck pays for itselfin marketing alone and that's
something that can't beoverlooked is the value of the
(10:56):
marketing presence of yourtrucks.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
It's huge, that's the thing about all these things
like the ladders, the marketing,the branding and things like
that.
That's stuff that kind of AGMbrings to the table that you
don't have to.
You know that, scott, youdidn't have to worry about I
learned from mistakes.
I mean, all these things arelearned by doing so.
You know it's something youdon't have to worry about.
That came to you as part of thedeal.
You know you learned all thesethings as being part of AGM.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
We made all, we've already made them and we only
make it once.
Then you fix it and we moveforward.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So kind of de-risk your launch, you know you don't
have to worry about making allthose sort of mistakes.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
You know, I'll tell you what, chris.
That's a fantastic pointBecause when I was exploring
opening a franchise, obviouslythe other option would be
starting from scratch.
You know, and I would havepeople ask me why would you do a
franchise that's going to costyou money, why wouldn't you just
do it from the get-go?
And my response would be take alook at the business model.
(11:49):
If you're considering afranchise I don't know if it's
Gutter Monkeys or if it's amattress moving company or
whatever it might be what dothey bring to the table?
And I can tell you, the folkshere at Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys
had a business plan.
They had a marketing plan.
They, as Dennis just said, madethe mistakes, learned from them
and now you have best practicesin place.
(12:10):
One of the first things Ilearned ladders lightweight
green tip Werner ladder, and I'mgoing to need it in a 20, 24,
32, and what was the last?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
28.
Yeah, we also keep forties, ahandful of forties.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Those are tall ladders.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
We don't use them every day, but we have three or
four of them in the shop thatget used pretty regularly, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
But if you were starting from scratch, how would
you know that you'd be ended upgetting a fiberglass ladder and
trying to lug that thing around, and it's five times the weight
.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, it doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It, yeah, it doesn't sound fun.
It doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So you're starting out now.
You've got a home-based modelright.
You're at home right now.
You're working on your basementand stuff like that.
I was talking to you thismorning.
Sounds like the phone isringing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Phones are ringing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're busy this morning.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
The discussion was how do we set up our week?
I mean, obviously you have aterritory you need to work.
You don't want to spreadyourself out one day or one job
in Foxborough and then have yournext job in Middleborough and
then have your next job inWhitman or things like that.
There's so much travel timethat's involved.
You're chewing up your day justgetting from one point to the
(13:14):
other.
So that was one of the firstconsiderations, I guess how to
structure your weekno-transcript cleaning set up on
Monday and Tuesday, right, andthen be able to have your
installs as they start comingonline on Wednesday and Thursday
and then keep Friday as youroffice day.
And I think that worked welland that's how we're trying to
(13:38):
get our jobs set up for success.
Make sure that you go from yourfurthest point out, work your
way back and then you're back athome.
Yeah, and you added a fewpeople we did.
It was originally myself, mywife Myra, my son Marcus.
We have Myra's sister-in-law,barbara.
She's our office girl.
She works Mondays and Tuesdaysright now, and that just happens
(14:02):
to be our cleaning days wherewe should be out of the office
cleaning, so she has the abilityto man the phones at this point
, on those days.
We also have my nephew, trevor,who's working with us.
It's slow bringing him in andhe is a great worker.
I'm really blessed.
Anyone who owns a business,your employees if you find
yourself a good employee,someone who doesn't bang in sick
(14:24):
, comes to work on time and hasgood effort and a good, you know
good place in his mind for whathe's doing and keep them, do
what you do to keep them.
So yeah, I mean it's, it's asmall crew, but you know what
it's our crew.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's something I can actually say.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's our crew, right.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It's a family.
Yeah, it really is a family.
That's the impression you get,at least I get coming in here.
Of course, the podcast here isdone in Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys
headquarters AGM has a littleoffice here, but it's Cape Cod
Gutter Monkeys and it really isa family.
Here you come in all these guysWell, you've known these guys
for so long.
Yeah, we've had a lot of themBeen with you for a while, some
of the guys from the start right, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know, just to jump back to a question you had,
have, you know, not just one,but you have several employees
that have been here for sincethe beginning, 10 years ago,
maybe eight years ago.
I mean that's a testimony, foryou know how you run your
business.
For someone to stay for thelong haul, like that, I mean, I
(15:19):
think that's phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, we have good retention of our co-workers.
Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys we'rein our 11th year.
Chris has been here 10 and ahalf years.
Adam's been with us 10 years.
Then it's James Mo Trev.
They've been here nine yearsgive or take.
Charlie and Bobby have beenhere seven years.
John yeah, we have a reallysolid, solid group of core
(15:44):
coworkers here that are justfantastic and it is like family
it's part of your model.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I mean, you've kind of built in that family that
togetherness.
That was part of the businessplan.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Way back in the beginning, when we started, andy
and I started forming thebusiness model long before we
ever cleaned a gutter.
There were a lot of things thatwe were focusing on, and one of
them was the culture of thecompany.
One of my last company beforethis one was on-time
construction and the sub companywas Blazing Guns Roofing.
We used to build houses andre-roof houses.
(16:16):
That was our world.
We had just a great culture.
We had a pool tournament everyFriday night.
We had a great pool table backin the shop and you know we had
Christmas parties and we.
It was just like family.
It was really great, a lot likewhat we have here.
This company obviously hasgrown significantly larger than
that company but, yeah, a lot ofit is about the people that you
work with every day yourcoworkers, but also then your
(16:39):
customers.
They're more important than theladders and the trucks, because
without your coworkers andwithout your customers, you
don't have any need for laddersand trucks.
And sometimes we forget thisyoung lady that came in earlier
today.
She was a young lady popped in,she was just visiting.
She was a small business ownerand she gave us a knock at the
door and she walked in and shelooked and she said, oh my gosh,
(17:00):
you're doing a podcast.
I said, yeah, actually we'regoing live here in about half an
hour and she was so intriguedand she would look at the pool
table over there and thedartboards.
This is amazing.
Sometimes we forget, like weget spoiled.
But Scotty did mention that.
Scotty, you've mentioned that tome many times over the past
year, longer, even WheneverMarcus started here a little
(17:21):
over a year ago.
You've commented on that howmuch he likes it here.
It's true, we try to keep a funatmosphere, a fun environment.
I think it's very important.
And as you're building a team,I mean back in the beginning it
was Andy and me and an old truck.
We had a 10-year-old truck andthat's how we started and within
a year or two we probably hadfour or five guys and my wife,
(17:41):
babs.
She was our office managerright out of the gate, and then
Nancy, andy's wife, came on andBabs and Nancy pretty much ran
the office.
We didn't need anybody else atthe time.
But even our office staff nowis very solid.
Yes, it's fun.
I enjoy coming to work everyday and that's huge.
I want to point out one thingthat, scotty, this came about
many months six, eight, 10months ago when you I believe
(18:05):
Myra was there, bruce, a bunchof us were sitting in Bruce's
office just talking and severalitems came up and I remember
walking over and I shook yourhand and went back and sat down
because you have a very highlevel of financial literacy.
It's not that common to meetsomebody that says the things
you do and understands thethings that you do, and I know
(18:27):
you have, prior to your work forthe state over at the prison
which you were at 20 plus years.
How many years 20 years, 20years in the jail, not?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
convicted by the way.
Oh, you were innocent the wholetime.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
All hearsay and allegation.
There's no guilty people here.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
You had a little bit of background in the financial
services I did.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Did you not?
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It was very apparent.
In this one conversation yousaid two or three things that
were eye-opening.
I really felt like I wastalking to somebody that has a
high level of financialknowledge and I walked up.
I stood up, I walked over shookyour hand and I sat back down
again.
That's huge.
Having a good financialbackground in anything you do is
(19:15):
so beneficial.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, we talk about that all the time on this
podcast.
How important it is.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
We do.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And I know I talk to a lot of potential franchisees
out there, kind of shaking thebushes looking for them, and one
of the biggest kind of thesaddest things I find is that we
find a lot of guys who have alot of potential, make great
gutter monkeys but they don'thave their financial house in
order or they don't understandthe model and it's very hard to
talk to them about some of thebenefits of the gutter monkeys
and having a franchise that youprobably picked up on pretty
(19:42):
quickly because of yourbackground.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well, and my wife, she also works as a yep she's a
project manager, so she sees alot of the finances as well.
Just something as basic as aprofit and loss statement what
are your numbers at any givenpoint during your month or
quarter or year?
And I know people that havesmall businesses and you'll ask
them what's your?
You know what's your profit andloss.
(20:05):
It's like I don't know.
It was like you need you kindof need to know that you really
kind of do.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And it all goes together Marketing sales, the
number of employees, monthlyP&Ls and how many trucks am I
going to need by the end of 2025?
I always do my forecast at theend of the year, and January 4th
of each year is when I do mybalance sheets and all that kind
(20:30):
of good stuff.
But I also I basically presentmy forecast for the coming year
on or about January 4th and Ialways look at where I want to
be in 12 months and do we haveenough trucks to get us there?
Do we have enough coworkersin-house right now or do I need
to look at two or three more?
And these are some of thethings that having a good high
(20:54):
level of financial literacy canreally help you.
It can help you forecast, itcan help you see things before
they get here, and there'sabsolutely a huge benefit to
that.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and I've seen your list basically forecast of
how many people you need to getthis sort of revenue how many
trucks?
How much.
Even you've got it down to evenhow much parking space you need
to have a crew of 15 people.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You just opened up some new parking.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
We did.
You know, it's really down tothat level.
If you want to hit X number ofdollars in revenue being a
gutter monkey, you're going toneed this much space, this many
people, these many parking spots.
You know, right down to thatlevel.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
That's the business growth chart that we talk about.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, and I'm sure Scott, you've seen that probably
and a lot of people again withproblems with their financial
literacy, they'll look at thatand it doesn't make a lot of
sense when we talk about in thisbusiness, about building real
wealth through businessownership, that's kind of what
we mean.
You know you're building realwealth as you start adding on
those things and start buildingout your business.
That was one of the things thatimpressed me.
I wish again too old, but Iwish I had actually found out
(21:53):
about this myself a few yearsback, because I would have
jumped into it.
And those are some of thethings that really made it
attractive to me is that levelof planning and stuff that's
been done Well.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I think there might be an adage back in the finance
days, and even if you have abusiness, you know hope is a bad
strategy when it comes toinvestments.
Hope is a bad strategy.
When you're creating a business, hope is great and you want
that to fall on your side.
But to enter into something andsay, well, I hope this works
(22:21):
out this way, or I really reallyhope things will work out that
way, that's a tough way to go atit.
It's a very tough way to go atit.
It's good.
Very tough way to go at it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, it's good to have a partner where you got an
idea.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So let's.
One of the questions I had foryou is we were the other day.
We went down and we recorded aradio ad, one of the gutter
monkey radio ads that you'rewell known for.
Dennis is well known for hisBobby Don spot on the Cape Cod.
Cape Cod.
Gutter monkeys got the radio ad, I guess, on.
And how did it sound your voiceon the radio?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
I'm kind of curious.
Well, I have heard my voice onthe radio.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And it's a little weird because I know when we
started the podcast, one of thebiggest issues I had with this
podcast is I hate the way myvoice sounds on the podcast and
everyone else is like it soundsfine.
It sounds fine Like Dennis'svoice is so much better than
mine After a while.
After a while oh gosh, itsounds normal.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
But right, it takes a while but how did it go?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
how was your uh first radio ad?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
oh well, I'll tell you what.
I had a blast recording that wewere um at plm, right, uh, we
did.
It probably was plm, butgetting into the studio and
getting past, like the shock,you know there's your microphone
right there and you know we'regoing live.
And you know there's yourmicrophone right there and you
know we're going live.
And you know, as soon as thatcomes up and you're starting to
speak, yeah, it's just like ohokay, this is very different
(23:39):
from anything I've ever donebefore, but to be honest with
you, it was.
It was a blast.
I had a good time, you didreally well.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I mean, I remember we did a take on your lines, you
did a second take and then itwent very smoothly after that.
I think you just got the bugsout and you did a really, really
solid job.
I know we've done I lose trackof things, but we've done
several right.
We've been in different radiostudios.
I know we were up to PLM.
I was up to ATD a couple ofweeks ago.
(24:06):
Those guys it was.
They're a fun group up there.
Atd is in Marshfield and I wason the morning business show
about two weeks ago and just funRadio people.
They have magical voices.
They're not like ours.
I'm a gutter monkey first andforemost, but they have their
regular voice and as soon asthey OK, we've got got to go
(24:28):
live, we got to do traffic onthe threes or weather on the
eights or whatever, and theyturn into that radio voice.
Larry over at a PLM, yeah, he'sgot a great radio voice and
he's funny.
He's a comedian, he's got somegood stuff and it can be a
little intimidating becauseyou're in his office, this is
(24:49):
his studio, this is his worldand we're just walking in off
the streets but we did.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
We've done many ads, yeah.
Yeah, I mean right there whenyou say I mean, what is
someone's context?
You're in a studio, you'resaying you are in a studio.
How many people are in a studioever?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
yeah I know especially for a new franchise.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean, you're a new franchisee and a week later
you're back.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You're in a studio doing ads.
How long would that without thehelp of a I'd probably still be
shopping it around.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean it's and I'll tell you another thing that's
great about radio and reallyit's really good Over the time
that the gutter monkey's beenbuilding up over the decade.
I mean there's somecatchphrases that are out there
that are just absolute gold.
I mean, when you think about it, we clean gutters so you don't
have to, we clean gutters so youdon't have to.
No monkeys were harmed in themaking of this commercial.
(25:32):
I mean people, I mean they loveit, or even if it annoys them,
there's like I can't believethat's such a hokey commercial.
Well, we're in your headbecause you're just telling us
our two biggest taglines, so itmust be working.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, we go out to dinner after these podcasts and
always like walking intorestaurants with these guys,
because the first thing you walkthrough the door and they're
like oh the gutter monkey's here.
Oh yeah, I'm a gutter monkey,have you had that experience yet
?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Well, I'll tell you what.
I did have a customer call in.
It was a new customer and shewas in the territory and needed
the cleaning done.
Really basic, the house wasn'tformidable, it was all lower.
I'm going to talk some gutterlingo right now.
It was all lowers.
It was a one story.
I mean, it was a ranch, prettystraightforward.
And she got to talking aboutwhat she needed done and she's
(26:19):
like hey, have I heard yourvoice before?
Hey, you sound familiar.
I mean she just stopped me andjust asked this question.
I was like, ah, it's a littlesheepish.
I'm like, oh, you know, it'slike.
Ah.
I said well, if you have toknow, I've done a couple of
commercials and I positioned it.
I was saying I'm BobbyDownspout's sidekick and, yeah,
you might've heard me on acouple of commercials.
She's like I knew it.
(26:39):
I said I heard you on CatCountry.
Yeah, I heard us on Cat Country.
Big radio station, you know tryand get my head back to normal
size, it's like, and she was asweetheart too.
It was a fantastic job that wedid, very appreciative.
We did a couple of minorrepairs in the cleaning and it's
funny, it does happen.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
We were in Turks and Caicos Two years ago, march.
You always have a t-shirt or aball cap that has gutter monkeys
on it when you're on vacationand this family saw us and
actually, chris, they're fromWorcester and they know us from
the radio stations out inWorcester.
The other day, sunday, we werea group of us, took a little
(27:19):
company break and we went up tothe Sox game four of us and we
were out on the four cornersoutside fenway just hanging out
and bruce was picking up somepeanuts in the shells big bag of
them.
You get them outside for 10bucks and the peanut vendor, he
saw bruce's ball cap and he saidare you the cape cod gutter
monkeys?
He said yeah, I am.
He goes.
(27:39):
Actually I'm not, I'm the guyin the office.
I sit in a seat, you know, andshining with my fanny all day.
But he goes those guys and guysand he points to Trevor and
Charlie and myself.
He goes, those guys areactually the real gutter monkeys
out in the field and he saysyou do my gutters.
This guy was from Yarmouth.
He's a guy, semi-retired, andthis is sort of his retirement
(27:59):
gig.
He goes up to the Sox game onthe weekends and he has a peanut
, he's a vendor's license andhe's out in front.
And then one of the Boston copscame over and he started
talking with us and he said youguys are the gutter monkeys.
And we said, yeah, because youcan see the ball caps.
He goes.
You do my gutters, he goeshouse.
(28:24):
But marketing is a wonderfulthing.
It's absolutely branding.
It's a wonderful thing.
It really is flattering whenyou're 75 miles from home and
you meet a couple of guys thatare customers of yours.
It really is, because it's nota regular occurrence, but it's
nice when it does happen.
And, as you said, chris, if Ihave a hoodie on and I'm going
(28:44):
into the market basket, you know, here and on the bridge here in
the Cape, yes, two or threepeople always say oh, I can see
the sweatshirt.
Oh, you're the gutter monkeys,yeah, you do my gutters.
It happens a lot, but andthat's just branding, that's
one-on-one.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Right and there's very consistent across all our
gutter monkey franchisees.
I mean we all refer to it asthe gutter monkeys.
We all have the same truck.
Your truck looks just like theother ones other than Southeast
gutter monkeys on it and whatnot.
It looks nice.
Especially when they're alllined up and stuff like that.
It's pretty impressive.
But yeah, bobby, but downspoutstories.
So yeah, I had the sameexperience in Worcester going
(29:18):
through Home Depot.
Yeah, it's kind of cool.
Even my mother listens to itand she's up that direction.
So I heard the gutter monkeystoday.
I always ask which one wasn't.
Oh, I don't remember, but Iheard it we're all better
monkeys she also hears thecompetitors too, and she'll tell
me when a competitor comes on.
They weren't you.
I heard them on the radio whatwas that?
About your number one fan upthere in ashland mass.
(29:39):
She saw that still in ashland,same house as when we were in
high school.
We used to go up there and weused to run up that hill.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Remember that hill, Ramblewood right.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, remember that hill Magunko.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Hill.
We used to have to run up there.
I remember it very well.
It was awful it was a long wayfrom school too.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, so let's get into a little bit more about you
know so, you're training,you're comfortable on ladders
now.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I guess you haven.
You know you start getting upto the heights, you think about
it.
You got to be careful.
You need to know your laddersafety, which is one of the
first things they the guttermonkeys, you know taught us
ladder safety.
I mean just the basics.
If you're carrying a ladderfrom point A to B, you know
there's a couple of ways you cando it.
One way is three points ofcontact.
I didn't know that.
What are you talking about?
It's a big ladder.
Should I have two people?
I mean, there's ways to safelyand efficiently move a ladder
(30:30):
and that's your business,because you're using ladders to
get up to the gutters to do yourcleanings.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and so some of your office stuff is getting set
up now, your back office toolsand things like that yeah, you
know scheduling.
I'm sure scheduling is a majorpart of this whole thing.
So, and of course, guttermonkeys have a scheduling system
and stuff that you're using.
Yep, there's a lot of backoffice things to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You know the accounting, the QuickBooks,
those items ledgers.
I'll tell you, even just havingthe daily schedule, when we
first went live, I had the dailyschedule.
It was on our laptop, but Iwasn't using the laptop.
I had notes, sticky notes, andonly after three customers I was
totally confused.
I'm like I got three people toschedule.
(31:10):
Well, who did I talk to?
What's the phone number?
I know I'm supposed to get theemail address, but yeah, there
are processes in place.
That makes your life a loteasier as you follow it.
And again, that's another thingto keep in mind with franchises
, if you have the marketing asyou were just talking about
marketing gold and the processesin place and you know the right
(31:30):
equipment for the job, it makesyour life a heck of a lot
easier.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, especially being in a startup.
You got so many things going on.
Oh my gosh, it's just one lessthing you had to worry about.
Yep, very true, very true.
So, going forward, looking downthe road a little bit, you have
sort of a three-month,six-month year growth plan.
What's your near-term thoughtson what you're hoping for this
summer and towards the end ofthe year, I guess?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Sure, you know I do have some ideas.
You know milestones, someplaces that I would like to see
the Southeast gutter monkeys beat certain time points, I mean
right now.
Initially we're just happy thatthe phones are ringing, right,
you know.
So that's step one.
You know I'd like to see, in ayear's time, for example, having
(32:17):
a shop within our territory.
Right now we're traveling fromAshby Our territory is off Cape,
which will present somechallenges when you start
thinking about the summer monthsgetting on and off the Cape on
the bridges.
Right sure, and that's evenbefore they decide to remake one
of the bridges coming up.
We'll see how that works out.
So yeah, I see myself in a year.
I'd like to see southeastgutter monkeys, at the very
least leasing out a baysomewhere within our territory.
(32:38):
Maybe it's in the Middleborough, taunton areas, rainham or
somewhere around there.
But I'll tell you what Iclipped out.
I think some people might callit a vision board.
I mean, there's different namesand there's different ways of
thinking about it, but you know,trying to envision where your
goal is, and I have a dry eraseboard in my office and in the
(32:58):
left, lower, left-hand corner Iactually have a clip out of a
shop like an actual.
Is it metal?
What is your shop?
Is it called a metal building?
What is?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
this building.
Yeah, it's called a steelbuilding.
We are in a Morton building.
I've built a few of these.
It's a post and beam frame, butexterior is steel.
Okay, gotcha Steel building,yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And I actually clipped out a picture of.
You know, it's not a four bayestablishment shop like what the
Cape Cod gutter monkeys have,but I've got a vision that I'd
like to have this shop.
It's got two bays, it's got anoffice.
You can see, on one side thereis an entrance.
I can envision a sign Southeastgutter monkeys out front and I
(33:40):
have that tape right on my dryerase board.
So yeah, you know, knock onwood, we got a good team.
We've got good employees wherewe know the trade.
We're always going to belearning more about the trade,
but I think it's a phenomenalstart and yeah, you know, three
years down the road, I thinkthat might be something that can
be accomplished.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
That's interesting.
So, you got your family all in,and so you're on your way now.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
We're on our way.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, we're on our way, exciting.
Yeah, well, glad to have youhere.
I'm sure it's been great.
You know the little time we'vebeen able to spend to each other
.
You know kind of paths beencrossing, but glad we could get
you in today to talk about thisstuff.
Yeah, glad to be here.
So what do you think about Anysort of advice you would have
for other people that arethinking about not just maybe
(34:26):
being a gutter monkey, orcertainly we'd hope that people
would be considering that.
What is your advice?
First off, I kind of want to goback to that one point you made
because it kind of struck me asvery interesting.
It's like the first part thatyou made when you were talking
about this franchise opportunitywas the culture, which kind of
shocked me, because the firstpoints most people you think
about is can I make money doingit?
(34:47):
All those other sort of morenot mundane but more technical
issues.
But you started right away onthe culture.
You seem to think that that wasreally an important part of it
which I agree with I did.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I think, going into any type of venture with dollar
signs in your eyes and that'sthe only thing that you have in
your eyes, I think that you'regoing to miss some of the more
finer points of owning abusiness how you treat your
customers, the product thatyou're presenting, how you do
your work, the image you areshowing the public.
We have uniforms, right, wehave uniforms, and you're not
(35:19):
going in.
You know hobbling out of a beatup truck.
You know, with cans falling outof it, you're dressed in ripped
jeans and you know that allpackages itself into the culture
, which is great.
And again, it was already there.
I didn't have to guess, Ididn't have to think about it, I
didn't have to come up with it.
So, yeah, that's what I wouldsay about that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Dennis, how do you feel about the new Southeast
Guadalmonkeys?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Oh, I'm very excited.
Great location.
It's been a it's a big piece ofreal estate in between South
shore gutter monkeys and Southcoast gutter monkeys and we're
really looking forward to havingScotty and his team a
well-established business inthat area.
It cuts down on the travel thatthe South shore gutter monkeys
(36:04):
has to do they?
don't have to go over over intothose other towns and we
willingly do it, it's no problem.
But now we can become a littlebit more efficient, a little bit
more streamlined, and, yeah,I'm looking forward to it.
Scotty and Myra, they're verysmart people.
This was very apparent rightout of the gate, and the skill
set can be taught.
(36:25):
You know, scotty mentioned thatone of the first things he
noticed about our business modelwas we have a great culture.
Very interesting, because a lotof people don't look for that.
They look at the dollars andcents right away.
Dollars and cents are important,but sometimes, seeing things
from a different view, like, forexample, the culture we have in
(36:45):
our company.
Another thing, for example, theculture we have in our company,
another thing.
For example, when I'm hiringsomebody, I generally don't look
at their skill set first.
Skill set's good, but I look atpersonality first.
Yeah, it goes back to our moneyball.
Yeah, yeah, so many times Greatmovie, great book, great movie.
So many times I see smallbusiness owners looking for the
obvious.
So many times I see smallbusiness owners looking for the
obvious oh, I need a newcarpenter.
(37:08):
I'm looking for a carpenter,you know, just for the season.
Well, if you're looking for aseasonal carpenter, that's a
tough find.
So look long term.
You know you're looking longterm for a skill set to fill a
slot.
I look for the personality forit.
Now, yeah, when I want askilled carpenter, sure, I'm
going to interview and look tohire a skilled carpenter.
(37:29):
But in general, in all thecompanies I've ever owned, I try
to look for the personalityfirst.
We can teach carpentry.
If I bring a guy on and he's amiddle of the road carpenter,
he's not going to be a leadcarpenter.
I'm going to put him on a crewthat has two other good
carpenters and he's going tostep in line.
And that's how we develop skillsets by putting people around,
(37:50):
surrounding them with otherpeople of similar and maybe even
greater skill sets ofpersonality.
First and foremost is look forthat and in the case of what
Scotty mentioned before, thefirst thing he noticed, or one
of the first things that hementioned to me, was this
company here the gutter has abit of a different culture than
he's ever seen and he came outof a harsh culture.
(38:12):
I've met some of his co-workers.
I mean you have yes, I have, Iknow, and we're up to the
registry of motor vehicles.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You sure did.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Oh my gosh, that's a hardcore job that you guys do,
yep, managing inmates in aprison environment, that's a
tough culture.
That's a tough, tough job andwe don't have to do that.
We just hang gutters.
Gutters don't argue back,gutters don't have issues.
We're not dealing with thehuman element, we're dealing
with aluminum and yeah.
(38:40):
So you came out of anenvironment that I just have a
gentleman's exterior view of itall.
That's a pretty tough cultureyou came out of, and now you're
coming into something where youcan build the culture in your
own office however you want.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah, it's kind of the great thing about the gutter
monkeys too is it's sort of abusiness you don't need to start
at 22 years old.
It's all been kind of ramped upfor you.
It's all been kind of laid out.
The model has been laid out.
You can come into this job as asecond career, like you're
doing like a school teacher or afirefighter, you know and kind
(39:15):
of get into this business notknowing a lot Like you said you
didn't know a chop saw from ayou know what, a carrot grater
or something.
but you know you're about right,so you know you could kind of
get into it.
You can get into as a secondcareer.
And again, another thing that Ikind of wish I was a few years
younger because I would havejumped at the chance, because it
would have been perfect for asecond career for me.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, doing what I did for 20 years, I had its ups
and downs and it's like anyplace that you might work.
There's ups and downs.
The biggest difference for me Iknew I was coming up to
retirement.
It would be something totallydifferent, as it turns out, than
what I had been doing theprevious 20 years, but it's
almost like how you approach theday, the work I did.
It was tough but it was alsoshift work so you knew you were
(39:57):
going to be in at a certain timeand you would know.
Going in you'd sit down androll call and the next shift
needed 26 people and you took around, did a head count and it
was like four people in rollcall.
Well, your eight day shift isnow going to turn into a 16 day
shift and that happens a lot andthat wears down on you.
(40:17):
If you're someone who's singleman, woman, because there's a
lot of women that workcorrections as well If you're
single and you want to make somemoney, you can make a ton of
money.
You want to work 80 hours aweek, then come in on your days
off and work a couple doublesand add another 40 hours or
whatever it might be.
I mean you can, but if you'rewith a family it's very
difficult.
You know I miss.
You know I miss a lot of thingswith my kids and that's one of
(40:39):
the things I appreciate now withthe gutter monkeys is, you know
, just today, just goofing offwith my son.
I mean, we're in the truck, ittakes 45 minutes to get to our
first job, and I'm actuallytalking to this kid.
He's a good kid, yeah, you know, and it's stuff that you missed
over a 20 year period.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, yeah, you don't hear that a lot from people
running franchises.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Oh, I'm working there because I get to spend time
with my family.
It's usually tough opposite.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
It's tough and I was telling Marcus today, and I was
like you know what I like aboutthis.
I'll tell you what this is,what I like about this.
It's different than what I wasdoing in my previous job.
I wake up in the morning and Isee it's an opportunity.
I don't know what's going tohappen, but there's an
opportunity to talk to someone.
There's an opportunity to proveyour worth with what you're
(41:23):
doing installing gutters.
It's an ability to talk topeople and just be friendly,
talk, to just talk to them likewe're normal people right Every
day.
You know, I was like Marcus.
I'm telling you right now thatit's an opportunity.
Every day is an opportunity.
What's that opportunity, youknow, going to present?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
itself.
That's a great outlook.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
And how do you latch onto that and it's so different
than what I had done.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Kind of like what we talk about, you know, building
real wealth through businessownership.
That's what you're really doing.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
So yeah, chris, that's part of the package.
Yeah, I mean, if I could pickmy top 10 most important
components, that's in there.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Right, that's in there and that's kind of what
you're describing getting upevery day.
That's what you're doing, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
You know, I'm actually waking up earlier than
I ever had before just becauseof the way my shifts work, but
it is, get a couple cups ofcoffee, get the cobwebs out of
your head and it's like you knowwhat's my day going to be like
today.
You know what I'm going to beable to talk to.
You know Joan, I got a cleaningwith her.
She sounded great on the phone.
She needed something done atthe house, or cleaning, or
whatever it might be, and nowI'm going to have a chance to
talk to her in person.
You know, and you presentyourself, and I think that's the
(42:28):
.
When you talk about building acompany, you know, are you
seeing the dollar signs first?
Are you actually thinking aboutestablishing a company?
Cause this is, let's say this,you can start off and you know,
pay for all the marketing in theworld that you want, and if you
don't know how to speak to acustomer, then what do you got?
You want to be able to set up arelationship that we did a
cleaning and a small repair outin Canton recently and I got in
(42:51):
touch with her and the woman was.
She was distraught, she had someleaks in her gutters and she
can't seem to find anyone tocome up.
And she explained her story andI did some probing and I knew,
going in, that she had anothercompany that was helping her out
.
At the very least she had themfor two cleanings one's a spring
cleaning and a fall cleaning.
(43:11):
So we got up there, marcus andI.
We were able to quicklydiscover what the issue was.
We were able to take care of itright off.
We satisfied her needs and aswe were coming up to settle up,
she's like well, the next timeyou come, when you come here for
your next cleaning, I want youto take a look at all those
seams.
And I was like well, you didtell me that you had another
(43:32):
company coming in.
She's like no, no, no.
And I says you're doing all mywork now.
So the next time you come in,I'd like you to take a look at
this and this.
And then she's like hey, by anychance, do you happen to work
in Sharon?
I was like well, you know what?
That's part of our territory.
And she's like you know what?
Give me a bunch of yourbusiness cards, because I'm
going to make sure that all myfriends and my family knows who
you are and you'll take care oftheir business as well.
(43:53):
So that's your difference.
I mean, you know you're goingto take some pride in your work
and you're going to be able.
I need 140 social media posts.
You know?
What's more rewarding?
I think the latter, I thinkbeing, you know, talking to your
customers and makingrelationships, knowing that it's
(44:14):
not a one and done type ofthing, but you're actually going
to be able to work with themtwice, maybe three times a year
and if there's an issue withyour gutters, bang, that's who
you're going to call.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, we touch on this all the time.
You know this.
We bang that's who you're goingto call.
Yeah, we touch on this all thetime.
You know this.
We talk about innovation allthe time.
You know, being part of thispodcast is a lot about
innovation of the small business.
But a lot of these innovationsare these old school things you
know communications with yourcustomers talking to them,
meeting them in fantasticanswering the phone when people
call.
I called your number today andyou answered the phone.
I was like I'm going to callhim.
Oh, this is their work number.
He's probably not going to bein it on the phone.
(44:45):
There you were on the phone.
Yep, southeast gutter monkeys.
All right, so it's been reallyinteresting having you here,
scott.
I hope to have you back.
We should have you back like insix months or nine months and
you can tell us about how thingsare going and what's happening
in your area.
I know we're all excited aboutyou great gutter monkey already,
and it's going to be a lot offun having you on the team.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I tell you, looking forward to it yeah, great, all
right, bobby downspout of thegutter.
Monkeys saying no monkeys wereharmed in the making of this
podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yep, as always.
All right, we'll see you guysnext time.
All right, enjoy, all right,bye-bye.
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.
(45:33):
And if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
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.
(45:55):
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
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