Podcast Episode Title:
"College Student to Entrepreneur"
Show Description:
In this exciting episode of the Mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast, 24-year-old entrepreneur Dan DeGiulio shares his inspiring journey of building Junk Remedy, a thriving junk removal business in Nashville.
Highlights:
How a family business inspired his entrepreneurial path
Overcoming challenges as a young business owner
Innovative social media strategies for small businesses
Future plans to expand to 6 trucks and 12 full-time employees
Creative ideas for recycling and repurposing junk
The importance of personal connection in business
Dan discusses his transition from college student to business owner, his passion for junk removal, and his vision for growing Junk Remedy into a regional powerhouse. A must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Own, actually, before I do that.
Okay, so I'm going to change thedate on this to the 14th good
all inputs round.
That'll be a second recording.Yeah, ready, ready
(00:23):
to go. Got too close for thebargain.
This is the mostly MiddleTennessee business podcast, a
podcast about Middle Tennesseebusiness owners and
professionals,
mostly. So
what social stigma does societyneed to get over. That's a tough
(00:46):
one. Come on. Now, this is thekind of stuff we start out with.
Yep,
I'm gonna have to go with thephones. You think so I'm gonna
have to go with phones. Youdon't like phones. I don't. I
just, you know, if you walk in,there's nothing better than
physically shaking the hand ofsomeone and looking at my eye
and start talking. You
know, you're too young to bethinking that, but it's
refreshing to hear that. Sothose you guys tuning in, this
(01:08):
is Dan degiulio that I have onthe podcast today. He is the
owner, the CEO of junk remedy.Is it junk remedy solutions?
Junk remedy is junk remedy, junkremedy. So if you need to be
remediated, which is the is thatthe root word of remedy all
your junk removal needs, that's
right, of junk that you havestored up. And maybe you're kind
(01:31):
of a hoarder or something likethat. I can only imagine the
stories you have. Wouldn'tbreathe it got it. We're gonna
be talking to Dan today. He'sactually a vivacious character.
He's a fellow BNI. Er, you'veheard me talk about BNI before
on the podcast. We're in theWilco chapter together. Anybody
who's listening, if you're inthe area and you want to check
out a BNI chapter, let me know.We'll send out an invite. We'll
(01:53):
get you all situated. We'rethere every Wednesday from seven
ish to nine or so, and that'show Dan and I met, the best
meeting of your week. That'sright. Bring that mic a little
closer. We want to hear what youhave to say, buddy. So want to
get into all the differentthings, your background and
stuff and how you got into it.But that was a really quick
(02:14):
answer. Bones, because you'restill in your 20s. If I
24 Yeah, you're young. I thinkthat the biggest thing is, you
know, if I'm, do you hate beingcalled Young? I'm sorry, you
know, not really. I think I likeit in the business standpoint.
When, I mean, I have a lot ofpeople ask me, you know, Are you
the owner of this branch here?And I say, yes. They go, how?
How old are you? You could be mygrandkid. And I'm like, I'm 24
(02:37):
and I just like the look ontheir face when I do tell them
my age. And that aspect I do. Ido like it, but in general, it
doesn't really bother me. Ithonestly, just drives me more.
So
it's not a bad thing, because alot of 24 year olds, you know,
I've known people older that,you know, don't have it
together, let alone own a bitown a business. And this is, I
mean, because of your age, Iwould imagine it's a fairly new
(02:58):
business, but you're, you've gotthe chutzpah, the chutzpah,
Yes, yep, it took some time todefinitely some learning curves.
But, I mean, I think justespecially with my age comes the
more so knowledge along thetechnology lines. The social
media is the driving force ofmost businesses. Now, if you get
a good social media platformgoing, you establish a good
base, you could really take offjust by utilizing AI and what
(03:19):
you put on social media, yeah,the
only thing about AI is, like, Isaw a post this morning from a
guy who's about my age. He goes,I just replaced $350 of my
expenses every month for tovendors with AI. I'm like, man,
what are we doing here? Youknow, because he's in a business
too. That can be, I guess, AI,ified, okay, I just invented
(03:42):
that term. It really could,like, we don't need, you know,
we don't need anybody reallyselling this stuff anymore. He
sells insurance. And it's like,you know, legal industry,
insurance, all these, all theseindustries can be replaced by AI
at some point, junk remedy, notso much. No, you still need to
(04:03):
physically haul and still,unless they start, you know,
deploying robots out there, youknow, that's right, yeah. So
tell me your story you came outof. You're not from around here.
I could tell by the accent.
That's right. I'm, I'm actuallyfrom northwest suburbs of
Chicago, so up in Illinois,spent the first 21 years of my
life there. I went to IllinoisState my first two years. But
(04:23):
now backtrack just a little bit.There's one other branch of junk
remedy, and my cousin, businesspartner Nick degiulio, owns that
one. So I worked for him forabout five, six years. Loved
every single day of it, and thenI went off to college. So I was
working on my Christmas break,my summer break, and then the
pandemic happened. Fortunately,we were deemed essential
(04:44):
workers. So, you know, we weresent home from college at the
time Illinois State. So I was afull time student in full time
working, which was super nice.So I never really had to
quarantine. You know, a lot Ihear a lot of the quarantine
stories. I never had to do that.I was physically working. You
know, actually outside. Thetrucks every single day during
COVID. And I was majoring inrisk management insurance at the
(05:04):
time at Illinois State. And, youknow, one day I woke up, I'm
like, I really don't want
to do this. Hmm, sure, probably1920 years old, yeah, at the
time, yeah. I just it wasn't mycalling. And I realized how much
I loved hauling junk and justevery day is different. I love
meeting to people. I lovetalking. I love I just love the
daily life of junk removal. So Isat down with Nick, my family
(05:25):
member, and decided, Hey, whatare our thoughts about opening
up another branch? And you know,the light clicked on between he
himself and I, and we loved it.His first question, well, where
are you going to go? I've beento Tennessee before. I've been
to Green Bay, Indianapolis, andthen I haven't been to Phoenix,
but that was another big one.But based on statistics, areas
that are rising, you know, forsomeone like a business like my
(05:49):
my own, you want to go somewherewhere people are moving to not
moving from. So people aremoving with more and more items,
you know, to get back onto thestory was, I ended up
transferring out of IllinoisState, all my friends and, you
know, I was close to my family,being from Illinois and
transferred to Western Kentucky,right across the border here in
Tennessee, and changed my majorto small business management and
(06:11):
entrepreneurship. Started comingdown here every weekend trying
to learn where learn the areaand build connections. And sure
enough, I skipped my graduationbecause I had an older lady call
and wanted some items hauled outtwo days before I was supposed
to open. And sure enough, nowI'm here.
You skip the unity, the rite ofpassage that is graduation. You
didn't even I'm not gonnabother.
(06:33):
Well, graduation, graduate.Graduation was one thing you
know, it was I was supposed toopen the day after Memorial Day.
So memorial day, Monday,Tuesday, was supposed to be my
opening. To be my opening day. Ihad, I was still up in Bowling
Green, Kentucky at the time, andI had a lady call me on
Thursday. My Trucks were alreadydown here. I was ready to go,
but I still had graduation. Andthat weekend of moving out of
(06:53):
Kentucky, down here toNashville, and I had this older
lady call me, and, you know, shewas all sorts of hysterical on
the phone, saying, I need thisout. I need this out. Can you be
here Friday? I looked at myschedule. It happened to be the
day I was walking to receive mydiploma after four years of
school. I was just so excited.That's
about how it meant to you. Yeah,that's it. There's just a piece
(07:14):
of paper. So do any loans oranything like that? Did you have
scholarships?
Hopefully, scholarships. Yes,yep. So I came out of college
with no student loans, I cameout with no debt, nothing like
that. I was able to jump rightinto work, and I ended up
getting my piece of paper, mydiploma, mailed to me. My mom
bought me a frame for it. I haveit framed in my house, but I
started a little bit earlierbusiness wise than I thought.
(07:36):
But fun story now so
probably means more more to yourmom that it does, do you I
guess, big time. Yeah,
she was asking me if I'm justgonna, you know, cram it under
the bed or hang it on the wall,and I ended up hanging it up
with all of my other junk remedyinformation in my office now, so
she's super happy to see that,you know.
So is it a franchise, or is ityour own brand?
So we did not franchise. So Nickowns the Illinois one, and I am
(08:00):
the controlling power, and I ownthis one. However, I was still
still able to use the brand. Weset up an S corp, an S
corporation, yeah, so I canstill use all the trademarks.
And he helps me out down here.And you know, he really got me
going with the gear, like thebranding, the Logos, the
website, everything
like that, because he had theall set up and established up
there. Yes, he is. He's been
there for 1516, years. He's beenhauling junk for longer than
(08:23):
that. So he's been wellestablished. I mean, he is 43
wife and kids, so there was abit of an age gap between us.
However. I mean, he and I worklike bread and butter. I mean,
we have a very, very good andprofessional and fun business
relationship, but also on thefamily aspect, which is a big
thing for us, calling us asmall, family owned business,
being
a very, you know, strong Irish,German last name that you have.
(08:47):
Nobody laughs at that joke. Forcrying out loud, I know it's
Italian. You're really confused.I did that one time to Charlie
Benante, the drummer foranthrax, and I said, you know,
what's it like being so stronglyIrish? And he looked at me like
I had horns growing on him, andhe's like, and he's and he's
like, Irish. I said, Yeah, Iknow. Maybe I just need to stop
telling this joke. Or maybe Ineed to
(09:08):
reconstruct it, construct it.Yeah, I like that. I see where
it's going reconstruct,reconstruct. Yes, the strong
attachment,
it's like, basically my B and Iask, I try to be funny. I've
given up being funny becauseit's like a crash and burn every
time. You know, I try to makepeople laugh. Sometimes it
happens. And, you know, Ithought it'd be funny, and I I
deliver it with the timing andeverything. And it's like,
(09:29):
people just look at you. I'mlike, maybe I'm just not built
to be funny. And, you know, andstand up, I could be funny on a
podcast. There we go. It's mygifting, yes. So, so I asked
about the logo because it lookslike a long established, like
franchise of a logo, right, youknow. So I think that it's a
great name. And, you know, it's,to me, it seemed like you just
(09:52):
kind of bought into a franchise.But kudos to you, you can
possibly own it,
yep. So that was, you know,although I own this one, and he
owns that one. Yeah, and but Iwas able to grow up working for
him at the Illinois branch, andthat's where I learned and
gained all the knowledge I haveabout what I do. Now, sure,
there's always learning curveswhen I came down here, you know,
I failed many, many times, butjust getting back up and keep
(10:14):
going. And sure enough, how didyou fail? What were some of your
failures? Some of the failureswere not knowing where I'm
supposed to go. So, like, interms of, like, a customer's
house, no, not, not that we havethe mask for that one, but, you
know, there's jobs. I didn't, Ididn't know where the transfer
stations were. I didn't knowwhere the land, the landfills,
if we do go, the donationcenters, things like that. So we
(10:34):
were doing jobs, and I startedbiting off more than I can chew,
because I'm, you know, I wassitting here. I was like, I
don't know where to take thesetrucks. I jumped into it, and I
was like, I can't believe Ithought of one of the most
crucial things part of thisbusiness is, how do I empty
these trucks? Oh, yeah. So rightoff the RIP I'm doing, I we
ended up cleaning a wholedentist office house, and I
only, you know, I have twotrucks and a couple of trailers
(10:55):
here, and I'm sitting here, I'mlike, I don't know where to take
these trucks. So I'm callingaround, calling around. No, we
don't take commercial vehicles,or we don't take new vendors.
And that was a big issue. Of itwas a lot of it's just so busy
here. Now there's so many peoplethat do it that we are not
accepting new clients. And Ican't, I mean, we donate, but a
lot of it's also non donatable.So, I mean, at that point, it
(11:17):
goes to a transfer station andthey take care
of it from there. But there'slike a dump site out of
Fairview, though, isn't there?
But that's see there, there is.But that's the big thing. Is, if
I'm up in Gallatin orHendersonville, Tennessee, I
can't drive down to Fairview.So, I mean, if I am in this
area, yes, we've gone there, andit works really well. Nowadays.
I know exactly where to go. Ihave some good areas in town,
but at first I'm sitting thereand I'm having to postpone jobs
(11:39):
and stuff like that, because Ican't figure out where to take
these trucks. It was one thingthat I just did not think of in
the whole heat of setting thebusiness up when I was still in
college and then getting downhere to open. The one thing I
have to do, and we do itmultiple times a day, is clear
our trucks. Yeah. So right offthe RIP was, Oh, boy. What do I
have to do? So I ended up goingover to waste management, which
(12:00):
charges you four times more thanother places will, because their
trucks are coming with 10s of 20tons of trash per truck, where
I'm only bringing one ton,right? So they have minimums
where it's a lot more expensive,so stuff like that, little
things like that. That led to, Igot to be doing this better,
learning curves
more. So it's not just alandfill. You can ring it to or
you got to find them. No, youcan't.
(12:21):
You can't. You gotta find them.Yeah, you can, but they're
strict about what they can andcannot take. So tires, TVs,
mattresses, are surcharges atthe majority of places. That's
why we charge surcharges forthem. Some places are a little
bit more lenient on them, but alot of places have one to two
ton truck minimum. So if I onlyfill half a truck of 1000
pounds, you know, I'm, you know,a little under half a ton
(12:41):
monetarily. Is it smart to goclear there? No, it's try to go
somewhere with a lower minimum.I
mean, it's kind of nice. It'slike doing demolition for
construction. Yes, you knowyou're going in there, you're
getting a lot of it's verytherapeutic, smashing walls out
and all that stuff. You're notreally having to. I'm not going
to organize your room. For you,I'm getting all this crap out of
(13:02):
here. Is it a satisfying thingfor you?
Hands down, probably one of themain reasons I do it, really it,
is, if you go to our socialmedias or anything like that,
you'll see some of the craziestbefore and afters. And I think
once we do it, I mean, if it'sin a garage, a whole house, a
hoarding, cleanup, whatever itmight be, you know, you just a
living room. It's not messy,just a living room once you see
(13:23):
everything cleared out of there,and we clear it out so fast, and
then we clean up. When we'redone, it's just the look on our
clients face of tears of joy andsmiles, of just happy, pure
happiness, of, I can't believethis is gone. Do
you help them? Like, what's thelady that? Does it spark joy?
You know, do you kind of getinto that, or is that already
(13:44):
predetermined by the time youshow up? Like, you know, I just,
should I throw this away? Or,you know, do you have to give
opinions, or anything like that?So
I've had people that have askedfor my opinion, and I work with
a lot of staging and cluttercompanies, okay? And those are
people that have come in andwill organize your garage. And I
work with some wonderful,wonderful companies down here,
(14:05):
and they had a rule that theygave to me. They said, If anyone
ever asks you, tell them if youhaven't touched it in five
years, you're probably not goingto touch it again. Yeah, get rid
of it.
See, I have a garage full of allthat stuff, you know, spare
parts and screws and bracketsthat every time you get
something, it could be, youknow, a set of shades or blinds,
(14:29):
and they come with all the extraparts. And my mindset is, why
would I throw this? Is valuablestuff, you know, somebody made
this, or a machine made this,and it came from, you know, at
some point the earth, you know,I'm going to toss it in the
trash. It's still in thepackaging. No, I'm going to save
it. Because you never know whenI need a, you know, a bracket
that looks like it's been bentout of shape. Yeah, maybe once
(14:50):
in a blue moon. I'm like, Man,I'm glad I kept that.
Yep, that's right. As a garageGuru, I understand exactly what
you're saying from my personalstandpoint. Then at the other
end, it's, you know, what? Youcan go men, you can go bend and
buy a bracket there for $5 butnot have the countless boxes and
then try to find it. So, I mean,everyone's different on that, on
that, but when people do ask formy opinion, pretty much, I'll
(15:13):
say, I mean, unless it has realsedimental family value or it's
an heirloom, of course, youknow, you're not, you're not
going to really touch thatheirloom. It's just going to sit
and look pretty on the mantle orwhatever. But if they're just
boxes of old kid toys, yeah, youknow, we'll take them because
we'll go donate that to Toys forTots and kids that need stuff
like that. So if you haven'ttouched it in five years, five
years is the number, huh? I'dlike to say, so yeah, I think
(15:35):
that's, I think that's the sweetspot. I'd
say probably go down as much assix months. You could. You
could. So you said getting downhere, there's a lot I was going
to ask about the competition,because we've recently got into
the garage door business as acompany here, and we have a
consultant on hand who's, likethe garage door guy in this
(15:55):
area. He's he actually came fromChicago. He's a good friend of
mine for the past 10 years. Hisname is Bill, yes, and he's
consulting with us. He is like50 years in the business. He
knows his stuff, and just byhappenstance, we went through a
season in our company, we had topivot and figure out how to get
more near term commodity basedrevenue, because a lot of what
(16:21):
we do podcasting, it's a want,not a need, you know, colorful
lighting, you could put in carwashes and other places that go
in harsh environments. And thensome want, not a need, right?
It's, you know, whoever. Maybeit'll become a need at some
point, but it's still kind of awant. So what is it that we can
get into when garage doorshappen to come up and we, we
(16:42):
started getting into thatbecause of the commodity aspect
of it. It's something we canhandle. A lot of technical,
mechanical work that we arecapable of. I carry a set of
tools in the back of my jeep, incase I got to go fix a garage
door. And it's we just kind of,we went into it that way, when
all of a sudden, after seeingwhat Bill went through and how
(17:04):
he built his business, it waslike a handful of garage door
people out there. Now they'reeverywhere. Oh yeah, oh my. It's
like, we're really where wereall these people? We decided to
get in the pool and like,everybody's in the pool. That's
right. Is that what you found tobe in the well, you moved here
so you had no but exists, ofcomparison,
exact same thing. I mean, in thelong run, I do being up in
(17:27):
Illinois, there's the sameamount of competition, if not
more, there than here. That wasdefinitely an eye opener for me.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, kind oftalking back to Illinois Nick,
the only other company beforeNick opened. You know, 1516,
years ago was one 800 got junk,the world's largest junk, and
they're in three, four differentcountries, in 48 of the
(17:47):
continental United States downhere. I got here, and pretty
much everyone was wellestablished. So it was harder
for me to kick my foot in thatdoor. I was the last one in the
pool. Yeah, you know. So what
was the plan? You said, tofigure it out. Did you have a
strategy?
See, that's tough. That was thetough part. I think the main
driver is why, why do I do it?And how can I show people my why
(18:12):
and my, my company's why, as to,again, why they should use us
over you know, the 1516, othercompanies around here, even in
and so you get, you have yourestablished business, businesses
like mine, that are licensed,bonded and insured. We have the
gear. We have the uniform,friendly staff that are
background check, this, that andthe other. However, if that's
(18:34):
you want to bring in in thehouse, I hope you do. But we
can't compete with the normaltwo guys that are just having
they have a trailer sitting intheir backyard, and they're just
hauling junk on the weekends fornot even an eighth of the price
of what me or any of the othercompany, we just can't compete
with that. No, and that's thething. So if you want to bring
someone that is not insured intoyour house, if you scratch a
(18:55):
wall, well, great, you're nevergoing to see them again.
Accidents happen if we were toscratch a wall, you know, we're
insured to come take care ofthat floor, stuff like that. So
really stressing on that in ourwhy, as to why we're the best
out there, why we're the best inthis area, was really getting
the name and our missionstatement out there. Are you
putting yourself as my mainface? Yes, and speaking and all
(19:17):
that stuff I forget to know you.
I found through trial and erroragain, just from starting that
if I post just a social mediapicture of my truck, of the junk
trucks wrapped clean and theylook good, great. I get, you
know, my average amount oflikes, comment shares, but when
I post pictures of my face infront of a truck or my crew all
(19:37):
happy and smiling, I get doubleHmm. I think people like to see
who is going to be coming intotheir house, and I'll post on
Facebook in these different likegroups around town, I will
significantly, every singletime, get more likes, comments,
shares and referrals off ofpeople seeing my face. Mm. It's
(20:00):
the same thing as, why do I wantto go to all of my estimates in
person? Because I want thatphysical handshake. I can give
them an estimate. I mean, mostof the days I can give you an
estimate over the phone, andyou'll never see me. Yeah, even
though, if it's a cheap job orexpensive, I want to go there to
physically shake your hand, lookyou dead in the eye, and build
that personal relation with you.And most of the time, you'll get
the job. Compared to, if I wereto just do it over the phone?
(20:22):
Was that, based on yourexperience up in Chicago and
being a kind of a mentee to yourI
would definitely say, so yeah,that was definitely the
strongest thing. But again, Iwas 1617, or 15, 1617, years old
at that time. I wasn't reallythinking about that, of course
not. But was, is that how heoperated? Yeah, yeah, Nick. Nick
still goes to all the in personestimates, or all the estimates
and stuff like that still toshow face, because people want
(20:44):
to have that relation nowadays.Everyone's so sheltered and
you're on your phone, everythingyou could do is on your phone
now, but still having thatpersonal relation and physically
shaking hands and looking eye toeye in a room makes a big
difference. Will get you thebiggest difference
so and as people in yourgeneration, around your age,
it's amazing. These are oldschool techniques that have been
(21:05):
kind of forgotten even, youknow, I tell my kids, and I kind
of harp on them with when youtext somebody, stop using text
speech, you know, all thedifferent abbreviations and
contractions and things of thatnature, because you look and
sound like everybody else,right? If you want to rise above
(21:26):
and of course, this is me astheir dad who doesn't know
anything. Telling them this, itmakes a difference. Yes, it
does, you know. I mean my sonliterally. The other day, text
asked me a question, and I waslike, Dude, I have no idea what
you're even talking about. Idon't know if you're just, you
know, you kind of sped throughthis message or whatever. And
(21:47):
it's like you're not an idiot.Why would I sound like one?
Right? You know what I mean, andit's, he's not an idiot at all.
He's borderline genius, yeah?But it's like you don't just
take some pride in how you typeand how you put yourself out
there, old school methodologiesof like, what you're talking
about, dude, that'll that alonewill put you ahead of the curve,
(22:07):
right? Because nobody's doing itanymore, you know, kind of sad
damn phones, yeah. The biggest
generation difference, I think,is that, I mean, even so you
talk to the majority of you knowpeople my age, and then the
occasional few. And just that,it's a colossal difference of
(22:29):
old school, new school, or theslang. It's, I mean, even so
what you're saying, I understandI'm in that generation, but some
of the times I'll hear some ofthe slang, I'm like, I actually
have no clue what that termmeans. I mean, sure, I know the
most of it's just having friendsand whatnot, but some of it, I'm
like, I really don't know whatthat means.
Well, it's not only that you youjust go on Facebook any given
day, and some of these communitypages, Yes, ours being I heart
(22:50):
Spring Hill, there are peoplethat just want to get on there
and bitch. And when they do,it's not a good argument. It
didn't. They're, I understandthe point they're making, but
it's one of those things.They're kind of going on. The
sentences are have nopunctuation. They the English is
just butchered. And it's notlike they don't they're not
foreign or anything like that.They're not from outside the
(23:12):
country. These are people thatyou presume to have been born
here, right? Okay? And you readthese, proofread, for crying out
loud, it's just like, if youwant to be taken seriously,
write,
well, yes, oh, well, landslide,yeah, yeah,
but it's yeah, here we are. Ifeel like I'm gonna get off my
(23:32):
lawn guy now, yeah,
I've had people write me emails,like, more emotional
professionals, 4050, year olds.I'm like, they're still spelling
yours in your email. Yeah, thisemail is only five sentences
long. Yeah, takes 30 seconds.
Now, I will say there's a casefor brevity. Like, even when I
pitch people, when we talk topeople in car washes, I try not
to do like, you know, essaylength emails and stuff, right?
(23:55):
Hey, here's what you asked for.Here's I always try to get on
the phone with them, yeah, youknow, so they get a feel for who
I am, not necessarily. You know,if we can do FaceTime, if they
want to, we can. But, you know,typically I talk about, hey,
here's what you talked about.Here's what this thing, here's
bullet points. Make it look niceand neat but easily digestible
within 2030, seconds, right?Right? Is that something that
(24:17):
you do as well? I mean, you'reseeing everybody.
Yeah, I'm seeing everyone. Ithink eventually you're not
going to be able to. I prettymuch true, true. But I'm excited
for that day. I want to get sobusy that I am now running out
of that time. That's a goodthing for business. You know,
busy is good, but, yeah, I mean,my I still do handwritten
estimates. They have invoice togo. I haven't switched over. I
(24:38):
still do handwritten estimateswhen I'm in person and give them
a physical piece of paper,whether they stick it or throw
in the junk drawer or put it onthe fridge, so be it. But yes,
when I am talking to more peoplethroughout emails and stuff, it
is pretty much this is what'sgoing on. This is what you
filled. Here's your estimate.This is how you could pay. Thank
you very much. Yeah, and then gofrom there,
10. Yeah, yeah. How many peopleyou got working
(24:59):
for you? Right? I have sixreally. So I have four full time
guys, two part time. And thepart time is basically they're
off one day a week. So they bothmow lawns, one of them with his
father. It's just one of theirsmaller, you know, family,
little family business. Theywrote, mow the neighborhood and
stuff like that. So one day aweek, he's off, and he lets me
know with ahead of time. Andthen the other guys through
(25:21):
going through some schooling forfire to be a fireman. So
the thing about what you guys dois, how do you take a commodity
business like this and make itsocially really interesting? I
kind of think about the guy. Ibring him up a lot, and I want
to have him on at some point. Ishould probably be charging them
(25:41):
advertising. By this point,Tennessee electrician, here's a
commodity based a trade wherenot a lot of people, hopefully,
the youth, is starting to seethe appeal and the fruitfulness
of a career that a trade canoffer you. I was too short
sighted back in the day. Iwanted to get in the radio, but
I did. I was an electriciansapprentice. I did low voltage
(26:02):
wiring for a season with my dad.So I have a pretty varied
background when it comes tothat. This guy has found a way
to get, like, tool deals. He'sprobably got sponsorships. You
know, he's making money off ofInstagram. He's got a couple
100,000 followers, right? Yeah,he's just here in Tennessee. He
just sticks a camera behind him.If he's at decking out a panel,
(26:22):
like ripping out the old circuitbreakers and putting a new
wiring and making it look nice,he'll do a time lapse video.
Yep. And dude, it is sosatisfying to watch. Yes, it is.
So I mean, if you do things likethat, where you're you know,
hey, here's the room
you see all the you know, allthe time. Do you that is
something I'm really trying toone of the main things. And keep
(26:42):
in mind, I'm I could film. Idon't have, you know, cameras.
Some of my employees have goodcameras, and they've came and
take pictures of the trucks. Allyou need is a GoPro. That's what
I'm talking about. And I want toget, I want to get the chess
piece GoPro, because they sayalways get content. Yeah, your
before and afters can make thebiggest difference. But when we
cut down a shed or a hot tub,I'll take a time lapse, I'll set
my phone up, take a time lapse,yeah, and I'll post that, then a
(27:04):
before picture and an afterpicture, and I'll put that on
Instagram, Facebook, tick tock,and they blow up. Yeah, people
love them.
The guy, it's so satisfying towatch. They are. You see the
guys who mow lawns? Yep, you seethat? Oh, those, those ones are,
they're amazing. Yep, there's somuch fun to watch. There's one
guy, he just goes and he'llfind, like, an abandoned house
or, you know, someplace wheretheir lawn just is way
(27:24):
overgrown. It knocks on thedoor. I do it for free. Yeah,
I'll just, I'll mow your lawnfor free. It's content for me.
I'm more than happy. Andtypically, people are like,
Okay, what's the catch? There isno catch, I promise you. You
know, here's my social mediachannel. He's got the clout, you
know, he's got the social proof.This is what I do to promote my
business. And he's got atremendous following. I mean,
it's amazing. And it's like, forme, what can we possibly be
(27:47):
doing, you know, to make it lookinteresting, I did, like, actual
takes, voiceover stuff for awhile. I've done mess ups and
flubs, you know, I probablyshould get back to do those
again. But the voiceover stuffthat doesn't seem to be as
interesting as it used to be, Iguess. But I don't know. Man, I
don't know how you make, youknow, making a podcast all that
(28:08):
interesting. Oh, yeah, otherthan the actual content that
comes out, you're right, youknow, right. But no, get getting
those before and afters. I juststarted integrating into Tiktok.
Really was not much of a Tiktokfan at all. Actually, I don't
really. I use social media, notas much. Personally, time to
time, it's nice to see myextended family that they get to
(28:30):
see my stuff, you know, this,that and the other. But for
business, it's pretty much my goto now. Now I started going into
the tiktoks, yeah, and makingthose, which I'm posting these
longer, you know, either 32ndvideo, for 10 second, and
they're just collages, yeah, ifwe have a full clean out, okay,
you're picking up a box, I'llget a video of that. You two are
picking up the couch. Get avideo to that. Load it into the
trucks. Get a video of thetrucks before, after, breaking
(28:53):
apart doors. You know, whateverwe have to do and put it all
within the same video. And it'svery, very sad,
what you need to do is, once youget big enough, buy a piece of
property and put like a maybe,like a 50, 6070, foot tower on
it, right where you can hoistthings up and Will
(29:14):
it break? Yes, yep, I've seen
those. They're Australian guysthat do that. They have a giant
tower out in the freaking thebush, the Outback, and they
bring random stuff. They have,like a giant AX at the bottom of
this thing. That's like an axhead that's just huge, yep, the
size of that table, yes. Andthey just drop stuff on it, just
to see if it'll break. But, Imean, Will it break? Is a
(29:35):
concept. You're welcome,
and it's awesome. I think thebiggest thing I've looked at is
doing the rage rooms. Now, letme pick your brain on this one
interesting they said, I mean,if you think about it, I'm
hauling things that, if theycan't be donated, you know,
break them, take a baseball bat,sledge hammer. Yeah, I
my job is living with a rageroom, right? And it's fun. I'm
(29:59):
never mad. I'm it's a greattime. But imagine opening that,
yeah, as a side venture. Buttaking vid, you see videos of
these people in the rage rooms,and you get the one guy that
goes in there and he hits thesame thing 50 times. There's
other things in there. He's somad. He's going in there, comes
out. I feel good. And thosevideos get a lot of views.
(30:20):
Imagine getting just a bedroomsized room, and now I'm not, you
know, I'm not paying to fill itup. I get things off the job,
baseball bats, golf clubs, youname it. But those videos are
satisfying. There
was a guy we were helping as aradio station. We did a
community benefit day where we'dgo out and help a charity, you
know, do these kinds of things.And one day, we went out to a
(30:42):
place. It was for a battered forbattered women's shelter, and we
were there to help them organizeand clean up and get some junk
out and stuff. So across thestreet was a big football field,
and our my general manager andthe sales manager found a set of
golf clubs. They wanted to justdump old golf club. So, like, we
need to take these across thestreet and we're going to do
(31:04):
what we've always wanted to doon the golf course, hurl these
things as far as we can, becausewe can't do that on the golf
course. And that's what theydid. They went across like, oh,
that's just, I've you have nomoney. No idea how many times
I've wanted to do that.
You're onto something therelittle,
(31:25):
I mean, little things just likethat. Yeah, think about it. How
much fun and joy does it bringyou? For instance, the golf club
you're talking about, how muchjust joy and just pure happiness
does it bring just taking a golfclub and throwing it as far as
you can, right? It sounds likeit's something little, but in
the end of the day. It's, it's
attached to, yes, a lifeexperience that can either feed
you so much joy or frustrate thecrap out
(31:47):
here, exactly for something thateasy to think of, but brings you
so much joy and happiness andlaughter. It's like things like
that. It's worth it. It's
like, How many times did youwant to, you know, hurl a mouse
across the room, not an actualanimal, but a mouse, you know?
Oh, yeah, because your computerdoesn't work. I know I have.
There have been times I wantedto take this damn computer and
throw it out the window, ohyeah, and stomp on it, like that
(32:09):
scene in office space. But maybethat's it. You know, I'm
thinking commercial property,where you operate out of and
then side business, like you'retalking about, Will it break and
the rage room? Yeah, build it.What's that tower for? Oh, just
stick around. Stick around. I'mfine. We got, we've got a, you
know, a sectional sofa that'sgoing to be hoisted up over to
drop it. And Will it break?That's great. It's like, great.
(32:31):
It's like the old school, WillIt Blend? Where they put stuff
in this, like, industrialblender? Yes, they do, like,
cell phones and all this otherstuff. And, yeah,
now they have the new one outthere. It's, uh, cake or fake,
yeah, yep.
Kahoot. The grinding video, theshredding videos, get one of
those big industrial shredders,
yes? And I've seen the hydraulicpress, yes. The hydraulic press
(32:54):
satisfying too. You're getting
free content. And you get allthis, you know, these pieces of
things that, if they don't takethem and make content out of
them, because
then they come look at me. Nowthey're mine. They could turn to
dust Exactly. Now,
if you take, like, a mattress,or what were the other things
that you got to pay a premium
on mattress, mattresses, tires,TVs, so tires,
(33:14):
obviously being shredded, yeah,that could be turned into
mulch. That's what they do,yeah, well, depending on the
yard. But, yeah, so, I mean,
if you because, I mean, rubbermulch is expensive. Yes, it is,
you know, you gotta, you go toget it. Get a regular, you know,
wood mulch at Home Depot, thebag is, I mean, rubber mulch is
probably 10 times as much. Iwant to say, Yeah, dude, buy
yourself a shredder.
(33:35):
They're looking, you're lookingat the gold mine businesses
there. And then it's, you know,how can you come off? You know,
go in on that with you can spendso many different businesses off
of this, just finding things,right? I mean, we just named six
in the past two minutes.
Is this the most fruitfulpodcast you've ever been on,
aside from, aside from LindsayStafford, she was, she was a
great yes
to be on. Now, it's been a greattime, great time. But pitching
(33:56):
the ideas, it's just fun tostart talking about, because are
we talking about
new things here? I
think so really. I mean, youhaven't thought of these before,
the rage room was probably thebigger one. Yeah, that's a good
idea. I think that's, I thinkthat was one just because,
again, we were talking about thevideos not satisfying. They are
for people to watch. Will break,Yeah, same thing in these rage
rooms. Yeah. You know, I'vethought about that for the
longest time, and you could doit. It's so feasible.
(34:19):
So getting back to, like, if youshred a mattress, obviously, the
tires you don't need. Youwouldn't want to bring that
stuff back to a landfill. Nowyou can actually, hey, who needs
rubber mulch? We're putting itinto these cardboard boxes or
whatever. And here's a cubicyard of it, you know, cardboard
box. And come pick them up. Youstack them up, and you charge
however much.
I'm just saying, buddy. I mean,that's,
(34:41):
you have it there now, is thedemand for tires there? Well, I
mean, there's
everybody, there's, there'salways tires being recycled and
stuff like that. That's it. Isrecycling? Does it matter if
they're, you know, I guessradios will have the the webbing
inside of them, right? Does thatmatter in mulcher, though? Or,
yeah. I don't know who that's
a good question. Yeah, I don'tknow. I know that a lot of times
(35:04):
we do get tires with rims stillon them, yeah? And, you know,
the different yards take care ofthat. But I, I'm curious about
the netting inside, if they ifthat matters for the mulch, I
wouldn't really think so. Theyshowed it up pretty small,
yeah? Because, you see, it'slike those big, you know,
they're almost like horror movietype of like, if someone were to
get caught in one of thosethings, good, you know, cyanoy?
Yes,
that's like when you're watchinga snake movie, right? Or, I'm
(35:27):
sorry, a spider movie, andthat's the web, you know, to go
the other way, right? So I don'tknow. It's a good question.
Yeah,
if you find out how much agrinder is, let me know.
Because, I mean, if you want apartner in that business,
that's, that's, a no brainer.
So another business on that, ifwe're buying a big grinder, will
it grind right? Will this TVgrind up? Who knows,
(35:50):
they typically will, unless
it's like a piece of cobalt orsomething like that. But you
know,
nevertheless, the amount of funyou can have with a grinder,
right? Right? I only imagine
how what the maintenance is onthose things, but for tires,
they're gonna chew rightthrough, right? Yeah, you can
do, will it grind? But, I mean,they really, at some of these
videos, you see them withtricycles and bicycles engine
(36:11):
blocks,
yep. No problem with the teeth.And then you got them on the
roller, and then it just somehowgets caught in
it. It's relentless churning.It's like, you know, even the
hydraulic press videos and like,Okay, what's, what's gonna crush
a hydraulic press? Right? Right?Is there stuff in there that
it's crushing? I'm like, thatshould, wow. Okay, would that
the hydraulic press
(36:31):
should give in? That's a That'sa good question. Will a
hydraulic press crush fail?Yeah, what's gonna happen? It's
like, Iron sharpens. I
think there have been videoswhere I guess the hoses explode.
So it has happened
that would probably make themost sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've seen some videos, eventrucks, like my trucks are
(36:51):
hydraulic lifts. They're dumptrucks, yeah. But I've seen
videos, not mine, luckily. ButI've seen other trucks that
those hoses once they blow andthey catch fire. I mean, it's
like a kaboom that
actually happened out here,really? Yeah, we were in Vegas
for a trade show few years back,and we get a photo or a video on
(37:12):
our one of our cameras from oneof our guys and like, where is
this? It's our driveway. Agarbage truck came up to pick up
our stuff, and then all of asudden, it just blew a hydraulic
line and caught fire. Yep, andthey're flammable. Oh, they're
hugely fam I mean, we still gotmelted siding. It actually
totaled one of our employeescars, just from the heat.
(37:33):
They get hot. Yeah, thathydraulic fluids like burning
oil. Yeah, it gets hot becausethey burn for a very, very long
time. Yeah. So
my wife's like, there's smokecoming from where your office
is. I said, that's because it isour office. She goes, Oh my
gosh. I said, No, a fire truckor a garbage truck caught on
fire in our driveway. Wow,crazy. There's a lot of
(37:55):
different you got my wheelsturning. There's a lot of
different things that you can dowith the byproducts of what you
do, right? You know,
think about, we just came upwith that in five minutes. I
know, think of the Amen,
and now somebody's gonna hearthis and run with the idea. So
hopefully, you know, betweenwhen we record it until when we
put it out, there'll be, we'llbe on to this thing. We can get
it going. We can. So you hadsomething else that happened
(38:18):
yesterday. You went on local TV,original TV. How did that work
out? How did that begin and howdid it go?
So that was something different,completely different. I've never
been live on the air, you know?I've done podcast, Lindsay's
podcast, and this, that and theother. And then I got
approached. I got approachedabout, you know how so my
(38:39):
trucks, for instance, are you'veseen them, are bright and
yellow. They really pop with ajunkologist, doctor on the side.
Well, someone from The NewsStation saw that, saw my trucks
on the road, and sure enough,one of their marketing resources
or directors reached out to me,someone along those lines,
reached out to me and said, Hey,we just did a deep dive on your
whole website. We love what youstand for. We love your small
(39:02):
family owned we would reallylove to get you on the air. And
at first it was a phone call. Soat first I'm thinking, is this,
is this real? Are they pitchingme right? Or what's going on
here? Like, is this just goingto be you're trying to get me,
you know, for stuff like that,she's No, we just want to get
you on the air. We We just sawyour trucks. Loved him, and we
want to, you know, promote yourbusiness, and we have some spots
(39:24):
to fill. Sure enough, coupleweeks go by, and sure enough,
yesterday, I was live on the airat two o'clock on the wkrn News,
two ABC, nice. So school isnever been on the air like that
before, maybe when I was a kid,when they filmed like a school,
and it just happened to be ourschool, but for me, for me
doing, like, an actualinterview. It was very, very
(39:44):
exciting. So,
so when you got down here, youdidn't have six employees, it
was just you, it was
just myself. And then mybusiness partner stayed for like
a week to help me get going, andthat was it. And it just jumped
off from there.
And then how many trucks andstuff did you have? Right off
the bat? That too. So you builtup to where you are, which is,
yep. So I started with twotrucks. I still have two trucks.
(40:07):
Now I have some trailers, butI'm looking for another truck,
or even two more trucks. That's
another business we kind oflooked into because we got a
couple of trailers here on site.We rent out our trailers. Yeah,
it's, that's a big one. It's,it's a tough, it's tough to find
things of the price of thesetrucks, just the price of steel.
So the box on the back is, it'san absurd amount of money just
(40:29):
for the box. And you're not eventalking if you're buying a
reliable or even new. I mean,it's the price is insane. So you
know what? Luckily, I can stillfunction with my two now and
trailers, and they're longerdays, but if I can get another
truck in here, I mean, I'mlooking at, you're looking at a
pretty penny. Nevertheless, ifyou're buying one that needs
work or not, yeah, they're like,over 100 grand, right? And then
(40:50):
you got to sandblast them, paintthem, wrap them. That's a big
thing, even if they're new, isthe clean well, then you would
just wrap them. But wrapping atruck like that's still pretty
expensive. There's so manylittle components that go into
it, adds up pretty quick.
I mean, that question, I guessit's done well for you, for your
branding, but ease of getting incontact with you when it's you
(41:11):
have like an 800 number. That'skind of like one 800 got junk
or well, so there is, we haveour normal 877, our junk number,
and if you call that, it'll say,push one for Illinois, push two
for Tennessee, and you'll getdirected right to my phone,
right? But a lot of the even onour websites, my personal
number, which is just my worknumber, on my business cards, is
(41:31):
just my personal number. Soyou're not going to be talking
with you know, you're not goingto be talking with someone on
the other side of the world thatyou know might even be a little
bit harder to understand them.You're going to talk to me every
time. You're going to get thatfamily feel for me, you won't
talk to anyone else but myself.And through and through till the
end,
what's the plan? Until you cantake all those calls? What are
you going to do then?
Then once that happens, it'll bemore so a local call center.
(41:53):
Yeah, I would want a call centerthat's in the same time zone
as us. I would hope that youeventually just have some like a
home base. Well, yes,
then I mean ideally, having asecretary that could handle the
schedule, the calls, theestimates, and just throw it
onto a schedule, then have anops manager come in and take
care of that. I mean, that isyour ideal down the road. So
that was a what does that looklike in five years?
In five years? So oddly enough,within my first year, I actually
(42:16):
just bought another headquarter,a headquarters here. So I think
in five years, right now I'mlooking at 12 full time so no
college, just full time workers.I'm looking at six trucks total.
So then I have two guys pertruck. So I'm running six truck
teams, 12 guys total. And thenI'm also looking to in five
years is have an actual about a6000 square foot pole barn where
(42:38):
I'm running fully everything outof with hydraulic lifts in them,
so I could work on my trucksmyself to not have to pay
mechanics, because, again, Ilike to do that on the side. So
we're looking at six trucks apole barn and 12 workers. Is my
physical like goals for thebusiness.
So essentially, doubling yourbusiness, really, probably
(43:00):
tripling your business too.About triple, yeah, you're gonna
buy. You're gonna have to dothat in order to accommodate, I
want
to set your goals high, yeah. Sohave something to reach. Well,
setting your goals high would be10x in your business. Yeah,
yeah. So I'm looking forward toit. I think you know i or i know
that that's really what I'mlooking for in the five year
span. And then really startelaborating more on business
plans, and even so opening upside business. We're talking
(43:23):
about the mulch, the rage rooms,the you know, stuff like that.
Right on.
So how do people get a hold ofyou and find Well, actually,
first off, before we get there,I had this question asked of me
this week, and I'm still tryingto figure out what my answer is.
We talked a lot about legacy,and I was actually schooled on
the definition of the of theword legacy wasn't really what I
(43:45):
thought it meant. Like, I alwaysthought of legacy, like Bill
Clinton wanted his libraries andstuff like that, and the what he
did for the country to be hislegacy. It turned out to be, you
know, something entirelydifferent. And we kind of landed
on the notion of, well, what doyou want to be remembered for?
So question to you, what do youwant to be remembered for? You
(44:08):
to make me feel a whole lotbetter, if you you struggle with
this answer.
He didn't quit. I
think that's the biggest thing.That's a good one. I mean, well,
at least off the top my head,I'm sure if I sat down and
really elaborated on thatquestion, but for a quick answer
is, I didn't quit. Yeah, I justkept on going and working
through. Get knocked down, getback up. Get knocked down two
more times. Get up two moretimes.
(44:29):
Which is gonna happen, right?Yeah, that's that's life. That's
business. What does life in your40s look like for you? You have,
like, a big plan for that,because you're 24 you said
right, right, at the helm of a,probably a six figure business,
I would imagine quicklyapproaching seven. That's of not
(44:49):
a lot of 24 year olds are doingthat.
It's very exciting. I'm thinkingfor 40. I mean, it's tough for
me to sit down, yeah. Could willthat change when I'm 40? I. I'm
assuming. So, yeah, but rightnow it's like, Oh, I get, you
know, I get one Saturday off,and what am I doing? I'm washing
my junk trucks. I'm stillworking and doing stuff because
it's hard for me to sit still.So I don't know what 40 really
(45:11):
looks like, as much as I want tosay I could sit in a rocking
chair on my porch and drinkcoffee and watch the deer walk
by. Well, you know, I havepeople that take care of the
rest of the aspects of junkremedy and
work, right, or whatever. Howmany other businesses you own by
that
exactly. So who knows? Maybe I'mopening up another business that
I can just run from the tanktheater my own office, right?
And have people for that. Theworld is my oyster.
(45:35):
You got a great attitude. Man,endless possibilities. Man,
those possibilities and that,just because of that. You should
really hire Dan and his team totake whatever junk you have and
clean it out and do all thethings, because it's you don't
find you don't, first of all,surprised to hear that you're 24
I thought you were probably atleast pushing 30, not because of
(45:56):
your looks. By the way youconduct yourself, you look like
you've been around the block.You're probably an old soul. And
I would say that kind of playsinto it, very mature but
charismatic way that you carryyourself, very well liked. Well
you say old soul. Threefavorites, CCR, Tom Petty and
Alabama. Jeez, dude,
(46:17):
yeah, really, at least you havegood taste in music.
I've been told, yeah, those aremy three favorites. CCR. CCR,
actually,
that's really throwing it.That's that's obscure. Yep, I
have the Bad
Moon Rising potion right in mywall bathroom on the right. I
have it all sitting right in myoffice. Tom Petty love them all.
(46:37):
We
just had on my my buddy and I doa podcast called the rich
Redmond show. He's the drummerfor Jason Aldean. We just had
Stan Lynch on. You're like,who's Stanley? You lost me on
that one. He was Tom Petty'slongtime drummer, okay, for the
first 20 years. Okay, yeah, huh.He's a guy who kind of stepped
(46:58):
in Golden piles of crap, gotchaso well, there you go. How do
you people find and follow youand all those fun things? Is it
one location, I hope, where theycan get on your socials?
Well, yeah, it makes it supereasy. So on our website. So
there's a difference of sobusiness partner, Nick has junk
remedy logos. Mine is just junkremedy underscore. Tn more just
junk remedy Nashville, and it'sstill gonna pop
(47:19):
up. It's funny, because it'slike, why not make that all in
one thing that, hey, we justhave two locations in Chicago
and Nashville. You know,
that was the one thing we reallylooked at. But the biggest
difference was with, if I run ithere, you can still build SEO
off of social media, right,right, right. So if I started
doing it all one lot here, itwould mess with his up there. If
he started doing it up there, itwould mess with mine down here.
(47:41):
So we had to create separates.You know, he has the actual junk
remedy name, and mine's justeither junk remedy Nashville
Tennessee on Facebook or junkremedy underscore tn on
Instagram and
Tiktok. Well, there you go. Wegot to get all that stuff to me
so I can put it in thedescription absolutely normally
do. And of course, everythingwill be there if you want to
listen more to other podcastsand episodes that we've had,
(48:03):
we've had some pretty greatguests, of course, Dan being one
of them. In the past, we've hadBradley, we've got Mike,
Mercurio, rich, Redmond, a lotof different guests that
hopefully have provided somevalue. Share those out if
they've made an impact on yourlife. If you go to mmtbp.com I
know it's convoluted. Mm,tbp.com mostly Middle Tennessee
(48:26):
business podcast.com. Is also anoption, but I figured the other
one's probably, you know, fiveletters versus however many
letters it is to type in mostlyMiddle Tennessee Business
Podcast. I'm a marketing guy.Didn't think too much about the
name of this thing, but I wantedMiddle Tennessee to be the
marquee star of the podcast.That's why I named it that such.
So I'm Jim McCarthy, and ofcourse, we produce podcasts here
(48:48):
with it's your show.co, it isproduced by that company. If you
need something like that, let usknow and check out all the
things there. If you want to beon the podcast, let me know.
We've got a link on that site aswell@mmtbp.com, to be a part of
this podcast as well. Dan,thanks for coming on, pal. It
was a pleasure
to have you good as always. You.
Own, actually, before I do that.
Okay, so I'm going to change thedate on this to the 14th good
all inputs round.
That'll be a second recording.Yeah, ready, ready
(00:23):
to go. Got too close for thebargain.
This is the mostly MiddleTennessee business podcast, a
podcast about Middle Tennesseebusiness owners and
professionals,
mostly. So
what social stigma does societyneed to get over. That's a tough
(00:46):
one. Come on. Now, this is thekind of stuff we start out with.
Yep,
I'm gonna have to go with thephones. You think so I'm gonna
have to go with phones. Youdon't like phones. I don't. I
just, you know, if you walk in,there's nothing better than
physically shaking the hand ofsomeone and looking at my eye
and start talking. You
know, you're too young to bethinking that, but it's
refreshing to hear that. Sothose you guys tuning in, this
(01:08):
is Dan degiulio that I have onthe podcast today. He is the
owner, the CEO of junk remedy.Is it junk remedy solutions?
Junk remedy is junk remedy, junkremedy. So if you need to be
remediated, which is the is thatthe root word of remedy all
your junk removal needs, that's
right, of junk that you havestored up. And maybe you're kind
(01:31):
of a hoarder or something likethat. I can only imagine the
stories you have. Wouldn'tbreathe it got it. We're gonna
be talking to Dan today. He'sactually a vivacious character.
He's a fellow BNI. Er, you'veheard me talk about BNI before
on the podcast. We're in theWilco chapter together. Anybody
who's listening, if you're inthe area and you want to check
out a BNI chapter, let me know.We'll send out an invite. We'll
(01:53):
get you all situated. We'rethere every Wednesday from seven
ish to nine or so, and that'show Dan and I met, the best
meeting of your week. That'sright. Bring that mic a little
closer. We want to hear what youhave to say, buddy. So want to
get into all the differentthings, your background and
stuff and how you got into it.But that was a really quick
(02:14):
answer. Bones, because you'restill in your 20s. If I
24 Yeah, you're young. I thinkthat the biggest thing is, you
know, if I'm, do you hate beingcalled Young? I'm sorry, you
know, not really. I think I likeit in the business standpoint.
When, I mean, I have a lot ofpeople ask me, you know, Are you
the owner of this branch here?And I say, yes. They go, how?
How old are you? You could be mygrandkid. And I'm like, I'm 24
(02:37):
and I just like the look ontheir face when I do tell them
my age. And that aspect I do. Ido like it, but in general, it
doesn't really bother me. Ithonestly, just drives me more.
So
it's not a bad thing, because alot of 24 year olds, you know,
I've known people older that,you know, don't have it
together, let alone own a bitown a business. And this is, I
mean, because of your age, Iwould imagine it's a fairly new
(02:58):
business, but you're, you've gotthe chutzpah, the chutzpah,
Yes, yep, it took some time todefinitely some learning curves.
But, I mean, I think justespecially with my age comes the
more so knowledge along thetechnology lines. The social
media is the driving force ofmost businesses. Now, if you get
a good social media platformgoing, you establish a good
base, you could really take offjust by utilizing AI and what
(03:19):
you put on social media, yeah,the
only thing about AI is, like, Isaw a post this morning from a
guy who's about my age. He goes,I just replaced $350 of my
expenses every month for tovendors with AI. I'm like, man,
what are we doing here? Youknow, because he's in a business
too. That can be, I guess, AI,ified, okay, I just invented
(03:42):
that term. It really could,like, we don't need, you know,
we don't need anybody reallyselling this stuff anymore. He
sells insurance. And it's like,you know, legal industry,
insurance, all these, all theseindustries can be replaced by AI
at some point, junk remedy, notso much. No, you still need to
(04:03):
physically haul and still,unless they start, you know,
deploying robots out there, youknow, that's right, yeah. So
tell me your story you came outof. You're not from around here.
I could tell by the accent.
That's right. I'm, I'm actuallyfrom northwest suburbs of
Chicago, so up in Illinois,spent the first 21 years of my
life there. I went to IllinoisState my first two years. But
(04:23):
now backtrack just a little bit.There's one other branch of junk
remedy, and my cousin, businesspartner Nick degiulio, owns that
one. So I worked for him forabout five, six years. Loved
every single day of it, and thenI went off to college. So I was
working on my Christmas break,my summer break, and then the
pandemic happened. Fortunately,we were deemed essential
(04:44):
workers. So, you know, we weresent home from college at the
time Illinois State. So I was afull time student in full time
working, which was super nice.So I never really had to
quarantine. You know, a lot Ihear a lot of the quarantine
stories. I never had to do that.I was physically working. You
know, actually outside. Thetrucks every single day during
COVID. And I was majoring inrisk management insurance at the
(05:04):
time at Illinois State. And, youknow, one day I woke up, I'm
like, I really don't want
to do this. Hmm, sure, probably1920 years old, yeah, at the
time, yeah. I just it wasn't mycalling. And I realized how much
I loved hauling junk and justevery day is different. I love
meeting to people. I lovetalking. I love I just love the
daily life of junk removal. So Isat down with Nick, my family
(05:25):
member, and decided, Hey, whatare our thoughts about opening
up another branch? And you know,the light clicked on between he
himself and I, and we loved it.His first question, well, where
are you going to go? I've beento Tennessee before. I've been
to Green Bay, Indianapolis, andthen I haven't been to Phoenix,
but that was another big one.But based on statistics, areas
that are rising, you know, forsomeone like a business like my
(05:49):
my own, you want to go somewherewhere people are moving to not
moving from. So people aremoving with more and more items,
you know, to get back onto thestory was, I ended up
transferring out of IllinoisState, all my friends and, you
know, I was close to my family,being from Illinois and
transferred to Western Kentucky,right across the border here in
Tennessee, and changed my majorto small business management and
(06:11):
entrepreneurship. Started comingdown here every weekend trying
to learn where learn the areaand build connections. And sure
enough, I skipped my graduationbecause I had an older lady call
and wanted some items hauled outtwo days before I was supposed
to open. And sure enough, nowI'm here.
You skip the unity, the rite ofpassage that is graduation. You
didn't even I'm not gonnabother.
(06:33):
Well, graduation, graduate.Graduation was one thing you
know, it was I was supposed toopen the day after Memorial Day.
So memorial day, Monday,Tuesday, was supposed to be my
opening. To be my opening day. Ihad, I was still up in Bowling
Green, Kentucky at the time, andI had a lady call me on
Thursday. My Trucks were alreadydown here. I was ready to go,
but I still had graduation. Andthat weekend of moving out of
(06:53):
Kentucky, down here toNashville, and I had this older
lady call me, and, you know, shewas all sorts of hysterical on
the phone, saying, I need thisout. I need this out. Can you be
here Friday? I looked at myschedule. It happened to be the
day I was walking to receive mydiploma after four years of
school. I was just so excited.That's
about how it meant to you. Yeah,that's it. There's just a piece
(07:14):
of paper. So do any loans oranything like that? Did you have
scholarships?
Hopefully, scholarships. Yes,yep. So I came out of college
with no student loans, I cameout with no debt, nothing like
that. I was able to jump rightinto work, and I ended up
getting my piece of paper, mydiploma, mailed to me. My mom
bought me a frame for it. I haveit framed in my house, but I
started a little bit earlierbusiness wise than I thought.
(07:36):
But fun story now so
probably means more more to yourmom that it does, do you I
guess, big time. Yeah,
she was asking me if I'm justgonna, you know, cram it under
the bed or hang it on the wall,and I ended up hanging it up
with all of my other junk remedyinformation in my office now, so
she's super happy to see that,you know.
So is it a franchise, or is ityour own brand?
So we did not franchise. So Nickowns the Illinois one, and I am
(08:00):
the controlling power, and I ownthis one. However, I was still
still able to use the brand. Weset up an S corp, an S
corporation, yeah, so I canstill use all the trademarks.
And he helps me out down here.And you know, he really got me
going with the gear, like thebranding, the Logos, the
website, everything
like that, because he had theall set up and established up
there. Yes, he is. He's been
there for 1516, years. He's beenhauling junk for longer than
(08:23):
that. So he's been wellestablished. I mean, he is 43
wife and kids, so there was abit of an age gap between us.
However. I mean, he and I worklike bread and butter. I mean,
we have a very, very good andprofessional and fun business
relationship, but also on thefamily aspect, which is a big
thing for us, calling us asmall, family owned business,
being
a very, you know, strong Irish,German last name that you have.
(08:47):
Nobody laughs at that joke. Forcrying out loud, I know it's
Italian. You're really confused.I did that one time to Charlie
Benante, the drummer foranthrax, and I said, you know,
what's it like being so stronglyIrish? And he looked at me like
I had horns growing on him, andhe's like, and he's and he's
like, Irish. I said, Yeah, Iknow. Maybe I just need to stop
telling this joke. Or maybe Ineed to
(09:08):
reconstruct it, construct it.Yeah, I like that. I see where
it's going reconstruct,reconstruct. Yes, the strong
attachment,
it's like, basically my B and Iask, I try to be funny. I've
given up being funny becauseit's like a crash and burn every
time. You know, I try to makepeople laugh. Sometimes it
happens. And, you know, Ithought it'd be funny, and I I
deliver it with the timing andeverything. And it's like,
(09:29):
people just look at you. I'mlike, maybe I'm just not built
to be funny. And, you know, andstand up, I could be funny on a
podcast. There we go. It's mygifting, yes. So, so I asked
about the logo because it lookslike a long established, like
franchise of a logo, right, youknow. So I think that it's a
great name. And, you know, it's,to me, it seemed like you just
(09:52):
kind of bought into a franchise.But kudos to you, you can
possibly own it,
yep. So that was, you know,although I own this one, and he
owns that one. Yeah, and but Iwas able to grow up working for
him at the Illinois branch, andthat's where I learned and
gained all the knowledge I haveabout what I do. Now, sure,
there's always learning curveswhen I came down here, you know,
I failed many, many times, butjust getting back up and keep
(10:14):
going. And sure enough, how didyou fail? What were some of your
failures? Some of the failureswere not knowing where I'm
supposed to go. So, like, interms of, like, a customer's
house, no, not, not that we havethe mask for that one, but, you
know, there's jobs. I didn't, Ididn't know where the transfer
stations were. I didn't knowwhere the land, the landfills,
if we do go, the donationcenters, things like that. So we
(10:34):
were doing jobs, and I startedbiting off more than I can chew,
because I'm, you know, I wassitting here. I was like, I
don't know where to take thesetrucks. I jumped into it, and I
was like, I can't believe Ithought of one of the most
crucial things part of thisbusiness is, how do I empty
these trucks? Oh, yeah. So rightoff the RIP I'm doing, I we
ended up cleaning a wholedentist office house, and I
only, you know, I have twotrucks and a couple of trailers
(10:55):
here, and I'm sitting here, I'mlike, I don't know where to take
these trucks. So I'm callingaround, calling around. No, we
don't take commercial vehicles,or we don't take new vendors.
And that was a big issue. Of itwas a lot of it's just so busy
here. Now there's so many peoplethat do it that we are not
accepting new clients. And Ican't, I mean, we donate, but a
lot of it's also non donatable.So, I mean, at that point, it
(11:17):
goes to a transfer station andthey take care
of it from there. But there'slike a dump site out of
Fairview, though, isn't there?
But that's see there, there is.But that's the big thing. Is, if
I'm up in Gallatin orHendersonville, Tennessee, I
can't drive down to Fairview.So, I mean, if I am in this
area, yes, we've gone there, andit works really well. Nowadays.
I know exactly where to go. Ihave some good areas in town,
but at first I'm sitting thereand I'm having to postpone jobs
(11:39):
and stuff like that, because Ican't figure out where to take
these trucks. It was one thingthat I just did not think of in
the whole heat of setting thebusiness up when I was still in
college and then getting downhere to open. The one thing I
have to do, and we do itmultiple times a day, is clear
our trucks. Yeah. So right offthe RIP was, Oh, boy. What do I
have to do? So I ended up goingover to waste management, which
(12:00):
charges you four times more thanother places will, because their
trucks are coming with 10s of 20tons of trash per truck, where
I'm only bringing one ton,right? So they have minimums
where it's a lot more expensive,so stuff like that, little
things like that. That led to, Igot to be doing this better,
learning curves
more. So it's not just alandfill. You can ring it to or
you got to find them. No, youcan't.
(12:21):
You can't. You gotta find them.Yeah, you can, but they're
strict about what they can andcannot take. So tires, TVs,
mattresses, are surcharges atthe majority of places. That's
why we charge surcharges forthem. Some places are a little
bit more lenient on them, but alot of places have one to two
ton truck minimum. So if I onlyfill half a truck of 1000
pounds, you know, I'm, you know,a little under half a ton
(12:41):
monetarily. Is it smart to goclear there? No, it's try to go
somewhere with a lower minimum.I
mean, it's kind of nice. It'slike doing demolition for
construction. Yes, you knowyou're going in there, you're
getting a lot of it's verytherapeutic, smashing walls out
and all that stuff. You're notreally having to. I'm not going
to organize your room. For you,I'm getting all this crap out of
(13:02):
here. Is it a satisfying thingfor you?
Hands down, probably one of themain reasons I do it, really it,
is, if you go to our socialmedias or anything like that,
you'll see some of the craziestbefore and afters. And I think
once we do it, I mean, if it'sin a garage, a whole house, a
hoarding, cleanup, whatever itmight be, you know, you just a
living room. It's not messy,just a living room once you see
(13:23):
everything cleared out of there,and we clear it out so fast, and
then we clean up. When we'redone, it's just the look on our
clients face of tears of joy andsmiles, of just happy, pure
happiness, of, I can't believethis is gone. Do
you help them? Like, what's thelady that? Does it spark joy?
You know, do you kind of getinto that, or is that already
(13:44):
predetermined by the time youshow up? Like, you know, I just,
should I throw this away? Or,you know, do you have to give
opinions, or anything like that?So
I've had people that have askedfor my opinion, and I work with
a lot of staging and cluttercompanies, okay? And those are
people that have come in andwill organize your garage. And I
work with some wonderful,wonderful companies down here,
(14:05):
and they had a rule that theygave to me. They said, If anyone
ever asks you, tell them if youhaven't touched it in five
years, you're probably not goingto touch it again. Yeah, get rid
of it.
See, I have a garage full of allthat stuff, you know, spare
parts and screws and bracketsthat every time you get
something, it could be, youknow, a set of shades or blinds,
(14:29):
and they come with all the extraparts. And my mindset is, why
would I throw this? Is valuablestuff, you know, somebody made
this, or a machine made this,and it came from, you know, at
some point the earth, you know,I'm going to toss it in the
trash. It's still in thepackaging. No, I'm going to save
it. Because you never know whenI need a, you know, a bracket
that looks like it's been bentout of shape. Yeah, maybe once
(14:50):
in a blue moon. I'm like, Man,I'm glad I kept that.
Yep, that's right. As a garageGuru, I understand exactly what
you're saying from my personalstandpoint. Then at the other
end, it's, you know, what? Youcan go men, you can go bend and
buy a bracket there for $5 butnot have the countless boxes and
then try to find it. So, I mean,everyone's different on that, on
that, but when people do ask formy opinion, pretty much, I'll
(15:13):
say, I mean, unless it has realsedimental family value or it's
an heirloom, of course, youknow, you're not, you're not
going to really touch thatheirloom. It's just going to sit
and look pretty on the mantle orwhatever. But if they're just
boxes of old kid toys, yeah, youknow, we'll take them because
we'll go donate that to Toys forTots and kids that need stuff
like that. So if you haven'ttouched it in five years, five
years is the number, huh? I'dlike to say, so yeah, I think
(15:35):
that's, I think that's the sweetspot. I'd
say probably go down as much assix months. You could. You
could. So you said getting downhere, there's a lot I was going
to ask about the competition,because we've recently got into
the garage door business as acompany here, and we have a
consultant on hand who's, likethe garage door guy in this
(15:55):
area. He's he actually came fromChicago. He's a good friend of
mine for the past 10 years. Hisname is Bill, yes, and he's
consulting with us. He is like50 years in the business. He
knows his stuff, and just byhappenstance, we went through a
season in our company, we had topivot and figure out how to get
more near term commodity basedrevenue, because a lot of what
(16:21):
we do podcasting, it's a want,not a need, you know, colorful
lighting, you could put in carwashes and other places that go
in harsh environments. And thensome want, not a need, right?
It's, you know, whoever. Maybeit'll become a need at some
point, but it's still kind of awant. So what is it that we can
get into when garage doorshappen to come up and we, we
(16:42):
started getting into thatbecause of the commodity aspect
of it. It's something we canhandle. A lot of technical,
mechanical work that we arecapable of. I carry a set of
tools in the back of my jeep, incase I got to go fix a garage
door. And it's we just kind of,we went into it that way, when
all of a sudden, after seeingwhat Bill went through and how
(17:04):
he built his business, it waslike a handful of garage door
people out there. Now they'reeverywhere. Oh yeah, oh my. It's
like, we're really where wereall these people? We decided to
get in the pool and like,everybody's in the pool. That's
right. Is that what you found tobe in the well, you moved here
so you had no but exists, ofcomparison,
exact same thing. I mean, in thelong run, I do being up in
(17:27):
Illinois, there's the sameamount of competition, if not
more, there than here. That wasdefinitely an eye opener for me.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, kind oftalking back to Illinois Nick,
the only other company beforeNick opened. You know, 1516,
years ago was one 800 got junk,the world's largest junk, and
they're in three, four differentcountries, in 48 of the
(17:47):
continental United States downhere. I got here, and pretty
much everyone was wellestablished. So it was harder
for me to kick my foot in thatdoor. I was the last one in the
pool. Yeah, you know. So what
was the plan? You said, tofigure it out. Did you have a
strategy?
See, that's tough. That was thetough part. I think the main
driver is why, why do I do it?And how can I show people my why
(18:12):
and my, my company's why, as to,again, why they should use us
over you know, the 1516, othercompanies around here, even in
and so you get, you have yourestablished business, businesses
like mine, that are licensed,bonded and insured. We have the
gear. We have the uniform,friendly staff that are
background check, this, that andthe other. However, if that's
(18:34):
you want to bring in in thehouse, I hope you do. But we
can't compete with the normaltwo guys that are just having
they have a trailer sitting intheir backyard, and they're just
hauling junk on the weekends fornot even an eighth of the price
of what me or any of the othercompany, we just can't compete
with that. No, and that's thething. So if you want to bring
someone that is not insured intoyour house, if you scratch a
(18:55):
wall, well, great, you're nevergoing to see them again.
Accidents happen if we were toscratch a wall, you know, we're
insured to come take care ofthat floor, stuff like that. So
really stressing on that in ourwhy, as to why we're the best
out there, why we're the best inthis area, was really getting
the name and our missionstatement out there. Are you
putting yourself as my mainface? Yes, and speaking and all
(19:17):
that stuff I forget to know you.
I found through trial and erroragain, just from starting that
if I post just a social mediapicture of my truck, of the junk
trucks wrapped clean and theylook good, great. I get, you
know, my average amount oflikes, comment shares, but when
I post pictures of my face infront of a truck or my crew all
(19:37):
happy and smiling, I get doubleHmm. I think people like to see
who is going to be coming intotheir house, and I'll post on
Facebook in these different likegroups around town, I will
significantly, every singletime, get more likes, comments,
shares and referrals off ofpeople seeing my face. Mm. It's
(20:00):
the same thing as, why do I wantto go to all of my estimates in
person? Because I want thatphysical handshake. I can give
them an estimate. I mean, mostof the days I can give you an
estimate over the phone, andyou'll never see me. Yeah, even
though, if it's a cheap job orexpensive, I want to go there to
physically shake your hand, lookyou dead in the eye, and build
that personal relation with you.And most of the time, you'll get
the job. Compared to, if I wereto just do it over the phone?
(20:22):
Was that, based on yourexperience up in Chicago and
being a kind of a mentee to yourI
would definitely say, so yeah,that was definitely the
strongest thing. But again, Iwas 1617, or 15, 1617, years old
at that time. I wasn't reallythinking about that, of course
not. But was, is that how heoperated? Yeah, yeah, Nick. Nick
still goes to all the in personestimates, or all the estimates
and stuff like that still toshow face, because people want
(20:44):
to have that relation nowadays.Everyone's so sheltered and
you're on your phone, everythingyou could do is on your phone
now, but still having thatpersonal relation and physically
shaking hands and looking eye toeye in a room makes a big
difference. Will get you thebiggest difference
so and as people in yourgeneration, around your age,
it's amazing. These are oldschool techniques that have been
(21:05):
kind of forgotten even, youknow, I tell my kids, and I kind
of harp on them with when youtext somebody, stop using text
speech, you know, all thedifferent abbreviations and
contractions and things of thatnature, because you look and
sound like everybody else,right? If you want to rise above
(21:26):
and of course, this is me astheir dad who doesn't know
anything. Telling them this, itmakes a difference. Yes, it
does, you know. I mean my sonliterally. The other day, text
asked me a question, and I waslike, Dude, I have no idea what
you're even talking about. Idon't know if you're just, you
know, you kind of sped throughthis message or whatever. And
(21:47):
it's like you're not an idiot.Why would I sound like one?
Right? You know what I mean, andit's, he's not an idiot at all.
He's borderline genius, yeah?But it's like you don't just
take some pride in how you typeand how you put yourself out
there, old school methodologiesof like, what you're talking
about, dude, that'll that alonewill put you ahead of the curve,
(22:07):
right? Because nobody's doing itanymore, you know, kind of sad
damn phones, yeah. The biggest
generation difference, I think,is that, I mean, even so you
talk to the majority of you knowpeople my age, and then the
occasional few. And just that,it's a colossal difference of
(22:29):
old school, new school, or theslang. It's, I mean, even so
what you're saying, I understandI'm in that generation, but some
of the times I'll hear some ofthe slang, I'm like, I actually
have no clue what that termmeans. I mean, sure, I know the
most of it's just having friendsand whatnot, but some of it, I'm
like, I really don't know whatthat means.
Well, it's not only that you youjust go on Facebook any given
day, and some of these communitypages, Yes, ours being I heart
(22:50):
Spring Hill, there are peoplethat just want to get on there
and bitch. And when they do,it's not a good argument. It
didn't. They're, I understandthe point they're making, but
it's one of those things.They're kind of going on. The
sentences are have nopunctuation. They the English is
just butchered. And it's notlike they don't they're not
foreign or anything like that.They're not from outside the
(23:12):
country. These are people thatyou presume to have been born
here, right? Okay? And you readthese, proofread, for crying out
loud, it's just like, if youwant to be taken seriously,
write,
well, yes, oh, well, landslide,yeah, yeah,
but it's yeah, here we are. Ifeel like I'm gonna get off my
(23:32):
lawn guy now, yeah,
I've had people write me emails,like, more emotional
professionals, 4050, year olds.I'm like, they're still spelling
yours in your email. Yeah, thisemail is only five sentences
long. Yeah, takes 30 seconds.
Now, I will say there's a casefor brevity. Like, even when I
pitch people, when we talk topeople in car washes, I try not
to do like, you know, essaylength emails and stuff, right?
(23:55):
Hey, here's what you asked for.Here's I always try to get on
the phone with them, yeah, youknow, so they get a feel for who
I am, not necessarily. You know,if we can do FaceTime, if they
want to, we can. But, you know,typically I talk about, hey,
here's what you talked about.Here's what this thing, here's
bullet points. Make it look niceand neat but easily digestible
within 2030, seconds, right?Right? Is that something that
(24:17):
you do as well? I mean, you'reseeing everybody.
Yeah, I'm seeing everyone. Ithink eventually you're not
going to be able to. I prettymuch true, true. But I'm excited
for that day. I want to get sobusy that I am now running out
of that time. That's a goodthing for business. You know,
busy is good, but, yeah, I mean,my I still do handwritten
estimates. They have invoice togo. I haven't switched over. I
(24:38):
still do handwritten estimateswhen I'm in person and give them
a physical piece of paper,whether they stick it or throw
in the junk drawer or put it onthe fridge, so be it. But yes,
when I am talking to more peoplethroughout emails and stuff, it
is pretty much this is what'sgoing on. This is what you
filled. Here's your estimate.This is how you could pay. Thank
you very much. Yeah, and then gofrom there,
10. Yeah, yeah. How many peopleyou got working
(24:59):
for you? Right? I have sixreally. So I have four full time
guys, two part time. And thepart time is basically they're
off one day a week. So they bothmow lawns, one of them with his
father. It's just one of theirsmaller, you know, family,
little family business. Theywrote, mow the neighborhood and
stuff like that. So one day aweek, he's off, and he lets me
know with ahead of time. Andthen the other guys through
(25:21):
going through some schooling forfire to be a fireman. So
the thing about what you guys dois, how do you take a commodity
business like this and make itsocially really interesting? I
kind of think about the guy. Ibring him up a lot, and I want
to have him on at some point. Ishould probably be charging them
(25:41):
advertising. By this point,Tennessee electrician, here's a
commodity based a trade wherenot a lot of people, hopefully,
the youth, is starting to seethe appeal and the fruitfulness
of a career that a trade canoffer you. I was too short
sighted back in the day. Iwanted to get in the radio, but
I did. I was an electriciansapprentice. I did low voltage
(26:02):
wiring for a season with my dad.So I have a pretty varied
background when it comes tothat. This guy has found a way
to get, like, tool deals. He'sprobably got sponsorships. You
know, he's making money off ofInstagram. He's got a couple
100,000 followers, right? Yeah,he's just here in Tennessee. He
just sticks a camera behind him.If he's at decking out a panel,
(26:22):
like ripping out the old circuitbreakers and putting a new
wiring and making it look nice,he'll do a time lapse video.
Yep. And dude, it is sosatisfying to watch. Yes, it is.
So I mean, if you do things likethat, where you're you know,
hey, here's the room
you see all the you know, allthe time. Do you that is
something I'm really trying toone of the main things. And keep
(26:42):
in mind, I'm I could film. Idon't have, you know, cameras.
Some of my employees have goodcameras, and they've came and
take pictures of the trucks. Allyou need is a GoPro. That's what
I'm talking about. And I want toget, I want to get the chess
piece GoPro, because they sayalways get content. Yeah, your
before and afters can make thebiggest difference. But when we
cut down a shed or a hot tub,I'll take a time lapse, I'll set
my phone up, take a time lapse,yeah, and I'll post that, then a
(27:04):
before picture and an afterpicture, and I'll put that on
Instagram, Facebook, tick tock,and they blow up. Yeah, people
love them.
The guy, it's so satisfying towatch. They are. You see the
guys who mow lawns? Yep, you seethat? Oh, those, those ones are,
they're amazing. Yep, there's somuch fun to watch. There's one
guy, he just goes and he'llfind, like, an abandoned house
or, you know, someplace wheretheir lawn just is way
(27:24):
overgrown. It knocks on thedoor. I do it for free. Yeah,
I'll just, I'll mow your lawnfor free. It's content for me.
I'm more than happy. Andtypically, people are like,
Okay, what's the catch? There isno catch, I promise you. You
know, here's my social mediachannel. He's got the clout, you
know, he's got the social proof.This is what I do to promote my
business. And he's got atremendous following. I mean,
it's amazing. And it's like, forme, what can we possibly be
(27:47):
doing, you know, to make it lookinteresting, I did, like, actual
takes, voiceover stuff for awhile. I've done mess ups and
flubs, you know, I probablyshould get back to do those
again. But the voiceover stuffthat doesn't seem to be as
interesting as it used to be, Iguess. But I don't know. Man, I
don't know how you make, youknow, making a podcast all that
(28:08):
interesting. Oh, yeah, otherthan the actual content that
comes out, you're right, youknow, right. But no, get getting
those before and afters. I juststarted integrating into Tiktok.
Really was not much of a Tiktokfan at all. Actually, I don't
really. I use social media, notas much. Personally, time to
time, it's nice to see myextended family that they get to
(28:30):
see my stuff, you know, this,that and the other. But for
business, it's pretty much my goto now. Now I started going into
the tiktoks, yeah, and makingthose, which I'm posting these
longer, you know, either 32ndvideo, for 10 second, and
they're just collages, yeah, ifwe have a full clean out, okay,
you're picking up a box, I'llget a video of that. You two are
picking up the couch. Get avideo to that. Load it into the
trucks. Get a video of thetrucks before, after, breaking
(28:53):
apart doors. You know, whateverwe have to do and put it all
within the same video. And it'svery, very sad,
what you need to do is, once youget big enough, buy a piece of
property and put like a maybe,like a 50, 6070, foot tower on
it, right where you can hoistthings up and Will
(29:14):
it break? Yes, yep, I've seen
those. They're Australian guysthat do that. They have a giant
tower out in the freaking thebush, the Outback, and they
bring random stuff. They have,like a giant AX at the bottom of
this thing. That's like an axhead that's just huge, yep, the
size of that table, yes. Andthey just drop stuff on it, just
to see if it'll break. But, Imean, Will it break? Is a
(29:35):
concept. You're welcome,
and it's awesome. I think thebiggest thing I've looked at is
doing the rage rooms. Now, letme pick your brain on this one
interesting they said, I mean,if you think about it, I'm
hauling things that, if theycan't be donated, you know,
break them, take a baseball bat,sledge hammer. Yeah, I
my job is living with a rageroom, right? And it's fun. I'm
(29:59):
never mad. I'm it's a greattime. But imagine opening that,
yeah, as a side venture. Buttaking vid, you see videos of
these people in the rage rooms,and you get the one guy that
goes in there and he hits thesame thing 50 times. There's
other things in there. He's somad. He's going in there, comes
out. I feel good. And thosevideos get a lot of views.
(30:20):
Imagine getting just a bedroomsized room, and now I'm not, you
know, I'm not paying to fill itup. I get things off the job,
baseball bats, golf clubs, youname it. But those videos are
satisfying. There
was a guy we were helping as aradio station. We did a
community benefit day where we'dgo out and help a charity, you
know, do these kinds of things.And one day, we went out to a
(30:42):
place. It was for a battered forbattered women's shelter, and we
were there to help them organizeand clean up and get some junk
out and stuff. So across thestreet was a big football field,
and our my general manager andthe sales manager found a set of
golf clubs. They wanted to justdump old golf club. So, like, we
need to take these across thestreet and we're going to do
(31:04):
what we've always wanted to doon the golf course, hurl these
things as far as we can, becausewe can't do that on the golf
course. And that's what theydid. They went across like, oh,
that's just, I've you have nomoney. No idea how many times
I've wanted to do that.
You're onto something therelittle,
(31:25):
I mean, little things just likethat. Yeah, think about it. How
much fun and joy does it bringyou? For instance, the golf club
you're talking about, how muchjust joy and just pure happiness
does it bring just taking a golfclub and throwing it as far as
you can, right? It sounds likeit's something little, but in
the end of the day. It's, it's
attached to, yes, a lifeexperience that can either feed
you so much joy or frustrate thecrap out
(31:47):
here, exactly for something thateasy to think of, but brings you
so much joy and happiness andlaughter. It's like things like
that. It's worth it. It's
like, How many times did youwant to, you know, hurl a mouse
across the room, not an actualanimal, but a mouse, you know?
Oh, yeah, because your computerdoesn't work. I know I have.
There have been times I wantedto take this damn computer and
throw it out the window, ohyeah, and stomp on it, like that
(32:09):
scene in office space. But maybethat's it. You know, I'm
thinking commercial property,where you operate out of and
then side business, like you'retalking about, Will it break and
the rage room? Yeah, build it.What's that tower for? Oh, just
stick around. Stick around. I'mfine. We got, we've got a, you
know, a sectional sofa that'sgoing to be hoisted up over to
drop it. And Will it break?That's great. It's like, great.
(32:31):
It's like the old school, WillIt Blend? Where they put stuff
in this, like, industrialblender? Yes, they do, like,
cell phones and all this otherstuff. And, yeah,
now they have the new one outthere. It's, uh, cake or fake,
yeah, yep.
Kahoot. The grinding video, theshredding videos, get one of
those big industrial shredders,
yes? And I've seen the hydraulicpress, yes. The hydraulic press
(32:54):
satisfying too. You're getting
free content. And you get allthis, you know, these pieces of
things that, if they don't takethem and make content out of
them, because
then they come look at me. Nowthey're mine. They could turn to
dust Exactly. Now,
if you take, like, a mattress,or what were the other things
that you got to pay a premium
on mattress, mattresses, tires,TVs, so tires,
(33:14):
obviously being shredded, yeah,that could be turned into
mulch. That's what they do,yeah, well, depending on the
yard. But, yeah, so, I mean,
if you because, I mean, rubbermulch is expensive. Yes, it is,
you know, you gotta, you go toget it. Get a regular, you know,
wood mulch at Home Depot, thebag is, I mean, rubber mulch is
probably 10 times as much. Iwant to say, Yeah, dude, buy
yourself a shredder.
(33:35):
They're looking, you're lookingat the gold mine businesses
there. And then it's, you know,how can you come off? You know,
go in on that with you can spendso many different businesses off
of this, just finding things,right? I mean, we just named six
in the past two minutes.
Is this the most fruitfulpodcast you've ever been on,
aside from, aside from LindsayStafford, she was, she was a
great yes
to be on. Now, it's been a greattime, great time. But pitching
(33:56):
the ideas, it's just fun tostart talking about, because are
we talking about
new things here? I
think so really. I mean, youhaven't thought of these before,
the rage room was probably thebigger one. Yeah, that's a good
idea. I think that's, I thinkthat was one just because,
again, we were talking about thevideos not satisfying. They are
for people to watch. Will break,Yeah, same thing in these rage
rooms. Yeah. You know, I'vethought about that for the
longest time, and you could doit. It's so feasible.
(34:19):
So getting back to, like, if youshred a mattress, obviously, the
tires you don't need. Youwouldn't want to bring that
stuff back to a landfill. Nowyou can actually, hey, who needs
rubber mulch? We're putting itinto these cardboard boxes or
whatever. And here's a cubicyard of it, you know, cardboard
box. And come pick them up. Youstack them up, and you charge
however much.
I'm just saying, buddy. I mean,that's,
(34:41):
you have it there now, is thedemand for tires there? Well, I
mean, there's
everybody, there's, there'salways tires being recycled and
stuff like that. That's it. Isrecycling? Does it matter if
they're, you know, I guessradios will have the the webbing
inside of them, right? Does thatmatter in mulcher, though? Or,
yeah. I don't know who that's
a good question. Yeah, I don'tknow. I know that a lot of times
(35:04):
we do get tires with rims stillon them, yeah? And, you know,
the different yards take care ofthat. But I, I'm curious about
the netting inside, if they ifthat matters for the mulch, I
wouldn't really think so. Theyshowed it up pretty small,
yeah? Because, you see, it'slike those big, you know,
they're almost like horror movietype of like, if someone were to
get caught in one of thosethings, good, you know, cyanoy?
Yes,
that's like when you're watchinga snake movie, right? Or, I'm
(35:27):
sorry, a spider movie, andthat's the web, you know, to go
the other way, right? So I don'tknow. It's a good question.
Yeah,
if you find out how much agrinder is, let me know.
Because, I mean, if you want apartner in that business,
that's, that's, a no brainer.
So another business on that, ifwe're buying a big grinder, will
it grind right? Will this TVgrind up? Who knows,
(35:50):
they typically will, unless
it's like a piece of cobalt orsomething like that. But you
know,
nevertheless, the amount of funyou can have with a grinder,
right? Right? I only imagine
how what the maintenance is onthose things, but for tires,
they're gonna chew rightthrough, right? Yeah, you can
do, will it grind? But, I mean,they really, at some of these
videos, you see them withtricycles and bicycles engine
(36:11):
blocks,
yep. No problem with the teeth.And then you got them on the
roller, and then it just somehowgets caught in
it. It's relentless churning.It's like, you know, even the
hydraulic press videos and like,Okay, what's, what's gonna crush
a hydraulic press? Right? Right?Is there stuff in there that
it's crushing? I'm like, thatshould, wow. Okay, would that
the hydraulic press
(36:31):
should give in? That's a That'sa good question. Will a
hydraulic press crush fail?Yeah, what's gonna happen? It's
like, Iron sharpens. I
think there have been videoswhere I guess the hoses explode.
So it has happened
that would probably make themost sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've seen some videos, eventrucks, like my trucks are
(36:51):
hydraulic lifts. They're dumptrucks, yeah. But I've seen
videos, not mine, luckily. ButI've seen other trucks that
those hoses once they blow andthey catch fire. I mean, it's
like a kaboom that
actually happened out here,really? Yeah, we were in Vegas
for a trade show few years back,and we get a photo or a video on
(37:12):
our one of our cameras from oneof our guys and like, where is
this? It's our driveway. Agarbage truck came up to pick up
our stuff, and then all of asudden, it just blew a hydraulic
line and caught fire. Yep, andthey're flammable. Oh, they're
hugely fam I mean, we still gotmelted siding. It actually
totaled one of our employeescars, just from the heat.
(37:33):
They get hot. Yeah, thathydraulic fluids like burning
oil. Yeah, it gets hot becausethey burn for a very, very long
time. Yeah. So
my wife's like, there's smokecoming from where your office
is. I said, that's because it isour office. She goes, Oh my
gosh. I said, No, a fire truckor a garbage truck caught on
fire in our driveway. Wow,crazy. There's a lot of
(37:55):
different you got my wheelsturning. There's a lot of
different things that you can dowith the byproducts of what you
do, right? You know,
think about, we just came upwith that in five minutes. I
know, think of the Amen,
and now somebody's gonna hearthis and run with the idea. So
hopefully, you know, betweenwhen we record it until when we
put it out, there'll be, we'llbe on to this thing. We can get
it going. We can. So you hadsomething else that happened
(38:18):
yesterday. You went on local TV,original TV. How did that work
out? How did that begin and howdid it go?
So that was something different,completely different. I've never
been live on the air, you know?I've done podcast, Lindsay's
podcast, and this, that and theother. And then I got
approached. I got approachedabout, you know how so my
(38:39):
trucks, for instance, are you'veseen them, are bright and
yellow. They really pop with ajunkologist, doctor on the side.
Well, someone from The NewsStation saw that, saw my trucks
on the road, and sure enough,one of their marketing resources
or directors reached out to me,someone along those lines,
reached out to me and said, Hey,we just did a deep dive on your
whole website. We love what youstand for. We love your small
(39:02):
family owned we would reallylove to get you on the air. And
at first it was a phone call. Soat first I'm thinking, is this,
is this real? Are they pitchingme right? Or what's going on
here? Like, is this just goingto be you're trying to get me,
you know, for stuff like that,she's No, we just want to get
you on the air. We We just sawyour trucks. Loved him, and we
want to, you know, promote yourbusiness, and we have some spots
(39:24):
to fill. Sure enough, coupleweeks go by, and sure enough,
yesterday, I was live on the airat two o'clock on the wkrn News,
two ABC, nice. So school isnever been on the air like that
before, maybe when I was a kid,when they filmed like a school,
and it just happened to be ourschool, but for me, for me
doing, like, an actualinterview. It was very, very
(39:44):
exciting. So,
so when you got down here, youdidn't have six employees, it
was just you, it was
just myself. And then mybusiness partner stayed for like
a week to help me get going, andthat was it. And it just jumped
off from there.
And then how many trucks andstuff did you have? Right off
the bat? That too. So you builtup to where you are, which is,
yep. So I started with twotrucks. I still have two trucks.
(40:07):
Now I have some trailers, butI'm looking for another truck,
or even two more trucks. That's
another business we kind oflooked into because we got a
couple of trailers here on site.We rent out our trailers. Yeah,
it's, that's a big one. It's,it's a tough, it's tough to find
things of the price of thesetrucks, just the price of steel.
So the box on the back is, it'san absurd amount of money just
(40:29):
for the box. And you're not eventalking if you're buying a
reliable or even new. I mean,it's the price is insane. So you
know what? Luckily, I can stillfunction with my two now and
trailers, and they're longerdays, but if I can get another
truck in here, I mean, I'mlooking at, you're looking at a
pretty penny. Nevertheless, ifyou're buying one that needs
work or not, yeah, they're like,over 100 grand, right? And then
(40:50):
you got to sandblast them, paintthem, wrap them. That's a big
thing, even if they're new, isthe clean well, then you would
just wrap them. But wrapping atruck like that's still pretty
expensive. There's so manylittle components that go into
it, adds up pretty quick.
I mean, that question, I guessit's done well for you, for your
branding, but ease of getting incontact with you when it's you
(41:11):
have like an 800 number. That'skind of like one 800 got junk
or well, so there is, we haveour normal 877, our junk number,
and if you call that, it'll say,push one for Illinois, push two
for Tennessee, and you'll getdirected right to my phone,
right? But a lot of the even onour websites, my personal
number, which is just my worknumber, on my business cards, is
(41:31):
just my personal number. Soyou're not going to be talking
with you know, you're not goingto be talking with someone on
the other side of the world thatyou know might even be a little
bit harder to understand them.You're going to talk to me every
time. You're going to get thatfamily feel for me, you won't
talk to anyone else but myself.And through and through till the
end,
what's the plan? Until you cantake all those calls? What are
you going to do then?
Then once that happens, it'll bemore so a local call center.
(41:53):
Yeah, I would want a call centerthat's in the same time zone
as us. I would hope that youeventually just have some like a
home base. Well, yes,
then I mean ideally, having asecretary that could handle the
schedule, the calls, theestimates, and just throw it
onto a schedule, then have anops manager come in and take
care of that. I mean, that isyour ideal down the road. So
that was a what does that looklike in five years?
In five years? So oddly enough,within my first year, I actually
(42:16):
just bought another headquarter,a headquarters here. So I think
in five years, right now I'mlooking at 12 full time so no
college, just full time workers.I'm looking at six trucks total.
So then I have two guys pertruck. So I'm running six truck
teams, 12 guys total. And thenI'm also looking to in five
years is have an actual about a6000 square foot pole barn where
(42:38):
I'm running fully everything outof with hydraulic lifts in them,
so I could work on my trucksmyself to not have to pay
mechanics, because, again, Ilike to do that on the side. So
we're looking at six trucks apole barn and 12 workers. Is my
physical like goals for thebusiness.
So essentially, doubling yourbusiness, really, probably
(43:00):
tripling your business too.About triple, yeah, you're gonna
buy. You're gonna have to dothat in order to accommodate, I
want
to set your goals high, yeah. Sohave something to reach. Well,
setting your goals high would be10x in your business. Yeah,
yeah. So I'm looking forward toit. I think you know i or i know
that that's really what I'mlooking for in the five year
span. And then really startelaborating more on business
plans, and even so opening upside business. We're talking
(43:23):
about the mulch, the rage rooms,the you know, stuff like that.
Right on.
So how do people get a hold ofyou and find Well, actually,
first off, before we get there,I had this question asked of me
this week, and I'm still tryingto figure out what my answer is.
We talked a lot about legacy,and I was actually schooled on
the definition of the of theword legacy wasn't really what I
(43:45):
thought it meant. Like, I alwaysthought of legacy, like Bill
Clinton wanted his libraries andstuff like that, and the what he
did for the country to be hislegacy. It turned out to be, you
know, something entirelydifferent. And we kind of landed
on the notion of, well, what doyou want to be remembered for?
So question to you, what do youwant to be remembered for? You
(44:08):
to make me feel a whole lotbetter, if you you struggle with
this answer.
He didn't quit. I
think that's the biggest thing.That's a good one. I mean, well,
at least off the top my head,I'm sure if I sat down and
really elaborated on thatquestion, but for a quick answer
is, I didn't quit. Yeah, I justkept on going and working
through. Get knocked down, getback up. Get knocked down two
more times. Get up two moretimes.
(44:29):
Which is gonna happen, right?Yeah, that's that's life. That's
business. What does life in your40s look like for you? You have,
like, a big plan for that,because you're 24 you said
right, right, at the helm of a,probably a six figure business,
I would imagine quicklyapproaching seven. That's of not
(44:49):
a lot of 24 year olds are doingthat.
It's very exciting. I'm thinkingfor 40. I mean, it's tough for
me to sit down, yeah. Could willthat change when I'm 40? I. I'm
assuming. So, yeah, but rightnow it's like, Oh, I get, you
know, I get one Saturday off,and what am I doing? I'm washing
my junk trucks. I'm stillworking and doing stuff because
it's hard for me to sit still.So I don't know what 40 really
(45:11):
looks like, as much as I want tosay I could sit in a rocking
chair on my porch and drinkcoffee and watch the deer walk
by. Well, you know, I havepeople that take care of the
rest of the aspects of junkremedy and
work, right, or whatever. Howmany other businesses you own by
that
exactly. So who knows? Maybe I'mopening up another business that
I can just run from the tanktheater my own office, right?
And have people for that. Theworld is my oyster.
(45:35):
You got a great attitude. Man,endless possibilities. Man,
those possibilities and that,just because of that. You should
really hire Dan and his team totake whatever junk you have and
clean it out and do all thethings, because it's you don't
find you don't, first of all,surprised to hear that you're 24
I thought you were probably atleast pushing 30, not because of
(45:56):
your looks. By the way youconduct yourself, you look like
you've been around the block.You're probably an old soul. And
I would say that kind of playsinto it, very mature but
charismatic way that you carryyourself, very well liked. Well
you say old soul. Threefavorites, CCR, Tom Petty and
Alabama. Jeez, dude,
(46:17):
yeah, really, at least you havegood taste in music.
I've been told, yeah, those aremy three favorites. CCR. CCR,
actually,
that's really throwing it.That's that's obscure. Yep, I
have the Bad
Moon Rising potion right in mywall bathroom on the right. I
have it all sitting right in myoffice. Tom Petty love them all.
(46:37):
We
just had on my my buddy and I doa podcast called the rich
Redmond show. He's the drummerfor Jason Aldean. We just had
Stan Lynch on. You're like,who's Stanley? You lost me on
that one. He was Tom Petty'slongtime drummer, okay, for the
first 20 years. Okay, yeah, huh.He's a guy who kind of stepped
(46:58):
in Golden piles of crap, gotchaso well, there you go. How do
you people find and follow youand all those fun things? Is it
one location, I hope, where theycan get on your socials?
Well, yeah, it makes it supereasy. So on our website. So
there's a difference of sobusiness partner, Nick has junk
remedy logos. Mine is just junkremedy underscore. Tn more just
junk remedy Nashville, and it'sstill gonna pop
(47:19):
up. It's funny, because it'slike, why not make that all in
one thing that, hey, we justhave two locations in Chicago
and Nashville. You know,
that was the one thing we reallylooked at. But the biggest
difference was with, if I run ithere, you can still build SEO
off of social media, right,right, right. So if I started
doing it all one lot here, itwould mess with his up there. If
he started doing it up there, itwould mess with mine down here.
(47:41):
So we had to create separates.You know, he has the actual junk
remedy name, and mine's justeither junk remedy Nashville
Tennessee on Facebook or junkremedy underscore tn on
Instagram and
Tiktok. Well, there you go. Wegot to get all that stuff to me
so I can put it in thedescription absolutely normally
do. And of course, everythingwill be there if you want to
listen more to other podcastsand episodes that we've had,
(48:03):
we've had some pretty greatguests, of course, Dan being one
of them. In the past, we've hadBradley, we've got Mike,
Mercurio, rich, Redmond, a lotof different guests that
hopefully have provided somevalue. Share those out if
they've made an impact on yourlife. If you go to mmtbp.com I
know it's convoluted. Mm,tbp.com mostly Middle Tennessee
(48:26):
business podcast.com. Is also anoption, but I figured the other
one's probably, you know, fiveletters versus however many
letters it is to type in mostlyMiddle Tennessee Business
Podcast. I'm a marketing guy.Didn't think too much about the
name of this thing, but I wantedMiddle Tennessee to be the
marquee star of the podcast.That's why I named it that such.
So I'm Jim McCarthy, and ofcourse, we produce podcasts here
(48:48):
with it's your show.co, it isproduced by that company. If you
need something like that, let usknow and check out all the
things there. If you want to beon the podcast, let me know.
We've got a link on that site aswell@mmtbp.com, to be a part of
this podcast as well. Dan,thanks for coming on, pal. It
was a pleasure
to have you good as always. You.
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