Two Men and A Junk Truck

Brooke Hoke is here with Two Men and a Junk Truck to talk about how Two Men and a Truck has expanded their business. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
We're into our number two five ohfive on a Sunday, This is what
Matters on six to ten WTV andGail Hogan in for the second hour is
well, you know, we talkedto a variety of people on this show
and you know how this works becauseyou did a version of it. I
did, yes, indeed on TV. But we're doing it radio style today
and right now. Two men anda junk truck. Yeah you heard me

(00:23):
right, junk truck, not justtruck, because all of you know,
two men in a truck. BrookeHoax is in with us from two men
in a junk truck. Brook,welcome to the show. Thank you so
much, thanks for having me.I'm excited, she said, this is
her first time. This is yourfirst time doing an interview in terms of
this kind of thing. Gil.So we're like, we're gonna have fun
with you. Yeah, that's easy. I'll sweating a little bit. Oh

(00:47):
gosh, I'm glad you got yourwater. But this will not be a
workout, I promise. So.Yes, we are very familiar around central
Ohio with two men and a truck, but you all have decided to do
something a little bit different. Canyou tell us about how the idea started
for two men and a junk truck. Yeah, absolutely, so essentially two
men in a truck. Everyone knowsthat, like you said, and people

(01:11):
just you know, we were referringpeople to other junk companies as they called
in and got estimates for the movingside. We were like, what are
we doing, Like, we haveguys that are strong, we have guys
that have great customer service, sowhy are we, you know, kind
of referring them to other places.So three to four years ago we ended
up buying some junk trucks and startedthe junk portion of things. Kind of

(01:33):
got our feet wet, but thenwe realized that a lot of the customers
were the moving customers, or whenthey were going on Google and typing in
junk removal near me, you know, nothing was coming up except for two
men in a truck and they werejust getting very confused. So what they
ended up doing is now back inSeptember, we started two men in a
junk truck essentially just rebranded the junkportion. That way, when people kind

(01:57):
of google it, they're seeing thejunk portion come up, and we just
think that it's different than moving.So we were like, let's just make
it different, and let's just gofor it and capture all those people and
you know, kind of just dothe junk. So I would think that
when you went in initially to helpsomeone move, you saw, oh,
this is going to be a difficultjob because there's all kinds of junk here

(02:17):
and these people would not even knowhow to get rid of it so that
they could move. Oh yes,absolutely So on the moving side, they
would walk in and there's stuff everywhere, and it's like, hey, I
only want the bedroom set to come, especially when you have you know,
people that are downsizing going into youknow, going from a three thousand square
foot house to maybe a fifteen hundredor moving to assisted livings. There's just

(02:38):
a lot of downsizing that happens,and so the movers were stepping over boxes,
they were kind of just trying tonavigate different areas. And so we
actually like to go in on thejunk side ahead of time. That way
the movers have a safer path andthey can just kind of get to it
and get the person settled in quicker. Now, how do you take the

(03:00):
items and then do something with them? Like, what is the next step
after you go in and take theitems, Do you dispose of them,
do you donate them? What happenswith those items? Yeah, so great
question. So we do try todonate as much as possible. So when
we're doing the walkthrough, our guyswill look and just kind of check the
condition of the items, make surethat there's no rips or you know,

(03:21):
tons of scratches, or there's adrawer missing on a dresser. And when
those items are good, they'll goahead and just stick in the junk truck
in kind of a section, andthen they'll throw in kind of the junk
before that or after that, dependinghow they want to do it. And
then they'll come back to our warehouseand there's a section that's dedicated to just
two men of junk truck donation items. And once there's enough items, I'll

(03:45):
call either the Furniture Bank of Ohioor I will give Volunteers of America a
call and they will so kindly comeand pick those items up and donate or
sell those items in order to kindof give back to the community. So
it's like cycle reuse if possible.It's not just all throwaway exactly. So
we don't want to take everything tothe dump. We try to divert as

(04:06):
much as possible, just because youknow, you don't want all that stuff
going there, and if someone cangive it a new home, then why
not. Yeah, we love that. Do you do only homes or would
you go in somebody's garage? Oh, we do everything, ASKI we do
everything. We'll do. Basements,we'll do We've been in addicts where they
have the creepy little stairwell to getup there. We've done it all.

(04:30):
So backyards, I mean, we'lldo sheds, so you know, you
name it and we pretty much doit. So you but we have to
mark our stuff, yes, orguide you through what we want you to
take versus not like the garage examplethat Gale gave. I want everything out
of my garage, but some things, yeah, so we do the point,
so you point and we take it. So sometimes what we'll do is,

(04:54):
you know, we'll work with thecustomer and sometimes people have something in
this area, but then you skip, you know, a couple of feet
worth of stuff that they're keeping,and then you have more items that they
want hauled away. So we justkind of work with them. And our
guys are really good at communicating.They have great customer service, so they
just kind of, you know,let the customer, you know, kind
of do the talking and they usethe muscles and kind of get it all

(05:16):
all away from there. You accepta lot of items, but there are
some things you don't take, sotell us a little bit about that before
we get ready to pick up thephone or get on your website. Absolutely,
so, we are not allowed totake hazardous items, flammable items,
aerosols, so like your lisols,your pro pain tanks, your cleaning supplies,
those are items that we legally cannottake and there are other ways to

(05:40):
dispose of those more safely. Sothat's those are just kind of the items
that you know, we can't take, but we'll try to kind of guide
people while we're out there, oryou can go on our website at two
Men in a Junk Truck dot comor obviously give us a call as well,
and you know we can certainly directyou in the right direction. What
about applying appliances, So we dotake appliances. We actually have some scrappers

(06:04):
that when we take something back,we will try and shoot them attacks to
come grab the items. That waythey can recycle the items. And again
we're not bringing those items to thedump because we try to reuse as much
as possible. I love that Icould have used you when we moved my
mom into Leedo. I'm just tellingyou, it was one of those things
where the whole all of us kidshad a how are we going to do

(06:27):
this? My brother watched in thegarage and he pulls out just the head
of a hammer. He goes,and why would he keep this? You
know, because my father had passedaway and it was one of those things
where there was just stuff that hejust kept because you never know you might
need it. And that's really hardfor people who lived through the depression,
you know, to decide what togive up. All we could have used
you. What did you do instead? We I have two sisters up there

(06:49):
who took the brunt of it,and they did exactly what Brooke does,
only they had to do it andin between their jobs and taking care of
their kids, and they found homesfor as much as they could good and
then a lot of it was bringthe dumpster and we're just gonna have to
throw away. Brooke, You've impactedpeople like Gail and gail sisters though.
Do you have any stories to shareof a customer that you really impacted like

(07:13):
that that you could help. Yeah, there's actually one that's pretty fresh in
my mind. A couple of weeksago, I met our crew out at
a job and it was an apartmentof someone that had passed away, and
the family was taken care of kindof trying to give away some items,
but then they were also like,hey, we don't know what we're gonna
do with these, so you know, we kind of helped them and guided

(07:33):
them with, hey, you know, this is something that we can take
back to our warehouse and the donationcenters will come get it. There was
one person there, it was thenephew, and he was just very upset
that no one could take the TVstand. It was pretty bulky, and
inside of it was a fireplace,and you know, he just remembered that

(07:54):
his aunt would always just sit therewith the fireplace on and just kind of
just you know, watched it andjust of like the little crackle of the
electric fireplace. And you know,I kind of, just after they were
going back and forth, just kindof stepped in and just said, you
know, unfortunately I went through that. When I was seventeen, my mom
passed away and my dad was,you know, looking to potentially sell the

(08:15):
house pretty quickly. So then Ijust kind of, you know, I
was struggling to get rid of thingsbecause there's so much sentimental value to it.
So it's like this is a memory, and this is when I got
this with my mom. So thenwhat I did is I started taking pictures
because I didn't need the physical thing, but if I wanted to go back
and look at it, I couldgo back in and just look at it.

(08:37):
So I just told this gentleman that, and he's like, that is
a great idea. So he tooka picture of it and then looked at
my haulers and said, go aheadand take it. Wow. But then
as they're taking it, they realizedthe fireplace could come out, so then
they showed him and then he keptthe fireplace because it was small, but
he couldn't take the big old TVstand. So like we ended up you

(08:58):
know, in pact acting him becausewe found ways for him to kind of
cope of getting rid of items,but then we also found a way to
give him that fireplace that he canhold on to. Did you just hear
her say the word cope. Youare working with people in an emotional way
too. You don't think about it. I'm coming in and taking this junk,
but yes, this has an attachmentfor these folks in many times.

(09:22):
Yes, they say the hardest threethings you can go through in life is
divorce, moving, and death,and unfortunately, you know, we deal
with all of that. So,you know, we're very big on hiring
people that have great customer service becausethey also need to be empathetic. They
need they need to know how toyou know, help those people while they're
still doing their job. What anddoes that make you different than other junk

(09:46):
removal services in Columbus or I thinkthere's some differentiators and that may be one
of them. Yeah, absolutely so. Actually, all of our junk crews
start off three days in house trainingand our wonderful training manager, Broding,
will kind of go through everything withthem of here's how you carry items,
here's how you proper really you pickan item up. Here's how you navigate

(10:07):
the Temple of Doom. It's inour warehouse. You go up a set
of stairs, do a ninety degreeturn, down a tight hallway, do
another ninety degree turn and go downa stairwell. So I know a lot
of other companies don't do that.And not only does he teach that,
but he also teaches that customer service. So you can't entirely teach customer service,

(10:28):
but you can teach them different waysto navigate things. Our HR team
does a great job. They usuallyget about thousand applicants a month between both
our sister company two mana Truck andalso two mana junk Truck, and only
hire about twenty. So that's whatreally sets us apart is that customer service
that we really just strive to alwayshave. I was curious, is how

(10:50):
long this takes? Can you gointo someone and say we'll do this in
a day or this might take aweek. I mean, can you judge
that from the beginning. Yeah,so how we were because our guys will
go in and once you set upa free on site estimate, they'll go
in. You know, you justpoint and they'll say, hey, based
on what you've pointed out today,here's your estimate, and if you like

(11:11):
it, they'll go ahead and getstarted. If you don't, then you
know, they just you know,go on to their next job. But
if you do like the price,typically they can go ahead and get started
same day. Sometimes we'll call inreinforcements and we'll send out another junk truck.
It just depends how much they have, but you know, it's always
good to just you know, feelfree and just kind of get rid of

(11:33):
that stuff. Just you know,there's a there's a breath of fresh air.
When there's less stuff around, youcan make a room for things in
your life. Purging. I loveit. Freedom. Next time we have
you guys on, we didn't geta chance to talk about decluttering, but
I'd love to talk about tips fordecluttering next time you guys come on.
I think that's an important conversation tohave, given what Gail just said,
purging get rid of it? Well, how to make it easier you guys?

(11:56):
Yeah, you can schedule your freein home estimate by booking online at
two Men in a Junk Truck dotcom or your phone number. What's the
number people need to call in casethey want to book with you? Yeah,
so our number is six one fournine two four nine eight four zero
six one four nine two four nineeight four zero free in home estimates call

(12:18):
or book online. And hey,guys, if you use my name,
if you say Mikayla, you gettwenty five dollars off junk removal services.
So when you call in, sayMikayla, they'll give you twenty five dollars
off. And you guys are onsocial media right too, Yes we are.
It is two men and a junktruck Columbus on Instagram and Facebook.
She did beautifully, Gail, Iknow. And you're a discount coupon MICHAELA,

(12:41):
Mikayla, Tony Bucks. Just'SE, just saying it. You don't
have to spell it, guys,you just have to say it. So
this is what matters on sixtent WTVan