What advice do you have for someone considering investing in a franchise?
Be prepared to put in the effort required. It is not easy to start your own business, especially in situations in which the financial return on investment takes several years.
What are you most proud of when it comes to your career in franchising?
We have built a solid group of employees–mostly young men without much education–to develop and mentor into responsible adults.
What was your career path before you entered franchising?
I was in management in the steel distribution industry for 29 years, starting in sales and ending up in facility management.
As a business owner, what has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest challenges have been finding quality employees in a tight labor market, as well as learning to be patient while my business scales up to profitability.
What do you like most about your franchise organization?
Franchising allows us to operate independently, with little red tape. I like mentoring the younger employees in our organization and recycling/donating a large percentage of our work. Both are both ways of giving back to the community that are woven into our culture.
Junk King was founded in 2005 and is one of the largest and fastest growing junk removal service in North America. Junk King is also proud to be the country’s ‘greenest’ junk removal service. The systems rapid growth has been fueled by its recycling-based junk removal model and world class customer service. Learn More About Junk King here.
What is one of the biggest mistakes you made when you were first starting your business? What was your biggest takeaway from it?
I am not sure it was a mistake as much as a product of the times, but we hired drivers and navigators as cheaply was we could and unfortunately, you get what you pay for. As we have become larger and more successful, we are paying higher wages, have implemented a bonus structure, and just this year added profit sharing. Providing extra value to our employees allows us to hire and retain a better level of employee to drive revenue safely and keep customers happy.
Do you have a guiding philosophy or principle that has helped you navigate the ups and downs of owning a business and/or contributed to your success?
Customer service and satisfaction is 1A for us. Our 1B is employee safety and wellbeing. Driving revenue is next. We constantly drive these three principles into our policies, procedures, and culture.
How have you raised the bar for your business and your franchise system?
The implementation of bonuses and profit sharing, employee evaluations focused on customer satisfaction and revenue generation, and utilizing input from our employees to drive improvement would be the three biggest takeaways.
What are the biggest work related challenges you are facing during this pandemic? What have you done to address them?
Fortunately for us, our employees wanted to continue to working during the pandemic and there was still plenty of customer demand–minus a two-week period in April. We modified our procedures to minimize physical contact with customers. These included curbside pickups, keyed-in credit card transactions, gloves, masks, and hand sanitation after the completion of each job.
Learn More About Junk King
Junk King was founded in 2005 and is one of the largest and fastest growing junk removal service in North America. Junk King is also proud to be the country’s ‘greenest’ junk removal service. The systems rapid growth has been fueled by its recycling-based junk removal model and world class customer service.
