Boring or Terrible Service Businesses that Have the Potential for Fastlaners...

[minivanman]

This is a HUGE pain point for me (aka a potential opportunity). Whether it's lawn mowers, maid services, pool companies or landscapers, the level of service and communication is HORRIBLE around here. Some of these idiots will spend money to run an ad, then not return customer calls. Do they even WANT to be in business?!

It doesn't take much to stand out from the masses of jackasses in these categories, and I've thought long and hard about how to capitalize on this. I could build a company that competes directly, but I'm not sure how to make this a fast lane biz (even though it would be hugely gratifying to crush these idiots). I'm in marketing, so I've also thought about creating a lead gen service or a directory for them, but Home Advisor and Angie's list seem to have that buttoned up. Another thing that makes me hesitate is having any of these companies as customers, given the difficulty of working with them as a customer. Plus, many don't have any money to spend. Still, I can't stop thinking about it...

It took me awhile to realize this too but the reason the lawn guy runs the ad is to get more customers. He quickly gets several calls and those calls become more customers and now he has a full schedule. He tries to hire people but here is what happens.... people continue to call and he is so busy he just says FK it. At the same time he is trying to hire someone to help but that person keeps quitting or is slow or just sucks but even if that person is slow or sucks he needs to keep him. About this time he realizes that trying to have workers sucks. So he just keeps enough customers for himself and if he finds a helper down the road fine and if not, fine. On the bright side for him, he now realizes that instead of looking for cheap lawns and charging $30 per lawn he can now charge $60. See, he shows up and does good work AND he only needs a finite number of customers. So 1 by 1 he can replace those $30 lawns with $60 lawns and he just doubled his profit. And of course, that makes him happy for awhile and then he starts trying to hire a helper again or quits all together and goes back to work for $15 an hour and threatens to quit every day and go back to mowing. The moral of the story: If you are one of the first 20 people that call, he might answer the phone. Customers are a dime a dozen when you first start at low prices.

 

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[LuckyPup]

It took me awhile to realize this too but the reason the lawn guy runs the ad is to get more customers. He quickly gets several calls and those calls become more customers and now he has a full schedule. He tries to hire people but here is what happens.... people continue to call and he is so busy he just says FK it. At the same time he is trying to hire someone to help but that person keeps quitting or is slow or just sucks but even if that person is slow or sucks he needs to keep him. About this time he realizes that trying to have workers sucks. So he just keeps enough customers for himself and if he finds a helper down the road fine and if not, fine. On the bright side for him, he now realizes that instead of looking for cheap lawns and charging $30 per lawn he can now charge $60. See, he shows up and does good work AND he only needs a finite number of customers. So 1 by 1 he can replace those $30 lawns with $60 lawns and he just doubled his profit. And of course, that makes him happy for awhile and then he starts trying to hire a helper again or quits all together and goes back to work for $15 an hour and threatens to quit every day and go back to mowing. The moral of the story: If you are one of the first 20 people that call, he might answer the phone. Customers are a dime a dozen when you first start at low prices.

Point taken and I get it, but I've experienced this with higher ticket service providers, too. The most recent was a fireplace store. After communicating with them about two new fireplace inserts (for an estimated $8-10k), having one of their techs visit and spending an hour their store to choose materials... crickets. Another example - a landscape designer from a nursery arrives an hour late, then spends an hour at our house to do a bid ($10-12k by my estimate). He never sent the bid. In both examples, these are family owned businesses with these guys' names on the sign. My main point is that none of these people understand the importance of reputation, the lifetime value of a customer and the fact that referral business is far less costly to acquire and usually far more lucrative in the long run.

 

[minivanman]

Point taken and I get it, but I've experienced this with higher ticket service providers, too. The most recent was a fireplace store. After communicating with them about two new fireplace inserts (for an estimated $8-10k), having one of their techs visit and spending an hour their store to choose materials... crickets. Another example - a landscape designer from a nursery arrives an hour late, then spends an hour at our house to do a bid ($10-12k by my estimate). He never sent the bid. In both examples, these are family owned businesses with these guys' names on the sign. My main point is that none of these people understand the importance of reputation, the lifetime value of a customer and the fact that referral business is far less costly to acquire and usually far more lucrative in the long run.

Yep, I totally understand. But again, I bet it is because they get so busy, they didn't have time to get back with you. Not all cases, but I bet that's the reason most of the time. I've done it several times myself when I was running my cleaning business. The #1 reason I hired a sales lady for my used washer & dryer business is because I was doing that exact same thing. I don't need her to sell, I can easily sell them myself but I suck at getting back with people and scheduling. Most people in these small businesses do not have the money to hire someone and they don't see that it might bring in more money if they do. A lot of these business owners just stumbled in to the business and have no clue how to run it to its full capacity. I know a guy and his wife stays right on top of everything because if not for her.... he would never call anyone back.

 

[Boo]

Yep, I totally understand. But again, I bet it is because they get so busy, they didn't have time to get back with you. Not all cases, but I bet that's the reason most of the time. I've done it several times myself when I was running my cleaning business. The #1 reason I hired a sales lady for my used washer & dryer business is because I was doing that exact same thing. I don't need her to sell, I can easily sell them myself but I suck at getting back with people and scheduling. Most people in these small businesses do not have the money to hire someone and they don't see that it might bring in more money if they do. A lot of these business owners just stumbled in to the business and have no clue how to run it to its full capacity. I know a guy and his wife stays right on top of everything because if not for her.... he would never call anyone back.

@minivanman I know that you have a lot of experience in local service businesses, especially residential cleaning. I wondered if you might touch on your experience hiring and the process that you used?

What specifically are you looking for in candidates resumes or was it just a warm body that you could train? My primary fear is workers that are only looking for very short-term work and those that don't have much experience in cleaning.

Is cleaning experience important to you, or do you hire people without and train them instead?

So far I'm struggling to find employees who I'd describe as "normal", who I think would turn up on time regularly and get the job done to a good standard. Hopefully, you can impart some of your years of advice, it would be greatly appreciated and helpful to hear from somebody more experienced in this field. Thanks!

 

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[minivanman]

Breathing was not really a requirement but usually if they stopped treating they didn't show up.

Although I was learning as I went, I just looked for someone that would show up. It goes a few different ways in service businesses. These are my personal experiences...If you are meeting people at McDonald's then you might get 2 out of 12 people to show up. Hire both of them and less than .05% of the time 1 of them MIGHT show up. So then you do the same thing the next day. Once I had an actual office, we accepted applications any time of day but most of the time they wouldn't show up for work the next day. I had my 5 core people that cleaned the whole time I owned it and I had others that would come and go. I don't think there is any trick to it... kinda like finding the right girlfriend, it's all a numbers game. lol In Kansas City and Lincoln they had the same problems but I had people running those offices. We actually had 2 offices in Kansas City but I kinda ran it like 1 office. I have other businesses these days and people have a phone interview and then an actual interview and then finally if we think they might be the one.... they are invited out to dinner. Normally I don't do these dinners because I'm all about jokes and a good time so I'm too busy trying to make everyone laugh and not paying attention as to how they are acting and treating everyone else. I could even see doing this type of thing with people such as plumbers who have gone to school to learn their service or anything where people have put in time to learn. My buddy owned 5 Good Sam's beauty shops and this is how he hired his workers. But house cleaners and lawn guys..... you rarely get anyone with a PhD. If you treat your workers good, you will find your core people. I still have girls trying to get me to move back and start another cleaning business.

As for who I hired, I loved to hire people who have never cleaned before in their life. That way they learned OUR way and we didn't have to try and train them our way which never works. We did not cater to the customer... we did the same thing in every house we ever cleaned except for move out/in. The only difference was a Silver Plan vs a Gold Plan.

Normal employees... LMAO I remember one time I hired this girl, really cute and really nice. I was the one who was training her the next day. I was cleaning the shower and instead of her standing outside of the shower and watching through the glass how to clean... she got right on in with me. Well, come to find out, a part she had left off her application was that she used to be a stripper..... sigh.... nothing happened but she wasn't around over a week. I think she was one of the more 'normal' ones I had. Nowadays it's really easy to make a video for them to watch but back then, I had a video camera but the editing was not too easy in those days.

 

[Boo]

Breathing was not really a requirement but usually if they stopped treating they didn't show up.

Although I was learning as I went, I just looked for someone that would show up. It goes a few different ways in service businesses. These are my personal experiences...If you are meeting people at McDonald's then you might get 2 out of 12 people to show up. Hire both of them and less than .05% of the time 1 of them MIGHT show up. So then you do the same thing the next day. Once I had an actual office, we accepted applications any time of day but most of the time they wouldn't show up for work the next day. I had my 5 core people that cleaned the whole time I owned it and I had others that would come and go. I don't think there is any trick to it... kinda like finding the right girlfriend, it's all a numbers game. lol In Kansas City and Lincoln they had the same problems but I had people running those offices. We actually had 2 offices in Kansas City but I kinda ran it like 1 office. I have other businesses these days and people have a phone interview and then an actual interview and then finally if we think they might be the one.... they are invited out to dinner. Normally I don't do these dinners because I'm all about jokes and a good time so I'm too busy trying to make everyone laugh and not paying attention as to how they are acting and treating everyone else. I could even see doing this type of thing with people such as plumbers who have gone to school to learn their service or anything where people have put in time to learn. My buddy owned 5 Good Sam's beauty shops and this is how he hired his workers. But house cleaners and lawn guys..... you rarely get anyone with a PhD. If you treat your workers good, you will find your core people. I still have girls trying to get me to move back and start another cleaning business.

As for who I hired, I loved to hire people who have never cleaned before in their life. That way they learned OUR way and we didn't have to try and train them our way which never works. We did not cater to the customer... we did the same thing in every house we ever cleaned except for move out/in. The only difference was a Silver Plan vs a Gold Plan.

Normal employees... LMAO I remember one time I hired this girl, really cute and really nice. I was the one who was training her the next day. I was cleaning the shower and instead of her standing outside of the shower and watching through the glass how to clean... she got right on in with me. Well, come to find out, a part she had left off her application was that she used to be a stripper..... sigh.... nothing happened but she wasn't around over a week. I think she was one of the more 'normal' ones I had. Nowadays it's really easy to make a video for them to watch but back then, I had a video camera but the editing was not too easy in those days.

Thanks for the reply @minivanman, it's great to get some insight and to learn from your experience in these types of industries. I think that the mistake I'm making is waiting for a perfect candidate. In previous industries, I've always benefited from a hire slow and fire fast policy, but as a result I think my expectations might be too high. Plus, there's a fairly good chance that there's little correlation between solid resumes and reliable and punctual workers.

To adapt, I'm judging candidates primarily on the number of years they spend at each of their previous jobs. Then, emailing all of the reasonable candidates to ask them if they have a drivers license, vehicle and are willing to work M-F, 9-6.

Those that respond favorably I'll then meet up with. If they show up, can answer a few basic questions and seem reliable, I'll hire them on the spot if possible.

Employees quitting or failing to show up is extremely costly in these service industries, which is why I'm so hesitant to hire anybody who doesn't seem perfect but I'm aware that I need to move past this mentality to some extent.

 

[minivanman]

While I totally understand where you are coming from, I wish you luck. I went with the hire who ever will show up for work because we have lots of houses to clean theory. If they quit tomorrow, I will try to have another person or 2 that is suppose to show up tomorrow. But then again, for the first few years, I worked IN the business as much or more than I worked ON the business. Some how I did do both but it literally took up 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I was even working while at the race track Friday & Saturday nights. Not the best way to build it fast but some how it worked for me. I was up to 15 workers probably within the first year but it was keeping 15 workers coming in each day that was the problem. And, I only sent 1 girl to a house unless it was a 1st time in house and then I had a girl that always went with me to clean those.... eventually I had 3 girls that cleaned the 1st time ins. My theory was.... the less the girls knew each other, the less drama we would have and it worked. The only person that ever caused any drama was my girlfriend at the time. lol

 

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[SWSSMSS]

Hey, I've got an idea for ink recycling: Ink Recycling/Selling

could you guys give some feedback

 

[MooreMillions]

Here's a nice list: NOTABLE! - 100 Unsexy Business Ideas: Name as many as you can!

This thread is a stone cold classic.

Read it and read it good!

 

[ItsAJackal]

I think finding a local service that doesn't have good representation is a fantastic idea and a great opportunity. However, here's my one question. Let's say you live in a rural area and you constantly hear about people having issues with septic tanks. After a few searches, you find there are maybe 3 companies in the area, and all have terrible reviews and very poor customer service reps. Great. So now what?

Do you fully invest in your own septic company? Do you reach out to see if any are for sale? What other options do you have?

 

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[TheCj]

Each of them has probably a couple deep fat fryers and they likely hire specialized teams to come in periodically to clean them deeply.

I saw a guy with a truck emptying the grease/fat from a church kitchen, got to talking. Turned out is law in the city for every commercial kitchen i guess is called to collect the grease, fat etc. So the company he works for has need mandated by law. Then asked what they do with the fat, grease etc.. He said they make fertilizer out of it. How is that for a win, win. Get paid to remove the waste, turn the waste into something and get paid again!

 

[Get Right]

Boring - How about a Coating and Rust prevention company? The corrosion of metals costs your home state's oil and gas industry 1.372 Billion dollars...a year.

I can see 4 or 5 ways to take that information and build a 10M company in just a few years.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

I can see 4 or 5 ways to take that information and build a 10M company in just a few years.

Can you please write out the 4 or 5 ways as well as the necessary steps to make ten million from each one?

K. Thx. Bye.

 

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[minivanman]

I'm in a hurry but.... a guy down the street owns a company that makes those big black iron things that they pour the grease in to and then empties the grease, as stated above. So, he gets money 3 ways... from making the black thing that holds the grease, emptying the grease and then recycling it in to fertilizer.

Another business for powder coating is racing (rust prevention). Every race chassis is powder coated.

 

[Thoelt53]

Boring - How about a Coating and Rust prevention company? The corrosion of metals costs your home state's oil and gas industry 1.372 Billion dollars...a year.

I can see 4 or 5 ways to take that information and build a 10M company in just a few years.

This is huge! Love it! The annual cost of corrosion in the US in 2016 was a staggering $1.1 TRILLION.

• new construction (buildings, pipelines, storage tanks, anything maritime, endless applications)
• repairing old corrosion systems, whether they be coatings or some type of cathodic protection

The above examples can be further broken down into:

• consultation or installation for new construction and/or repair old systems
• manufacture of cathodic protection systems
• manufacture of coatings
• manufacture of coating application tools

And the coolest part is that a company serving any of those aspects will almost always satisfy CENTS (very well, at that), with a HUGE emphasis on NEED, ENTRY and SCALE. The need is massive, the barrier to entry is also quite large, and the scale is global.

 

[minivanman]

^^^ I'd like to correct a sentence that I just noticed when I came back to this thread.... dang spell check. ^^^

Breathing was not really a requirement but usually if they stopped treating they didn't show up.

Should have read: Breathing was not really a requirement but usually if they stopped BREATHING they didn't show up.

Maybe that was a sign from above that it wasn't funny

 

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[Kid]

This is huge! Love it! The annual cost of corrosion in the US in 2016 was a staggering $1.1 TRILLION.

• new construction (buildings, pipelines, storage tanks, anything maritime, endless applications)
• repairing old corrosion systems, whether they be coatings or some type of cathodic protection

The above examples can be further broken down into:

• consultation or installation for new construction and/or repair old systems
• manufacture of cathodic protection systems
• manufacture of coatings
• manufacture of coating application tools

And the coolest part is that a company serving any of those aspects will almost always satisfy CENTS (very well, at that), with a HUGE emphasis on NEED, ENTRY and SCALE. The need is massive, the barrier to entry is also quite large, and the scale is global.

And make it in spray can for easy applying.

 

[jon.M]

Boring - How about a Coating and Rust prevention company? The corrosion of metals costs your home state's oil and gas industry 1.372 Billion dollars...a year.

I can see 4 or 5 ways to take that information and build a 10M company in just a few years.

Someone I know works in this area. The company he works at travels all over the world because according to him, clients rather pay travel costs and a hefty price for a company on the other side of the planet, if the job is done well, than a nearby, cheaper company that isn't as efficient.

Quality and speed is what they look for. Think of how much money a, let's say, plant loses for every day they can't produce.

 

[biggeemac]

I met a Seattle intern a couple years ago that started a business where he spray paints your lawn green(envrionmentally friendly, of course) for the purpose of marketing a house to be sold. He was featured on a few news stations down on California. I haven't checked in on him, but i'm sure he is probably doing well.

 

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