Shownotes
Tune in as John The Marketer interviews Brian, the founder of a successful parking lot litter cleanup business. Brian shares how he started the business over 40 years ago with just $250 and has grown it to generating over $600K in annual revenue. He discusses the equipment needed, pricing models, target customers, and why he chose to write a book to teach others the business instead of franchising.
Key Discussion Points:
- How Brian got the idea to start a parking lot litter cleanup business from seeing his father do similar work when he was young (00:03:38)
- The specialized hand tools and cost to start the business (00:13:15 - 00:15:34)
- Typical pricing structure and how much money can be made in this business (00:11:03 - 00:12:21)
- Target customers are commercial property management companies (00:09:47)
- Why a book for teaching the business instead of a franchise model (00:17:30 - 00:19:14)
- Brian's most successful student who has built a nationwide parking lot litter cleanup business (00:21:06)
Tweetables:
"Fortunes can be made cleaning up after others. So, that kind of sparked an idea." (00:03:38)
"It's recession proof. It's pandemic proof. People litter. They always have." (00:32:25)
Guest Bio:
Brian Winch is the creator and author of Cleanlots - America's Simplest Business. Brian grew his dad's side gig into a six-figure business starting with little money, skills and education. He can show you how to start and operate a simple business based from home and make money from a green service that's almost as easy to do as going for a walk.
Links Mentioned:
Transcripts
[00:00:04] John Kelley: Alright. Now what happened? How did it stop? You're now tuned into the Small Business Origins podcast. I love an origin story.
[:[00:00:29] Brian Winch: What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of small business origins. You're tuned in to our nationwide search for entrepreneurs that have a story to tell. And joining us virtually in the studio is an entrepreneur John.
:: [:[00:01:07] Intro: Oh, I I love a mushroom Swiss. You can't beat that.
[:[00:01:41] Brian Winch: I don't care how you're flavoring your burger, what you're doing there. I want jalapenos and I want Bacon. Burger. That's for sure.
[:[00:02:04] Brian Winch: I heard a saying yesterday that kinda cracked me up and is like my new my new standard saying now is if you ain't sneezing, then it ain't seasoned. So the spicier, the better for me. I love spice in there. I like to, you know, be woken up by the flavors that are, just impacted in the food that I'm eating for sure.
[: :: [:[00:02:35] Intro: I was 21 and, working a full time job as a shipper receiver at a large sporting goods company. And, I wasn't a very good student at school. I just barely graduated high school. So, I was doing what I could, you know, pretty much do for the rest of my life. And, at that age of 21, I I saw it as a dead end job.
[:[00:03:26] Intro: So what could I do? So, you know, there was a saying back then. It's it's still prevalent today. You know, fortunes can be made cleaning up after others. So, that kind of sparked an idea.
[:[00:04:10] Intro: And and he's making money from this. And, you know, all we did was show up early in the morning, you know, before he went to work, before I went to school, before the business is open. And we would walk the exterior property, the sidewalks, parking lot, and the surrounding landscape. And to collect or sweep up any type of litter material, we we came across. You know, that stuff that people always discard, cigarette butts, empty drink cups, fast food wrappers.
[:[00:05:09] Intro: I mean, he was working for property management companies. So I just started letting my fingers do the walking, if you will, in the old telephone, yellow page directory, the the Internet of the day. And, you know, started cold calling and refined my elevator pitch, and, about 3 or 4 calls in, I had a prospect. He said, you know what? Here's, the addresses of 2 properties.
[:[00:05:52] Intro: Simple decision for me. I quit my job, and I've been cleaning up litter for parking lots ever since for 40 plus years.
[:[00:06:22] Brian Winch: So you were telling me earlier that you have a book as well that you distribute widely in the US.
[:[00:06:55] Intro: And, you know, and, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, I guess, in my demographic that, you know, don't have a lot of money, don't have many skills, but they they wanna work for themselves. And, you know, what what kind of opportunity are up our opportunities are out there. So I thought why not share it with other people and, you know, Clean Lots, America's simplest business was born. And, and, yeah, I I I really get a kick out of helping other people across the country start something like this in their community. And, you know, I I enjoy, you know, kind of both worlds.
[: :: [:[00:07:52] Intro: The original intent was just to keep it simple and just stay a one man operation. And I did that for a number of years, probably, you know, 5, 7 years, something like that. And then I I guess I became a victim of my own success. You know, my my clients started asking for more of me in more places, and I can only be so many places at one time. So out of necessity, you know, I had to, you know, bring some people in.
[:[00:08:40] Intro: And, and then, you know, so we continue to scale. You know, I I went from a one man operation that did about $100,000 a year, into one, eventually now. We we bill out anywhere from 6.50 to $700,000 a year, and that's all we do. Just litter litter cleanup. We don't get into any other cleaning services.
[:[00:09:11] Brian Winch: So is this mainly just large kind of empty lots or, like, parking lots, that kind of stuff that you service?
[:[00:09:47] Intro: You know, the money the big money we have discovered is is in the commercial, you know, with for commercial property management companies.
[:[00:09:58] Intro: With the unique hand tools with that we use. And because we're providing our service on a frequent basis anywhere from, you know, 2 or 3 days a week for, you know, like, the office industrial, you know, properties up to, you know, 5 to 7 day a week for the retail properties. You know, because we're maintaining these properties just a little bit more time that it takes to walk the property. So anywhere from, you know, like, maybe a small strip plaza might take, you know, 10 or 15 minutes to service. You know, you know, maybe something a bit larger, half an hour, up to maybe, an hour, an hour and a half, you know, to to, to walk the property.
[:[00:10:56] Brian Winch: Yeah. That makes sense. So, what's, like, the average cost of something like this? It is subscription based. It's kinda what you're telling me.
[:[00:11:10] Intro: In the book, we show you how to, put together a price, and it's based on the time it takes to walk the property. And then after a while with experience, you get really good at it. You could just look at a property, and you have to be there. I mean, if someone approaches you and say, hey. I've got a property, a 100 square a 100,000 square feet, you know, what's the price?
[:[00:12:21] Intro: So, you know, it it it it it actually brings in really, really nice money if someone is thinking of doing this on the side or eventually scaling it into a full time business, you know, like like I've done.
:: [:[00:12:46] Intro: Manufacture them. You know, I don't own the rights or anything, but I I I it's ironic. I've been using the same hand tools for over 40 years because nothing has ever been developed that is as good or it was has been better. And, people can see that on my website. There I have a brief video showing me, you know, servicing a property, so people get a better understanding as, you know, you know, what, how is this work done, and what types of tools do you use.
[:[00:13:58] Brian Winch: So how much do you think, you know, because like I'm sitting here thinking in my head right now, me and my 14 year old have had some discussions about ways that he can start making money and saving up and doing those kinds of things to get a car and whatnot. And I'm like, you know, this seems like something that would be a good match for him. What is the cost to entry into this kind of a job or this type of company if it is just a solopreneur that's looking to kinda cut your own thing?
[:[00:15:05] Intro: But, typically, you know, you know, that, you can get started. There's a lot of my students have been reporting that they can find coverage for, something that rounds out to about $100 a month. So that would be $1200 for the year. And sometimes, you, you know, you don't have to pay up front. You can just, you know, you know, pay in the installment either monthly or quarterly or or every 6 months, as a way as a means to, you know, kind of bootstrap your resources and get started, you know, more inexpensively.
[: :: [:[00:16:32] Intro: in your area? Where do
[:[00:16:34] Intro: Calgary area and surrounding communities. So, you know, Calgary is about 1,300,000 in population. So, when I first started, you know, the city was smaller. And, you know, I I would kind of go all over the city wherever the work would take me. And then you you you learn to become more efficient.
[:[00:17:18] Brian Winch: Why did you decide to write a book and train others to do it instead of doing, like, you know, a franchise or something where you could have somebody kind of buy into your program and actually open up in a remote location.
[:[00:18:07] Intro: But, you know, property management companies tend to be these, these mom and pop operations, if you will. I mean, they only operate in that particular city. So, you know, having a name doesn't really matter to them. They're just concerned with results. And so, you know, once people buy my book and they learn the business, they don't need me anymore.
[: :: [:[00:19:28] Brian Winch: Yeah. That I mean, that makes sense. It's just not something that I guess I would always think about. You know, we just I see these companies like Half Baked, which is this cookie company I had on my show, not too long ago. And she was like, man, I just had customers that loved the cookies I made so much that they wanted to open locations in these remote areas that I was shipping to, like in Arkansas and Chicago and, you know, all these places far away from down here in Texas where we're at.
[:[00:20:10] Brian Winch: But it makes sense that you would have the book. Because like you said, it is such an easy thing to do. Right? Anybody can even if they're not using your tools, I can just go walk in the parking lot and pick it up by hand if I want to. Anyone can go do this job easily.
[:[00:20:36] Intro: Of my income still comes from cleaning parking lots. I mean, that's the bread and butter. So the the additional revenue I generate from teaching others, you know, how to duplicate my success in their their cities, It's nice. It it, you know, it's it, but, you know, it's it's never gonna be the same that, you know, like, 600,000, $700,000 a year, whatever. But, you know, one thing I will say, another benefit from the people buying my book is they're not limited as to where they operate.
[:[00:21:44] Intro: But, I mean, they have stores all over the country, and they they were so happy with this work in his local market. They start they put it out to him. Well, you know you know, do you have people in these other cities? And he at the time, he didn't, but he didn't say no. And he simply recruited people, in other cities to do this work.
[:[00:22:23] Brian Winch: That's what an amazing success story. I mean and then like you said, all of this goes right back to the very beginning where you can make a fortune cleaning up someone else's mess. And it's so amazing how much money people will spend on that, especially companies who don't wanna hire people full time all across the country to service all of their locations to do nothing but pick up trash on a corporate level where they're offering retirement benefits. They have to do the training and all this stuff. It's just they'd rather pay a fortune to somebody to come in and handle it for them just because they know the work's gonna get done and I don't have to worry about it.
[:[00:23:08] Intro: Any other service that's necessary to maintain a commercial property. I mean, property managers pay big money to landscape contractors to, you know, to to maintain their landscape, and then in certain areas of the city, you know, provide snow removal during the winter months. You know, it's amazing the fortune sometimes that they pay out, but they all they want are results, and they don't wanna have to go out and, do this provide the service self and and the equipment. And with with our service, the the reason it's been so successful for over 40 years is, like I mentioned earlier, the time of day we do it. You know, we there are some competitors of ours that are out there.
[:[00:24:16] Intro: I mean, we have to clearly see the whole exterior property, which includes the parking lot. And the only time of day that that's possible is in the early morning hours. And, so, that that works. But, you know, also, you know, like I mentioned earlier, I'm an introvert, you know, a bit of a loner. I really enjoy doing the work at that time of day because I don't have the hustle or bustle hustle bustle.
[:[00:25:05] Brian Winch: Yeah. I I think it's a great idea. So are you on social media, YouTube, anything like that right now?
[:[00:25:34] Intro: I you know, I I'm not on all the different show social program or platforms. It's just the ones that, work for me and, you know, where my my prospects are gonna be.
[: :: [:[00:26:25] Intro: And, same thing I shared on my Facebook page, and then also my LinkedIn company page. We I also have a a company page for the cleaning business too where we we share, you know, observations and and tips for property managers, you know, how to you you get the most out of their, their parking lot litter litter cleanup service. And so, yeah, you you have to be out there to get exposure, make it easy for people to find you.
[:[00:27:35] Intro: Brought up the point that it's it's very humble. And so, you know, what better way for a young person to learn that, there's a great way to make money, if, you know, from a very simple service if you don't mind doing it. All too often, there's a lot of people who turn their nose up at various opportunities and and, know, they're looking for that way to to get rich without having to work for it. And the the only people that maybe are making money that are the are the, the promoters selling these get rich quick schemes.
[:[00:28:34] Brian Winch: And it's like, that's a a great aspiration to have. And if it's something you can do, I'd love to see you do it. And I look forward to the day I can sit in my suites and, watch the game and invite my friends and family out to these boxes to, you know, have that VIP treatment. But the reality is there are so many millions of people who are faster than you, stronger than you, trying to go out for that job, and the reality of you making a crap ton of money off of it is just simply low. You know, I've heard some stats before that something like 2% of of high school football kids in Texas, which Texas has a huge football program, less than 2% go to college on a scholarship to play ball.
[:[00:29:49] Intro: You have to follow your passion. So, you know, I I wish your son good luck. But, you know, one thing he can understand is if he'd if he can't make it, you know, I'm I'm not saying he won't, but if he can't make it as a player, well, you know, he can still pursue a life in in football, pro football, maybe as an official, maybe as a as a coach. You know, so there's all sorts of various other, you know, jobs, if you will, that are are are surround the the sport, but that aren't necessarily playing. But, you know, he could still be an official.
[:[00:30:51] Brian Winch: Yeah. Like you said, it's it's passion and still being involved. I mean, same thing with, you know, football. Well, if you like marketing or you like podcasting or you like broadcasting or anything else, you can still be involved with football on a very high level and have very nice access to those football leagues by performing jobs that are kind of around that. But you're a a 100% right.
[:[00:32:04] Brian Winch: Hey. I'm not even working out here doing this because it's fun, you know, to you, which is great. I I love the fact that we have people with such wide interests that are are willing to do these jobs and not only willing, but enjoy it as well because it is a very necessary thing.
[:[00:32:25] Intro: I don't understand the psychology behind it, but there's always gonna be plenty of work to do.
[:[00:32:46] Intro: it for me. You know, I've I've I've often thought the same. But at the same time, I'm thinking, but still, you know, you don't hear this little voice from maybe your parents telling you not to throw garbage outside of your car onto the parking lot. But maybe they have parents to do the same thing, so they are great teachers. Right?
[:[00:33:11] Brian Winch: I I I really enjoyed our conversation today. I think that this is such a cool opportunity for someone who's looking to tap into a way to be an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, and they're not sure how to go about and do it. And the fact that you're willing to, for a small price, sell these secrets and kind of teach people exactly what it is that they need to do, I think this is amazing opportunity, and I can't wait to check out your website and share that with my son, and I hope that all of us
[:[00:33:43] Brian Winch: Absolutely. Listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Small Business Origins. Every single week, I am so thankful that people like you wanna tune in and hear stories from entrepreneurs just like Brian today. Make sure you check out the show notes for all the links that you need there because that's where you're gonna need to go to check out his book, to check out his company, what they're doing, and to be able to connect with Brian and ask him for those 1 on 1 trainings or anything that he's willing to offer to you to just kind of educate you on how you can be your own solopreneur entrepreneur just by cleaning up lots. But that's it.
[:[00:34:40] Brian Winch: We're done here. Another great conversation and as always stay beeping, my friends.
[:[00:34:57] Brian Winch: You guys check this out.
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