The Profitable Cleaner

#87 Unlocking Million-Dollar Success in the Cleaning Industry ft. Joseph Lockhart

• Joseph Lockhart • Episode 87

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Get ready for an episode that will inspire and enlighten you as we sit down with Joseph Lockhart, president of JDM Janitorial, to discuss his incredible journey from a small side hustle in 2009 to now leading a million-dollar business. Joseph shares how he was divinely inspired to start his company and how his faith continues to play a pivotal role in his success. We also discuss the power of LinkedIn articles and the passion Joseph has for helping other small businesses thrive.

In this conversation, we dive into the importance of understanding corporate culture and the role it plays in business growth. Joseph shares some valuable insights from his experience, such as the power of case studies and having corporate partners and mentors to guide you. We also explore how Joseph learned to systematize his processes, allowing him to scale his business to the level it is today.

As we wrap up this episode, Joseph and I discuss his vision for the future of JDM Janitorial and the potential for massive growth in the coming years. Don't miss this invaluable conversation packed with lessons and advice from Joseph's journey, making it a must-listen for those in the janitorial industry or looking to start their own business!

In this Profitable Cleaner Podcast, you will learn:

  • How Joseph Lockhart started his janitorial company as a side hustle and grew it into a million-dollar business, with faith playing a significant role in his success journey.
  • The importance of understanding corporate culture and utilizing case studies for business growth, as well as having corporate partners and mentors for guidance.
  • How to systematize processes to enable you to scale your cleaning company.
  • The power of LinkedIn articles in generating engagement, response, and opportunities for businesses in the janitorial industry.
  • The significance of having a quality-based approach and not being afraid to charge what is needed, as well as the importance of maintaining relationships and staying humble in business.


We highly recommend you connect with Joseph Lockhart and check out JDM Janitorial:


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0:00:01
Alright. Let's do it. It'll be a fun time. It'll be a fun time. Welcome everybody to the profitable cleaner. Super excited to have this next guest here. It's gonna be a different twist.

0:00:11
We've been trying to find the ways in the podcast to do different alternatives, different types of episodes, and you guys are gonna notice Right? And this one is cut my attention through LinkedIn. I read one of his articles, and then I started paying attention to what he was doing. And I just figured this would be a heck of an episode, more of hands on and something that really really happened and I would love for him to walk us on on what that goes through. But before we get into it, Joseph Lockhart, sir, president of JDM janitorial. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Thanks for having me, Angel. I'm excited to be here with you and James this afternoon and yeah. Let's let's jump into it. Let's do it.

0:00:55
Do you do do you do podcast a lot? I have done two podcast before, yeah, where I got involved. Yeah. Oh, okay. They say that the third Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. How was that recently? Two years ago. I ran for Two years ago. Worth. Yeah. And so they brought me up talk about housing and all that stuff. Wow. How did it go? How did that go? It went good. They everybody loved it, I guess. The guy that the guy that did it, he he helped me. He made me feel good about it. Good, man. Good. Well, I'm super excited to have you you know, as you know, we have a lot of guests. We pay a lot of attention on social. We read a lot of articles, a lot of development. And this article in particular caught my eye because of I think it was I don't know if you would call it a special case, but I think based on what you read here, like, I don't know that there's that many prospects that allow you to dive deep with them in there. And we'll get into it right now. But tell us a little bit about yourself, Joseph Holland. Have you been on the industry? When did JDM come about now? And how big are you guys now? Yeah.

0:02:10
So we we started as, like, a part time little side hustle in two thousand nine. It was just something that have some extra income coming in. And then the company that I was working for, they completely shut down, and they fired us all just basically, if I send a hand, it's all letters, no no severance, no nothing. And I had I was gonna start as a financial adviser in four months, I had to is my degree, and I went home and I prayed about it. And then right in the bible, I opened it up randomly and said, don't wait four months. I was like, oh, crap. Like, who am I supposed to do then? And I had one customer seventeen hundred bucks a month. I didn't know what I was doing. I had my dad doing it on on his free time. And I was like, well, I know this isn't it, and so I kept praying about it, and that was it. I got a referral the next day for another little customer, and I was just like, hey, I'm just gonna go for it and see what happens. And we did.

0:03:12
And so it started out real slow. I think our first year, we did, like, eighty thousand dollars and, you know, profit was, like, twenty or thirty, and my wife was looking at me, like, you are a crazy fool and you're bankrupting us. And then the next year, I put the kids back in day care, and I just really went after it. And we went from we went to one twenty to two forty to five hundred and then we went up to seven hundred and now we do a little bit over right around a million and a half pretty consistent.

0:03:44
Well, congratulations. Congratulations. That's really cool that you were like, what do I do? You open up the bible. Boom. That's what you need to do. We just had a guest on that we were basically speaking about that portion, right, like how Foresight is Foresight especially powered through. The Bible is like super powerful. Right? Like, sometimes you don't know what the path is gonna be. You don't know anything you just kinda have to trust. And it seems like it's been it's been growing since then. Yeah. Alright. So that's really cool.

0:04:17
Where are you located? So we're in Fort Worth, Texas. Fort Worth, Texas? I think you're in Fort Worth. Yeah. Hey. You you know, I used to be really bad. I used to be really bad at geography. But, no, that that's super exciting, man. Let me ask you. Before we jump into this article because I want people I think people are gonna get straight into it, and I think it's gonna be really fun. And we'll make sure we link the article so that they can review it. What got you to start writing these articles about these experiences? Because you have a lot of a lot of marketing out there for your business, which, like, which we can appreciate.

0:04:55
Why did you decide to start writing these and and what what have you seen from writing them? So LinkedIn kept prompting me to do it. I think I'll, you know, I'll be in a a sub contract and network group and somebody will say something that they were struggling with and I would answer. And I just I just out of wanting to see people do well. And so one thing that I the first article I wrote was, I think, how can Jesus following Jesus solve your retention issues. And it was just something that was really on my heart. Like, my business, the reason that we have a lower turnover rate is just because we we truly do put the cleaners first. And I feel like even putting them above the customers because our customers get the risk the feedback from us treating the cleaners well and taking care of them. And so it it is a good result for them and then we treat them well also, of course.

0:05:55
But, man, so I put that in the article and a lot of people started responding. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, I was just I just feel like I had to get it out there. Like, I'm because I watched some of our large competitors. They don't we get a lot of people come from there. Just put, like, they hit some of our larger competitors. And every time I get one, they're like, man, at place, didn't train us. They set us out there. Sometimes the equipment would be missing. I'm like, this is a billion dollar company. Like, how can that be going on? I so I typed it up real quick and threw it out there. And then LinkedIn prompt it kept prompt to me again. And so every once in a while, I see the prompt. And I was like, okay. I'll write a quick article and throw it out there and see what happened. You know, you just said something.

0:06:39
We had a guess that says that that literally said a little bit ago was that faith in in the bible is an unfair advantage in business. Mhmm. He's like for those that follow it, it's really an unfair advantage in business. It sounds like a lot of your principles in business and the reason you started, the reason you retained, the reason you get revenue. Would you say that a lot of the principles come from what you've learned from the bible? Like, do you would you agree with that statement? I I would. Definitely. I we had I had a a big customer that I I wanted.

0:07:13
And I went to a networking thing, and I just walked in the door, and I was like, hey, you know, here's my information. And the c c o o walked up and she's like, I saw you at that meeting. Come on in. And we started talking and I was like, it was a blessing that we saw each other at the meeting and then I happened to come over here and you have this need. And she kind of backed up and hesitated when I said that. And you could tell she didn't believe in in God. And immediately, my mind, I said, tank. You know, I shouldn't have said anything.

0:07:47
And after the meeting was over, I was walking back to the cart and I was like, man, and the holy spirit immediately, it corrected me and said don't ever call me a disadvantage. And man ever since then, I've just been like, very cautious. I'm like, I get got all the glory. Thank you, Lord. You blast me because it Truly, if you apply those principles -- Yeah. -- who doesn't wanna be treated well? You know, who doesn't want you to love them like you love yourself? All those things that are in the bible for you. It it's really an advantage in the world. A lot of times, they try to teach you that by taking advantage of people and being mean to them, and using them as tools, you're gonna get a hit, and you can. Financially, you can get a hit, but it does some other things to you that are irreparable. Right? When you get ahead that way, you're always feeling like, man, I I'm owed to something negative back to me. And when you do it God's way, you don't feel like that. You're like, hey, I'm successful, and God is is supporting that. And the people are supporting that because I'm doing what he asked me to do. So, yeah, I think that's a huge advantage.

0:08:57
Well, James, do you have a question before we jump into the article? I'm just yeah. I actually do have a quick question, which will probably lead to the article and just your activity on LinkedIn. So I was on your guys' I was on JDM's website earlier today, And I see that you're very specific at, like, tracking numbers and case studies and putting that out there to the public. Obviously, case studies brings validation and gives proof of concept and validates your services. I'm just curious. I don't think a lot of cleaning companies think in the terms of, hey, we're keeping this facility clean. This could be a case study. Talk to me about like the evolution of the business talk to us about your revenue growth and all that, but talk to me kind of about your marketing growth and maybe even your mindset growth that like pushed you to like start publishing these case studies that you have on your website. And I'm just curious, like, have those helped you get new contracts? Or how do you use those now? Yeah. No. That's a great question.

0:09:59
So we're in a we're in two, like, mentoring development programs. One with CBRE, the commercial real estate company. And then we're doing another one with VistraCorp, which is a a down here And Texas is is a company that owns Encore and TXU and those kind of people. So they have been very they've helped me a ton.

0:10:26
And one thing is to understand corporate culture. Is is statistically based. They wanna see numbers that prove what you say you're doing. And so if you can put together a case study where they can pick it up and say, oh, if I put that in my system, this would generate me this kind of return on my investment. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Where they can just, you know, plug their numbers in and come out with a result. And so one of the mentors, she was like, hey, all of this stuff that you do is great. But you are the only one that know about it. You're the only one. And so until you can communicate this where other people can just grab it, and check it out, and then and then they want that for themselves. You're really doing yourself a disservice.

0:11:11
So that was something we redid our RFP process. We redid our cut and paste process. So now we have all these things where office manager can grab so I'm if I'm busy, I can say, hey, we got a RFP to get out to blah blah blah. She just grabs our template plugs in their numbers. And it has all of our stuff attached to it in a professional manner. And it makes our it makes our business stand out, but it also makes it so that we can scale. And we're not stuck only limited to what I can do. And that's where we were for a long time until they kinda open up my eyes there.

0:11:49
Yeah. I think, like, that's a such an under rated or the undervalued thing to say. Like, what you just said right there is as you're growing, things tend to funnel to you and through you. And I think that when people are not able to systematize it, and like you said, like, where they can pull for what they need, then then things get can get chaotic, or they just get stale. Right? They just don't do anything. Yeah. But I love what you just said right there, which is, like, when you're going after these big corporations, they need to be able to see themselves being impacted by what you have -- Mhmm. -- without even needing to talk to you. Like, before they even talk to you, they can read your articles.

0:12:28
Like, if I read this article that we're gonna talk about right now, they're gonna walk us through, like, it makes me think, like, okay. If I had her like, am I am I maximizing my recycling? Right? Like, am I taking advantage of those credits? Am I not? Okay. And then, again, you're right. You get this big player. I think the sound cut off. Nope. Nope. You're you're a mute angel. Yeah. Did I just mute my that I think you someone muted me or something. I don't know what happened. You said it was a big player. Gotcha. Yeah. So that way, a big play like, a big player can grab what? What you wrote and then be able to insert themselves into it. So that's really cool. That's really cool what you're doing.

0:13:21
If you're okay with it, let's dive into this article. So walk people through it like I love the title of this article. It's literally called, I'm not paying for that. He just published it ten days ago, and it's getting a lot of attention. So first things first, walk us a little bit on the theme. Like, what is this article about? Just so people can read it. And again, if if you're watching or listening, Look at the show notes, we'll put the article in there so that you can even almost, like, follow along. Yeah.

0:13:47
It was it was a couple intentions. One was to show small independent janitor companies that you can compete on a big stage with ingenuity, I think, with your mind. And then two was to show customers like you're missing out on so many opportunities by trying to do things that you're not specialized in. If you're gonna bring in a partner, let that partner be the specialist, and then go from there. If you don't trust them enough to do that, then you need another you need to have their relationship with somebody else. So what I'm gonna do is and we've never done this again, so this is gonna be really really fun.

0:14:30
I'm gonna share my screen. That way, this YouTube is like, YouTube can actually follow along. Okay. I mean, we know when you guys can see my screen. What they shared right here. Is it sharing or not yet? It's loading. But it's not showing. Yeah. Sure. Alright. Okay. One more time. If it doesn't work, then I'll just read it out. Hey. Well well, he's doing that.

0:14:56
Real fast, before we jump into this, a question along that article, Joseph, I'd be curious once Angel goes through this, and maybe we'll say this for the end, the type of response you've gotten from it so far. Because I like it is it's popping up on my feed It's popping up on Angel's feet. I'd just be curious, like, what ten days ago, in ten days, what this article, like, the engagement it's produced. So we'll we'll save that for after we go through it here. Okay. Cool. Alright. Let's do this.

0:15:27
So, again, I'm I'm gonna I think I can read through most of them. Right? So but, basically, you sign the contract with a customer that at face value. This is what got me right away. That at face value cost double what their previous solution cost, yet ended up saving them a ton of money. I'm not gonna lie. That's when you got me. That line right there. So interesting. So you had to go through a lot of hoops to be able to double the cost of what they used to pay before.

0:16:00
Now, is this is this article gonna walk me through how you get that? I think most of it is there. Not not Okay. I don't know if it was real detailed, though. Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:16
Well, I know we won't get into the numbers, but what what was the main thing that you got them in like, when they say hey, can you help us out? Because a lot of people are like, hey, can you help us out? This is what we used to pay, and this is what we wanna do. How did you even maneuver the conversation to where you say that's cool that that's what you guys wanna do and how much you pay? But it's not actually what you guys need and we need to almost restructure all of this. How did that conversation even lead itself to that? So it is so one thing that I have learned is that you have to be the professional in your profession. So that specific thing, the way that it even started taking off is that I was just going through their cleaning part. And I said, okay. So right now, you guys you you had the thing where you almost got shut down.

0:17:13
From COVID because of the cleanliness of the facility. So and then you can have us do a deep clean so that you can have a tour from your corporate people. Well, those things alone cost you a ton of one time money. I was like, so we can we can fix that for you guys to where it's more easy to digest and even cheaper. But I would like to have your place at a high level at all times. Is that something that y'all are interested in? Yeah. We want the place clean. And so I provided a solution just to meet their bare minimums, plus add on the warehouse that had never been cleaned before. So the price went up because, obviously, you're cleaning, I don't know, seventy thousand square feet of offices, and then you're leaving a five hundred and forty thousand square foot of warehouse to its own devices.

0:18:06
And it it looked like it looked terrible. Right? And so we So we once we clean it, then I'm like, well, how's your air conditioning? Always. It's horrible. It leaks now. Because the system is overrun, and they kept on attributing it to age. Oh, it's because it's old. It's it's because it's old.

0:18:25
I said, well, when I walked through the vents, I ticked up with the lint from the the fabric. And if you look on top and I showed them I showed them my shelf, I was like, what are y'all gonna do to get this, and I mean, this thick of lint from all the fabrics that they had just never ever cleaned. And he's like, Well, what do you mean? I was like, well, where do you think that stuff's going? It's going in your AC events. So do you think that because they had to spend I think it was like, seven point six million dollars. That was the quote that they got to replace all of the air conditioning units on the roof. And it was so big that this multi billion dollar company had to do in phases. And so I was like, where do you think all this lens going? It's going into your AC vents.

0:19:11
And what what happens when the AC vent is clogged up with dust and lint, it overheats. Right? It's gotta produce more air and it's gotta push through all the dust and dirt. I was like, what if we could take that lint and dust and dirt away? But would you wanna look at how much that will cost? Yeah. Of course, we wanna look at that. Then once we give that solution, they're like, man, you know, if we could save seven million dollars on this AC or for for another three or four years, and we make interest on all that money for five years, you know, seven million dollars, five percent interest for five years. That's a lot of money. Right? That's enough to pay for my dental service for sure.

0:19:47
And so once they got that, then they were like, well, we got some other strokes. We're what you what about recycling? I was like, yeah, we could do recycling. What's your struggle? They say, well, we're failing. These audits every month. I said, well, how are you feeling them? And he said, well, we don't really know. So we're just we know that we're Just we're failing Michael. We're trusting them to recycle and but it's not working out.

0:20:13
I say, well, you have thousands of employees in this building how are you gonna make all of them do the right thing? If you give us the recycling program, I have twenty people, and I can make them do that for you. And I can control twenty people better than you can control two thousand people. And it's not that you guys are doing the wrong thing. It's just it's almost impossible to make two thousand people follow directions.

0:20:37
And so what we did is we just we had them all put dry materials in one well, first, we did a waste audit. And we found out where the problem is, where with the cardboard, what could be recycled, what couldn't be recycled. Then once we did that, we brought it back, and we said, okay. All of these things can be recycled. These things have to be trashed. And so let's focus on these things. And so we went in there and immediately we their standard is ninety I think it's ninety three percent, ninety five percent, something like that. They were at eighty eight percent. So immediately, we got up to standard. We we took them straight to standard. And then they were like, well, what if we wanna be, like, the leader? In our company now. Go from the worst to the best.

0:21:19
I said, okay. Well, what else was on your audit? Well, we got these these desiccant packs. I say, well, we can fix that too, I think. I'm gonna need some time to do some research. And that's a that's a whole another thing. Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:33
And then he's like, well, we got the recycling. We got this. He's like, what else can you do? I was like, well, we could do pretty much anything you want. He's like, what about our parking lot looks like garbage. Our windows look like trash. Our sidewalks are bed. Can you package that in with the price? And so we all the things that had never been doing were now getting done. And so the price, of course, doubled because you weren't doing any of this before.

0:22:00
But now that's that's seven million dollars, AC, if you keep these systems in place, you're not gonna replace that for thirty or forty years as opposed to eight years now. And then for one thing, your facility looks better, your retention should go up. And then not to mention, you're getting this huge credit that you were never getting on your improvement. Mhmm. It it amounts to almost three hundred thousand dollars a year that they were they were they were getting the recycling company was fifteen times twelve. Whatever that is, they would give them fifteen thousand dollars a month. And I think it's like, I don't want the other number. I'd be wrong. No. That's one eighty. Yeah. That's one eighty. One eighty. Yeah. There you go. They were giving away a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

0:22:48
And then we came in and they were getting almost almost the same credit now. And so they were from one end negative to the positive end just instantly, just from us changing their process, just a little easy tweak where it didn't cost them any more time. He ran some more numbers that I don't have in this article because it would have got lengthy. But the time that they saved from not cleaning their own packing stations and using that to processed materials. They had a opportunity cost of millions of dollars of more material that was processed by the same number of people because they didn't spend thirty minutes every night cleaning their packing station. We did that for them. So we're we're not gonna jump in and pack close with them. We will clean their packing stations for them and take away that lost revenue from them doing their job.

0:23:38
And so once we run the case today, and the facility manager, you know, he's getting more and more excited because his name's going up the chart because he's like, crap. You know, now we got through. Now we're tops and recycling. Our sustainability numbers look great. Our facility is clean. We had a corporate walk through, and they were wowed by how clean their warehouse was. And now the the guy in California has contacted me, and he's like, hey, we want you to put together a proposal for all of our facilities in the United States and Canada. And so we tried a corporate office and he's like, I don't know. It's too expensive for corporate. He's like a list of distribution centers only. And so now we're in talks with them for all of their stuff across the United States for their distribution centers because -- Wow. -- the case study. Right. No. It's interesting. So I'm gonna I'm gonna read this part because I think, like, you went into it, but I I mean, right there alone, like, they would pay annually thousand to have a dip clean.

0:24:36
Right? But at that like, by the time we took over, that does have to straight their HVAC system. Like you said, seven million dollars in equipment. Right? Like, they equipment is not lasting, costing them fifteen thousand a month just for the the recycling.

0:24:49
I love this part right here though. This paragraph is my favorite. Here's the value prop. Like, right there, it's not let us keep you clean, and I think that's where a lot of cleaners fall short. Mhmm. Right? It's by taking over the recycling program. Like, you put in a business case for them, which I don't see a lot of people doing. By taking over the recycling program, you turned their annualized to one eighty until a hundred and twenty thousand dollar gain, delta of three hundred. Now we clean everything. Cleaner, boost the morale, retention, rotation, no deep cleaning anymore. Right? The h bag's gonna last them way longer.

0:25:26
And then I love this one. The lowest what is it here? Instant suiting a daily regimen of electrostatic disinfection. The infection spread rate tracked during the pandemic was the lowest in the multi million dollar a company people were high fiving and taking credit in every department. So true. Man, I gotta tell you, like, I love the fact that you went in to understand their setup, but then you dove deep to truly understand the setup, their processes, And the cool part is you weren't even getting paid to dive deep into their business yet.

0:26:03
And then as you started diving deep inside here, I'll take care of this for now. Let me keep exploring this. Oh, I can take care of this. Hey, I've done my research. I've done my audits. I've worked the building. I've done my thing. Can I now present you with a complete business case and how you're gonna win from this? And I think that's why I love that article so much because from face value, I will not pay double is what everybody will say. But when you dive deep is you're not paying double. You're paying the right amount. And it's costing you less, which is just awesome. Yeah. And the funny thing And now you're quoting the distribution centers. Yeah. Exactly. Now I'm going after all of them.

0:26:44
The the funny thing is that thing started as a thirty day COVID wipe down of the facility. That's where it started off in. So it was a third I didn't wanna do it. I'm like, when I'm gonna come out here and I'm gonna have to provide three cleaners for thirty days. I'm gonna have to fire everybody But I was like, yeah, you know what y'all need help fine. Let me give the and then it was like, hey, this is working great. Can we get six people so we can do it on both shifts? And then it's like, hey, we need twelve people because we got two facilities, and then it just snowballed into it.

0:27:19
So another thing is if if it's a small opportunity in a big platform, I would encourage small businesses to take that opportunity. Now I'm not saying, hey, if it's a little doctor's office and he's by himself and he wants you to come clean for fifty dollars a day, That might not be the best opportunity. But if it's in a big player, but they only want you to do a small thing, take that and do your best in that. And then they you have their ear to offer them more things and they'll listen to you. They'll trust you. This is awesome.

0:27:56
So there's a few things I'm hearing, and we come from a sales background. So we always talk about serve versus sale. Or sell. Mhmm. And it seems like you really served them a lot before the sale was ever even made. Right? That's how you were able to expand the scope of work. Also, we talk about the power of questions. I can only assume how many questions or had throughout this process to get the information for you to do your your due diligence to expand that scope of work. And then last part, at least, we have one of our oldest podcast, Joseph, this is so funny. You are validating our second podcast ever on the show.

0:28:38
We say how one time opportunities could lead to massive doors opening. And this is like, I'm gonna call this a one time opportunity, a thirty day trial, if you will, and then it's led to this massive opportunity. How long did this process take? Like from you finding out this might be a thirty day COVID thing to all of a sudden, like, you're giving them this full blown scope of work and preventative maintenance plan. How long was that process? It was long. So we we started in March of twenty twenty, and we signed a contract. It'll be one year in It was just one year in April. So that was a really long process, but it was it was we spent eight months dealing with accounting. Because and that was the funny thing.

0:29:32
That's what caught me the most off guard because I'm thinking accounting is looking at these things and they're like, oh, duh. Yeah. We're gonna save this here. No. They couldn't look past janitorial equals this. What? These don't make sense because janitorial should cost this it doesn't make sense to us. And, you know, the facility manager, the the guy that runs that particular distribution center to distribution. All of us are in meetings, like, how can we get them to understand that? We're talking about saving millions of dollars by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of how can we get them to see that? And so we're just constantly sending stuff back over and over and over. And I thank them for a lot of it because they they did a lot of lead work to get this done. But they received a lot of benefit. Like, they were highly recognized for the transition at that facility. Yeah. And even yeah. A couple of people got promoted just yeah.

0:30:31
I think why you just said they're, like, accounting that they didn't actually know. Like, they were it's almost, like, they're more on the reactive side and the program side. Right? Like, the way they've been trained. Right? Somebody probably trained them and whoever trained them, trained someone else, and they're like, hey. Gantorio equals a cost and it goes here. These are play this is a cost here, but they're not thinking, like you said, about the credit they don't understand preventative maintenance of an HVAC system. They don't understand the credits from the recycling portion. They don't understand that if there's in the HVAC, it requires more energy. Therefore, your bill goes up, like -- Yeah. -- all of that portion isn't explained to them. Do you think that should fall under accounting? Or do you think there's, like, another or is usually is there a there's other roles, right, that are overseeing, like, the optimization of this. Right? But accounting at the end of the day sees the books. Right? Right. And so that's that's to disconnect the most large corporations.

0:31:28
This facility is over correcting all of these things. And so he he's the one that's gonna get the spreadsheet. He or she's they're gonna get a spreadsheet of how efficient the facility is. They're gonna get a spreadsheet of how much cost is coming out of all these different departments. And then they're gonna be in charge of making those cuts and making those moves. But then accounting is in a whole another barrel and they are set to limit him without all the information.

0:31:56
It's just like, hey, this is the budget. Make it work within the budget. Where he's saying, hey, I'm doing way better than making it work in the budget. I'm saving us a ton of money, but it's you gotta step outside of that cell. You know, they're in cell c six, and they're like c six is bigger than it used to be. But he's like, but look at that bottom line, go down to c eighty five, and you could see that we all of a sudden, it went down, you know, seven hundred thousand dollars for the year. Like, you gotta and somebody has to and that's I would encourage facility managers if they get a hold of this to to allow that professional to be a professional and then push it through. And they're gonna benefit from it too because Once once that year end comes and they redo those numbers, they're gonna see all those benefits that were attributed to that that selection of that right partner.

0:32:54
And it just takes a little bit of patience. It takes a lot of foresight, like you said, where people are willing to step outside of their comfort zone and say, okay. Well, let's look at this number too. And so Yeah. Well, you you know, accounting. Yeah. You're right. It's it's processed good. But but I think that so that and that's what I love.

0:33:14
Like, the the the more professional the company is in the facility maintenance space. The more you know, you have, like, what we'd like to say. Right? You got the decision makers. I'm gonna sign the contract. Then you got the champions and you got influencers. Right? You got people that like, your influencer is, like, the accounting person is, like, a gem. If you can get accounting on procurement on your side by giving them what they need and then explaining to them how you can help them hit their numbers by also hitting his numbers. And then you're probably also talking you're over here with HR as an influencer because now they're gonna be known. Like HR is measured by employee retention, productivity, how they feel working there, and so if it's dirty, if it's You know what I mean?

0:33:54
So, like and we made an effort like, I love when people are, like, no. We're gonna touch on our my decision makers, my champions, and my influencers and you were able to hit on everything, including, like, again, HR or even the CEO of that or the president or the GM of that specific a quick location, you just put him on the map -- Mhmm. -- for having the, like, a a top sustainability office. So now people are coming to him and be, like, what are you doing with your team? What initiative do you have facility manager? Like, does that make sense to you not only save the money, made the money, brought togetherness between the team, put them on the map, now they're recognized, and you were able to just navigate yourself through different areas of the business.

0:34:35
And I just there's people that say they're open to doing it. It's but it requires persistence, it requires research, and it requires, I think, like, for you, I think you keep hitting on this long term gain. Like, you went in there, you're like, cool. I help you with your thirty days. There's a bigger picture here. You guys need more help, and I have the help. You need more expertise, and I have the expertise. Let's let's keep breaking this barrier down together, and then eventually, it just builds into an awesome partnership. I can tell you we've had calls this week last week and all the time.

0:35:08
Most people go in there and they look at everything face value. Right? They don't go to that deeper stuff. They just keep their face value and they're like, well, my proposal's out. They're comparing you with everyone. They're just saying your editorial equals cost. I don't know how many people go and ask. Well, what initiatives do you wanna how are you guys recognized when it comes down to sustainability? Where do you wanna be? Right? Like, I don't see anyone like, I don't hear at least. I don't hear and see a lot of it. Maybe people are doing it, but those that are doing it. Are winning the larger contracts and we recognize. So that's why I love the article that you're doing. Yeah.

0:35:41
And is a lot of customers see janitorial as a zero sum. So that that means that your business is just the same as everybody else's business to do what but that does what you do. Cleaning is cleaning. How hard can it be? Get people in here wipe down empty trash. And we get customers that say that. Right? We go out in their life, hey, I just wanna wipe down I just want you to take out the trash, you know, nothing too deep, nothing too big, and they're always trying to minimize what we do.

0:36:14
But one thing is labor intensive is all get out is the best companies are process driven and it saves on so many forefronts, but you gotta you have that confidence to present like that, like, I am a value to your organization. I think a lot of guarantor companies, they fall into the trap of thinking. I gotta compete on price because that's the only thing that separates me. And you're you're fighting to lose in battle if you're doing that because some of these companies, they pay people seven fifty an hour. And there is no way you can beat them. And provide a quality service, you have to do something to separate yourself from that pack. I I think that's great. Okay. Go for it. I just I just only have one last question here for you, man. Well, I guess actually too.

0:37:03
I'm still curious about the type of engagement and response you've seen since publishing this article. So if you could touch on that and maybe the importance of staying active as a president of a janitorial company on LinkedIn. I think that's always good to reinforce. I think there needs to be more of that from just CEOs out there in the janitorial space. And but this account aside, how do you take on other accounts. Do you take this approach with everyone, even, like, more midsized accounts? I guess, I'll kinda just shut up and and and learn some knowledge there. No.

0:37:39
So that was something that they taught us in the for for larger accounts, any opportunity this and the thing is we've kinda shifted away from the really small stuff because it's just it it no longer fits what we're trying to do. And so we're going after bigger contracts to match what we're good at, which is problem solving. That's where we're good at. We're good at. We wanna get the worst crappiest building we can with with the resources to solve the problem. Right? And then we wanna go in and and fix all that stuff. And so we've we've tailored a lot of our engagement to that customer. Right? That's why the partnership the midterm program with CBRE is so important to us because within that organization, you know, we can go all over the United States.

0:38:35
The District Court, their partnership, has allowed us to peer into what a corporation is actually looking for. And what they actually want, which is so far off from what we thought it was. We thought for a long time, oh, well, let's do this generic bid template and all they're looking for is price. And they're like, no. That is not all they're looking for. They narrow it down to three people based on just presentation. And then they can start looking at price. But if you're not in that top three, you're not even getting a look because they don't want you to make them look like fools, basically. They want very professional company, and now we can compete on pricing. And you can explain why you might be, you know, I can't compete with a small small company that is just barely insured. You know, it just doesn't make sense for us. But I can I can go against a bill? And we can go head to head. And now I can make sense in that in that meeting whenever I'm competing against them. And that's so we had a mind shift that has helped us out a ton. It may say where all of our resources are even more valuable. Because now we can go in and we spend two hours on something that turns into, you know, a hundred thousand dollars where we were spending two days on something that was turned into two hundred dollars. And so that that shift helped us a ton.

0:40:05
And then the LinkedIn we've been a lot of people have been requesting to follow and I don't know what you called on LinkedIn link up. But Yes. Connect managers. And that's what I was hoping would be engaged with our facility managers. And not just because, man, I just super passionate about other people succeeding. And not just me -- Mhmm. We're gonna get ours. Lord's been blessed and us cannot complain. But I want other small businesses to not be afraid to charge what they need to charge to be beneficial to their client. And I think that's what we've been missing so much in the guarantor space because the larger companies run down prices so bad, but then they don't do a great job at the time.

0:40:53
And, you know, I've gotten a ton of customers from I don't wanna keep saying this, but, you know, large companies. And the first complaint is they started off after we made it through our ninety day trial period everything started tapering off by the time we got to the end of the first year of a five year contract, we were stuck with something we didn't want anymore. And it and that was and they've done, you know, over and over and over again. And we're our we're quality based. You know, we're like, hey. We want to be in this partnership for twenty five years if we can because it solidifies our income. And we take pride in what we do. I don't wanna be on your folder. My face is on your folder, and then you're like, Joseph, is such a liar. You know, he sold me a false bill of sale here, and now this we're stuck with this company trying to get rid of them. I want them to be like, man, this was the lady that I was talking about, the the lady that brought us in on the thirty day trial.

0:41:59
She sent me a text message. She said, because I told her, hey, your global guy is looking at us, for everything in the United States, man, appreciate the opportunity. You know, this has been game changer for us. And she said, you were the best hire that I've ever had since I've been in procurement for whatever years. And it it filled me up with, you know, I was happy about that. And we're a big company that's CEO, ain't gonna get that text. It's not coming to him. He he's just moving on his couch checks and everything else. We're a little guy like me, man, I'm that pumps me up to continue to provide that service and that quality. I have a and I know we're running into time.

0:42:45
I have one question because I I mean, honestly, this is awesome. And I knew this was as soon as I saw that article and I looked up, I was like, this is gonna go this is gonna be, like, full of value and full of nuggets. I don't think we've had guys talk about specific scenarios, like, you just broke it down and I loved every part of it. Like, it's making me wanna go and learn a bunch. It brings me to two questions for you. One, you should connect us to your CBRE mentorship contact because we have a lot of cleaning companies that listen to this. Would be fun to see like, I'm pretty sure there's qualifications and there like, there's this whole process, but it would be interesting. I've never heard of that program myself. It would be fun.

0:43:24
But secondly just started it. Yeah. This is the first year. Okay. So you're oh, okay. Never mind. Don't share it. Yeah. Keep it. I'm just kidding.

0:43:33
So here's a question for you. You have knowledge that I believe is is beyond revenue and employee size of your company. We're talking again, we have a lot of guests and and one and we heard them say, like and one of my mentors says this all the time you you'll never outpace you as a person. The more you grow individually, your business will never outpace it. Right? And it sounds like you're ahead, you're over here acting like a fifteen million dollars CEO And the revenue is barely the bank is barely catching up to the knowledge that you have. So my question to you is where do you go and seek wisdom? Outside of the bible for your industry. So Or how? Maybe not where, but how? So one guy, Ed Selkao. He does subcontracting group, and he had run a janitor company for a long time. He's awesome.

0:44:33
And when I was first starting, he was the one that gave me my first mind shift. And it was be be small and exhibit the qualities of a small business. Like, don't try to fake it till you make it. Don't act like you're this global company when you're not. He was like, there are benefits to having a small business partner that if you find a way to communicate that you'll grow at the pace you're supposed to grow. So he that was and that's when we started landing larger contracts. Because I just kept talking to people until I found somebody that wanted to do business with somebody local. But they were a larger customer. And you find those where I thought that was impossible. I I thought I had to look gigantic so that big companies would come to me. But he's like, and then when you get that contract, what are you gonna do? He's like, just be happy with where you are and then use that position that effectively. So he helped me a ton there was another guy.

0:45:39
He had a four or five million dollar business. He sat down with me for two, three hours out of his time. And he just went through and was focusing on SOPs with me, standard operating procedures. And he said, hey, the once you get these processes in place, then you can hand this to anybody. So he's like, you need to focus on that. And then he gave me some other advice that I use and I implement it. Then we had Blue Wave is another person. So that's a company and the minority council hooked us up with them. And he he took me through a program, and he used to work for ExxonMobil in procurement. And he said, these are all the things that you need to have to do business on with a international company. And so I'm just, like, adding all these processes and procedures and and I'm just, like, okay. Just come on. And so over a six week period, I had an operations manual that was like this thick.

0:46:36
And so to me, I look at business as business, that it doesn't necessarily have to be janitorial that can help me. I I think if you look at your business as a real industry. And you say, hey, you know what? I'm just like a Walmart or I'm just like the taco shop down the street. This is a legitimate business, and I have something to offer. And so I'm just gonna learn how to be a better business. And that's what that's where my focus is is attaching to people. Like I said, VistraCorp and CBRE, they're just businesses, and they know how to do business very well. You know, they do billions and billions of dollars of business. And I'm like, hey, just teach me how to do me as a me as a balance of business.

0:47:20
And, honestly, I love this podcast. I love what what came out of it. And I love again, I know it's one article, but I think it's more I'm more impressed by everything that you mentioned and how you learn, your ability to to learn, to implement, to process, and keep going is is really impressive. And I'm excited to be able to redo a podcast or do another podcast with you. And you're from now, two years from now where you're like, yeah, man, we're no longer one point two, one point five. We're Mhmm. That I don't even remember who that guy is because I think, like, the leveling up that you're gonna be doing is is really impressive, man. So we just wanna take you know, thank you so much, Joseph, for being here in the profitable cleaner. Super glad you were here, and I'm pretty confident that people are gonna, one, go message them, the takeaways you got. Share the article, check out the article. And once again, ma'am, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Joseph. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. Alright.