In this video Lee with the Junk Removal Authority teaches you when and how you should expand your business. You are either growing or dying. But if you try to expand too quick you could fall off a cliff as well. Lee helps you determine when you need to expand and when you need to focus on your current location or service. https://junkremovalauthority.com/

Welcome everybody to another Episode of Junk Removal Made Simple by the Junk Removal Authority.

Today we are talking to you about Business Expansion. How are you going to grow your business, when should you expand your business whether it is geographically or adding additional services, or when is the right time or always the wrong way or wait too long of a period of time. All of us should focus on expansion. So, if your business hasn’t hit the metrics and current points then, you shouldn’t be looking forward to the expansion of additional markets or additional services until you hit a couple of miles. However, we should all expand. Those of you or even the few people who subscribe to this YouTube channel and even those who are watching these videos, please subscribe and hit the subscribe below. You’ll automatically get updates every time we upload something new. And guys, we blow out great content pretty much daily so please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Those of you who are subscribing in this channel and watching these videos that have achieved a reasonable level of success with your business and you are sitting there, riding along, you are going to get burned at some point. You are going to flat out burned if this economy thanks which is someone it is, someone so important to this economy is going to thank thing is looking great right now but, we did just ride the whole tax cuts, and I benefit a lot from it. I think tax cuts are a good thing, but we have to have spending cuts to go along with that. A matter of fact they were talking about winning a one-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, and low estimate grade would be a lot of people working that haven’t worked in years. There has been a huge influx of money to the economy. The problem is the national debt is going to swell. I think we have a couple of years, but I think we will have a couple of years of tremendous growth depending or goes with the semi-trailer in China. Tremendous growth might only be 2 years though, it might even last a year, or it could be 2 or 3 years. I doubt its 13 longer than 3. With some point in mind, the next 3 years we are going to have a flat out, I don’t think if we meet 2007, but it’s going to be a downturn in this economy. Are you going to be ready for it or have to be a financial position to be prepared? If you are sitting there making a 100k, 150k or 200k a year with your junk removal business and you are not going to work a lot, those guys right there is just coasting, you are the ones that are going to get burned. You are going to get flat delivered, only tremendous amounts of pain if you are not constantly trying to expand.

Listen, the human or the male species was made to be out hunting down and hunting for food. He was supposed to have villages just depending on him for survival. We are supposed to be an active species going out and kill for survival. We’ve gotten, so we are fine now that we don’t have to go out and kill for food. You still need to be a killer as long as you need to be expanding, working hard and constantly pushing forward. But if you’re not, that’s where you get content and screw up. So today we are going to talk about expanding, blowing your business up which is the right time. What are a couple of different methods of doing that and which one is right for you? That is what were are going to try and touch for you in this episode.

Ways To Start Business Expansion

A couple of different ways of going about expanding number 1, you can do it geographically. So, that’s how Junk Doctors did, we opened up Charlotte and Greensburg as we expanded geographically. With this, with both ways, you see them either geographically or additional services. Don’t expand too fast. We did that in our second year of operation, we thought we had these kinds of stuff figure out. But, we were wrong, and we expanded into Charlotte. Charlotte was not doing very well, but Raleigh was doing very well. We would first look into Charlotte. We didn’t know a lot, so there’s a lot of stuff we were doing at home. Then, we went to Charlotte, Charlotte was slow, and Raleigh slammed. We were short staffed at Raleigh, and we could keep people busy in Charlotte, and we had people, you know Christian, moved to Charlotte to run that strong location. After 3 months, we figured out that hey, this isn’t working, let’s get the hell out. So we got out, took about 2 years or so off from Charlotte market. We figured out the stuff and went back into Charlotte, and we flat out blew it up. So, don’t expand too fast.

What is an expansion that’s too fast or when should you expand? You should expand when you’ve exhausted all your advertising sales and when you know as much as possible to grow your core business. Expand when you have exhausted all means of growing your core business. Another good benchmark would be growth under 20%. So that’s year over year growth. If you’re growing it from one year to the next is less than 20%, you could be a pretty good candidate for expansion if and only if you had exhausted all means of growing your core business. For example, if you’re not on Google AdWords, or you are not making sales calls to professional organizers or realtors, if you are not doing events for realtors, or if you are not calling home remodelers and stuff like that, if you’re not doing that type of things then you have not exhausted all of your resources. If you’re not doing camp, if you’ve gotten to the point where you are growing less than 20%, and you’ve got a pretty good business going, and you’re not doing AdWords or SEO, you need to contact company like Junk Removal Authority because that’s a huge Avenue that you are leaving untouched or unturned. Before you expand or if you don’t want to expand into an unknown market, which would be an additional service or a new city until you’ve perfected your current city. Until you’ve grown it as big as you can because your resources, you’ve already proven in your current market that your concept and Junk Removal Business works in your current market. You need to get as many people to know about your services as humanly as possible and then at that point, once you’ve done that and you’ve got growths under 20%, and you’re over a year, then it’s probably a good time to go and expand now. You could potentially do it before this, this is just a good benchmark. Those of you that have exhausted all means of growing your core business, this is for you mainly. Maybe if your growth rate is 30%, maybe you still expand, but if your growth rates under 20% and you’ve exhausted all means of running your core business, then you’re doing a disservice to yourself by not growing. You put your family and future in jeopardy by not growing, so that’s what this 20% is for right here.

Considering Geographical Location

If you’re going to do it geographically, you need at least 500,000 people preferably 1,000,000, and that’s it on your local metropolitan area. I have a good friend that is in a small market in South Carolina. His first year in operation, he did $150,000. On his 2nd year, in operation, he did about $250,000 or so. And his 3rd year of operation will be well over $400,000. He’s in a very small area, a small population area but he is able to do that well with his Junk Removal Business that heard because he knows the market so well and knows all the people. He’s getting out there, meeting his people he doesn’t know. You’re not going to be able to do that in a market or a different market, if you’re expanding geographically, you are not going to have knowledge of that local area. You’re also not going to have the ability to reach and really do well in this small market. It’s just going to be a lot harder so you won’t find a population of at least 500k prefers 1,000,000. I’d like to see some competition in a decent matter. Why is that? Because when there’s a competition that’s proven that there is demand for a Junk Removal Business of your particular market. If you’ve been working in a market and its 500,000 or 1,000,000 people and there are 1 or 2 Junk Removal Companies there, you might want to avoid that market. There’s probably a not huge demand for that type of service in your particular area. That’s something to look at, you know a lot of people say when there’s no competition they want to give that more to compete. Well, Junk Removal established enough now, no competition ‘s pretty much telling there’s more demand for the service in that particular market, so you will probably avoid it. I have it within driving or having close enough to visit twice a week. That’s unless you have a manager on we’re going to talk about this in bed, but that’s unless you have a manager that has some sort of skin in the game via ownership that investor over a period of time where he actually gets the ownership in that particular location or some sort of profit sharing. If you’ve got a manager like that and he’s really good, you’ve trained him, he’s doing this everything right like it’s everything it’s supposed to be. Then, this you know is going to do this, he’s doing a visit, and I leave in minimum once a month if it wants the thing up more you want to visit at least once a month for the most part until you’re just positive. Your managers just do an excellent job, and once he has some ownership interest in all as well, that’s a good benchmark as being within driving distance unless you get somebody really good. It’s tough to maintain steering standards geographically. It’s very hard to have your additional location run as well as your other locations that are going to bother you some. You’re going to think about that, you’re going to know that this is getting done quite precisely right and that’s going to kind of dig at you. If you’re expanding geographically, you need to be able to hire a manager, and I would suggest putting skin in the game for them, be it some sort of ownership that they earn over a period of time and give them 20% ownership yourself. Have them earn it over like three years, they get 7.5% in a year and then 7.5% the following year, then they get 5% the third year, so my dad had 20% ownership up to 3 years. They have some profit sharing that you work out, put some skin in the game, and they’re much more likely to do an excellent job for you. You still need to pay them about $50,000 in most markets in the US is a reasonable salary, for a Junk Removal general manager that’s working 6-7 days a week. With that, they need some for a profit share. As a matter of fact, we try and realize expanding geographically without a flaw, or a manager like that and it just didn’t work very well. We were not doing as good of a job in our other location. One of our location as we were in our main location. So, that’s the reason we’ve taken steps to put a manager in place and all that we take in a particular location where we were trying to manage it remotely, it wasn’t working out. So, if you’re going to expand geographically, you need the money and be able to accept some losses so you can pay a manager $50,000 a year plus a little profit sharing or some sort of ownership invested.

Monitoring Using Cameras

Use cameras. Some of you, if not all had heard when we talked about how we like cameras. We have them on all of our trucks with a live feed. You can’t be on every job, you can’t see your team members on what they do without the shop unless you have cameras. Once you have cameras, audio and visual, have to shine into the cab as well as in front towards the road and whatever so often. Even if you have a good manager, always use cameras and GPS trackers. Don’t remove yourself too much from a particular location that is a mistake we’ve made also. We had a previous manager, and I’ll throw the location and start doing things his way. It wasn’t Junk Doctors way, and then standards started to lapse a little bit, things were getting done like this should be, he wasn’t working as much as he was supposed to and might have doing a little hauling on the side with one of our company trucks without reporting it as income to us. He was scheduling some stuff on his own, and he tried to compete against us afterward it didn’t last very long but don’t remove yourself too much to get a manager in there. You still need to be booking the jobs, so I have a central call center for you that still books jobs for you. Always follow up with your customers and make sure they were happy with everything. You’ll be stopping in that location and doing performance evaluations with current team members getting with the managers because they are the ones that have been working with them but sitting or listening in on those meetings remotely. It is kind of getting a feel for the team members you have since you are not necessarily be doing all the hiring for those. When you get a good GM, do not micromanage, teach them what needs to be done, let them carry out the stuff you taught them and manage them if there are any problems. Manage them, they manage your people don’t try and undermine your GM and manage his people, there all your people. But the people you know, he is directly responsible for. Manage him and let him manage his importance.

One of the things about remote management is if you don’t have a good manager and you are trying to manage your location remotely, one thing you should do is every time you come in town, you are going to see stuff that’s wrong, and you’re only there for a few times. You have to address everything that’s wrong all at once, and chances are it’s been a period of time, these problems have been developed, have you or a good manager been there. They have immediately been fixed, but instead, you get into a location and see 4 or 5 things that are wrong, and you just start bitching and talking about things are getting done wrong to your team members. It’s only natural for team members that are getting paid an hourly wage it isn’t that much. They are not given a tremendous amount of responsibility that they’re getting let some stuff lapse if they’re not reminded about it if you were I talent. You’d have brought it up, and a little bit of big of the deal and they fixed it but what’s happening is since you weren’t there to manage them, to make sure if you see standards are being upheld or they let stuff slide. So that’s another issue in remote management. You need a good manager at an additional location if you can’t do that, I recommend not expanding. So, let’s go and clear this board off.

Expanding Business Through Additional Services

The other way of expanding is by adding additional services, and you still got to be careful with this. You want your additional services to be able to use your current resources, be a similar business, and be able to cross-sell. You do not want to do something that is fundamentally different, or it’s going to require a lot of new resources. Otherwise, you’re going to be stretched too thin, and it’s actually going to distract for your current business. We will talk about that when is the right time for you to start a completely different business, we’ll touch on that a bit, but for the most part, you’re looking to expand your current business, try and get into something that’s related. For example, moving, get you.

Junk Removal train changed or train on a properly loaded moving truck and packing stuff, that’s always an easy service to pair with Junk Removal. College hunks has done very well with it. College hunks franchises actually make more money and moving them a lot than they do in Junk Removal. So, if they easily cross-sold also if you do move, hey you got some Junk you need to get that Removed after Junk Removal. Hey, I see you’re preparing for a moved have you decided on a moving company. You’ll work at a discount if they use you in both services or whatever if you’d like that. It’s very easy, their services are easily cross-sold.

I would not do the cleaning. They are some Junk Removal companies that do cleaning well in parallel cleaning. I know in a market that we potentially or might have a JRA Business customer and one of their competitors is a company called Fire Dogs, and Fire Dogs is a good job. It appears you’re a good job or at least marketed well with their cleaning service and their Junk Removal Businesses. It looks like they pair well, they marketed well, and I’m good that their reviews on the cleaning side. We were researching and all at Junk Removal side doing an initial market analysis for this particular person, but a lot of companies have tried cleaning compare of a Junk Removal. The problem is the people are completely different. With Junk Removal and moving, you got a bunch of men but cleaning, you got a bunch of women. Managing women is fun in, and I’m going out and saying it might not be politically correct but managing women is fundamentally different in much, I wouldn’t say it’s much more difficult but just fundamentally different than managing a bunch of men. It’s completely the, it doesn’t cross-sell well with Junk Removal. Yes, it does, but generally, it’s an almost completely different type of business. There are some resources that you can combine like for call center or if you have somebody to answer m and booking jobs up, but other than that it’s a very different business. It requires a completely different vehicle, it requires a lot of extra money, supplies, very specialized training and a different type of person your normal Junk Removal guys not going to be able to clean whereas your normal Junk Removal guy would be able to move. What I would recommend if you would like to do all for cleaning it is good because it gives a good cross-sold. It’s finding a local cleaning company that you pair with, and you get a kickback. And for every job you send them on cleaning, you get paid x number of dollars and just work that out with them and doing the same thing with them is junk removal job they said, you get paid x number of dollars. That’s a good way to into cleaning business without actually getting in the cleaning business.

Consignment sales that’s a potential good pairing if you’ve already got a building where you are selling items. If you already have kind of like a sorting area, consignment sales could be a decent thing. I settled like a little bit of store almost or just let some stuff own on eBay, offer up Facebook Marketplace Craigslist that kind of stuff and get sold. They could open you up to taking some additional stuff, and you’re still charged with some Removal. You’re charged for removal, and then you would give them a split of the proceeds once the item is sold. So, you might be able to remove stuff that you otherwise would not able to remove so that will increase your sales remedy, item sales remedy, sales revenue as well as increasing your total revenue.

Some companies do you think about garage floor coatings, we looked into it. I will tell you, it’s much more difficult than it looks. It’s very labor intensive, takes a lot of time, I would shop away from garage floor coating, it’s also not as in demand as Junk Removal or certain cleaning or moving. Stick with stuff a little bit higher demand than garage floor coatings. It’s harder to cross-sell because it’s very specialized whereas a lot of times you realize that people all or most people need cleaning and moving. You know, you generally know somebody’s moving. It’s much easier to cross-sell some of those services.

Marketing Your Business Online

You need to cross-sell own your website, phone, and on the job. So, on your website, you should be clearly presented especially they’re booking online, would you also like to book a moving service or consign some of your items or whatever you want to do, it should be clear on there that you also offer one for services. You might have a different page for your moving business, in your Junk Removal businesses and you have a link in there. Interested in moving, click here and that links over to your moving page. You could do that, there are a few different ways about it. On the phone after everything is done and you’ve got the information down, you then ask the customer, Maria printing to book in a Junk Removal appointment today, would you be in need of our moving service or you have a move coming up, or do you have any items that you’re interested in selling on consignment. With a certain amount of threshold, I wouldn’t consign items under a certain amount of maybe a thousand dollars so or five hundred bucks in them. If you have items worth more of a $500 or anything you haven’t listed here, you might be interested in consigning. So always, I do that on the phone. Then train your guys and give some sort of incentive or kickback to sell the item on site as well. If they notice there’s a particular customer about to move say, “Hey, have you picked a moving company yet?” That’s one of the main advantages of having additional services is your ability to cross-sold, make sure you’re doing it right.

When should you start a business that is completely different from your current business is when you have 100% decided that further expansion either through related services or geographical expansion is completely out of the question. Once you’ve decided that, that’s a good point. With your business runs completely without you, so you go away for 2 – 3 weeks or a month or 2 and you come back, and everything still runs smoothly. That means you have a GM in place running the day-to-day operation and you’ve got some great supervisors underneath and people answering the phone, somebody that’s keeping over the books. Everything, literally every day of the operation is not dependent on you. SO that’s another thing that has to get done before you go about that. Also, when you are on your new service, you need to be able to hire a manager or for that new service or at least a very capable supervisor that can become a manager over time. You don’t want to start this new business and having the focus all of your attention on that business because you look like your other business even in your other business won’t rely on you. Day-to-day you still need to be making appearances, to be looking at the financials, to be monitoring receivables, to be talking to people getting inside your business and making the pulse of the organization is doing great, and everything is running smoothly. If you’re focused 100% on another business, and you know because you don’t have that manager running that new business, your whole business will suffer.

Again, I just want to remind everybody expansion is vital to your survival, your business, and your family. You’re dying, you’re either the quick or the dead, there’s no in between. So those of you that have been coasting, it’s time for you to quit coasting and start taking that speed you’ve got by building a good business so far. A team at speed like an airplane, with the airplane you turn speed in altitude. So, you got a good speed going, it’s time to bang the thing a lot and gains more altitude.

For those of you that have not made the Junk yet or started a Junk Removal Business packages is still on sale $50,000. Listen, that’s not $50,000 profit on us. We have a significant portion of that amount of money, it actually expenses to set up your business, so we cover legal fee, we cover pretty much everything to get your business up and running. Including inventory for your truck, office expense, cover pretty much every single expense there is except anything truck related or with your office space rent lease. There could be a little one off expenses here and there, but for the most part, that’s everything. We have well over $25,000 in expenses that you would otherwise have to pay that is covered in that 500k. So really, you’re just paying just a fraction of what really should be. To give our experience, training, that’s all covered, so that’s our direct expenses that includes none of our time is over 25k. So that package should be so much more expensive. You’re getting our knowledge for just peanuts, I mean you know not peanuts, but you know what I mean for just literally pennies on the dollar for the value that’s provided. Websites, basic sites on sale for 3 for $3,000 two full sites, a home sold for $5,000 and consulting still $150 an hour. Guys, those of you that are afraid to spend $150 an hour on great quality consulting, that’s going just to provide you with a tremendous amount of value, you’re not ready to be big yet. You’re not ready to be big. I’ve got mentorship that I pay well over that I’ve got people lined then that I’ve spent 5 times that per hour. If you get free advice, is it pretty much worth well you paid nothing for? It might be worth something a little bit more than nothing, but they aren’t going to be worth what I can provide you as far as Junk Removal Business, $150 an hour, we’ll talk about anything you want to talk about. I’ll make a suggestion and look at your business. I can go on to your website and look into your website and your market a bit. We’ll talk about it and what you’re doing, areas where I can see you improve. $150 of bargain guys, it an absolute bargain. I that $150 for an hour, I’ll bet you’ll gain several thousands of dollars worth of knowledge.

Do it’s a pleasure always bringing you an episode of Junk Removal Made Simple by the Junk Removal Authority, we’ll make another one for you next week. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, let us know how well we’re doing or how I’m full of shit but whatever, whatever you feel like, comment below. Let me know about it, hate my stuff, let me know about it I want to know. You can always call us +1 919-466-9322, visit us on the web, junkremovalauthority.com or email me at [email protected]. Have a great night everybody!