Lee Godbold is the co-founder of Junk Doctors Junk Removal and Hauling. The company started with a pickup truck and trailer and is now at 11 trucks, 3 locations, and $2 Million a year in revenue in year 6. In this video he tells you how you can start your very own junk removal company CHEAP. Just let Junk Doctors did... but only if you absolutely have too. Check us out at https://www.junkra.com Subscribe to this channel for all the best junk removal industry info Like and follow us on Facebook at Junk Removal Authority
Okay guys, welcome to another episode of Junk Removal Made Simple by the Junk Removal Authority. My name is Lee Godbold. Today we’re going to be talking about starting your business cheap. Now before we get to starting your business cheap – how to do it, if you should do it. I do want to mention that we have another business package, we have four more options for the business packages. We have one for $15,000, $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000. The $15,000 one is the absolute cheapest package you’re going to get. It is way too cheap, really, in order to get started in the Junk Removal Business. If you have some money saved up already, you don’t want to just struggle your way a couple years and learn stuff the hard way. You want to spend about $15,000 right up front to gain access to all the knowledge that we’ve got. We have a very basic entry level package. It includes nothing other than access to the operations manuals, six months of consulting, and then some assistance with getting everything started. There’s no CAM, AdWords management, or anything like that included, but it does include a Website. Right now, the Website is a $5,000 value that with a side of $10,000, so this $15,000 package will not last long. I’m trying to get everybody possible to get their business started right now. Now is the time to start. You can start on any Junk Removal Business at any time, but if you can catch this period right here, then you can get started. You can be open by maybe June, but definitely by July so you can catch July, August, September, October which are really busy months. Again, you can open anytime during the year with the Junk Removal Business, but if you open in a busy season, then that really sets you up to just kind get a good head start compared to when you start in December, January, or February. You do want to get started as soon as you can where the numbers are right, but if you can start in busy season then that’s great.
Before we get to talking about starting cheap, I want to make sure everybody understands our objective with this video. We work with people looking to do a Junk Removal Home Service Business. Our main objective is to make you, the business owner, successful or if you’re already successful, to make sure that this next step you’re doing if you’re treating this as an investment that you’re not going to lose money on this investment, that it’s going to be a small investment, that it will be something that really brings you a very large return. What I want to say is if you don’t have a whole lot of money saved up, and you’re looking to starting your Junk Removal Business – number one you’re doing the right thing, you’re watching these YouTube videos, you’re researching. Maybe you have been on junkremovalauthority.com where you read some of our blog post and that sort of information. You’ve taken the first step. The very first steps needs to be gather as much information as possible. When we started, we didn’t have access to all that information, but you do now. By doing that, you’re doing the first thing correctly. I want to tell you before we get into the nuts and bolts of how to start cheap, and how to do it is the best way to start cheap is DON’T. The reason I say don’t if you can help it, is because you’re in such a disadvantage when you start off cheap. You’re going to work longer. It’s going to take a much longer period of time to get to a certain level of success than when you can start with a bit of money.
If you currently have a job then save, wait for, at minimum, down payment on a truck plus $10,000. $10,000 will get you started and can get you your website and you can start doing your AdWords management like CAM or something like that. That is very minimal right there. Even then, it’s a little tight. If you’ve got a high paying job, or even a decent paying job, if you’re making $40,000, $50,000 a year plus, if you live very cheaply, you can save up enough money of about a year to where you could really approach this Junk Removal Business a lot better situation. The other thing you could do is borrow from friends and family, especially those of you with parents. Now my parents did not loan me anything when I started this business. I didn’t ask them, but they probably would have had I asked. Has there been a Lee Godbold that stood in front of this clipboard seven years ago and explain to me that you probably don’t if you want to ask or borrow money and save. That particular person, that Lee Godbold six or seven years ago, explained to me, young Lee, the reasons why, then I would have likely asked my friends and family to borrow money. I still lived with my parents so I could do whatever I can to scrape up that money. I just went ahead and started, and it took us a few years to figure everything out. The competition and decline were a lot different back then as far as advertising was much cheaper, AdWords was like $3 a click. It’s well over that now for three times that plus now depending on your market. It was much easier back then to get going. Don’t, unless you have to.
Once you start your Junk Removal Business, don’t quit your current job. Again, everybody here at Junk Removal Authority wants to see you be successful. We want to get you from point A to Point B. Point A being where you currently are, point B being success. Whatever you define as success, we want to get you there. It doesn’t matter what vehicle picks you up to take you there. We just want to get you to that point B, and not quitting your current job is one of the best things you can do to make yourself a success. Customers love after hours, so those of you working a regular job, schedule your work on the weekends, schedule your work after 5:00, after you get off your job or something. After you get off, do as much work you can on Saturday, if possible Sunday depending on your area. If you have a decent paying job – $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 plus, I would keep working that job and train others to learn your business, or to run a truck anyway. Do not give up your sure thing, you’re already established. Don’t give up your already established income to quit and go make $20,000 or $30,000 on your Junk Removal Business. You can continue working your current job, you can train somebody else, pay them $15, $16, or $17 an hour, and have them be capable of keeping up with the jobs, doing a good job for customers, getting your review request out, getting your business cards sent your, and get some paperwork down at the end of the day. You come in first thing in the morning before you come in to work, and then at the end of the day you can come by and make sure they wrapped everything up on the truck. You have to hustle guys. I’m trying to get you from point A to Point B. Right here on the start you got to hustle, and you don’t want to give up the income you already have. You don’t want to take a pay cut, because it’s going to prolong your period of success for your Junk Removal Business. I would continue doing this job, until you at least come to your maximum salary. Even then, those of you making $100,000, $150,000 probably should get that income going. Again, everybody, even myself, here at Junk Removal Authority, our main goal is to get you successful, and get you from that point A to Point B. We don’t care what vehicle it’s in, we are just trying to make sure you’re successful. You can prolong that tremendously by quitting your current job too soon.
I know that a lot of you all think that this might not be an option, so you might have to start cheap. Some of you might be making $7, $8, $10 an hour maybe $12 an hour now, and maybe not get full time hours, maybe you’re in you’re in school, and you’re just determined to go out on your own. That’s not necessarily bad move depending on your time and your situation. So how are you going to make this work? How are you going to start a Junk Removal Business, and grow it to where it could be successful, make it work and yourself be a success. Number one is you’re going to have to live very cheap. This is going to be your sole source of income. You have to live super cheap. You get a roommate, if you got a girlfriend your girlfriend need to be paying some rent, you need to be splitting rent, and you just have to eat very cheap. You could maybe live off of Craigslist and you will get some good cash money where you can spend it all, and live a decent life or whatever, but you’re not going to grow a business. What I’m trying to do, again, is try to get you from point A where you currently are, to point B which is successful. A lot of your extra money leftover has to be reinvested in your business if you’re going to grow. If you’re going to start you have to be prepared to eat cheap, and live cheap. You’re going to need to tell your girlfriend for at least the next year to two years that there’s no steakhouses. Maybe we have a roommate, so maybe it’s me and you, and if even if you’re married, you may have another roommate to help split those calls to make this work and build a decent business. Tell your girlfriend it’s going to be ‘Netflix and chill’ for the next year or two years.
Your truck needs to be your daily driver. There’s no reason be have multiple vehicles here, so truck is your daily driver, and you make sure you have your logos on it’s that people can see it around town, and hopefully get some more business from that. Everything you do going to have to hustle it. You’re going to be on the dump truck doing jobs, you’re going to be grabbing coals, you’re going to be hustling when you’re off. You need to be out there stopping in at realtors’ offices, call them professionally, organize or set up meetings, going in Chamber of Commerce meetings, and participate in the Chamber of Commerce as well – ribbon-cutting ceremonies, all that sort of deal. You have to be setting and doing jobs all the time. If your girlfriend wants to spend time with you, she needs to hop in the truck. She can either help you with the job and be your second person helping in the job where she rides in the middle, and that’s where she spends time with you. Me and my wife, when first got started, she, a lot of times, would get in the truck just to spend time with me. When you first get going, every single focus of your life needs to be on your business when you first get it started. You do need to focus on your physical body, you do need to focus on your relationship, you need to focus on spirituality, but your business has to be priority one. Everything else works around your business. All the time, even right now, everything in my life works around my business. I make sure I take care of my wife, I make sure that I can work out every day, and I make sure that I practice my spirituality. Everything revolves around the business. The business takes priority. I adjust the rest of my schedule. I make sure I work on all four of those things, but I adjust the rest of my schedule around the business. You have to be prepared to do that if you want to make this successful.
I’m not talking about just going out there and just collecting junk; that’s a job. People out there that are one their truck all the time, and it’s a one, two, or three-man operation, they have a job. No matter what they tell you, they do not have a business. I want to get you to where you have a business that’s something you can sell, something you could retire on, or something you can give to your kids. A bonafide business where you can leave town, and you’re not a slave to, and the business continues to run. If you roll with me, then I’m going to get you to at that point, but if you abandon it because the work gets too hard, or you have a couple of negative things happen and you just can’t handle it, that’s all on you. If you all roll with me, if you listen to me, you work with me, I will get you from point A to that successful point B; be it Junk Removal or something else. Don’t just focus in on one thing, we are going to get you on a lot of different areas to get you successful. I’m talking Junk Removal right now, but I know how to be successful at a lot of different areas. I get that way from one way or the other.
Your cheap truck – you won’t be going out to get some super fancy truck. Get a cheap truck with a 6×12 trailer. If you can get a deal on a dump truck, maybe do that. If you can borrow one from somebody, maybe do that, but overall, a cheap truck and a 6×12 trailer is $5,000. That’s about your budget. When we started, we had a $4,000 pickup truck, I had a $1,200 trailer that I bought new. $5,200, that combination right there made us over a $150,000 between our first and second year of operation. Somewhere in there we blended in and got a dump truck, but about $150,000 is what that one truck made. I might have some issues with a little maintenance problem. This is going to be a higher mileage truck with 130,000, 140,000, or 150,000 miles, get single axle trailer, and you just get going. If you want to start cheap, that’s what you have to do. On that trailer you want to have three to five-foot sides, and you want to use one of your regular tarps, tarps and ratchet straps. You just get rolling guys, that’s what you do. Don’t tell me you just got a pickup truck and trailer either. We do a lot of advertising, we got a lot of business people thinking they were calling a company similar to Got Junk. If you working Craigslist it’s not that important, but once you get on Google AdWords and you roll in this combination, then just don’t let on that you have a smaller truck. You play the part of a locally owned, yet still as professional Junk Removal Company. When you roll up, some people will be like “Man that’s such a big truck.” Little do they know, you can get almost as much stuff in a 6×12 trailer with 5-foot sides are you can with a dump truck; even 3-foot sides if you’re creative and get some ratchet straps running over everywhere. We did stuff back then that scares the hell out of me now. I would be nervous as hell if we rolled around like we did. Our first trailer had like six-inch sides that was made to hold an ATV and we stacked stuff four-foot-high in that thing. 4 or 5-foot-high stacks with straps everywhere. It was a ghetto operation when we first got going, but we made it work. When you start cheap that’s what you have to do, you just have to make it work. The nice thing is I’m on here telling you what needs to be done. There’s no information at all when we first started. So that’s your trucks should be set up.
You do need some sort of basic Website. Do yourself, unless you know somebody that can do a Website, you can get them to do it if you don’t know how. You can get a basic Website at wix.com. Get yourself a cheap logo. Again, you shouldn’t be paying more than about $90 for this logo, potentially even free. Put your face on the side and tell your story. Why are you in business for yourself, what’s your background. Appeal the people that want to know the business owner, I know there are some people out there. A very basic site that you want, make sure people know you’re the owner and you own the truck, and you’ll get a lot of people want to actually deal with the owner of the business. Add your site to Google Places. Get your site to Google Place and start getting reviews – gather reviews. That right there is how we are going to get going on the Web. Yard Signs – you need yard signs. Go to kustomprintz.com. It’s the cheapest yard sales you’re going to find; and they have good print material as well. After that, just bang out all the free and cheap advertising you can get like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, you can stop in at yard sales, get a list of all the art sales going on. Start hitting up these yard sales as they go on and say “Hey you got stuff left over you want to get rid of? Give us a call.”
Free/Cheap Advertising – you’re not doing AdWords at this point, guys, you don’t have the money for it. You have to work to get that money, that’s going to make you different from everybody that stays on the truck for 3, 4, 5, or 10 years. There’s people that’s been doing this business a lot longer than I have and still are on the truck. I did a job today. We just picked up a water heater, moved it from one McDonalds to a storage unit for a customer, and that’s probably the first job I’ve done in 6 months. That was just me – me and my pickup truck just ran by and picked up this water heater and dropped it off. People have been in business a lot longer than I have, but the thing is when they got to the point where they were making money, they didn’t reinvest in their business. It takes a very unselfish person, and it takes a person a very long-term vision to make a business successful when you’re starting cheap. Your free/cheap advertising, again – Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, nextdoor.com., if anybody is asking about hauling services tell them you can do it, and then Yard Sales. In Yard Sales, you have to hustle. This would be on a Saturday or Sunday. When you’re slow or in between jobs, you find a list of some Yard Sales, you can stop on them and say “Hey, you got anything left over at the end of the day? I’ll take it.” The kind of nice stuff about this is occasionally you’ll get stuff you can resell, and other times you get paid. Yard Sales and Craigslist are not going to be a high profit, expensive job. These people are generally going to be cheaper. On Craigslist not always, but most of the time. These are going to be a little bit cheaper, but again you’re starting cheap, your expenses are cheap, and you can make money by being cheap. Then also, make you to just bang on social media, and on your personal social media page. Guys, when you get going on business, your life is your business. Don’t separate the two, a lot of people make that mistake. You need to make a business Facebook page, but you also need to be posting regularly on your personal Facebook page. Then, what you definitely need to is to let your friends and family. Pick up the phone, call your friends and family, let them know what you’re doing. Tell them that referrals are greatly appreciated. Again, guys, your business is your life, so treat it like it, otherwise you will not become successful, and you’ll just go back to working for somebody else.
I mentioned before – Sell, Baby, Sell. We you don’t have jobs, that’s when you become successful. You don’t become successful when you have jobs. Your success is determined by what you do on your slow days, your off time, off days, whatever. You need to Sell, Baby, Sell. Napo.com – they’ve got a directory of all professional organizers in your area, and you bang everyone out. You pick up the phone, call them up, tell them that you want to schedule a meeting, tell them that your two businesses are similar, and that you’d love to be able to help them out and get to them the same day, you can donate stuff for them, you can do whatever you need to do. You’ll take care of them. You make it your personal mission to take care of professional organizers and their customers. Drop off stuff at realtors’ offices, again Chamber of Commerce meetings, get your name out there, get known. You’re not going to become successful until you get known. Home Shows – stop at Home Shows, talk to home remodelers, introduce yourself, get your name out there, and get exposure. You don’t need to advertise these home shows, you actually just go visit them and you meet the business owners. A lot of people don’t realize that that’s been pretty good for us in the past. This kind of gets you rolling to what to you need to continue to grow. To get the business, to make money, to keep the trucks rolling.
You need to answer the phone all the time, no exceptions. If you miss a call – I prefer you don’t, just have it forwarded to somebody, be it Junk Removal Authority call center or whatever – have your voicemail set up. Again, have your voicemail set up and empty. I do these cold calls on Junk Removal Business, and it amazes me how these people who have business that 60% of the time they don’t answer phone calls. It’s ridiculous. If you’re in business for yourself, pick up the phone. The other thing is when you call, and it does go to voicemail, the voicemail will be full or it’s not set up. Get out of business, quit screwing around and taking business from serious Junk Removal Companies if you can’t get your voicemail set up, and if you can’t pick your phone up. I’m very passionate about that, because it’s so simple. One of the keys to our success has been the fact that we’ve done everything to answer the phone. If I’m having sex with my wife, or my girlfriend back then, I get my phone set up on the bedside table. I’ve got myself a glass of water sitting right here, and if something happens right there, i’ll pick that phone up and I’ll answer it. I’ll take a swig of water first, you don’t want to be out of breath when you answer the phone, I kind of compose myself, I pick up that phone, I answer it, I book that job, and then I go back to doing what I was doing before. If you’re in the shower, get a waterproof phone, and then you pick up the phone right in the middle of a shower. If you’re out fishing, or hunting, make sure you have a cell signal. If the way you’re conducting your business is without a backup to throw it to, your life revolves around a telephone. On the other end of that telephone is success, on the other end is point B, and if you can’t answer that phone, you have no business being in business and taking away stuff from people that are actually prioritizing their life right and making sure they are going to be successful. You’re just slowing them down, if you’re slowing them down, then you’re doing a disservice to the entire community. Get out of business if you can’t answer your phone. You will get out of business involuntarily if you don’t answer your phone. There is no excuse for it whatsoever. You have to be willing to answer your phone before you go into business.
When you start getting a little bit of money, don’t spend it on nonsense. You need to save to invest. Your battle cry is save to invest when you first get going. Not invest in real estate, stocks, or any of that other stuff to invest in your business. We’re trying to get you to point B, guys. Don’t be satisfied with where you are currently at. You’re nothing where you’re currently at, and I talk to myself the same exact way. I know where I want to be, because when you reach point B, you set points C, D, E, and once you go to Z, you just figure out something else you would call it. You invent a letter of the alphabet or whatever. Never be satisfied once you reach your goal. Where I’m at right now, that isn’t where I want to be. It’s piddling where I’m at right now. I’m working to get something that is made a huge major success, but until I get to that point, I call it piddling, and I will set another objective. For those of you right here, I’m calling you out. If you watch this video, and think you get a good business going, then that’s just piddly stuff. I’m trying to get you at that point to change your mindset to where you want to strive to get something greater or something better. You first goal should be $5,000 saved for a Junk Removal Authority site. I’m going to plug my services in here, this is what you need. That’s the reason we started Junk Removal Authority, it’s what you need. We built up Junk Doctors, $2,000,000 a year by year five. I’m plugging the hell out of my services because, I, 100% with every ounce of being in my body, believe that Junk Removal Authority is going to bring you to the Promised Land. It’s going to move you the line, it’s going to put you to point B. $5,000 for a Junk Removal Authority site, that price could come up at any moment, but as of now it is at $5,000. You need to save another $5,000 and start CAM – Customer Acquisition Management. That is going to get you going on AdWords, and that’s going to start working on SEO in your site. Then, you’re going to need another $5,000 to $10,000 for another truck, a dump truck. That’s going to be a down payment. The pickup truck trailer right now is very temporary. You keep that truck though, because you can still run that truck when you first keep going, but you’ll find that dump truck that you want to get away from that pickup truck and trailer, because you can do so many more jobs with the dump truck so much easier and with less wear and tear.
Consulting calls as needed. Again, I am plugging our services, however $150 an hour to talk to me is a good bargain. Whatever you bring to me, I’m going to make it my number one priority, that particular moment, to make sure that that $150 per hour you spend with me turns into $1,500, $10,000, or $1,000,000 eventually. Well a billion dollars eventually. A hundred fifty out of the bill will be how many hours I wanted to be. That $150 per hour you spend with me, I want that to be $1,000,000 for you. I believe it will happen, and I’m going to do everything I can to get you to that point. I’m accepting calls, love helping people on it. I’ll talk for free for a little while for about 10-15 minutes, we can cover a few things. If we want to go a little more in depth, then we’ll set up a consulting call. This right here guys, saving to invest is going to be big. That right there is going to allow to you to become successful.
A lot of this is mindset, it’s prioritizing what you need to spend money on. There’s no hard and fast rule on it. You just got to figure that out. Some of that stuff you can figure out on your own, but always you want to reach as many people as possible, and you want to have the equipment and the personnel to accomplish all jobs possible for you to get. Your mindset need to be grow, grow, grow for at least the first three years. Even after that, you start to realize more of your profits. Hire before you need people, add trucks before you need them, same day service, and set it up so it runs without you – that right there, guys, that’s some of the keys to growth. Again, you want to get point B. Your entire mindset to be on growth, and it’s going to be tough, because you see yourself making all this money, yet it’s all going back out. Minimum out, live in cheap. We did that for seven years, we went very cheap for seven years so we can reinvest in growth. After that, we got a new truck, my wife got a new vehicle, we get Christian a new truck, we bought an airplane – I get two airplanes now. One is used for business, one’s for fun. Hit it hard for several years, then you can go out some of the stuff that you’ve been holding back; boats, motorcycles, airplanes, big house, whatever you want. You can achieve that level of success. I’m not saying it’s smart to go out and do it, but if you build a Junk Removal Business to where it can run without you, where the growth is of mind, where you’re willing to invest in advertising, vehicles, trucks, people, then you’re really going to be able to achieve more success than you probably ever dreamed of, or success that your parents likely ever had. You may have more success and money than people in your school may have achieved, or close to that amount. You really have that potential. Junk Removal is a great vehicle, you just have to take the steps to achieve that level of success. The nice thing is you can roll with somebody that’s already done it with us here in Junk Removal Authority. Just pick up a phone and call 919-466-9322.
Guys, always leverage your resources, so as you grow, you can leverage some of the resources we have. We head to hire somebody to handle calls, but we can do that for you. Junk Removal Authority call center can answer calls. We are not doing this yet, but soon we will be offering bookkeeping services. Again, specific to Junk Removal. We’ve got the consulting calls, all that sort of stuff. You have access to so much information with us. I know all of you can’t do this right from the start, but I’m telling you that this call center is going to free up time in your life. The Junk Removal Authority call center is $250 a month, access fee is $20 per book job. Once you’re able to roll with that, it’s much cheaper than hiring somebody until you hit the point where you have a tremendous number of jobs. Leverage your resources, guys. We’re here for you, we’re here to make it cheaper on you, and to assist you with gaining knowledge, and help manage services for you, take some of the workload off of you. We can do it really well. We hire people that focus on just certain areas of the business, and that will really allow you to excel. Another note is you might want to get a part time job when you first start going. Uber, landscaping, delivering new items, or whatever you have to do to get your income. Your primary goal should be to increase income. What you don’t want to happen is start something to increase your income, and your previous source of income suffers. If you’re not careful with when you start this Junk Removal Business, your primary income will suffer. Whatever you’re doing, you find a way to make it prior, so you don’t lose that primary income. If you take a dip in your primary income, it’s going to hurt your chances of success. What are we in Junk Removal Authority for? To make you successful. Not just creating a Junk Removal Business, but actually get you successful; or if you are already successful, to make this investment become very successful.
I appreciate everybody for watching this video. For some of you out there that I kind of called out, hopefully I did not upset you too much, but you probably needed it. Some of you need to hear tough talk. Comment below if you disagree with what I say. It’s always a pleasure to bring this to you. I love sharing knowledge, I love seeing people putting it out into the marketplace and become successful with it. I appreciative everybody. We always do daily episodes of trash talk on YouTube. We’ll post a bunch of other videos, and thoughts as they come up. Every Tuesday, Junk Removal Made Simple episode goes. Go have a great week, let’s make a bunch of money this week. Let’s grow, grow, grow, and sell, sell, sell.