The Ledger, every show

“It was the day I fired my entire team. Now, literally, I didn't preserve one. There were 11 people in the company. I always say that one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, and I think I had nine out of 11 that were bad apples. Now, not bad human beings, but jus…”

“One day it will be bigger than one 800 got junk simply because the painting space is even that much larger than junk removal.”

“Now, by total contrast, the biggest show in the last year on daytime TV was Ellen, and it was crickets. It was absolute crickets.”

“We will finish this year at about three hundred and twelve million. We're almost done the year. We are as four combined brands, three hundred and sixty five million in revenue and on track to a billion.”

“We know that one 800 got junk on its own will get to a billion.”

“I know for sure. Wow. One day painting will one day be bigger than one, 800 got junk just because the market is bigger.”

“And so the time in 1994 or five years into the business, one of the stories in the book, I fired my entire company, 11 employees. One bad apple spoils a whole bunch. I had nine bad apples and I just said, I'm going to start again. Going from five trucks down t…”

“After 20 years of growth, we went from a hundred and nineteen million in revenue is what we'd hit at that peak at that time, and we dropped down to the eighties.”

“In 1994, I fired my staff of 11 because I had the, my entire company, because I had the wrong people.”

“One-eight-hundred-got-junk is a seven hundred million dollar business.”

“Yeah, my business, and this is unheard of, was profitable in two weeks.”

“And 14 months later, we did. I was sitting there on stage in Chicago, thirty-five million viewers watching us all at the same time.”

“So with being on Oprah, it was phones ringing off the hook. We could quadrupled our number of phone lines. We had 70 phone lines at the time. We literally brought in family, friends, parents to sit down and answer phones.”

“Eric took the business from a hundred million to the combined family of the three brands doing seven hundred million.”

“So our franchise partners for one, 800 got junk would target between 18 and 22% to their bottom line.”

“The three hundred and twelve million, that's across Canada, the United States and Australia. We are in every major Metro in all three countries.”

“Yeah, we say that someone to start a Shaq shine franchise needs a minimum, 25,000 in liquid capital.”

“So we take an eight percent royalty with Shaq shine, just like we do with one, 800 got jumps.”

“It's growing at 22% per year.”

“Shaq Shine is we're on the shine for nine. We call it trying to get to nine million this year, but it will also hit a tipping point probably next year where the momentum starts to kick in its favor.”

“Wow One Day is just scaring thirty million in revenue.”

“YouMoveMe is 20, almost twenty-two million.”

“He did a million dollars in revenue in his first full calendar year.”

“Yeah, so the Department of Transportation in Idaho owned this one 800 got junk phone number. They didn't know it spelt got junk, but they were using this phone number.”

“The story came out, hit the ground on a Thursday, and we ended up getting 506 phone calls from Thursday to Sunday.”

“We ended up doing 53 franchise deals that year, which was just unheard of in the franchise space, and things just started to hockey stick and completely explode.”

“We grew from together from two million to one hundred and six million in a very short period of time.”

“2015 last year was two hundred and fifty million.”

“Yeah, so when one 800 got junk, we're now over a million. In our smaller brands, we're, it depends on the brand, but Shaq shines new, and they're, the average owner there is, is more like 200,000 in revenue, but in a few years time, I'm sure that growth will b…”

“I get called all the time. I mean, we get private equity emails, I think on a daily basis.”

“We're building a billion dollars globally admired brand. And if I sell to someone, I lose control of that exciting vision and I give up too soon.”

“And so I went out and bought a truck. I started a company called The Rubbish Boys. It was a week after I got that idea, went on to the classifieds, found a truck, 700 bucks, boom, off I went.”

“You know what, I didn't have a co-founder, but I've got a guy, Cameron Harreld, who might have been on your podcast. Yes. He's our COO from two million to one hundred and six million, and the guy bled blue and green”

“Back in the early days, in the late nineties, we franchised as a student model, similar to College Pro Painters. We did a short summer model with One 800 Got Junk, We charged, ah, a royalty where it was so low that the franchise partners made a lot of money. W…”

“I failed many years throughout high school. I ultimately was one course short from finishing high school. So, 12th grade, didn't finish, didn't graduate”

“So, I went to one of the universities and said, I don't have my high school graduation. I'm smart enough. I can do this. I wrote them letters, and I spent time in the admissions office, and finally they said, okay, we're gonna let you in.”

“I had a thousand dollars of my own money, and I spent 700 dollars on a beat-up truck of my own, and it was this little blue Ford F-One hundred”

“Within two weeks, I'd made enough money that I'd paid for the business. I adjusted my prices quickly, I worked hard, and I made 1700 dollars in net profit. That summer.”

“I picked up the phone, and I called up the Vancouver Province, our biggest newspaper at the time, and it must have been a slow news day, because I said, I got a great story for you, and they said, what is it? And I told them, and they sent out a reporter, and …”

“So, you know, at this .1997, we actually had a million dollars in revenue, and I joined something called, ah, YEO, the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.”

“It took me actually eight years to get to a million in revenue.”

“Right now we have about 250 franchise partners across all brands.”