The Exchanges

Q you have not just amazing story around entrepreneurial success, but also you have a story around what it means to build something for a long time, stay committed to a long-term vision, and also be ruthless about fighting for doing something that you love doing, even when it's not easy. Not everyone knows your story. So can you just start by sharing how you got into the business of junk?

A Well, it started 34 years ago. I was in a McDonald's drive-through of all places. A beat-up old pickup truck was in front of me with plywood sides built up on the box, and it said Marks Hauling on the side. This truck was filled with junk, and I looked at that, and I'm like, that's my ticket. My ticket to start a business that would fund my way through college. I was one course short of graduation from college. All my friends talk their way, or Were registered for college. I had to talk my way into college, but my parents were not going to fund that education if I didn't finish high school. 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. And ironically, what funded my college education and got me started inspired me to drop out three years in. I had a year left in my Bachelor of Commerce, my business degree, and I just said, you know what? I'm learning much more by running a business more than I am studying in school, and I Sat my dad down. I said, I got some good news for you. He failed to see it as good news. And I said, I'm quitting school. Found my passion.

AI assessment note: “Well, it started 34 years ago. I was in a McDonald's drive-through”

Q It's amazing. So just to give listeners a sense of the trajectory over time, and then we'll work our way backwards to talk about moments throughout the history. Talk about what your business looks like today in terms of size, number of businesses, like what's the profile?

A Mm-hmm. So, one 800 got junk, the first baby in the family, so to speak, is about six hundred million in revenue. We added on, 22 years later, a painting business where we go and paint people's homes in a day. No disruption. And that's called Wow One Day Painting, and that's about a fifty million dollar business. We have another fifty-ish million dollar business called Shack Shine. Windows, gutters, power washing, and Christmas lights. Those three brands, very similar, but a very fragment, they're each in fragmented mom and pop type spaces. We have about 600 employees in the head office, about 250 franchise owners across Canada, the United States, and Australia, sold out with the one 800 got junk, still plenty of territory left, and wow, one day in shot shine.

AI assessment note: “one 800 got junk, the first baby in the family... is about six hundred million”

Q You just mentioned this idea of charging more, and I feel like you'll have a good story about this. How did you decide, uh, what to price one 800 got junk services at?

A Yeah, so I looked in the papers at the time, the classifieds to see what the competitors were charging, and I came up with sort of a middle rate fee of a 130 dollars a truckload for a pickup truckload. We ended up on the front page of our local newspaper, and there we were, the rubbish boys, a phone number, the whole bit, and it was unbelievable. We got a hundred phone calls in 24 hours, and it was so awesome to, to get to first experience that free press. The only thing I was upset about with that media hit, and it drove me nuts, is they got our pricing wrong. They said it's only a 138 dollars a load, so they were off by eight bucks. Which, for me, as an eighteen-year-old kid, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is awful. This is gonna destroy our business. And then I realized, well, no, everybody called. Everybody was still interested. So we kept the rates at 138 instead of making it a mistake. That was our new rate. Then we realized over time that to be positioned in the market as the best junk removal company in the world, which we then became, It was to price accordingly. The cheapest in the world of Walmart, big box retailers, it's the ones that are super hyper efficient, that can run a massive business with very, very tiny margins. In services, it doesn't work that way. The biggest and the best in every market, let's call it HVAC or window washing, doesn't matter, is usually gene…

AI assessment note: “I looked in the papers at the time, the classifieds to see what the competitors were charging”

Q role as CEO of Morning Brew in April of 2021, and, um, my co-founder Austin, who was the COO of the business took over at that point, I found that to be very difficult, um, because I, I found myself to feel insecure About not being good enough at certain things to continue doing those things. Did you ever feel those feelings, or how do you think through that transition?

A Yeah, I mean, getting vulnerable here, it, it is hard on the ego, right? So, as an entrepreneur who, me, built things to a hundred million dollars, and I had a COO in place that didn't work out, and I had to get that person out, my franchise partner said, Brian, you're, you're not, like, with all due respect, you got rid of this person, but you're not it either. You can't grow it, you can't scale it, and while I was looking to find this next person, Eric Church, who we found, Everybody kept telling me what a terrible job I was doing. And I just felt crushed and hurt. I'm like, nobody believes in one 800 got junk more than me. I bleed blue and green. I love this business. And everyone's like, yes, we know that, but you're not good at getting it to the next level. You've hit a ceiling and you can't do it. And they were right. So I had to accept it and it was hard. But once I accepted that someone can, can do it better, my role became as the leader to find that person who can do it better. Allow them to do it better. Get the hell out of my own way. And that's when things started to grow. Eric took the business from a hundred million to the combined family of the three brands doing seven hundred million. I couldn't, I couldn't have done that. We would have lost the business. We would have bankrupted it. I just, it's not me. And so that's been the gift in that sort of ego reset for …

AI assessment note: “it is hard on the ego... I had to accept it and it was hard”

Q What sort of structures have you created for yourself and your business so that you're effective with your time? Because clearly you figured something out that works.

A Yeah. So ADD is real, as you know, and I don't know to what level my ADD is other than off the charts. Like I, I mean, even like, I'm glad you're in a little box right now so I can stay focused on you, right? Like it's, it's hard. And so I've got these life hacks or whatever you want to call them that are systems, structures, you said, that allow me to stay focused, that kind of gamify my own life. So here's a couple of them. Number one is I'm a big believer in screen time. On my phone. So Apple's screen time. I set it up with all these limitations. I give my phone to my assistant and I say, can you enter your password? She has the password to my screen time. Not me. I can't make changes.

AI assessment note: “I give my phone to my assistant and I say, can you enter your password?”

Q and you won't do it for a long time. And I think you are the perfect person to talk to about this question because if people looked at you, they'd be like, This guy has been building a junk business for 34 years. There is no possible way he is passionate about junk. So what are you passionate about and how has that fire stayed lit for over three decades?

A It's an interesting question, Alex. So I am passionate about possibility. I don't know if it's in the frame, but there's a sign behind me from Walt Disney. It's a Walt Disney quote that says it's kind of fun to do the impossible. The more impossible something is, The harder I chase it to try and prove that it actually is possible. So the never ending challenge of building a business, And growing it to different cities, different countries, other brands. That's what keeps me fired up. Now it's interesting because I think most entrepreneurs and people in life think find your passion and commitment will follow. I actually write in my book WTF that I think it's the total opposite because from my experience, commit to something and the passion will follow. I've got a kid, uh, I've got three kids and my ten-year-old is into ski racing right now. Hardcore.

AI assessment note: “I am passionate about possibility... The never ending challenge of building a business”

Q skepticism of like, yeah, that's great. But like your, your company isn't your family. There's a big debate around is your company or family. People will say company is not your family and it's more like a team and you want the best athletes who can help you perform. So when, what do you say to people who hear, who feel skepticism around this idea of just hiring happy people?

A It works for us. I mean, who am I to say, yes, we have a track record of doing it. It doesn't mean it works for everybody, but here's a real life example. The early 2000, we had a CFO that we had hired all the experience in the world. One of the best CFOs you could ever find, at least in our city. Wrong fit. Wrong fit culturally, not a pleasant, smiley, optimistic person. Great at their job. Cared about people, but it was just, it was too prickly. It wasn't the right fit. And then years later, we learned we were better having someone greener, less experienced, who had the right culture and real deep care for their people and groom them, give them the runway to, to, to grow. And we've got the best CFO you can ever imagine today.

AI assessment note: “It works for us. I mean, who am I to say... here's a real life example”

Q This begs the question around, uh, just PR and earned media in general. I feel like it is such a, um, a hot topic because a lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, will say PR is a total waste of time and money for a long time in your business, but I'm interested to hear your perspective. Like, do you believe in PR and spending money on PR?

A So I don't know if I believe in spending money as much as I do spending time. So of course it costs money. We had six people in our PR department in the early days. So yes, that costs us money, but it was them picking up the phones and calling Oprah's and the likes to say, got a great story idea for you. We always have stories. And I think today more than ever, we live in the storytelling age. I mean, what makes Morning Brew so special? Stories. Stories about current events in the markets, what's going on in the world, what's going on in business. We want information, but we want entertainment, and I think PR is just getting out and telling your story in an outlet where things can spread. Um, it's, most people don't get it, and most entrepreneurs don't realize they actually have a story, but I have yet to meet an entrepreneur that doesn't have just a fascinating story when you start asking questions.

AI assessment note: “I don't know if I believe in spending money as much as I do spending time.”

Q it took, uh, I guess eight years to get to your first million in, um, annual revenue today. You do more than a million dollars in revenue per day. What were some of the most important decisions you made from a strategy perspective or from a process perspective that allowed you to grow to, you know, being a business that does well north of six hundred million dollars a year?

A It's a great question. So I think the, the first thing we figured out was clearly it's all about people. Find the right people. Treat them right. We then realized that if you find the right people and you take care of them, The people will take care of our customers. People often in businesses put the customer first and they say the customer is king and queen, the holy grail. No, your people are, in my opinion, take care of your people. They will take care of the customer. When you take care of the customer, the customer will take care of the growth of your brand, your profits, your opportunity, your reputation. So the way I looked at this, as I said, we got the people part, right? What about systems? You asked me earlier, you said we get to why franchising. I think the thing I love most about franchising, and I wanted to take Ray Kroc's McDonald's Brothers recipe of consistently executed with excellence on everything. It's just junk removal, it's just house painting, but if you have the step-by-step checklist of how people should do things, we inspect what we inspect, and we keep them delivering with excellence, systems make a difference. And so I want my brand to look, feel, and act the same in every city so that people know what to expect as a customer. So when people say like your team is just awesome, you can add whatever city, whatever franchise to that. And that's what I…

AI assessment note: “first thing we figured out was clearly it's all about people... What about systems?”

Q And what is that? What does that look like look like? Is that literally like, you know, digital, uh, is that digital files of all marketing materials? Is that Language you use with customers. Like, what does that actually look like in practice?

A Yes and yes. So we're big into scripting things to not have anyone sound robotic, but to know the framework within you, with how you play. Here's how we show up to the customer. Our sales center agents, when they're answering the phone, the customer can't see them, but we still teach them to smile because you can hear the smile. So it's how we train people. It's how we recruit people and it's how we operate the business. So again, we're not absent of innovation. But we err on the side of let's build momentum on what we know works really well. Let's do more of that. We're a PR centric business. Let's continue down the storytelling track. We're in a guerrilla marketing business. We park our trucks, all 2000 of them in high profile visible intersections for people to see. Let's do more of that. We're trying, we always try consciously not to be all things to all people. Let's pick what we're great at. And go do more of it. And, um, and it's worked for us. You know, it's business, as you know, is, uh, it can be a simple formula, a simple recipe to get it right. But the execution of getting the alignment of all those people over and over and over to do it the way that we want to do. So storytelling, you'd commented before we went live on my background and there's sort of a whistlerish, uh, mountain cabin scene with snow and, um, We've got storytelling in our office like you wouldn't …

AI assessment note: “Yes and yes. So we're big into scripting things to not have anyone sound robotic”

Q Yeah. I love that. For our listeners who aren't maybe familiar with the franchise model, can you just talk for a second about how that works? Like what you provide to a franchisee, what they have to provide to you? Like, what does that relationship look like?

A So someone gets first and foremost a brand. When we start a one-eight-hundred-got-junk franchise in Tulsa, or in New Jersey, or in Los Angeles, customers move. So when they move from one city to another, and they go, oh, this is the same company I used in Vancouver, and they're also in Toronto. That's useful to everybody. When you're building up customers, or you're getting free press, everybody benefits. Everyone in our system benefited from Oprah, from Ellen, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times. So it's the power of building a brand together. That's the most important thing they get. They then get this whole, you're not in business for yourself. Sorry, you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. So there's support. You built things with your partner from the ground up, and there were things where you're like, is this going to work? What are we going to do? I'm making a mistake. Are we going to survive? Whatever might have happened as entrepreneurs like us would do. In a franchise system, you get to be an entrepreneur, but with the support and guidance of others. Uh, one thing I talk about in my book is Shaquille O'Neal. I got to meet Shaquille O'Neal a few times recently, and we were- As big in person? Oh my gosh, huge. Seven foot two, and I'm just like some six foot little white guy, right? He's amazing, and, and the thing that I got super excited about Shaq on…

AI assessment note: “So someone gets first and foremost a brand.”