GOT-JUNK? trashes competition

Is that the end of the plan?

No, the last part of it is culture, and it’s really obsessing around building a fantastic culture so that your company is like a magnet and continues to attract people, employees and customers.

If entrepreneurs would care as much about as their employees as they do about their family dog, they would build a fantastic company. If you cared about your employee’s dreams, they would go through brick walls to build your company for you.

Where is the line? Entrepreneurs often have trouble getting that line between there being too much involvement with an employee and not enough?

I don’t believe there is a line. I don’t think there is a box. I think all of the rules of business have been blurred and changed now that you need to care about your employee’s lives if you expect them to work the time and the hours and put the energy into your business.

And I think that something resonates when you’re just open with people and you’re just yourself versus trying to have your game face on or your professional face on.

What’s changed because of recession? What are some fundamentals that are different?

A couple of things right now. And I really loved Warren Buffett’s quote a few weeks ago where he said never missed an opportunity like a good recession. And I completely believe that. There are so many opportunities right now that are sitting out there, but so many entrepreneurs and employees are so paralysed because of fear, because they are not doing anything other than checking their email.

Advertising is extraordinarily cheap right now. I have a client in Berlin that negotiated free advertising on television and all they’re doing is paying a percentage of the sales from any of the sales that are come from those TV ads from the TV station. I have people that are trading products for print advertising. All of the advertising right now is extraordinarily cheap because no one is buying it.

A lot of the small regional banks, and this is global, a lot of the small credit unions, global – no one is going in and asking for money. Because they are reading in the paper that banks aren’t lending.

Well banks aren’t lending to multi-nationals. Banks aren’t lending hundreds of millions of dollars. But if you need a few hundred thousand or a couple million to grow your business, the banks and credit unions are sitting there waiting to lend, but no one’s coming in talking to them.

There are great opportunities right now to hire fantastic employees, especially from your competitors. Hire your competitor’s best people.

Why? Because they are doing the wrong things?

Yeah, they’re sitting there working for somebody that is all down in the dumps and worried and stewing. If you’re building a great culture and you’re growing, they’d rather work with you. Ray Kroc, the guy who really grew McDonald’s from about four locations, Ray Kroc used to say that when your competition is drowning, stick a hose in their mouth. This is a perfect time to stick a hose in your competition’s mouth.

Personally for you, what was the hardest thing when you were growing 1-800-GOT-JUNK??

Well the hardest part for me personally was when the company hit about $100 million in revenue and we started to become a corporation and a big business, with 3100 employees system wide and we had 248 employees at our head office.

I was starting to get out of my zone. I’m really the zero-to-good guy. I’m the guy that can grow companies to that $100 million plus range so then they can go from good to great. But we needed a different leader. So that was probably the hardest part for me.

Did you have to be told that?

I knew it completely in my heart, and Brian who is the founder of the company, is my best friend. We met for breakfast one morning and talked about it and agreed that it was the perfect time for him to go out and bring the next person in, and it was the best time for me to go off and figure something else out for myself.

And they spent 13 months, went out and found the former president of Starbucks in the US to come on as my replacement. So she comes in and looks around and says what a cute little company.

And then what did you do?

I took three months off and played a lot of golf and tennis and hung out with my friends and family and lay in my hammock and listened to music and read books for fun, and thought about what I loved. And what I loved doing was helping entrepreneurs make their dreams happen. So I created a business so I could do that and still have my life.