Written by Fran Molloy
Rubbish is big business, as Canadian Brian Scudamore discovered when he founded 1-800-GOT-JUNK nearly 20 years ago. The private trash collection business is now a hugely successful franchise, with over 300 outlets across Canada, the USA, Australia and the UK (where it is branded 'GotJunk.com.)
Brian Scudamore was a 19-year old university student who decided to earn some cash in his summer break when he spotted a beat-up grubby rubbish removal truck with a handpainted sign in his hometown of Vancouver, Canada, in 1989.
Soon after, he bought an old truck for $750 and started up a rubbish removal business with a difference, concentrating on good service and a spotless image. In only a few weeks, he had paid off the truck, along with the business cards and fliers he had organised; and after three very successful summers, Brian realised he had a winner on his hands.
He had gone into the junk business – an industry with notorious Mafia connections, old-fashioned attitudes and a reputation for poor service - with a different mindset. "Our service isn't just about junk removal, it's about saving people time, and helping get things done," he explains.
These days, his multi-million dollar business aims to recycle 60 per cent of the rubbish it collects, donating much to charity; and the uniformed drivers clean up after the job is done.
Brian recalls that his father, a surgeon, was aghast when he dropped out of university at just 22 to become a junk man.
But within a year, he had grown his fledgling business from a few part-time student drivers to operating three fulltime trucks - and soon after, opened a call-centre to handle the growing volume of orders.
"By 1997 I thought I was ready to grow," Brian recalls. "I had six trucks in Vancouver and two in Victoria. I always had a mind-set of bigger, better, faster." Soon afterwards, he changed his business name from "The Rubbish Boys" to 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, to capitalise on an emerging trend in North America for phone-names (that is, phone numbers that spelled out a word.) By 1998, Brian was 28 and his company was already generating just under a million dollars a year in revenue. Sitting on the dock of his parent's waterfront cottage, he wrote out a vision for the future: a detailed description of where he wanted his business to be in five years.
Australia goes Junk
Paul Tomezak owns one of the four Australian franchises of 1800-GOT-JUNK and says that the business has grown very quickly here.
Paul operates in Sydney South, an area covering 550,000 people; the three other current franchises are in Sydney North, Brisbane and the Gold Coast and he says there are plans to open more, though he doesn't have details.
"We pick up anything and everything as long as it's non-toxic and non-hazardous," he says. "The advantage of getting us in rather than getting a skip, is that we do all the work. We pick up the junk, we sort it, we load it and we clean up at the end."
The company charges by volume. The minimum charge is $152, with a full truck-load costing $718.
He imagined that, by 2003, his business would operate in the top thirty metropolitan cities in Canada and the US.
"I didn't know how it would happen, I just knew that it would," he told attendees at a recent franchisee conference.
And it did: in the last week of 2003 – Brian opened an outlet in his thirtieth city.
He's not the first to use the power of vision to make your goals come true, but Brian used his clear picture of a vision for the company's future to drive its success.
He says that his team became so aligned with the vision that, though it seemed improbable that a one-city junk haulage business could become a North America-wide brand within just five years, they had a definite goal which they were driven to achieve.
His crystal-clear vision (or "painted picture" as he calls it) included some key predictions that he made sure would come true; 60 percent repeat business from his customers; an annual growth of ninety percent – and even a segment on 'Oprah.'
Since then, Brian has run regular sessions to teach his franchise partners the importance of "seeing the future." He says there are three keys to turn vision into reality. One: you must have a very clear "painted picture" of what your vision will look and feel like. Two: you must never, ever question your vision or your ability to get there. And three: you must publish your vision somewhere you will see it all the time, to remind yourself – and everyone that is a part of your team – about where you are headed. Brian had no experience in franchising but saw that it was a key for him to be able to meet his plans for rapid expansion – and opened his first franchise in 2000, in Portland in the USA.
By the end of 2001, he had sold eleven franchises in Canada and the US and his annual turnover had topped $4 million.
Brian sold his 100th Got-Junk franchise in 2004 and by 2005, had expanded to Australia, where the company is known as 1800-GOT-JUNK?.
These days, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? claims to be the world's largest junk removal service, sporting more than 340 franchises and an annual turnover estimated at US$130 million.
The trademark blue clown-wigs and shiny blue trucks are just part of the strong brand; the company has a solid focus on customer service, promoting its friendly drivers, who promise to call customers in advance, arrive on time and clean up after they have removed the rubbish.
The company also says that up to 60 percent of the goods they take are either recycled, or donated to charity. For many years, the company has topped surveys canvassing the most desirable employers in the workplace. Brian says that hiring great people and treating them well is a key to the company's success – and the company pursues a strong work/life balance for employees.
Some of the benefits include five weeks personal paid leave, full health and dental benefits, flexible working hours and a 25% profit share program. The Got Junk organisation has a big focus on internal communication, with employees in the head office holding a daily five-minute, stand-up meeting called 'Huddle,' where they tell each other about new achievements, frustrations with existing systems and make suggestions for improvements. The fast-paced huddle has been described as 'cult-like' by some critics; but it's just another way of reinforcing Brian's "Painted Picture" – the vision for the company's future.
In fact, employees are all encouraged to develop their own "Painted Picture" detailing 101 life dreams and tracking their progress toward achieving them.
Brian's staff are all Got-Junk evangelists, encouraged to promote the company in the outside world, recruit new staff, for the new Painted Picture goal is for global domination and many staff have developed a fervour not out of place in such a plan. Meanwhile the company's 200-plus corporate staff – and 1700-plus franchise employees – all form a key part of the company's marketing strategy.
Guerrilla marketing is core to the company's promotional plan, with Brian on record as stating that he won't spend money on large national ads. "Instead of using money for marketing, we use time and creativity." The company spends a measly 10% of revenue on marketing, a lot of which is used on a fleet of billboard trucks.
Television ads are small, quirky affairs aimed at local stations. This paid off big-time when a 30-second television ad broadcast on a local Vancouver station was emailed to employees and franchisees.
The ad was featured in the TBS 'World's Funniest Commercials,' capturing an audience that no amount of paid advertising could ever guarantee.
Meanwhile, Brian's various longterm goals include building 1800-GOTJUNK? To become a globally admired company with a presence in ten different countries by 2012. For most businesses, a plan so grand would be laughable but Brian Scudamore has already demonstrated that his power to create reality from a vision is almost supernatural – and eerily accurate.
