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Welcome to Episode 2 of the Waste Warriors podcast, presented by JRA 360. Join us as host Lee Godbold sits down with Christian Fowler, a key partner in their 13-year journey from starting a humble junk removal business to managing three metro locations and achieving multi-million dollar success. In this episode, they discuss their unique beginnings, business challenges, partnership dynamics, people management, and Christian's disciplined approach to health and real estate investing. Tune in for insights, business tips, and some fun stories from their early days!
00:00 Introduction to Waste Warriors Podcast
01:35 Meet Christian Fowler: The Cornerstone of Our Journey
01:48 The Humble Beginnings: From Pickup Truck to 12 Trucks
03:28 Early Challenges and Unique Partnership
08:15 The First Jobs and Growing Pains
16:30 Scaling Up: From One Truck to Multiple Locations
18:15 Managing Multiple Locations and Ensuring Quality
21:38 Hiring the Right People and Retaining Talent
27:55 Dealing with Employee Issues and Theft
31:42 Memorable Jobs: Cool Finds and Gross Encounters
34:28 Building a Business with the Panthers
36:29 Real Estate Ventures: From Single Family to Multifamily
37:30 Navigating the Real Estate Market
41:28 The Importance of Discipline in Business
45:37 Starting a Junk Removal Business: Overcoming Doubts
51:12 Keys to Success in Junk Removal
56:37 Balancing Health and Business
59:58 Rapid Fire Business Insights
01:06:48 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Creators and Guests
What is The Waste Warriors?
Step into the trenches with The Waste Warriors Podcast, the ultimate resource for waste industry pros determined to build 7- and 8-figure empires. Whether you’re in dumpster rentals, junk removal, front-load services, or curbside pickup, this monthly podcast delivers battle-tested strategies to scale your business. Each episode features raw insights from industry leaders, reviews of game-changing equipment and tech, and proven tactics to crush the competition. If you're ready to dominate the waste industry, this podcast is your ultimate playbook.
002 Waste Warriors
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Lee Godbold: welcome everybody to episode two of the Waste Warriors podcast. This episode, as all of them are brought to you by JRA 360. That is the marketing agency for million dollar plus junk removal and dumpster rental business owners and those that would like to get there.
So, today is a really neat episode. This is a guy I've known for a long time. We've done a ton of stuff together, had had a lot of fun, done a lot of stuff in business stuff, been through a lot of challenges, overcome a lot of challenges. We've got kind of big plans for the future and don't see anybody better to have on episode number two than him, and that's gonna be Christian Fowler.
Christian is a true cornerstone of our journey. He was, has been with me since the very beginning from when I started with a beat up pickup truck and trailer, or we, well initially it was me with a beat up pickup truck and trailer. And we're gonna talk about [00:02:00] how we met and how he came on board within the first few months.
And this trailer was, about three foot sides. Actually, that time it was even smaller than that. It was six foot wide, 12 foot long. It had about a foot and a half sides. So we would take about 20 ratchet straps, remember that, and we'd run those straps. All across that trailer to kinda hold everything down.
It was probably one of the most ghetto operations there was. And we've grown that into we run about 12 trucks now. We bought 19. We run 12 of 'em pretty consistently amongst three different locations. So over the years, he's not only been a steadfast partner with junk doctors, he's also co-founded JRA.
He's consulted with over 100 business owners and he's helped probably a dozen or more reach seven figure success today. He's the man running those three metro locations for junk doctors. He also is own all the demolition work we do, which brings in a few hundred thousand dollars a year. And he's doing all this while being an amazing dad to his two kids.
And if that wasn't impressive [00:03:00] enough, Christian is also deeply get dedicated to his health. He's big on the fitness side of things. He eats well, finds time to work out Amidst all the hustle and the hard work, he still makes time for that. Wanna dive into that? 'cause that's important. His discipline, day in and day out approach is the secret behind our growth and the foundation for his success in every area.
And one thing we're gonna get into is he is big into real estate investing too. So welcome Christian. Thank you. Happy to be here. So let's just kind of back this thing up all the way to the beginning, kind of when all this started because you know, we've been business partners for 13 years now, going on 14 years, and it was not probably, it really wasn't, the, the, maybe the typical start.
I don't know if there's ever a typical start of a partnership or whatever like that, but I wouldn't, we weren't friends really at the very beginning, but we kind of became friends and we [00:04:00] hung out with similar friends and then became business partners. So the, our first kind of unique, our first meeting was a bit unique.
Do you remember, remember much about that slightly? Tell me a little bit about what
Christian Fowler: you remember on that. So. It was probably towards the end of high school or just outside of high school for me. Um, you know, hanging out with a, a mutual friend we had, and I called him up one night and I said, you know, hey, what are you, what are you doing tonight?
He said, well, I'm going over to my buddy's house. His name's Lee. You know, we're just gonna hang out in the garage and drink some beers and, you know, just have a good time. So I, I'd never met you before, obviously. And we went over there and, um, listened to some music and just hung out in the garage, played a little poker, you know, drank some beer and whatnot.
And, I think he had a few too many And ended up passing out under your race car at the time.
Lee Godbold: This guy's name was Charlie. And, Charlie, I remember if he drank [00:05:00] one beer, he was gonna drink like 16.
Um, and anyway, he did, he he, he, he passed out and he fell asleep on it was a creeper, which were like the things you lay on and kind of get up underneath cars and that sort of stuff. And by the way, at that time I was actually living in a garage. It was, well it was a garage and then up top there was like a studio apartment that I was actually staying in.
So we would hang out in the actual garage and people would come over, like you said, we would play poker and that sort of deal. Well, Charlie passed out here and then we made it a challenge to try and figure out how we could wake him up.
Christian Fowler: And it was a challenge.
Lee Godbold: Yeah, it and it was, I mean, I remember we were, seems like we banged trash can lids in his ear and picked his arm up and slapped himself in the face with it or something like that.
Put his hand in a glass, a warm glass of water. They did all kinds of stuff. So anyway, we gotta looking around. We we're gonna find a way to get this guy out. We were just determined and looked over and saw that race car. And he was on the creeper and the race car was already jacked up. And this was, I.
A, a [00:06:00] NASCAR style race car. So that's what I was racing at the time. There's absolutely no muffler or anything. It's completely unrestricted exhaust. You know, you've got that particular one's probably about 550 horsepower or something. So it was, it was super loud. And this was also like 2:00 AM so I'm sure our, my neighbors really appreciated this, but we we rolled Charlie completely under that race car, and I hopped up into the car and we cranked that thing up and it was just bam.
I mean, when it cranked, cranked up, it sounded like an explosion. Yeah. . And I remember Charlie jumped up and his head just cracked the, the the side of the race car. And I lucky it didn't split it wide open, wide open. He had this big cr scratch on there. Anyway, he gets up and he's confused and he's just pissed off.
And I, I remember, and this, this, this is, I, I remember, you know. I don't know if he necessarily got heated or not, but he was, he was definitely very irritated. I remember picking up another beer and handed it to him and his, his expression just completely changed [00:07:00] and he was a happy camper and I think he passed back out.
But the neat thing was, at that point, it was one once that happened and, and he passed back out. Then you and I, we sat down and we started talking and at that point, I don't think we'd even discussed what I was doing. And junk removal was very new at that point. So I was, at the time I was working at Jellybean Skating rink.
Remember that? I sure do. So I was working at Jellybean Skating Rink in Cary, North Carolina and, um, you were, I think you'd already started Wake Tech. I'm trying to, I think I was still going to Wake Tech at that period, at that point, if I remember. And I just started doing the, doing the junk removal for maybe about two months.
I remember we just sat down and started talking about it, and then from there you're like, Hey, you know, if you need some help, lemme know.
Christian Fowler: Used to come to jolly Beans with you and, you know, we'd discuss things going on. Um, I actually went to high school with your wife, I believe, and she was a couple years younger than me, but yeah, that's, that's kind of how we met.
Kind of unconventional, but you know, it, it [00:08:00] turned out to be a, a great partnership.
Lee Godbold: What do you remember when we first got started? Like, what was our typical, typical day like? I mean, I don't know if you remember Yeah. You, maybe you remember the very first job you went on. Probably don't, but maybe you do.
Like, I mean, how did that first start?
Christian Fowler: you would call me and you say, Hey, I need help, you know, this afternoon or tomorrow morning. It wasn't like a, it wasn't really a, a business at that point. No. Um, it was kind of like a, a Craigslist thing, you know, a couple other marketing efforts that you were doing, but it wasn't a real business.
Um, you know, I remember I would meet you at the landfill before school i'd. I'd park my car at the landfill, hop in the truck, we'd drive into the landfill, I'd help you unload. And then, you know, I'd go to my classes and then after class meet you back at a job. Um, but one job in particular that I remember was, it was a, for some sort of construction company doing a house.
And we probably got there at five 30 or six o'clock in the afternoon. [00:09:00] Um, and it was just construction, debris, trash, all over this property. Mm-hmm . All over the property. And, I mean, it was, it was over a full trailer load and, and I'm talking little pieces of all kinds of stuff that you can think of.
It was, it was not, not a fun job. Not a fun job. We were there for hours into the dark. I. Um, we probably there till nine or 10 o'clock at night and I was like, man, that's fun. Let's go do it again tomorrow. . Yeah. Yeah. That's,
Lee Godbold: that's kind of, you've always had a thing for punishment, I think. . So I think anybody that gets in this business was that way, if I remember right.
I think that job was actually in Selma. I think that job was in Selma. Yeah. So it's like 45, 50 minutes from us or whatever, kinda out in the middle of the country. So I had forgotten the deal about you actually coming in prior to class and you know, like I said, Christian and I were both in community college at that time.
We went, went to wait tech, I think both You had intended to transfer, I guess to state or something like that, didn't you? That was my intention, but yeah. Never, never came to [00:10:00] fruition. Yeah. Same thing. The business kind of picked up and we sort of sort of just kind of ran with that. So when we first kind of started junk doctors, what were.
Some of the challenges that you remember,
Christian Fowler: oh man, there's so many. Um, I mean, looking back, especially the first three or four years, I wonder, you know, how we actually made it. Um, 'cause we were just spinning our wheels. Spinning our wheels, you know, we were making some money, but it was, it was just so much work for what we were actually actually doing.
Obviously getting jobs on the schedule was, was tough balancing any type of work, like life balance was basically non-existent. Yeah.
Lee Godbold: It was money through Saturday,
Christian Fowler: you
Lee Godbold: know, from 7:00 AM to busy season, be eight, 9:00 PM 'cause at that time we didn't have dump trucks, so, you know, we were doing the same number of jobs a day that we do now, but we were having to hand unload.
Yeah. And that's also when we were, you know, if you remember we were going to the convenience center [00:11:00] sites. Yep. So we didn't have to pay landfill fees. We had the signs, these chloroplast signs that would go on the side of the trailer. So we had to screw 'em on before we gotta the customer, and then we would take 'em off before we gotta the convenience site.
That way they didn't bust us for being a business. You weren't supposed to be a business when you used them. And we had shirts, so I remember we'd had these put nice polo shirts and we would take those in and on and off throughout the day so we could use those free dump
Christian Fowler: sites. Yeah, that's we were seriously hustling back then.
Um, you know, it started super early, finished super late, really six or really seven days a week. You know, if we had jobs come in on Sunday, we would still get out there and do 'em on Sundays. Yep. Um, but I mean, we started with nothing. So that was kind of the, the, um, the biggest hurdle I'd say is, you know, neither one of us came from money.
We didn't take a big loan to start the business. You know, we basically started from nothing and, and bootstrapped it from the start. There's a lot of challenges that, that came with that. Um. [00:12:00] Definitely, definitely.
Lee Godbold: So we've been in a partnership for probably 13 years now, or not probably. We have been, what are some things that have allowed us to maintain a good partnership over 13 years?
Christian Fowler: Because I don't know the exact statistics, but I can tell you right now the majority of business partnerships don't last 13 years.
Both of us got very lucky in my opinion. Um, you know, most partnerships don't start the way that, that ours did. When you're getting in business with somebody in a partnership, it's, it's honestly like a marriage.
Christian Fowler: I say that we got lucky because we both have skill sets that kind of offset each other, especially when we first started seven or eight years into the business we started reading a book called Traction. Which preaches the EOS model and it traction talks about a visionary and an integrator, and I would say that defines who we are.
You know, you're much more of a visionary. Um, you fly 30,000 feet and you, [00:13:00] you really, the gas pedal, I'm much more of an integrator. Um, that's just who I am. We got three locations and I see, okay, how are we gonna get to three locations? What are all the steps that we need to get to that point?
Um, so we got lucky in, in that aspect that we kind of have different, um, you know, different skill sets. But the bottom line with partnerships, I think we need to share the same vision and values, and I think that's probably the most important thing about a partnership.
Lee Godbold: Yeah. And you mentioned traction, traction's big on that. So you, everything's based off of, you know, what's the vision, what are your values, and then what are the steps you're gonna do to, to get there and accomplish that? And I'll echo what you said, especially early on, and I mentioned, you said something kind of early on.
Early on I was a hundred percent visionary and there was no integrator. It was, you know, all gas, no brakes, or you know, whatever. So it was just balls to the wall flat out. And, you know, no matter what got ran over, it was, you know, this was gonna happen. [00:14:00] And as I've matured, gotten more experienced and all, I, I think I've become a much better operations person too.
But the nice thing is, is my operational stuff is mainly on JRA, whereas you focus with junk doctors, right? So I think we've always had our clear kind of responsibilities as to who handles what. And I think that's been really, really important. I think a lot of partnerships fail when I. You don't really have that division of responsibilities or if you have that and somebody else feels like, or either it's happening or they feel like the other person isn't pulling their weight.
And I don't think we've ever really encountered a situation like that before. No, not at all. Would you recommend that people get a partner when they start a business?
Christian Fowler: I think you can get to your goals a lot quicker with a partnership. Um, there's a lot of benefits to having one, but you better make damn careful and, and, and be sure that you've got the right partner with you. Um, 'cause it, it can, it can get messy very, very quickly.
Lee Godbold: What comes to mind when you talk about benefits to a partnership?[00:15:00]
You got anything that kind of pops up? Well,
Christian Fowler: the partnership, I mean, it, it. It allows for innovation and, and breakthroughs. You know, with, with two people. You've got that collaboration and, and you're able to share your wins and your losses, obviously with, with with each other. Yeah. You can bask in the glory or Yeah.
Share, share the defeat. Yeah. I mean there's those two things I, I think help drive the business, um, and and gets you to where you want to go quicker rather than if it's, you know, just you by yourself.
Lee Godbold: Yeah. And something that I'll add that a lot of people don't think about when it comes to getting a partner is once you get a partner, that person helps hold you accountable.
And when you're early on, especially early on in business, and even later, once you've obtained some success, that individual is somebody that . You feel like you're responsible for, to produce, there's a little bit of pressure on you, especially if you've got a good partnership agreement and all like that.
[00:16:00] It's, it's you know, that you need to kind of do your, do do things correctly and learn. If you're the only person involved in it, there's nobody else really kind of holding you accountable. It's sometimes it's easier to kind of lend off the gas and kind of coast. So I think it's kinda like an account.
It's kinda like a gym partner. Yeah. You know, if you're going to the gym or whatever and you have a gym partner, not everybody needs it. Not everybody needs a business partner, but it, it'll oftentimes helps people accomplish more.
Christian Fowler: Yeah, I agree with that completely.
Lee Godbold: We started with the beginning.
So the old beat up pickup truck and trailer. Then we get our first dump truck, and actually that was on your birthday. It was July 29th, 2000. 2012. 1220. First birthday, July 29th, 2012 is when we got that very first dump truck. And I remember that first truck, it was an old 1-800-GUY-JUNK truck.
It was $11,500, which you can't touch if you know a junker mill truck, a used junker mill truck for 11 five now, but it was $11,500. Got outta Jacksonville, Florida and it had maybe a hundred thousand miles on it. I remember dad and I went down there and picked it up and drove it back and we drove it all [00:17:00] the way back with no air conditioning.
'cause it, the air conditioning on it didn't work. So we didn't think. And it turned out the belt was just loose. So we sat there and fried, you know, all the way up from Florida. 'cause it was extremely hot. Like I said, it was in July. We were coming from Florida up to North Carolina. But we got that. And it seemed like immediately, once we got that second truck, or actually this first truck, but if you count the truck and trailer business continued to really pick up sort of once we had that, it's like, hey, once, now that we have the availability, we're somehow another figuring out how to fill the capacity.
Christian Fowler: Yeah.
Lee Godbold: And I, I'd say that's really, it was a theme as we grew. Sometimes we were a little slow to get a truck, and once we got a truck, it was no time that that schedule kind of got filled up.
Christian Fowler: Yeah.
Lee Godbold: You kinda make similar observations there.
Christian Fowler: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think we made that, that risk, I guess you could say, of getting, maybe getting a truck a little bit before we actually needed it.
But that helped us, helped us grow and, and, and jump to that next level so now we
Lee Godbold: just picked up our, I think it was our 18th and 19th truck. Was it 19th or 20th? Or 18th [00:18:00] and 19th? 19 and 20. 1920. Yeah. So we got 19 and 20, and we don't run nine, we don't run 20 trucks. Now we run on a busy day somewhere around 12, and that's amongst three locations.
Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro. And you're managing all three of those locations. What are some of the things you do to kind of make sure that all three of those locations are running well?
Christian Fowler: Bottom line, which I'll touch on this in a second, but bottom line, you've gotta have the right people in place.
That's probably the biggest mistake when you talk about mistakes that we made early on, not having quality people, I would probably put at the top, or at least, you know, pretty close to the top. Um, but there's a lot of things that go in, into running, you know, three different operations with all the trucks and all that standardized processes and, and training.
I think that's a big one, is when you have your, your people out in the fields doing these jobs, having a, a standardized, um, process that they can follow. You know, we use [00:19:00] adjunct doctors, we use the acronym great G-R-E-A-T. That covers all the aspects of the onsite process. It covers, you know, G is for greeting, R is for repeat value, E is for estimate price, A is for assumptive ask, and then the thankful ending at the very end.
So we train that in hopes that, you know, the, the same process that we have in Raleigh is done in Greensboro, is done in Charlotte. So hopefully everything's pretty similar across the board. Um, another big one that we used early on and we still use today is checklists. Whether it's your first day on the job with us, or whether you've been with us for six years, we're still doing checklists day in and day out.
And you know, that's something we do when our guys get in in the morning when they're checking the trucks in and, and getting ready to golf for the day. They've got probably 12 or 15 different things you have to accomplish from checking the tires, [00:20:00] to washing the trucks, to making sure they have all the tools in the truck.
That's, it's a very simple process, but it's so important that they're completing those those tasks before they get on the road. 'cause that could cost us, you know, tons of money down the road.
Lee Godbold: We all that's electronic now. We're using an app for that. Which app is it?
So we use Whip Around.
Christian Fowler: Um, what do you like, what do you like about that? It's, it's just so simple. Everything that our guys do that, that I put on them, I try to keep it as simple as possible. And you know, whip Around is an app that we have on all of our iPads that, you know, our guys log in and it shows them clearly step one clock in step two, get the truck, you know, that type of thing.
It's very, it is very simple for them to follow and it's pretty cost effective too. Um, you know, they charge per vehicle and they have different levels, but it, it's not expensive at all. So I highly recommend Whip Around.
Lee Godbold: And you led with people, which I would agree [00:21:00] is a hundred percent the, the case. Um, you know, having great people, knowing what motivates those people and giving them the opportunities so they can accomplish what, what motivates 'em is very, very important.
And that's something every single year we've gotten, and I've gotten better at that in the different companies that we have. And with junk doctors, if you remember when we first started, we would burn through people. Yeah. You know, it'd be like, I think at one point our average retention rate for an employee was like 7, 8, 9 months.
I, I remember when it was nine months, and I'm not exactly sure what that number is. Now, we have a lot of guys been with us for six or seven years or so for now. Yep. Or at this point, what are you looking for when we go to hire a junk removal employee and what are we doing to have them stay 5, 6, 7, you know, eight years?
I'm always thinking about, would I want this person going into my mom's house or my grandma's house and, and doing a job for them?
Lee Godbold: Um, how's their [00:22:00] personality? We, we started to hire more for personality and we can train the drunken removal side. You know, that's takes a little bit of time, but that's very easy. The guys that do the best and push our business the most are the guys that have the best personality and, can communicate really well with the customer and they've got the ability to, to read the room.
Um, you know, they know when it's time to joke around with our customer and, and when it's time to get serious. That's one of the biggest things we hire for is, is personality. Keeping your A players around, I'd say we've gotten a lot better at every one of our guys is a little bit different.
There's, there's different things that drive each guy. Not, not each guy is the same. Um, one of the things that I've always tried to do, especially in the last few years, is really get to know our guys. Um, you know, I, I can name all of our, all of our employees, spouses, their kids' names. I kind of know what, what drives them.
Um, and I think it's important for a [00:23:00] leader to, to really know, um, know your employees. Know your staff. My wife used to work for a pretty big company and their CEO there was like 50 some staff and their CEO did the same thing and it just really impressed her.
Um, you know, so I, I think it goes a long way. As a business owner
kinda like reminds me of Southwest, CEO what was his last name? Something Keller. First name was last name I believe was Keller is the guy that founded Southwest Airlines. And he would, even when Southwest was thousands of people, he would meet every single employee no matter if it was a chief pilot, chief engineer, all the way down to just somebody that, you know, cleaned the planes or whatever.
Yeah. He would make it a point to meet everybody and I think that helped build up Southwest West culture Southwest is maybe has lost a little bit of its luster over the last few years, but I mean, at one point that was considered to be almost like a Chick-fil-A type deal in terms of just [00:24:00] being the standard in the airline industry.
Much like Chick-fil-A is the standard in fast food. Yeah. Which Chick-fil-A does that? How? Because they get great people and they get them to. Say My pleasure after thank you every single time, and just providing amazing service. Really. Why not paying any better? I mean, they don't pay any better than McDonald's or Bojangles, or if they do, it's very, very slight, but it attracts a different type of employee.
Christian Fowler: The other thing is the, one of the mistakes we made early on talking about mistakes is, is hiring out of desperation rather than taking a little bit more time to find the right guy. If you have a bunch of A players and you have 1D player, that D player is really gonna bring down your A players rather than the other way around.
Um, so, you know, we've, we've started to take more time, do a lot more interviews and make sure that we've got the best of the best, in this business. Um, [00:25:00] the other thing I try to do when it comes to managing our employees is to not micromanage. You know, obviously we train the guys, you know, what we expect of them and, and train them how to do the job.
But when it comes to delegation, in my opinion, it's really useless. You know, if you're gonna micromanage, there's really no point. So train and then, you know, what we try to do is get out of their, out of their way and, and let them do their thing.
Lee Godbold: Yeah. If you're gonna micromanage, then you might as well just go do it on your own.
Yeah. For the most part. Um, in terms of getting outta their way, get outta the way, let them do their things, then have KPIs and numbers associated with it to kind of see, hey, are they on track? Right?
Christian Fowler: And
Lee Godbold: what are some of the numbers that we're tracking?
Christian Fowler: So we, when the guys come in, at the end of the day we have a board in our shop that they fill out and they fill out their revenue for the day, their average job size, any onsite cancellations, um, their fuel percentage, their disposal percentage [00:26:00] and their labor percentage.
And then. Um, the other number that we track, one of the most important numbers is we call it SPPH, and that's sales per payroll hour. And that number, basically it tells me how efficient they're working we have a goal of anything above 90 is, is typically pretty good. You know, if you're in the triple digits, it's, you know, fantastic.
Um, but I look at trends, you know, you're gonna have days where even your, your best guys are at, you know, 45, 50, 60, whatever. Um, but I typically take a month and look at that trend and you'll start to see who your best your best employees are. And that allows you to see, you know, which employees need some help and, and need some improvement.
Maybe they're working slow maybe they're taking an hour lunch break, you know, that type of thing.
Lee Godbold: What kind of challenges have you seen with having multiple locations and you [00:27:00] know, that are two and a half hours apart, three locations, two and a half hours apart?
Christian Fowler: I mean, obviously you can't, if I'm here in Raleigh, I can't be in Charlotte, you know, in a short amount of time to fix an issue. So training the people to be able to take care of stuff that are there, um, and having the systems and checklists and that sort of stuff in place where they can get things done, um, I think is important.
About once a week we meet with, meet with a team there. So it's not like we just open it, you know, drop a truck there and, and forget about it. You know, there's still a lot of stuff that has to be done, um, even though I'm not there to manage the day to day, I.
Lee Godbold: In terms of people, we've had some really good people that have worked for us.
We've had some run-ins and all, and some issues and all in the past. What are some of the issues that we've had with, um, the business as a whole, but specifically around things that people have done? Like, I mean, for example, I remember we had a guy in Charlotte that, um, [00:28:00] a job would get booked and he would cancel it off and go off and, and do it, you know, and collect the money and pocket the money and that sort of deal.
What were some other kind of examples of things for people to watch out? Especially if they get to the point where they've got multiple locations going, because that's when, like you said, you're not there every single day and stuff's more likely to kind of occur.
Christian Fowler: Yeah. Obviously employee theft is, is up there at the top.
Um, especially if you accept cash, you know, that's, that's a big one. Cash can guys can get sticky fingers, you know, and, and change job totals and like you said, cancel the job off and, and go do it. You know, that weekend in their pickup truck or whatever. Um. So having a, having a CRM like workies that we use or something similar where you can put systems in place to track that stuff, it's, it's helped that out quite a bit.
Um, and then the other one is customer follow up calls. You know, every single job that we do, you know, we do a customer follow up [00:29:00] call just to make sure everything went well. Um, so that's something important that I would recommend putting in place. If if you don't already,
Lee Godbold: we started not giving everybody's full schedule at the beginning of the day.
Christian Fowler: Yeah. I'm, yep.
Lee Godbold: And are we now, have we gone back to where we're doing that, to
Christian Fowler: where we just give 'em a job
Lee Godbold: at a time?
Christian Fowler: No. So yeah, we, that's one of the changes we made a couple years ago is.
We would plan out kind of what the day would look like for each truck. And we had issues where guys were complaining that you know, other crews aren't working as hard or they're getting all the garage clean outs. Meanwhile, I'm doing all the attic clean outs. Why is he getting all the easier jobs? And that type of thing.
So what we, what we started doing, and it, and it made a big difference for us, is only assigning one job at a time. And that means that that truck team, they can only see that specific job that's assigned to them at a time, so they can't see what, what's going on inside the entire [00:30:00] company. Um, and as you know, in this business, you know, it changes by the hour.
So we could, have a job description that says a few things in the basement. You know, we get there and all of a sudden it's six loads. It has to be done today. So we gotta start rerouting things, you know, bringing more people in, all that type of stuff. So. It's always changing. Um, and, and that change is one of the good ones that we made
Lee Godbold: and there's different ways to skin a cat.
So that one has worked well. So, and one thing it would avoid is what we would notice is people would slow down at the end of the day 'cause they did not want to get another job added to their calendar. And by, you know, that was one of the things we were able to do. Instead of them saying slowing down and knowing what the other person's schedule was and where that job could be taken by the other person, they'd slow down trying just enough to get their job to get taken off the schedule moved over to somebody else that helped 'cause they didn't exactly know sort of what was coming up next.
[00:31:00] And like you said, there wouldn't be this whole job comparison thing that was going on. Some companies accomplish it by having some incentivizations around hitting sales goals. So they try and get it where I. You know, hey, if you hit $2,200, let's say the sales goal is 2000 bucks, you guys hit 2200, well, you get a percentage of everything over, right?
What happens on that particular day? And that works too. That can be some kind of positive reinforcement. But, you know, we found really no negatives to what we do. And the job time went up and you just lost a lot of this drama. 'cause these guys, I mean, it could be like a, you know, a bunch of high school girls or whatever like that in terms of drama, if you're not careful.
Christian Fowler: Yep. That's that's very true.
Lee Godbold: Alright, let's talk about some of the jobs we've done. What's the, what's some of the, kind of the neatest, or let's say, the coolest item you've ever come across?
Christian Fowler: I think you might still have it, but one of the coolest things we've ever gotten is the football signed by
Was it Vince Lombardi and the, the
Lee Godbold: entire Green Bay Packers from the Super [00:32:00] Bowl ii, and I think they played the Chiefs, if I remember right. I think they won. Yeah. It's got Vince Lombardi's signature and then I mean, the rest of the team, everybody else, it's in pretty good shape too. But yeah, I've, I've still got that, that's in my, that's in a safe,
Christian Fowler: A vintage Rolex. Another cool one, you know, worth a few grand. Um, we had an older lady that I, I didn't get this item, but we had an older lady that had a hu her husband passed away and he had a motorcycle. Um, just, it worked just fine and she actually gave it to one of our employees. Um, so that was pretty cool.
Lee Godbold: And we've gotten some neat stuff. I remember early on, especially, we sold, we got a bunch of like restaurant equipment and all that, that we turned around and sold. I. Let's see. I remember an episode, again, this is very early on, where we had gotten a, like a, it was a sex doll is what it was.
It was the fe It was, it was the, anyway, that thing, I remember we got that and we propped it up in the back of the truck going down the road, [00:33:00] and it was just kinda like waving to everybody going down the road or whatever. Anyway, I wound up taking that thing and I was gonna play some pranks on people, and I, I remember I stuck it in the, the trunk of my car, and I think we wound up, we propped that thing, we propped it up on, like the side of a carry police car or something that was in a parking lot overnight and just left it there.
So that was in the early days we don't do stuff like that anymore, . But there's what's the grossest thing you ever remember encountering?
Christian Fowler: I haven't vomited on a job. I've been really close. Um, probably the grossest one is a, is an older lady that, was pretty much a semi hoarder and she was on pens at the time and she decided to keep all of her pens.
So we were doing a, an apartment clean out. It was a two bedroom apartment and we opened up one of the doors to the to one of the bedrooms. And I kid you not from floor [00:34:00] to ceiling was bags of used diapers. Um, that was probably the worst one. Yeah,
Lee Godbold: that's one where you walk in and she was like naked or whatever, too.
Yeah. Yeah. There's been some weird ones, man. We've definitely encountered kind of some odd people from, from time to time. We've come across some really cool, really, you know, neat jobs and neat people and all too. We've done work for a lot of professional golfers some college coaches, NASCAR drivers.
I think
Christian Fowler: we do work for half the Panthers
Lee Godbold: roster.
Yeah, we did a lot, especially in Charlotte for the Panthers. So it, it started with one particular player who started just kind of referring us to other, other people. And this particular player also, he would, I remember he'd hire and they'd just have like a big party or Something'd be like a Super Bowl party and we'd come by and like the guys would come by and pick up all their beer cans and trash or whatever,
So that's one of the things, things that
Christian Fowler: I like about the business the most. So, um, you know, it's kind of miss being on the truck sometimes 'cause you never know what you're gonna get. That's what our guys like too, is, you know, it's something [00:35:00] different every single day. Yep. [00:36:00] Alright,
Lee Godbold: so we've gone through a lot of the, junk removal stuff, kind of covered some of that journey and I wanna talk a little bit about a couple other areas of your life.
Um, you've always impressed me because you're somebody where you come up with a plan. You just work that plan. It's like, it's, it's hard to get you to change it, you know? That's, that's what you're gonna do and you go off and do it. Real estate is something that is one of those things. 'cause I remember you and I, we first started looking into real estate together [00:37:00] back I dunno how many years ago it's been, it was relatively early on.
I remember was talking about it and you were studying kind of different approaches and different ways of doing it. I think you're looking a lot in the multifamily and decided, I probably still wanna get there, which we can go into, but he kind of got started with single family residential. Tell us a little about your, kind of what you got going on real estate wise now.
What your plans, you know, how you got into it, what your plans are kind of moving forward. I know that's an interest that a lot of people have, so they'd be interested in hearing that.
Christian Fowler: Yeah, I mean, so we, we started our first purchase was in 2019. Um, and today we have 11 doors, all single family, you know, we got some a triplex in there, a couple duplexes, and then we have a.
Decent sized commercial property. When I first started looking at it, you know, we started probably in 2017. I started educating myself and, and my wife and I, and we knew we wanted to get into real estate investing. I've, I've seen what [00:38:00] it can do, um, down the road for long term, real generational wealth.
So that's really what the reason we wanted to get into it. You know, real estate investing, it's, I always say, and I've heard this from somebody else, it's, it's not a get rich quick, but it's, it's a get rich for sure. Um, and that might be in 20 years, it might be in 40 years, but, you know, over that time, real estate's gonna go up.
Um, early on we were looking at multifamily. We were looking at short-term rentals. We were looking at long-term rentals, you know, all kinds of stuff. And that's the biggest mistake we made early on is, is not, not choosing something in real estate and, and dialing it down to just that. Um, so yeah, we bought our first property after probably two or three years of, of listening to every podcast I could listen to and reading all the books.
Um, we bought a townhouse just outside of Raleigh and yeah, we haven't looked back since. [00:39:00]
Lee Godbold: What are some of the podcasts that you were listening to on the real estate side of things that
Christian Fowler: you
Lee Godbold: could recommend
Christian Fowler: to people? Number one was BiggerPockets. I mean, that's, you know, that's kind of at the top of every real estate, podcast chart out there, and they've got all kinds of stuff in there.
\I would say we learned more from making that first purchase and actually doing it. Then two years of, of educating through books and, and, podcasts and all that. You know, we, we learned a lot by just simply doing it.
Lee Godbold: If somebody's going out and buying something now, and it's a, it's a. Are they going out and you are putting 20% down, putting 50% down.
Do you guys kind of have a target on how you determine how much money you wanna put down and, and what you finance?
Christian Fowler: Yeah, we, we definitely don't wanna be over leveraged. I, I always wanna put down at least 20 to 25%. Um, yeah, I mean, we're looking, we're, there's certain things that [00:40:00] we're looking for when we go to purchase a, a real estate investment.
This market's definitely been tough the past 12 to 18 months. The last purchase we made was about 12 months ago. Um, you know, rates are going up. Prices are either going up here, North Carolina at least going up or staying the same, um, which pushes, returns down. Um, so we've, you've really gotta be careful what you're buying now 'cause you know it is.
It's kind of an unknown what's gonna happen here in the next couple years with rates and, and everything like that. So we're just kinda sitting tied to the moment and, kinda managing our current portfolio.
Lee Godbold: What are your goals? I'm sure you got a goal there, you have a number in mind of what you're trying to get to in terms of number of doors.
Christian Fowler: I wouldn't say a specific number of doors. And that's, that's one of the things that you know, you hear only these podcasts is you know, [00:41:00] these guys say, I've, I've got 20 doors, 30 doors, a hundred, whatever it is. Um, I, I really look at the, what our cash flow is. I don't really care about the doors, the door count.
I wanna see cash flow. Um, I love to get to 15 to 20 KA month in cash flow. Um, not quite there. You know, we, we've still got, got some some way to go on that, but, um, that's kind of where I want to get to. So you're really known,
Lee Godbold: like IS so like I said before, you're really known for being kind of methodical and sticking to a plan once you commit.
How has that steady discipline approach helped you, not only in real estate, but also in business life, whatever?
Christian Fowler: Yeah, so in real estate and in business, I whenever I have a decision, um, whether it's an investment or whether it's to hire somebody or, or, you know, invest money in a truck or whatever, I try to do my best to take emotion [00:42:00] out of it.
And I, I think I've become pretty good at that. Um, and, and this, especially for real estate, when I look at real estate, when I'm going to look at buying a house, I have no emotion to the house. I'm not living in the house. It's, it's simply a math problem. You know, do the numbers work, yes or no? Is it gonna be a good investment, yes or no?
So, I, I don't try to make a, a decision, um, from a. Depressed, emotional state or high emotional state, I kind of try to stay level in, approach that those tough decisions from that aspect.
Lee Godbold: I think a lot of business owners make the mistake where they have an idea or they see an opportunity and they fall in love with that idea or the opportunity and immediately you are at a disadvantage at any negotiation at that point.
Yeah. So we're in the middle of something right now on on the, on, on a business side of things where we've got an opportunity, and I can't go into a lot of details on it right now, but we've got an opportunity. It's a [00:43:00] pretty good one. As for somebody we've done business with for a long period of time would absolutely love to get it done, but, and they're excited about the potential, but I have to approach it from the aspect of, Hey, if we don't get this thing, it doesn't matter.
We're still gonna be fine. We're still gonna do our own thing. You know, it's, the circumstance has to be right for it to work. And then this is what that is. So this is like the floor plight, price, you know, we need to get at least to this amount for it. For it to be worth it. And if we don't then we just keep on doing our own thing.
Yeah. And we don't say, Hey, we've got to get this particular deal done because there's other deals out there and most of the time you're just gonna be selling yourself short if you get too emotionally attached to something. So that is the mark of a mature business owner is if you are able to put kind of emotion to the side and you're never fully gonna avoid that.
'cause you still got, you got a family you gotta support, you got bills you gotta pay. Yeah. Like, I mean there's always, there's, there's generally always some emotion in there, but [00:44:00] just knowing something is the right thing and doing it and figuring out how to make it work. And that's something I know, like right now we've got growth goals, especially with JRA, that involve upcoming acquisitions of other niche based marketing agencies, you know, by the end of the year looking to acquire one.
And you're probably . Looking at you know, the size agencies we're gonna buy, you know, you're probably a two to $3 million purchase and there's, you know, borrowing money that comes along with that, and that brings on some risk. But if you've sat there and you've thought through it and you said, Hey, this is what we need to do to accomplish our goals.
We've done our due diligence. This is a good, in this case, this particular opportunity, this is a good business. It's got good people, it's got good clients, they've got good retention rates, they do good service. Clients are happy. Like if you check all that off and it makes sense. And [00:45:00] when this case in this business, you buy the business and it's still able to cover the note from the money that you borrow, you pull the trigger and you have to kind of put that nervousness to the side.
If you're comfortable doing that, if that's something that you want, if that's what you need to accomplish and need to do to reach the goals that you want, then that's what you have to do. That's not for everybody. Some people get to the point, they make a certain amount of money a year and that's where they wanna be and they're happy doing, you know, they're very happy doing that.
Then you stick with that. But you have to kind of identify what is it you wanna do. And if you have lofty goals, it's gonna involve some risk and you have to find a way to kind of put that to it, the side, and put emotion to the side. So I think that's a great point. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about junk removal.
When you first kind of went into it, 'cause you were in, you, like you, we talked about before you were in community college. I was in community college, go off and start junk removal, drop out. And I don't know if you and I have ever had this conversation before. What was the opinion of your family and your friends at that point?
Christian Fowler: That's a great, great question. [00:46:00] Um, not excited I'll put it that way. Um. You know, not, not that they didn't believe in me, not that that my family didn't believe in me, but you know, in, in 2011, 2012, junk removal is, is what, you know, a lot of people have never even heard of it. Um, so I was kind of brought up to, you know, go do the, the college thing, go do the four year thing, get your degree, and then go put in the time working for somebody.
And that just wasn't me. I, I, I didn't want to do that. Um, so I got a lot of pushback. You know, I, I remember first started dating my current wife and her father at the time was was like, he does what? I was like, yeah, I do, I do junk removal. So, yeah, got a, got a lot of pushback at the start.
Lee Godbold: Yeah, I remember that.
I remember. And I, I would use that as motivation too, and a little bit of my family. My family was never mean about it. You know, [00:47:00] my mom, I. Huge on education. She was a career administrator for Wake County Public School system, was the head of the special education department at one point. She taught, prior to that, she taught for like 13, 14 years.
So very big on education. My sister's a teacher, my other sister, you know, got a, got her CPA, went to probably eight years of college. And dad, dad went to college. He's an electrical eng engineer.
So very much on get a four year degree, that's what you need, you know, and, and do what's perceived to be as the safe way of of jobs, which honestly is no safer than going off and doing your own thing. Yeah. And you control a little bit more of your own destiny when you're doing your thing. But yeah, I remember my mom at one point said, Hey, you know, this little trash thing or whatever's a good side job.
And her side, she called a side hustle, but she said, you know, good little thing to do on the side. And you know, I remember at that point, I don't know if I was making as much money as she was at that point, [00:48:00] but it was coming up close to it. And I'm like, this is a real thing. But they just couldn't, couldn't fathom that.
And now they're like the biggest cheerleaders ever. You know, they've kind of seen it work out and there's, there's doubts sort of proven wrong, but I know I would take motivation. So, and I remember there was a guy, this is actually on your side and I had it on mine too there. But for some reason, I remember there was a guy, I won't, and I'm not gonna name a name here, but it was at the golf course.
It was kind of talk some crap about junk removal. It was to you like, ah, that's not gonna work out. You can't make any money doing that. Yeah. Especially if you have a business partner. And I remember that that motivated me. 'cause I was always able back then, proving somebody wrong was a big deal. Real big deal.
I don't really have that as much anymore now. Now I've got my own aspirations and things that drive me, but back then I would find somebody that doubted and like that would get plastered in my head. And it's like, dude, I'm gonna prove you wrong. Yeah. I'm the same way. Yeah. So you mentioned Brooke's, what Brooke's dad thought about it.
Christian Fowler: What did Brooke think about it? Was she even thinking about it at that point? Did she have other [00:49:00] stuff on her mind?
She kinda always believed in me and I don't think she ever thought it would, it would be what it is today. But, you know, she never talked down about it. Um, she was never embarrassed to say, you know, her boyfriend picks up junk and he's going to the landfill and all that type of stuff.
Christian Fowler: And you know, I, I really liked that about her and, and honestly having, having a spouse like that I, I think is really a cheat code for business in, in life. Um, you know, without her support probably couldn't be where I'm at today. I think you'd probably agree with that too.
Lee Godbold: Yeah, I think it's different for everybody.
Um, the worst thing is, is to have a detractor. Somebody that yeah, constantly worries and, you know, talks, talk and is not supportive at all. Just constantly doubts you. Um, whatever those, that's, that's, that's the worst. And there's different levels of support. I mean, there's certain people that are out there that are partners with their spouse in business and [00:50:00] do really, really well.
And we've seen on our side though, on the other side of side is people have gotten in the junk removal business, they haven't been successful. And a lot of it is, is 'cause they had a spouse that did not, good communication is important in a marriage and in business and all like that. But I mean, I'll say sometimes, sometimes people aren't wired for business. So occasionally it needs to be like, you know, Hey I've, I've got this. Let me worry about the business, let me make the decisions that I have.
We're gonna put us in a good, in good shape. And Austin's always been very, very supportive. But a lot of times she doesn't necessarily wanna know all the details 'cause it comes along with some worry and whatever. Yeah. So we'll tell us some things we got going on. We've gotta let 'em know the good things that are going on and try and kind of keep a lot of the stressful things out of it.
And that works well. I think it's just a matter of what works. You have to know the person you're married to and know do they wanna know the details or do they not want to? And don't feel like just 'cause another person, you know, that runs a [00:51:00] successful business, shares everything with their spouse doesn't mean that I.
It's the best thing for, for, for your route too. Yeah. Does that make sense? I agree with that. Yep. So let's talk a little bit about, more about JRA. So you've consulted, I don't know how many people you've consulted with over the years. I mean, we've had probably 75 or 80 people buy business packages and we've worked with a lot of other clients that didn't go through the business package.
And you've kind of consulted along the way. You've done a lot of that. What are some of the things that you encounter when you see somebody where you're like, Hey, this guy's gonna make it, or this girl's gonna make it. And what's something that maybe you see that causes people to sort of fail and not be successful in this?
Christian Fowler: I'd say it's not having a long-term mindset. Um, especially when starting out, I, I see a lot of guys, you know, they're a month or two in and, you know, they're all of a sudden they've got one or two jobs on the books for the week or, or nothing for the week. And, and they call me and say, Hey, I've got, [00:52:00] I've got nothing this week.
What do I, what do I do? You know, is, is this gonna work? I, I don't know. And I say, well, what are you doing today to put jobs on the schedule? You know, and they're kind of blank at that point. And you know, I I, the guys that are successful, they're out there. They're not waiting for those inbound leads to come through.
They're going out there to get it. And I, I think that's one of the things that you and I did early on really well, is I remember, you know, our first two months in business, we did, I think just over two grand each month. But we still work 60 plus hour weeks every single week going out there and, and trying to build commercial relationships and
Um, I remember we would use my car and, and we would figure out what neighborhoods we wanted to hit and we would take these postcards and we would follow the, the trash truck and slap these postcards on every single trash can. And we did that for eight or 10 hours. Yep. Um, [00:53:00] cold,
Lee Godbold: hot rain. Yep. Snow sleet.
We would, we would, we'd stick 'em on there. It was funny, you would drive through neighborhoods later on and you'd realize kinda how lazy some people are because I'm, you be six months before we hit a particular neighborhood and we drive down and there's a trash can. It's got a junk doctors postcard on it.
Yep. And it'd be all faded out, but it was like, I mean, I think's, you know, probably gotten some business for us just by almost being a sign that's just stayed on this person's trash can.
Christian Fowler: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, so that's a, that's a big one that spending money on things that don't grow the business, i, I like to see them.
New business owners putting money into people trucks and marketing. Marketing's obviously the biggest one, especially at the start, but you don't need to go out and, and get a, get a big fancy shop unless you have the funds for it. But, um, put money in things that are actually gonna drive the business.[00:54:00]
And another one I see with the long-term mindset thing is, um, I get this call all the time, is Hey, I've got this customer. They have a couch pickup, but it's 30 minutes away. It's a minimum load. Do I really wanna drive 30 minutes? I'm gonna lose $20, or whatever it is. And what they're not thinking about is what's, what is the lifetime value of that customer?
That customer's gonna use you, . 10 to 12 times throughout their lifetime. And how many people are they gonna refer to your business so that that lifetime value is thousands and thousands of dollars?
Lee Godbold: Yeah. They'll have an employee mindset, which is, Hey, you better, you need to pay me for this exact work I'm doing right now.
Yeah. And I'm thinking about the money they can make later, you know, they can pay, get paid even more later with that LTV. Yeah,
We've gotten pretty good at looking and saying, Hey, this person's gonna be successful and this person isn't. And I think you hit several things right off the bat. Um, you know, one of the things we talked about before, [00:55:00] if they have a spouse that we're worried about, that's a big one. Yeah. I am trying to remember any time that we've encountered that, where we were wrong, where we saw like, this isn't a great fit, this person does not wanna spend any money on any sort of sort of investment.
They did not want to buy into this initially. They went along with it. Now when it comes time to spending like ongoing money on advertising to get work, so you spend all this money on this truck, now you gotta get leads in and you should first make sure you have the money to actually get the jobs you need to understand, hey, how am I gonna actually get the work to keep this thing busy before you go out and buy the thing?
Yeah. And that's I see a lot of that with business opportunities. People have a great business idea, but they're haven't answered the core question, which is, heck, how the heck am I gonna get people to actually buy this thing? Yep. So in this case, like the advertising has to come first and you'll see a lot of spousal kind of worry over that.
That's a big one. The other thing is like you said, very short term [00:56:00] mindset. You have to realize, you have to look at something as like, Hey, I'm gonna be doing this thing for 10 years. I think 10 years is a great number. 'cause if you're thinking about something for that long term, then you're not gonna make kind of stupid decisions just trying to make a little bit more money in the short term.
Anytime you try and make a little bit more money in the short term, it might work potentially in the short term. Oftentimes it doesn't, it might squeeze a little more money out in the short term, but it kills your long-term growth. It really, really holds you back and kind of stunts your growth. So you've gotta have that long-term view, and that's probably one of the largest things that we see for sure.
I, I'll echo that, that that piece you had there. Alright, let's move into health, which is something you're really, really big into. You've got routines, so I think, would you say routine is probably one of the key things that allows you to have a great family life, do well in work, do your real estate, do you work out, eat well?
Like [00:57:00] you go to church every Sunday still. Right. Doing that pretty consistently. Yeah. Yeah. So you've kind of got a routine that you've got going on, right? You think that's really, really important.
Christian Fowler: Very important, for, for me anyway, and everybody's different, but, I mean, especially, you know, if you've got a business, you've got spouse, you've got kids.
If you don't have a routine and stuff's kind of chaotic, stuff's going to not be done the way it should. Um, things that you should be doing are gonna be falling out and that, you know, you're not gonna be doing 'em anymore. So yeah, routine is, is is very important for my life for sure.
Lee Godbold: What's your routine like, kinda walk us through
Christian Fowler: a day or a week?
So my routine, it starts pretty early. Um, it's evolved a little bit, especially with, with having kids. So when I'm at my best, I'm working out at five o'clock in the morning. Um, doesn't happen every single day, but, you know, I normally get three to four [00:58:00] workouts a week. Um, and then another thing that's been big for me is, is cold showers.
It's, it's kind of a little thing, but in my opinion, if you start the day off with something that sucks and that's hard. The rest of the day just, it's so much easier.
Lee Godbold: I, I, I said earlier in this episode, you have a thing for punishment, . There's, there's another one right there. Cold
Christian Fowler: shower. Yeah. I mean, cold shower at six o'clock in the morning is not fun.
But, you know, if you do that and then that, that call comes in of truck won't start, this customer's got this problem. This employee's got this problem. Those problems become so much easier to deal with. Um, so I love starting the day with a workout, um, getting the kids ready getting them to school or my wife gets them to school, um, come in pretty early, meet with our guys and, you know, every day's a little bit different.
But, It just makes life easier for me.
Lee Godbold: Are there certain things that you do in, I guess a cold shower probably wakes you up and gets you going, but there certain things that you do or [00:59:00] certain things that you eat that you feel like does really a lot for you in terms of keeping your energy up where you can tackle all these things?
Christian Fowler: Yeah, I try to eat a as clean diet as as I can. And, I try to prioritize protein. I'm not sitting there tracking, you know, all, all the stuff. I still enjoy beer on the weekend and, you know, go out to eat and have pizza and all that stuff. Um, I'm not dialing in every calorie, but I try to eat as as good as I can.
Um, we recently, not recently, probably a couple years ago, we invested in a infrared sauna and I normally do that before I go to sleep at night. Um, and that's really helped me sleep better. I. Um, which, you know, keeps my energy high throughout the day. So
Lee Godbold: you
Christian Fowler: take
Lee Godbold: a cold shower in the morning and you freeze your tail off, and then you roast yourself in a silo before you get in bed.
That's, yep, that's the key. I hear you, man. Well, let's roll into [01:00:00] some rapid fire questions. So this is gonna be kind of some general business stuff. What's the favorite piece of business advice you've ever received?
Christian Fowler: Um, focus on customer service. And, I learned this early on working at Chick-fil-A when I was in high school, you know, and you, I always wondered why is Chick-fil-A so successful?
They're not, you know, I, I could go work at McDonald's and make the same thing I'm making here at Chick-fil-A, but for some reason everybody's just so happy, you know, that they treat you. The, the experience is just so much different than any other fast food place. Um, one of the things that we learned during training when I worked there is, is they called it the second mile.
And what that means for them is, you know, not what's expected of you. What can you do for that customer that's gonna go beyond what's expected? Um, so, you know, we'd have employees changing tires [01:01:00] in the, in the parking lot and, you know, all all kinds of stories like that where, you know, you don't expect a fast food worker to go help and change your tire, change a flat tire.
But that's the type of things that, that, propels them, I think, you know, and to where they are.
Lee Godbold: Focus on getting that customer experience right first. Yep. And then figure out the, the numbers. 'cause if your customer experience isn't right, no matter how profitable a service is, it's not gonna be sustainable.
And like you said, Chick-fil-A has done an amazing job at that. People keep coming back and. Buying again and again and again. And we've modeled a lot of the stuff we do off of that. We've mentioned this twice now in the podcast and this particular episode. And they're a great person. It's a great company to really pay attention to on just kind of fine tuning that client experience.
What's your go-to strategy when facing a major challenge?
Christian Fowler: Go to the gym and sleep on it. I mean, that's, that's [01:02:00] the gym, you know, with as much stuff as I have going on and, and stress and kids and the gym is the one place where I can put my headphones in and shut it off. And that's, that's the me time. And you know, that's, I need that.
Um, so that's, that's kind of my, my go-to is go to the gym. If I'm facing a stressful decision, I don't react on it. I sleep on it. And usually my gut feeling is the correct feeling. Um, but yeah, that's, that's kinda what I do.
Lee Godbold: If you could start over, what's one thing that you would've done differently?
Christian Fowler: Skip all the mistakes we made in the first five years, . So forget about making
Lee Godbold: one thing you do differently. We're just gonna take a whole
Christian Fowler: big
Lee Godbold: old list and
Christian Fowler: get rid of it. Um, I would probably hire better people faster, um, and, and not keep guys around that we know are, [01:03:00] are not guys we don't want around.
I would not keep them on. Um, I think people is, is really one of the big reasons we've been as successful as we have, um, is the people that are out in the trucks. You know, we take that very seriously. So that's probably one of the changes I would've made, um, early on. Get better
Lee Godbold: people make sure that they're paid well.
'cause sometimes, yeah, it's very easy to try and be cheap on the other end of it. Sometimes you rush into hires and you think, just 'cause I pay more, this person's automatically gonna get better. So it's, you have to find the person that's actually worth the money. Pay 'em the money, give 'em a path If they're aggressive to actually make more and give them regular feedback, even if it's not good feedback or you know, not positive like reinforcement.
Like, Hey, you did a really good job on this. Which that's important, but it's also, Hey, why didn't you do it like this? This is what the way we [01:04:00] should have done it. This is why we should have done it. And if it keeps it being an issue, then you know, having an escalation process and just really managing people and that, I've seen people make mistakes on multiple fronts on that.
I see 'em, I. Micromanage and I see him be way, way, way, way, way too tough. And then on the other side of things, I see people trying to be way that they're too nice. They're like, don't want to upset this guy because, um, you know, I don't want a chance losing him. Meanwhile, if they just did small little course corrections over time, that guy would've been happy.
But instead he goes along and he's feeling like he's doing a pretty good job, or she's doing a pretty good job and then all of a sudden you drop the hammer down and you just completely go off on him. 'cause you have all this pin up frustration and you just let it loose and then they get pissed off and they leave.
So just regular feedback with people, finding great people. If you didn't find somebody that's great, quickly move on. If it's comes apparently obvious, very obvious that this person isn't gonna work, [01:05:00] don't waste time. You gotta have that con the tough conversation. He or she hanging around your organization at that point of time is not doing you any good and it's not doing them any good because they're not.
If they're struggling, they're not in a, a situation that is beneficial to them either. So let them get, free them up so they can learn from that and they can go off to something they're better suited for and they can go work for somebody that can use their talents and they'll improve on, and they'll do a great job there and find somebody else that's, yeah, they're looking for a job.
Put them in a great situation within your own, own organization. And the people thing, we're mentioning it a lot. That took us a while to figure out it did. Part of that is we were so young, starting out short of working in a roller skating rink and you were at a Chick-fil-A, which I, I, I did learn again, got them in the roller skating rink.
I actually learned a lot from, in terms of small business and even, even some on the people side of things. But I don't think we were ever really exposed to structured leadership and kind of sort of procedures like, Hey, this is what it's expected. This is [01:06:00] documented. This is the. Progression of things that happen if you, you know, kind of make a mistake here.
I think that's really important. 'cause again, it lets people know what to expect. And then also it takes like the, the emotion out of making a decision on how you treat somebody or not treat somebody, but how you manage somebody. 'cause it's all sort of in front of you. Like, this is the playbook, this is the policy, this person has read it, this is what I need to follow as a manager, as a leader.
And when you take out kind of just the, feeling or just you, you just kind of shooting from your hip in terms of what you're gonna do with somebody, it creates a, a much better environment. It's a lot fairer and it's a lot easier to manage really. And being the, on the receiving side, you sort of know what to expect.
Christian Fowler: Yeah.
Lee Godbold: Well, great man. Um, let's see. I've asked quite a few questions in here and I think we've covered some great stuff. Is there anything that you think we should have touched on? Any questions I should have asked or topics we should have discussed? [01:07:00]
Christian Fowler: I don't think so. I mean, I could, I could talk about every topic for another two hours, but you know, we kind of touched on everything.
Um, so I did a perfect job. I'd say you did pretty
Lee Godbold: good. Pretty good. Okay, good. I didn't expect perfect marks there. I've been disappointed. Had you told me I did. Perfect. Anyway, hey guys. Hey, we really appreciate everybody for joining. This has been an awesome episode. 'cause like I said, Christian and I go way back. I don't think we've ever done anything quite like this and people in our marketing team have told us for years, Hey, you and Christian need to get together and do something.
And for some reason we never did. I think this has turned out great. Hopefully everybody watching, there's been some. Maybe some laughs you've had in there, some similarities and things that you've been through, you're like, ah, you know, that, that reminds me of what I went through. Or maybe if you're just getting started, this has been beneficial to see that, hey, you know, we've built something that's pretty cool.
It's got some pretty good size, but when it came down to it, when we first got started, we were probably way, way behind where, [01:08:00] where you are, this, you know, you as, you know, maybe at this very given point. So I'll just say, you know, if we can do it, you can do it. And we, I think Christian and I are very tenacious individuals, um, hardheaded and which is can be good.
It's a good kind of hardhead and we really just kind of stick with stuff. And if we get knocked down, you know, as the song talks about, we get back up again and we try and figure out not to do that mistake again and learn from it. And again, it's been 13 years of having a dream, a goal and aspiration getting closer to it, getting knocked down.
And, you know, just kind of getting back up and, you know, you've got that curve when we know you've got your peak and you got your valley, and the next peak is hopefully a little taller than the last peak. And you just kind of work your way up where overall you've you've got a, you know, a where you, where you're increasing and you're getting better.
So if this episode was valuable, please like it, subscribe to the channel. We do this once a month. [01:09:00] This episode, again, is brought to you by JRA 360, the digital marketing agency for million dollar plus junk removal and dumpster rental business owners and those that want to get there. Also, wanna shout out specialty truck bodies.
If you are in the junk removal field and you're looking to get a junk removal truck, head over to junk removal trucks for sale.com. I am Lee Godbold. We have been with Christian Fowler. This has been fun. We'll see y'all next time. [01:10:00]