Scott said:
WISE said:
How bout that junk removal service as an add-on service we talked about at one time?
What are your thoughts on it now?
Thanks--
WISE
PS--The reason I ask is we just finished up a job and the owner asked my painter if we could haul off some stuff as he didn't have a truck and needed to get this junk out as he was selling the house. I told the guy sure and charged him a few hundred bucks...seems to be a pretty good profit margin in that if this 1 job was an indicator!
While I'm waiting for Jeff to throw his tomato (Mikey should call this the Tomato Room) I'll answer Mike Wise's question. Before I answer, though, I want to catch readers up to speed with what Mike's asking. WARNING! (just for Jim!) THIS IS A LONG READ AND I'LL BREAK IT INTO PARTS SO AS NOT TO PUT THE READER TO SLEEP. I WILL INTERJECT WITH OTHER ANSWERS, SHOULD QUESTIONS COME FORTH. Ok, here's the setup:
Several years ago, one of my techs approached me and said, "hey Scott, I was just talking with a customer and she has all of this nice, but dated, stuff that she's trying to get rid of. Her mother died and she has a house full of 1960's '70s furniture that she just doesn't know what to do with." I thought about it for a few hours and decided to call her. She didn't want to call her Uncle Louie to pick it all up, she just wanted it gone. No sentimental value at all - to her it was just junk. So I put together a crew and sent them out to pick up her stuff, for a pre-arranged fee, and take it back to our place.
When the crew brought it back, I could NOT believe it. There was all of this very nice, but dated, furniture and knickknacks. Everything from a wooden hutch dining set, book cabinets (solid cherry) to a couple of white "bumpy cotton" sofa (I haven't seen one in years), to pewter vases and bowls.
I did some research on this "junk" and discovered it was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $4000. Here's the beauty - to the customer, it was worthless and she paid us around $500 to pick it up. She even started crying in happiness when we told her we were going clean it up and donate it to charity.
After they brought it back, I was crying for other reasons than we were donating it to charity! LOL! Anyway, I did a test run of a concept company that I would later name "Pitch It". I've refined it much since that first pick up and it is growing, but it hasn't been a main focus for us yet. I have the brand together, including strategic and tactical plans, the Corporate ID including an excellent logo based on community recycling, biz cards, letterhead..everything. Sorry I can't give away all of the details lest some of you smart cookies steal it!
Anyway, the first 6 months we did about $12K in "Pitch It" jobs and it's grown as much as we've pushed it ever since. It's on pace to equal our 3rd largest revenue stream, which currently is commercial carpet care, within 2 yrs. unless we make a run with it.
Ok, to answer your question, Mike:
It has grown as much as we've pushed it so far, which has been only been a blurb in our Teeny Tiny Newsletter in 3 issues so far. There is a market for this but it MUST be branded differently than the other "junk" services, especially 800-GOT-JUNK which owns the industry now. They are extremely vulnerable, though, from my research.