AI transcript
0:00:00 This is scaling up a local service side hustle to full-time multi six figures in the pet waste removal niche
0:00:07 What’s up? What’s up, Nick? Oh Loper here
0:00:09 Welcome to the side hustle show part of the entrepreneur podcast network because you’re nine to five
0:00:14 They make you a living but your five tonight makes you alive come for this one
0:00:17 We first heard from today’s guests in early 2020
0:00:20 She was earning around a thousand bucks a week from her part-time Cooper scooper business and since then has grown it
0:00:27 I’m now serving almost 200 weekly residential customers at an average ticket price of $99 a month
0:00:34 From a pooping stooping calm Erica Crouppen welcome back to the side hustle show. Thanks for having me back again
0:00:41 I’m super excited you bet
0:00:43 I love building on these series and encourage everybody to check out the first appearances of Erica on the show
0:00:48 We’ll link those up, of course
0:00:49 Let’s stick around in this one you learn what’s working today from a marketing standpoint
0:00:53 How Erica raised prices and started landing bigger clients and how she’s removed herself from the fulfillment side of things the backyard physical labor
0:01:00 Poop and scoop and side of things to really step into that
0:01:03 CEO role now your listener only bonus for this week is my local business marketing
0:01:08 Checklist some simple ideas that you can implement to get more customers for your service
0:01:13 You can download that for free at the show notes for this episode
0:01:16 Just follow the link in the episode description
0:01:19 That’s the easiest way and it’ll get you right over there
0:01:21 Now I want to share a really really cool moment that was cool for me
0:01:25 So we’re visiting friends in in Michigan for Thanksgiving like long-standing friends giving tradition
0:01:30 We’re driving along in Detroit suburbs and I see this bright pink
0:01:34 Crouppen’s poop and scoop and sign yard sign in somebody’s yard
0:01:37 And I’m like, whoa, whoa, you know my wife is right in shotgun like hey, she was on the podcast
0:01:41 That’s so and she’s like to look at around like she had no idea what I’m talking about
0:01:44 What what looking for someone like actually standing there like no no no that yard sign that bright pink yard sign
0:01:49 And so that was a really cool moment to see your marketing in the wild and knowing that you were local there
0:01:55 You know, it sent you a message right away. Yes, you know, you know exactly where it was and so that was really cool
0:01:59 I did I was really stoked when you reached out to me. I remember telling my husband
0:02:03 I was like see see this is why it’s so important to put these yard signs out
0:02:07 have it bright pink and just be visible and I explained to him the story and
0:02:10 Sidewall’s a nation actually has a special place in my heart because I listened to your podcast when I was working my nine to five
0:02:19 Hoping that I was just going to be able to make it out of that job when I did I reached out to you
0:02:24 Because I wanted to be on your podcast because you were huge
0:02:27 Well, I appreciate that I appreciate you tuning in and and really I mean take an action
0:02:31 You were the first pet waste removal episode that we ever did. So I was like, well, this is unique
0:02:36 Yeah, I want to learn more about this because I think the marketing tactics and the logistics like all that stuff can be applied across any number of
0:02:43 Different niches. I know since that time you’ve gone full-time quit the job at the hospital to run this thing and I wanted to ask if there was a
0:02:50 Moment or a revenue target or something that made you comfortable like taking the leap and saying, okay
0:02:56 This is what I’m gonna do. This can pay the bills. I needed to replace my hospital income
0:03:01 I needed to make sure I was able to max out my retirement and
0:03:05 Get my retirement on my own my Roth IRA and get health insurance for me and my husband
0:03:10 And once I was able to secure that that’s when I was like, all right
0:03:14 I’m gonna put in my two months and I walked in that day and looked at my boss. I was like, we need to talk
0:03:20 She’s like, please tell me no
0:03:21 You’re not quitting right now. Oh, no, not right now, but in two months. I will be okay, and it was scary
0:03:28 It was very scary
0:03:30 But I was excited for the future seems like it has continued to grow since then adding a
0:03:35 roster of recurring customers one of the
0:03:39 Common themes on the show. Hey, you want recurring revenue got to solve a recurring problem
0:03:42 This definitely checks that box right as long as that dog is in that house
0:03:46 They’re gonna have this problem
0:03:47 And so I imagine the customer base tends to be pretty sticky and if you start to canvas the neighborhood with these yard signs
0:03:54 People learn the brand and the reputation and they know who to call when they have this issue
0:03:59 But I remember I think we’re talking about maybe 15 bucks a week 15 to 18 bucks a week early on and it sounds like pricing has
0:04:08 Grown or pricing has increased a little bit since then talk to me about that
0:04:12 Process or you just play the inflation card. Hey look costs are up everywhere. You know, we got to do it, too
0:04:17 Sorry for the inconvenience. What happens there? So when I talked to you back in what was it?
0:04:21 2020 I think I was only charging $55 a month which boiled down to like 1375 a week and
0:04:28 That was just enough to pay me and I had my little cobalt with my magnets
0:04:34 But quickly learned that I needed to raise my prices
0:04:37 So gradually I started to raise and how I did that was when I was getting new customers
0:04:43 They would get the new rates because I was still kind of scared to raise my old customers like my original 12
0:04:49 Okay, but as I started collecting data as I started researching
0:04:53 Vehicles new branding. I quickly realized that I needed to up my prices and it was scary
0:05:00 It really was but I’ve raised my prices several times now
0:05:04 Like you said, I’m at like $99 a month about that’s the average ticket price for the customer
0:05:11 The last time I did the rate increase. I just sent out a letter and just said hey, I got to raise my prices
0:05:17 This is what it is. This is what’s going on. This is what’s to be expected and this is how it’s going to roll out
0:05:23 So I’m very like detailed with my letters and if they have any questions or concerns
0:05:28 I have the conversation with them and just explain that I
0:05:31 Needed to raise my prices for x y and z and if they wanted to cancel service
0:05:35 I completely understood and some did some did but because I was able to bring on
0:05:40 Thousands more a month it balanced out. It was okay. Okay. Yeah, you get somebody used to that service
0:05:47 I mean people talk about like Netflix’s pricing power. It’s like, okay, we got millions of people paying us whatever it is 13 14 bucks like
0:05:55 What happens if we just raise it a dollar like is that enough of a pain point to make people cancel like?
0:05:59 Probably not. It’s probably a pretty sticky service. So it makes a lot of sense there
0:06:03 I had the experience recently of my podcast editing service and Fraser
0:06:08 I’ll get a kick out of this because he’s listening to it as he’s editing the episode. They said hey, Nick
0:06:12 You’ve been a customer since 2016. We love you. We appreciate your business
0:06:15 But our new clients are paying this so you’re getting a great deal. We’re not going to set your price that high
0:06:21 Initially, we’re going to kind of graduate you there over the course of 17 months or something
0:06:26 They did it like really really slowly, which I thought was fascinating because it’s kind of like the frog in the boiling water
0:06:31 Where if they jacked up the rate, you know one off rip off that Band-Aid it might have had me shopping for alternatives
0:06:37 But it’s like, oh, okay, three months and it’s gonna be this another three months
0:06:41 It’s gonna be this like okay. I could tolerate that pain point
0:06:43 That was a unique way to go about and do especially if you you talked about your original
0:06:48 12 customers the people who’ve been with you for the very beginning. Hey, we want to reward that loyalty in a way
0:06:53 But still deal with the reality of like look our costs have gone up
0:06:56 Like if we want to have any margin to hire other people and expand and yeah, we’re gonna have to do this
0:07:01 Yeah, I had this one customer Larry. I was so nervous to raise his rates. He stayed at
0:07:08 $55 a month
0:07:11 For almost five years and then finally I just said, you know what I got to raise him
0:07:17 And I raised him he was either 10 or 20 bucks a month. I can’t remember. Yeah, I know baby steps
0:07:22 Yeah, and he was like, okay
0:07:24 So worried for five years
0:07:29 That’s the residential side you mentioned going after some
0:07:33 Commercial business to like is this municipal parks? Like what do you mean commercial or what does this look like?
0:07:38 Commercial is that’s where some big money is so when we’re saying commercial
0:07:44 We’re servicing HOA communities homeowners associations where they have
0:07:48 Community areas where the dogs go or dog waste stations those green stations that you see at dog parks with the poop bags
0:07:56 Yeah, the rest reciprocals
0:07:58 So we service those the first account I landed was a 17 station HOA in an affluent community
0:08:06 And I was able to land that for
0:08:09 $25 a month that’s huge and most of the time it’s like the owners who are picking that stuff out and they put it in the
0:08:15 Little green thing that’s attached to the bag dispenser. So you’re just kind of emptying the bags. We empty them
0:08:21 We sanitize and clean the stations and then we will refill the bags and the reason why it’s considered
0:08:28 Commercial is because we’re getting paid from the homeowners association itself. Yeah
0:08:35 Okay, did you find there was a previous service like the landscapers like who are you displacing there?
0:08:41 Or did they just have like a volunteer from the board? I could go out and do this every month
0:08:44 They had a maintenance company that would do it
0:08:47 But here’s the thing is that’s not priority to them. It’s the last thing of their mind
0:08:52 So there would be times where they wouldn’t service for weeks at a time and these stations are overflowing
0:08:57 And when you were living in a community where the base house, let’s say you’re broke to get into this community
0:09:04 It’s a million dollar house. Do you think you want to see dog poop bags laying all over the ground? Absolutely not
0:09:10 Yeah, and so I positioned myself in a way to where the treasurer actually reached out
0:09:16 They’ve seen our reviews online
0:09:17 He called me personally and he explained the situation. He said how quickly can you get out here?
0:09:23 I said you approve the quote
0:09:24 I can be out there within 48 hours and I was out very quickly
0:09:28 Handled everything that he needed to handle and I’ve been with him or he’s been with me for the past three years
0:09:35 It’s been a okay great your full experience. Yeah, so that was inbound based on all the reputation
0:09:41 That she built any of these neighboring communities are like shoot we if we do this once well
0:09:47 What else is out here in terms of the commercial work world? That’s what my plan is
0:09:50 I’ve recently moved out to the area that I’m servicing. That’s where I’m at right now
0:09:55 I’m in a new office. This was like a strategic move on my end because a lot of times with these higher-end communities
0:10:03 They want to work with people that have the same
0:10:05 Zip code as them and it was really hard to kind of get in with where my office was at the time
0:10:11 So I moved to this location
0:10:13 I have a whole spreadsheet and I’m going to just be going to these are calling the HOA’s
0:10:19 Be mailing and networking and really trying to get in to explode like the next let’s say 24 months
0:10:25 I just want to explode the commercial side of the pooper scooper business. Yeah, we just did a landscaping
0:10:30 episode and what he said was kind of similar and interesting is like the weekly maintenance business for mowing lawns was very
0:10:39 Predictable is great baseline to have yeah, but somewhat lower margins because it’s recurring revenue
0:10:44 It’s somewhat on autopilot but then going after like these bigger in his case wasn’t necessarily commercial work still like residential
0:10:50 Irrigation installs and landscaping projects
0:10:53 But it was like those were the opportunities to have like bigger bids more margin. Like have you found the same thing here?
0:10:59 My friend told me when she say residential pays the bills
0:11:03 Commercial puts money in the bank account and when I said that to me. I said
0:11:09 This is so true. So about six or seven months ago. I said, all right, we’re doing a rebrand. We’re gonna get more professional
0:11:16 We’re gonna get new uniforms everything and so the past six months
0:11:20 I’ve been like kicking butt on changing or upgrading pretty much everything within the business
0:11:26 Yeah, we have some examples of those upgrades. Oh our vehicles
0:11:31 I completely redid the entire all the vehicles are all hot pink with a brand new logo. I got a new logo
0:11:37 I actually invested instead of making one on Canva because when I got started, I didn’t have
0:11:42 Money, I didn’t have the knowledge. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just doing it
0:11:46 And so I reached out to somebody. That’s a professional
0:11:50 Brand creator that they create a brand identity and I spent a good six weeks with him
0:11:55 Coming up with a new logo and then once I did that I went to a wrap shop and I said, all right
0:12:01 Let’s wrap all of these vehicles and you can see my vehicles
0:12:05 So far away. There’s there’s no mistaking it. Yeah, I don’t know if this is gonna be on video like on YouTube
0:12:11 But for those of you watching it, it’s this bright pink color. Yeah, I’m glad that you’re on brand today
0:12:15 It’s the same pink that is in your logo
0:12:17 It’s the same pink is the sign that I saw it’s a pink is the truck wraps. How many vehicles are in this fleet now?
0:12:23 This sounds pretty serious. Well, I have three I have the two cars and the one truck
0:12:27 The one other car got involved in a hit-and-run accident and was totaled out
0:12:32 So right now we’re down to the three which is fine because I’m down a staff member
0:12:37 So I’m actually back in the field again scooping
0:12:39 That’s why I was a little bit late because I was out scooping and then I had to like refresh myself and I
0:12:45 underestimated the
0:12:47 Traffic on the way from my house to the new office. And that’s all good. Is that typical?
0:12:52 I know you’re trying to get yourself out of the field and
0:12:55 Spend less time doing that but I understand like hey things come up cars get wrecked
0:13:01 People call in sick and they got to go and fill in to keep the customers happy
0:13:04 Yes back and forth back and forth. I’ll get out for a little bit back in I’m not the best at hiring yet
0:13:10 That’s still a skill set that I need to work on
0:13:12 So the next set of goal list is really level up with hiring and know who to pick and
0:13:18 I’ve been learning how to not let people stay in my company
0:13:23 Longer than they should because last year I had an employee that nearly I nearly allowed him to
0:13:29 Destroy my company. That was bad. Are you able to share what was happening or like pitfalls to avoid for people listening?
0:13:38 Yeah, it was just a lot of complaints a lot of miss piles
0:13:41 That’s a quality issue and I kind of just let it go. I would have the little conversations
0:13:46 But it didn’t really take action. I didn’t implement like a disciplinary action
0:13:51 This person would also either not be able to come in or would have to leave mid-shift and I would be like, okay
0:13:57 I understand
0:13:59 Go out there scoop not really have the conversation about how this is not meeting standards
0:14:04 And then this person left a gate open and two dogs escaped. Oh, no
0:14:11 Yeah, and so that was I guess essentially my last straw
0:14:14 So I did let that person go and because of that I implemented closed gate photos now at the end of all of our shifts
0:14:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and I now have
0:14:27 Expectations written out and during the hiring process. I let them know up front what to expect
0:14:33 So if I’m coming to them to have a conversation about quality issues
0:14:37 They’re not blindsided and I have it written out in black and white step-by-step. What’s gonna happen
0:14:43 And it gives me a sense of confidence as a business owner to have those conversations
0:14:47 Right trying to set the coaching program that I’m in is called it like the definition of done like setting your
0:14:54 Team members up for success by like saying well
0:14:56 Here’s what done looks like and having that quality control checklist having the gate closed photos like hey
0:15:02 You’re not done until I get his clothes, right? I think that’s super helpful to lay out what the expectations are
0:15:08 Is it a hard job to hire for like people like oh gross I don’t want to touch that or is it seem like hey?
0:15:13 Flexible drive around town like I don’t know like what’s been your experience trying to recruit people
0:15:19 It’s been hard because people it’s still fairly unheard of industry
0:15:24 Unless you know you know and you don’t see a job posting often for like a dog waste removal business on indeed
0:15:31 so the people that apply are really
0:15:33 Thrown off about it, but because I do pay pretty high
0:15:38 They’re like okay. Well, this is intriguing. Why is it paying so much?
0:15:42 And so that’s the reason why my rates are so much higher because I want to have a quality competent person
0:15:47 They need to be able to have a driver’s license a clean record pass a background check. Yes
0:15:53 I background check every person I send to a home. I’m sending an employee to somebody’s home that has children a lot of times
0:15:59 Yeah, totally. Yeah, given them access to the backyard like totally yeah access to my customer information through the CRM
0:16:07 And so they have to be able to meet all of those criterias and then just showing up that was so difficult
0:16:14 I went through hundreds of applications and interviews and
0:16:18 Maybe four or five actually showed up. It was wild. Yeah, it’s you know, it’s set up where
0:16:25 It’s gonna be a flat weekly salary or like we’re gonna pay you
0:16:31 20 bucks a yard like I’m just
0:16:34 Kind of think of the the structure if I’m trying to recreate this in a power washing niche or something else that might be
0:16:41 Similar local service. I’ve tried the what is it pay per performance? So like the PPP?
0:16:46 I’ve tried that that just people wanted to rush through because they wanted to get done as fast as possible
0:16:53 So I quit doing that now. I just decided I’m going to pay hourly
0:16:58 And I have a criteria like they need to be able to hit three houses an hour on average throughout the week
0:17:03 Some yards are larger. Some yards are smaller. I started 1850 an hour
0:17:09 I mean, that’s pretty decent in our area and that’s starting pay. Got it
0:17:12 Yeah, I see that could be an attractive job with somewhat flexible schedule
0:17:16 Like is there enough houses to keep somebody busy full-time or is like oh, there’s gonna be a 10 hour a week or 20 hour a week
0:17:23 type of rule no because my full-time scooper has a 125 houses per week and
0:17:28 then
0:17:29 No, right and then a part-time has half of that and then I have one girl that works on Wednesdays
0:17:36 And she does 25 houses on that day. She’s like super part-time. That’s still a ton. That’s a ton of
0:17:42 Houses driving poop. That’s
0:17:44 It’s a lot to keep track of more with Erica in just a moment
0:17:49 Including the tech platform she uses to keep all the customers and jobs organized and how she’s collected over
0:17:54 370 Google reviews towering above the competition right after this
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0:20:08 What’s the tech platform if there is such a thing to just manage the route and the dispatching and like all of a sudden at that
0:20:15 Scale like the logistics side of it starts to get it’s not just oh, you know, there’s the three houses around the corner
0:20:21 I know I got a hit like I got to have a system for this in the beginning
0:20:24 I just had a Google doc and so I was able to kind of keep things in order
0:20:27 But once I hit 50 customers things were starting to get a little messy
0:20:31 And so I was trying to find different platforms and trying to keep things organized and I actually had missed a couple customers
0:20:37 Which that’s unacceptable
0:20:39 So I started doing my research on CRMs and I came across Jabber CRM
0:20:44 And I’m actually now an ambassador for them because I love the platform
0:20:49 It’s an all-in-one you have your routing you have your invoicing you have your customer communication
0:20:54 You have reports invoicing all of it. I live in Jabber
0:20:58 I even put my personal tasks in Jabber on my calendar because I’m in it so much
0:21:03 Okay, this is the go-to and I’ve heard this from other people too
0:21:07 This is like almost the go-to for a local service business like this manage the team manage the routes manage the customers
0:21:14 Kind of all in one it’s cool because you can use it from your laptop and then also they have a mobile app
0:21:19 So the staff can see their schedule. They get to clock in they get to clock out and there’s two-way text messaging with Jabber
0:21:27 So we always send our homeowners a text message when we’re on the way
0:21:30 So they can put the dog away and then we send a text when we’re finished that way
0:21:35 I’m able to see all the communication that goes through
0:21:38 Because it’s very transparent
0:21:41 So if a complaint comes in via text message the whole team gets it and you’re getting put on blast
0:21:46 But that’s just how we roll. It’s like you got to take accountability for it. Okay, and it doesn’t seem like
0:21:51 It happens very often or if it does happen
0:21:54 You’re on top of it because I’m looking at the Google reviews now
0:21:57 372 Google reviews. I think the next closest competitor has seven or something
0:22:03 So it’s like clearly doesn’t happen by accident. We have done a ton of effort into
0:22:07 Building up that online reputation. What does that look like if for
0:22:12 Requesting those reviews from customers in the beginning. It was manual just a text message with a link now
0:22:19 I’ve used two different platforms that connects to my CRM. That’s an automated system
0:22:25 The first one was a nice job, which once I close a job out
0:22:30 Nice job asks the customer for a review
0:22:33 Since then I have moved to review Harvest and the reason why I like review Harvest is because not only
0:22:41 Does it ask the customer for a review?
0:22:44 But it also will post on my social media with the review with like a picture with my branding and my colors
0:22:51 And so it’s also giving me social media content
0:22:54 Right on time I’m getting the review
0:22:57 So there’s a lot of automation that I’ve implemented in my business to help scale because I’m only one person
0:23:02 I can only do so much. It’s good to utilize the technology that’s available to you
0:23:08 Okay, yeah review Harvest is new to me. We’ll link that one up as a resource
0:23:13 Is it the same for like a recurring weekly customer like after a week three or something like it?
0:23:19 You like our service, you know, would you mind leaving a review?
0:23:21 It’s hard to say why close it out that job if it’s gonna continue happening. I am strategic when a customer comes on
0:23:27 I set two jobs up for them. I set up the first month of service
0:23:32 That way they’re in there for like two or three weeks
0:23:35 They kind of get our vibe and then we close that one out and then they will get their request
0:23:40 For the review and then their next job
0:23:44 It just continuous and they won’t get another review request from us until that job closes out, but I think I
0:23:52 Think the software knows that the person has reviewed us so it won’t ask them again
0:23:57 Okay, if they’ve left the review and it’s been prioritizing Google or you say hey
0:24:03 If you are a Yelp user if you like to review on Facebook like you target any of these other platforms or say what we’re going
0:24:09 All in on the high visibility Google reviews with the nice job. I believe whatever they have open on their phone
0:24:16 I don’t actually I don’t know the route
0:24:19 I think it’s whatever is open on their phone
0:24:21 But I know with review harvest the first thing that they go for is that Google and then they post on to
0:24:27 Facebook onto the page onto the stories and then also they update your Google profile like the pictures in your Google profile
0:24:37 Okay, and then they also ask the customer to leave a recommendation in next door and the next door app
0:24:44 Because that is going to help with your local market
0:24:48 sure sure oh just the posts that you see like hey if anybody’s in the market for a
0:24:52 Bathroom contractor like take a look at the work that we just had done if you need any help give these guys a call type of thing
0:24:58 Just it’s not necessarily
0:25:00 Tied to your profile page or something. It’s kind of like goes into the next door feed. Am I understand that correctly?
0:25:05 Yeah, they’ll just post a recommendation that doesn’t happen all the time
0:25:08 But they try to get that because it always carries more weight and has more value if a
0:25:14 Recommendation is made versus the business owner in their posting. So I do get creative with my stuff
0:25:20 So in the next door app, this is something that happened recently
0:25:24 I got all my wraps done and the wrapping company is local. So in the next door app, I gave
0:25:31 The wrap company a huge shout out for doing this amazing work while posting a picture of my vehicle that says who we are
0:25:38 What we do is how to get in touch with us
0:25:41 Yeah, perfect 10 leads boom
0:25:44 Okay, yeah, that’s awesome. That’s really creative. Okay, so next door utilizing these different community groups next door is huge
0:25:52 The local Facebook groups the reason I brought that up is like looking for bathroom contractors
0:25:56 and so it’s like scrolling through these old archive posts and they can have a lifespan of years if somebody got their work done
0:26:02 2022 or something who did you use right like as long as they’re still in business sir?
0:26:05 We’ll give them a call right so that stuff can have a long shelf life. What else is going on on the marketing front
0:26:11 I love just I think the example from the very first episode, you know where we initially posted this picture of the dog pooping
0:26:18 And it got a lot of attention and had 80 inquiries over messenger and throughout the history of this
0:26:23 You’ve been very creative and intentional on the marketing side. What else do you see working today? Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of money
0:26:29 So I had to get had to get creative and still sure this day
0:26:33 I don’t like spending money on ads over the spring like early spring
0:26:37 Facebook was getting me for like six seven eight twelve hundred dollars because I was trying to pump money into ads
0:26:45 And it’s just for me. I don’t think I had them set up right so it didn’t work
0:26:49 so what I’ve been doing is just getting more intentional with
0:26:54 The strategy and trying to get away from the fluff, right?
0:26:58 Just like who we are what we do how to get in touch with us because people
0:27:02 They don’t want to read long posts anymore at least from my experience when it comes to like the dog waste removal stuff and
0:27:09 putting those keywords in there and just consistently
0:27:12 creating like some sort of content between stagnant posts and
0:27:19 Videos with a trending sound over it from a camera phone. No professional photos camera phone
0:27:24 Videos and pictures perform so much better than professional stock photos
0:27:30 You’re posting these as organic media or as ads
0:27:35 No, organic media if one pops one does pretty well
0:27:39 I will put some ad dollars behind it
0:27:41 but I spend so much money on the vehicles that I have
0:27:47 Maxed out my ad budget probably for two years
0:27:50 Yeah, well people see these driving around town. They’re definitely going to notice so it makes sense
0:27:56 Do you have an example of the social media post that did go medium viral in your little area or in this niche and
0:28:04 What it said what that resulted in I had a video that hit
0:28:08 1.2 million views
0:28:11 and that
0:28:15 Was me taking a trash bag and putting it over top of my pooper scooper bucket
0:28:20 It’s just so simple
0:28:23 So simple and people loved it and I got a lot of traction with that. They’re like, what is this for what’s going on?
0:28:29 So I was able to show people
0:28:32 That wanted to scoop the dog poop themselves
0:28:34 How to do it a professional way and then the people that were like, oh, well, I just want you to scoop the poop for me
0:28:41 I’m like, all right, perfect
0:28:43 Let us do it. All right a certain percentage probably a small percentage of those were like within your service radius
0:28:48 And they ended up reaching out. Yeah, okay
0:28:51 Interesting like I would never have because it’s so broad because it’s the nationwide worldwide. I wouldn’t have guessed that
0:28:58 that type of
0:29:00 Content would really do anything for a local service business, but you’re proving me wrong
0:29:03 Well, so it just depends like they’ll ask like where we’re from and when you post something
0:29:08 It will say like if you can add a location to it and I always try to add the location when I post something
0:29:15 I really really try so then it shows it to my local market
0:29:20 Got it. Got it. All right. So trying to play the viral social media game trying to collect reviews
0:29:24 Facebook ads, maybe not super effective putting some money into the truck wraps the you know, right in your face local marketing
0:29:31 Anything else that’s driving leads these days. I’ve always wanted to just create awareness that this business
0:29:37 Is a thing and it’s available
0:29:39 And so I just think creating that awareness getting involved within the community
0:29:44 Talking to people creating that brand like I don’t even like the color pink really, but now I’m just all pinked out
0:29:51 And in that way it’s like brand association
0:29:55 And then over time all of that just kind of compounds like you see in the sign and you were like, oh, that’s kruppin’s poopin scooping
0:30:02 And just being intentional this stuff doesn’t happen overnight
0:30:05 I remember your story about walking into the vet office
0:30:08 With a box of donuts trying to play the game. Well, who are my target customers?
0:30:12 Already doing business with if they got a dog they’re probably visiting the vet
0:30:15 Hey, mind if I drop off these donuts and these business cards like here
0:30:19 I like to have them I have a little stack on your counter and people can see it there or
0:30:23 Put up a banner at the local dog park again bright pink gets your attention
0:30:28 like where are my target customers already doing business anything on the
0:30:33 Word of mouth referral marketing like trying to lean into that trying to turn one customer into two like hey
0:30:38 If you got a friend that has a dog, you know, I’ll give you 50 bucks off to send them my way or something
0:30:42 With jobber they have a referral link that gets sent out. I think with every invoice
0:30:47 So this is a little bit automated and if somebody refers out
0:30:51 Then I give that person a free week
0:30:55 But if they sign up like they get a one-time clean or a spring clean and they sign up for regular monthly service
0:31:02 I will give a like either a half a month off or an entire month free to the referral person
0:31:07 It varies just depending on the type of account that gets picked up. Yeah, it’s kind of this game of
0:31:14 relatively fixed relatively low cost of customer acquisition in this case for hopefully
0:31:20 A multi-year lifetime value of this customer
0:31:23 I get the sense that people tend to stick around for a while once they get used to the service
0:31:28 And you have the data on that like what’s a customer worth typically lifetime value wise
0:31:32 So fun fact, I didn’t really understand lifetime value. I didn’t even know what lifetime value meant until
0:31:39 Like six months ago. I posted on youtube that I was struggling with certain things
0:31:45 And this guy william that started watching my channel in 2020
0:31:50 He started a pooper scooper business and quickly has scaled it to seven figures
0:31:55 A seven figure pooper scooper business, right? So he’s million. Wow in in one town
0:32:00 They have three locations now. Okay. Dang. That’s a lot of poop
0:32:04 It really is it truly is and he asked me that he goes. Do you know your churn rate?
0:32:10 Do you know your lifetime value? Do you know your acquisition cost? I said, what are you talking about?
0:32:16 I have
0:32:17 no idea and and
0:32:20 Through talking to some other business owners. He’s realized that a lot of people don’t truly understand their numbers
0:32:26 So william has recently
0:32:28 Created a course for pooper scoopers. It’s called the poop scoop millionaire
0:32:32 And in there he has documents that go over how to figure out your lifetime value
0:32:38 How to figure out your churn rate how to figure out your acquisition cost all of that
0:32:42 I’m super excited because I will now be a coach within this community
0:32:47 About talking about social media and how to scale a business from zero to 250k
0:32:52 Okay, okay
0:32:54 Yeah, and so I’m in the process of learning all of that stuff too because my brain kind of like
0:32:59 Glitches when he starts talking about churn rate, but I know I know I can figure this out
0:33:04 It just takes time and data tracking. Right. Yeah
0:33:08 So you can say well over the course of the five years of this business we’ve had 200 customers on average. They stick around for
0:33:14 18 months so
0:33:16 That is
0:33:17 Whatever 99 times 18, you know, it’s $1,800 lifetime value and if it cost us less than $1,800
0:33:24 Well, you know, we got labor and everything else other costs associated with that
0:33:27 But if we can acquire that customer for given somebody a free month
0:33:30 We have a hundred dollar cost of acquisition like that seems very profitable and potentially very scalable
0:33:36 More with erica in just a moment including why she’s built the crappiest channel on youtube
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0:35:03 If you travel a lot for work or for a vacation, you might be familiar with that feeling you get
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0:36:04 You did mention these guys. They were operating in three different cities
0:36:07 I think when we last spoke you had a satellite location on the other side of the state like in miskegon
0:36:13 Is that still with it? Was that under a franchise or like a subcontractor? Like how did you have that set up?
0:36:18 We didn’t I didn’t know what I was doing. She was operating
0:36:21 She was making money. She was a satellite location, but she was still operating under me
0:36:26 But my business was getting so busy and she was doing such a good job on her own
0:36:31 I just presented her with some information. I said, I think you could be your own business owner
0:36:36 You’ve proven that you’re able to scoop these customers on your own. You’re able to communicate with them
0:36:41 I will show you how to get your LLC. I’ll show you how to get jobber if you need any help
0:36:46 And I think I sold it to her for like a dollar
0:36:48 I don’t know. It was like a dollar and she’s doing great. She’s flourishing
0:36:53 Yeah, it’s just like I don’t want to deal with this headache anymore. Like it’s your baby now
0:36:56 Well, because I was like too divided because I was getting questions
0:37:00 From up there and then I’m running my business and then at the time I was like, let’s start a youtube channel. That would be great
0:37:07 Not realizing how difficult content creation is
0:37:11 Well, talk to me about that side of the business because you have kruppin spoopin scoopin 3 000 subscribers on youtube
0:37:17 It says welcome to the crappiest channel on youtube. Love it. You got the scoop podcast
0:37:22 And so starting to create content about the business owner side of things
0:37:25 Hey, what it’s like behind the scenes running this day to day and there’s a ton of content up there
0:37:29 But like you mentioned, it takes time away from doing the actual thing
0:37:34 Like what’s I love to geek out on the content side and what that has done for you
0:37:38 So the content was kind of like a creative outlet for me because I’ve always had two or three jobs
0:37:44 And so leaving the hospital I was like, okay, I’m doing this but I need something else to like relieve stress
0:37:51 And creating the content
0:37:53 Is fun, but at a certain point I needed to start making some money
0:37:58 So I needed to start being more strategic
0:38:00 But it’s hard when you’re trying to create content and you’re trying to run the business and what I didn’t anticipate
0:38:07 With being an entrepreneur. I didn’t anticipate the personal growth journey that I was going to go through
0:38:13 and
0:38:15 I’ve heard people say that like some years
0:38:18 You are growing personally some years. You’re growing professionally some years
0:38:22 You’re just trying to maintain and I’ve went through all of that in the past five years
0:38:26 So I wouldn’t say that I had a lot of growth last year in the business
0:38:30 But personally like I went completely sober. I quit drinking March 28th of last year
0:38:36 Because mentally my mental health was I just was not doing okay
0:38:41 And I just felt like I wasn’t being a good wife
0:38:44 I was the largest that I had been in quite some time
0:38:48 I
0:38:49 Was an emotional roller coaster and I knew the foundation of like what was going on with me was
0:38:54 Fastly falling apart and I was like, well, what am I going to do? So I said, okay
0:38:59 Drinking is a crutch for me. I get stressed. I drink. I’m happy. I drink. So I’m just going to quit
0:39:05 I’m going to quit I’m going to quit drinking and so I quit for one day
0:39:07 Then I quit for two days
0:39:09 And I noticed a lot of my content was very emotional and very low at that time
0:39:14 But that really connected with people because people struggling especially since covid
0:39:19 I was just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and trying to figure out what to do
0:39:23 But now like with a clear mind. I’m like, okay
0:39:26 You can’t spend a bunch of time
0:39:29 Thinking about and creating a bunch of content. You have to get more strategic with it like
0:39:33 Today is going to be your recording day. You’re just going to record on this day
0:39:37 Your other days is going to be for networking and marketing your business
0:39:41 You can’t worry about creating content on those days because you need to grow your business
0:39:45 So what I did was is I’ve actually I was running two instagrams one for the scoop podcast and one for kruppen’s poop and scooping
0:39:53 I can’t do it anymore
0:39:56 I can’t do it. So I’m combining them. It’s just you’re going to get everything on that one instagram page now
0:40:02 The social media side the pooper scooper side the mental health personal growth side
0:40:07 So it’ll just be like a well-rounded instagram channel. Okay. So I like this call to
0:40:13 You try and theme your days, which is a takeaway from Mike Vardy from productivityist on the show years ago
0:40:20 Like so you’re not switching gears so many times like okay today is going to be the recording day today is
0:40:25 business growth and outbound calling day and maybe day three is social media day
0:40:30 Trying to minimize the mental switching costs. I think that’s really smart
0:40:34 but I’m still curious about like is it worthwhile to
0:40:37 invest the time
0:40:39 To show people the behind the scenes of the business
0:40:42 And become a content creator versus just doing the thing like I’m going to keep my head down
0:40:47 I’m going to just keep on doing obviously led to this connection with the poop scoop millionaire
0:40:51 And like some positive things came from it and like now this 1.2 million view viral video
0:40:56 Like I don’t know I’m torn because like on the one hand super cool
0:41:00 I want to be the transparent work in public type of thing show people the behind the scenes and it unlocks new revenue streams
0:41:07 like sponsorships coaching
0:41:09 Brand deals the job or ambassadorship like stuff like that
0:41:11 But on the other hand it like takes away from the core thing that’s paying the bills in the near term
0:41:16 That’s kind of where I’ve struggled because I’m like, what do I really want?
0:41:20 there’s a lot of different
0:41:22 parts of me the
0:41:24 part of me that enjoys the connection with people from the youtube channel and the content I’ve put out
0:41:30 To see other people that have seen my videos and they’ve been able to grow a six-figure business
0:41:35 Like personally that fills me like that makes me so happy and then I’m able to see their journey
0:41:40 Then the other aspect of it
0:41:43 Of getting content creation deals to where I’m able to make money by making videos and talking
0:41:49 That’s cool to be able to not leave my house and create videos and talk on my podcast and make money
0:41:56 Amazing. Yeah, best gig in the world, right? Yeah, and poop scooping. It’s tough. You’re out in the sun
0:42:01 We’ve had two dog bites this year. I had a file at workman’s comp claim
0:42:05 So it’s nice to be able to create money on different avenues
0:42:08 And then as for the business, it’s like I don’t know how big or how massive I want to grow grow my business
0:42:15 I don’t know if I want to have like a multi-million dollar. What is the word? Coglomerate company?
0:42:22 I’m not going nationwide. Yeah, and I like to hop on camera and talk. I don’t know. It’s like a self-fulfilling thing to
0:42:29 See the content I’m creating and also
0:42:32 Document the journey because I get to look back at those videos from 2020 and I literally get to see my entire journey
0:42:40 Yeah, that’s sometimes a little awkward to go back and listen to those archive
0:42:44 episodes from 10 years ago
0:42:45 But I’m with you and it was something that she said about like really knowing yourself
0:42:50 But like look, I needed something else to relieve stress. It wasn’t
0:42:53 Maybe I mispositioned it as like a trade-off. I could invest my time here or I can miss my time here
0:42:58 Where it’s like I could do this and I can do this because I want to because it’s fulfilling
0:43:03 Because for all these other check the box reasons rather than just driving top-rank growth
0:43:07 But it kind of leads to the next thing of or the next question of like
0:43:11 Where do you want to take this thing? Like will it be a seven figure
0:43:16 Multi-state multi-location multi-city type of operation or is say like look, we’re good. This is fantastic lifestyle business
0:43:23 We’ve got it almost on autopilot now. It runs itself. It’s predictable. Like where do you want to go?
0:43:29 Oh, it’s really hard for me to make that decision because I hate putting myself into a box
0:43:34 I feel like if I would be like this is what’s going to happen. This is like the end goal that I’m like limiting myself
0:43:40 I just wherever god wants to take me and I get to use my talents
0:43:45 That’s really where it’s at if I’m meant to have a big business
0:43:47 I’m going to have the skill set and it’s going to happen
0:43:50 And I’m just going to keep working towards it or if I’m going to have a big social media and talk for a living
0:43:55 I’m cool with that too. All I know
0:43:57 Is I want to be able to
0:44:00 Enjoy what I’m doing and make enough money that when my parents no longer
0:44:06 Can like
0:44:08 Work and they’re older they don’t have to like struggle and that’s something that’s really important to me because
0:44:14 I’ve seen elderly people where they can’t provide for themselves and they struggle and I just don’t want that for my parents
0:44:20 So and I don’t want my mom to live with me. I want to be able to
0:44:23 Buy her or pay for a place for her to live
0:44:26 Yeah, that’s from me because I can’t with that. Well a strong motivation and
0:44:33 One thing that I appreciate about all of our calls together is the transparency and this is a struggle like every step of the way
0:44:40 There’s a new
0:44:42 Hurdle, there’s a new obstacle. There’s something else that goes wrong
0:44:46 And you just kind of have to fight your way through it. You got to figure it out
0:44:50 That’s your job as the business owner and you don’t necessarily know
0:44:54 How to get through to the other side, but you got to figure it out and I just
0:44:57 Appreciate you sharing all that instead of coming in and be like I’m god’s gift to pooper scooper
0:45:03 And I have all the answers and I knew it from the get-go. It’s like, no, this was there’s some hard fought wins here
0:45:09 But since we last connected I think late 2020
0:45:12 What’s surprised you the most since then the growth of the community has surprised me
0:45:18 Just how many pooper scoopers there are now
0:45:21 A lot of thanks to me and me blabbing all over the internet about it
0:45:24 So I’ve essentially created my own competition, but I don’t look at it that way
0:45:30 I look at as the more people that are doing this the more people that are
0:45:35 Following good practices in business. It’s uplifting the community and the more brand awareness and community awareness that there is
0:45:43 The more acceptable this industry is going to be
0:45:46 I wouldn’t say that I’m shocked. I wanted this to happen
0:45:50 But it shocks me at how fast it’s grown over the past four years
0:45:54 And I can’t wait to see what it’s like in another five to ten years
0:45:59 When you started
0:46:01 I remember you say, well, how did I come up with pricing? Well, I looked up what the other people in the area
0:46:05 Were charging for this. So there was some
0:46:07 Entrenched competition, but nowhere near what it is today
0:46:11 You kind of just attribute that to like the pie just getting bigger like more and more people are hiring out this service
0:46:17 And so there’s greater demand
0:46:18 Whereas before like this is a thing you could hire help for like maybe it wasn’t on people’s radars as much as it is
0:46:24 Today, is that what you think is going on? Yeah
0:46:26 people knowing that’s the main thing is like
0:46:29 What do they say if you build it they will come
0:46:32 It’s also make people aware that the service is available and they can make the decision
0:46:36 They’ve seen a post and on facebook about pooper scooper. They might have like
0:46:40 Snubbed their nose at it
0:46:42 But during that spring clean when they’re cleaning their back hurts and they’re like this is stupid
0:46:47 Throw down the pooper scooper and they’re like, I know I see somebody that cleans up dog poop on facebook
0:46:51 And then they hire it out and then they tell their friends they tell their people
0:46:56 The neighbors see you park and then drive away and they’re like, what’s that about and they snap a picture
0:47:01 So over time it’s just kind of spreads and you get more exposure
0:47:05 Yeah, there’s like this nitrification of
0:47:08 home services where
0:47:11 Number one more and more people want to just not deal with it
0:47:15 Like as a homeowner like I don’t want to bother with the
0:47:17 Gutter cleaning or the window cleaning or whatever to stuff gets dirty over and over again
0:47:21 Great if you can be in the business of cleaning it up
0:47:23 maybe you can do it every quarter or every six months set it up on a recurring basis and
0:47:28 More and more people getting into it now, but like relatively low competition from the startup space or the
0:47:34 competing service provider space where if you come in with a little bit of
0:47:38 Marketing savvy like Erica has you get some room to carve out a little bit of market share there
0:47:43 And and you may not even need to conquest
0:47:45 The business from another service provider just because like you mentioned
0:47:49 It sounds like the the biggest competition you’re displacing is people doing it themselves
0:47:52 Is getting sick of this chore like I don’t want to deal with this anymore. There’s got to be a smarter way
0:47:56 I gotta go hire somebody who’s a professional. Well, yeah and positioning yourself well too because I mean in the home service industry
0:48:02 You get a lot of contractors or business owners that just don’t do good business. They don’t communicate. They don’t show up
0:48:08 They’re messy and so if there is a lot of competition in your area, this is what I did
0:48:13 I went through and I read all of the reviews of all my competition or people that were in the area
0:48:19 Collected the information on what the issues were. It was lack of communication didn’t show up doesn’t answer the phone
0:48:26 And so I made sure when I was starting my business and continuing my business
0:48:31 A plus plus communication, right? Well, we’re going to show up
0:48:35 But we’re going to send you a text message to let you know that we’re there
0:48:37 So that was like the main focus is just try to be better
0:48:41 Try to be better than the people in your area and that’s how I’m able to charge more too. That’s why I have a higher price point
0:48:47 Yeah, you can add on some layer of
0:48:50 professionalism in terms of branding and marketing and what historically has been a really fragmented industry
0:48:57 You can bring that together under your brand and kind of command a premium for that take a little margin on the top the
0:49:04 And you can do it offline. You can do it online the online example that comes to mind is belay solutions that started
0:49:11 Like an executive assistant service
0:49:13 Which executive assistant’s been around since the dawn of the internet or virtual assistants been around for 30 plus years at this point
0:49:19 What they did is hire from that same talent pool like this work from home professional
0:49:23 And say well, okay now you’re going to go through our vetting hiring branding process
0:49:28 And charge a premium rate as a result some that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate you sharing that
0:49:34 So you mentioned you’re doing coaching for pet waste millionaire. You’ve got the kruppen poop and scoop in
0:49:38 YouTube channel plus the scoop podcast. What else is on the horizon for this year?
0:49:43 Oh gosh, it’s a lot really just building out this office this new place that i’m in get the new podcast studio set up
0:49:50 I want to start highlighting
0:49:52 Female business owners because there is a content gap for female business owners that work outside of the home
0:49:58 So I definitely want to dive into that a little bit
0:50:01 And I also wanted to get involved in the community and with other business owners and bring them in studio
0:50:07 Because being a business owner and going through the growth that I have the past four years
0:50:13 My friend group. I don’t have one personally here anymore because we’re just on a different page
0:50:18 And so being an entrepreneur it’s lonely. And so my
0:50:21 Goal is to meet some new like-minded people
0:50:25 That I can hang out with and talk business with and it’s not where it’s like, oh, she’s talking about business again
0:50:31 What is she doing?
0:50:33 So that’s kind of what the goal is and then really
0:50:35 Lean into the coaching because I’ve been wanting to coach for quite some time
0:50:41 And so I think that’s going to be a huge part of what
0:50:44 2024 is going to be about and that makes sense and I appreciate you sharing that it is lonely
0:50:48 You gotta have to have some people you could talk shop with otherwise just go crazy rallying around in your mind with that stuff
0:50:54 Well, very good. We’ll link up all of Erica’s resources again pooping scooping.com is the main
0:51:00 Website you can check out what she’s up to over there. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation
0:51:07 2024 edition and then we’ll take a trip down memory lane and see what you said before
0:51:11 If there is something that you can’t figure out if there’s something you’re stuck on
0:51:16 Try to find somebody that knows how to do it
0:51:20 Just speed up your process because I spent a lot of time
0:51:24 Just researching stuff that I shouldn’t have if I would have just paid somebody 50 bucks 100 bucks
0:51:31 They could have gave me the answer so quick and I would have saved myself a lot of stress
0:51:36 So that would be my number one tip is just reach out to people
0:51:40 And get some help if you need it. Yeah, this is the unlock or this is the shortcut in a lot of ways
0:51:45 there’s
0:51:46 Something to be said early on and 100 percent. This was me. I could figure this out, right? Like
0:51:50 I know the answer is out there. It’s on youtube. It’s on, you know a million other websites
0:51:55 like I could brute force my way through this but as the business has matured it’s like
0:51:59 Yeah, I probably could figure this out
0:52:01 But somebody else already knows how to do this and I could probably just hire them to do it and they’d be done
0:52:05 In a week versus me just procrastinating on it and wasting a bunch of time
0:52:09 So if there’s something that you’re stuck on find somebody who knows how to do it
0:52:12 This is the number one tip for 2024 in late 2019 early 2020 for that first episode
0:52:18 it was keep your business debt free like minding the
0:52:21 Dollars and cents and the income and the outcome like that makes a lot of sense a mentor of mine early on said
0:52:27 Hey, you know if you mind the nickels and dimes the dollars take care of themselves
0:52:30 Something stuck with me over the years later on in 2020. We did a little where are they now catch up with Erica and the
0:52:37 advice was really powerful at that time the number one tip was sometimes you have to slow down to speed back up
0:52:43 And that’s something that I’ve definitely stuck with me because it’s true
0:52:48 You’re kind of sometimes too busy chopping down the trees to sharpen the saw to use that metaphor
0:52:52 So sometimes you got to slow down to speed back up a couple notes takeaways before we wrap up here
0:52:58 We talked about the reputation. We talked about the branding
0:53:01 Now if you can be a consistent and professional presence in how you show up online and offline
0:53:07 You know good things start to happen word of mouth starts to spread you kind of build the community awareness there
0:53:12 Just at the end talked about like look, this is lonely
0:53:15 There’s a personal growth journey that you’re on as well as a business growth journey
0:53:19 So try to find your people and then finally on the content creation side or the business side
0:53:23 But like leaning into what you like to do is like if you wake up every day and kind of dread
0:53:28 Doing the work like that’s going to show up and like you’re not going to show up as the best version of yourself
0:53:33 So it’s like even if there’s not an immediate ROI on creating the content or doing the social media stuff
0:53:39 Like if that’s what you like to do, you got to do it. You got to make it fun
0:53:42 So those were some of the notes takeaways that I wrote down during this column
0:53:46 The previous episodes with Erica number 368. That was the original
0:53:50 We talked about how you can make 50 bucks an hour starting this business in your local town
0:53:54 We did the catch-up call in 407 to see how that had grown in just nine months
0:53:59 And then we got today’s episode for the four year later version of what’s going on
0:54:03 We did another episode with a pooper scooper entrepreneur kody smith in the denver area
0:54:10 Where he really gave this deep dive in local seo
0:54:13 That’s episode 555
0:54:16 If you missed that one and you have any type of local service business all of the
0:54:20 Tips and tricks to get reviews and get stuff ranking with different images and the wording of the post
0:54:26 So like and you know how to rank in different areas
0:54:29 Really in depth on that super specific topic so 555
0:54:33 Of course, we’ll link up all of those in the show notes
0:54:35 And again, your listener only bonus for this week is my local business marketing checklist
0:54:41 We talked about a bunch of different ideas in this episode
0:54:44 And you’re just some simple checklist simple ideas that you can use to get that
0:54:47 Local business off the ground. Hopefully reduce that cost of acquisition and compare that again with your customer lifetime value
0:54:55 That’s the local marketing checklist. You can download that for free at the show notes
0:54:59 Just follow the show notes link in the episode description. It’ll get you right over there big. Thanks to erica sharing her insight once again
0:55:05 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone
0:55:09 As always you can get up side hustle nation dot com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place
0:55:15 Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show and that is it for me
0:55:19 Thank you so much for tuning in until next time
0:55:22 Let’s go out there and make something happen and I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on
0:55:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:07 What’s up? What’s up, Nick? Oh Loper here
0:00:09 Welcome to the side hustle show part of the entrepreneur podcast network because you’re nine to five
0:00:14 They make you a living but your five tonight makes you alive come for this one
0:00:17 We first heard from today’s guests in early 2020
0:00:20 She was earning around a thousand bucks a week from her part-time Cooper scooper business and since then has grown it
0:00:27 I’m now serving almost 200 weekly residential customers at an average ticket price of $99 a month
0:00:34 From a pooping stooping calm Erica Crouppen welcome back to the side hustle show. Thanks for having me back again
0:00:41 I’m super excited you bet
0:00:43 I love building on these series and encourage everybody to check out the first appearances of Erica on the show
0:00:48 We’ll link those up, of course
0:00:49 Let’s stick around in this one you learn what’s working today from a marketing standpoint
0:00:53 How Erica raised prices and started landing bigger clients and how she’s removed herself from the fulfillment side of things the backyard physical labor
0:01:00 Poop and scoop and side of things to really step into that
0:01:03 CEO role now your listener only bonus for this week is my local business marketing
0:01:08 Checklist some simple ideas that you can implement to get more customers for your service
0:01:13 You can download that for free at the show notes for this episode
0:01:16 Just follow the link in the episode description
0:01:19 That’s the easiest way and it’ll get you right over there
0:01:21 Now I want to share a really really cool moment that was cool for me
0:01:25 So we’re visiting friends in in Michigan for Thanksgiving like long-standing friends giving tradition
0:01:30 We’re driving along in Detroit suburbs and I see this bright pink
0:01:34 Crouppen’s poop and scoop and sign yard sign in somebody’s yard
0:01:37 And I’m like, whoa, whoa, you know my wife is right in shotgun like hey, she was on the podcast
0:01:41 That’s so and she’s like to look at around like she had no idea what I’m talking about
0:01:44 What what looking for someone like actually standing there like no no no that yard sign that bright pink yard sign
0:01:49 And so that was a really cool moment to see your marketing in the wild and knowing that you were local there
0:01:55 You know, it sent you a message right away. Yes, you know, you know exactly where it was and so that was really cool
0:01:59 I did I was really stoked when you reached out to me. I remember telling my husband
0:02:03 I was like see see this is why it’s so important to put these yard signs out
0:02:07 have it bright pink and just be visible and I explained to him the story and
0:02:10 Sidewall’s a nation actually has a special place in my heart because I listened to your podcast when I was working my nine to five
0:02:19 Hoping that I was just going to be able to make it out of that job when I did I reached out to you
0:02:24 Because I wanted to be on your podcast because you were huge
0:02:27 Well, I appreciate that I appreciate you tuning in and and really I mean take an action
0:02:31 You were the first pet waste removal episode that we ever did. So I was like, well, this is unique
0:02:36 Yeah, I want to learn more about this because I think the marketing tactics and the logistics like all that stuff can be applied across any number of
0:02:43 Different niches. I know since that time you’ve gone full-time quit the job at the hospital to run this thing and I wanted to ask if there was a
0:02:50 Moment or a revenue target or something that made you comfortable like taking the leap and saying, okay
0:02:56 This is what I’m gonna do. This can pay the bills. I needed to replace my hospital income
0:03:01 I needed to make sure I was able to max out my retirement and
0:03:05 Get my retirement on my own my Roth IRA and get health insurance for me and my husband
0:03:10 And once I was able to secure that that’s when I was like, all right
0:03:14 I’m gonna put in my two months and I walked in that day and looked at my boss. I was like, we need to talk
0:03:20 She’s like, please tell me no
0:03:21 You’re not quitting right now. Oh, no, not right now, but in two months. I will be okay, and it was scary
0:03:28 It was very scary
0:03:30 But I was excited for the future seems like it has continued to grow since then adding a
0:03:35 roster of recurring customers one of the
0:03:39 Common themes on the show. Hey, you want recurring revenue got to solve a recurring problem
0:03:42 This definitely checks that box right as long as that dog is in that house
0:03:46 They’re gonna have this problem
0:03:47 And so I imagine the customer base tends to be pretty sticky and if you start to canvas the neighborhood with these yard signs
0:03:54 People learn the brand and the reputation and they know who to call when they have this issue
0:03:59 But I remember I think we’re talking about maybe 15 bucks a week 15 to 18 bucks a week early on and it sounds like pricing has
0:04:08 Grown or pricing has increased a little bit since then talk to me about that
0:04:12 Process or you just play the inflation card. Hey look costs are up everywhere. You know, we got to do it, too
0:04:17 Sorry for the inconvenience. What happens there? So when I talked to you back in what was it?
0:04:21 2020 I think I was only charging $55 a month which boiled down to like 1375 a week and
0:04:28 That was just enough to pay me and I had my little cobalt with my magnets
0:04:34 But quickly learned that I needed to raise my prices
0:04:37 So gradually I started to raise and how I did that was when I was getting new customers
0:04:43 They would get the new rates because I was still kind of scared to raise my old customers like my original 12
0:04:49 Okay, but as I started collecting data as I started researching
0:04:53 Vehicles new branding. I quickly realized that I needed to up my prices and it was scary
0:05:00 It really was but I’ve raised my prices several times now
0:05:04 Like you said, I’m at like $99 a month about that’s the average ticket price for the customer
0:05:11 The last time I did the rate increase. I just sent out a letter and just said hey, I got to raise my prices
0:05:17 This is what it is. This is what’s going on. This is what’s to be expected and this is how it’s going to roll out
0:05:23 So I’m very like detailed with my letters and if they have any questions or concerns
0:05:28 I have the conversation with them and just explain that I
0:05:31 Needed to raise my prices for x y and z and if they wanted to cancel service
0:05:35 I completely understood and some did some did but because I was able to bring on
0:05:40 Thousands more a month it balanced out. It was okay. Okay. Yeah, you get somebody used to that service
0:05:47 I mean people talk about like Netflix’s pricing power. It’s like, okay, we got millions of people paying us whatever it is 13 14 bucks like
0:05:55 What happens if we just raise it a dollar like is that enough of a pain point to make people cancel like?
0:05:59 Probably not. It’s probably a pretty sticky service. So it makes a lot of sense there
0:06:03 I had the experience recently of my podcast editing service and Fraser
0:06:08 I’ll get a kick out of this because he’s listening to it as he’s editing the episode. They said hey, Nick
0:06:12 You’ve been a customer since 2016. We love you. We appreciate your business
0:06:15 But our new clients are paying this so you’re getting a great deal. We’re not going to set your price that high
0:06:21 Initially, we’re going to kind of graduate you there over the course of 17 months or something
0:06:26 They did it like really really slowly, which I thought was fascinating because it’s kind of like the frog in the boiling water
0:06:31 Where if they jacked up the rate, you know one off rip off that Band-Aid it might have had me shopping for alternatives
0:06:37 But it’s like, oh, okay, three months and it’s gonna be this another three months
0:06:41 It’s gonna be this like okay. I could tolerate that pain point
0:06:43 That was a unique way to go about and do especially if you you talked about your original
0:06:48 12 customers the people who’ve been with you for the very beginning. Hey, we want to reward that loyalty in a way
0:06:53 But still deal with the reality of like look our costs have gone up
0:06:56 Like if we want to have any margin to hire other people and expand and yeah, we’re gonna have to do this
0:07:01 Yeah, I had this one customer Larry. I was so nervous to raise his rates. He stayed at
0:07:08 $55 a month
0:07:11 For almost five years and then finally I just said, you know what I got to raise him
0:07:17 And I raised him he was either 10 or 20 bucks a month. I can’t remember. Yeah, I know baby steps
0:07:22 Yeah, and he was like, okay
0:07:24 So worried for five years
0:07:29 That’s the residential side you mentioned going after some
0:07:33 Commercial business to like is this municipal parks? Like what do you mean commercial or what does this look like?
0:07:38 Commercial is that’s where some big money is so when we’re saying commercial
0:07:44 We’re servicing HOA communities homeowners associations where they have
0:07:48 Community areas where the dogs go or dog waste stations those green stations that you see at dog parks with the poop bags
0:07:56 Yeah, the rest reciprocals
0:07:58 So we service those the first account I landed was a 17 station HOA in an affluent community
0:08:06 And I was able to land that for
0:08:09 $25 a month that’s huge and most of the time it’s like the owners who are picking that stuff out and they put it in the
0:08:15 Little green thing that’s attached to the bag dispenser. So you’re just kind of emptying the bags. We empty them
0:08:21 We sanitize and clean the stations and then we will refill the bags and the reason why it’s considered
0:08:28 Commercial is because we’re getting paid from the homeowners association itself. Yeah
0:08:35 Okay, did you find there was a previous service like the landscapers like who are you displacing there?
0:08:41 Or did they just have like a volunteer from the board? I could go out and do this every month
0:08:44 They had a maintenance company that would do it
0:08:47 But here’s the thing is that’s not priority to them. It’s the last thing of their mind
0:08:52 So there would be times where they wouldn’t service for weeks at a time and these stations are overflowing
0:08:57 And when you were living in a community where the base house, let’s say you’re broke to get into this community
0:09:04 It’s a million dollar house. Do you think you want to see dog poop bags laying all over the ground? Absolutely not
0:09:10 Yeah, and so I positioned myself in a way to where the treasurer actually reached out
0:09:16 They’ve seen our reviews online
0:09:17 He called me personally and he explained the situation. He said how quickly can you get out here?
0:09:23 I said you approve the quote
0:09:24 I can be out there within 48 hours and I was out very quickly
0:09:28 Handled everything that he needed to handle and I’ve been with him or he’s been with me for the past three years
0:09:35 It’s been a okay great your full experience. Yeah, so that was inbound based on all the reputation
0:09:41 That she built any of these neighboring communities are like shoot we if we do this once well
0:09:47 What else is out here in terms of the commercial work world? That’s what my plan is
0:09:50 I’ve recently moved out to the area that I’m servicing. That’s where I’m at right now
0:09:55 I’m in a new office. This was like a strategic move on my end because a lot of times with these higher-end communities
0:10:03 They want to work with people that have the same
0:10:05 Zip code as them and it was really hard to kind of get in with where my office was at the time
0:10:11 So I moved to this location
0:10:13 I have a whole spreadsheet and I’m going to just be going to these are calling the HOA’s
0:10:19 Be mailing and networking and really trying to get in to explode like the next let’s say 24 months
0:10:25 I just want to explode the commercial side of the pooper scooper business. Yeah, we just did a landscaping
0:10:30 episode and what he said was kind of similar and interesting is like the weekly maintenance business for mowing lawns was very
0:10:39 Predictable is great baseline to have yeah, but somewhat lower margins because it’s recurring revenue
0:10:44 It’s somewhat on autopilot but then going after like these bigger in his case wasn’t necessarily commercial work still like residential
0:10:50 Irrigation installs and landscaping projects
0:10:53 But it was like those were the opportunities to have like bigger bids more margin. Like have you found the same thing here?
0:10:59 My friend told me when she say residential pays the bills
0:11:03 Commercial puts money in the bank account and when I said that to me. I said
0:11:09 This is so true. So about six or seven months ago. I said, all right, we’re doing a rebrand. We’re gonna get more professional
0:11:16 We’re gonna get new uniforms everything and so the past six months
0:11:20 I’ve been like kicking butt on changing or upgrading pretty much everything within the business
0:11:26 Yeah, we have some examples of those upgrades. Oh our vehicles
0:11:31 I completely redid the entire all the vehicles are all hot pink with a brand new logo. I got a new logo
0:11:37 I actually invested instead of making one on Canva because when I got started, I didn’t have
0:11:42 Money, I didn’t have the knowledge. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just doing it
0:11:46 And so I reached out to somebody. That’s a professional
0:11:50 Brand creator that they create a brand identity and I spent a good six weeks with him
0:11:55 Coming up with a new logo and then once I did that I went to a wrap shop and I said, all right
0:12:01 Let’s wrap all of these vehicles and you can see my vehicles
0:12:05 So far away. There’s there’s no mistaking it. Yeah, I don’t know if this is gonna be on video like on YouTube
0:12:11 But for those of you watching it, it’s this bright pink color. Yeah, I’m glad that you’re on brand today
0:12:15 It’s the same pink that is in your logo
0:12:17 It’s the same pink is the sign that I saw it’s a pink is the truck wraps. How many vehicles are in this fleet now?
0:12:23 This sounds pretty serious. Well, I have three I have the two cars and the one truck
0:12:27 The one other car got involved in a hit-and-run accident and was totaled out
0:12:32 So right now we’re down to the three which is fine because I’m down a staff member
0:12:37 So I’m actually back in the field again scooping
0:12:39 That’s why I was a little bit late because I was out scooping and then I had to like refresh myself and I
0:12:45 underestimated the
0:12:47 Traffic on the way from my house to the new office. And that’s all good. Is that typical?
0:12:52 I know you’re trying to get yourself out of the field and
0:12:55 Spend less time doing that but I understand like hey things come up cars get wrecked
0:13:01 People call in sick and they got to go and fill in to keep the customers happy
0:13:04 Yes back and forth back and forth. I’ll get out for a little bit back in I’m not the best at hiring yet
0:13:10 That’s still a skill set that I need to work on
0:13:12 So the next set of goal list is really level up with hiring and know who to pick and
0:13:18 I’ve been learning how to not let people stay in my company
0:13:23 Longer than they should because last year I had an employee that nearly I nearly allowed him to
0:13:29 Destroy my company. That was bad. Are you able to share what was happening or like pitfalls to avoid for people listening?
0:13:38 Yeah, it was just a lot of complaints a lot of miss piles
0:13:41 That’s a quality issue and I kind of just let it go. I would have the little conversations
0:13:46 But it didn’t really take action. I didn’t implement like a disciplinary action
0:13:51 This person would also either not be able to come in or would have to leave mid-shift and I would be like, okay
0:13:57 I understand
0:13:59 Go out there scoop not really have the conversation about how this is not meeting standards
0:14:04 And then this person left a gate open and two dogs escaped. Oh, no
0:14:11 Yeah, and so that was I guess essentially my last straw
0:14:14 So I did let that person go and because of that I implemented closed gate photos now at the end of all of our shifts
0:14:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and I now have
0:14:27 Expectations written out and during the hiring process. I let them know up front what to expect
0:14:33 So if I’m coming to them to have a conversation about quality issues
0:14:37 They’re not blindsided and I have it written out in black and white step-by-step. What’s gonna happen
0:14:43 And it gives me a sense of confidence as a business owner to have those conversations
0:14:47 Right trying to set the coaching program that I’m in is called it like the definition of done like setting your
0:14:54 Team members up for success by like saying well
0:14:56 Here’s what done looks like and having that quality control checklist having the gate closed photos like hey
0:15:02 You’re not done until I get his clothes, right? I think that’s super helpful to lay out what the expectations are
0:15:08 Is it a hard job to hire for like people like oh gross I don’t want to touch that or is it seem like hey?
0:15:13 Flexible drive around town like I don’t know like what’s been your experience trying to recruit people
0:15:19 It’s been hard because people it’s still fairly unheard of industry
0:15:24 Unless you know you know and you don’t see a job posting often for like a dog waste removal business on indeed
0:15:31 so the people that apply are really
0:15:33 Thrown off about it, but because I do pay pretty high
0:15:38 They’re like okay. Well, this is intriguing. Why is it paying so much?
0:15:42 And so that’s the reason why my rates are so much higher because I want to have a quality competent person
0:15:47 They need to be able to have a driver’s license a clean record pass a background check. Yes
0:15:53 I background check every person I send to a home. I’m sending an employee to somebody’s home that has children a lot of times
0:15:59 Yeah, totally. Yeah, given them access to the backyard like totally yeah access to my customer information through the CRM
0:16:07 And so they have to be able to meet all of those criterias and then just showing up that was so difficult
0:16:14 I went through hundreds of applications and interviews and
0:16:18 Maybe four or five actually showed up. It was wild. Yeah, it’s you know, it’s set up where
0:16:25 It’s gonna be a flat weekly salary or like we’re gonna pay you
0:16:31 20 bucks a yard like I’m just
0:16:34 Kind of think of the the structure if I’m trying to recreate this in a power washing niche or something else that might be
0:16:41 Similar local service. I’ve tried the what is it pay per performance? So like the PPP?
0:16:46 I’ve tried that that just people wanted to rush through because they wanted to get done as fast as possible
0:16:53 So I quit doing that now. I just decided I’m going to pay hourly
0:16:58 And I have a criteria like they need to be able to hit three houses an hour on average throughout the week
0:17:03 Some yards are larger. Some yards are smaller. I started 1850 an hour
0:17:09 I mean, that’s pretty decent in our area and that’s starting pay. Got it
0:17:12 Yeah, I see that could be an attractive job with somewhat flexible schedule
0:17:16 Like is there enough houses to keep somebody busy full-time or is like oh, there’s gonna be a 10 hour a week or 20 hour a week
0:17:23 type of rule no because my full-time scooper has a 125 houses per week and
0:17:28 then
0:17:29 No, right and then a part-time has half of that and then I have one girl that works on Wednesdays
0:17:36 And she does 25 houses on that day. She’s like super part-time. That’s still a ton. That’s a ton of
0:17:42 Houses driving poop. That’s
0:17:44 It’s a lot to keep track of more with Erica in just a moment
0:17:49 Including the tech platform she uses to keep all the customers and jobs organized and how she’s collected over
0:17:54 370 Google reviews towering above the competition right after this
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0:20:04 Domain that’s squarespace.com/side hustle
0:20:08 What’s the tech platform if there is such a thing to just manage the route and the dispatching and like all of a sudden at that
0:20:15 Scale like the logistics side of it starts to get it’s not just oh, you know, there’s the three houses around the corner
0:20:21 I know I got a hit like I got to have a system for this in the beginning
0:20:24 I just had a Google doc and so I was able to kind of keep things in order
0:20:27 But once I hit 50 customers things were starting to get a little messy
0:20:31 And so I was trying to find different platforms and trying to keep things organized and I actually had missed a couple customers
0:20:37 Which that’s unacceptable
0:20:39 So I started doing my research on CRMs and I came across Jabber CRM
0:20:44 And I’m actually now an ambassador for them because I love the platform
0:20:49 It’s an all-in-one you have your routing you have your invoicing you have your customer communication
0:20:54 You have reports invoicing all of it. I live in Jabber
0:20:58 I even put my personal tasks in Jabber on my calendar because I’m in it so much
0:21:03 Okay, this is the go-to and I’ve heard this from other people too
0:21:07 This is like almost the go-to for a local service business like this manage the team manage the routes manage the customers
0:21:14 Kind of all in one it’s cool because you can use it from your laptop and then also they have a mobile app
0:21:19 So the staff can see their schedule. They get to clock in they get to clock out and there’s two-way text messaging with Jabber
0:21:27 So we always send our homeowners a text message when we’re on the way
0:21:30 So they can put the dog away and then we send a text when we’re finished that way
0:21:35 I’m able to see all the communication that goes through
0:21:38 Because it’s very transparent
0:21:41 So if a complaint comes in via text message the whole team gets it and you’re getting put on blast
0:21:46 But that’s just how we roll. It’s like you got to take accountability for it. Okay, and it doesn’t seem like
0:21:51 It happens very often or if it does happen
0:21:54 You’re on top of it because I’m looking at the Google reviews now
0:21:57 372 Google reviews. I think the next closest competitor has seven or something
0:22:03 So it’s like clearly doesn’t happen by accident. We have done a ton of effort into
0:22:07 Building up that online reputation. What does that look like if for
0:22:12 Requesting those reviews from customers in the beginning. It was manual just a text message with a link now
0:22:19 I’ve used two different platforms that connects to my CRM. That’s an automated system
0:22:25 The first one was a nice job, which once I close a job out
0:22:30 Nice job asks the customer for a review
0:22:33 Since then I have moved to review Harvest and the reason why I like review Harvest is because not only
0:22:41 Does it ask the customer for a review?
0:22:44 But it also will post on my social media with the review with like a picture with my branding and my colors
0:22:51 And so it’s also giving me social media content
0:22:54 Right on time I’m getting the review
0:22:57 So there’s a lot of automation that I’ve implemented in my business to help scale because I’m only one person
0:23:02 I can only do so much. It’s good to utilize the technology that’s available to you
0:23:08 Okay, yeah review Harvest is new to me. We’ll link that one up as a resource
0:23:13 Is it the same for like a recurring weekly customer like after a week three or something like it?
0:23:19 You like our service, you know, would you mind leaving a review?
0:23:21 It’s hard to say why close it out that job if it’s gonna continue happening. I am strategic when a customer comes on
0:23:27 I set two jobs up for them. I set up the first month of service
0:23:32 That way they’re in there for like two or three weeks
0:23:35 They kind of get our vibe and then we close that one out and then they will get their request
0:23:40 For the review and then their next job
0:23:44 It just continuous and they won’t get another review request from us until that job closes out, but I think I
0:23:52 Think the software knows that the person has reviewed us so it won’t ask them again
0:23:57 Okay, if they’ve left the review and it’s been prioritizing Google or you say hey
0:24:03 If you are a Yelp user if you like to review on Facebook like you target any of these other platforms or say what we’re going
0:24:09 All in on the high visibility Google reviews with the nice job. I believe whatever they have open on their phone
0:24:16 I don’t actually I don’t know the route
0:24:19 I think it’s whatever is open on their phone
0:24:21 But I know with review harvest the first thing that they go for is that Google and then they post on to
0:24:27 Facebook onto the page onto the stories and then also they update your Google profile like the pictures in your Google profile
0:24:37 Okay, and then they also ask the customer to leave a recommendation in next door and the next door app
0:24:44 Because that is going to help with your local market
0:24:48 sure sure oh just the posts that you see like hey if anybody’s in the market for a
0:24:52 Bathroom contractor like take a look at the work that we just had done if you need any help give these guys a call type of thing
0:24:58 Just it’s not necessarily
0:25:00 Tied to your profile page or something. It’s kind of like goes into the next door feed. Am I understand that correctly?
0:25:05 Yeah, they’ll just post a recommendation that doesn’t happen all the time
0:25:08 But they try to get that because it always carries more weight and has more value if a
0:25:14 Recommendation is made versus the business owner in their posting. So I do get creative with my stuff
0:25:20 So in the next door app, this is something that happened recently
0:25:24 I got all my wraps done and the wrapping company is local. So in the next door app, I gave
0:25:31 The wrap company a huge shout out for doing this amazing work while posting a picture of my vehicle that says who we are
0:25:38 What we do is how to get in touch with us
0:25:41 Yeah, perfect 10 leads boom
0:25:44 Okay, yeah, that’s awesome. That’s really creative. Okay, so next door utilizing these different community groups next door is huge
0:25:52 The local Facebook groups the reason I brought that up is like looking for bathroom contractors
0:25:56 and so it’s like scrolling through these old archive posts and they can have a lifespan of years if somebody got their work done
0:26:02 2022 or something who did you use right like as long as they’re still in business sir?
0:26:05 We’ll give them a call right so that stuff can have a long shelf life. What else is going on on the marketing front
0:26:11 I love just I think the example from the very first episode, you know where we initially posted this picture of the dog pooping
0:26:18 And it got a lot of attention and had 80 inquiries over messenger and throughout the history of this
0:26:23 You’ve been very creative and intentional on the marketing side. What else do you see working today? Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of money
0:26:29 So I had to get had to get creative and still sure this day
0:26:33 I don’t like spending money on ads over the spring like early spring
0:26:37 Facebook was getting me for like six seven eight twelve hundred dollars because I was trying to pump money into ads
0:26:45 And it’s just for me. I don’t think I had them set up right so it didn’t work
0:26:49 so what I’ve been doing is just getting more intentional with
0:26:54 The strategy and trying to get away from the fluff, right?
0:26:58 Just like who we are what we do how to get in touch with us because people
0:27:02 They don’t want to read long posts anymore at least from my experience when it comes to like the dog waste removal stuff and
0:27:09 putting those keywords in there and just consistently
0:27:12 creating like some sort of content between stagnant posts and
0:27:19 Videos with a trending sound over it from a camera phone. No professional photos camera phone
0:27:24 Videos and pictures perform so much better than professional stock photos
0:27:30 You’re posting these as organic media or as ads
0:27:35 No, organic media if one pops one does pretty well
0:27:39 I will put some ad dollars behind it
0:27:41 but I spend so much money on the vehicles that I have
0:27:47 Maxed out my ad budget probably for two years
0:27:50 Yeah, well people see these driving around town. They’re definitely going to notice so it makes sense
0:27:56 Do you have an example of the social media post that did go medium viral in your little area or in this niche and
0:28:04 What it said what that resulted in I had a video that hit
0:28:08 1.2 million views
0:28:11 and that
0:28:15 Was me taking a trash bag and putting it over top of my pooper scooper bucket
0:28:20 It’s just so simple
0:28:23 So simple and people loved it and I got a lot of traction with that. They’re like, what is this for what’s going on?
0:28:29 So I was able to show people
0:28:32 That wanted to scoop the dog poop themselves
0:28:34 How to do it a professional way and then the people that were like, oh, well, I just want you to scoop the poop for me
0:28:41 I’m like, all right, perfect
0:28:43 Let us do it. All right a certain percentage probably a small percentage of those were like within your service radius
0:28:48 And they ended up reaching out. Yeah, okay
0:28:51 Interesting like I would never have because it’s so broad because it’s the nationwide worldwide. I wouldn’t have guessed that
0:28:58 that type of
0:29:00 Content would really do anything for a local service business, but you’re proving me wrong
0:29:03 Well, so it just depends like they’ll ask like where we’re from and when you post something
0:29:08 It will say like if you can add a location to it and I always try to add the location when I post something
0:29:15 I really really try so then it shows it to my local market
0:29:20 Got it. Got it. All right. So trying to play the viral social media game trying to collect reviews
0:29:24 Facebook ads, maybe not super effective putting some money into the truck wraps the you know, right in your face local marketing
0:29:31 Anything else that’s driving leads these days. I’ve always wanted to just create awareness that this business
0:29:37 Is a thing and it’s available
0:29:39 And so I just think creating that awareness getting involved within the community
0:29:44 Talking to people creating that brand like I don’t even like the color pink really, but now I’m just all pinked out
0:29:51 And in that way it’s like brand association
0:29:55 And then over time all of that just kind of compounds like you see in the sign and you were like, oh, that’s kruppin’s poopin scooping
0:30:02 And just being intentional this stuff doesn’t happen overnight
0:30:05 I remember your story about walking into the vet office
0:30:08 With a box of donuts trying to play the game. Well, who are my target customers?
0:30:12 Already doing business with if they got a dog they’re probably visiting the vet
0:30:15 Hey, mind if I drop off these donuts and these business cards like here
0:30:19 I like to have them I have a little stack on your counter and people can see it there or
0:30:23 Put up a banner at the local dog park again bright pink gets your attention
0:30:28 like where are my target customers already doing business anything on the
0:30:33 Word of mouth referral marketing like trying to lean into that trying to turn one customer into two like hey
0:30:38 If you got a friend that has a dog, you know, I’ll give you 50 bucks off to send them my way or something
0:30:42 With jobber they have a referral link that gets sent out. I think with every invoice
0:30:47 So this is a little bit automated and if somebody refers out
0:30:51 Then I give that person a free week
0:30:55 But if they sign up like they get a one-time clean or a spring clean and they sign up for regular monthly service
0:31:02 I will give a like either a half a month off or an entire month free to the referral person
0:31:07 It varies just depending on the type of account that gets picked up. Yeah, it’s kind of this game of
0:31:14 relatively fixed relatively low cost of customer acquisition in this case for hopefully
0:31:20 A multi-year lifetime value of this customer
0:31:23 I get the sense that people tend to stick around for a while once they get used to the service
0:31:28 And you have the data on that like what’s a customer worth typically lifetime value wise
0:31:32 So fun fact, I didn’t really understand lifetime value. I didn’t even know what lifetime value meant until
0:31:39 Like six months ago. I posted on youtube that I was struggling with certain things
0:31:45 And this guy william that started watching my channel in 2020
0:31:50 He started a pooper scooper business and quickly has scaled it to seven figures
0:31:55 A seven figure pooper scooper business, right? So he’s million. Wow in in one town
0:32:00 They have three locations now. Okay. Dang. That’s a lot of poop
0:32:04 It really is it truly is and he asked me that he goes. Do you know your churn rate?
0:32:10 Do you know your lifetime value? Do you know your acquisition cost? I said, what are you talking about?
0:32:16 I have
0:32:17 no idea and and
0:32:20 Through talking to some other business owners. He’s realized that a lot of people don’t truly understand their numbers
0:32:26 So william has recently
0:32:28 Created a course for pooper scoopers. It’s called the poop scoop millionaire
0:32:32 And in there he has documents that go over how to figure out your lifetime value
0:32:38 How to figure out your churn rate how to figure out your acquisition cost all of that
0:32:42 I’m super excited because I will now be a coach within this community
0:32:47 About talking about social media and how to scale a business from zero to 250k
0:32:52 Okay, okay
0:32:54 Yeah, and so I’m in the process of learning all of that stuff too because my brain kind of like
0:32:59 Glitches when he starts talking about churn rate, but I know I know I can figure this out
0:33:04 It just takes time and data tracking. Right. Yeah
0:33:08 So you can say well over the course of the five years of this business we’ve had 200 customers on average. They stick around for
0:33:14 18 months so
0:33:16 That is
0:33:17 Whatever 99 times 18, you know, it’s $1,800 lifetime value and if it cost us less than $1,800
0:33:24 Well, you know, we got labor and everything else other costs associated with that
0:33:27 But if we can acquire that customer for given somebody a free month
0:33:30 We have a hundred dollar cost of acquisition like that seems very profitable and potentially very scalable
0:33:36 More with erica in just a moment including why she’s built the crappiest channel on youtube
0:33:41 And what’s surprised her the most over the last five years right after this
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0:36:04 You did mention these guys. They were operating in three different cities
0:36:07 I think when we last spoke you had a satellite location on the other side of the state like in miskegon
0:36:13 Is that still with it? Was that under a franchise or like a subcontractor? Like how did you have that set up?
0:36:18 We didn’t I didn’t know what I was doing. She was operating
0:36:21 She was making money. She was a satellite location, but she was still operating under me
0:36:26 But my business was getting so busy and she was doing such a good job on her own
0:36:31 I just presented her with some information. I said, I think you could be your own business owner
0:36:36 You’ve proven that you’re able to scoop these customers on your own. You’re able to communicate with them
0:36:41 I will show you how to get your LLC. I’ll show you how to get jobber if you need any help
0:36:46 And I think I sold it to her for like a dollar
0:36:48 I don’t know. It was like a dollar and she’s doing great. She’s flourishing
0:36:53 Yeah, it’s just like I don’t want to deal with this headache anymore. Like it’s your baby now
0:36:56 Well, because I was like too divided because I was getting questions
0:37:00 From up there and then I’m running my business and then at the time I was like, let’s start a youtube channel. That would be great
0:37:07 Not realizing how difficult content creation is
0:37:11 Well, talk to me about that side of the business because you have kruppin spoopin scoopin 3 000 subscribers on youtube
0:37:17 It says welcome to the crappiest channel on youtube. Love it. You got the scoop podcast
0:37:22 And so starting to create content about the business owner side of things
0:37:25 Hey, what it’s like behind the scenes running this day to day and there’s a ton of content up there
0:37:29 But like you mentioned, it takes time away from doing the actual thing
0:37:34 Like what’s I love to geek out on the content side and what that has done for you
0:37:38 So the content was kind of like a creative outlet for me because I’ve always had two or three jobs
0:37:44 And so leaving the hospital I was like, okay, I’m doing this but I need something else to like relieve stress
0:37:51 And creating the content
0:37:53 Is fun, but at a certain point I needed to start making some money
0:37:58 So I needed to start being more strategic
0:38:00 But it’s hard when you’re trying to create content and you’re trying to run the business and what I didn’t anticipate
0:38:07 With being an entrepreneur. I didn’t anticipate the personal growth journey that I was going to go through
0:38:13 and
0:38:15 I’ve heard people say that like some years
0:38:18 You are growing personally some years. You’re growing professionally some years
0:38:22 You’re just trying to maintain and I’ve went through all of that in the past five years
0:38:26 So I wouldn’t say that I had a lot of growth last year in the business
0:38:30 But personally like I went completely sober. I quit drinking March 28th of last year
0:38:36 Because mentally my mental health was I just was not doing okay
0:38:41 And I just felt like I wasn’t being a good wife
0:38:44 I was the largest that I had been in quite some time
0:38:48 I
0:38:49 Was an emotional roller coaster and I knew the foundation of like what was going on with me was
0:38:54 Fastly falling apart and I was like, well, what am I going to do? So I said, okay
0:38:59 Drinking is a crutch for me. I get stressed. I drink. I’m happy. I drink. So I’m just going to quit
0:39:05 I’m going to quit I’m going to quit drinking and so I quit for one day
0:39:07 Then I quit for two days
0:39:09 And I noticed a lot of my content was very emotional and very low at that time
0:39:14 But that really connected with people because people struggling especially since covid
0:39:19 I was just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and trying to figure out what to do
0:39:23 But now like with a clear mind. I’m like, okay
0:39:26 You can’t spend a bunch of time
0:39:29 Thinking about and creating a bunch of content. You have to get more strategic with it like
0:39:33 Today is going to be your recording day. You’re just going to record on this day
0:39:37 Your other days is going to be for networking and marketing your business
0:39:41 You can’t worry about creating content on those days because you need to grow your business
0:39:45 So what I did was is I’ve actually I was running two instagrams one for the scoop podcast and one for kruppen’s poop and scooping
0:39:53 I can’t do it anymore
0:39:56 I can’t do it. So I’m combining them. It’s just you’re going to get everything on that one instagram page now
0:40:02 The social media side the pooper scooper side the mental health personal growth side
0:40:07 So it’ll just be like a well-rounded instagram channel. Okay. So I like this call to
0:40:13 You try and theme your days, which is a takeaway from Mike Vardy from productivityist on the show years ago
0:40:20 Like so you’re not switching gears so many times like okay today is going to be the recording day today is
0:40:25 business growth and outbound calling day and maybe day three is social media day
0:40:30 Trying to minimize the mental switching costs. I think that’s really smart
0:40:34 but I’m still curious about like is it worthwhile to
0:40:37 invest the time
0:40:39 To show people the behind the scenes of the business
0:40:42 And become a content creator versus just doing the thing like I’m going to keep my head down
0:40:47 I’m going to just keep on doing obviously led to this connection with the poop scoop millionaire
0:40:51 And like some positive things came from it and like now this 1.2 million view viral video
0:40:56 Like I don’t know I’m torn because like on the one hand super cool
0:41:00 I want to be the transparent work in public type of thing show people the behind the scenes and it unlocks new revenue streams
0:41:07 like sponsorships coaching
0:41:09 Brand deals the job or ambassadorship like stuff like that
0:41:11 But on the other hand it like takes away from the core thing that’s paying the bills in the near term
0:41:16 That’s kind of where I’ve struggled because I’m like, what do I really want?
0:41:20 there’s a lot of different
0:41:22 parts of me the
0:41:24 part of me that enjoys the connection with people from the youtube channel and the content I’ve put out
0:41:30 To see other people that have seen my videos and they’ve been able to grow a six-figure business
0:41:35 Like personally that fills me like that makes me so happy and then I’m able to see their journey
0:41:40 Then the other aspect of it
0:41:43 Of getting content creation deals to where I’m able to make money by making videos and talking
0:41:49 That’s cool to be able to not leave my house and create videos and talk on my podcast and make money
0:41:56 Amazing. Yeah, best gig in the world, right? Yeah, and poop scooping. It’s tough. You’re out in the sun
0:42:01 We’ve had two dog bites this year. I had a file at workman’s comp claim
0:42:05 So it’s nice to be able to create money on different avenues
0:42:08 And then as for the business, it’s like I don’t know how big or how massive I want to grow grow my business
0:42:15 I don’t know if I want to have like a multi-million dollar. What is the word? Coglomerate company?
0:42:22 I’m not going nationwide. Yeah, and I like to hop on camera and talk. I don’t know. It’s like a self-fulfilling thing to
0:42:29 See the content I’m creating and also
0:42:32 Document the journey because I get to look back at those videos from 2020 and I literally get to see my entire journey
0:42:40 Yeah, that’s sometimes a little awkward to go back and listen to those archive
0:42:44 episodes from 10 years ago
0:42:45 But I’m with you and it was something that she said about like really knowing yourself
0:42:50 But like look, I needed something else to relieve stress. It wasn’t
0:42:53 Maybe I mispositioned it as like a trade-off. I could invest my time here or I can miss my time here
0:42:58 Where it’s like I could do this and I can do this because I want to because it’s fulfilling
0:43:03 Because for all these other check the box reasons rather than just driving top-rank growth
0:43:07 But it kind of leads to the next thing of or the next question of like
0:43:11 Where do you want to take this thing? Like will it be a seven figure
0:43:16 Multi-state multi-location multi-city type of operation or is say like look, we’re good. This is fantastic lifestyle business
0:43:23 We’ve got it almost on autopilot now. It runs itself. It’s predictable. Like where do you want to go?
0:43:29 Oh, it’s really hard for me to make that decision because I hate putting myself into a box
0:43:34 I feel like if I would be like this is what’s going to happen. This is like the end goal that I’m like limiting myself
0:43:40 I just wherever god wants to take me and I get to use my talents
0:43:45 That’s really where it’s at if I’m meant to have a big business
0:43:47 I’m going to have the skill set and it’s going to happen
0:43:50 And I’m just going to keep working towards it or if I’m going to have a big social media and talk for a living
0:43:55 I’m cool with that too. All I know
0:43:57 Is I want to be able to
0:44:00 Enjoy what I’m doing and make enough money that when my parents no longer
0:44:06 Can like
0:44:08 Work and they’re older they don’t have to like struggle and that’s something that’s really important to me because
0:44:14 I’ve seen elderly people where they can’t provide for themselves and they struggle and I just don’t want that for my parents
0:44:20 So and I don’t want my mom to live with me. I want to be able to
0:44:23 Buy her or pay for a place for her to live
0:44:26 Yeah, that’s from me because I can’t with that. Well a strong motivation and
0:44:33 One thing that I appreciate about all of our calls together is the transparency and this is a struggle like every step of the way
0:44:40 There’s a new
0:44:42 Hurdle, there’s a new obstacle. There’s something else that goes wrong
0:44:46 And you just kind of have to fight your way through it. You got to figure it out
0:44:50 That’s your job as the business owner and you don’t necessarily know
0:44:54 How to get through to the other side, but you got to figure it out and I just
0:44:57 Appreciate you sharing all that instead of coming in and be like I’m god’s gift to pooper scooper
0:45:03 And I have all the answers and I knew it from the get-go. It’s like, no, this was there’s some hard fought wins here
0:45:09 But since we last connected I think late 2020
0:45:12 What’s surprised you the most since then the growth of the community has surprised me
0:45:18 Just how many pooper scoopers there are now
0:45:21 A lot of thanks to me and me blabbing all over the internet about it
0:45:24 So I’ve essentially created my own competition, but I don’t look at it that way
0:45:30 I look at as the more people that are doing this the more people that are
0:45:35 Following good practices in business. It’s uplifting the community and the more brand awareness and community awareness that there is
0:45:43 The more acceptable this industry is going to be
0:45:46 I wouldn’t say that I’m shocked. I wanted this to happen
0:45:50 But it shocks me at how fast it’s grown over the past four years
0:45:54 And I can’t wait to see what it’s like in another five to ten years
0:45:59 When you started
0:46:01 I remember you say, well, how did I come up with pricing? Well, I looked up what the other people in the area
0:46:05 Were charging for this. So there was some
0:46:07 Entrenched competition, but nowhere near what it is today
0:46:11 You kind of just attribute that to like the pie just getting bigger like more and more people are hiring out this service
0:46:17 And so there’s greater demand
0:46:18 Whereas before like this is a thing you could hire help for like maybe it wasn’t on people’s radars as much as it is
0:46:24 Today, is that what you think is going on? Yeah
0:46:26 people knowing that’s the main thing is like
0:46:29 What do they say if you build it they will come
0:46:32 It’s also make people aware that the service is available and they can make the decision
0:46:36 They’ve seen a post and on facebook about pooper scooper. They might have like
0:46:40 Snubbed their nose at it
0:46:42 But during that spring clean when they’re cleaning their back hurts and they’re like this is stupid
0:46:47 Throw down the pooper scooper and they’re like, I know I see somebody that cleans up dog poop on facebook
0:46:51 And then they hire it out and then they tell their friends they tell their people
0:46:56 The neighbors see you park and then drive away and they’re like, what’s that about and they snap a picture
0:47:01 So over time it’s just kind of spreads and you get more exposure
0:47:05 Yeah, there’s like this nitrification of
0:47:08 home services where
0:47:11 Number one more and more people want to just not deal with it
0:47:15 Like as a homeowner like I don’t want to bother with the
0:47:17 Gutter cleaning or the window cleaning or whatever to stuff gets dirty over and over again
0:47:21 Great if you can be in the business of cleaning it up
0:47:23 maybe you can do it every quarter or every six months set it up on a recurring basis and
0:47:28 More and more people getting into it now, but like relatively low competition from the startup space or the
0:47:34 competing service provider space where if you come in with a little bit of
0:47:38 Marketing savvy like Erica has you get some room to carve out a little bit of market share there
0:47:43 And and you may not even need to conquest
0:47:45 The business from another service provider just because like you mentioned
0:47:49 It sounds like the the biggest competition you’re displacing is people doing it themselves
0:47:52 Is getting sick of this chore like I don’t want to deal with this anymore. There’s got to be a smarter way
0:47:56 I gotta go hire somebody who’s a professional. Well, yeah and positioning yourself well too because I mean in the home service industry
0:48:02 You get a lot of contractors or business owners that just don’t do good business. They don’t communicate. They don’t show up
0:48:08 They’re messy and so if there is a lot of competition in your area, this is what I did
0:48:13 I went through and I read all of the reviews of all my competition or people that were in the area
0:48:19 Collected the information on what the issues were. It was lack of communication didn’t show up doesn’t answer the phone
0:48:26 And so I made sure when I was starting my business and continuing my business
0:48:31 A plus plus communication, right? Well, we’re going to show up
0:48:35 But we’re going to send you a text message to let you know that we’re there
0:48:37 So that was like the main focus is just try to be better
0:48:41 Try to be better than the people in your area and that’s how I’m able to charge more too. That’s why I have a higher price point
0:48:47 Yeah, you can add on some layer of
0:48:50 professionalism in terms of branding and marketing and what historically has been a really fragmented industry
0:48:57 You can bring that together under your brand and kind of command a premium for that take a little margin on the top the
0:49:04 And you can do it offline. You can do it online the online example that comes to mind is belay solutions that started
0:49:11 Like an executive assistant service
0:49:13 Which executive assistant’s been around since the dawn of the internet or virtual assistants been around for 30 plus years at this point
0:49:19 What they did is hire from that same talent pool like this work from home professional
0:49:23 And say well, okay now you’re going to go through our vetting hiring branding process
0:49:28 And charge a premium rate as a result some that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate you sharing that
0:49:34 So you mentioned you’re doing coaching for pet waste millionaire. You’ve got the kruppen poop and scoop in
0:49:38 YouTube channel plus the scoop podcast. What else is on the horizon for this year?
0:49:43 Oh gosh, it’s a lot really just building out this office this new place that i’m in get the new podcast studio set up
0:49:50 I want to start highlighting
0:49:52 Female business owners because there is a content gap for female business owners that work outside of the home
0:49:58 So I definitely want to dive into that a little bit
0:50:01 And I also wanted to get involved in the community and with other business owners and bring them in studio
0:50:07 Because being a business owner and going through the growth that I have the past four years
0:50:13 My friend group. I don’t have one personally here anymore because we’re just on a different page
0:50:18 And so being an entrepreneur it’s lonely. And so my
0:50:21 Goal is to meet some new like-minded people
0:50:25 That I can hang out with and talk business with and it’s not where it’s like, oh, she’s talking about business again
0:50:31 What is she doing?
0:50:33 So that’s kind of what the goal is and then really
0:50:35 Lean into the coaching because I’ve been wanting to coach for quite some time
0:50:41 And so I think that’s going to be a huge part of what
0:50:44 2024 is going to be about and that makes sense and I appreciate you sharing that it is lonely
0:50:48 You gotta have to have some people you could talk shop with otherwise just go crazy rallying around in your mind with that stuff
0:50:54 Well, very good. We’ll link up all of Erica’s resources again pooping scooping.com is the main
0:51:00 Website you can check out what she’s up to over there. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation
0:51:07 2024 edition and then we’ll take a trip down memory lane and see what you said before
0:51:11 If there is something that you can’t figure out if there’s something you’re stuck on
0:51:16 Try to find somebody that knows how to do it
0:51:20 Just speed up your process because I spent a lot of time
0:51:24 Just researching stuff that I shouldn’t have if I would have just paid somebody 50 bucks 100 bucks
0:51:31 They could have gave me the answer so quick and I would have saved myself a lot of stress
0:51:36 So that would be my number one tip is just reach out to people
0:51:40 And get some help if you need it. Yeah, this is the unlock or this is the shortcut in a lot of ways
0:51:45 there’s
0:51:46 Something to be said early on and 100 percent. This was me. I could figure this out, right? Like
0:51:50 I know the answer is out there. It’s on youtube. It’s on, you know a million other websites
0:51:55 like I could brute force my way through this but as the business has matured it’s like
0:51:59 Yeah, I probably could figure this out
0:52:01 But somebody else already knows how to do this and I could probably just hire them to do it and they’d be done
0:52:05 In a week versus me just procrastinating on it and wasting a bunch of time
0:52:09 So if there’s something that you’re stuck on find somebody who knows how to do it
0:52:12 This is the number one tip for 2024 in late 2019 early 2020 for that first episode
0:52:18 it was keep your business debt free like minding the
0:52:21 Dollars and cents and the income and the outcome like that makes a lot of sense a mentor of mine early on said
0:52:27 Hey, you know if you mind the nickels and dimes the dollars take care of themselves
0:52:30 Something stuck with me over the years later on in 2020. We did a little where are they now catch up with Erica and the
0:52:37 advice was really powerful at that time the number one tip was sometimes you have to slow down to speed back up
0:52:43 And that’s something that I’ve definitely stuck with me because it’s true
0:52:48 You’re kind of sometimes too busy chopping down the trees to sharpen the saw to use that metaphor
0:52:52 So sometimes you got to slow down to speed back up a couple notes takeaways before we wrap up here
0:52:58 We talked about the reputation. We talked about the branding
0:53:01 Now if you can be a consistent and professional presence in how you show up online and offline
0:53:07 You know good things start to happen word of mouth starts to spread you kind of build the community awareness there
0:53:12 Just at the end talked about like look, this is lonely
0:53:15 There’s a personal growth journey that you’re on as well as a business growth journey
0:53:19 So try to find your people and then finally on the content creation side or the business side
0:53:23 But like leaning into what you like to do is like if you wake up every day and kind of dread
0:53:28 Doing the work like that’s going to show up and like you’re not going to show up as the best version of yourself
0:53:33 So it’s like even if there’s not an immediate ROI on creating the content or doing the social media stuff
0:53:39 Like if that’s what you like to do, you got to do it. You got to make it fun
0:53:42 So those were some of the notes takeaways that I wrote down during this column
0:53:46 The previous episodes with Erica number 368. That was the original
0:53:50 We talked about how you can make 50 bucks an hour starting this business in your local town
0:53:54 We did the catch-up call in 407 to see how that had grown in just nine months
0:53:59 And then we got today’s episode for the four year later version of what’s going on
0:54:03 We did another episode with a pooper scooper entrepreneur kody smith in the denver area
0:54:10 Where he really gave this deep dive in local seo
0:54:13 That’s episode 555
0:54:16 If you missed that one and you have any type of local service business all of the
0:54:20 Tips and tricks to get reviews and get stuff ranking with different images and the wording of the post
0:54:26 So like and you know how to rank in different areas
0:54:29 Really in depth on that super specific topic so 555
0:54:33 Of course, we’ll link up all of those in the show notes
0:54:35 And again, your listener only bonus for this week is my local business marketing checklist
0:54:41 We talked about a bunch of different ideas in this episode
0:54:44 And you’re just some simple checklist simple ideas that you can use to get that
0:54:47 Local business off the ground. Hopefully reduce that cost of acquisition and compare that again with your customer lifetime value
0:54:55 That’s the local marketing checklist. You can download that for free at the show notes
0:54:59 Just follow the show notes link in the episode description. It’ll get you right over there big. Thanks to erica sharing her insight once again
0:55:05 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone
0:55:09 As always you can get up side hustle nation dot com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place
0:55:15 Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show and that is it for me
0:55:19 Thank you so much for tuning in until next time
0:55:22 Let’s go out there and make something happen and I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on
0:55:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
It’s not every day you spot one of your podcast guests’ yard signs while driving, but that’s exactly what happened to me.
As we cruised the neighborhood, a bright pink “Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin” sign caught my eye.
We first heard from this guest in 2020.
She was earning around a thousand bucks a week from her part-time pooper scooper/pet waste removal business.
And since then, it has grown to serve almost 200 weekly residential customers at an average ticket price of $99/month.
In this ‘Where Are They Now?’ episode, I have once again Erica Krupin from Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin to talk about what this former side hustle looks like at scale.
Full Show Notes: Scaling a Local Service Business: Multi 6-Figures in Pet Waste Removal
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