There are a lot of different ways to build a business in this industry. Case in point, the two companies profiled in this month’s issue.
Josh Burris owns Unplugged Drain Cleaning & Drain Camera in Dickinson, North Dakota. He’s only two years into running his operation and is still a one-man show, focusing largely on residential work — about 90% of his customer base by his estimates. But in the coming years he’s hoping to add a few employees and expand that base, taking on more municipal jobs. Whatever happens though, Burris says he still expects to remain heavy into residential.
The other company featured in this issue is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum in many ways. Yes, Kansas’ A-1 Pump & Jet Services has more employees and is a little more established than Unplugged, but a primary difference that sticks out is that the company has basically foregone all residential work. A-1 co-owner Ronald McCoy says the company refers most residential service calls to other contractors in the area, only taking on a job if it happens to be more than what those contractors can handle with their equipment. Instead A-1 focuses almost exclusively on commercial jobs and various government contract work.
The approaches are different, but both companies have the same basic goals. They want to continue their growth trend and be successful in their respective areas. There’s no one right way to do it. You have to find what best fits and works for you.
That may even evolve over time. I recently wrote a profile for another COLE Publishing title, Portable Restroom Operator magazine, about a West Virginia-based company that had completely overhauled its portable sanitation operations. For years, coal mining was the company’s core market. But as the coal industry declined, the company had to adapt. The coal side is now essentially nonexistent. The company’s efforts are instead focused on special events and other tourism endeavors in the area. The portable sanitation business is doing about as well as it always has. The “how” has just changed.
Success, whatever shape that may take, is of course the common theme for the companies featured in this magazine each month. We’re not looking to highlight bad companies. But the ways to achieve that success are varied, and every company has a story all their own.
Contact me at editor@cleaner.com or 715-350-8442 if you’d ever be interested in sharing your company’s story in a future issue of Cleaner. I’m always on the lookout for potential profile candidates, and a journalism professor ingrained in me long ago that everyone has an interesting story in them somewhere if you pose the right questions to flesh it out. I’d love to hear yours and potentially share it with other Cleaner readers.
Enjoy this month’s issue.
