Brandon Dixon
@brandonadixon
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Retired MLB player. Currently an Owner Operator of a street sweeping business.
Phoenix, AZ
Joined June 2016
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Got to share how I bought a “boring business” while finishing up my MLB career.
And how it’s going 14 months later.
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In 2019 I was offered a 7 figure contract that I couldn't accept.
I had just finished up my best year in the Big leagues for the Tigers. I led the team in home-runs (15- We lost a lot of games).
In the last month I saw most of my playing time go to the "young guys" since we
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Officially retired from baseball. I’m so thankful for all the relationships, support, and experiences over the past 10 years. It’s been a fun journey, from a kid dreaming of the big leagues to getting to play for my hometown team. Thank you to everyone who was part of it.
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We were the low bid on a city contract. $950k annually. Which requires 4 trucks total.
City “congrats on being low bid we would like services to begin in 7 days on 8/1. How soon can you get the trucks”
Us “Great, we still need an official acceptance of award. And we would like
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Rats cost us thousands of dollars this week
Our yard is next to a farm. We get massive rats and they chewed through wires on 3 of our trucks. We’ve tried poison, traps, etc.
I’ll be stopping by animal shelters next week recruiting a team of cats.
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One hit in the College World Series changed my baseball career.
Omaha 2012
I was a sophomore at university of Arizona. I was the starting first baseman.
I lost my starting job halfway through the year to a freshman. I hated it but he was hitting .330 and I hit .245.
I still
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The point of this wasn’t to hate on the Tigers, or their front office.
The point was someone else made the decision for me.
I’m now focused on learning the skills to run/own businesses so that other people aren’t deciding for me.
Michigan summers are hard to beat by the way.
In 2019 I was offered a 7 figure contract that I couldn't accept.
I had just finished up my best year in the Big leagues for the Tigers. I led the team in home-runs (15- We lost a lot of games).
In the last month I saw most of my playing time go to the "young guys" since we
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In January of this year I decided to retire from the MLB and run this business full time.
That was our first profitable month. 39k in revenue and I was pumped.
We hit that in profit last month!
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@DetroitSportSZN
@TigersJUK
Tork will be just fine.
Don’t worry I don’t think he will be owning a street sweeping company anytime soon.
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Made my coaching debut this weekend with a 14 and under team that went 0-4 but somehow we are leaving with these?
@USSSA
you've changed
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We were just awarded a large city contract.
Most contracts we have seen give a 60-90 day window to begin service so contractors can add trucks.
This contract will require 4 new trucks and drivers.
They said “We look forward to beginning services on 8/1”…
Oh boy
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A glimpse into the world of Street Sweeping that 1 person asked for...
I don't claim to be a savvy business man, I'm an athlete. So here's a simple breakdown of what's to like about it:
- It's mandatory. (Demand)
- There's a lot of streets (Also demand)
- California emission
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“How did you find your business for so cheap?”
Short answer:
We bought something that nobody wanted.
Our agreement was 60k, 100% seller financed over 5 years.
Long answer:
This was a 30 year old unsellable business that everyone on here warns about. If we hadn’t bought it,
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I hung up and a random guy walks over and sits down with a big smile. He was listening to my call.
He said he recently sold his paving/underground utilities company. We talked for an hour.
He’s bored and misses the chaos. He gave me some homework, and we’re going to meet soon.
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I listened to a
@myfirstmilpod
episode driving today.
Was interested in the guest’s thoughts on a business. Sent a dm. He’s got a few million followers so I didn’t expect much.
Within 10 minutes he responded and scheduled a call for next week.
The internet is crazy
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A bank just told me they can’t throw enough money at the waste/refuse industry.
Every week I come across someone who confirms how good of an opportunity I fell into with street sweeping.
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Call “Can you guys clean up a big hydraulic leak I caused on asphalt in a neighborhood?”
Me: Knowing we can’t “Ya definitely, send me the address and I’ll get you a quote”
Google a company that can. Get quote. Send it with a cut for us.
Am I doing this right?
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@hgandreasen
After talking with them we don’t really have a way to challenge their opinion of our experience. And they weren’t budging
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"If you eat, invest, and think according to what the 'news' advocates, you'll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt"
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Last year I was talking to a teammate about buying businesses. We both went for it.
One of us bought a street sweeping business. The other one bought an MLS soccer team. Only time will tell who made the better choice.
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At my in-law’s this week in Kentucky. My father in-law sold his business last year.
He now makes live edge tables/bars like the one below, and does land clearing when he wants to.
My wife jokes that I want to monetize him… who wants a new bar or table?
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June was a slow month for us. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find enough new business.
We started cold calling and scraping lists, added a new ads and SEO agency, and have sent over 2 thousand cold emails.
We have been at full capacity for our 2nd straight week. Our
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We are wrapping up our 3 week trip to Hawaii today.
The cool part, Cleaner Streets hit it’s highest month in revenue- $75k.
Just wait till the course creators find out about remote street sweeping companies.
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“It’s all about standards”
I couldn’t help but hear Coach Lopez voice in my head as I was finishing up a call with one of our drivers.
I had just gotten cussed out from an important customer. I apologized and said I would address it and we’d be back onsite tomorrow for free.
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If you try to exit the plane first but you’re in row 15. You’re what’s wrong with the world
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@msaskin
We got on the phone with them. And the bid states they have the right to deny any bid based on their determination of experience to fulfill.
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College baseball playoffs are ramping up. My coach was inducted into the hall of fame recently.
He used to leave these on our chair every couple of days. I still have a folder full of them.
Some were about baseball, but most were life lessons.
My top 3:
- “Sympathy will kill
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I run our street sweeping business remote from Arizona, the business is in California.
I’m in person this week, and realized I’ve been missing something basic.
Updates for the team on how the business is doing. People like scoreboards. I see all the numbers and jobs, they only
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I’m going to a sweeping conference with our association soon. There will be 100 owners from all over.
You send in your financials from the past year. They break down all expenses and show where you rank compared to other companies. (All anonymous)
We then spend the first day
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Getting to relive the glory days in the stands this time
GAMEDAY, Chapter 57
⚾️ Pac-12 Tournament Finals
🆚 USC
🕖 7:00 PM MST
🏟️ Scottsdale Stadium
📊
📻
📺 ESPN2
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Anyone in the LA area that’s looking for a summer job let me know. Instead of door to door sales you’ll do garage to garage.
Learn how to start/build a pressure washing business as we bring these jobs in house.
It costs $60k+ to pressure wash a parking garage.
Just spoke to a guy charging that & owners don't bat an eye. Better yet, he's subbing out all the work at 50% margins!
Here are the details:
The area: Cali
The garage: 8 story near airport
The model: Cold call parking garage
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We made our first overseas hire through
@SaganPassport
this week. Here’s a few takeaways so far.
My goal was to offload all scheduling/dispatch/invoicing (jobber). Also to be able to communicate with drivers in English or Spanish so we had more options with hiring.
On day 1 we
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I could tell the person next to me at the coffee shop today owned a service franchise. So I asked her how it was going.
They are 14 months in. Her husband bought it hoping to run it with his 9-5. His wife (who I saw) now runs the day to day because it’s more involved than they
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In 2013 I was drafted in the 3rd round by the Dodgers.
I was coming off a great season in college. I figured I’d be a big leaguer in a year or two.
I skipped 2 levels and was on the “fast track” I ended that season hitting .185 and leading the team in errors (I was only there
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Spoke with a sweeping owner yesterday a couple hours from us.
They run 35 trucks per day with over 650 recurring contracts with HOA’s. No advertising.
He’s done 6 acquisitions over the years. I asked him what his goal was and he said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do this
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A UCLA professor of urban planning just called me to talk sweeping.
His initial email said he had some innovative thoughts on sweeping. I was excited..
He said “instead of moving cars what if you hand swept the curbs with a broom?”
I explained a truck can pick up about 5 tons
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Angry customer email came in today.
I drafted a strong response since they hadn’t paid for recurring services since January.
Instead of pressing send I called.
We found out the management company hadn’t relayed past complaints to us (so we didn’t make adjustments)
He was
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My wife: “Look at what I found on Redfin, it’s the perfect house”
Me: “Look what we just bought”
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The right hire can change your business in less than a week.
We hired a new driver on Monday.
He has worked as a sweeper operator for 20+ years for a much larger company. They have had every contract in our area at one point.
It’s been 3 days and here’s the value he’s brought:
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As soon as you think you’ve got things figured out, you don’t.
We’re coming off our best month by far, I was feeling pretty good. Then a 20k per month customer called me saying they’d cancel our contract if we cause a dust storm like we did this morning.
Turns out what was “not
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June has been a month of fixing things. Trucks, operations, hiring process, and compliance.
The main focus had been ending the month with profit. We overlooked some things along the way.
What got us here, won’t get us there.
We brought in an experienced driver. He knows what
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Yesterday our ops manager in Columbia made 157 cold calls.
7 wanted more information
2 are sending maps for quotes
1 of those manages 10+ HOA’s and we are giving them a free sweep Monday to test run our services. They were shocked and super happy we would do that.
This is
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@shawngorham
I did this for the first 3 years of the minor leagues with my signing bonus. Paid for most expenses
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What are you going to do after baseball?
This was a scary question my whole career. Usually was followed up with “Make them take the jersey off your back”
I remember seeing guys struggle to move on because they couldn’t answer the first question.
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It's crazy how much baseball mirrors running a business.
One week you're hot, crushing the ball. Your misses turn into swinging bunts, perfectly placed.
The next week you're lost. Literally wouldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat.
Focus on what you can control.
It's
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@BecklandRyan
I need an animal that can live at the yard and a little more independent. That’s why I’m thinking cats
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I spent over 100k on all things performance over my career.
Here’s the secret…
1. Wake up early
2. Read your Bible
3. Lift something heavier than you did yesterday
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Make them tell you no.
I learned this from a long time baseball chaplain in Detroit. We would do bible studies weekly, and very few guys volunteered to read, pray or share with the group.
So he would call on guys to do it. No one ever turned him down.
Not every quote converts
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I got my mother in law to cancel her marketing contract.
Last night I set up a carrd website, got her domain, and a Facebook page up. Am I an agency owner now?
Just wait till I tell her I can get a list of all the owners of commercial real estate within 100 miles.. and email
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Do I pick a fight with the biggest sweeping company in the nation?
They are notorious for breaking the rules of their contracts. This never affected us until recently.
A city bid came up that requires a CNG truck (more expensive). I requested all the dumping records from the
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I fell for the
@SpiritAirlines
trap trying to save a couple bucks. I’m two days into the new year and it’s gonna be my biggest regret of 2019
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Give me your best sweeping slogan for our shirts? I’ll send you a couple shirts and a hat if we use it.
My wife’s current favorites:
“Sweep dreams are made of these”
“You caught me sweeping”
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I want to buy our subcontractor’s business.
He does our night sweeps and pressure washing. Two areas we would like to grow in.
He’d be the ideal operator for us, he’s got an owner mindset and is reliable.
How would you structure or pitch this to him?
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I have a family member who does the multi level marketing fitness thing on instagram.
At the peak they did really well. But it’s clear that they won’t have much longer there.
They’ve built up 50k+ followers on instagram. Mostly 25-40 year old moms.
What would be your pivot?
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I have a high appetite for risk.
For example, yesterday I strapped a hungry/tired 18 month old into our hiking back pack for a 3 hour hike in the rain.
It went about how you’d expect, but we did it.
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It’s a competitive buyers market. Sweeping company came up for sale that was a perfect fit.
Offered over asking price with favorable terms.
Met with the seller who said he valued that we had industry experience that the other offers didn’t.
He accepted another offer this
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I’m getting interviewed by a street sweeping magazine next week.
I found out an owner I cold called told them we were the most exciting new business he’d seen in a while.
I’ve now learned he knows everyone in the sweeping world, and they all like baseball.
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“I’ll get paid even tho I won’t do the work?”
My driver calls to tell me he made a wrong turn into an apartment complex. The manager waved him down and asked if we do pressure washing.
I told him he’d get a commission for finding the job.
It didn’t make sense to him that he
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Az nights were made for driving with the windows down listening to
@benhowardmusic
and Oregano’s in the front seat
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We have a viable business… now what?
The business is finally starting to work, and my active daily involvement is going down.
We have a few options. Acquire another sweeping company grow our service area through that and run the same playbook.
Buy another service business
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Rookie question, are LOI’s confidential or can a broker share details of your offer to get a higher price from another potential buyer?
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Took today off to paddle board and snorkel with my wife in Maui.
Phone rang twice as we came in, booked $2k in sweeping for the afternoon.
It rarely works out like that but it’s nice when it does
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One of my “sweeping mentors” convinced me to join 2 associations. I thought it was going to be a waste.
But yesterday a lead worth $50k+ reached out to all 3. He called twice and left his contact info on the 3rd. I wanted to save the $600 a month, I’m glad I listened to him.
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I've always been a researcher. It took a few years of podcasts, books, SMB twitter before I felt confident to buy a business.
Here's a list of resources I found along the way that took me down the rabbit hole:
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I've been cold calling for a couple weeks. I started with our past customer list and it led to jobs that week. I'm bought in, its now part of my daily to do list.
The last guy I called today was pumped to get a call. I was the first parking lot sweeping/pressure washing he'd had
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I was just on the phone with one of my drivers and texting my wife back at the same time. I said what I meant to text.
“I love you, have a good day”
Pretty bummed he didn’t say it back
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Taking off for 3 weeks in Hawaii. Here’s the travel hack for free trips:
Convince your parents to move to Hawaii, then have kids.
Next, ask your grandparents about the time share they don’t use.
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I got one of the better cold calls I’ve ever received this morning.
Here’s the simple things he did that kept me interested.
- knew our services and service areas (basic research)
- shared a similar customer profile’s results (proof it works)
- ran a search for how many
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Netflix is finally becoming in-season friendly. You can download shows and movies and watch them offline
#gamechanger
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Most players who get drafted by an MLB team don’t make it to the big leagues.
Of those who do, it takes them on average around 5 years of working for free just to start their MLB career.
It’s a great training ground for delayed gratification.
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Truncated Domes Update:
- A former coach saw my tweet.
- He sells them. Sends me a contact
- They’ll install it.
- I send a separate paving job for them to quote.
-We’re now going to do their sweeping
All from this post.
What I found out about truncated domes today.
It’s hard to find someone who installs them. I talked to a guy from seattle who flys all over the west coast to do it.
I’ve been turned down by 3 companies so far. They didn’t even give me a price.
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Had fun hanging with Codie and her team.
Hopefully it sheds some light into the realities of buying a very small business.
I met a guy who left the MLB and bought a street sweeping business.
- No prior experience
- Found an 75yo owner who wanted out
- Did 100% seller financing
- Now scaled from $15k/mo to $75k+
I asked him all about this deal & how he's growing the biz.
(link in the next tweet)
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A sweeping business went on the market 2 days ago.
Spoke with the broker and 75 people reached out the first day. And expects an LOI tomorrow.
Do you just throw an LOI together and ask questions later or is that a recipe for disaster?
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The water and dancing in the dugout might be a new addition this year but the clutch pitching and solid defense is classic
@ArizonaBaseball
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I consistently get asked by current or former baseball players how they can buy a business.
What are your top resources you send your friends who are interested?
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We made our first hire that isn’t driving a truck. She starts next week.
I’m just starting to realize how much of my day to day isn’t documented.
What’s been the most useful resource as you learned how to delegate?
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Be easy to find on google, answer the phone, and solve their problem quickly.
We called 5 companies Friday at 6pm only 1 answered. Turns out it was a brokerage who has 6 mobile mechanics for trucks that answer 24 hours a day.
They had terrible advertising but of the 5 people I
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Family trips have been an unlock for my business.
This is my first summer without baseball. So we are doing it all- lake, beach, mountains.
I was worried the business would suffer. The opposite has happened.
Getting on a plane forces you to delegate. I can either hold on to
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10 days ago
@carolinepirtle_
and I had never seen a Harry Potter movie. We now cast spells at each other when someone does something the other person doesn’t like
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A customer of ours mentioned wanting to sell their business. An actual business with 20 employees. Not a junk yard with broken down street sweepers.
What are some resources you’d recommend so their financial statements don’t look like a foreign language?
I plan to get outside
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I needed more pictures from job sites so I let the drivers know.
Turns out one of them loves photography and his job site was Hollywood blvd the next day.
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I had 7 minutes before DQ closed with a 15 min drive ahead.. made it in 6 minutes
#dreamsdocometrue
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I don’t know much about google ads. We use an agency and landed a 6 figure contract from it first month.
But 80% of my calls are people asking if the city is sweeping their street today.
Is there a way to solve this?
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I tend to create problems for future me to solve.
We’re low on trucks this week but I couldn’t say no to customers yesterday. So future me is going to have to figure out how 1 truck can be in multiple places at once later this week.
But for now my conversion rate went up.
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He called me 2 more times after we talked.
By the last conversation he said let me know when you’re ready to get into something in Arizona.
He’s not going to be retired long.
I hung up and a random guy walks over and sits down with a big smile. He was listening to my call.
He said he recently sold his paving/underground utilities company. We talked for an hour.
He’s bored and misses the chaos. He gave me some homework, and we’re going to meet soon.
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After 2 hours on a ride along our mechanic called me and said he’s the best operator he’s ever seen.
Our first non English speaking driver starts today.
2 months ago I interviewed him with his wife translating. He has 20 years experience for another sweeping biz that fired him when PE bought it.
It forces me to delegate better with our Spanish speaking ops hire in Colombia
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Our first non English speaking driver starts today.
2 months ago I interviewed him with his wife translating. He has 20 years experience for another sweeping biz that fired him when PE bought it.
It forces me to delegate better with our Spanish speaking ops hire in Colombia
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What is a typical referral fee or commission for sending business to another company?
Projects are 1 time and range from 20k-150k.
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The right walkup song can make a season. Tough decisions ahead
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Last October I took over operations, my first week was a nightmare.
My first day I had a sweeper break down in California, the next day I had one break down in Arizona.
As I was directing traffic in the middle of an intersection I thought this was a huge mistake.
We still
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Last week I used my wife’s phone to make sure our business number was still working.
It’s Tuesday and we’ve had over 15 calls for possible work. The rollercoaster of small business is real.
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