My First Million: Greatest Hits #5 - The 1-800-GOT-JUNK Story

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 6/14/21 - 6m - PDF Transcript

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now, HubSpot

just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the hosts relive the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell, and they break down why these pitches were

winners or losers, and each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find another bite on whatever podcast app

you listen to, like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

This episode is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

But what is the HubSpot Podcast Network?

That's right.

It's a new thing by HubSpot.

They started with our podcast, and now they're branching into more and more podcasts with

experts in different business areas.

So you might have a podcast about marketing, or sales, or operations, or customer service,

and we're going to go over through the different podcasts on this network.

Some are more entertaining, some are more informational, some are a good mix of both.

That's what we try to do here.

And HubSpot's goal here is to have on-demand mentors.

So if you're an entrepreneur, you're a startup, you're scaling up, you're going to be able

to hear practical tips and inspirational stories by listening to the different podcasts on

their network, which by the way, I think this is a smart idea.

Too many brands just try to sell you their thing.

HubSpot, I love their approach here.

Just put out great, valuable, free content and help more companies succeed, and the more

companies that we help succeed, the more we'll eventually come back to us, sort of like a

good karma kind of thing.

So listen, learn, and grow with HubSpot Podcast Network, HubSpot.com slash Podcast Network.

All right, everyone.

So about a year and a half ago, Sean interviewed someone I love.

His name is Brian.

Brian started this company called 1800 Got Junk.

And it's an interesting story because it's not really tech-oriented, and it's something

that you could probably start this weekend if you just want to go rent a pickup truck

for, you know, 50 bucks.

And I love these stories.

I like these non-tech stories, and I like these kind of bootstrap stories that aren't

Silicon Valley based.

And that's what this is.

So 1800 Got Junk.

If you live in America, you probably know what this company is.

It's really simple.

They come and they pick up your junk, but he's built this into this massive business.

It does something like $300, $400 million a year in sales.

It's a huge company.

And what I'm going to do during this episode is I'm going to play it.

So you're going to hear the episode in about 30 seconds.

And I'm going to pause the episode when I hear something interesting, when I hear something

cool.

And I'm going to tell you my reaction.

A lot of people said that the past greatest hits episode, so these are the episodes that

we've already done in the past, but I'm replaying, they said that they wish that they would have

a little bit more reaction as opposed to just me talking about it in the beginning and going

away.

So that's what we're going to do.

I'm going to hit play in a second and you're going to hear the episode.

You're going to like it.

You're going to love it.

At least I hope.

The Sampar on Twitter and let's start the show.

Together this president and I had almost bankrupted 1-800-GOD-JUNK.

We were down $40 million in revenue in one year.

The financial meltdown of 2007 and 2008 didn't help.

There was no one in my business that thought I was sane, that thought I made a good decision.

They didn't get it because people didn't really understand or see what I saw.

And somehow I stuck with it.

While it took eight years to get to a million dollars, we do a million dollars on any given

day like today.

My next guest who found a basic service that wasn't being met and now he's making hundreds

of millions of dollars, that's right, hundreds of millions of dollars.

There I was on a boat with two very senior executives offered $75 to $100 million is

what they were talking.

I said, you know, I wouldn't sell it for a billion.

All right, we are talking to Brian Scootamore, the founder of 1-800-GOD-JUNK.

If you're like me, you've seen the billboards for 1-800-GOD-JUNK.

It's one of the sort of the catchiest businesses that I've seen and it's also a very simple

business.

Brian's a guy who, when he was 18 years old, he saw somebody else had a truck and said,

you know, I'll haul away your junk.

And he was like, that's a business that I could do.

And he went and rented a truck and started this business and has grown it from, you know,

just him and one $700 truck all the way to basically doing about a half a billion dollars

in revenue this year.

So he's been doing this business for 30 years and he's a pretty inspirational dude.

But you'll hear that in the episode today.

And so I'm excited to talk to Brian.

We talk a little bit about how he got the business off the ground, his sort of knack

for PR, you know, how he ended up on Hoarders and Dr. Phil and Oprah and all these other

different outlets and how he's used that to grow the business, as well as his philosophies

around hiring and some of the mistakes he made.

And it's been a long road over these 30 years and so it's a very cool story.

Here comes Brian Scootamore, the founder of 1-800-GOD-JUNK.

All right, by the way, we aren't even in the episode and I got to say something.

I hear how Sean said this guy has been doing this for 30 years.

I love that.

I think that far too often people want to start something and they want it to work for

six, 12, or they want it to work in six and 12 months.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

We're trying a new format. Sam (@theSamParr) adds his commentary throughout the episode this week. Let him know on Twitter what you think of the change.
Brian Scudamore (@BrianScudamore) is North America’s Junk Man. He turned a $700 pickup truck into one of the world's most successful franchises. Hear how he got started, got on Oprah, stumbled and almost killed his business, and the philosophies he uses to run his multimillion dollar junk empire!
---------
* Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/
* Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million
* Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.
---------
Show notes:
* (3:41) Intro by Shaan to original episode
* (5:22) How Brian got his story out there
* (8:42) The origin story of 1-800-Got-Junk
* (19:28) How Brian got the 1-800-Got-Junk number
* (24:18) The vision board and getting on Oprah
* (34:07) How Brian tore everything down to rebuild even better
* (38:56) What Brian focuses on when hiring
* (47:07) Why business went down $40M and how Brian responded
* (51:58) Q1: What does Brian see as their breakthrough moment?
* (53:14) Q2: How does Brian get liquidity & think about money?
* (56:44) Q3: What would Brian do if he was 21 again?
* (57:58) Getting in touch with Brian

Sam's commentary:
* (1:02) Sam's intro commentary
* (4:42) Sam commentary 2
* (10:41) Sam commentary 3
* (12:46) Sam commentary 4
* (14:45) Sam commentary 5
* (15:23) Sam commentary 6
* (20:45) Sam commentary 7
* (31:16) Sam commentary 8
* (39:46) Sam commentary 9
* (41:33) Sam commentary 10
* (54:44) Sam commentary 11
* (59:33) Sam final commentary