The Real Dirty Work Behind Entrepreneurship with James Moore by AMPS Facility Solutions

0:00Welcome to Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners. Every week, we sit down with business owners, founders, and leaders to uncover the real stories behind building a successful business. The wins, the setbacks, the lessons learned, and the strategies that help them grow. No scripts, no fluff, just honest conversations with entrepreneurs who are in the trenches every single day. Whether you are a business owner yourself, thinking about starting a business, or simply enjoy hearing how successful people think and operate, you are in the right place. Let's jump into today's episode, shall we?

0:58Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today, I'm excited to be joined by James Moore with Amps Facility Solutions. James, how are you doing? We're excited to have you here. Hey, I'm doing great, Cliff. Glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah. We're really excited about it. So let's go to jump right into things. So for those of me that don't know it yet, who are you, James? Who is James Moore? And what is Amps Facility Solutions?

1:32Well, I'm the managing partner and CEO at Amps Facility Solutions. And what we do, Cliff, is we provide janitorial services and commercial cleaning in the industrial, institutional, and commercial space. We do that by handling day-quarter service, routine cleaning, and floor care. I mean, we do this for operations, property, and facility managers, and that way they can focus on managing their facility as opposed to cleaning it. What we try to do is go beyond cleaning and transform their workspace into a spotless, stress-free environment that reflects their business's brand. So that's just a little bit about who we are and what we do.

2:14Okay, okay. And on the personal side, you know, who are you? Oh, how much time do we have? So, Cliff, I'm a retired military veteran. I've also spent 30 years in corporate America in the operations field with manufacturing. And now I have transitioned into pretty much the people that I used to hire to perform services for me. When I was managing facilities, I was responsible for many things to include hiring the people that were providing our janitorial services. And now I am he. Okay, love it, love it. So, James, real talk, you know, let's go ahead and dive right into it. So what's something about running a business that people think is amazing, but it's actually complete BS?

3:10Well, for one, it always looks easier when someone else is doing it. we look at the perks that people have when they're running a business and it's like oh man you have you can come and go as you please or you don't have to deal with this or deal with that but actually you're dealing with everything especially when you're a solopreneur or in a small small business. So it always looks easier to everybody than what it actually is. Okay. So what would you say was the exact moment where you realized, you know, this could either really work or it could completely blow up in my face? Well, I actually didn't have a moment like that.

3:55And I'll tell you a little bit about how I got into this business. There's a little context for why I didn't have that. I already know it's not going to blow up in my face. so back in back in 2022 our youngest son actually started this business we have a blended family of five and our youngest son started this business as a side hustle he was working for a fortune 500 company and he had already had a retail business and determined that hey retail wasn't you know the thing for him so he sold that business and he started this one and he built this and it's already been successful. So we already have a model that works.

4:37So I knew going into this, that it wasn't going to blow up in my face. Okay. Okay. And you said it was a blended family of five? Yes, we have five children. Five children. Okay, man, that's a big family. So have you ever thought about quitting or going back to a nine to five? I know you said you have a background in operations. I do as well as, you know, I actually used to be in a director of operations, operations manager. So I know kind of a little bit about your experience, But have you ever thought about quitting and going back to that? I did think about that once. I saw a position that flashed up on my phone.

5:13It was paying about$2.25 a year. And that made me pause for a moment, but only for a brief moment. You see, the reason I got into this business is to build a legacy for my grandchildren. two and a half years ago my wife took another job that was in a different city well in columbia which is where i'm at now and for two years i commuted from tampa florida to columbia to make sure that one that she was happy with the work that she wanted to do and two that we weren't just moving too fast and pulling up roots from florida so after we determined that yeah this is a good fit for her. She's going to keep doing it.

5:57Then I decided I was going to move. So I had to resign from my corporate job. And then I had to make a choice of, okay, do I want to retire? Which my wife said no to that. So that was a non-option. Do I want to find another corporate job or do I want to work with my son and create a legacy for my grandchildren? So I opted for the legacy route because it was, it's this particular business aligns well with my skillset. Haven't been in operations for so many years. Now, man, are we related? I mean, we got operations background. I'm actually from Tampa, Florida as well. That's actually where I moved from.

6:43Now tell me you weren't commuting every week, were you? or not every day at least? So about two and a half years ago when I told my boss I was going to be moving to Columbia, he said, well, I'm new here because my last job was vice president of operations for a medical device manufacturing company and I worked for the president of the company. So when I told him I was going to be moving, he said, well, I'm new here because he had only been there six months and there's some things I need to do and I'd like for you to be here with me to get those things started. So although that particular role was an on-site role, we worked out a hybrid agreement where I would work in Tampa for three days a week and I would work remote two days a week from Columbia.

7:31So I did that for two years, about three, sometimes four weeks out of the month. So I commuted for that period of time. and the company was kind enough to help me with how offset the cost of some of the travel. So we, so we work, work that deal out for the benefit of everybody. So he got what he wanted. I got what I needed because you know, what was very important to me was making sure that my marriage stayed healthy and our family stayed intact. Yeah. No happy wife, happy life. There you go. Yeah. I tell people that all the time. Once you, once you figure that out, your marriage will change. Some people like to be very, you know, just don't like to listen to that.

8:14Oh, but I need to, yeah, yes, you need to be happy too. But when you make your wife happy, she'll make you happy. That's, that's my, that's my thought. That's right on point. The other thing that people need to figure out if they have it is that it's not 50, 50, it's 100, 100. Everybody has to be all in. Agreed. Agreed. Now, do you miss Tampa at all? I do. I miss Tampa because Columbia is a smaller city. It's about a third of the size. So we don't have the amenities, if you will. We don't have the professional sports. You know, in Tampa we have hockey. We have baseball. We have the ball. I'm telling you, you're from Tampa, but your audience may not.

9:03So we have all of that. But we had the Stratts Center for the Performing Arts, which we had season tickets to for their Broadway series. And the cuisine here, as far as the high-end restaurants, is not as expensive. Right, yeah. So, you know, those are things that I miss. But life here is good. And this is where I'm managing the business from at this point. So, yeah. And me personally, I mean, personally, I don't miss the weather. I know some people do, but I don't miss the weather. I don't miss nine months of summer. So me personally, I like the winters, but I know everybody's different. How do you feel about them?

9:46I love the weather in Tampa. You love the weather in Tampa. OK, yeah. Some people. I'm a I'm a I'm originally from New York, but I'm a I'm really a. A warm weather guy. Shuffling snow is not one of my favorite things to do. And we had to do that a couple of times this past winter. It was kind of rough. We had a couple of big snowstorms, man. It was something we usually don't get snow like that, but it was different. It was different. And this business is not one, obviously this business, you know, they do this in the Northeast, but this is not one that I really want to be involved in as heavily as I am in the Northeast.

10:26It's just much more challenging in terms of logistics and the demographics of the area. Yeah, no, agreed. Agreed. So, James, what would you say is a mistake you made early on that cost you either serious money, time, or reputation? early on in this business or early in my career? No, in this business. Yeah. In this business.

10:53You know, that's a good question. I think maybe, I'm not sure if I want to call it a mistake, but I would call it coming up a learning curve. I tend to be very analytical. Hey, operations guy. I got you. I'm just like it too. I overthink things sometimes. So in putting in somebody infrastructure for our business, I may be taking a little longer than I should have. So just to give you a little bit of background, when my son started this business, he started as a subprime business, which means that we do work for the large companies, the giant sub-industry, the ABMs, the Jana Kings, Velocities, because they tend to sub out all of their work.

11:39okay and what i said to my son when i kind of looked at all the numbers and how the business was spread i said this is great but we're really have someone else in control of our destiny so i think what we need to do is we need to expand in two areas one we should go out and get our own crime contracts and two we should go after some government work also so we didn't really have the infrastructure in place to do either one of those two things to expand in those areas. So I've been working on infrastructure for prime contracts, and we've picked up a few prime contracts. Probably could have had the infrastructure in place a little quicker, but it's just a matter of coming up the learning curve and not wanting to waste money.

12:28But in not wasting money, obviously, there's a trade-off in time in terms of research and implementation of different systems. Okay. So have you ever had a time when you had to change something about you personally in order for your business to grow? Like your personal, kind of the way you act, the way you go about things? Well, I definitely have to make a lot more phone calls now than I used to. having been in operations, I've been very much accustomed to sourcing and managing vendors, suppliers, materials, and that sort of stuff. So that stuff is, those skills are already there. Not as much interface with the customer in the past as I have now.

13:19So I guess I am learning more about dealing direct with customers and potential clients. Okay. And in this next question, this is kind of a hypothetical. Well, let's say if someone shadowed you, you know, they came behind you, watched you work for a full day or even a full week, what would you say would surprise them the most about how you operate?

13:45well depending upon the person what might surprise them may be the broad range of skills and activities that i'm involved in you know being a small business as we are you know i wear you know you hear the term you wear a lot of hats well i do wear a lot of hats Now, since I've been in industry for quite a while, though, I've worn a lot of hats for quite a while. So I have a pretty broad range in terms of things that I can do and have to do just because of the nature of the business. I don't have a large team as I've been accustomed to in the past. So a lot of the things that I would delegate in past lives, I'm doing those things myself now.

14:34Okay. So let's talk numbers without getting too specific. You know, what, what would you say is the turning point where things started to scale for you? that's actually a good question for my son because he actually took it up that curve to where our business is and now in terms of the you know that exponential growth curve that you see early on he actually took it up that curve and so now i'm actually helping him build on that What does your son do now for the company? Well, he's the president and he works primarily on business development with our subprime clients. He also recruits talent when we have an area where we need to recruit cleaners.

15:31He actually spent some time with a recruiting firm earlier in his career. so he's very good at that. I know a lot of people have trouble getting good people. That's the talent that he has and that's been very helpful to our business. Okay. Now James, what would you say actually moves the needle most in your business right now? In terms of revenue? Yes. It's definitely our subprime contracts. That's the genesis of the majority of our revenue. Okay. Now what about, you know, what about, does that generate the leads for you as well in the conversions? Well, with the subprime contracts, they have already sourced the end user, the end client.

16:22So we're actually just providing the service at that point. So there's no marketing elite generation for us when we're dealing with subprime. Nice. Beautiful, beautiful. Beautiful. Because that's usually, I mean, I'll be honest with you talking with a lot of business owners, you know, kind of daily. That's always the biggest thing that they, you know, that they would say needs to be better or that they would do if they had to start over again is marketing more. And it's nice that you don't have to worry about that part because it seems like that's a that's a pain point for a lot of entrepreneurs.

16:53Well, yes, we don't have to concern ourselves with the subprime contracts. But as I indicated earlier, we're not as diversified as we need to be. And we lean on that heavily. And that's really because that's the model that my son used to build a business to where it is today. So we want to diversify to make sure that we're stronger and healthier. So if there's a downturn anywhere, we're not hurt. Yeah. So, James, what would you say is one thing you're doing today that's giving you an unfair advantage over your competitors? an unfair advantage over our competitors. That's a good question. Basically, what are you doing better than your competitors, basically?

17:39Well, since we're on the subcontract side, I mean, the subprime side, we're probably on par with our competitors in terms of service delivery, customer service, and just doing a good job. On our subprime side, however, we are providing a more personalized service, if you will, than many of our competitors because they are, I don't want to say this, you know how when you're in corporate America, sometimes you have the feeling that you're just a number? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of the large companies, the clients, that's kind of how they feel. They're just a number because they don't get the individualized attention that you can do when you're small.

18:37Our challenge will be in the future continuing to provide that personalized service as we grow with our prime contracts. Right now, I would just say it's our personalization because, you know, everything is turning towards AI now. so and yes we do a uh use ai in our business for some things but there's no substitute for talking to a person yeah i agree i agree i'd rather talk to somebody than to talk to and you know like yeah because that was that's something that actually brings up a quick store i can tell is uh i was calling a walmart the other day because i had an issue with the with the product i bought from there and i don't know if you've called walmart any any recently but they have a new AI thing, that AI customer servicing that they have now in their customer service line.

19:25And I absolutely did not enjoy using it. So I'll just put it that way. I'll be nice, but it was not wonderful. It's just so much better to get a person on the phone and explain your situation rather than going through an automated system. That's my personal opinion. Yes, well, you know, we've been dealing with automated systems and menus for a long time. And I haven't found anybody that's actually got it down to where you can actually get to who you want to very quickly. Yeah, yeah. So, James, what would you say is the fastest way? And this is all hypothetical, obviously, but what's the fastest way someone could lose their job working for you?

20:01The fastest way someone can lose their job working for me is being disrespectful to the client. You know, everybody needs to be treated with dignity, respect, even when they're wrong. Yeah. So I'm not saying the client's always right. but I am saying that they always need to be treated with dignity and respect. And if that's, if that's something you can't do, because that's something we should do for everybody. If that's something you can't do, then we have a problem. Yeah. You know, I can teach you, we can teach you how to clean, but if you're not, if you don't treat people, right. You know, I, you know, that's kind of, I'm kind of beyond that at this, at that point in your career, you know how to treat people, right.

20:44Exactly. So that's a lot of work that needs to be done there. Yeah. And on the flip side, what makes someone instantly valuable to your team? Well, the things that make anyone a good employee, makes them valuable to our team. One, they're easy to get along with. Okay. Yeah. They're enthusiastic about what they do. They have a willingness to learn, to be coached, to be trained. Yeah. I think that's undervalued sometimes. I hear that a lot from people like, you know, you need to be able to enjoy the people you work with. I mean, yeah, think about it. We spend more time working than we do with our families.

21:23So, you know, let's say I have I need to work with Susie or whoever the case may be. And if I can't stand working with that person, if I have to cringe every time I need to go to her desk, then that's not somebody that I find valuable to my team and probably needs to probably needs to change. How do you feel about that? Well, that's absolutely the case. As you indicated, we all spend a lot of time with people we work with. And it needs to be a pleasant environment. That doesn't mean it won't be high stress. It doesn't mean it won't be intense, but it should be pleasant. OK, and you shouldn't have to be concerned about approaching someone, you know, for any reason that you need to approach them about.

22:06You know, one of the things I've told team members in the past and my management doesn't all hasn't always agreed with my approach. But what I've always told people that if, you know, if this isn't a place that you like working, if we haven't made this a place where you like working, then let me help you find somewhere else to work. Because I want you to come to work because you want to be here and you want to contribute and you feel this is a good place to be, not because you feel like you have to be here and you don't care for it. yeah I like that I like that because you know that's why I would go to work because I like being there I felt as if I was treated nice and I was paid fairly and so on and so forth if I didn't feel that way then guess what I'm not there anymore you know Cliff I'm a person of faith and I always do the best I always do the best I can, even if I'm working for someone that I don't particularly care for.

23:08Okay. And that just goes back to one of the scriptures in Colossians 3.23. Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men. So that's the perspective I take when I'm working. But then again, when you're working for that person that's not pleasant, your experience is not as pleasant as it is if it's someone that you like and is pleasant

23:38agree agree now have you ever had to make a tough call like you know example letting someone go or cutting something off that ended up being the right move in the long run absolutely

23:52you want corporate life or you want entrepreneurial life yeah you probably have a better story for the corporate, whichever story is better that you. I have both. I have both. I had a person working for me, this was several years ago, and the person was retiring soon. So the person was much more senior to me in terms of time with the company, but he was retiring soon. And he felt a little entitled that there were some things that, some equipment that the company wouldn't mind if he just, you know, kept it for himself. Well, unfortunately, you know, it was, it was theft and, you know, we had to explain that to him and walk him out the door.

24:43Wow. And he felt entitled to that because he was getting ready to retire? Yeah. Wow. He said, hey, he felt like, well, nobody was using it and nobody cared that he was going to take it with him. He was taking it with him. And he had already taken some things. Oh, wow.

25:05So that was short-term and long-term good decision. I was managing a facility one time, and we had a product that we used to put batteries in, alkaline batteries. And batteries aren't inexpensive, right? So we were noticing that we kept running short of a certain size battery. and you know what happened is you know in the operations world when you're looking at inventory and something's not right you start paying more attention to it right and monitoring it more closely and what we figured out is that one of our cleaners was actually stealing batteries from us because they'd come in after hours they do the cleaning of the building and we you know figured out that that's what was going on.

25:59Although we didn't have to let that cleaner go, their boss let them go because we said, hey, here's what's happening and we have evidence and so on and so forth. So, you know, small things like that. So, yeah, I've had to let a number of people go in the past. I have a person that I'm about to let go.

26:29they won't hear this podcast they didn't service the client and didn't tell me that they didn't service the client and when I checked in with them I just got no response oh wow and so I'm in the process of replacing that person and I'll probably be making that call today yeah so did that person lie and say that they did the job is that no they didn't communicate they did communicate my partner i had my part i reached out to them they didn't respond phone text email no response my partner reached out to them on facebook they responded said they had some issues with their car and you know hadn't got it fixed yet so it was like he said okay well you know call james and you know let him talk through about it he'll be understanding, but you got to communicate with them.

27:27Yeah. So hadn't heard from that person. And it's like, Hey, you know what? If we, if we're going to have this, this kind of issue now, we're going to have more issues in the future. Agreed. Because it's just a phone. I'm just a phone call or text away. I've been reaching out to you and I know things happen, right? I mean, you know, when, when, when cleaners have issues, it's a little tougher for them to recover because, you know, they're not making a six figure salary in general. So, and I understand these things, but we need you to figure out a way to take care of the customer, not just, you know, radio silence.

28:09Yeah, no, I hate that. And I've talked about this many times on some of the episodes where, and some entrepreneurs have said it, it's weird how we have more ways to communicate than ever, but we do a poorer job of communicating now than ever. I mean, you don't even have to make phone calls nowadays. You could just text or email. You don't even have to, you know, cause you know, a lot of people, Oh, I don't want to disappoint that person. Well, you don't even have to pick up the phone and hear it back in the day. You had to actually pick up the phone because there was no text or anything like that, but you can't even, I mean, you can't even shoot me a quick text and Hey man, I just wasn't able to make it.