The 6-Figure Side Hustle Cleaning Up Parking Lots (Greatest Hits)

15:30Blademir Hernandez:Okay. More with Vladimir in just a moment, including how he's grown from one lot to 30, coming up right after this. In the next 60 seconds, 23 entrepreneurs are going to find their next team member on Indeed. I'm excited to partner with Indeed for this episode because when you need to find amazing candidates fast, you need the powerful matching technology and unmatched reach of our sponsor, Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites and get the help you need fast. Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire even faster. It'll make your post jump to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, and the proof is in the results.

16:08Blademir Hernandez:Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45 % more applications. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. Side Hustle Show listeners will get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show. Just go to Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash side hustle show. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Look, payday is awesome. But when you're the one running the payroll, like calculating the taxes and the deductions, trying to stay compliant, it's not always as simple as it was when you're just on the receiving end.

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17:54Brian Winch:just walking into more, to more stores, asking if the manager's around, asking if you can have contact information for the manager, just kind of lather, rinse, repeat on this marketing process? No.

18:04Nick Loper:So what I wound up doing was basically, um, I did actually a Google search and I was like, um, commercial property managers in my area. I did. And, um, basically what happened from, you know, a bunch of property managers came up and I picked up the phone and I started just going down the list and making warm, I'll call them warm calls. I'll say people call them cold calls, but it was more like warm calls to me because it was more like pick up the phone and like, Hey, I'm a local vendor in the area. I specialize in picking up litter and debris. Are you interested in this service or, and they were like, Oh, send me some information.

18:44Nick Loper:A lot of you will get that and send me some information. So what I started doing was basically I'll send them information. Then there was more following up with that same person, being persistent and, um, just giving, going down the list and basically giving people calls and, and now to like, um, several calls and then just following up with them. That's how I was able to pick up more accounts from there. And once I'll get them in, usually one manager will have one, more than one property. Like if you have, if you get into the door and be like, Hey, you finished cleaning this property. I'll have two other sites and can you check a look at them and get back to me on a price?

19:23Nick Loper:I'm like, yeah, sure.

19:24Brian Winch:When somebody is polite on the phone and says, yeah, possibly, could you send me some information on that? What specifically do you send them? If you're unable to, you don't want to commit yourself to a quote over email or something like that.

19:38Nick Loper:There's a flyer that I'll send out. I had a flyer set up explaining my service and I'll put it as an attachment and I'll say, oh, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I wasn't too long on the email with Sean Sweet and I'll put a flyer there explaining what the service I did and please call for an estimate. So I was doing that for a while. Once I will submit that, it's also like following up. There's one manager, it was like I had to call him like three or four times to close the deal. So it's always just being persistent, following up, and keep working the list. Keep calling people. The other method is just going out there.

20:20Nick Loper:If you see a plaza next to you or a building that you're interested in cleaning, usually those stores, that plaza will have a mom and pops. You have the franchise, and I'll go to the one where the mom and pops are and speak to them like, listen, do you know the manager's mom? number, the owner, I'm interested in cleaning this parking lot here. And then some of them will turn around and be like, Hey, this is the owner's name or the manager. Give them a call. Okay. Okay. So on the follow-up side, it's just being like giving them, um, being persistent and, um, having a little script in the beginning, you always want to introduce yourself and, um, be more, I try to like be laid back when I'm like making the phone calls.

21:04Nick Loper:I didn't want to sound like a salesperson, more like I'm at ease and let them know what I want. I'm here to help them basically. I'm here if you reach out. Did you find a lot of people are, you know, price shopping the service

21:18Brian Winch:or the way that they're currently dealing with it is kind of like you described. Well, it's each tenant's responsibility to sweep in front of their specific store, but then nobody is necessarily in charge of the lot itself or, you know, hopefully the landscaping company will come and do that or just, you know, wishful thinking and this stuff blows off into some neighboring thing with the next storm. What kind of maybe objections or price shopping stuff did you end up getting during those follow-ups?

21:49Nick Loper:I'll get things like, if it rains, would you still be out there? I'll tell them the work will still get done. If it's there, you'll get objections like, Like, all right, I don't think my property needs that much, you know, it'll mean it'll need daily maintenance, but it might need three days a week. And, you know, I'll try to let them know, like, you know, daily is better because it's a better maintenance. It becomes, you know, maintenance. And over a period, if you only do it twice a week, you know, litter accumulates. and then basically it will be you know the next time that you you know if you're doing it twice a week it's better off you being on the property five days than two days you know people will like um they'll say are you doing the work they were like are you doing or you have somebody on the property i will get that too they want to know who will be on their property would you um be able to So I guess if it rains and stuff, they wanted to know if you were still service their property, even though it's more like rain or shine, we still out there, we'll get the work done.

22:56Brian Winch:Yeah. Unless it's buried under a foot of snow in the winter, then there's not so much we can do, but we'll come back out once it melts and we'll take care of it.

23:03Nick Loper:Right. So once it melts, right, correct. We'll get back on the property and we'll just, we'll do what we got to do. How many accounts are you up to these days? 30 right now.

23:14Brian Winch:30 different lots that you're responsible for?

23:18Nick Loper:Correct. Right. So we had 30 now and still growing in. But besides the lots is what the managers offers. They offer so many other things besides that. They'll come like, hey, do you do this? And I'm like, yes, we do. So they'll ask you, do you do window cleaning? Do you clean common areas inside the plaza. So those are like extra work that you could get while you were on these properties. So the income just, it goes from where you were getting monthly to where other additional services could be added from a legal dumpy to window cleaning, storefronts. The manager will give you ideas of what you could do to it.

24:04Nick Loper:It's unbelievable. Okay.

24:06Brian Winch:Yeah. You become the go-to person for this type of thing. You're already out here anyway. What else can you do while you're here? Do you have a rule of thumb as to what you say yes to versus like, that's really kind of outside of my comfort zone or outside of my area of expertise?

24:21Nick Loper:Yes, of course. There's some things like I'm not doing any snow removal. I do more of the landscaping, but snow removal, that's something I'm thinking about it, but maybe in the future, I'll look into it. But that's something right now that I'm not actually doing. Yeah.

24:37Brian Winch:So you mentioned illegal dumping, for example, like this is what somebody just comes and puts a bunch of garbage into one place. And it's like, is that even going to fit in the dumpster that's on site? Like, what do you do in that case?

24:48Nick Loper:people come by and they will drop off mattresses. You can name it. Basically what we do is we'll take a picture. We'll send it over to the managers like, Liz, this is what they left here in the lot. And they were like, please get rid of it. They'll send me an email. They don't want to. It's like, just get rid of the property. And now right at that point, I was like, all right, it's going to cost you this much. And they're like, all right, just get rid of it. And then I'll just build them. Once I send the invoice, I'll build them on illegal dumping. was removed and I'll put the item, what it was and the date it got removed and the time.

25:24Nick Loper:And I'll actually attach a picture to what was removed. Okay. So they remember what it is or what the extra charge is for. Right. It'll be added to the invoice. You'd be surprised like so much on these properties, you come across all these illegal dumpings. People just, they just dump things next to these dumpsters and the company is not going to take it. So they have to pay extra, the managers, to get rid of that.

25:53Brian Winch:And so then you're a contractor or you have to somehow get this mattress or whatever else it is to the transfer station or to the dump or like, what do you,

26:02Nick Loper:like, how do you handle that? I'm at a point now that I have like different contractors that do that. I get rid of the trash. So at this point, I'm more like, I'm playing more like a dirt man.

26:15Brian Winch:oh okay so you got somebody like a specialist you can call somebody who has a truck like if your guy's just showing up in a sedan or something or yeah okay right yeah so they're ready they do

26:25Nick Loper:this for a living build a relationship with these guys so at this point i could call them up at any time and be like hey i have this location can you get rid of that for me i'll be there shortly you know and if that person can make it i'll call the next one and be like oh i have another this location I have like, they dump this at the site. Can you take care of that for me? So I wind up building a little list of people I could call that specialize in removing junk.

26:53Brian Winch:Are there any software tools or other technology that you're using to dispatch your team or manage who's going to what location on what day at what time and manage the billing and invoicing for all these different management companies and just across the different locations. At a certain size, it becomes, I imagine, a reasonably time-consuming job just to manage the beast.

27:17Nick Loper:So, accounting purposes, I'm using QuickBooks. Other than that, it's just been more emailing. It's funny. I use a lot of WhatsApp for some reason. You like to communicate with different team members? Right. Team members that way. And my subcontractors, they love using that and they send me pictures through that. So that's one of the stuff I've been using. So it's mostly just text messaging.

27:44Brian Winch:And it's fairly consistent. If somebody is on this particular job site or they have this particular route, they're doing that week after week versus, oh, today I need you over here, trying to juggle all these different chess pieces.

27:57Nick Loper:they're already out there and they're, they're probably going to be in the area. So it's more like, Oh, I'm making a stop at this location. I should be there shortly, you know, or be like, Oh, I could take care of it tomorrow morning. So it's one of those things where I'll follow up with them to do like a text to see if it got done. And, and I'll let them know to send me pictures once they finished the job. And that's been also working the pictures in this way. I could send over the managers. I'll send them all the owners. I'll send them the pictures of what got done so they could see that's like the best proof right there, you know?

28:36Brian Winch:Yeah, right. Because they're managing it from likely not necessarily on site either. We just want to have some level of confidence that this work is getting done, that we're paying for. You mentioned these additional service requests. Say, while you're out there, could you wash the windows or could you take care of this other thing? anything else that's surprised you as you've built this thing over the last four years

28:57Nick Loper:every manager um i come across they give me different ideas like the last manager i spoke to he was like do you do retail clean outs and i was like like i was like clean outs as and he's like yeah like turnovers can you go in there and just like once my tenant is vacant can you go in there and just clean everything out and give it all that trash and clean it out for me and i was like, wow, that's, I actually never thought about that. You know, I might at these properties, you know, but I never actually even thought about it. You could go in there that once the property goes vacant, they all need somebody to go in there and clean everything out of there.

29:35Nick Loper:So the next person or when they rent, they do rent it out down in the future that it will be just, you know, it'll be nice and clean. So that's a manager not too long ago told me about that. So that's something that now I'm looking into now.

29:52Brian Winch:Okay. Adding that to the menu of services. Do you find that at this point, people are finding you organically through your local Google exposure, local Google listings? Or you find that's really about this proactive outreach, getting in front of the decision makers and being persistent with the follow-ups? You know, what's funny about a couple of days ago, I had a website set up in

30:16Nick Loper:January. And I remember I was like, I have to get a website now. You know, it got to a point that I was like, I have to get a website. I didn't need it in the beginning, but now it's more like I have to get a set up a website. So I set up a website in January.

30:28Brian Winch:Oh, just this year. So you were three and a half years deep into it before setting up the site.

30:33Nick Loper:Right. So that's something that, you know, you don't need to be honest. Like I didn't need a website. I was able to get things done through, you know, making phone calls and stuff like that. But going back to, I got the site up in January. And I'll say three days ago, somebody found me on Google and was like, hey, I've seen your website. We have three sites. Can you please take a look at them? So now, just so for the day, and I asked them, how did, you know, I was just curious. I was like, how did you find my number? And it was like, well, we did a Google search. and we came across your number.

31:12Nick Loper:We came across your website and we want to know if you could come check out on three parking lots we have. And I was like, yeah, sure. So not too long ago, I just, yeah, I went and I took a look at them, gave them a quote. So it looks like we're going to be in contract and moving forward with them. And that same company is like, we have 10 other properties that we need also clean. I was like, wow. So just off of that, off of having this website.

31:39Brian Winch:Yeah, see you, come on, people. put your website up earlier. On the one hand, I'm glad you didn't let it hold you back from getting started. It's like, oh man, how many leads like that could have been coming in over the last few years? That's awesome though.

31:50Nick Loper:I know. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I was like, yes, get your site up. If you could get it, it doesn't cost much. I was looking at the newspaper and I came across, there's basically the city had a program where they help you get a free website up and running. And they'll help you also set up an SEO for like a year. They'll help you out with that. And it's crazy. I don't know how many people, if they take advantage of that, but that service is out there, you know, to help people out, you know, at least in my area.

32:25Brian Winch:Yeah, that's kind of cool. Look around for what potential services may be out there if that tech stuff is a bottleneck for you or if it's intimidating. You know, there's lots of lots of ways to get that done. So that's awesome. I'm happy people are discovering you now and maybe take a break from the cold calling or the warm calling outreach.

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35:08Brian Winch:But where are you taking this thing? You're still doing it as a side hustle. You got these 30 lots, you know, like you're going to expand outside of the boroughs. What's what's going on? What's next for litter-free lots?

35:19Nick Loper:I'm looking into like drop servicing where people could come onto my website and ordered from the site. And then I'll be able, we could be able to like get a match and get them out there to service the property. So I'm working on that now. I'm trying to see if they want an area or a sidewalk swept. They will just go onto my website. I'll have the pricing they're ready and they'll know like an estimate. It'll have a recurring price on there or have a one-time price there. So that's what I'm looking at for more to getting done.

35:54Brian Winch:Okay. Locally, or I guess you could be nationwide if you can eventually play matchmaker between a service provider and a customer.

36:01Nick Loper:Right now, so far, I'm trying local, see how it goes. And if I could take this nationwide right now, I'll shoot for it. You never know until give it a try, but I'll start locally and see how it goes from there.

36:16Brian Winch:Yeah, I think it's one of these examples that we've talked about in the past of a really localized, fragmented type of service business where there isn't a well-known national brand that does this, at least that I'm aware of. And so there's a chance to become that or build that even on a local level and say, oh, become the go-to player in this space, become the market leader. And then by default, you can start to expand in a lot of ways. Do you see it becoming a full-time thing? Is there a revenue target that you're trying to hit for? Or it's like, yeah, you know what? I got a good thing going.

36:52Brian Winch:I can manage it in my spare time. I might as well bank the day job while I'm at it.

36:57Nick Loper:I feel like I could still continue the way I'm doing it now. but i if the way it's going this if you know the accounts are coming in this way it looks like it's going to get to a point that i'm eventually going to have to you know and even speaking to like my family they were saying you know it'll get to a point where how will you be able to manage both of them so far i'm able to handle it but then i don't you know yeah it's one of those you got a one month old sleeping downstairs it was you're right so right now it's one of those things like if it continues to you know build accounts i think eventually it'll get to a point that i'm gonna have to like focus on one thing then you know but so far it's been it's working and the reason why is because i my goal is i'm trying not to do the cleaning myself so it's important to get people and the right people to get the job done and i think if you could get If you could start doing that, focusing on getting the right people in there, it makes your life much easier.

38:04Nick Loper:It's just getting the right people on the property and they're out there. There's some responsible people that will get the job done.

38:12Brian Winch:Yeah, it sounds like you've built it in a really smart way for recurring revenue to not require your direct day-to-day boots on the ground involvement in a lot of cases, providing this training upfront, this over the shoulder, like, look, this is how I get it done. and then finding those reliable people to do it. I think it would be a potentially attractive business to acquire for somebody else who is looking for that recurring revenue stream or to continue to expand it. But I'm really excited with everything that you built and what you'll continue to build. So I appreciate you joining me on this edition of the Side Hustle Show.

38:45Brian Winch:You can find Vladimir at litterfreelots.nyc. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.

38:53Nick Loper:You come across that there's doubts And sometimes those doubts will be like, oh, you have like that little voice telling you, I can't do this. Then you will go two or three days and you still haven't gotten nothing done. But what I say is get past that little voice, that little negative voice that's telling you, no, you can't do this. Or if you could get past that doubt and that little voice and just try, just move past that and just start setting up either is the business right away or setting up your business account. Once you get off that point, I think it will take off from there. It's just getting past that little, everybody has doubts.

39:32Nick Loper:If you could get past that, you would be all right.

39:35Brian Winch:Yes, quiet the doubts. My friend Jared hosts a podcast for years and years called Starve the Doubts. But yeah, we all face the same fears and questions and we second guess all these decisions. Those are probably totally valid, but just push them aside for a little bit. move forward, keep moving that ball forward and good things come from that. So Vladimir, I really appreciate you joining me and we'll catch up with you soon.

39:59Nick Loper:Thank you, Nick, for having me. It was a pleasure.

40:04Blademir Hernandez:All right. Hope you enjoyed that chat with Vladimir. My top three takeaways from the call. Number one is to be a lean startup. This is naturally a low overhead, low startup cost business, picking up litter. And that equates to low risk. Vladimir didn't say specifically how much he spent before he landed his first customer, but between Brian's clean lot ebook, between his legal Zoom sole proprietorship setup that he mentioned, his business cards, his flyers, his equipment. I've got to imagine it was less than 500 bucks. And then he goes out and books his first job for 450 to 500 bucks a month, six grand a year in revenue from one customer, super quick ROI, and didn't stress about putting up a website until he was already well-established, start lean, validate the idea with real dollars, and then reinvest.

40:52Creating a pretty sizable

40:54Blademir Hernandez:business from scratch, on the side, turning trash into treasure in this case, really inspiring stories. That's takeaway number one for me, be a lean startup. Number two is this foot in the door idea. And not only that, but keeping it in the door. I don't know if Vladimir had a sales background before this business, but you can tell now over the course of four years of doing it, He's really well-practiced in talking to strangers. He knows his script. He knows his value prop, building rapport, dealing with the common objections that come up, and just presenting himself as a helpful service provider.

41:28Blademir Hernandez:And just because somebody tells you no today, or more likely they kind of punch you down the road, they give you a non-answer, doesn't necessarily mean no forever. Just means not yet, not right now. Keep following up. And a couple of things that were really cool about this foot in the door takeaway. way. First, one contact can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line because they manage several different locations in this specific business. That carrot, I imagine, helps you work through all the rejection sticks that you might face in order to get it. And second, once you're in, once you've got a yes, and Vladimir mentioned this, you start to get these requests for all these add-on services.

42:07Blademir Hernandez:So as you build your network and you do good work, the snowball really starts to pick up momentum. And we've seen that in a bunch of different examples on the side hustle show, but that's takeaway number two for me, this foot in the door and keep it in the door. Takeaway number three is recurring revenue. And this is a cool model because it's predictable recurring revenue week after week, month after month, which means the lifetime value of a customer can be huge, especially if they've got multiple lots, multiple locations. So whether or not you're interested in picking up litter from parking lots, think of what kind of maintenance service you can offer your customers.

42:43Blademir Hernandez:What's going to keep them coming back? After all, I think it's a lot easier to do more business with somebody who already knows, likes, trusts you than it is to get a new customer to pay you for the first time. Notes and links for this episode, along with the full text summary of our call, are at sidehustlenation.com slash litter2, L-I-T-T-E-R, and the number two, or you can just follow the link in the episode description of your podcast app. And if you do like this model, check out my original episode with Brian Winch from Clean Lots that inspired Vladimir's business. You can scroll down to episode 266.

43:19Blademir Hernandez:Got to go way back in the archives to find that one. Episode 266 in your podcast app or side hustle nation.com slash litter. We'll get you right over there. But big thanks to Vladimir for sharing his insight. it's Vladimir with a B. My Spanish teacher in high school would always say Vedi Vaca or Vedi Buro or Vedi Buro and I don't know if she made that up but Vedi Buro in this case Vladimir. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Until next time let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.

43:54Blademir Hernandez:Hustle on.