159. From Laid Off to 7-Figure Business: Blue Collar Empire

0:00Window cleaning might seem like a humble business, but today's guest is here to show you how he He turned$153 in a bucket of supplies into a seven-figure powerhouse. The secret? It's not just about washing windows. It's about genius marketing, building a loyal customer base, and scaling smartly with a franchise model that's taking the country by storm. This is Ryan Atkinson, and you're listening to the Upfit Podcast, where we uncover the secret to building and running successful businesses. Today, we're talking with Brandon Downer, co-founder and owner behind Pink's Window Cleaning. He went from laid off desk worker to running a million dollar business, and he's here to tell you how they did it and how you can do it too.

0:37Brandon, welcome to the show. So, so excited to have you on. So, so grateful to have you here. Ryan, thanks for having me. This is awesome. Big fan of you guys and just fired up to be on here. Well, I want to plug it early because you were just on our YouTube channel and everyone needs to go check that out because Brandon Carter of the absolute man. So I'm very thankful to have you on here. But for the people that haven't checked that out yet, let's talk about that desk job that you used to have. Like what inspired you to leave your desk job and start a window cleaning business? I didn't have an option, really.

1:05I didn't leave my desk job. My desk job left me. It was 2020. COVID hit, was working in the live music business. And as most people can imagine, live music, COVID do not mix well together. So me and about, I don't know, 50 to 70 % of my colleagues, we got furloughed slash laid off. And Carter, my business partner, also was working not in the live music business, but in the e-commerce boot business. And COVID hit, they had a round of layoffs as well. So what inspired us was we needed some dough. We had some bills to pay. And we knew that we wanted to start something in the service business, we just didn't know exactly what we wanted to start.

1:54So we went down this like thought pattern. Maybe we should become electricians, but then we're like, we're not smart enough for that. And then we said, maybe we should become plumbers, same thing. Maybe we should install doors and windows. And that's when we're like, oh, maybe we're all to something here. And then I think it was, I had the thought of, maybe we should just clean the windows. That seems pretty easy. So that's what got us into like the window cleaning realm is, okay, this seems pretty simple. As you said earlier, we went to Home Depot one day, spent$153 on a bucket, some towels, soap and a squeegee.

2:34And all of a sudden we had a vehicle to make ourselves some money. And that's kind of like what inspired it was needed some money, got laid off and there we were. Did you ever think you were going to be an entrepreneur or was it just simply because of economic conditions, you became one. I always wanted to be a business owner. I just didn't know how. I was working in the corporate world, big company. I had a salary and a 401k and health insurance and all that. And in my brain, I always had in my mind that I want to do something on my own. I want to lead a company one day. I just didn't know what that admit or how to do it.

3:15And I really am grateful I got laid off because I was forced to figure it out. I don't know if I would have been brave enough on my own to just quit, let go of the golden handcuffs of working a corporate job to figure out something that is... Starting a business is hard, but once you're in it, and at least for us, when we were forced to be in it, we were forced to figure it out. We were forced to make it work. We had no choice. And I look at getting laid off from my job and I think it was probably one of the best things to happen to me, at least professionally, that's the best thing that's happened to me.

3:51So just grateful for the layoff and turning something that I thought was not good and getting laid off and turning it into something really special for Carter and myself. Absolutely. You went to Home Depot, you get$153 worth of supply. But now you need to land like your first client. So talk to us. How did you and Carter go about landing your first job? And how did that kind of shape like your business journey? Yeah. Well, first way to figure out how the heck to clean windows. That's like a setback. Yeah. So the first client, I guess I was the first client because we cleaned, I mean, I'm in the same house I've been in since we started the company.

4:30Cleaned my back doors, figured out how to squeegee, figured out all that. And then we started telling people what we were up to. So our first client was, we started just cleaning our family and our friends' houses for free just to learn and figure it out. And then we cleaned Carter's wife's grandparents' house. It was all the way outside of San Antonio. So we drove an hour and a half to get there for our first job. They paid us$800. And then while we were there, we hit Carter's wife's aunt's house, which was five minutes away from her grandparents' house. And I'll never forget that day, our revenue was$1 ,600.

5:09And we were in a Chevy Tahoe. We probably had$30 or$40 worth of gas. We had our$153 window cleaning rig. We made sure to have uniforms because we knew that was important to us. But I remember thinking when we got$1 ,600 in cash, I was like oh my gosh we are freaking rich$800 a piece I guess maybe take a hundred away for expenses so maybe 750 a piece in a day's work I was like this is the most money I've ever made in my life this is awesome we didn't have a bank account at this point so I guess all that to say you know we were kind of a charity case to some of our family and friends but we had to like get over ourselves and just like hey we're doing this and if you think you know we're less than or a charity case and that's fine.

5:55But, you know, we were rich. Yeah. Rich in a whole lot of different ways. You're off and running your first business. You guys get$800 each. Obviously, an important step a lot of times I hear this on a podcast is like go to your family and friends, like get them, they'll pay for it like great. But what's also important is actually getting a stranger to pay for it. So how'd you guys get your first stranger to pay for your service? You know, for a long time, I mean, I say a long time, maybe for the first few weeks of us starting, it was our family and friends just like referring us because you know times were tough at the time unemployment was 15 percent and so like getting a job was hard so a lot of times it was my cousin or my aunts connecting me with their neighbor and their neighbor connected me with their family friend or whatever but i would say for the first like real stranger with no connection was probably i was just like walking into storefronts on south congress which for those listening and don't know Austin.

6:53South Congress is like our main strip in the city, high-end retail stores, high-end restaurants, all that. And we were just determined. We walked in with our pink uniform. We'd hand them a business card and say, hey, I don't know who cleans your windows, but let us clean them instead. And that's how we landed our first commercial job. I believe it was Billy Reed. We didn't really have any connection there. And we started cleaning their windows. But how we got it was just straight hustle. Just having to kind of die to ourself and be like, all right, we're door knocking and we're sales guys. You guys are offering both commercial and residential cleaning services.

7:31How does the pricing different between those two and kind of what's that breakup right now on serving commercial versus residential? The pricing really isn't that much different between commercial and residential. We have these cleaning plans, which I think are awesome and make a lot of sense. But the price per clean on the commercial jobs, it can be skewed, depending on the situation, a little lower just because the frequency is so much higher. So like a restaurant might be getting their windows cleaned weekly or every other week. And so the higher the frequency, the steeper the discount is how we do it at Pink's.

8:05While residentially, most people are getting it done quarterly or biannually. That's how that works. So they get less of a discount than the commercial does, but commercial can range from a big arena to a storefront with four windows. So it just depends. But our business in Pink's Austin is 50 % commercial, 50 % residential. That's super interesting. What I really like about this business model, it's a business model that I've been thinking about a lot more. It's like, you guys are getting these repeat customers, especially when you're getting these commercials. It's like that restaurant that actually needs to have it cleaned every other week.

8:39It's a recipe for success and obviously a key part of the model. It's a huge part of the business model. Like this year, 55 % of our revenue will come from recurring maintenance plans. Wow. And we have an initiative just to continue to grow that number higher and higher and then convert everyone that's a one-time customer to some sort of cleaning plan. We always tell our franchisees, your future self will thank you when you sell that maintenance plan because now you got a job in perpetuity ready to go. So it's a good situation. Absolutely love that. And just looking at some of your metrics, $58 ,000 a month, like you guys were able to accomplish that.

9:16Let's actually talk about your revenue numbers. What's the most you've done in a month over at Pinks? I think 110. Yeah, that was a busy one. It was awesome. I mean, busy times, you know, that was probably, I think, May or June of this year. But yeah, it was fantastic. Brandon, I want to stop you right there before we get to our next question. Because listeners, if you guys are like, oh my gosh, I want to start this Pink's franchise thing. I want to get the opportunity to do this. Well, good news for you. Go to the show notes wherever you're listening to your podcast and click on that special upflip link.

9:50We're going to direct you guys to a page where you guys can get started with that Pink's franchise. Again, click the link in the show notes below. So what are some of those key strategies that you guys have implemented to actually get up to a record-breaking month of like$110 ,000 a month? For the first three years of Pink's, we did zero digital advertising. It was all word of mouth. It was all brand. It was all just like having a clean, good website. In my opinion, that's how you want to do it. If you can have that old school, I'm going to get over my pride. I'm going to go sell. I'm going to do this thing.

10:22I'm going to be proud of the uniform, proud of the work I do. And ask people for referrals, ask people for reviews, all that. That's fantastic. We turned on digital ads probably about 12 to 13 months ago. And it just still on the fire, especially the way we market and the way we do our ads. It's just different than everybody else in our sector. And that's intentional. We want to be fun. We want to be engaging because it's our view that your average person doesn't care about a dirty window and now it's clean. whether on Instagram or they're on Facebook or they're on YouTube, you know, they're looking to be entertained.

11:03And so we want to like entertain people. Also tell like a story that, hey, here's what we do. We do clean and we do show up on time and do all those things, you know, well that you need to have to have a successful service business. But when we started digital advertising, it was just fueling the fire and it just helped us grow even more of the business. So as far as like marketing goes, digital ads, And then, you know, these hats and these merch, like we sell it. But then, you know, our franchisees give them to their customers, you know, thank you packages. And, you know, our whole goal is we want to give people a story.

11:36We want people to be confused with how good our service is. Like, I can't believe my window cleaner gave me a hat. And I can't believe I actually want to wear that hat because it's like kind of a good looking hat. At least I think so. I'm sitting here and guys check out the YouTube channel because this is audio only. But the merch is actually insane. So I want to applaud you guys for that. But I want to talk about how do you guys provide that great service? Obviously, you're showing up on time. You're giving them merch and all that stuff. But talk to us about how you guys are ensuring you're providing a great customer service.

12:07And especially early on, how can people ensure that they're providing a great customer service for you? I think in the service business, and I got this from a mentor of mine. His name is John, lives in Arkansas. But John said this. he said, if you show up on time and you do what you say you're going to do in the service business, you're already 90 % ahead of everybody else. If you just do those two simple things. So Carter and I were 150 % committed to wherever we go, anytime we give an estimate, anytime we have a job scheduled, like, hey, Ryan, we're coming to clean your house at 9am. We got there at 8.50.

12:41We sat in front of your house for five or eight minutes and then knocking in their door at 8.58. That's how we teach it. Now, easier said than done. There's all kinds of variables. There's traffic. There's a job went long and it's holding me up for the next job. But we just made sure that we just executed on our promise. And if there ever was a hiccup, we were just extremely clear with our communication to the customer. Hey, I'm so sorry. We're running 15 minutes late. I apologize for that and noting it if ever we're going to be late. So I think if you're listening to this and you want to start something, being just so communicative to the customer and really caring about them.

13:20Like knowing that they're paying you for a service, they're paying you to be on time, they're paying you to do all the line items on the estimate. And we want to just like do that exceptionally. So I think there's something practical we did is like email notifications on at all times, responding really quickly to emails and texts from customers. And I think that just put us ahead because a lot of people, a lot of companies is just missing or don't respond at all. And so our goal is just to respond to everything timely because if we're the quickest, we're probably gonna get the business. I absolutely love that.

13:53A lot of things that I've been saying that's based on visuals, how we're dealing with customers is like, if you want to get over the top results, you have to be over the top when you're responding to clients. So that means including personality in your emails, like being who you are, but also just nitty gritty of it, like responding on time, responding very quickly, like going over the top with your service. And that's how you actually are getting these repeat customers. We've already seen that happen a few times. Over the top actions lead to over the top results, especially when it comes to your clients.

14:20100%. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it just takes like a discipline and like a hyper focus to do that. And I'm like, hey, like I'm going to respond. And sometimes calls come in on a Saturday or Sunday and, you know, we'll respond to it just because we want to give that service, you know, excellent service to the customer. I love it. So you're combining great customer service with like nose to the grind, especially in your first year of like getting these clients and whatnot. What other methods works best for getting some of like your first clients? Was it all door to door salesman referrals?

14:53Talk to us about that because I really want to hone in on people that want to start this business. And how do I succeed year one? I think a big part of it is, yeah, like word of mouth, but then asking your current clients for their recommendation. Hey, I'll give you 10 % off of your clean if you can post in your neighborhood Facebook group saying how awesome Pink's was and here's our booking link. I think that's something really practical that we did early on was do that. I think other pieces were finding out who decision makers were, whether it's a property manager or a general manager at a restaurant, and treat them really well.

15:27Give them a hat. Go in and try to get a conversation with them and thank them for their time. Hey, by the way, here's a hat for you. Here's a pair of socks and a handwritten thank you card for your time. Things like that always help. And then I think the key is just get that first customer. and when you get that first customer, now you can go to all the neighbors next to them and say, hey, we cleaned Ryan's house. Can we clean yours too? And you have like a little bit of validation. So, I mean, you know, there's so many ways to cut it and think about sales and growing the business and getting more clients.

15:59But at the end of the day, you just have to put yourself in a customer's shoes and think about what is it that they want? Like, obviously on time, do what we say we're going to do. They want quotes that are clear and they want to know exactly what they're going to get. You know, we try to reduce the amount of friction there are when we send our quotes to customers. And we have a lot of ways to do that just to make it really easy for them to say yes to us. Just having some sort of validation. Hey, we cleaned this restaurant. Can we clean your house? That helps a lot. It sounds like you guys are like really injecting like social proof.

16:33Yes. With everything you're doing. Very much so. And if we clean a certain restaurant in Austin and we let someone know that we clean that restaurant, they say, oh, So if it's good enough for that restaurant, they're probably good enough for me. So you guys did all this, some old school tactics, and now you guys are leaning into digital marketing, digital ads. How has it shifted to getting new leads today? What's the breakdown of that, essentially? A lot of leads come in through our Facebook or Instagram ads that are running, at least or on the Meta platform, as well as Google, all that. So we spend money every month, so to our franchisees.

17:08and the results are quite impressive, you know, as far as like cost per opportunity, cost per lead, all of that. It really does bring in quite a bit of just leads for us. And then we know that if we can get the lead and we can get in front of them and have a conversation or whether it's a conversation over the phone or a text message, like, you know, there's a good shot that we're going to win the business and hopefully win the business for the long haul for that recurring plan. Yeah, I think it's always interesting to get those recurring customers. That's how we've seen revenue growth here at Space Services.

17:36It's just like getting those repeat customers back to us. And you can't get that day one in our business model anyways. But once you do get that, that's really how you can start to grow. And speaking of growth, I want to talk about your guys' growth at Pink. So at what point did you realize you needed to scale beyond just a bucket and squeegee operation? Talk to us about that. It was pretty early on because when we first started the business, we were unaware of water fed poles and that whole system. So if there was a window of the second story, we'd crank up the ladder and squeegee it. kind of like the old school message.

18:08So then we figured out a more efficient way to clean, you know, windows that are higher than ground level. So that was helpful. And then scaling, we just started hiring good people. Our first hire, Hayden, he's still with us at Pink's and he's now GMing Pink's Austin, but just an amazing guy. And, you know, we consider ourselves, you know, just blessed that we got him and how committed he's been and how much of a worker he is. So fantastic. And then our second hire was Will, also an amazing guy, still works with Pink's now on the franchising side, helping coach franchisees. But I think the key to scaling a business is you have to have good people.

18:43And part of having good people is having a good culture. So we care about those guys. We care about them outside of the eight to five. We're doing happy hours. We're making sure they're paid fairly. We're making sure that they're incentivized correctly. We're just making sure that whatever they need, we're taking care of them. Because we know that we take care of them. They take care of us and the customers of Pink's and they help drive the business forward. So we very much believe we're not just a cleaning business, we're a people business. And so the key to scale is having wonderful people that are trustworthy, good with customers and that are reliable.

19:18I say a lot here is like, if you treat your employees right, they'll treat your clients right. And that's kind of what the method needs to be. But culture is always like a really interesting piece to me, like how people like intentionally build a culture. How did you guys like intentionally build a culture? Like, do you guys have your core values posted? Is it just caring about people? How did you guys build the cultures at Pink? We have our core values posted and we talk about them just about every week of the team meeting. We show up on time. We do what we say we're going to do. We own our work and we lead it better than we found it.

19:47And we know that if we can do those four things, we're going to be unstoppable as a service business. So that's a part of it. Another part of the culture is, one, we pay for all of our guys' lunches every day. That's a Pink sauce, something that we've decided. but when you do that it gets guys to dine together to kind of have that break time together well if we didn't pay for their lunch maybe one guy packs a sack lunch the other guy you know goes to mcdonald's and we're eating separately like we want our guys to be buddies we want them to enjoy what they do so we pay for their lunch to create that environment to like enjoy and it's a good marketing tactic because now you got a pink sky wearing the pink uniform inside of a chipotle or you know another restaurant and um it gets the chipotle employees asking what do those guys do and we've won a lot of visits that way so i think the other piece of culture is and this isn't like a measure thing really but it's just availability are you available for your guys like can you lead them if they want to get a one-on-one are we available enough to give them a one-on-one you know are we having a happy hour where we're just going to relax have a few drinks and just have some fun chit-chatting and catching up on life.

21:00And I think if you just care for your people and just really try to put yourself in their shoes, that's what creates good culture. What's going through the mind of Peyton or of Garrett when it's 110 degrees outside and they're out there cleaning windows and they've been out there for three or four hours? Well, I know what that's like because I've done it before. So I'm going to show up to the job site, bring them a Gatorade, bring them a water, grab that squeegee from them while they get a break in the shade for a little bit. So it's just little things that we can do daily to make sure our guys are taken care of and make sure that they know that we care about that.

21:36I think I'm some mind that I'm really curious on. How have you seen your leadership style change since starting Pinks to scaling it, franchising it, growing it's where it is now? I think early on, I was really flippant with my words and communication. I think part of being a good leader is eliminating confusion, whether it's for your team members or the customer or anybody. How can we eliminate confusion and guide people in the correct direction? And so I think that's how I've grown over the last four years is I think, I just did it again, but I used to say things without clarity. Hey, I think this is the right way or, oh, this is probably how it goes.

22:18today it's like, hey, this is how it goes. And you speak with a clarity and a confidence. This is how we're going to do it. This is your quote. And it's not subject to change or whatever it is. And you just eliminate that confusion for customers and your team. And at least for me, I love being ultra clear, but also ultra kind. I never want to be a leader that one of my day one guys is scared to come talk to. We like to have an open door policy. If there's an issue, if there's something you want, like there's no walls. Come to the top. Let's have a conversation. And it's an open door policy. Listeners right now might be thinking, you know what?

22:55This Brandon guy is pretty awesome. And I'm actually really liking this business model. So they might be like, I want to learn a little bit more about like this franchise opportunity. What can you share about the franchise opportunity with Pinks and like how your current franchise is doing? What sort of training is like included and all that? Yeah. So if we were to franchise a Pinks, one, we'd love to have a conversation with you first. And, you know, whether it's with me or with Carter or someone on our team, we'd love to chit chat. So the door is always open there, even for prospects. Talked about the open door policy, open for anybody.

23:25Our current franchisees are wonderful. They're doing a great job. They're on track. You know, what's taken us years to build, they're building in months, which I think is really awesome. And that's why you franchise the business. But whenever you buy a pink franchise in your city, a whole lot of things happen. One, you get online training that we built out. Carter, myself, our team. And you learn everything, how to quote culture, how to run a team meeting, the KPIs of the business, how to grow revenue, how to doorknock, how to quote, how to quote commercial, how to quote residential, all kinds of examples.

24:01And then you have an onboarding coach that walks you through all the onboarding steps. There's about 90 steps you have to take to start a Pink's, which is cool. And then you come to in-person training in Austin, Texas for about four days. We have a blast together. We clean windows. We talk leadership. We talk sales tactics. We do, I mean, you just learn the whole system. And then you launch your business and you have support from us daily, weekly, all the time. And we track your KPIs with you and for you and offer some just excellent coaching as well as coaching visits. It's been really, really fun to watch Carter and our vision and the Resi Brands vision just get blasted all over the country.