This is Waste to Wealth, a podcast about turning your waste hauling business into a profitable, scalable, cash flowing machine. And now, here's your host, Michael Welcome, this is our podcast, so welcome to the podcast. And for anyone that's listening, this isn't live, we'll post this later. But you and I met at a conference, the docket conference. Dockets are really great. Junk removal and dumpster software. And they're also doing port-a-johns now. So they do a, they do a bunch of different things and I love it. And I'm wondering how it's working out for you. We can talk about that a little bit. But, um, why don't we, I put, I put some, some things I want to talk about in the comments here. And the first thing I want to do is talk about your business and promote your business is you, you, you want to help more people, right? That's why you're doing this, right? So tell me about your business, who you help and how they can So again, if you don't know me, my name is Gabe Mendoza. You know, the owner of a one junk express. We're based out of here in California, a little town called Atwater, Merced County. So we try to serve the whole Merced County, Stanislaus County. And our goal, our goal is our community. You know, we don't interact a lot with the community as of now, but we try to work our way But our main goal is to, to be involved with the community, 100%, you know, as we go, um, every conference that we go to, um, like when we met over that docket and I picked up a lot of good nuggets, um, last week, you know, out here in California, we had the junk expo, a lot of great guys, you know, getting out there, you know, uh, gave their information, uh, picked up a lot of good stuff from there and a lot of stuff that we're going to implement into our business. As far as, you know, creating a culture that's gonna. help our community, our clients and just keep growing. And the way they can get ahold of us is through our phone number is at 209-800-3800. And you know, you call us and we'll go ahead and answer and we'll take care of the whatever junk or You call, we haul. That's it. So I love the conferences. That's a great way to find other people that have already solved problems that you're dealing with. And at the point you are at now, you probably have gone through a lot of trial and error to figure stuff out. So how did you get started? What Well, you know, Mike, I was, I've been in the trades, you know, I was in the trades right out of high school. I didn't graduate high school. So I had to do something. I went into the trades, to the construction trades and did that for about, you know, for a good, for about 20 years, you know, and 2021, late 20, no, early 2021, My dad was a truck driver. My dad retired. So my dad went to go help me out, you know, was that while I was doing a little odds and ends here, my dad was out there. Uh, I had a little dump trailer and, uh, the purpose of that dump trailer was to keep my job sites clean. So, uh, one day my dad was cleaning some stuff, you know, a neighbor came out, asked him to, if he wanted to get rid of some stuff, you know, if he could help him out, my dad's a shirt, you know? So, uh, my dad was in the dump. He went to go throw that stuff away. The neighbor came out. and paid my dad, you know, a hundred bucks. And my dad gave it to me and I was like, no, you can keep them. But what that created, that created a spark in my head. And I was like, okay, wait a minute. Like this, Oh man, this guy was, okay. Is there a business for this? And the whole, we were about an hour and a half away from our home. We were, uh, Carmel, Uh, yeah. And we were the whole drive home. I was just kind of thinking like, man, there has to be a market. I can't wait till I get home, go to YouTube and start looking, see if there's actually people doing that. And come to find out, man, Sonoma stronghold was. They were all over the place in YouTube. So I just started listening and listening and, and slowly mass started leaving construction and diverting into the junk removal industry and eventually into Beautiful. So you did it like in phases started as a side hustle and then it grew and then you stopped doing Correct. Yeah. So I started, uh, as a side hustle, you know, because I didn't know if it was going to work or not, you know, um, if it was going to work or not. So, uh, we started, uh, we branded ourselves, uh, as junkie or haul it back then. And then, um, you know, this year we, we rebranded, uh, we were getting a lot of calls for, uh, like, uh, I would assume what were hotshots to deliver other materials that we don't. We just remove junk and we're delivering a dumpster. So we rebranded into A1 Junk Express. But yeah, it basically started as a side hustle. And I still kept doing what I was doing, like as far as side work, construction work and stuff like that. And I used that to finance a lot of my equipment. Buy more trailers, buy another truck, you know. I know a lot of people get in debt, but I don't wanna get in debt. So whatever I can buy cash, I'll cash it out. And once I get the ball rolling exactly where I feel like I know it's coming enough, then I can go ahead and start making big purchases. But for the meantime, buy a cash and I don't feel that bad Yeah. That's really, really wise because the temptation is to just buy a bunch of equipment and then hope that you make enough money to pay for the debt and, you know, keep Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this, man. When, when, uh, when we were in Nashville, man, at the docket expo, you know, meeting other people, you know what I mean? I thought I was decent, you know, until I find out that there's people with a hundred cans, a hundred plus cans. I was like, Oh man, I'll just, uh, I only got three right now. Like I can't compete with these guys, but you know what it is? What it does show you is the possibility. This is what's out there. Do you wanna scale or do you wanna stay where Yeah, and there's all different types of ways to be successful. Depends on your target customer and how much you wanna work and how much of a team you wanna have. I met one gentleman he didn't have that many cans. I don't, it might've been 10. So he had a low number of cans, which is, which is, you know, I would think that would, would limit how much you can do, but he had this method where he just did one day rentals. You could only rent his can for like one day. And he, he'd do like a hundred rentals a week or something like that with 10 cans. The number was outstanding. I didn't believe him. I Yeah. So he, I mean, he, if he had 10 canned, I guess he would do like, he could technically he could do 70 technically. Right. If you have, if you have 10 cans, you do one, one for once one day, the rentals he was doing with those cans was outstanding. They were just turning over and over and over again. Right. And I had a business and I had, I had 200 cannons and sometimes they would sit for two months or, or longer. I had one can that was like six months and didn't move. you know, and that thing didn't make So that's, that's what I'm afraid of. Like, if I go ahead and make this big purchase, like, are they just going to be sitting there or are they going to be on rotation all the time to have, you know, to have them financed and, you know, not generating any money. Like Well, when the, when the price of steel, I remember back in, I think it was 2022 or something like that, the price of steel jumped up pretty high. And, um, so the way that me and a bunch of other people responded was instead of, instead of, um, Uh, in order to keep, keep up with business, uh, instead of just buying more cans for the demand, we just shortened how long we rented things for, for the current price. We're like, all right, the price is, this is similar, but we're, we're moving from like, what would normally be a two week rental became a one week. Um, that Just change the method of your, your process of renting and Yeah, they could keep in my world. They could keep it longer, but we charge them Because everyone's got a different method. I know some guys have charged by the day. I don't know. I'm curious how you charge, but we did. We had three, I guess I'll tell you what we did. We had three different metrics. We had a weekly rental, a two week rental, and then a monthly rental. That was included in the price depending on where you were. If you were our favorite customer, you were a home builder or a big contractor, you needed that dumpster for a month at least. The price included a month, and then after the month, we would charge you by the day. Then if we emptied it, we'd reset. But if you were a small guy, like a residential person that's just doing a house clean out, actually, I think it was only three days. We changed it to three days. You had like a weekend to clean it out and then to use it. And if you didn't use it after that, it was a daily charge. And that was a higher daily charge. I think it was like 15 bucks a day versus five. But So I learned when I got into the dumpsters, man, I learned early on because again, you know, you're looking at YouTube videos, you're looking at picking other people's brains, you know, and, and kind of see, you know, how, how to price your stuff. So, you know, I decided to you know, I think it was the first one that I rented out was a 20 yarder. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to rent it. I want to include to the tonnage, you know, we're going to go at five 50, you know, we're going to go five 50 for it, uh, for two days for the weekend. And, uh, we'll see how that goes. So, you know, dropped it off, you know, they paid us, uh, the, the five 50, you know, and, um, but again, you know, I didn't, New being new to it. They didn't do a lot of research on it. You know, didn't say what you can or cannot put in there. So, you know, it was around, it was around this time, you know, it was around this time in, uh, in 2023, you know, that, cause that's what we got them. Yeah. Uh, they filled it up with nothing but leaves and yard waste and hard waste, but that thing was so compressed when I, when I, when I hooked it up and I started loading it, I was like, Oh man, this thing is heavy. And, uh, and I went to, uh, to drop it off to unload it. And when they gave me the tag, it was like 725. And I was like, okay, well, this method is not going to work. Right. Because at this point I'm not going to make any money. You know what I'm I was already 200 and some in the red. So, you know, went up to the customer, you know, disclosed it and told them, you know, this is what happened. And, you know, they made it right. We figured it out that, you know, at that point I was like, you know what, we have to change it up. So what we did, we charge flat. It doesn't matter if it's a 15 or the 20, we rent them for 350. Those 350 will cover our area to drop it off and pick it up. And then it's up to you, whatever you want to put in there. Um, as long as it's not, you know, like appliances, tires, paints, stuff like that, you know, we tell them, you know, put it on the side. We do take it, put it on the side, but then we build them at 6 cents a pound, whatever Oh, you do it by the pound. That's I think that's, I wish I had done Well, you know, I learned that way because I was like, you know, if I drop it off, my, um, my dumpster will generate whatever money, whatever they throw in there. So this pays for this and that pays for that. So it just kind of like figured out a lot of people don't understand. So when you drop it off, you kind of got to kind of explain to them and, um, off of that, you know, they accept or someone, well, you know, can you give us a rough idea, you know, but again, You know, a lot of people, you know, they have different, different methods of billing and every day we're learning. So every day we're borrowing, you know, ideas and changing them up a little bit, trying to find what is the best method. Cause you, at the same time, you know, you want to help your clients out, but not at your expense. I mean, if, if you're having to pay for dump fees on your end, like, you know, it cuts, I think it cuts Yeah, and you have to make a profit and you should make a profit if it's valuable, if you're helping them solve a problem, the price should be worth what you're charging them. It just should be. And not everybody has trucks and dumpsters and equipment for the time, even if they do have the equipment to actually dispose Especially out here where we're at, man, our landfill here in Merced, man, sometimes you could go out there and you can be in line for a good hour, hour and a half. So if I'm a regular homeowner and it's my day off and I'm gonna go throw something away, man, I don't wanna spend my day in the winter, I'll tell you that much. So that's where our service comes in, right? It's a convenience, you don't have to go do it, same day service, whether it's a dumpster drop-off or a dumpster pickup or junk removal, whatever you need, we try to Well, on top of what you mentioned about the time, if a homeowner spends the hour in line, first, they got to figure out where, where to bring the, they got to load everything up. They got to bring it to the landfill. You got to spend time in line and then they might get a nail in their tire, you know, because I've run over so many nails and it's just hard to do in business. Like, all right, we got to plug the tire. Maybe we need a new one. If it's a, if it's a steer tire, like homeowners, now it's ruined their whole day just because they decided to Yeah, especially if they got plans that, you know, after a certain time with the family, you're not going to make it because of the flat tire, you know, cause you decided to go to the dump. It's kind of. Yeah. So it's So you talked about how you got started. So you, and you mentioned a little bit about what you got going on now, but tell me more about your fleet and talk about where you're going with your business too. Where are you at now and So. Our goal is we don't wanna stay small. I guess I've always had the idea of creating something bigger than I am. So I'm always trying little stuff here. And when we got into this niche, I was like, you know what? If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it, right? And we started by, you know, when we created Junker or Hollid, we're like, you know what, we're gonna go ahead and make sure that everything matches, you know, from, it doesn't matter what kind of vehicle is gonna get wrapped, we're gonna put the decals, we're gonna add the accent colors, you know, and that's kind of what we did. So that's my whole thing is like, if you see me down the road, you know who we are because, you know, everything looks the same. And we carried that now into what we did with A1 Junk Express, you know, after we were branded, you know, we changed the colors a little bit, So, but the concept is still staying. We want everything to look the same, uniforms to look the same, you know, our shirts, you know, with our logos, you know, and everything that way when people see us, you know, they know who we are. But I'm still kind of small to the point where I still only have three cans. You know, we have a maxi system, you know, with an FI-50 pulling it. We have a little Zuzu NPR, you know, for the junk removals. You know, but that's what we have now. Now what we want, you know, I think if I would get up to 20 cans, I think I would be fine. If I would have 20 cans and my goal is to have two little Isuzus. One Create those two routes. So that's like my, my small idea of kind of what I want, but Eventually I want to go ahead and once I get that rolling. I wanna copy and paste that system somewhere closer to the Bay Area and another one closer down South and have three different locations. So that we can service throughout California. That's kind of what I want. So it's just kind of like whatever I build here in our town of Atwater, just kind of copy and paste in a different town, in a different town with the same method. Still within driving distance for me, like a couple hours here, a few more hours down South. But, you know, I could still run it, you know, go check on them throughout the day, spend a day over there, spend a day over there all through the same week, make sure everything's getting ran. So that's kind of like my goal, you know, at the same time, uh, with our new colors, with the orange and blue, you know, just everywhere they see as, you know, I want them to, to I like it. I like your colors. They look cool, man. So everything's Not yet. We did the dually. That one was rad. We took the stickers off. We put the A1 Junk Express X on the number on that one. Now on the F550, we were talking with our friend Ramsey over at Split Fires that what we want to do is kind of create something more catchy. Uh, our trucks are black, you know, they're, they're like a, like a, like a matte black, you know, like our logo, our colors would stand out more, more to like, okay, you know what, this is more like, I don't want to drive it. It's just a black truck. Now it's like, I want to drive and I want to see his. rolling billboard, you know, in the truck and in the dumpsters, you know, same thing when they Zeus, Zeus, you know, so that's kind of where we're heading. So we're working on something, you know, to start changing the reps into the new, Yeah. You got to market because it's hard to find customers. You got competition and the big companies, at least for the dumpster rental, the waste management's in the Republics of the world. They spend so much money Now they do. And, and, and we don't, right. We don't, we see a lot of, we see a lot of cars, you know, or trucks and trailers, you know, with this truck removal on their number. And it's like, well, like we don't know who you are. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of people want to know who they're going to hire. They want to know who's going to go to their house. they're gonna know that, hey, you know what? This company has a physical location. I can go and check the reviews, or let me do my due diligence before I actually hire this person. A lot of them have families, they have kids, they have belongings, and I'm gonna try to talk bad and say nothing about nobody, but you never know. So I tell my clients, hey, the people that I take to your property, You know, the people that go, you know, I'm fully responsible and, and, and I bought for the people that, that go, right. And it's part of our, one of our core values, you know, like, Hey, like, you know, we got to treat them like if it was our own stuff, you So, well, and the uniform really hits home that you're professionals, that you're organized. You're not just a fly by night kind of guy. You're actually a professional organization. And Yeah, we got the X right here. Yeah. The A1X over here, Yeah, we're trying to promote the X, you know, that way you see the X, it's kind of like the Nike sign, like the push. You know, you see the X, like, oh, those are the young guys, you know. Right. You know what I mean? So just kind of an idea, you know, you kind of get all these ideas in your head and you just kind of, you want to make it big. You know, you want people to say, hey, you know what, Thanks to this company. I mean, we have this Thanksgiving dinner, we have gifts for the family or they're doing this for the community or doing that for the community. So that's our goal for coming into 26, get involved in as much as we can and promote everything, you know, put everything on social media and not to kind of show off what we're doing, but, you know, engagement. You know, we wanna be involved. We want people, hey, you know what, I wanna have, you know, I feel like I can trust A1 Junk Express to come out here and do a cleanup for us, whether if it's one thing or it's a full house and create long-term relationships with contractors, real estate agents, property management, with everybody. That's It also works with recruiting because you'll get better people if you have a good look. Employees don't want to drive around in ugly things. I've had to deal with that where people are like, I'm not driving that truck today. It looks nasty. I Yeah. So we've been there and and and for that reason, you know, we try to. Okay, this is not gonna work. Let's change it up, right? Let's make sure everybody's clean. Carry an extra shirt. You carry an extra shirt. If you get dirty, you can swap it. But you always look kind of clean. You don't wanna show up, you know, like you do a hoarder house with bed bugs and whatever went out and then you're gonna go pick up a couch at this really nice house. You don't wanna Yeah, you might need to change between jobs. I didn't even think about that. We kind of just sucked it up. If you got dirty, like, all right, you're dirty for the day, but that's a way better have a backup shirt, you know, or Right. Or a sweater, you know, yeah. Jacket or sweater and just kind of just go get it done. But, but yeah, every day, you know, with different challenges, you know, we try to rewrite the script. Okay. You know what, it's not working. Let's add this to it. And, and like I said, you know, our, our goal is it's we're very small, you know, but our goal is to, you know, to, to become pretty, pretty big, become the go-to guys here in Merced and Stanislaus. You know, that's our ultimate goal. Well, I'm rooting for you. How do you, how do you, uh, I, I have this question here later, so, but I'm going to jump to it. Like, like to grow. One of the big things is to get customers and word of mouth is really big in local communities, but do you have a method you like to use to get customers like So that's, uh, that's our, um, I'm not going to say, um, what's the word I'm looking for. Um, because I've never done any sort of marketing. I've never done Google ads. I've never done Facebook ads. Um, I've never done any of that stuff. All solely it's through our Instagram page and, uh, and our stickers and our Google page that that's it. Um, but. Again, you know, part of growing, it's, it's becoming uncomfortable doing the things you're not used to doing. Right. So 2026, you know, I think we're going to go ahead and, uh, and start getting into the ads just because we want to scale to, to a shit. I mean, sky's the limit, right. We want to scale. So, um, our goal is that so, so it's getting uncomfortable getting into the ads, Facebook ads, you know, Google ads and stuff like that. So, and a lot of that stuff, you know, stuff that over at the junk expo last week, you know, a lot of people had a lot of good input on Yeah. Tell, tell me about the junk expo. So I actually looked at that and considered going, but I mean, it's in California, so that's close to you. It's across the country for me. And I have a lot, I have a lot going on here. So what kind of stuff did you learn? What was cool about it? I'm sure you It's cool, man. And, and, and, and I'll be, um, and I'll be honest, man. It's, um, it's a second year. They started last year. Uh, I went to the one last year. I went into this one. I've made really good, really good friends. You know, Eddie from Orange Crash, Abel from Temecula Valley, you know, Julian from Heritage Hauling. You always, every time you go, you know, everybody's got something good, some positive to tell you. Something you did not know, right? And the networking, you know, and it's just big. So you get into it, you know, Junk Rescue was out there, man. They talked about culture. in your business, you know, you know, you never thought about, you know, how do you retain your employees? You know, how do they, how do you keep them happy? How do you keep them showing up? So, you know, they got into detail with that stuff. Abel from Temecula Valley, John Colling, you know, he, he talked about being engaged in the community. you know, how everything, you know, a lot of his business comes through a community involvement, you know what I mean? So, you know, you pick up a lot of these things, you know, and when you get all that stuff and you get back to your office or your shop or wherever you're running your, or inside your truck, you know, you start creating all these notes of where you want Like myself, where do I want Junk A1 Junk Express to go? And for me to see those guys up there, I'd be like, you know, hopefully one day I could have information to share to other people and I could be a speaker because I'm giving back. you give back, I mean, to the young hauler, you know, that wants to start in and, you know, he wants to do it the right way, you know, whatever information we can have, you know, man, absolutely give it to him. So, you know, with that and vendors, man, you see the possibilities, you know, of where you can scale your business to, you know, it's awesome, man. It's a lot of good information, a lot of positive feedback. So Yeah, well, they probably will. But with all those vendors there, they probably solve so many of the problems that we deal with. And there's a lot of problems. How to get customers, how to make sure your trucks are running, how to get employees, making sure you got enough money in the bank. And there's a million different things. So I'm curious, what are some of the lessons you've learned so far? Like problems that you used to deal with when you first started that are like old news for you now? Like what kind of stuff did you deal with and solve through your journey here in junk hauling? Well, you know, so starting, my whole thing was like, well, it's just junk. You gotta throw it away, right? You back up into somebody's driveway, throw away their couch, whatever they got. There was, to me, there was no science, right? Let's, let's just grow it. So we just, we kept on going, but you know, have you ever heard that saying, uh, you're going to pray for rain. You got to expect to get muddy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me tell you, man, uh, if you're, if you're going to pray for rain, man, you better get yourself an umbrella. You know, we got we got those and I just I just got out of this whole situation, you know, this this year, you know, to where we didn't know a lot of the. Yeah. You know, you mess around and Yeah. And you're in California. That's like the worst It's all bad. So if anybody listens to me, you Yeah. Because it will set you back. So we had an, we had an incident where my, where my brother was coming down and he got pulled over and got sent to the scale. And our little truck got impounded. It was, uh, that till now we're still kind of solving out. So we'll be okay. But during that time, you know, with the whole impounding and all this stuff, our dually, you know, took, uh, took a dump. You know, he did when pop the hood open, there was oil all over the motor, something happened in there. So I had a, I had dumpsters at different locations and I had a Isuzu in the, in the, in jail, doing some jail time at the impound yard. And so we were, I was forced to make decisions, right? Well, what do, what do I need to do? And again, going into that, um, that I don't want to get in debt because I don't want to have that loan over me, you know, and stuff like that. I decided to, um, to purchase the, the F I 50. Yeah. We had a little bit of money saved that. So I found it, I got a good deal and, uh, we picked it up and that's how I was able to get my dumpsters out here. And, uh, because you had clients already calling the hangate when. when I, I need my driveway back. Like, when are you picking this dumpster up? So I didn't want to go through that. You know, I just, I think they were sitting at a properties for me for about a week. So I just kind of solved everything, you know? But I, I fixed all that stuff right there. You know, we're able to get the F-550, you know, to start helping us with that, you know, get into dumpsters, you know, and it allowed me, bought me more time to decide what I'm going to do with the F-350 and, and get the little, the little Isuzu out, you know, but, What I learned it's if every day you treat it like a real business, not like a side job or like a thing, you know, you will avoid a lot of these problems because for example. There's no reason why we had to go through the problems with the Azusa, with the DLT numbers and all that stuff. There's no reason. Had I done my due diligence, but I was too busy focusing, doing other side work. That's everything that I didn't pay attention to those things. So it's, it's been a lot. And to say the least, if you're going to pray for rain, man, make sure you're ready. Uh, that way you could, whether the storm, you know, I mean, whatever it comes because it's good when it's good, it's good. Oh, it's bad. Oh boy. It's bad. Well, I, I think we've all learned and we all still will learn about regulations that we didn't have the right documentation for. Um, yeah, I remember trying to figure out the DOT numbers. It was like so confusing how to fill those forms out. I was like, which trucks have to be registered and which ones don't. Cause I had some that were, um, they were, they were small enough where we didn't have to register them. Um, But yeah, it was, it was really confusing. So now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, I did not like that mess, that paperwork mess. And I think I definitely did it wrong the Yeah. So, so see, uh, to say that, I mean, a lot of us, a lot of us think is just, um, Like, Oh, we're just going to go haul junk. And that's it. You know, we have an F four 50 or a 3,500 or whatever. And then you got the trailer and you're at whatever weight capacity you're like, you know, look into, into the, the DLTs and the weights, all that stuff. Because if you get pulled over, man, it will set you back. And if you have an operation already running. you know, and you only have one truck that will send you back, you Well, and I, and I had a wise man explain to me that if you keep your trucks clean, like all the lights work, they're, The tags are straight and they look professional. You're going to have less eyes on you. You're going to have less opportunities, less times where the state troopers are going to pull you over. If you look like you're a mess, like your truck looks like it's a mess, they're going to guess that your paperwork is probably a mess too. Being a professional, it just solves so many problems like thinking, what's a professional do in this circumstance? You look the part, you have your uniform, your truck's in line. your equipment is not all ratty and gross. I mean, I was there, I had dumpsters that had holes in the bottom. And just because we were just trying to put them out. And after a couple incidents, I'm like, if they have holes in it, we're not putting it out at all. No way. Because it's not worth the headache. I'd rather tell a customer, I don't have a dumpster for you than have something fall out of a dumpster and cause some damage or something. It's Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a big old, it's not just, you know, let me go drop off a dumpster or, you know, let me go haul some junk. It's a whole bunch of other stuff, you know, like the stuff that, you know, people don't see, you know, how do you keep your employees happy? You know, how do you, how do they keep showing up? That's hard. It's one of the hardest things. It's challenging. It's challenging. Yup. Yeah. The lucky thing is, uh, at least in, uh, maybe I'm sure, I'm sure you feel this way. If I didn't have, if I had somebody quit on me, I would have no problem jumping in the truck and doing their job. Like, yeah, I would, this is great. Like, um, now I can't do it for very long because the business would suffer, but if someone's calls him sick or someone doesn't show up or they quit, I'm happy to, to do their job because it's fun. Like, like it's, you You can't do it all the time because then the business doesn't grow, but I love to Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem jumping in the Azusa and going out, you know, hauling junk or I actually enjoy it more than sitting down, you Yeah. Uh, well, yeah, paperwork is kind of my life at the moment, but, um, It's gotta be done. You have to do the paperwork. I go outside as much as I can. So we talked before about Docket because Docket's the software that we love. How It's good, man. And every day, man, it's a new challenge. Docket's just so big, man. It's got so many... I think I'm barely like in the shallow end of the stuff that we can do. But every day, you know, I try to, I try to mess around with it. Maybe an hour, 30 minutes, at least every day, you know, try to learn something new, try to make something easier. As far as dumpsters, you know, as far as with Junker Roller, because now we couldn't implement both of them. But, but I really enjoy it, man. I, you know, and I tell people like, Hey, like, you know what, when you're ever, you're gonna, uh, get a CRM or whatever you're going to do, man. I mean, you know, get the different trials, you know, don't commit to one. You commit to one. What's going to happen. It's going to, you're going to put all your information there. Then you're going to come and find out you don't like it. You're going to go into another one. And that's going to be like a little setback because now you got to transfer all your information because you don't want to lose your clients. You know, you want to you want to keep your clients emails, information for, you know, for future business, you know. So when I came across Docket, you know, I really liked, you know, all the information that was out there. I liked the onboarding process, you know, and the thing that really got me was that if I have any questions, I send them an email. If depending on the time of the day, I'll either get a response that day or first I've never had an issue where like I'm kind of waiting, like, Oh, let me reach out to them again. Like, no, they'll, they'll resolve your problem or let you know how to get about it. So with that, with that right there, to me, I'm like, you know, this is where I'm going to say, like, I'm, I'm good right here. You know, I'm learning the system day by day. And, uh, and eventually, you know, we're going to get to where we can master it. and, you know, and become docket lifers. Right. You know, but but I tell people, hey, doc, it might not be for you. You might want to use something else. Right. But try it. You know, I mean, that way you you you stay with what works with you and get someone that works with us. Not only that, I mean, you you take it back a little bit to to the event in Nashville. You know, I mean, all the information they put out there for everybody, you know, you get to meet a lot of people like like you. You know, Yeah. Definitely. You know, Luke Dodson from, you know, two lakes, you know, also a great guy, you know, till today, you know, we still chat here and there, you know, but, um, but, you know, you get a lot of good information, you know, you meet a lot of people, you know, um, And the thing is that now we're looking forward to the one in New Orleans, you Yeah. I haven't signed up yet. So I'm, I'm debating because we want to go as vendors. So we're debating what level to be, because there's a whole bunch of levels. I'd love to speak is, um, and, and talk about a topic that people struggle with. So my background is the finance background. So I'll tell you, like a lot of us don't know about finances. When Yeah, that's true. I can show what a financial statement should look like and how to make decisions on it. But it's a, it was a fun time. The, you know, last year was the first one. So we were, um, So Max co dumpsters was there and, uh, Clayton roll, like pulling ops, big time guys, you know, I mean, right there, man, you know, max, you know, Yeah, I was. I'm debating about it. It looks like it's going to be fun. Yeah. It's during tax season. And so that's when you're busy time. Yeah. For two months the year, I don't have a life. I just, you know, we grind away on taxes. It's absolutely. Everybody wants to talk to us, which is great. It's a good problem. But And definitely, man, I'll be out there. I'll FaceTime you. You I think there's going to be a bounce house. So if you could jump in the bounce house and I'll just That's it, man. You know, you could just jump from you, but I'll have you on FaceTime so Exactly. Exactly. But I really appreciate what all those guys are doing. And I think, you know, I, I can, I contemplated making a community, a dumpster rental community, but, um, you really got to be committed to make that happen. And I think that, uh, Max co-started one, a school group. So Um, it's a lot of good information, man. I mean, you're, you're never going to have all the information because what you know, I don't know. Right. I know you might not know. So when you're in those groups, man, you know, I mean. Right off the bat. So you appreciate that stuff. So when you can help them out, you know, like they're going to have an event. If you could go out there and you could be part of it. Yeah. But I mean, of course, you know, we're going to support them 100 percent. Right. But if how. But you create those events, you know, um, again, more engagement, more, um, networking, you're going to meet somebody else. They're going to give you another nugget and you're going to go, man, like that's going to help me out to do this. You know, and those are the things, man, if you're planning to scale your business and grow, I recommend you go to those events because you're going to get a lot of good information. Right. Um, if you don't, if you just want to keep it as a side hustle, Then that's also fine. Yeah. You could, you know, everybody needs everybody. So, but in our Well, you mentioned the nuggets, which is completely true. I also think of how there's levels in business and there's levels in where you can take it and you can't really skip levels. You can't go from a startup to like a $50 million company. There's levels between that and every level you have to grow and learn. Most of those levels are bottlenecks. There's bottlenecks keeping you from going to the next level. And at these events and in these communities, you're going to find someone that's at a level higher than you, and they can show you how they opened up that bottleneck. So when you first start, it's a side hustle. You just need more work. I just need enough work so I can make this my full-time gig. And after it's your full-time gig, then how do I make it so I can get enough equipment and work that's consistent so I can hire a team. Because Employees are not going to work for a paycheck whenever. They need to get paid. Some people need to be paid every week. Some people will wait two weeks. But my experience is every week, they've got to get paid whether you have enough work or not to feed yourself. So there's levels to it and open up bottlenecks. So that's what I like to see people do is progress through that and identify what's the thing that's slowing you down and how do you open that up? So sometimes it's equipment. You're getting enough calls and you're like, I just can't. That's a good sign that you're ready to buy more equipment is I'm getting more calls than I can handle, so now I need to get more. uh, dumpsters or any, any more trucks. Right. Right. Correct. And, and, and another thing about that, you know, touching about those events, you know, you get to meet people in different areas. Um, you know, you come across a job, you know, that's a few hours away from you, but Hey, you know what? During that event, you met somebody that lives in that area. Yeah. You shoot them that lead over there. They end up getting the job or, or they work with you, collaborate or whatever you do. But that just grows your relationship with that person. Right. So they'll return the favor later or whatever, however it works. But then what it does, you know, Mike, it creates those those one on one conversations. Right. Every so often. Right. Hey, let's talk. Let's. How are you doing? I'm doing. I'm struggling with this. I'm struggling with this. I recommend this. but it creates that. If you don't have that, I mean, nobody in your circle is doing what you're doing. You're not gonna have an idea of who's gonna fix your diesel if you don't have any diesel mechanics, you know? Or, you know. You gotta have a diesel mechanic. I always had two on standby, because Right. So that's the importance of those things, you know what I mean? networking with people, you know, knowing, you know, knowing what you don't know, you know, and understanding so they could move forward and try to scale however big you want to get. You know, if it's three cans, if it's a hundred cans, if it's whatever you want, you Right, well, related to growing, what does it take for you to go to four cans? When do you buy your next can? Or do you buy more than one, you buy seven? What's the I think I'm gonna buy them in increments of three. Okay. Because right now we have two 14s and we have one 20. So I think I wanna buy another three. I think I wanna add another 20. and get two sevens. That way we have three different sizes. We get a lot of stuff for concrete, dirt, stuff like that. So to have the little smaller ones, it'll work perfect because Mike, I've had some horror stories, you know, with cans full of concrete and all kinds of stuff. They're all bad. Stories for a different day. But, you know- Oh, I love the stories. Yeah, why don't Tell me your concrete story. We rented out a dumpster, right? And whenever we do the 14s, you know, our maxis, you know, they have a crease, like around the two foot mark, somewhere And I always tell them, hey, you know what? If it's going to be concrete, just make sure it's under this. Don't Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely, man. And I go out there and go pick it up. And that thing was topped This is not going to work. Like what are you doing? I mean, you, you, you, a 14 yard dumpster. I mean, I mean, you, when you go to the ground, man, it's too about, you know, about your chest level. So you can throw stuff right over it. Right. Yeah. These guys figured, man, we could just load it and throw it in there. You know what I mean? This thing happened in the town called Modesto and it was just all bad, man. I was like, Man, so, well, we ended up talking to them and tell them, hey, like, you know what? We're not gonna pick it up, because that thing's gonna bust our, I tell them, what I could do for you is bring you another dumpster, and you guys can throw half on the other one. Or, you know, we're just gonna dump it all here, man, because I'm not gonna, you know, you're ruining your equipment, and on top of that, God forbid you get pulled over, I mean, you're You can get a big ticket for that. And if they catch you hauling it, you don't get to finish the haul. Like you're, you're in trouble right that second. So they might make you stop moving the truck. So now you're, now you have a legal truck with too much weight on the road, like major Yeah. So, so learn, learn the rules, man, and play by the rules, man. You don't want to mess around and find out. Nope. It Yeah. I've, I've had, I've had lots of those circumstances. I've the first really bad can I had that was overweight. We dropped a 20 yard off at a bank and we had the bank had out of town roofers come in. And so whoever, we set it up like way in advance, like the dumpster sat there for like a week before anyone got up on site. And then in, in a day, that thing went from empty to full and they filled it to the max with shingles, 20 yard container filled to the max with shingles. And our truck, I think, I think it could pick it up. But as soon as you put it in the truck, it was touching the tires. The wheel well was touching the tires and we're like, we can't haul this. So we put it back down and they were gone. The customer was completely gone. I think we were smart enough to have a credit card on file and we said, we will manually move it ourselves because I'm a new, I was a new owner. So I, I manually moved everything from the dumpster into another dumpster. And we did that half and half thing. And even with that, it still was overweight. It was still too heavy, but we didn't know it was overweight until we got to the scale. Um, and we just, we charged our credit card for a second dumpster, but man, it took me like It kind of ruins your day, right? Maybe even your week, you know, you got you got other jobs that are scheduled, right? You can't even complete those because now you're over here, you know, trying Oh, I did it at nighttime. It was like after work and I should have been home Yup. I tried to have a team member help me, but like after like 30 minutes, he was, I could tell I was removing the goodwill I had with him. I was like, you go home. I'm just going to, Yeah. It was a good workout though. Like I put my earbuds in and I just cranked away and I did, I just learned the lesson. Don't, don't give them a big can. Like, like you said, like they get, if they're going to do something heavy, just give them a short hand. Can't So you want to give them options. So that's one of the reasons why we want to get the little cats and just be like, here, this is what you get, you And, you know, and, and, and that's okay, man. I mean, they don't, they don't understand, man. They feel like it's, that's what it is. I can fit everything in there. You know, they feel like it's not going to be heavy. Your, your equipment should pick it up because it's an equipment. I know women say, you know, they also have capacities, you know, so we got to make sure we Yeah. Well, they, and they have, uh, there's a reason why the laws say you can only put so much on the road. Is it safety and Well, I got one more question for you for the podcast here. What hobbies do you love, man? What kind of stuff do you like to do when you're not all Well, um, I You know, we've talked about it, Mike. You know what I mean? We had a conversation about, Oh man. It's been a hard road for the Raiders, man. But, but that's what I, man, you know, I, I love watching football. My kid, you know, um, we've gone, you know, we have a little thing that we're going to go see the Raiders play, you know, not in Vegas. We're going to go to different stadiums. So we've been to a few really. So yeah, we've been to a med life over in New York. We've gone to, uh, Detroit, Kansas city. Um, you know, obviously Los Angeles, you know, we've been out here, but, um, but yeah, that's, that's our thing, you know, um, save up a little bit of money, you know, go see them play it, uh, on a primetime game. You know, we were going to go to Denver this year, but you know, they're doing so bad, man. I don't, I don't want to go. I Uh, what I was just saying though, as a, as a longtime fan of a team that sucked for like, I don't know, 20 years. Yeah. You gotta like other stuff. That's why Buffalo Bills fans jump from tables. Like it's You know, that's a good place to go, man. My, my son wants to go watch a game of Buffalo, but yeah, but he, but he wants to go in the wintertime, like in December, the whole, the whole Yeah. Well, I guess they're good now, but it used to be really cheap to go watch them in December because they were bad. So they weren't going to go to the playoffs and the weather is so horrible. So it was like for like 20 bucks, you'd get really good seats, but not anymore. That's not, not today anyway. Um, but I just went to the pant, the bills played against the Panthers and I'm very close to Charlotte now. Cause I, I'm a Yankee that moved South at the Collins. And there were so many Bills fans at the Panther Stadium, and they were jumping through tables in That Bills Mafia, man, is no joke, man. They're out there, man, Yeah, I love football, though. I was watching it last night, even though it's not a game I care about. Dolphins were playing against the Ravens. The Ravens, they are so talented. I can't believe they're only two and two. Well, But the record doesn't reflect the, the, the, how Right, but they're there. I think they're going to It's still early, but man, it's a season man. We're like anybody can take it man. Like like like it's not like other seasons that it's kind of like leaning towards one side. It's kind of up for grabs except for us. You know the Raiders. I think we're already talking about first round draft picks and the number one pick. You know, I I would love to see the Raiders do good because they they they had such a great team Yeah, we were great, man. I was a fan since since I was seven. So I kind of grew up, you know, with the like in the Raiders, you know, and it just kind of, you know, still today, man, it's a you dress up. Do you wear like like spikes and armor and paint yourself gray? You know what? I haven't gone that crazy, man, you know, but but I do want to. I do want to one day, at least, you know, whenever we go to a game like, hey, you know what? Like, The camera going every day, let's focus on that guy. Yeah. It was like a game right there. You know, so maybe, maybe one day, maybe one day I will, but we do, um, like I said, you know, God willing, you know, we're going to go visit every stadium and with Yeah. I think you should do that. That's pretty noble because there's a lot of stadiums and that's a lot of travel, but if you do it, you know, over 10 years or so or more, you Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. You know, you could all, you can do it. You just gotta, gotta get it in there. And you know, one of the good things, man, it's, um, you, you get to go and you meet people, right? Like, uh, you know, we were in Kansas city, you know, uh, it was good because, you know, we showed up with Raiders sweaters then we were there for the Monday night game and, And, you know, they welcomed us, you know, they actually, you know, gave us a good spots, you know, to go out, you know, and have lunch or dinner, you know. When we were in Detroit, man, we met four gentlemen, they're older guys, you know, I want to say maybe mid sixties or seventies. We're friends for a long time, but they've been Lions fans forever. And they're like, man, like, we don't even feel bad for you guys for losing. Cause we lost that game. Now we don't even feel bad for you guys. We've lost for so many years. We're enjoying the winds, but we were at like a little old, uh, hot dog stand. You know what I mean? Uh, everybody just kind of chilling, hanging out right there. But, uh, but like I said, you know, it's, it's, you meet a lot of people from all over the country, man. And a lot of people are. They're great people, man. You know, and, and, and that's the thing, you know, you go everywhere you go, you meet new friends. And, you know, just like we did in Nashville, man, I want to say we have a good friendship, you know, and a lot of good information, you Yeah. I'm happy. Yeah. I love, I love hanging out with you and talking. And so we let's wrap up the podcast now. And then I want to talk to you about, you know, some more specifics about your business. Maybe we could dive Yeah. But thanks for jumping on the pod. I'm going to, I'm going to stop the record button. So again, everyone can get ahold of you. Why don't you say your phone number against the, My phone number is area code 209-800-3800. That's our phone number. And my Instagram, I don't even know. I think it's like A1 underscore Junk Express or something like that. Let me double check. I don't even know I'm sure we can. I think it's A1 Junk Express, but no E, it's Express, X-P-R-E-S-S. Yeah, so everyone hit up Gabe if you've got some junk removal needs, because Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Waste to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you connect with us on social media and subscribe to the show wherever you consume podcasts. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell a friend about the show.