This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
A wise person once said, "I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone." Well, that was a good way to begin today's episode. We're gonna hear from the founder of Clean Lots, a little case study here. Clean Lots business is a parking lot cleanup service. It's been operating for decades and it is a successful business, which is great, but this is a segment known as Failure Friday. And in this segment, we take a look at things that don't go so well.
And so fortunately Brian, the founder of Clean Lots, wanted to come on and share a story of a big mistake he made. Basically in the early years, Clean Lots expanded too quickly, learned this valuable lesson before pulling back to its core competency. And so I think there's a lot we can take from this. I think everybody out there needs to think about who you're actually trying to serve and what is your core competency? What are you really good at?
You're a zone of genius if you prefer that phrase, whatever it is. Basically you gotta do what you're good at and not try to do everything else. But let's let Brian tell the story. Let's let Brian share about how he got going with this litter removal business 40 years. In fact, 40 years and counting business is still going strong.
I'll mention that a bit at the end. But first, let's have the story from him, Brian Winch, the founder of Clean Lots. [Music]
My name is Brian Winch and I'm the founder of Clean Lots. We offer an on foot litter cleaning service using simple hand tools that's almost as easy to do as going for a walk. Our business model has been successful since 1981 as we can offer our property management clients better service for less cost.
We walk the exterior property of commercial buildings, sidewalks, parking lot and surrounding landscape and sweep up any litter material we come upon into our litter collection tool. Our service is best performed after hours so we can clearly see and clean material without any vehicle interference. Materials such as empty drink cups, cans, fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. Our clients, their tenants and visitors to the property appreciate a clean litter free property greeting them each morning. I started this business as a side hustle in 1981.
Within a few short months, I was making more money on the side as I was working my full-time job. I quit my job and focused my efforts on building my parking lot litter cleaning business. About four years after specializing in this niche service, a couple of clients inquired as to the possibility of us taking on some other work. Fearing losing their business if we declined, we reluctantly agreed to some small landscape and snow removal jobs. We did this for about five years.
We found that these clients, while satisfied with our litter cleaning service, would occasionally have concerns with our landscape or snow removal work. Taking on this extra work was also spreading us too thin. You need to be available to work 24/7 for snow removal. Landscape work is done during the day. Litter cleaning is best done in the early morning hours before business is open.
We felt that we had lost our focus and no longer enjoyed providing these services. We decided to terminate the extra work but feared losing business if we'd done so. To our relief, we lost only a couple of accounts. The first lesson we learned from our experience was it's okay to say no to your clients. You need to make it clear as to what you will and won't do.
If you don't enjoy what you're doing, why are you in business? The second lesson we learned is it's best to be known for being the very best at what you do than trying to be everything to everyone. Who wants to be known as the jack of all trades but master of none? [Music]
[Air whooshing] Don't try to be all things to all people and of course never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That's the theme of failure Friday.
I hope as you develop your business ideas, your side hustle projects, you think a little bit about who you're trying to serve and don't try to be everything to everyone because as Brian shared so well, that's a recipe for failure. I don't want you to fail, I want you to succeed. Now fortunately for Brian, Cleanlots has been running for a long time and has clearly clung to that lesson on core competency. You can also check out the Cleanlots book, basically an operations manual on how to start and run your own parking lot litter cleaning business 'cause you know, Brian can't be all over the place. He can't be everything to everyone.
Check out the Cleanlots book and more about their business at cleanlots.com. Of course, every episode of "Side Hustle School" available for download, download streaming as you prefer, sidehustleschool.com more than 3,000 episodes in the back catalog. New episodes drop every day, all for free. My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
