Building a Junk Removal Empire

DJ Neuville - Haul It All On the Best Skill an Employee Can Have: "The biggest asset in this job is, can you show up? Can you show up? Can you show up on time?." Discover Hidden Savings in Commercial Real Estate Everyone has junk. Whether the stuff that collects as we live our lives and store stuff in a someday pile, or a house move that brings the option of either moving it and storing it again or just trashing it, we all have junk. DJ Neuville started out in real estate and graduated to building his junk hauling empire. DJ details how he came across this industry and what has helped his business grow. Listen as DJ explains what it took to start and what he has done to grow his junk hauling business. Enjoy! Visit DJ at: https://callhaulitall.com Sponsors: Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, phone answering for small businesses: https://callsoncall.com Some videos have been recorded with Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=james-kademan Podcast Overview: 00:00 Partnering with a longtime friend 10:16 Early morning routine and challenges 16:07 Challenges with billing and payments 20:43 Expanding into commercial real estate 23:50 Choosing the right job opportunities 31:28 Doing hoarder cleanouts 35:45 Hiring and adapting work culture 38:40 Adapting to flexible work hours 47:06 Owning and communicating mistakes 50:45 Working with donation centers 55:55 Addressing employee hygiene concerns Podcast Transcription: DJ Neuville [00:00:00]: someone sells a house, you pretty much guarantee there is a junk removal opportunity on every, almost every single house. Almost everybody's got old paint in their house, in the basement that they don't want, that the next buyer doesn't want. They might think the next buyer wants it. They don't want it. They might have a few things left. They might have a full house. It might be a full estate. I mean, that's just the key. James Kademan [00:00:22]: You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories, And triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. We're locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, as well as the Bold Business Book. And today we're welcoming slash preparing to learn from DJ Newville of Haul It All. And DJ, I believe we're talking junk today. So how is the junk hauling business? DJ Neuville [00:00:55]: It is great. Everybody's got junk. James Kademan [00:00:58]: Turns out, it turns out. So tell me, let's just start from the very foundation here. When did you get into the junk hauling business? DJ Neuville [00:01:05]: When I was selling real estate, he had a house for sale by owner. He had a hard time selling his house. He ended up listing the house with me. I sold it to him for him. And he said, hey, I do junk removal if you ever are looking for side cash. And I go, what? What the heck is junk removal? He's like, well, people pay me to get rid of stuff. I'm like, people pay you to get rid of stuff? I didn't know it ever existed. James Kademan [00:01:29]: Yeah. DJ Neuville [00:01:30]: I said, sure. I like making cash. So whenever you want to call me. And I ended up working with him. Shoot, ended up going pretty much full-time working with him. And then he said, hey, in a few years I'm going to retire. So just start your own business. We'll work together. DJ Neuville [00:01:45]: We'll partner together. And if that doesn't work out, you just split off on your own and do your own thing. So 2019 in December, how it all was started. And we partnered for directly for about a year and we butt heads a lot because we're, we're both about similar stuff. So we decided partner is not a good way to go. And it was really kind of like a, like de facto, not even like a formal partnership. Just say, I have a job, come work with me. We'll split it kind of thing. DJ Neuville [00:02:16]: And then Then we just kind of went back to being friends. Still at breakfast with him yesterday. He's been a great mentor to me and he's pretty much retired. And I mean, business just took off from there. We started with a flatbed trailer and a truck, and then in 2021 I upgraded to a dump trailer. And in 2023 we got rid of the truck and trailer model and we went to box trucks and we started renting U-Hauls. James Kademan [00:02:45]: box trucks. DJ Neuville [00:02:46]: And then 2026, January this year, we bought 2 of our own box trucks. So now we use, we have 2 22-foot box trucks and then we use U-Hauls as an overflow if we need more than that. James Kademan [00:02:59]: All right. I love this, DJ, cuz we interviewed you, or I interviewed you, whatever, in late '22. So you've been, would've been using the trailer and at, at that point in late 2022, I mean, we're talking the tail end of the pandemic-ish. Um, what, how many employees did you have back then? DJ Neuville [00:03:20]: Uh, I was pretty much sole operator. I had one guy that was pretty much full-time, but like full-time, part-time, one guy. James Kademan [00:03:29]: Okay. DJ Neuville [00:03:30]: Now we have, now there's, I have 8 guys. There's 10 of us total. James Kademan [00:03:36]: Wow. That's incredible. DJ Neuville [00:03:37]: In just a few years. I hired a CFO. In January. I'm the CEO now. I'm not just an operator. And then I have, uh, 3 truck leads and then labor guy, labor guys. James Kademan [00:03:50]: All right. So let's talk employees from essentially the hierarchy here. How did you find your CFO? DJ Neuville [00:03:57]: He found me. I went to college with him. I've known him for many years. He invested in real estate and he actually used to be part owner of Harker Heaton and Kuhling. And he sold his shares, I think it was 8 years ago or so, and just got into real estate and different avenues. And then, and I've always just stayed good friends with him. And he came to me in January and, well, late December, early January and said, hey, I'm looking for a new avenue and I thought of you and are you ready to just take this to a whole nother level? And we put together a plan. He bought into the company and Here we are. James Kademan [00:04:36]: All right. You're talking January this year? DJ Neuville [00:04:38]: This year. James Kademan [00:04:39]: Yes. Okay. DJ Neuville [00:04:40]: Yes. James Kademan [00:04:41]: So tell me about that conversation when he first comes to you and he's like, hey, I want to take this to the next level. Were you like, what does this mean? Or what is next level? Or I got this, or this guy's pretty sharp. Let me see what's going on. What was your first reaction? DJ Neuville [00:04:55]: No, I've known that he's always been, everything he's touched for investments have done really well. So. That's why we've always stayed in touch and contact. I did have lots of questions, a lot of skepticalism. I was skeptical about a lot of things because I've always been owner-operator, full control of everything. And he said, hey, if you're interested in not being an owner-operator, then I'm interested. If you want to stay as operating on the truck all the time, And stay small potatoes, no problem. You'll— I know you'll make good money doing that, but that's not what I'm interested in. DJ Neuville [00:05:31]: I'm interested in if we want to build this into something big, like the big franchise competitors and go for that competition. If you're interested, I'm interested. And I did a lot of soul searching. I'm 44 years old. I, I know that my shelf life is limited on when I can be on the truck all the time. I love being on the truck all the time. So it's a difficult transition. But I know that when I'm 50, I'm not gonna love being on the truck all the time. DJ Neuville [00:06:00]: And I get hurt all— my guys all have a running joke. I'm the one that gets hurt the most cuz I always move faster than my brain catches me. So it's really easy to truly tell a new employee, there's nothing you can do that I haven't done cuz I probably have hurt myself. So just be careful. Safety. And when I say safety is my Number one key. It is here, but everybody laughs because I'm the one that would wreck the days since the last injury board. James Kademan [00:06:28]: Funny. DJ Neuville [00:06:30]: Um, so yeah, that's, that was our focus has been now of obviously it's a transition. You can't just go from the truck into the office. So we've been transitioning me completely off the truck. I think it's been almost a month since I've been on an actual job site. Maybe not 3 weeks ago, but it's more now of just training. If I go out and do like a small demo or like when we cut up hot tubs, it's training the new guys of, hey, here's how you do it. So I'm not allowed to go out on a job site by myself. Has to be with someone that's learning. DJ Neuville [00:07:03]: So I'm handing it off. All right. James Kademan [00:07:05]: No, is that a rule that you made or is it my— DJ Neuville [00:07:09]: Well, both, both my So my CFO is Luke Hyer. It's both of ours. It's both of our commitment of, hey, you're not gonna get off of the— we can't scale the business with me being on the truck. It's just, it's hard to do. James Kademan [00:07:23]: Oh. DJ Neuville [00:07:24]: I'm making that commitment. It's difficult mentally. I don't like sitting in front of a— thankfully I have a laptop 'cause I can't just sit in one spot. Um, I love, I love just grabbing my laptop and going anywhere. And doing what I need to do. But yeah, I like the physical labor. That's one of the reasons I got into the job. So there's still always, there'll be some avenues where I'm like, hey, okay, for half a day,...