DAY 6 of Building a $1M Business in 1 Yr

I moved across the country to build a million-dollar business in one year, but before I even came to this challenge, I agreed to speak here at Dumpster Expo, and it just so happens it's here in Dallas at the Texas Motor Speedway. Have a great day.

Will do.

It's a bad time to have a bloody nose. I know, right? I still get nervous. I think if you're not nervous, you're not doing things that are hard enough. Accept the fact that the growth of your business is what allows you to have the impact you desire, and on the other side of change, on the other side of identifying the major constraint in your business and then fixing it is where that real impact happens. Thank you all very much. Okay, so this is an expo for people that own dumpster rental companies.

Well, I mean, this is the 2026 Annual Dumpster Expo. This expo plays a huge part in the waste industry.

So lots of, uh, were they a lot of solo operators? And so he really wanted me to speak about how do you actually scale beyond just being a driver, going from a driver to a CEO.

It's a great way for all the manufacturers and the vendors to network We're here to work together and to provide a good service for the end user, and that both municipalities and the private. Like in our case, we sell containers, right? We sell it through emails. We don't get to actually see the customer in person, so this event helps us to actually get to know and shake hands and appreciate their business.

So you got these bad boys. A lot of them are— you're gonna drop these dumpsters at a construction site or a remodel and drop it for a few days or a week or two and then rent them out. That's really where they get their money from. A lot of them are solo operators. He said probably 80, 90% of them. So how do we actually scale it? That's really what we're gonna be focused on.

We call ourselves the trash people. We're blessed, like, being in this industry 'cause, you know, trash is everywhere. When there's humanity, there is trash. So we always gonna be somehow busy, or at least with work.

That man wants a picture.

I gotta get a picture. How you doing, Mike? My name's Jairus from the Big Man Dumpsters and Junkaroo, man.

Well, you fit the bill. Let's go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You gotta do it big.

I would not be able to work for you. It's a scam. Hey, hey, listen, man.

Listen, you strong, so you know.

Yeah, I know. Big man is relative, though. Did you want to grab a photo? Let's do it. Yes. Gotcha. Let's go.

Let me tell you something.

When I turn this into a franchise— Yeah, yeah.

Here we go.

Let's go.

I watch your stuff all the time.

Oh, thank you, man. I see that you're doing that Zero to One Challenge here in Dallas. How's that going for you so far? Well, right now, not great. We're our first weekend. The vans are behind. The wraps are behind. The ramps are behind. It's been chaos, but it's good to document it because that's pretty much how most businesses start.

For sure.

Their other studio that printed off the graphics shipped it to them and they're the wrong size, so they don't fit the sides. So you think, okay, well, let's get them overnighted and put on. The problem is they already— their schedule is completely booked. Like, sorry, we can't get this on till next Thursday or Friday, another week from now till we can finish the wraps. All right. We made it to the wrap place. I should say the second wrap place. So let's hope that the second time is a charm and this is not a third time charm situation. I'm dropping off a van for Augusta Lawn Care.

She told me to let her know when you got here. Hey guys, this is Mike with Wrap Works in Irving, and here with a new client today that having a few issues. Let me tell you things that happen in the commercial world of wraps, right? So this is a client out of state. It's a new service here in Dallas-Fort Worth, and they were getting their vans produced and shipped in from some other source. Part of the issues that people have with dealing with other clients or other companies is that sometimes vans do not match specs. The problem that we're dealing with now Is that we can't adjust these even though they're on the proof there. They sit different than they do on the van because if we adjust them, then that phone number that goes across the fender will move too because it's all connected like one big design. So some of the issues that you have sometimes with out-of-state services is van specs won't match print specs. That was the case here. Another company printed it, shipped it down to an installer, and it didn't work out.

See, this is the crazy part is when we sent it to the company, We sent them the VIN numbers. So what they're saying is that this model has 2 different wheel widths. See this? It's all crunched up. I bet they were trying to make it work. But these are all like— these, these wraps are done. It's just unfortunate that the sides of both of them are not the right size.

So now we have to retrofit this wrap for this client. And when you do things like that, you have to be very versed in what's going to happen with vinyl and how vinyl reacts.

Like the back, for example, is probably a little bit easier than the side. Uh, actually, I'd probably say the opposite.

it because the side, although there's like a couple complex curves, it's pretty chill because it's mostly flat. Yeah, the harder part, like wrapping over the welds and stuff like that, whenever it gets like super intricate, can be a little bit more difficult.

Steady hand, good eye, patient. Yeah, this guy in the maroon shirt, Jay, he's been doing this for like 15 years. Gotcha.

The issue with the sizing is once we adjust this and we're having to adjust this a little higher than the proposed spec because of the overprint, that's going to throw off our front. And when we do that, then we'll end up with that number a little high. So the way to react with that is to set our, our 2 big panels, and then we're going to come back and do an adjustment here and hope that number lands. Now, as long as the client approves, the, the way to easily remedy that would be an overlay, right? So after we wrap this, we could do an overlaminate overlay on the phone number. No one would be able to tell unless they touch it. I don't think we're going to have to do that. I think we're going to hit it right under that mirror, but If we don't, there is that fix.

Do you think that's redeemable? Oh no, there's no way. Everything's off. That's why, like, literally the only thing they've done is this front part, which kind of looks cool, not gonna lie. Um, but yeah, all the sides I think are completely off.

So anytime you're dealing with clients who are out of state or, or different printers, this is some of the adjustments you have to be used to. And someone that's versed with commercial wraps is gonna be familiar with that.

See this? It's all crunched up. Can you work through people like treating the material like this?

Yeah, you can work through it, uh, with a little bit of heat, uh, but it's, it's one of those 50/50 deals. Uh, it might come out, it might not come out.

Yeah.

Uh, it just depends how long it's been like that, the pressure, the heat it's been in.

Uh, but for the most part, you could probably make it work out.

Uh, here at Wrap Werks, uh, we service 20 to 30 clients every week. Uh, most of the major commercial clients in DFW come here, and we'd love to continue that trend. So if you have any If you have any questions, make sure you reach out, and I can't wait for you to see these on the road.

I know a lot of people are like, well, I don't wanna wrap my vehicle, my truck, my trailer, my van. It's gonna cost me so much money. In reality, you pay for it one time and then you get in perpetuity, if you're gonna use that vehicle for 5, 10, 15 years, you're gonna get constant leads from that vehicle.

Nothing beats this when it comes to advertising. You're driving a mobile billboard, you're meeting or seeing thousands of vehicles a day, thousands of clients today. And it's not just that. When you pull up to a house, Like in this industry, right? When you pull up to a customer's home and you have a matching fleet of vehicles, instantly puts you past the competition.

And so every time it's parked and stopped at one of your clients' property, all their neighbors are seeing a massive billboard. And so if I pay for a Facebook ad or a Google ad, I'm renting space on those platforms, which means if I stop paying for them, I don't get any more leads. The cool thing about your vehicle is you pay it for one time and over the course of 10, 15 years that you're using that vehicle, it is a very good chance that you actually took how much you're paying per lead that you get from it, you might be paying $3, $4, $5, $10 per lead that that vehicle generates. It just— the reason that we don't think about it that way is it's very hard to— it's usually very hard to track that. So a wrapped vehicle like this, let's go. Wrapped trailers like these bad boys. Any big business, any business doing $10, $20 million, you look at their vehicles, they're wrapped. And so I know for some people, like, I would never wrap my vehicles because I don't want anyone knowing what's going on. Well, again, you're probably not going to build a big business. You're never going to build a business that runs without you, that you could sell, that has any net worth or has any real equity in it. There's no value to a business, enterprise value to a business that you can't actually promote your services because you're flying under the radar. You're doing other things, doing things under the table. You're not licensed, you're not paying your taxes, you're not paying your employees correctly. And so in my opinion, Be bold, be loud with your brand, and those are the brands that will win in the long term. And so that's why we spend $3,000 or $4,000 every vehicle— on every vehicle to get wrapped. You pay for it once and it gives you leads in perpetuity.

It creates a couple things. It creates brand awareness. People feel safe about it because you're just not some average Joe. I mean, you have a branded vehicle and they feel confident. For most business owners, if they've took the time to go through— and these wraps aren't cheap, If they took the time to go through and design a product, right, to represent themselves, put it on their vehicle— these vans aren't cheap— and show up to a client's home, it just stands out and it separates them. And you'll see brands scale really fast that way.

I think the big thing is if you want premium customers and you want to charge a premium price, you're going to have to look premium. And you have to ask yourself, what would a premium customer want? A rust bucket of a truck that leaks oil all over their driveway, that a guy jumps out with no uniform, it's not wrapped, it's dirty, the vehicle? Or would they rather Rather have a uniformed employee, a vehicle that's wrapped so that their neighbors know that it's a professional company. Well, let's go. Interrupted, but we're okay with it. We got live action here at the Texas Motor Speedway.

This is the same reason Coca-Cola hasn't stopped advertising, right? There's parts of the country that call a drink a Coke, right? And they could mean Pepsi or Dr Pepper. But you— I mean, Coca-Cola's still running ads. They'll have Christmas ads coming out in no time. And the reason they do that is brand awareness. So, you know, any business owner that gets comfortable, especially in the new age with AI and, and, you know, social media and the things we got going, if you're not doing this, you're falling behind. If you want to give them just a second to get it set up, then you go ahead and start recording on that because we got to sort all these out and we got to put the panels up to like get the placement stuff before we can start doing the signs.

Map it out and then take action.

Exactly. To make sure everything's going to work correctly since we didn't print it. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure. So we need to put it up there to make sure. Probably a pain in the butt. Exactly. Yeah.

Oh wow, let's go! All right, great to meet you. Sure.

He's back here enjoying the AC.

Yeah, no kidding, right? He's back here, back here at the AC. Look at this guy. We're over there sweating. Okay, so Josh is the coordinator of the entire event. He has a dumpster business in the local Dallas area, but then he runs this whole thing. And there's like four of them that do these dumpster expos around the country.

How you like in Texas so far?

Pretty good. Yeah, a little hot for me. Yeah. But we get used to it.

No, you don't. I moved here in '07 and I haven't gotten used to it.

Good stuff.

How's the event gone so far? Oh my gosh, it's it's it's a blast.

Good.

It's really good, I think.

The Speedway pretty accommodating for the event? They're pretty good to work with. It's been okay. I get you.

You know you I guess you had that kind of.

It's always tough. It's always tough. Really? Yeah. Event design. There's not. They're not thinking about the attendees. You know that's the hard part. You're trying to stretch them and like hey like no it needs to be this way. These frameworks I just. I just believe in them so much. Like, I could go cold into these, but I do spend a lot of time because they do— they pay a lot. And I know for event organizer, as making my own events, you don't make money. So your goal is to bring value to your attendees, and then there's long-term brand awareness. So Josh and the other organizers here, I know, like, when you see this event stuff, I don't know, the ticket price isn't covering that.

Yeah.

And so my hope is that I, like, triple overdeliver on what they pay me to be And so yeah, I do put a lot of time into these.

It was it was pretty for me.

Yeah, very expensive. Yeah, no, totally. I don't know how events are. You don't make money. You don't make money.

It's definitely a branding.

Yeah. Oh yeah, hundred percent.

Did you do that NASCAR?

No, I want to after I speak. After the VIP thing, okay. Yeah, I'll do it for sure. Thank you. Did those slides work out for you? Yes, I've got them.

Perfect.

You're the man. So I still get nervous, but. But realistically, like, I've seen hundreds and thousands of home service businesses. I love these people. I know what their struggles are. And so like even walking around the expo beforehand, you're talking to people and you realize like this is not just about dumpsters and trucks. This is families and people's livelihoods, etc. And all I have to do to not be nervous is just focus on that.

Yeah.

Focus on the fact that I care deeply for them. And then that just overwhelms the natural stress of standing up in front of a few hundred people. Yeah, but you do it enough times, it starts to get better.

I gotta tell you, I really like this next speaker, Mike Warrior Web Works. They have some wonderful information and a great presentation.

Max, what? That's the guy you just met. You're the guy I've been watching on YouTube. This is the guy that I've been watching on YouTube. I'm sorry, guys.

I gotta tell you, I went around the track, Mike.

Yeah, I watch you on YouTube. Yeah. I'm in a daze.

I feel like I'm going 200 miles an hour.

Got a little dizzy.

I feel like I'm walking backwards. So let's try this again. I tell you what, I've almost quit watching TV. I watch YouTube. This guy is massive on YouTube. He's going to have a bunch of great information for you guys.

Next speaker, Mike Andes. Thank you, brother. Hello. The level of commitment to be sitting out in this 95-degree heat with that beating on your neck is pretty astounding. I'll try to be somewhat valuable over the next hour, but I want to talk about going from a driver to being a CEO. What's up, brother?

Looking forward to meeting you. Absolutely. Followed you for a couple years.

Thank you, man.

You actually did a turnaround for one of the dumpster companies that comes to these.

Uh, the one in California?

California.

Okay, yeah. There's still people building. There's plenty of builders. It's just we gotta get our foot in the door with them. Your labor isn't gonna cost anything more. You're, you're doing this anyways, right? We're either sitting and twiddling our thumbs or in the truck. Like, we already have the bins.

Yeah.

Because you could even like on the side of your dumpsters put like— because every time a dumpster is sitting there next to a construction site, every other contractor is taking a look at that job site. It could just be like, hey, get your first week free. Then you're getting contractors.

I like that.

The person who's paying all of your bills right now is a contractor. We got to get the dumpsters on people's property because I just need those. Like, I would— if I was you, I'd think I was like, your shop doesn't exist. The dumpsters have to be on people's property.

Watching them grow since then has been pretty cool.

Yeah, no, that's great. Awesome, man.

Since I've watched all your stuff, so I've heard everything you said. It's good to hear it in person. Yeah, I know. Awesome. It's a good reminder kicking teeth. I know exactly where my restraints are. Yeah, I mean everything you say is so spot on.

In the afternoon, right here.

I live right here, so welcome to Texas.

Oh yeah, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. Awesome. Well, great to meet you, man. Now personally, I will say this because I have seen this firsthand. I believe most people should build a business that does about eight hundred thousand to a million dollars in annual revenue, go into profit mode, and optimize for non-business goals, and not expand. Or grow beyond that. You're like, whoa, whoa, you're saying we should become the CEO of our business, but now you're saying this? I am. The reason is because I've seen too many people push for a $5 million company, and in doing so, they lose their marriage, they lose their children, they lose their health, and they lose the entire reason why they started the business in the first place. And that, to me, is failure. That's not winning. That's not what success really is. The reason you started this business, the whole reason for growing and putting up time and effort We gotta stay focused on that. And for many of us, this size of business, having 3 or 4 drivers, admin delegated, someone in operations so you can go on a vacation with your spouse and things don't fall apart over the week, that's a great business for most of us to have. Hey, I'm a big fan. I love your content. Thank you. I appreciate it, man. I have a question.

Yeah.

What's the most effective way for you to connect with other, I guess you could say contractors or people and build relationships with them? Like, what was the most effective way for you? Like, honestly, if you build a bigger business, people care.

Okay.

If you have a smaller business, you know, you're going to get smaller operators. If you want to be around big people, if you want to get around the biggest, you build a bigger business. And so it can take 10, 15 years of like growing and kind of grinding through that. But when you have a bigger business, people want to talk to you. They're interested, like, hey, how'd he do that? I want— I can learn from him. And so like my thing was always, I want to become of value to other people to where they want me in the room. Okay, and then that's how like I've been around people like I could have only dreamed about. But it's like I built a big business doing something kind of interesting and franchising. They're like, "Ooh, that's cool." Like software. Like, "Ooh, that's cool. I want to know about that." And now I get to pick their brain about things I'm really interested about for them. I see on YouTube. Yeah. Good stuff, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Yeah, no problem.

Absolutely.

Yeah, let's do it. Most operators stay small because they focus on the wrong things. You hear an ad or you walk around, you might. Well, it's because you don't have this dumpster. You don't have this trailer. You don't have this software. No, the reason that most of us The reason why most of us as small business owners stay small is because we focus on the wrong things. And so I encourage you, when you leave the expo and you have 20 things that you know you need to do, ask yourself, what's the one thing that if I changed, all other 19 things would be solved? The highest leverage thing an owner or CEO can do in their business is decide where to allocate time and resources. And so when you leave this expo knowing where to put your time and what actually is going to move the needle in your business, Whenever you were from $0 to $100,000, right?

And kind of going on that specifically for you, where would you say being low on money, I'm assuming, for the 4L framework, for the—

start raising your prices to get from there. How did you get through that step? Yeah, from like $0 to $100,000, the objective is to do as much work as possible. Anything that detracts you from doing more work Is gonna keep you from being profitable at that size. And what a lot of times at that size—

For your company.

What pulls your attention or your energy out is customer complaints, customers calling you back all the time. And so by cutting out those customers, maybe they're the lowest paying customers, but also if they're just needy all the time and they're always asking to come back and they're complaining, you gotta cut them out so your energy can be focused on just get more work done. If you're always going back to their house, they're calling you, they're emailing you, they're leaving bad reviews, they're leveraging that against you and saying they're gonna say stuff online, you have to cut loose of them so your energy Yeah, other than that, hey, thank you, Mike. Nice to see you again. Thank you, my pleasure. I'll see you soon. Absolutely, thank you, brother. Let's do it. I believe that there's more inside of you to give. And the same way that I had that experience underneath a dump truck and almost lost my life, and it forced me to realize I wasn't focusing on the right things in my business. And by doing that, it caused Augusta Nation to be born with over 200 locations and thousands of employees around the country to be hired. The same way that that event occurred, I encourage each of you to accept the fact that the growth of your business is what allows you to have the impact you desire. And on the other side of change, on the other side of identifying the major constraint in your business and then fixing it, is where that real impact happens. Thank you all very much.

I gotta tell you something, but when I looked at you, I'm like, okay, that's the guy. And man, so I apologize for that.

Oh no, you're fine.

Dude, I gotta tell you something.

That's some great content that you put out here.

You have great energy, so—

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Well, yeah, well done.

Thank you, appreciate it. All right, so we finished the speaking, the VIP part. Now we're gonna go race some cars, go 160 miles an hour, which is not full speed, but on this raceway supposedly it's like incredible. So we're gonna give it a shot. Well, Josh got you on. Say thank you to Josh.

Shout out Josh.

I'm gonna leave lawn care behind after this one. Like those zero turns aren't fast enough for me now. All right, you're gonna put your left hand right here on the roll cage.

Okay.

Left leg goes in first.

Okay.

And then your right leg. I don't care if you step on my seat.

Okay.

And then right hand right here.

Okay.

And slide down in. All right, have fun, buddy. Perfect, thank you. You put your right hand on that bar.

Yeah, you can put this hand over here like this.

Okay.

Probably most comfortable.

Okay, awesome.

This is an actual cup car. We cut the bar out once we got it, put the seat in. We still have the race engine in front of us. That's $40,000 worth of engine.

Wow. We detuned it a bit because we don't want to blow it up every weekend. All right.

We still have 700 horsepower in front of us.

Okay. We got plenty of giddy-up and go to catch them.

This car only weighs 3,000 pounds. We'll do 165 chasing the guys in front of us.

What's the max speed on these cars?

Over 200.

Wow, let's go! Thank you very much. Oh, you're welcome. Have a great day.

Will do.

Thank you so much. It was amazing. Thank you, sir.

Awesome. Thank you.

I've never heard anybody call it something else. Normally they say it's a hell of a car ride.

I had something going on the side of my face.

I didn't know if it was sweat or snot.

I'm like trying to wipe them.

Are you serious? It's a bad time to have a bloody nose. I know, right? All right, back to work now.

Oh yeah, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Is it done this evening then?

Yeah, it's done.

Wrap up.

We're heading out.

Oh really? Oh, so they've been wrapping it up now.

5 o'clock we close, shutting down. Got it.

No, there's no like after party on day 2? No, not usually.

No, on day 2, no.

Day 1 there was?

Day 1 there was.

We did.

And then the premix, the pre-night, the night before.

Yeah.

So Thursday night, Friday night, I think everyone's after party out.

Yeah. Oh man. Well, thanks so much again. Thank you so much. I appreciate all the work and effort. I know how much is going behind the scenes, so I appreciate it, man. Awesome. Well, thanks for having us.

All right, man.

Appreciate you, brother.

Take care.