Brian Winch: Making Good Money in Cleaning Services with CleanLots

Do you want to keep your community clean while also making a living?

If you’re looking to start your own business and take control of your life, CleanLots might be just what you have in mind.

In 1981, Brian Winch began providing a “niche” service for commercial property management companies. They clean litter from parking lots, sidewalks and landscapes of commercial properties. For over 30 years, Brian has been earning a steady 6 figure income from what he considers a literal walk in the park. This company is a 100% “green industry”

Here’s your chance to make a difference, to take pride in knowing your “green industry” business provides for a cleaner environment. I’ll show you how to “cash in” on this recession-proof and growing field with your own parking lot litter cleanup business.

It only takes is a few minutes out of your day at each property to keep the sites litter-free. If you’re looking for a simple, low-risk business with the potential to earn you a 6 figure income, order the manual for $79.95 right now.

Learn more about how CleanLots can help you keep your community clean by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on  Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:01
Welcome to the thoughtful entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of up my influence.com where we turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. So we believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Even you stick around to the end of this show, where I'll share info on how you could be our next guest three times a week, five to 15 minutes each learn from successful business owners and professionals. It's time to get inspired. Let's go. All right, Brian Winch. You are the founder and creator of cleanlots. And what a cool concept. This was a number of years ago, you got it in your mind to offer a service where you would, you would you- would offer to property owners or property man managers to take care of their lots of parking lots. And you started making money with that. How did that start?

1:08
Well, but it all started back in 1981. I was 21 years of age and I was working a full-time job as a shipper receiver and I didn't mind the work but it's it was something I couldn't see myself doing for the rest of my life. I've got an independent streak and I like to do things my way. And I couldn't see myself staying there and- and, and doing that for a while. So I like anyone who's going to start a side hustle, you start kind of evaluating what your skillset is and what you can bring to the table, what you would like to do, you know what, what your passion is. And I started looking at various opportunities and to be honest with you at that time, I didn't have much of an education. I didn't go to college and barely graduated high school, didn't have a lot of money, a very small savings account, and obviously Not many skills job that you could, you know, relate to JOB, JOB skills or anything like that. So, um, I started thinking, Well, you know, maybe a cleaning business of some sort would be, would be the route to go and, and I decided, you know, I really enjoyed working outdoors I did, you know, I didn't really want to be confined to four walls, you know, for from nine to five. And so I was thinking, Well, you know what sort of cleaning service outdoors and then I remembered, you know, my dad, he's the moonlight he's the side hustle himself, but back then it was called moonlighting or whatever. And he would go by this script Plaza, this small shopping center in our neighborhood a few times a week and clean up the litter from the parking lot the sidewalks in the surrounding landscape. And he has taken me with him a couple of times, and I thought, wow, this is- this is an easy way to make money. And it's basically you know, making money going for a walk and I think You know what, let me- let me revisit that whole idea and just see if there's a market for it. And so basically, I started making some cold calls to property management companies. You know, I don't deal with the individual stores, it's the owners or the managers of these commercial properties. And I can't remember if it was my third or fourth phone call and- and I got a bite. This guy said, You know what, I got three small script classes, and I'm having a tough time finding anybody who is dependable, who will reliably show up and clean up later. It's a simple job, but I just need somebody to show up and do it. Would you be interested? And I said, Yes. And basically, that's how it all started. That's how I got my start with those first three properties.

3:46
Wow. So if someone is, let's say they're, you know, they, you know, because obviously the first several months you're going to be doing plenty of calls and hopefully, if you want to make a full time, income Come at this and you're going to be doing a lot of calls to and going through a lot of people. But once you have, let's say you want to work like three, four hours a day, how much money could you potentially make and a part-time business like that?

4:17
Well, you know what I mean, this, this service, you can make really good money doing it, for the simple reason that most people don't want to do it. Yeah. And you know, and so, it's possible to make it every market throughout the country is different. But you can make anywhere from 30 to 50 or even more dollars an hour doing this.

4:40
And all you're doing is going out for early morning walk, you got your- you got your, you know, your earbuds in and you listen to your favorite podcast, and

4:50
it's great. Well, you know, what, unfortunately, have been made. If you think about it, there are all sorts of people that have started cleaning businesses, you know, I mean, there are all sorts of different niches like washroom cleaning maid services or you know, the list goes on and on. And, and people are making a lot of money doing it because like I said before, a lot of people don't want to do it. So if you don't mind working outdoors and making a difference, I mean, the thing that I love about this business and I and I'm passionate about is I'm cleaning up litter, I'm helping my communities be maintained litter-free. And, you know, I get sometimes people say, Hey, you know, way to go, buddy, I appreciate the job you're doing and I feel good what I do, and, and so yeah, it all started. As a side hustle. I started with those three properties, and then I gradually got sick, and then nine and then a matter of months, I don't know I think was three, four months later, I left my full-time job. But originally it was the intent just to keep this as simple one man operation. And like I said before, I didn't have a lot of business skills. So I was just Kind of learning from the seat of my pants learning from the school of hard knocks, and I learned what worked, what didn't. And, you know, I found which tools work the best to provide this service. And so I built it up to a successful six-figure one man operation. That's amazing. And then you know, from there, you know, we continue to morph into, we brought more people in on the business and then we had a whole crew of people going out throughout the city cleaning up parking lots and, and then we know, we built the business up to roughly we always have about 150 properties. And we built roughly $650,000 a year, just in letter, pick contracts, nothing else, you know, we don't do any other services. But you know, we're the go-to guys in our city. We've been around, you know, for over 35 years, we do let her pick and that's who our people are our clients or prospects know who determines you?

6:56
You know, and one thing that you do, and I really love this Is that you decided then to teach other people how to do this. And, you know, I think we're in an era where, you know, the day of like worrying about somebody else copying you. I think that those days are over. I mean, we're in the information age. And so you may as well embrace it and, and, and help other people and, you know, be respected. I, you know, it's funny because, you know, as a podcaster, I invite all of my quote-unquote, competitors, they've not come I don't have any competitors in what I do. And so if you're willing to do that, people really appreciate and respect that. And, you know, the pie is so big in almost every area of business today, thanks to again, the internet, that you may as well embrace it. So you developed all sorts of training materials, videos, templates, and you sell them for very, very nominal fees. So it's like Imagine being able to start in a franchise you know, I'm seeing like, you've got your templates for $20. Here, you've got other training systems. So basically, this, I think the scariest part is knowing what to say, or the paperwork or that sort of thing. You know, that's probably the scariest part for most people. And you said You know what, I don't mind sharing this with other people. And so now you sell that at clean, lots calm, which is really cool. And by the way, we've actually set up if someone listening to this interview, found it helpful, you can actually go to up my influence. com slash clean lots. And Brian, thank you very much for a little affiliate payment.

8:40
I appreciate that. Appreciate it.

8:43
So tell me about that transition. When did you say you know what? I'm going to teach other people how to do this?

8:51
Well, you know, it occurred to me after about four years in the business, I thought, well, this is, this is great. I mean, I love what it's providing. For me, and I wish something like this would have been out there when I started. And but of course, there wasn't. And I thought this is such a simple business to start with without much money. And without much skills, like you mentioned, you don't have to be a salesperson that's a lot of people say, Well, I've never been in business before. And I don't know if I can sell anything. But really, you know, the techniques have developed over the years, you're not picking up the phone and trying to sell anything to anybody, you're, you're just making your prospects aware of your services and how your service can benefit them. So it just goes from there. And I decided we don't there's a bunch of stuff I could pull together, put into a package into a book and- and share this because no one's going to compete with me in my city. And so why not share this knowledge in other cities across the country. It's such a great opportunity. Unity and you know there's a lot of people either you're interested or you're not but if you're interested in you think you could bring the passion to the table and- and work outdoors and make a difference you know, it's something you might be interested in

10:13
and- and who makes a great candidate for this business?

10:19
Well, I mean, there's people on the various ages, I mean, some people that are looking just to make some money on the side and maybe they don't want to do something as sitting behind a computer again, they maybe they get their fill of that during the day. And so they're looking to do something, you know, outside and maybe they go and, and they- they put an hour or two in the early morning hours before they go to work and you know, they get paid to do their morning walk is the way you can look at that. And you know, you can make really good money doing that each day. If, if that's what you want to do. And if you enjoy it, really you can consider building the business into something full time, whether it's just a simple, one-person operation or you want to build it in have a bunch of people work for you. But the great thing is that this is information that is, that has worked for me, and I'm not selling a franchise where I'm going to collect royalties and franchise fees and tell you this is the way you have to work. You know, if you buy my franchise, you have to, you know, work this full time. And so it appeals to a number of people that whether they want to just do this on the side, or they want to build it into a full-time business, it could be people that enjoy working outdoors and, and maybe, you know, they're interested in these green business opportunities and, and helping the environment and seeing seeing the results of your cleanup efforts and how it affects the communities and- and it's always good to get compliments from- from other people that are shopping at that building or maybe the late night or the early morning people that are going in and they make the comment that hey, Brian, or they don't know my name, but you know, they say Hey, buddy, I appreciate what you're doing here.

11:59
You say Like, so college students could probably also do this.

12:04
You have a flexible schedule. I mean, you've got a window of opportunity where the service really right on and it's somewhere between the time the businesses close and then again, open up the next morning. And you know, yeah, I mean, you can be a college student, one high school student if you want if you- you know, moms, you know, women, men have people that are looking at semi-retirement. Yeah, maybe they people that are concerned, you know what, I've only got 10 more good earning years left and I better start smoking some more money away into my retirement fund or, or maybe some people to that we need to pay off some debts. I mean, people have a number of different reasons why they need to make an extra 234 thousand dollars a month. And that's part time of course, but you know, if you go full time, there's no reason why one person if they're hustling, if they're moving, can't do it. You know, hundred thousand dollars a year. I mean I did that and I know some other people that have done that. But you know, like I say if you buy my book, I provide free support and I provide the free support because I know what works. But I have a saying if you work the business, the business will work for you.

13:19
Nice,

13:20
nice. Well Brian Winch thank you so much for joining us again we've set up an affiliate link thank you so much and that is it up my influence.com slash clean lots and you've got a an operations manual that you offer a $79.95 and that looks like it's, it's it is the operations manual on how to start and run a parking lot litter cleaning business. Looks like pretty much everything you need. You got the templates, as well, which you can get which includes proposals promotional flyers, field reports, invoices, subcontract content. subcontractor contracts that's available as well. So it's, it's really great. I mean, there's pretty much everything you need is is all available and you don't have to pay hefty franchise fees. It's a great model. And I think it's one of those models that's all about just empowering other people doing so very fairly. Everybody winning. So Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you. It was

14:23
great being here.

14:28
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