On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sheila Smeltzer sits down with James Riley of Upper Cumberland Window Cleaning, a 13-year business owner in rural Tennessee who is pushing to break through the million-dollar mark. James shares one of the more honest and heartfelt growth stories in the series, explaining how he got into window cleaning almost by accident, bought a struggling route with barely any real customers, burned through his savings, and had to take a janitor job just to keep his family afloat while rebuilding the company from the ground up. What makes his story stand out is not just the grind, but the conviction behind it: James built the business with a long-term vision of creating one of the best places to work in his area and leaving behind something bigger than himself.

James and Sheila talk through the realities of scaling in a smaller market, dealing with new competitors, improving systems, and making the shift from owner-operator to actual business leader. They also get into employee retention, company culture, transparency, performance pay, coaching, and the challenge of not letting the owner become the bottleneck. Throughout the conversation, James makes it clear that his business is driven by faith, family, and service to people, and that perspective shapes everything from leadership to hiring to how he defines success. It is a strong episode for owners trying to push past a revenue ceiling while building a company with real heart.

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Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in.

The industry folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses and they want to help you succeed. Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience.

0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the Wild Journey of Entrepreneurship.

Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I am Sheila Smeltzer, your host and contributor. Today I'm interviewing James Riley. James Riley is from Upper Cumberland Window Cleaning, and he is a 13 year company that is aiming to go to, aiming to hit a million dollars this year. So if you are in that space, if you are in that realm of size of business and you're looking to break through the ceiling of a million dollars, you wanna listen to this.

The cool part about this interview today is this is a little bit different. We talk about operations, we talk about sales, we talk about systems, but what you're gonna find from listening to this wonderful person, James Riley, is how much heart we should all aspire to have for our own companies. He 100% wants to just.

His goal is to just have the best place to work. He loves providing opportunities for people. And he loves people. Um, he's a very spiritual man. Um, and you'll see how that comes through to him, really crushing it in business. This is so cool. I love this stuff. You know, we all have our own individual and unique contributions and we can play that out however we want in our own companies, and I think it's really neat to, to experience the way that.

We're all doing it. So be an active listener. That is my, that is my wish for you today is to be an active listener. Listen to what we can learn from James Riley, and we are just here in every single interview to help you grow. Enjoy the show. Hey listeners, this is Sheila Smeltzer with the Huge Transformations Podcast.

Thank you for joining us today. Um, we're gonna have a nice conversation with James Riley out of Tennessee. Uh, James owns Upper Cumberland Window Cleaning, and he's been in the business for about 13 years, and, uh, just by getting a little soft opening with him before the recording today. Um, I really wanna get into James, uh, life in his 13 years.

He's right at that breaking the ceiling from 800,000 to a million dollars. And we wanna dive deep and see what's good, what's difficult, and what he thinks that he could have done differently so that we can help all of our listeners, um, avoid any pitfalls and, and learn from the show. So, hey, welcome James.

Well thanks. Thanks for having me. You are quite welcome. I'm excited for this. So we've met each other in the Mastermind and um, but we've never really gotten to know each other, so this is a great opportunity. Yeah. What better than this? Let's share with a lot of people. Yeah, sure. So James, tell us about Upper Cumberland and how you got started in the window cleaning business.

Okay. And all the other services that you do too, please. Okay. Yeah, sure. Well, how we got started about 13 years ago, I had a job. And I had a friend that, uh, acquired other businesses and, and everything, um, that I went to church with. And, and he approached me about window cleaning. I mean, where I'm at. Like I said, and I'm, I'm in the sticks of Tennessee.

I mean, we have served seven counties just to make up for not being the metro area. And two of those counties are probably one of the poorest counties. Well, anyway, he approached me and I turned him down window cleaning. I have fun at that. And well, he's very persistent. He offered me a free lunch. You know, I'm not a free Will Baptist, but I am a free Meal Baptist, so, okay.

I took him up on that free lunch and uh, he kind of talked me, he said, just go out with me and see what you think and anything. You know what, just go out with us and see what you think about it. And so I did that. I met him on a Saturday. Saturday morning. Really, really early. So we met about, um, I'd be at his house probably at three 30 in the morning.

Wow. From the get go. Okay. So we met up with people who were selling it, you know, they wanted to get an early start and, um, we went out on a route with them and, and I felt like the word gimme a commercial storefront, commercial storefront route, it was storefront routes at that time. All. And so I felt like Noah, when the Lord gave Noah a blueprint on how to build the art, he's given me one on how to, um, on this business.

He gave me a vision of about this business and where it's going to go. Um, so we met with him. We accepted it. I didn't have enough money to get him in, so he, he vows for me. Um, he actually bought the whole thing, so I was in debt to him. I thought this was something I could do on the weekends with my girls.

Okay. You know, um, to build work ethic and everything. And then, and, um, it didn't work out that way. I went to call one customers. I mean, they had a lot of ghost customers. I mean, they had about 200 something customers on, on file. We was lucky to have a hundred of them. Ah, I went to call 'em. They, we fired.

They had a bad reputation. Didn't know anything about it. Um, like I said, I've never bought anything like this before and he says, I'm out. I'm out of this. And. He gave me his portion. I had to pay him back. So you all heard about sids, um, eat macaroni and cheese and everything like that? Yeah. I had no money.

I, my savings count was empty. Nothing coming in. So, excuse my bil analogy. I ate beans and taters for, for six months. We got tired of that. We ate taters and beans. I mean, it was, it was that bad. And, um, but anyway, um. My wife was worried. Um, we got two girls at home and, you know, losing our insurance and everything, it, it was just a big mess.

Um, so it all worked out. I mean, I had some background in some, um, when I used to work in the dealership industry of, of, I started a big parts connection in the area and, um, from Knoxville to Nashville. Um, it's called Middle Tennessee Parks Connection. And I, you know, so I was always good at PR and. With customers and, and building that way.

But, um, never had my own business. Okay. And again, I just went with the, the vision the Lord's given me. We're still going through and I always tell my competitors until God stops, gimme visions, that's when I'll worry. And, but he's still, you know, I got a DD so I'm not one of those can read a book and, and, and really understand it without having to read...