On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sid Graef sits down with Ramiro Ortiz, founder of SAGE Window Cleaning in Bend, Oregon, to talk about building a home service business from absolutely nothing into a thriving company with a strong team, strong culture, and big growth goals.

Ramiro shares how a short six-week window cleaning job with Sid in Montana helped change the direction of his life. After an epic climbing journey with his family and only a few thousand dollars left in the bank, Ramiro and his wife Erin started SAGE Window Cleaning with no customers, no experience running an office, and one oversized 32-foot ladder.

This conversation is especially valuable for service business owners who are trying to move from survival mode into real leadership. Ramiro talks about the importance of branding, pricing confidently, building trust with customers, hiring the right people, creating culture, and learning how to delegate the parts of the business that do not match your strengths.

Resources:

SAGE Window Cleaning

Ramiro Ortiz LinkedIn

SAGE Window Cleaning Facebook

The Go-Giver

The Huge Convention

The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup

The Huge Insider Podcast Downloadable Action Guide

The Huge Mastermind Information Page

Huge Foundations Facebook Group

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're 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Huge Transformation podcast. I'm Sid Graef, and I'm with Ramiro Ortiz today. And Ramiro and I have known each other for a long time, about 10 years. And is... You're, Ramiro, you're out in Oregon, and you've got SAGE Window Cleaning. Is that right? Yes. Hi, Sid. Uh, thank you for having me, and thanks, uh, everybody, your listeners, uh, for, for, you know, being, being here. And I'm gonna share a little bit my story. We're, we're in Bend, Oregon. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful city, beautiful town, uh, just gorgeous with a beautiful river. Kind of similar to, uh, Missoula, uh, where you're at. Uh, reminds me a lot of the beauty of, uh, where you're at. So yeah, it's, it's, it's been, it's been great. It's been a, an amazing, uh, town, and it has host us, uh, just greatly the last 10 years. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Well, let me give, let me give everybody a little bit of background. This is... I've been looking forward to this interview because I've known you for a while. And Ramiro and I, we f- we first met in Missoula. It was about 10 years ago, and you and, and your wife Erin and young children were in town, and I believe you were gonna start a climbing gym. And- That's right ... at the time, you applied for an open position we had cleaning windows. And- Right ... I've, I've bragged about you so many times. And it, when we reconnected recently, I said, I said, "You remember that year you worked for me?" And you're like, "Sid, it was only six weeks or two weeks." I mean, you worked for a very short time with me. During that bit of time, you made a big impression. Impression number one was, uh, by the end of your second week, your production rate, your speed and accuracy was as, you were as fast as our, our best cleaner that had been with us for several years. I'm like, "Who is this guy?" And of course, with a climbing background, you took immediately to high rise. And one of our guys, Jake, he, you guys worked together for a minute. He remembered you. He brought you up yesterday in a completely different context, and he worked with us for five years. He was gone for five years. He came back and he said, he said, "Who was that guy that, that, uh, was doing all the repel stuff? And he was just, he was so good, but he didn't work for us very long." And I'm like, "Ramiro?" He goes, "Yeah, that guy was awesome." I'm like, "How do you remember this?" So you, you made a big impact in a small amount of time, but then you and your family left Missoula to do an epic climbing trip because- Correct you were a professional rock climber, and you were going, the way I remember it is you're gonna start climbing and, you know, go to Washington State and work your way all the way down to Mexico or Central America, like be gone for months climbing. And with that as the background, tell us, so let's start, not about window cleaning, but tell us about that epic climb trip. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We landed in, in, in Missoula, uh, with the, the plans of opening a rock climbing gym. And the local gym, uh, which they are a- an amazing gym, uh, they were a little bit ahead of us. It was... By the time, it was a small, small place, and we wanted to open something bigger, and our plans was to kind of take them down, you know? And so we went in there, and we realized, uh, shortly after that they were ahead of us. They had already signed a lease with another bigger building, and their plans was to expansion, and there was really no room for two gyms of that size in Missoula. So, uh, it was a big cold shower, and we said that, "Well, what are we gonna do?" So we just, uh, packed it up. Uh, we put everything in a, in a travel trailer, and we hit the road. That's what we did. We were rock climbers. That's how I met my wife. And so that was our comfort zone, uh, so we did. Uh, we were on the road for a year and a half or maybe a couple of years, and we hit just the most wonderful places. And it just took us to, uh, you know, just the incredible not only places, but we met just the most wonderful community. Um, but that was kind of our start. Uh, you know, a couple of years later, we... I remember we're in, uh, somewhere in Red Rocks in Vegas, and we were very, very cold, I remember, and we were very poor. We just barely had, um, I think it was probably $3,000 left in the bank. All of our savings, they were gone, and so we had to, uh, basically settle and, and, and make home again. So we came back to Bend, which was our first stop trying to find home. Uh, and talking about big impacts, uh, the six weeks that I worked for you has, uh, completely changed and just i- i- it made a, a complete, uh, 360 change in my life, uh, because you also, I also remembered you. Uh, so it was only six weeks, but, uh, shortly after we landed in Bend, I picked up a temp job here, and I was doing roofing, and I was doing sweeping warehouses, and basically just whatever. They called me in the morning and said like, "Hey, they need a construction worker." And I was like, "I'll be there." And so I'll just show up and do my best, and it was, I don't know, maybe $16 an hour maybe the best day. Uh, and I realized I was not gonna be able to support my family. So then you came to my mind, and I was like, "Well, I remember doing this, uh, and maybe it's a good fit." So I remember making the phone call and with my hopes that you will remember me because six weeks- Mm-hmm ... it was not a big time, you know? And, uh, so I remember calling and saying like, "Hey, do you remember me, number one, and are you willing to, uh, you know, help me out starting, uh, with this thing?" Uh, so, uh, that's, that's my, my story before I, I start my, my, my company here in Bend. It's been 10 years since then. Um, and it has been incredible. Uh, it's been just amazing. We are doing incredibly well. Uh, we have, um, now under our, our- care, um, many, many families. We have a big c- crew. We're 15, 16 people. Uh, so things have, uh, really come... We- we've come, uh, uh, very, very far, uh, thanks to your, your guidance and, and, and for sharing. So I'm really happy to be here, and hopefully I can be motivation for somebody to start something out and, and be the inspiration, uh, like you were for me. Well, well that's very gracious. Thank you. And also, people, you're, everybo- you're gonna gather very quickly, Ramiro's very modest. He's got a lot of ability, uh, but he's very modest. But y- so you guys, it, when you started Stage Window Cleaning in Bend, I mean, you literally started from nothing Yes. We started from nothing, nothing. My background was in graphic design. That's how I graduated in Ecuador, where I'm originally from. Uh, but climbing was my passion. So I was bartending on nights, and I was a rock climber. So, um, a little bit of my background, the g- the, the, the ...