← The Scoop With Erica Krupin
The Scoop With Erica Krupin
Ep 189. The Spring Rush Warning: Why Starting Next Month is Already Too Late
00:46:57
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Scoop podcast. I'm your host, Erica Kruepman and today's episode is an encore episode. The reason being is I'm taking some time off to really focus on Spring rush for my pooper scooper business. As many of you know, Spring rush is so important for our business and I really need to be locked in if I want to achieve those goals that I want to achieve and be able to give my business the time and the energy that it needs. These episodes, we feel, me and Mr. Producer feel that these need some extra love. The information that is in these episodes are really good and super helpful and I hope that you enjoy them. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and enjoy the episode.
- [00:47]
B
Welcome to the Scoop with Erica Kruipen. Your host is the owner of Croupin's Poop and Scoopin. She's built a six figure dog waste removal business and loves talking a little crap with like minded folks. Starting and growing a small business can be scary, but Erica wants to share some tips and tricks that she's picked up along the way as she continues her entrepreneurial journey. She hopes this podcast will educate and inspire you to think outside the corporate box and do something a little crappy like Scoop Dog poop. And now, here's Erica.
- [01:26]
A
What's up Scoop podcast? I'm your host, Erica Kruipen and on today's episode we have William from Swoop Scoop and Poop Scoop Millionaire in the house. What's up, William?
- [01:38]
C
What's up? How's everybody doing?
- [01:39]
A
Good. Well, I'm good. Hopefully everybody that's listening is good. For those of you that are watching on YouTube, see the new setup. Isn't it so cute?
- [01:51]
C
It's looking good.
- [01:52]
A
I feel official. I feel like I need to do a montage of like where it started in my closet area and then like the progression. So for those of you that are just getting started in business and you feel like, oh, I'm just getting started, I really don't have a lot going on. At least you're getting started. Things compound and you can grow your business and things get better as time goes on.
- [02:12]
C
Our old studio I just moved was literally in my mom's basement when I was in between houses. So you just gotta make it work, you know what I mean?
- [02:19]
A
Yeah. How has that move been?
- [02:21]
C
Kind of sucks. Where we had a, you know, had a house situation that was moldy so we had to move out. Getting that resolved slowly.
- [02:29]
A
Yeah. If you don't mind, can we talk about that a little bit? Because I think there's some like some valuable information in there. So during the time like when I flew out and I met you, I got to see your. The house that you had to move out of. Beautiful, like beautiful home. And then you were in like you said at your parents house in the basement. Sucks. Right? You have a whole family and you're trying to figure this out all while still showing up and running your business. Growing the poop scoop millionaire community. So it's like you have all these challenges but you're not letting it stop you.
- [03:00]
C
Yeah, it's been kind of a crazy year. So we moved into a nice house. It was like million dollar houses all in the neighborhood, like on top of the hill, like super cool house. You saw it? But there were some building defects specifically around like mold. So my whole family started to get sick. My dog's eyes were like swollen shut. We then found out both my kids have like a rare genetic condition that got made even worse by the molds. We're on all this crazy like mold treatment. Had to move out. Couldn't get a rental because of our dog. So we got denied by like 20 plus rental applications. Ended up buying an RV, living at my parents house for a couple months till we could figure something out. Dog died, unfortunately. Alice, we miss you, buddy. Likely because of the mold. Probably contributed a lot to that, which kind of sucks. So then we moved into a new place last month. So it's been kind of a crazy personal ride all while. Yeah. Growing swoop scoop. I got my seven figure electrical company, seven figure garage door company millionaire community. So lots, lots going on this year or last year.
- [03:59]
A
Okay. How are you juggling it all?
- [04:02]
C
I just do it. What else am I gonna do? Not do it?
- [04:05]
A
No, that's true. But okay for some like tactical tips because you have a personality type that's just like do it. Don't make excuses, make it happen. But not everybody's built like you, you know. I know. I. I have my own hiccups, I got my own issues. Like you've been on my butt about my Krupen's content lab. So what's a couple little tips that for somebody that's just like, oh, I'm struggling.
- [04:30]
C
Yeah. So I think it's a couple things. One, it's definitely my mindset going into things like stuff happens. Like you just kind of gotta roll with the bunches and go with it. So people have been through like way worse stuff than I have in the last year and done way cooler stuff. So just trying to keep that into perspective. I think the other side of it too is just building a good team. So I got Levi, I got my wife, I got my business partners at my other companies and like, there's no way I'd be able to do all that myself. But so I'm doing what I do really well. They're doing what they do really well. We're kind of able to keep things going and it's kind of the scale we're at too. We got, I don't know, we'll probably have close to 50 employees between all the companies this year. So we have a lot of people that kind of pick up the slack if needed.
- [05:10]
A
Well, yeah. And so you're able to kind of spread it out among people. So I mean, there's a lot going on right now. We're recording this in January. So if. Let's talk about the poop scooping business for a little bit because we're going to be heading into spring rush. What?
- [05:24]
C
Yep.
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A
What do you got going on for spring rush? What's the plan?
- [05:29]
C
Yeah, so we're in spring rush right now this month or what, two, three weeks into January. We've already picked up 250 new customers this month, so that's been pretty cool. Our best year ever. We were hitting like high four hundreds a month just from one location. So we're gonna see if we could beat that this year. But we've kind of toned down our spending. We're trying to focus on being like as profitable as possible. And then we've added a couple new positions as well. So we started building out like an internal sales team and we changed the way we actually ran Facebook ads. So completely revamped our website and now we're sending traffic to the website, getting people's phone numbers before they get the quote. And we actually have a full time like sales rep. We're have two. All they do is as soon as a lead comes in, they're just calling people and they're closing. This guy's closing almost one subscriber like an hour.
- [06:14]
A
That's nuts. Let's talk about that a little bit. So what's that sales process look like?
- [06:18]
C
Yeah, so we'll run ads on Facebook, Google. People see our trucks. Just like however we generate traffic, people hit the website, they get the instant quote and they basically have to give us their phone number before we give them the price. If they see the price, they want to just sign right up. They can do that. If they don't end up signing up right away, we'll Send them into kind of our sales remarketing sequence. So the first thing they get is going to be a phone call from our sales rep. They don't answer. They get a text message. Then they get a couple other automated text messages, either the next day or a couple of days later. Just with better and better promotions to try to get them to sign up. But really having that person, once you get them on the phone, it's way easier to get people to sign up from what we found.
- [06:55]
A
So what does that phone call look like or not look like sound like they answer the phone by any chance, do you know what the call, like, how the call rolls out?
- [07:04]
C
We have the call. I think we have the call scripts in Food School Millionaire, actually. But it's just something along the lines, hey, we saw you're interested in signing up for services, blah, blah, blah. I kind of tried to build the sales script kind of based on Alex Formosi's, like, closer framework, so. Which I don't have it memorized, but I'm sure I could pull it up for you guys.
- [07:21]
A
But you said that that is in the poop scoop millionaire community.
- [07:25]
C
Yeah, I think. I think so. If it's not, I'll definitely get it added in for you guys.
- [07:27]
A
Yeah. Because I think that's. People struggle with that too. Like, some people have phone anxiety. Okay. So they don't have a salesperson, so they're having to call. If they get the person on the phone, it's like, what's that smooth, you know, introduction. And then when you have the conversation with them and you talk about pricing and the person's like, oh, I need to check with my husband, my wife, or that's more than I expected. Do you have overcoming objections built in?
- [07:54]
C
Yeah, we got different overcomes. And I would say probably the most critical thing when it comes to actually making these calls or doing the follow up is going to be your response time. So somebody fills out this. This form, right? We have an API. It goes right to our sales guy. They get notified, like, pretty quickly. And we're trying to call within like, 30 seconds if we can. So this shows the prospect, like, man, this company is like, really on top of it. If they're getting back to me this quickly, like, I'm sure the rest of their service is going to be good. So I think that's a big, big part of it. That's actually our top initiative for 2025 is response time on everything we do. Whether somebody's calling in, we want to be able to pick up on the first or second ring, somebody gives us a lead form, we want to be able to reach out within a minute or less because really the faster the better. So I'd say that's probably the most important thing. What was the second part of your question?
- [08:39]
A
Well, the overcoming objections.
- [08:42]
C
Yeah, so our, our sales guys are pretty, pretty savage actually. So we were running a special free initial cleanups which was we have it set to expire and we test out different specials. And this lady called in and was like, yeah, sounds great or whatever, but I need to check with my husband first and have a conversation before we sign up. And our sales guy was just like, well, no, that's great. Totally understand. Is that conversation worth $150? Because that's how much our one time cleanups are. I can't guarantee you we still have that promotion tomorrow. Lady signed up right on the phone.
- [09:11]
A
Oh, that's good.
- [09:13]
C
Yeah, so there's a lot of different, I mean there's hundreds of different, like talking patterns and objections overcome. So they're all over the Internet. We'll try to post them all.
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, I think that'll be really good. Now what about when they talk about, well, this company down the street, you know, our competition is charging this. And listen, we have a lot more competition now. Thanks, William.
- [09:38]
C
Well, kinda. So, yeah, as far as pricing and competition goes, we offer a lot of different service frequencies. So that's kind of what we usually try to start with. So it's like, okay, the twice a week price is too expensive or the once a week price is too expensive. So we'll try to downsell them and do lower frequencies whether it's every other week or once a month. The other thing is like, we like to touch on like professionalism. Right. So we all our trucks are fully wrapped, all our employees are background checked, we disinfect all our equipment cleaning. Like if our competitors aren't doing that, they could actually make your dog really, really sick. Barbo. And other things go around. So you really want to make sure you have a reputable company because your dog's health is literally on the line with who you choose to hire for the service. So that's the one I usually like to go to. There's quite a few others that you could talk about. But I mean we got over 100 review in every location that we're in our main location, we have 500 plus five star reviews. I think we have over a thousand between all of our locations. So I mean, we've kind of earned the right to be that premium priced company in the market.
- [10:39]
A
Yeah, yeah. I, I personally am not seeing the ads in my area, but maybe I'm blocked, I'm not sure. But my husband is seeing like a lot of new companies are popping up and so he's like screenshotting and like sending, sending them to me and he's like, well, are you concerned about Spring Rush? And I said, not necessarily because I do have the Google profile, I do have the reviews to be able to back it up. I do have the, you know, like the reason this is why our prices are more expensive. We show up, we do what we need to do. So I completely agree with you on that.
- [11:11]
C
Yeah, well, if you're an established company, like you have more resources, like you could hire a va, you could hire office help, you can hire people help scooping and you can just like really dial in things like your response time and your professionalism. Where somebody's starting off, they're going to have to be doing everything themselves unless they have a ton of money coming into the industry. So you do have a pretty big advantage and really just leveraging that to your benefit is what I would recommend.
- [11:34]
A
So yeah, so for anybody that's kind of getting into this, when you go into Spring rush, if, if it goes well, you're going to make a lot of money in a short period of time. It's very stressful. So I do want to set that expectation for you. Be smart with the money. Reinvest it. Don't go buy yourself. I think I went and bought, I bought myself a Gucci belt. We'll just be super transparent. Okay. Because I was like, oh yeah, I made it. Don't do stuff like that. Reinvest. You want to talk about that a little bit and why it's important?
- [12:05]
C
Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely we can talk about that. I also just want to touch on too. Like bigger companies do have an advantage, but smaller companies also have an advantage too. Like if you're just a new owner operator and you're the one actually going out and scooping, like you should use that to your advantage as well. Especially with like how you put your ads together, making sure you or your family or you and your dog are in those ads, it's going to really help you out quite a bit.
- [12:25]
A
Can we talk about Paul real quick? The interview. Well, because your recent interview or YouTube video was where you were interviewing Paul and he's a newer scooper and he got, what was it, nine new customers by uploading a picture with him, his kid and his dog. In his company shirts.
- [12:45]
C
Yep, yep. So, yeah, just kind of exactly like I said, new scooper. He put himself out there like, hey, I'm the face of the company. We're new to this industry, and we're actually giving out free scoops just in exchange for some feedback. And that's been a pretty effective strategy. We call it the free trial method. And when you combine that with kind of other strategies like Facebook posting or even Facebook ads, if you really want to supercharge it, we've seen a lot of success with that. And really the key is just to not put pressure on people. So if they want to sign up for services afterwards at full price, like, that's great. If not, no worries. But if you thought the service was good, we'd appreciate some feedback and even a review if you'd be willing to do that. So it's been pretty effective for a lot of people. Like in the Poop Scoop Millionaire, I just see almost every single day somebody's like, I got my first client, got my first client, got my first client. And it's just like, it's pretty cool to see.
- [13:31]
A
That's a pretty hot topic in the industry, is that free scoop, like, free initial scoop versus not. What do you say to the folks that say, absolutely not? I would never give away a free scoop. That's ridiculous.
- [13:47]
C
Yeah. I mean, you could do whatever you want. I don't really care. Something that works for us. And honestly, like, when you're first starting off and you're, like, not willing to go, I mean, your time's literally worthless. Like, you have no billable hours. Like, you're not generating revenue. So, like, if you're not willing to go out and take action, that's something that is a high likelihood that somebody's going to sign up for your service and actually produce revenue. I think you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Even if you look at some of the bigger businesses out there, like Alex or Mosey, like, all his stuff, he gives away for free, like, almost everything. And pretty sure he makes more money than all of us put together at this point, so.
- [14:25]
A
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've gone back and forth with this, I think where my mindset was. When you're okay, you're a solo scooper. Right. And you're out there and you're busy and these big cleans, and you're like, beating your body into the ground. It's really easy to have that mindset of, like, I'm not going to devalue myself. I'M not going to give this $120 scoop away for free. But we're not looking at it in the long term. Like, what's the lifetime value of that potential customer when they come on? We're thinking about just the short term. You know, how long does a dog live for? 13 years? 14? Like, what if you get a puppy, you gave away a free initial scoop, and then now you have that lifetime value of that of that dog moving forward.
- [15:07]
C
Well, I think people are thinking about this totally wrong too, because you want to look at your actual customer acquisition cost. So yeah, you see, you're giving away $120 scoop. If you were to pay somebody to go do that same scoop, it might cost you 25 dol. Like in labor, right? So it's like, okay, even if you had to do three free scoops to get one customer, that's $75 to get a customer. That for us is worth over $3,000 right now and continuing to climb. But for a lot of people starting off, they're usually worth 1500-2000 dollars. You haven't focused on retention that much. Like right off the rip. Are you going to pay 75 bucks to make 2 grand? It's like a no brainer.
- [15:40]
A
Yeah. Hiram, actually, him and I were talking about this and he offers them like, either really cheap or for free. And he, I was like, don't you care? He's like, no, I'm, I'm not out there doing it. I have my staff out there. And I was thinking to myself, like, my staff's out there for a reason. They want the hours. You know, that's their sole focus is to be out there and scooping. And so my, my mind shift has changed. And I think as business as you learn things, you get around people that are smarter that know what they're doing. Like Hiram's cleaning business, he does over a million. You know, he's got a seven figure business. And so I think sometimes we can get like a small mindset and it stops us from, from growing. And that's, it's silly, right?
- [16:21]
C
Well, I think there's kind of a trap to you that, oh, I'm the business owner, my time's worth more. But if you're out scooping, your time's worth what a scooper is worth. So like, or whatever, 15 to $25 employee at that point, so maybe act like it. Sorry, hard if that's too harsh.
- [16:40]
A
Yeah, that was a little aggressive, but it's the truth. I mean, we need to understand this Stu, because I've been stuck in the trap too. And I, I hear this and when I talk to other people, so. Cool. Well, I appreciate it.
- [16:54]
C
Yeah, yeah. I will say we don't offer free cleanups during spring rush and locations with snow. So we make like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and I'm still not willing to fully commit to that. So just throw that out.
- [17:11]
A
Yes, that's really smart. I don't know about you right now, but we are, we're freezing. Like we're below freezing. I think it's like negative 6 or negative 8 right now. So we canceled service for yesterday and today and I told my VA's, I said we're getting a lot of calls right now. I don't schedule any one time cleans because my, my VA's are over, they're overseas. Let's just keep it real so they don't deal with winter. I'm like, we can't schedule any of those right now because we're not going to be able to get anything up. So right now if people want to come on, tell them like they're going to have to just sign up for service or they're going to have to wait because it's too cool to get anything.
- [17:49]
C
Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, it's been weird over here. We haven't had hardly any snow. Normally we get a ton of snow, so we'll see how that impacts spring. But we're still signing up hundreds of customers a month so I think we'll, we'll be okay. But it might not be those record breaking year for us.
- [18:04]
A
What's a realistic expectation for maybe like a solo, a solo scooper, like you're getting hundreds and hundreds, you know, of signups. What about somebody that's newer? Like what should they expect?
- [18:18]
C
Really depends on what they have to invest into the business, whether that's their time or their money. I think a lot of people, they don't have a lot of money, they have a lot of time. I think they spend too much effort and energy on focusing on the wrong things. Maybe they're trying to get their brand perfect. Website has to be perfect. But there's like things you can do to actually go out and make money right now. And if you're not doing those things, you're not going to have a very good spring rush or a very good business, most likely.
- [18:43]
A
Do you have a couple tips?
- [18:47]
C
Yeah, I mean there's like the rule of 100, they say, so spend $100 on ads, do 100 reach outs like post 100 minutes worth of content. Like, you should be spending like the majority of your day actually trying to get customers. If you don't have any customers, like, that should be your main focus because that's the bottleneck of your business. So if you could break that bottleneck, you move on to other issues. Like now, how do I hire people? How do I get capital? By all these trucks and things like that. But most people out there, their bottleneck is getting customers right now. And if you're not doing the activities that it takes to get more customers, you're wasting your time.
- [19:18]
A
Yeah. So if you don't have the money you need to, you gotta get out there, start interacting with other small business owners. Like, I walked down the street and I went and introduced myself to this woman, celebrity pets, and she actually knew of me and this is right down the street from my office. And she's like, I actually follow you on social media. I went and dropped some business cards off. So do that. Find like these local business owners in your area that already have the clientele and have a conversation with them because they're going to be really good advocates for you and they'll share your stuff on social media.
- [19:54]
C
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people are out there succeeding right now. So the difference between those that make it and those that don't is just actually putting in the time and effort that it takes to succeed.
- [20:03]
A
So in a realistic amount of time. Because I think a lot of people are like, oh, I spent 20 minutes today on trying to get customers. Didn't get nobody. My phone didn't ring.
- [20:13]
C
You should spend like 14 hours a day trying to get customers. That's what I would be doing if I wasn't making any money. Like literally all day. That's like all I would do.
- [20:22]
A
Okay.
- [20:23]
C
I'm not scooping. I'm like trying to get customers.
- [20:25]
A
So William has, let's say William has no money, limited customers. What's the first. What's. Yeah, marketing. What's the first thing you're going to do? What are you going to focus on? A huge shout out to today's episode sponsor, Jobber, the number one operations management software for home service business owners. Jobber is the software I use to run, grow and manage my small pooper scooper business. Jabber helps me handle the admin tasks quicker so I can focus on growing my business and getting more me time back. From creating custom quotes all the way to getting paid my money, Jobber has my back. Yeah, we're pretty much best friends. But if I had to choose my favorite feature. I'd say the mobile app. I can create the quotes, edit the jobs, communicate with customers and keep my eye on the staff right from my phone. If you're a home service entrepreneur looking to level up your business, look more professional and save time, head over to jobber.com croupen to start your 14 day free trial and get 20% off your first six months with my special link. Now let's get back to the scoop.
- [21:45]
C
I'm probably gonna reach out. I'm gonna start by reaching out to every single person that I know. Do the free trial method. I'm gonna start posting in those free buy sell trade groups on Facebook. I'm gonna get my Google business profile set up. I'm just gonna try to do as many free scoops as possible. I'm gonna document it, I'm gonna put it online. That's pretty much what I'm gonna do. Anybody that interacts with any post or anything I do in general, like, I'm going to like reply to it as quickly as possible. I'm gonna be super active. I'm gonna be posting another dog related business pages, trying to make funny comments, just build relationships and connect with people. You can definitely hit the payment, put up yard signs and door hangers and that kind of thing. But I think you could be a lot more efficient online and your time will go further. So that's what I would be doing.
- [22:25]
A
Yeah. And oh, responding back to comments is so important. You, you do a really good job of that on your YouTube channel. I noticed. Like you're on it.
- [22:32]
C
Yeah, well when you're, when you're just starting off, you gotta be, otherwise you won't go very far.
- [22:37]
A
So last night. Yeah, yeah, actually last night some guy says that he's been like calling and trying to get in touch with us and we haven't been responding back to him. And he's like, I hope the customers that are paying actually get what you know they're paying for. I'm like, where the heck is this dude? So like I looked in my CRM, I looked in Jabber, I looked in responsibid, I looked everywhere. I can't find this guy anywhere. And so I'm like, oh, did we miss him? Like what happened? Is there a hole? But really bothers people. So if they reach out to you and they comment on your stuff and they show they take the time out of their day, it's really important to respond back to him. It's actually kind of rude and I've been rude before.
- [23:18]
C
Yeah, no, I did. For those out there, if you try to call my business to get a hold of me, it's literally impossible. So don't do that. I mean, we have a full office staff, office manager, operations manager. So it's like pretty much impossible to get a hold of me. Like, the only way I can guarantee that somebody wants to talk to me is if they're actually in the poop school Millionaire. And they shoot me a dm. Like, that's the first thing I respond to every day is just all the people shooting me DMs. So if you have a burning question, that's the best way to get hold of me.
- [23:43]
A
Oh, that's really smart. I. That's the reason why I got the virtual assistant originally is because. So my business phone doesn't ring to me anymore. They have to patch the calls over. Because I was getting so many calls from either, like, social media or people just wanting to chat. I had to put that barrier between. Because I'd be like, in the backyard scooping. And then I get somebody that would call and I would be like, totally like, oh, what's going on? And they were like, can you give me your whole pricing structure? And I'm like,
- [24:10]
C
we. We literally have. We're not like a franchise. I literally have like one to three people a day reach out asking if I want to buy, like, a franchise. Like, like legit. I have like a whole list of like 100 plus people. It's kind of crazy.
- [24:23]
A
Like, all throughout the United States.
- [24:26]
C
Yeah, all over the place. Like, literally every day. Oh, I'm in wherever. Arizona. I'm in Florida. I'm in New York. Like, help us. So it's kind of. Kind of been crazy.
- [24:36]
A
If anybody from Michigan calls you, you say, absolutely not. Croup and spooping, scooping, handling biz out there.
- [24:43]
C
That's right.
- [24:45]
A
All right, well, you want to talk about competition a little bit. I know it doesn't really affect you too much because your business is so big, but what about the smaller guy?
- [24:56]
C
Yeah. So for the smaller guys out there, kind of like I was alluding to earlier, like, you want to use what you have to your advantage. Bigger companies have advant. But I'm not going to be out there saying, like, I'm scooping your yard, but that's something that a newer person would be able to do. Right. So I just say use that to your advantage. And also for newer companies too. Just like, also be careful who you take advice from. I know there's been a Lot of people like trying to make spin off groups and stuff ever since they saw how poopscoop Millionaire has been taken off. So just be like careful who you actually take advice from. I mean there's some people out there that don't have any clients that are trying to give advice or people that maybe have barely a hundred and they're out there trying to start like an academy or something. And so if you want to be at a place where somebody else is, follow those, those types of people. What would be my biggest advice? Because there's a lot of people staring people the, the wrong way with the wrong strategies just aren't as effective.
- [25:45]
A
Yeah, with just like social media in general, that was something. When I was making my videos, I wanted to make sure I'm like, you know, I want to make sure I'm putting like the best content that I know out there. And that's the reason why I've been pretty transparent with how much I make, you know, because I don't, I don't want people to think that my business is bigger and then, you know, their business is larger. They're coming to me and they're asking me questions. I'm like, listen, like you, your business is way larger than me. I don't think that I should be helping you right now at this point.
- [26:16]
C
Yeah, and that was like a big thing when we put the boobscoop Millionaire together. Like we have different coaches that can help people at like different levels. But like people, it's like forbidden. You're not allowed to like coach somebody like past a point where you've succeeded yourself. So that's kind of like a big reason why I think we've been successful too because we actually go out and walk the walk and actually have a business. So that is fairly sizable. So.
- [26:37]
A
And I really appreciated that you fact checked like how much do you make type deal? Because even when I do coaching calls, I do like, like a discovery call with the people just to make sure that I'm a good fit for them. Because if they're like haircut. I really want you to help me narrow down this marketing campaign. Like I want to do Google Ads. I want you to help me target, I don't know, I do organic video content. Like I'm, I'm not the coach for you, right?
- [27:04]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So, but yeah, just like you said, just you want to be real careful who you take, take advice from. If you want to get 50 clients or like whatever, then yeah, maybe that's a good person for you to Follow. But if you want a thousand clients, like a number of companies out there that can actually help you with that, it starts to shrink pretty. Pretty drastically.
- [27:19]
A
Yeah. Speaking of big dogs, I had Stephanie from Turd Nerd here. We were hanging out. She's like a big dog in the industry. I was trying to get her on the podcast, but she's like. She's so shy, and I didn't want to pressure her, but I. I almost did. I almost just, like, mic'd her up and be like, you're gonna talk on the podcast?
- [27:38]
C
Yeah, no, you should. Yeah. She's crushing it down in Boise.
- [27:41]
A
I know. And the reason why she was here is because she was picking up a new renegade, like a new vehicle. She flew, signed the papers, had it shipped back home, and then she flew, I think it was from Wisconsin to Michigan. Hung out with one of her friends, then drove to me, hung out for a couple days, and then flew back home. Like, that's big dog stuff right there.
- [28:04]
C
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, for sure, for sure. Well, good news for people. I think. It's not quite official yet, but we are most likely going to be putting on a live event in the next couple months. You might be able to meet all those big dogs. So just a little teaser for you guys.
- [28:20]
A
I can't wait. I can't wait to meet everybody that's going to show up. It's going to be really exciting.
- [28:26]
C
Yes. So the tentative plan right now is in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. There's a ton of. It's like a. Almost like a vacation place, I think, like a ton of celebrities like JLo and all these people, like, have houses up on, like, the big golf course and stuff. So it's a really beautiful area. So it'd be a cool spot to kind of network with everybody.
- [28:44]
A
Yeah, that'll be really sweet. I'm gonna be a speaker, right?
- [28:50]
C
Yeah.
- [28:51]
A
Okay, good. I just want to make sure. I wanted to put it out there. He can't change his mind. I'm locked in now. You guys.
- [28:58]
C
Totally locked in. Yes. You're part of the team. You got to be a speaker.
- [29:02]
A
What are you talking about? I know. So if you guys are listening. What? I mean, obviously I'm going to do social media stuff, but if you have some suggestions on exactly what you would like to hear, put those down in the comments.
- [29:15]
C
Yes, yes, please do. So we'll be making. Just waiting on the contract. These things are pretty expensive to put on. I got, like, 50 grand on the line if nobody shows up. So we Will see how it goes. But yeah, I'm excited. It should be good. A lot of, a lot of really big companies, like companies of all sizes are going to be there, so be a really great opportunity. We'll probably drop tickets in Poop Scoop Millionaire first just because there's going to be a limited amount of tickets that are able to sell. So if you're like super gung ho, I'd recommend joining the group. Just so you get the first job.
- [29:50]
A
Yeah, you don't want to miss out it. There's nothing worse than when you're excited to go to something and then tickets are sold out. Not this has. So my husband loves going to the Wild Game knitter that the church is putting on. Well, he's a procrastinator and he's that person that like will show up at an event and hope. Hope that there's tickets available. Anyways, so the pastor texted him and was like, hey, you might want to get your ticket. Like they're selling out quick. I'm like, Josh, why do you gotta wait till the last minute? You know you want to go do it? Just take care of it.
- [30:20]
C
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Especially the vit tickets that we're doing. I'm literally chartering like a boat with like a private like steak dinner for everybody. So it's going to be. It's going to be crazy.
- [30:31]
A
Will there be gluten free options? Okay. If not, I have to bring my own steak in
- [30:40]
C
your little steak cooker. Just plug it in.
- [30:42]
A
Yeah, I'll have it already in like a container. I actually have. Have had to bring my own food into a restaurant before. It's really uncomfortable for everybody.
- [30:51]
C
But you do what you got.
- [30:53]
A
Listen, if. If there's a group and they're going out to eat, it's. Sometimes I'll just be like, I'll just have coffee or I'll just have. Have water or whatever or a diet Coke. But here's the thing. Sometimes you have to do uncomfortable things and weird things and you have to just be different than everybody to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And you just got to do it. Yeah.
- [31:14]
C
If you want different results, you gotta do different things.
- [31:16]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:18]
C
That's what it takes.
- [31:19]
A
What else you want to talk about? Yeah, anything.
- [31:24]
C
I don't know.
- [31:25]
A
Dog poop, poop scooping, dog poop and poop scooping. Well, you said you're going to be adding some stuff to the Poop Scoop Millionaire. What? What's some recent stuff that you've added lately that maybe folks don't know about.
- [31:41]
C
Yes, we try to make updates every month. So this month I'm actually like totally redoing the Facebook ads, the Google Ads, and the SEO course right now. So we've changed kind of our strategy and we've noticed that some things aren't working as well as they used to. So we're kind of updating that. We actually, right after this call, we have a live Facebook ads training course just for members. We try to do a couple like live events every month as well. So that's kind of the big thing for this month. And then I really want to make like a, like a road map for people based on the size of company they are. So if you're just getting in like, what's the specific, like exact actions that you need to take to go from like 0 to 100k, 100k to 500k, 500k to a million. So I want to kind of start developing that. It's going to be something that we'll roll out later this year just so there's like no question like what actions that you should be taking if those are the goals that you want to hit. So just really laying out what that company looks like, how many employees you should have, how much money you should spend on marketing, all that kind of stuff.
- [32:40]
A
Dude, that's sweet. Once you roll out the like, let's say 250k, going to like a half a million. I could totally make videos documenting that journey.
- [32:51]
C
Yes. Yeah. Because I mean, things look totally different and then like going from like 1 million to 3 million, we will be well past 3 million this year. I think it was like a totally different, like it's like the swamp is what they call it. So things look totally different now. We're trying to hire employees that are whatever, 70, 80, 90, $100,000 a year salary employees to try to get to that next level. And it's definitely been interesting.
- [33:15]
A
Some of the people that are listening right now just can't even wrap their mind around paying one employee that much because they might not even be making that much, you know?
- [33:24]
C
Yeah, that's true. That's why you got different roadmaps for different, different sizes. So. But you can't skip steps, you know what I mean? You can't just jump right to the 3 million dollar range. Business just looks so different. Looks different at 10 million, looks different at 50 million.
- [33:38]
A
Which leads to a really good point. I know we talked about competition a couple times, but with being online and being in these groups and a lot of different groups popping up. You're. You're seeing, you're seeing people put the highlight reel online. Okay, so how, like, how do you kind of just key, like keep your focus and have realistic expectations for where you're at and not compare yourself to other people?
- [34:05]
C
I think it comes down to kind of having like that checklist and that roadmap and just knowing what you need to do. Like, for us, I didn't even talk to another pooper scooper until we were reached out to you. We were seven figure plus before I even knew other people were really doing it at eye level. So I think it's just, yeah, staying in your lane, staying focused, that's kind of the main thing. But there's definitely been some interesting things that have happened with us becoming more popular and the industry becoming more popular.
- [34:32]
A
Yeah, it's. It's hard. It. You know, because you like with. When you're smaller or whatever, you see people that are like doing kind of what you're doing, or maybe you think that it's better because it looks better and it's shiny because honestly. But you taught me this, like, you just stay focused and you keep your head down. It's. It's boring. It's boring. Doing the same thing day in and day out. And then you're doing this thing, you're putting all this energy into it. Maybe you're not getting the results that you want immediately. And then you see somebody else that's doing this good shiny thing and you're like, well, what's going on over there? And then you get distracted and you're all over the place, Right?
- [35:08]
C
Exactly. Well, even for me, like, I got other companies, like, I'm gonna be attempting to sell all them this year and just like focus 100 on the poop scoop business. I think we can take it pretty far. So, I mean, that'll be, that'll be interesting.
- [35:21]
A
You mean you have like, the business is like, when you reached out to me originally and you're like, I have a set or yeah, seven figure pooper scuba business. I was like, holy smokes. Because I don't think I had talked to anybody that had a business that, that large.
- [35:37]
C
There's a, there's a handful out there, but there's definitely not. There might be like less than 5 or 10 that I even like, know about myself. So not a lot. They're rare, but they're becoming less rare as people kind of figure out the industry so.
- [35:52]
A
Well. Yeah, and I think some of the ones that are much larger, maybe they're not on social media. Like, I'm fairly confident that Doggy Scoops by me, which Marianne and Tim are, like, they're wonderful individuals and they had lunch with me and we had a really good conversation. Like, I. I know they have a very large business, but they don't do really social media and they're not talking about that kind of stuff.
- [36:15]
C
Yeah, yeah, but social media is a whole different element. Like, even for us, like, probably the last two months, I've had like 15 or 16 companies, like, literally rip off our website. Some of them have our pictures on their website, their logo on their website. Like, it's been kind of interesting. You ever have those kind of issues?
- [36:33]
A
Yeah, I actually had a local guy here in Michigan completely, like, pilot. My entire website blocked me on social media. But luckily, like, I was able to figure out who he was because a friend of mine did some research. I went through the whole website. I'm like, this is literally my website. He just changed the colors. So, yeah, I called. I called him the next day and I'm like, hey, Blank, this is Erica Krupin. Let's chat about our website. You know, and he was just like, hey, listen, I changed a couple things. It's a good website. I was hoping you weren't going to find out, but you did. And he changed just enough. Like, just enough for me not to send him anything.
- [37:15]
C
Yeah, I mean, we literally spent, like, tens of thousands of dollars on, like, attorneys just, like, making sure things are enforced now. So some of them are like. Like, they literally had our pictures and, like, our logo on their website. Like, they have hyperlinks back to our website from their website is one way that I'm able to tell. Because they don't change the web copy. So it's pretty crazy. Yeah, people just, like, trying to copy us, but I guess it's kind of to be expected.
- [37:41]
A
Yeah. Well, it's just one of those things where, you know, when people do see stuff that is working, they want to try it out, but it's like, just have some integrity. Don't go just stealing somebody's stuff because that makes you suck.
- [37:56]
C
Yeah. I mean, even the Poop Scoop Millionaire, there's been, like, so many, like, knockoffs. There's one called the Poop Scoop Billionaire. I don't know if you saw that.
- [38:03]
A
I did. Yeah.
- [38:07]
C
So it's pretty. It's pretty funny what people are. People are doing. I found that other people, they, like, reached out to all our vendors and stuff to try to get them to switch from our group to Their group. Like, there's been a lot of like, crazy stuff behind the scenes that goes on.
- [38:18]
A
Well, this is what I don't understand about the poop scoop billionaire. Okay. Are they really like, are they actually a billionaire? How. Like, that's not even, that's not even legit. Like with you. Poop Scoop Millionaire, your business does this. You have several seven figure businesses, so it's like you're legit.
- [38:35]
C
You.
- [38:36]
A
Why would I want to be in a group with somebody that's saying poop scoop billionaire? Let me, let me see the statements. I want to see that you're a billionaire.
- [38:44]
C
Yeah. For anybody out there that's trying to start their own group, I challenge you to put your revenue statement up there. We got ours. So let's see how much money you actually make. But yeah, I think it's pretty funny. I think obvious knockoff, right? So now I got to start that Poop scoop trillionaire or kajillionaire, Just, just to stay ahead, you know what I mean? Like, it's a crazy world out there.
- [39:03]
A
Stay ahead of the curve. That's crazy. That's so funny. When jobber with a CRM I use for my business, they have do features and stuff like that. And like people will contact me and they'll want to do like reports. I actually had just something on NSNBC and when you do that kind of stuff, you have to submit your financials because they want to like fraud check you and. Yeah, yeah. And they go through and they make sure like, okay, yep. This is what your business is. This is what they said you're making boom, boom, boom. So. Yeah, it's good.
- [39:35]
C
Yeah, no, it's, it's a thing. I think we're, we're applying to be on the ink list. I think we have like a thousand percent growth or something from the time frames they're doing for the fastest growing companies in the United States. So we got to do that same thing.
- [39:50]
A
Yeah.
- [39:50]
C
So we'll see if we make the list. But I think we will buy quite a bit.
- [39:55]
A
It's kind of. It is a little bit intimidating. I don't know why I was intimidated, but I was like, okay, here. Like, even when I hired a. What was it? And an accountant or a bookkeeper to have them go through, and I forgot that my American Express was hooked up to them. And I was like, did I buy anything weird on there? I hope not. Yeah, they'd be like, your Amazon purchases are getting a little wild. Erica.
- [40:22]
C
You gotta rein it in. Rain it in.
- [40:24]
A
So funny.
- [40:25]
C
Yeah.
- [40:26]
A
That's so fun.
- [40:27]
C
Yeah.
- [40:27]
A
So what. What's. What do you think 2025 is going to look like for Swoop Scoop and Poop Scoop Millionaire?
- [40:35]
C
Yeah, I think it's just going to keep growing. I think we're close to 600 members. And poop Scoop Millionaire. I'm working on a mastermind community right now for people that are a little bit more established that talks about some of those kind of more advanced things. Like, if I want to open up multiple locations, how do I do that? What's the scaling? Roadmap. From 1 million to 2 million. Like, things like. Things like that kind of more advanced hiring coaches or class courses. So, like, if you want to hire, like a marketing manager, if you want to hire operations manager to actually run your business for you, like, what do those kind of things look like? So working on building that out. We're going to have our live event over at Poop Scoop Millionaire, which will be cool. And then, yeah, just keep growing. Swoop Scoop. So I think we did a little over 2 million last year, and I think this year we're on track to do about 3.7. So see if we can do it or not.
- [41:23]
A
You're gonna tear it up. Yeah.
- [41:26]
C
So so far we've, yeah, pretty much hit the projection, so we'll see if we can keep it. Keep it going.
- [41:31]
A
No, I think that you can. And the group's been growing a lot. And for those of you that are watching on YouTube, I'm sure you guys see the Poop Scoop million Millionaire sign over here if you've missed it. I recently joined the Poop Scoop Millionaire, like, social media personality. What. What do you call me? What am I?
- [41:49]
C
Poopoo. The Poops Go Millionaire PSM personality.
- [41:54]
A
Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. Why. Why did you bring me on the team?
- [42:00]
C
Well, a couple reasons. One, you're awesome, so thanks for being awesome. Two, there's a lot of different pooper scoopers out there, right? People are at different levels of their business. So, like, I wanted to build a community that talks to people at all sorts of different levels. Like, like, okay, most of my audience is just a bunch of guys following me, Right. Women probably resonate a little bit more with your message, so things like that. So I definitely want to diversify kind of the team, and then if I get hit by a bus tomorrow or something, right? And just like, kick it, like, everything stops. But if we're able to continue building the team and we have you and we have Levi and we have other People out there to kind of help move the industry forward. The whole whole, the whole thing could keep going, basically.
- [42:43]
A
So I like that. Thanks. I feel like I never asked you that question, so I was. Selfishly, I wanted to know that.
- [42:50]
C
Yeah. So. Well, and you're. You're the biggest pooper scooper influencer in the whole wide world, so how could you?
- [42:56]
A
Well, I know, but you're creeping closely behind me, so I need to start pumping up some. Pumping out some better videos.
- [43:03]
C
Yeah, but we're on the same.
- [43:04]
A
And I was gonna say about getting hit by a bus, don't go hang out in Dallas, Texas.
- [43:11]
C
Yeah. I don't even know what's going on.
- [43:14]
A
I'm just saying people get hidden. I don't. There's. Nevermind. We could talk about that off air, joke around about it. All right. All right. Well, this was a really good interview or chit chat. We're at like 42 minutes. Is there anything that you want to say before we go ahead and close this out?
- [43:32]
C
Just that it's spring rush right now, so in a lot of markets, like now is the time to go in and do it. If you wait three or four months to start your business, you are going to be in a bad, bad, bad spot. Not necessarily a bad spot, but you're going to be at a pretty big disadvantage to people that start right now and they have that high demand. So I just say get started right now if you're thinking about doing it. And then the other thing is just, yeah, just be careful who you listen to out there. Probably don't join the poop scoop billionaire. I don't know how reputable those folks are, but maybe, maybe they're good. Maybe they'll teach you to make a billion dollars. But really be careful to the advice that you take out there and just get started. Those would be kind of the two things I would say.
- [44:10]
A
I like that. It's kind of like taking fitness advice from somebody that doesn't work out. It's like your fat uncle that's like, oh, this is what you gotta do. This is what I did back in the day. And you're like, dude, listen to me. Don't tell me, right?
- [44:25]
C
No, it's. I mean, there's some people that we literally have like gained more clients in like a week than some of these people have like net ever. So it's kind of funny.
- [44:35]
A
Yeah. Wait, speaking of you guys, how's Levi doing? I. I haven't talked to Levi in a little bit. How is he?
- [44:43]
C
He's still Good. Yeah, we just got through kind of our hiring boom. So we got all the teams set up. The systems are. Are rolling, so onboarding new clients. So he's. He's doing good. So he'll be free to start making some more content? Yeah, probably over the next couple weeks.
- [44:56]
A
Yeah. Well, if you. If I don't talk to him and you talk to him before I do, tell him I said, what's up.
- [45:02]
C
Okay. Yeah, sounds good. Well, we'll be on that Facebook training right after this.
- [45:06]
A
What time is it?
- [45:09]
C
My computer shut off.
- [45:11]
A
Oh, your computer shut off?
- [45:13]
C
I just blacked out. Okay, I'm back.
- [45:15]
A
He's back. What was I gonna say? So right now it's 5. 21 my time. What time is it? Your time?
- [45:22]
C
2:21.
- [45:23]
A
How much longer until the training?
- [45:26]
C
It is in 40 minutes.
- [45:28]
A
Oh, okay. I'll set an alarm. I'll make sure to hop in there.
- [45:31]
C
Yeah. And all the trainings are recorded, so if you're, like, not in the group now and you join, like, six months later, you can go back and watch all the trainings.
- [45:37]
A
Oh, very nice. Well, I appreciate your time, William.
- [45:41]
C
Yes.
- [45:41]
A
All right.
- [45:42]
C
Thank you.
- [45:42]
A
You're welcome. All right, you guys, I want to. I want to say I appreciate you tuning in. If you want to know more about the Poop Scoop millionaire, go ahead and click my link down below. That's where all the cool kids are hanging out. You got the heavy hitters in the industry, an awesome community. We get to swap stories back and forth, and there's also a lot of courses in there. So thank you guys so much. And until next time, bye.
- [46:05]
B
Thank you for hanging out with Erica Kruipen. She is so grateful and honored you decided to tune in to the Scoop podcast and hopes the information you heard today positively impacts you moving forward in business and life. Follow Erica on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at Croupin's Poopin Scoopin. And don't forget to follow the show in order to get notified when the next edition of the Scoop drops.
- [46:47]
C
Sam.