October 18, 2024 • 27 mins
Cameron Andrew Bawden, raised in Gilbert, Arizona is an ambitious entrepreneur and dedicated family man. At 36 years old, Cameron has already made substantial strides in the business world, having spent the last 14 years building Hype Pharm, a conglomerate consisting of Green Mango Pest Control, Coconut Carpet Cleaning, and Agave Autoglass.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition. I'm CEOs You Should Know Phoenix.
I'm your host, Jody Yaylor. Joined today by an incredibly
successful entrepreneur that build a company from scratch into one
of the largest in the state, the largest in the state.
Cameron Bowden joins us here on CEO's You Should Know Cameron. Welcome,
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Ye what's up man, You've had so.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Many titles, so many roles. I'm like, how should we
interro you? And we settled on entrepreneur Cameron.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I love it, man, this is the most legit studio
I've ever I've done a lot of podcasts, and I'm
so excited to come here to iHeart today because I'm like,
finally other legit podcast room.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
We try to do it right and we got a
lot of material to cover with you, because i mean,
let's start with here. Before you had this fourteen year
odyssey of building Green Mango, it's an incredible story that
I want to talk about some of the details. But
before we get to that story, just building businesses. When
did this light bulb come on for you? When did
you first demonstrate like this is something I've got to gift.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
For oh Man, Well, in twenty ten, I got home
from serving a mission for my church, and it was
probably one of the hardest times of my life because
it was the first time in life where I didn't
have a roadmap of what was next. You know, when
when you're growing up, it's like, hey, play basketball or
do some type of sport, you know, get your eagle scout.
I went into aviation. You know, I'm a helicopter pilot.
(01:18):
I have my fixed wing license as well. And like
it was and then it was like go on a mission,
and then when you get home, it was like you
had to start working because you got to make money.
But I didn't know where to go. I was a
C student at best, and I just I started getting
recruited by these other like pest control companies, and just
ultimately said, hey, I can do this a little bit better,
(01:40):
and so a business partner and I started in twenty
ten with one truck literally like spent our last couple
dollars on it and just started knocking doors. And over
the past fourteen years, as you said, like, we grew
it into one of the largest pest control companies in Arizona.
We have over one hundred vehicles and I didn't plan
it this way, but like literally just closed the funds
hit my count this morning, like three hours ago. Like
(02:02):
we're I know, so this is all like so real
and so crazy, but it's been like an amazing journey.
But what's crazy is about six years ago, to be honest,
like I wasn't making the money that I wanted to.
I finally hired managers and people in place that would
allow me to kind of step out and not have
to wear every single hat. And yeah, I said, well
(02:24):
maybe I can go build success in all these other
companies as well, and so we started five other five
or six other service companies. I honestly lose track within
an eighteen month timeframe, and it was the craziest time
of my life, you know, the hardest time of my life.
And you know, when I look back on it was like, man,
what was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So over the past few years, we've built some of
them up and sold them. Some of them were successful,
some of them weren't. I was laughing because one of
our companies was a security company, black Hat Security, and
we were going down the wall. Here For those of
you that are listening, like when you come to this,
come to this building.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Like you walk down a hallway and every you know
what ten feet there's like another podcast studio with a
different station, and one of the doors had a black
hat security sticker on it, and it like it brought
me a little bit of joy, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it was like, all right, this is cool.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So you let's go back to when you were a
kid for just a second. Were you a I I'm
gonna hustle the candy bar fundraiser for the you know,
the basketball team, where you setting up the lemonade was
there like an early indication that, like, I like figuring
this out.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I did run a lemonade stan and I made fifty
bucks one day and it changed my life. No, no, seriously, though,
but I remember that, I remember the lemonade stan making
fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
A lot of money for lemonade stand.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was legit.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, that was like two hundred dollars now. But I like,
I didn't I don't want to say like we grew
up poor, because it definitely wasn't that. But I grew
up with like parents that provided everything for me in
the way of like love and support. But I remember,
you know, asking for a baseball bag that was you know,
probably I think it was forty dollars and my mom
(03:59):
being like, hey, we just can't do it right now.
And I had to carry you know, my bat and
my h you know, my glove to practice and I
remember like kind of feeling embarrassed. But it wasn't like
I knew my my mom was a knell. I think
they're called esthetician or whatever, and you know she was.
She was seeing fifteen twenty clients a day at twenty
bucks a pop. And I just saw like the work
(04:20):
ethic that she had, my dad was hustling. My parents
got a divorce and my dad, you know, at thirty
six years old lost you know, I'm financially stable now
at thirty six, and my dad lost everything at thirty six.
And so I just I watched my parents like struggle
financially through relationships, and I think it like I'm a
very visual learner and I just saw, like, you know,
(04:42):
I'm getting a little choked up over it, Like I
just saw I didn't want that for me. And what's
cool about you know, I feel like my story is
like there's really nothing special about me except for hard
work ethic and staying consistency, staying consistent and what I do,
and like that's why I've had success.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Like that's it. And so when I'm talking to these people.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That are much, you know, smarter than I am, it's like, hey,
like all you have to do is be consistent. The
compound effect is real. Doing something you know every single
day for fifteen to thirty minutes makes a difference.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So you mentioned that when your dad was thirty six
and he had some adversity professionally. Was that kind of
the why the entire time? Where it was that a
motivator as you're building these companies, as you're experiencing failure.
You mentioned you you didn't want to sort of live
maybe under the same environment that you grew up in,
(05:34):
even though it was a loving, healthy, Was that kind
of the drive behind everything? Initially?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It wasn't like I think subconsciously it was you know,
it wasn't It wasn't like, oh, like I gotta go
do this because of that. It was just like, I,
you know, like my sisters. I loved my sisters, but
they were partiers like you know, and they fought with
my parents like crazy, and so I was like, I'm
not like, why do I want to do that, and
so I never you know, I never really partied in
h school because I didn't want to have that contention
(06:02):
with my parents and you know, not have that trust
that it gave my sisters. And so like that's what
I mean by being a visual learning and in business,
all I did was copy other people, Like I would
take what this guy was doing and try and do
it a little bit better. And I'd take what they
were doing and do it, you know. And so it's
like I'm just a very like hands on visual learner
that way.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Were you? I'm just curious my backgrounds in sports. I
host a sports radio show, and so I hear a
lot of these themes and I'm like, well, that's what
the NFL is. Somebody takes an idea and they just
make it better. Nobody has an original idea. Everyone just
makes an idea better. Or if they have an original idea,
somebody's going to copy. It's a copycat league. Were you?
Was there a sports background to you and your family?
(06:42):
Is that? Were there any like lessons you learned?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I played basketball in high school, but yeah, like my
dad or you know, no one played like that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Because if also the other thing that triggered It was
like when you talked about hiring managers. There's such lessons
across sports where if you try to be the general manager,
the head coach and the offensive coordinator, you're probably not
gonna succeed. But if you hire the right general manager
and they hired the right head coach and the right coordinator,
then everybody wins, right delegation, How important is that? Was that?
(07:10):
Or is that to building successful business? Man?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's literally the most important thing. And it's I was talking,
you know, because I do some consulting now for businesses.
It's it's kind of like where I'll probably focus a
lot of my efforts now just because I enjoy it
so much. I was talking this morning. I was doing
a call with someone and I was talking about the
importance of having systems and policies in place, and then
(07:33):
like that that's half the battle, and then you need
that person like you're talking about that department manager that
holds the line for you. So our culture was horrible
six years ago, like it really was.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It was embarrassing, And what.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Do you mean by that? What was what? People not
showing up to work, people not taking it serious.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Our turn rate was just you know, like we'd hire
one person and lose two people. And like I was
always recruiting, and we just like our brand was cool,
our service was cool, but like we just couldn't retain people.
I didn't I didn't understand it, and you know, and
so as I act like there's a story that we
can tell or get into, but essentially, like I just
made a conscious effort, like I want to have the
(08:09):
best culture in the whole world. And that's when I
started hiring you know, great people, great managers, great German
managers like you're talking about, to be over each department.
We got the soda machines, we got the basketball hoop,
we got the massage chairs of the PlayStation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Like we made it an environment.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And that was one of the hardest things the other
day when I got up and stood in front of
you know, my whole company. They wanted the front or
the private equity that acquired us, wanted everyone in the company,
over one hundred and fifty employees, all in the same room.
I've never had that in probably ten or eleven years,
you know. And one of the things before I got
up to talk is I had my HR manager get
(08:47):
up there and right, like read off the reviews from
the past month, talk about the holiday or the anniversaries
and the birthdays that were coming up in October, and
the energy in that room, man, when people were cheering
for people's birthdays or anniversaries or reviews, Like I was like,
(09:07):
I did it, you know, like this, I actually had
to leave because I was like, everyone just thinks it's
a normal meeting talking about the next quarter, and I'm
about to tell my you know, I merge with another company.
Oh and so like I'm sitting here listening to this
room like erupt with cheer, enchanter and culture. And it's
(09:28):
like it's because I had great managers hold the line
and and when like people respect you know, sports analogy
like the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick way, like it's
the Patriot way, Like I talked about that all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It's the green Mango way.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
When you come here, like you have a clean truck,
you wear a clean hat to the door. You can
have a spray hat, and you can have a front
door hat. You know, you you do things right. You
do triblock technology, which is the way in which we
service our homes, you know, and it's it's just different.
And and when you have managers that hold the line
and respect, when an employee comes in and they're not
quite to that level, they either show up or they go,
(10:05):
and that's okay. But now you have this group of
people that now understand that. They're like, there's a way,
and I almost don't fit in if I don't adhere
to it. And when I was sitting in that room,
it was like, dude, I have one hundred and fifty
people that bought into leveling up in their life themselves
and saw the vision that I had and now they're
living it, and it was just like it was something special, man.
(10:29):
But to your point of the people like I didn't
even three years ago when we were doing all the
soda machines and basketball hoops and all that stuff, like
I didn't have someone that held the line on every
single thing, so things would slip. And then I hired
a couple of different people that were just like, hey,
take it or leave it. We love you, but this
is how it's going to be, and it's just made
us a better company.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So let's start from the beginning. We're going to skip
through a lot of stuff because over fourteen years, I
imagine we could be here for a couple hours mining
you for content and lessons and advice when you start
and you're just beginning to build something, and you're young,
and you're ambitious and you're hungry. But you know, correct
me if I'm wrong here, I would assume in that
(11:10):
scenario you also don't know a whole lot that you're
about to find. You don't know what you don't know, right,
and there's a lot that you don't know when you're
just starting something fresh. How how do you stay afloat?
How do you stay in a position where you can
eventually fix those mistakes before you figured out delegation, before
you figured out like here's how I elevate it? How
(11:32):
did you keep your head above water at that time?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Oh? Man, I think it's just leaning on your people,
Like luckily you know lest my wife is in the
studio with this right now. Like it's having a support system,
and that could be through friends, that could be through
a spouse or your managers. But you like you have
no choice but to lean on them. If you try
and take it on by yourself, like you will fail.
(11:57):
And if you don't have a good spouse, like you
will get a almost all my I've had, you know,
over seven business partners. I think six of them have
gotten a divorce. And I'm not saying it's because of business,
but it certainly did not help. And you know, it's
just it's dude, Entrepreneurship is hard. That's one of the
reasons why I decided to finally, you know, however you
want to word it, takes some chips off the table, merge.
(12:18):
I still rolled a lot of money with the next
company because I care and I believe in them, but
it's like I wanted to take the pressure, like I
was done feeling that pressure of fourteen years. You know,
like if you know, we've we've been in tons of accidents.
You know, there's so much liability out there. When payroll,
you know, when you don't have enough money for payroll,
who who's who? You know, who's gonna put that money up? Well,
(12:39):
it's you. You're going into your savings account and it's like, hey, sorry,
you know, we're not doing this trip or we're not
buying this because we had to fund payroll this week.
And so there's just that pressure. But when you have
you know, a good spouse or a good business managers
or business partners that you can lean on and talk through,
like that's how I made it through.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Do you think No, everything that you know now over
those fourteen years, all the knowledge and expertise and acquired
and all the real life lessons that you learn, do
you think if you would have known all that when
you started, that you would have started it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, there's no chance, Like you just can't, you know
what I mean? Like, Yeah, the heartache, the pressure, the
sleepless nights, Like I don't know anyone that would.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Sign up for that. Yeah, it's just including myself. I
definitely wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Because I feel like in we live in an era now,
this didn't exist when you were starting out, but we are.
We're in a social media We're in an instant gratification,
We're in a thirty second videos, and there's there's a
glamoured entrepreneurialship that kind of exists now in the world
where it's like, which is admirable, right, everyone if they've
if they've got the gumption and the idea, I'm wholly
supportive of anyone trying, right, But yeah, it's it's hard.
(13:48):
It's really hard. And I feel like on this show,
one of the things I try to do is give
people a realistic idea of like what you might be
in for or if you're in for it, what you
might be able to accomplish. So, if you were speaking
to a room now, if it's one hundred and fifty
high schoolers, college students, you know, early twenties, like I
(14:08):
want to start my own business, what's what's the number
one sort of lesson beyond it's going to be really
hard and you got to have a good support group.
What are other things you would communicate that you think
it would be helpful to know.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Well, ninety six percent of your results come from four
percent of your behaviors. And so if you can learn
how to be disciplined in your life and that compound effect.
And I'm talking fifteen to thirty minutes a day, you know,
I talk, you know, with my little boy Banks. I'm
trying to get him to commit to twenty five shots
(14:43):
a day and two hundred dribbles.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And it's like that takes five minutes, Like it really does.
That's not long.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But imagine if he did that every single day until
he was a freshman or a sophomore in high school, Like,
how much better would he be than most kids. And
that's the same thing in business. And so what I
would tell of entrepreneurs is that like, hey, like it's
going to be hard. There's a reason why almost you
don't know very many people that have achieved success by
owning their own business. Yeah, they might have a little
(15:10):
financial freedom, but they're making you know, one hundred grand
a year, and that's that's great. I'm not, you know,
bagging on that by any means, but you don't meet
very many entrepreneurs that are making a million, two three,
four million dollars a year that own their own business
because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Like it just simply is.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It's less than one percent of companies make it over
ten million dollars in revenue and they.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Are actually profitable. So here's the key.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Though, everyone spends an hour and a half on Instagram
a day, So what are you doing and for an
hour and a half or for thirty minutes a day,
that's different than everyone else. And so the recipe for
success in business isn't crazy. It's just doing the little
things every single day. And that's that's what I mean
when I say, like I'm a C student, I have
a good work ethic and I stay disciplined. That's every
(15:52):
single day I'd show up, I'd stay consistent with my meetings.
We did things different at the homes that were little.
You know, we have a front door script for our
technicians that they say the exact same thing every single time.
We have a way that we hand the customer the referral.
We don't just throw it out. It's like, you know,
that's exaggerating, but like, we have a script for it. Well,
guess what we've generated over twenty five thousand customer referrals
(16:13):
in the past, you know, fourteen years. You know, the
Phoenix Suns Arena holds seventeen thousand people, Like we filled
the Phoenix Suns Arena and some with people that were like, hey,
I love Green Mango, you should use them too. I
don't know if any other company that has that stat
It's just it's special and it's doing the little things
every single day that's different.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So another concept that you brought up that I feel
like is a reoccurring theme for a lot of businesses,
a lot of people who are business minded and again
kind of tapping into a little bit of a sports
backgroun as culture and I think people assume that if
you're successful, you have good culture. But you can sometimes
succeed with without a clear culture. Right if you just
(16:54):
have overwhelming talent, like if you just have people who
are just better at certain things than other people, you
can win and not have great culture. How important is
And you kind of unlocked the key and it's giving
me goosebumps. Earlier when you were talking about people cheering
for other people's birthdays and anniversaries, like these are relative
strangers to each other. I mean, they've come together as
(17:15):
a work family, but they're not blood relatives. You know,
what what is culture to you? And how does it
what part of the puzzle is it into a successful business?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That might have been I mean I could have taken
offense to it, but it was one of the greatest
blessings my coworkers could have given to me. When I
told them they're happy for me, they were excited, you know,
and they're like, I totally get it. You know, we
would have done it three years ago, and like that
was the ultimate compliment because like they cared about me.
They knew that I've given them so much. I've provided
(17:49):
an amazing you know, opportunity for them and like when
they came to work, it wasn't work, Like that was
our home.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We were buddies.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
And so what culture is for me is that it
makes it so it's not work. And so, yeah, you
might be able to hire the top talent, but if
you're a jerk, like no one wants to work for
you and it's not enjoyable, like that's probably going to
be the thing that I missed the most about working,
you know, or being the CEO at Green Mango is
like I love going to the office and walking into
(18:17):
the bullpen where the customer service reps are or the
routers are and just like talking to them and having
fun with them like that, it's not work for me
at all.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Do you think it's important as the CEO to spend
time with everybody in the organization.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, I mean for sure I didn't get to see
the technicians as much because they were out during the routes,
But yeah, I mean as much as I can spend
time with them, I think it's very important.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The battle that you have is like it's a very
hard line that most people don't understand, is like you
want to be friends enough to where they care, but
you can't connect with them too much because then they
expect constant communication with you, and then it's like, hey,
like I don't feel appreciated because Camraon's not appreciating me.
And so that was one of the hardest lines that
I had to figure out, and I probably didn't do
(19:05):
it perfectly, but yeah, like it's this, it's this weird line,
like you want to be their friend, but you can't
get too close because then they expect it from you.
And so one of the things that I loved, and
I got it from my buddy Tommy Mellow, who owns
a one garage doors, is for their birthdays and anniversaries,
he would send them a selfie video and just wish
him like, hey, happy birthday, happy anniversary.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Personal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's personal, and you wouldn't believe how much that meant
to people. And it took me, you know, again, fifteen
minutes a day to go. I'd get an automated text
of everyone's birthday or anniversary that day, and I would
just carve out fifteen minutes a day, you know, when
I got really good and there's two minutes I would
do it. I would do it at the first of
the month, so i'd have like you know whatever, fifty
(19:47):
people and it'd list off all fifty and so I'd
take two hours at the beginning of the month record
all the videos for everyone, and then you know, as
the day came, I would send them out to them individually.
And so that's how you scale that. But and that's
the thing everything do, every system you put in, like
do it to scale, right, But those videos and those
anniversaries like meant so much to people.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's like the modern version of the handwritten thank you note.
Like I mean, there'll still work, like if you write
a handwritten thank you note to so much those.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Mean the most.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
But yeah, that's not in my opinion, like that's almost
not scalebled, you know, right right, here's the thing. And
I think people like see what's funny is like, you know,
because I don't get I don't know everyone. Unfortunately there's
a lot of people because I do it for Coconut
to my carpet cleaning business. But I think it was
either one or the other. But like I send them
the video and then like ten minutes later, I came
(20:35):
into the office and I didn't know it was him
or something. You know, I'm like, what's up in like
how you doing and didn't wish him a happy birtha
because I don't know, but he's like so like, sometimes
it can come across like bad, but most of the
time I gets received well.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So the other interesting thing about culture for me is
that it it obviously also lives in breezon evolves. Right.
You can have a core culture where you're talking about
just professionalism, work ethic and accountability, but the the needs
or the preferences of an organization can change based on
the generation of people they're hiring, based on the climate
(21:09):
of the culture around your work environment. How important is
it to just be adaptable and being flexible where you
can be without compromising your culture.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well, you know, when you first started asking that question,
I thought, like, one person can ruin your culture. And
that's the thing that people need to understand, like as
an owner, as a if you're a manager listening, if
there's like something going on in your department, you're like,
it's okay, it's like that one sour apple is going
to ruin it for everybody, and so you need to
(21:40):
like and that's what I mean by holding the line,
Like my culture was good, we had things in place,
but it got exponentially better over the past two or
three years because I finally had people like as soon
as they saw that that misbehavior whatever, it might be,
like they're pulling them into their office if it warranted
writing them up, and then you know, if they did
it again, it is like, hey, we got to get
(22:01):
you out of here because we just one person will.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Ruin it acts re question.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
But I just wanted to make sure like we talked
about that, because I see too often, you know, entrepreneurs
are out there and like it's hard to find good people, right,
and it's hard to hire it, and it costs a
lot of money to hire, and so a lot of
entrepreneurs deal with things from employees for a lot longer
than they should. And they think it's because they're trying
to save money, but it's actually costing them a lot
(22:26):
more money by not getting rid of them. So this
might come across as like I'm a ruthless guy that
fires quickly, not at all, Like we were kind of
like a three strike policy kind of company. And if
they're still doing something wrong after three strikes, it's like
they don't want to be here, and you shouldn't want
them there, you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Know, no no doubt about it. And that's one of
those old axioms that's just always been true, right, like
one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. And yeah, you've
lived it and breathed it, so you know exactly what
that means as we kind of you. So your journey
from starting Green Mango, growing it fourteen years, blood sweat,
in tears, it's it's a family endeavor. Your your dad
(23:03):
is a part of that journey. Your wife, your kids
have literally grown up with with dad is Green Mango.
And now you're you're taking on a new role. You
you you're exiting as CEO. You're staying on as a consultant,
but your life is changing. What you mentioned consulting. But
(23:24):
what what do you think the next step is to
satisfy your sort of I would imagine the entrepreneurial itch
never ever quite goes away. You still have coconut cleanings.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
That's that's one thing. What's next?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, what do you think? What do you see for
yourself and and your your business development in the next
few years.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I really want to like spend time with my kids.
We were talking a little bit before, like my my
little boys eleven, my little girls, eight, So I want
to be with them for the next five or six years,
you know, more than I have been, and not be
like so attached to the phone and you know, feel
like it's going to ring any moment and all that stuff.
And I've tried to balance it and I feel like
I've done a pretty good job the past few years.
(24:04):
But like, definitely want to spend more time with the kids.
I don't have any interest in starting new companies just because,
like you said, like now I know what it's like
to start them, and I'm like, ah, like it's dude,
it's hard, man and it and it's a lot of work.
But Cocona I love. I think I want to spend
more time probably you know, at the beginning of next year,
like really start to crank that out. We have we
(24:25):
franchised it. I think it's been a year and a
half now. We have four franchises out and it's going great,
Like and I you know, I think I could see
myself really jumping in and you know, making that as
successful as Green Angle, if not bigger. I think it
has that potential.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
What's the for our listeners, what's the poll of cocin Like,
what's the what's the thing that catches people? What's you know,
what do you do with that company that that people
on a franchise or or take a part of their services.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, so what's cool about Coconut. It's a carpet cleaning company.
I don't know if we've talked about that carpetentile, but
the business model is so awesome because we're the only
company that I know of. There's a lot of companies
I've tried to duplicate this as they heard that we
did it, but it's the only carpet clean business where
we have a true subscription model because I came from
pest control. Like it's you get this peace of mind
(25:11):
when you know you have reoccurring revenue coming in when
you know the model in carpet cleaning is like you
see a customer once every year and a half. That's
just not that many times, and so like, hey, so
we created this model that makes sense to where we
see a customer four times a year, and it's just
been absolutely phenomenal. So people love, you know, the franchises
(25:31):
have loved the aspect that like we've you know, kind
of baked out this reoccurring model. Our brand is absolutely phenomenal.
We because I had so much experience with systems and processes,
Like the operation side of of the business is like
very easily ran, or at least the processes are there,
and so it kind of checks all the boxes where
a lot of entrepreneurs fail. It has all the manuals,
(25:53):
the handbooks, just like all the little things that are
just annoying to do. Like it's it's kind of like
increases success, you know, by you know, let me tell
you this step. So Coconut, it took us three years
to hit a million dollars in revenue. Our first franchise
he hit it hit a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
The first year. Wow, because we were able to give
them like the platform to go. You know.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Obviously, you know, the downside is that you have to
pay to have a franchise and you have to pay
you know, the royalties to us. But it's like we
increase your chances of success like tremendously. And the things
that we gave him, like our influencer program. You know,
the influencer program is huge for carpet cleaning because it's
very satisfying. We talked about content. We're in this stage,
this day and age of content. Right, So when like
(26:37):
we show this nasty black you know car couch or carpet,
whatever it might be. And then we have this wand
where just like we call it pulls a stripe and
it's fresh and clean. Like that's very satisfying, enjoying to watch,
you know, it really is. And so we have this
influencer program where it's almost like a keeping up with
the Jones as you get all these you know, influencers
that have all these followings and even you know, one
(26:57):
hundred or a thousand followers is is like their own
little influence of community and they post about it. It's
like they want they want to be a part of it.
And so you know, we give this program that we've
created to these franchises, and like it's pretty much a
free program. Yeah, you have to take care of the influencer,
but like it's an amazing way to get up and
generate a ton of revenue for not much money. Right,
(27:20):
And so, I don't know, it's been it's been fun
to watch.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Well, it's congratulations to you and your family for all
the success, all the hard work and all the payoff.
Certainly a ton of great information and helpful advice for
people listening to CEOs. You should know, Cameron, thanks for
being a part of CEOs. You should know Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Appreciate that man.
Welcome to another edition. I'm CEOs You Should Know Phoenix.
I'm your host, Jody Yaylor. Joined today by an incredibly
successful entrepreneur that build a company from scratch into one
of the largest in the state, the largest in the state.
Cameron Bowden joins us here on CEO's You Should Know Cameron. Welcome,
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Ye what's up man, You've had so.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Many titles, so many roles. I'm like, how should we
interro you? And we settled on entrepreneur Cameron.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I love it, man, this is the most legit studio
I've ever I've done a lot of podcasts, and I'm
so excited to come here to iHeart today because I'm like,
finally other legit podcast room.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
We try to do it right and we got a
lot of material to cover with you, because i mean,
let's start with here. Before you had this fourteen year
odyssey of building Green Mango, it's an incredible story that
I want to talk about some of the details. But
before we get to that story, just building businesses. When
did this light bulb come on for you? When did
you first demonstrate like this is something I've got to gift.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
For oh Man, Well, in twenty ten, I got home
from serving a mission for my church, and it was
probably one of the hardest times of my life because
it was the first time in life where I didn't
have a roadmap of what was next. You know, when
when you're growing up, it's like, hey, play basketball or
do some type of sport, you know, get your eagle scout.
I went into aviation. You know, I'm a helicopter pilot.
(01:18):
I have my fixed wing license as well. And like
it was and then it was like go on a mission,
and then when you get home, it was like you
had to start working because you got to make money.
But I didn't know where to go. I was a
C student at best, and I just I started getting
recruited by these other like pest control companies, and just
ultimately said, hey, I can do this a little bit better,
(01:40):
and so a business partner and I started in twenty
ten with one truck literally like spent our last couple
dollars on it and just started knocking doors. And over
the past fourteen years, as you said, like, we grew
it into one of the largest pest control companies in Arizona.
We have over one hundred vehicles and I didn't plan
it this way, but like literally just closed the funds
hit my count this morning, like three hours ago. Like
(02:02):
we're I know, so this is all like so real
and so crazy, but it's been like an amazing journey.
But what's crazy is about six years ago, to be honest,
like I wasn't making the money that I wanted to.
I finally hired managers and people in place that would
allow me to kind of step out and not have
to wear every single hat. And yeah, I said, well
(02:24):
maybe I can go build success in all these other
companies as well, and so we started five other five
or six other service companies. I honestly lose track within
an eighteen month timeframe, and it was the craziest time
of my life, you know, the hardest time of my life.
And you know, when I look back on it was like, man,
what was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So over the past few years, we've built some of
them up and sold them. Some of them were successful,
some of them weren't. I was laughing because one of
our companies was a security company, black Hat Security, and
we were going down the wall. Here For those of
you that are listening, like when you come to this,
come to this building.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Like you walk down a hallway and every you know
what ten feet there's like another podcast studio with a
different station, and one of the doors had a black
hat security sticker on it, and it like it brought
me a little bit of joy, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it was like, all right, this is cool.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So you let's go back to when you were a
kid for just a second. Were you a I I'm
gonna hustle the candy bar fundraiser for the you know,
the basketball team, where you setting up the lemonade was
there like an early indication that, like, I like figuring
this out.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I did run a lemonade stan and I made fifty
bucks one day and it changed my life. No, no, seriously, though,
but I remember that, I remember the lemonade stan making
fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
A lot of money for lemonade stand.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was legit.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, that was like two hundred dollars now. But I like,
I didn't I don't want to say like we grew
up poor, because it definitely wasn't that. But I grew
up with like parents that provided everything for me in
the way of like love and support. But I remember,
you know, asking for a baseball bag that was you know,
probably I think it was forty dollars and my mom
(03:59):
being like, hey, we just can't do it right now.
And I had to carry you know, my bat and
my h you know, my glove to practice and I
remember like kind of feeling embarrassed. But it wasn't like
I knew my my mom was a knell. I think
they're called esthetician or whatever, and you know she was.
She was seeing fifteen twenty clients a day at twenty
bucks a pop. And I just saw like the work
(04:20):
ethic that she had, my dad was hustling. My parents
got a divorce and my dad, you know, at thirty
six years old lost you know, I'm financially stable now
at thirty six, and my dad lost everything at thirty six.
And so I just I watched my parents like struggle
financially through relationships, and I think it like I'm a
very visual learner and I just saw, like, you know,
(04:42):
I'm getting a little choked up over it, Like I
just saw I didn't want that for me. And what's
cool about you know, I feel like my story is
like there's really nothing special about me except for hard
work ethic and staying consistency, staying consistent and what I do,
and like that's why I've had success.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Like that's it. And so when I'm talking to these people.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That are much, you know, smarter than I am, it's like, hey,
like all you have to do is be consistent. The
compound effect is real. Doing something you know every single
day for fifteen to thirty minutes makes a difference.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So you mentioned that when your dad was thirty six
and he had some adversity professionally. Was that kind of
the why the entire time? Where it was that a
motivator as you're building these companies, as you're experiencing failure.
You mentioned you you didn't want to sort of live
maybe under the same environment that you grew up in,
(05:34):
even though it was a loving, healthy, Was that kind
of the drive behind everything? Initially?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It wasn't like I think subconsciously it was you know,
it wasn't It wasn't like, oh, like I gotta go
do this because of that. It was just like, I,
you know, like my sisters. I loved my sisters, but
they were partiers like you know, and they fought with
my parents like crazy, and so I was like, I'm
not like, why do I want to do that, and
so I never you know, I never really partied in
h school because I didn't want to have that contention
(06:02):
with my parents and you know, not have that trust
that it gave my sisters. And so like that's what
I mean by being a visual learning and in business,
all I did was copy other people, Like I would
take what this guy was doing and try and do
it a little bit better. And I'd take what they
were doing and do it, you know. And so it's
like I'm just a very like hands on visual learner
that way.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Were you? I'm just curious my backgrounds in sports. I
host a sports radio show, and so I hear a
lot of these themes and I'm like, well, that's what
the NFL is. Somebody takes an idea and they just
make it better. Nobody has an original idea. Everyone just
makes an idea better. Or if they have an original idea,
somebody's going to copy. It's a copycat league. Were you?
Was there a sports background to you and your family?
(06:42):
Is that? Were there any like lessons you learned?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I played basketball in high school, but yeah, like my
dad or you know, no one played like that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Because if also the other thing that triggered It was
like when you talked about hiring managers. There's such lessons
across sports where if you try to be the general manager,
the head coach and the offensive coordinator, you're probably not
gonna succeed. But if you hire the right general manager
and they hired the right head coach and the right coordinator,
then everybody wins, right delegation, How important is that? Was that?
(07:10):
Or is that to building successful business? Man?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's literally the most important thing. And it's I was talking,
you know, because I do some consulting now for businesses.
It's it's kind of like where I'll probably focus a
lot of my efforts now just because I enjoy it
so much. I was talking this morning. I was doing
a call with someone and I was talking about the
importance of having systems and policies in place, and then
(07:33):
like that that's half the battle, and then you need
that person like you're talking about that department manager that
holds the line for you. So our culture was horrible
six years ago, like it really was.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It was embarrassing, And what.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Do you mean by that? What was what? People not
showing up to work, people not taking it serious.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Our turn rate was just you know, like we'd hire
one person and lose two people. And like I was
always recruiting, and we just like our brand was cool,
our service was cool, but like we just couldn't retain people.
I didn't I didn't understand it, and you know, and
so as I act like there's a story that we
can tell or get into, but essentially, like I just
made a conscious effort, like I want to have the
(08:09):
best culture in the whole world. And that's when I
started hiring you know, great people, great managers, great German
managers like you're talking about, to be over each department.
We got the soda machines, we got the basketball hoop,
we got the massage chairs of the PlayStation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Like we made it an environment.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And that was one of the hardest things the other
day when I got up and stood in front of
you know, my whole company. They wanted the front or
the private equity that acquired us, wanted everyone in the company,
over one hundred and fifty employees, all in the same room.
I've never had that in probably ten or eleven years,
you know. And one of the things before I got
up to talk is I had my HR manager get
(08:47):
up there and right, like read off the reviews from
the past month, talk about the holiday or the anniversaries
and the birthdays that were coming up in October, and
the energy in that room, man, when people were cheering
for people's birthdays or anniversaries or reviews, Like I was like,
(09:07):
I did it, you know, like this, I actually had
to leave because I was like, everyone just thinks it's
a normal meeting talking about the next quarter, and I'm
about to tell my you know, I merge with another company.
Oh and so like I'm sitting here listening to this
room like erupt with cheer, enchanter and culture. And it's
(09:28):
like it's because I had great managers hold the line
and and when like people respect you know, sports analogy
like the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick way, like it's
the Patriot way, Like I talked about that all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It's the green Mango way.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
When you come here, like you have a clean truck,
you wear a clean hat to the door. You can
have a spray hat, and you can have a front
door hat. You know, you you do things right. You
do triblock technology, which is the way in which we
service our homes, you know, and it's it's just different.
And and when you have managers that hold the line
and respect, when an employee comes in and they're not
quite to that level, they either show up or they go,
(10:05):
and that's okay. But now you have this group of
people that now understand that. They're like, there's a way,
and I almost don't fit in if I don't adhere
to it. And when I was sitting in that room,
it was like, dude, I have one hundred and fifty
people that bought into leveling up in their life themselves
and saw the vision that I had and now they're
living it, and it was just like it was something special, man.
(10:29):
But to your point of the people like I didn't
even three years ago when we were doing all the
soda machines and basketball hoops and all that stuff, like
I didn't have someone that held the line on every
single thing, so things would slip. And then I hired
a couple of different people that were just like, hey,
take it or leave it. We love you, but this
is how it's going to be, and it's just made
us a better company.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So let's start from the beginning. We're going to skip
through a lot of stuff because over fourteen years, I
imagine we could be here for a couple hours mining
you for content and lessons and advice when you start
and you're just beginning to build something, and you're young,
and you're ambitious and you're hungry. But you know, correct
me if I'm wrong here, I would assume in that
(11:10):
scenario you also don't know a whole lot that you're
about to find. You don't know what you don't know, right,
and there's a lot that you don't know when you're
just starting something fresh. How how do you stay afloat?
How do you stay in a position where you can
eventually fix those mistakes before you figured out delegation, before
you figured out like here's how I elevate it? How
(11:32):
did you keep your head above water at that time?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Oh? Man, I think it's just leaning on your people,
Like luckily you know lest my wife is in the
studio with this right now. Like it's having a support system,
and that could be through friends, that could be through
a spouse or your managers. But you like you have
no choice but to lean on them. If you try
and take it on by yourself, like you will fail.
(11:57):
And if you don't have a good spouse, like you
will get a almost all my I've had, you know,
over seven business partners. I think six of them have
gotten a divorce. And I'm not saying it's because of business,
but it certainly did not help. And you know, it's
just it's dude, Entrepreneurship is hard. That's one of the
reasons why I decided to finally, you know, however you
want to word it, takes some chips off the table, merge.
(12:18):
I still rolled a lot of money with the next
company because I care and I believe in them, but
it's like I wanted to take the pressure, like I
was done feeling that pressure of fourteen years. You know,
like if you know, we've we've been in tons of accidents.
You know, there's so much liability out there. When payroll,
you know, when you don't have enough money for payroll,
who who's who? You know, who's gonna put that money up? Well,
(12:39):
it's you. You're going into your savings account and it's like, hey, sorry,
you know, we're not doing this trip or we're not
buying this because we had to fund payroll this week.
And so there's just that pressure. But when you have
you know, a good spouse or a good business managers
or business partners that you can lean on and talk through,
like that's how I made it through.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Do you think No, everything that you know now over
those fourteen years, all the knowledge and expertise and acquired
and all the real life lessons that you learn, do
you think if you would have known all that when
you started, that you would have started it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, there's no chance, Like you just can't, you know
what I mean? Like, Yeah, the heartache, the pressure, the
sleepless nights, Like I don't know anyone that would.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Sign up for that. Yeah, it's just including myself. I
definitely wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Because I feel like in we live in an era now,
this didn't exist when you were starting out, but we are.
We're in a social media We're in an instant gratification,
We're in a thirty second videos, and there's there's a
glamoured entrepreneurialship that kind of exists now in the world
where it's like, which is admirable, right, everyone if they've
if they've got the gumption and the idea, I'm wholly
supportive of anyone trying, right, But yeah, it's it's hard.
(13:48):
It's really hard. And I feel like on this show,
one of the things I try to do is give
people a realistic idea of like what you might be
in for or if you're in for it, what you
might be able to accomplish. So, if you were speaking
to a room now, if it's one hundred and fifty
high schoolers, college students, you know, early twenties, like I
(14:08):
want to start my own business, what's what's the number
one sort of lesson beyond it's going to be really
hard and you got to have a good support group.
What are other things you would communicate that you think
it would be helpful to know.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Well, ninety six percent of your results come from four
percent of your behaviors. And so if you can learn
how to be disciplined in your life and that compound effect.
And I'm talking fifteen to thirty minutes a day, you know,
I talk, you know, with my little boy Banks. I'm
trying to get him to commit to twenty five shots
(14:43):
a day and two hundred dribbles.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And it's like that takes five minutes, Like it really does.
That's not long.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But imagine if he did that every single day until
he was a freshman or a sophomore in high school, Like,
how much better would he be than most kids. And
that's the same thing in business. And so what I
would tell of entrepreneurs is that like, hey, like it's
going to be hard. There's a reason why almost you
don't know very many people that have achieved success by
owning their own business. Yeah, they might have a little
(15:10):
financial freedom, but they're making you know, one hundred grand
a year, and that's that's great. I'm not, you know,
bagging on that by any means, but you don't meet
very many entrepreneurs that are making a million, two three,
four million dollars a year that own their own business
because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Like it just simply is.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It's less than one percent of companies make it over
ten million dollars in revenue and they.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Are actually profitable. So here's the key.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Though, everyone spends an hour and a half on Instagram
a day, So what are you doing and for an
hour and a half or for thirty minutes a day,
that's different than everyone else. And so the recipe for
success in business isn't crazy. It's just doing the little
things every single day. And that's that's what I mean
when I say, like I'm a C student, I have
a good work ethic and I stay disciplined. That's every
(15:52):
single day I'd show up, I'd stay consistent with my meetings.
We did things different at the homes that were little.
You know, we have a front door script for our
technicians that they say the exact same thing every single time.
We have a way that we hand the customer the referral.
We don't just throw it out. It's like, you know,
that's exaggerating, but like, we have a script for it. Well,
guess what we've generated over twenty five thousand customer referrals
(16:13):
in the past, you know, fourteen years. You know, the
Phoenix Suns Arena holds seventeen thousand people, Like we filled
the Phoenix Suns Arena and some with people that were like, hey,
I love Green Mango, you should use them too. I
don't know if any other company that has that stat
It's just it's special and it's doing the little things
every single day that's different.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So another concept that you brought up that I feel
like is a reoccurring theme for a lot of businesses,
a lot of people who are business minded and again
kind of tapping into a little bit of a sports
backgroun as culture and I think people assume that if
you're successful, you have good culture. But you can sometimes
succeed with without a clear culture. Right if you just
(16:54):
have overwhelming talent, like if you just have people who
are just better at certain things than other people, you
can win and not have great culture. How important is
And you kind of unlocked the key and it's giving
me goosebumps. Earlier when you were talking about people cheering
for other people's birthdays and anniversaries, like these are relative
strangers to each other. I mean, they've come together as
(17:15):
a work family, but they're not blood relatives. You know,
what what is culture to you? And how does it
what part of the puzzle is it into a successful business?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That might have been I mean I could have taken
offense to it, but it was one of the greatest
blessings my coworkers could have given to me. When I
told them they're happy for me, they were excited, you know,
and they're like, I totally get it. You know, we
would have done it three years ago, and like that
was the ultimate compliment because like they cared about me.
They knew that I've given them so much. I've provided
(17:49):
an amazing you know, opportunity for them and like when
they came to work, it wasn't work, Like that was
our home.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We were buddies.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
And so what culture is for me is that it
makes it so it's not work. And so, yeah, you
might be able to hire the top talent, but if
you're a jerk, like no one wants to work for
you and it's not enjoyable, like that's probably going to
be the thing that I missed the most about working,
you know, or being the CEO at Green Mango is
like I love going to the office and walking into
(18:17):
the bullpen where the customer service reps are or the
routers are and just like talking to them and having
fun with them like that, it's not work for me
at all.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Do you think it's important as the CEO to spend
time with everybody in the organization.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, I mean for sure I didn't get to see
the technicians as much because they were out during the routes,
But yeah, I mean as much as I can spend
time with them, I think it's very important.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The battle that you have is like it's a very
hard line that most people don't understand, is like you
want to be friends enough to where they care, but
you can't connect with them too much because then they
expect constant communication with you, and then it's like, hey,
like I don't feel appreciated because Camraon's not appreciating me.
And so that was one of the hardest lines that
I had to figure out, and I probably didn't do
(19:05):
it perfectly, but yeah, like it's this, it's this weird line,
like you want to be their friend, but you can't
get too close because then they expect it from you.
And so one of the things that I loved, and
I got it from my buddy Tommy Mellow, who owns
a one garage doors, is for their birthdays and anniversaries,
he would send them a selfie video and just wish
him like, hey, happy birthday, happy anniversary.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Personal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's personal, and you wouldn't believe how much that meant
to people. And it took me, you know, again, fifteen
minutes a day to go. I'd get an automated text
of everyone's birthday or anniversary that day, and I would
just carve out fifteen minutes a day, you know, when
I got really good and there's two minutes I would
do it. I would do it at the first of
the month, so i'd have like you know whatever, fifty
(19:47):
people and it'd list off all fifty and so I'd
take two hours at the beginning of the month record
all the videos for everyone, and then you know, as
the day came, I would send them out to them individually.
And so that's how you scale that. But and that's
the thing everything do, every system you put in, like
do it to scale, right, But those videos and those
anniversaries like meant so much to people.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's like the modern version of the handwritten thank you note.
Like I mean, there'll still work, like if you write
a handwritten thank you note to so much those.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Mean the most.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
But yeah, that's not in my opinion, like that's almost
not scalebled, you know, right right, here's the thing. And
I think people like see what's funny is like, you know,
because I don't get I don't know everyone. Unfortunately there's
a lot of people because I do it for Coconut
to my carpet cleaning business. But I think it was
either one or the other. But like I send them
the video and then like ten minutes later, I came
(20:35):
into the office and I didn't know it was him
or something. You know, I'm like, what's up in like
how you doing and didn't wish him a happy birtha
because I don't know, but he's like so like, sometimes
it can come across like bad, but most of the
time I gets received well.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So the other interesting thing about culture for me is
that it it obviously also lives in breezon evolves. Right.
You can have a core culture where you're talking about
just professionalism, work ethic and accountability, but the the needs
or the preferences of an organization can change based on
the generation of people they're hiring, based on the climate
(21:09):
of the culture around your work environment. How important is
it to just be adaptable and being flexible where you
can be without compromising your culture.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well, you know, when you first started asking that question,
I thought, like, one person can ruin your culture. And
that's the thing that people need to understand, like as
an owner, as a if you're a manager listening, if
there's like something going on in your department, you're like,
it's okay, it's like that one sour apple is going
to ruin it for everybody, and so you need to
(21:40):
like and that's what I mean by holding the line,
Like my culture was good, we had things in place,
but it got exponentially better over the past two or
three years because I finally had people like as soon
as they saw that that misbehavior whatever, it might be,
like they're pulling them into their office if it warranted
writing them up, and then you know, if they did
it again, it is like, hey, we got to get
(22:01):
you out of here because we just one person will.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Ruin it acts re question.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
But I just wanted to make sure like we talked
about that, because I see too often, you know, entrepreneurs
are out there and like it's hard to find good people, right,
and it's hard to hire it, and it costs a
lot of money to hire, and so a lot of
entrepreneurs deal with things from employees for a lot longer
than they should. And they think it's because they're trying
to save money, but it's actually costing them a lot
(22:26):
more money by not getting rid of them. So this
might come across as like I'm a ruthless guy that
fires quickly, not at all, Like we were kind of
like a three strike policy kind of company. And if
they're still doing something wrong after three strikes, it's like
they don't want to be here, and you shouldn't want
them there, you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Know, no no doubt about it. And that's one of
those old axioms that's just always been true, right, like
one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. And yeah, you've
lived it and breathed it, so you know exactly what
that means as we kind of you. So your journey
from starting Green Mango, growing it fourteen years, blood sweat,
in tears, it's it's a family endeavor. Your your dad
(23:03):
is a part of that journey. Your wife, your kids
have literally grown up with with dad is Green Mango.
And now you're you're taking on a new role. You
you you're exiting as CEO. You're staying on as a consultant,
but your life is changing. What you mentioned consulting. But
(23:24):
what what do you think the next step is to
satisfy your sort of I would imagine the entrepreneurial itch
never ever quite goes away. You still have coconut cleanings.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
That's that's one thing. What's next?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, what do you think? What do you see for
yourself and and your your business development in the next
few years.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I really want to like spend time with my kids.
We were talking a little bit before, like my my
little boys eleven, my little girls, eight, So I want
to be with them for the next five or six years,
you know, more than I have been, and not be
like so attached to the phone and you know, feel
like it's going to ring any moment and all that stuff.
And I've tried to balance it and I feel like
I've done a pretty good job the past few years.
(24:04):
But like, definitely want to spend more time with the kids.
I don't have any interest in starting new companies just because,
like you said, like now I know what it's like
to start them, and I'm like, ah, like it's dude,
it's hard, man and it and it's a lot of work.
But Cocona I love. I think I want to spend
more time probably you know, at the beginning of next year,
like really start to crank that out. We have we
(24:25):
franchised it. I think it's been a year and a
half now. We have four franchises out and it's going great,
Like and I you know, I think I could see
myself really jumping in and you know, making that as
successful as Green Angle, if not bigger. I think it
has that potential.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
What's the for our listeners, what's the poll of cocin Like,
what's the what's the thing that catches people? What's you know,
what do you do with that company that that people
on a franchise or or take a part of their services.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, so what's cool about Coconut. It's a carpet cleaning company.
I don't know if we've talked about that carpetentile, but
the business model is so awesome because we're the only
company that I know of. There's a lot of companies
I've tried to duplicate this as they heard that we
did it, but it's the only carpet clean business where
we have a true subscription model because I came from
pest control. Like it's you get this peace of mind
(25:11):
when you know you have reoccurring revenue coming in when
you know the model in carpet cleaning is like you
see a customer once every year and a half. That's
just not that many times, and so like, hey, so
we created this model that makes sense to where we
see a customer four times a year, and it's just
been absolutely phenomenal. So people love, you know, the franchises
(25:31):
have loved the aspect that like we've you know, kind
of baked out this reoccurring model. Our brand is absolutely phenomenal.
We because I had so much experience with systems and processes,
Like the operation side of of the business is like
very easily ran, or at least the processes are there,
and so it kind of checks all the boxes where
a lot of entrepreneurs fail. It has all the manuals,
(25:53):
the handbooks, just like all the little things that are
just annoying to do. Like it's it's kind of like
increases success, you know, by you know, let me tell
you this step. So Coconut, it took us three years
to hit a million dollars in revenue. Our first franchise
he hit it hit a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
The first year. Wow, because we were able to give
them like the platform to go. You know.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Obviously, you know, the downside is that you have to
pay to have a franchise and you have to pay
you know, the royalties to us. But it's like we
increase your chances of success like tremendously. And the things
that we gave him, like our influencer program. You know,
the influencer program is huge for carpet cleaning because it's
very satisfying. We talked about content. We're in this stage,
this day and age of content. Right, So when like
(26:37):
we show this nasty black you know car couch or carpet,
whatever it might be. And then we have this wand
where just like we call it pulls a stripe and
it's fresh and clean. Like that's very satisfying, enjoying to watch,
you know, it really is. And so we have this
influencer program where it's almost like a keeping up with
the Jones as you get all these you know, influencers
that have all these followings and even you know, one
(26:57):
hundred or a thousand followers is is like their own
little influence of community and they post about it. It's
like they want they want to be a part of it.
And so you know, we give this program that we've
created to these franchises, and like it's pretty much a
free program. Yeah, you have to take care of the influencer,
but like it's an amazing way to get up and
generate a ton of revenue for not much money. Right,
(27:20):
And so, I don't know, it's been it's been fun
to watch.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Well, it's congratulations to you and your family for all
the success, all the hard work and all the payoff.
Certainly a ton of great information and helpful advice for
people listening to CEOs. You should know, Cameron, thanks for
being a part of CEOs. You should know Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Appreciate that man.
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