This is Under Pressure, a podcast where we dive into the untold stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have conquered adversity to achieve greatness. And now, here's your host, Nic Staton.

Welcome to another episode of the Under Pressure Show. I'm your host, Nic Staton. Today's guest is Dustin Blaylock. Dustin, if you don't mind explaining a little bit to the audience about your background and stuff like that and where you came from.

Nic Staton

Well, I'm in Chattanooga, Tennessee now. I grew up in North Georgia. Chickamauga is where I grew up. My parents still lived down there. Dad started a floor refinishing company back in the late 80s and pretty much when I was old enough to start walking and going out with him, like 10 years old, I was out with him doing work. And so all of my teenage years, that's all I did. You know, I didn't do much of anything else. I went to school, I did floors. And then, you know, I got older, got married, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. But I knew I know, what I didn't want to do was floors. ironically enough, right. But got married, moved out, you know, at some point, dad kind of just gave me my work ahead. He said, This is yours, just take it. And that's yours, your own business. And so, so when I made my own company, like I was telling you before, the floor guy was my company. And I did it on my own for quite a while. Just me and I had some friends helped me every now and then and You know, we did pretty good. I did, I did good with the work. I was always really good at the work, but I was a terrible businessman. I was in my twenties. I was married, then divorced, then single. And, you know, going through all that in your mid twenties is, you know, it's a troubling time already. And I was just very bad with running a business. And, uh, you know, some things kind of happened. And I got in a motorcycle wreck broke my leg. And that's kind of rough if you're not, you know, your, your job involves walking. So I bit my leg backwards at the knee. And you know, I had to let go of a lot of business after that, because I just couldn't keep it up. And I was fortunate, I met a guy that worked at Walmart, and he He said, Hey, man, we're trying to find someone to do our floors. Would you be interested in right after I recovered from breaking my leg? So I said, Yeah, sure. Why not? Right. So talk to them went to Walmart, ended up getting hired to Walmart as an employee doing their floors. And I thought it was just gonna be like a temporary thing.

Dustin Blaylock

Right?

I had like, a couple of small jobs that I still had on my own, and I still did them. And I went to work at Walmart full time. And, you know, before I knew it, I was engaged again, and then married again, and then more kids on the way. And before I knew it, I was a salaried member of management for Walmart, and not even doing floors for Walmart. And, you know, all in all, I had almost a 10 year career at Walmart, where the last probably three or four that was going to be my career where I, I was going to be a Walmart manager at some point in my life. And I was trying to work my way out of doing floors. Right. Um, cause I, you know, I was tired of doing both and some things kind of happened with my dad's business. He pretty much was burnt out and said he, he was, he'd been doing it long enough and he was ready to retire. And he called me one day and said, he was, he was giving up his business, he was gonna either sell it off to somebody or just be done and pull all his equipment and just say, I'm not doing it anymore. And me and my wife talked about it. And I decided, well, I'm just gonna buy him out. Right. And so I bought him out. And the name of his company was pro shine. So that's before why the name changed. It was, he had a lot more, he had way more work than I had. So when I was working at Walmart, I still had my floor guy account work, one store, one store I did, and that was it. So I bought my dad's company out. I did my work to his, and I assumed his business name. And then right around the same time that happened, I had a, uh, I had an interesting experience at Walmart where a guy came in and we started talking, thought he was a customer. Turns out he was a regional manager for a tire shop, uh, tire discounters. And he, uh, he liked me and, uh, asked me to put an application there.

Right.

So I put an application with him, not thinking of anything about it. And, uh, He ended up offering me a general manager job there. So I ended up leaving Walmart going to tire discounters and running a business and being a general manager at tire discounters. I did that for a full year. And the full year that I did that, the business grew, the floors were growing so fast. I couldn't keep people working and I couldn't keep myself from not working 80 hours a week. And after about a year of doing both, I had to make a decision. So I made the decision, I said, well, the flooring business is what I know, it's growing. And I'm in 100% control of my income at that point, I can make as much or as little as I want. And so that was three years ago. And so here I am three years later, just doing floors. And the main thing that we did was, is, tile, like stripping and waxing floors.

Right.

grocery stores, retail stores, medical buildings, offices, anywhere that has BCT tile, that's what we did for years and years and years. So I've got 30 plus years experience doing that. And then in the last three years, we've expanded into concrete. So we have grinders, we're doing grinding, we're doing epoxy, we're doing light polishing when we can find the work. And that's kind of where we're at right now.

I got you. We just did a, Huge warehouse where inside of the warehouses, they polish the floors. Yeah, I guess the concrete company bids that in there with their. With their concrete pouring or whatever that they'll come back and they'll do the finish touching. So, we came in and did some pressure washing on the inside, wash the walls, wash the columns. Real close to the columns, because I guess when they do the polishing, they don't get super close to the columns because the machines are. That shit looks like marble whenever they get done.

Oh, well, it looks it looks great. If you do it right, it looks great. It's so tedious. It's so, so time consuming. Right.

There's some in that as well, too, because there was like eight guys out there and it was just like they knew exactly what they were doing and how to keep on going.

Do you when you're pressure washing something, do you charge by the foot?

Usually charged by the square foot, lanyard foot, or either however long you think that you'll be there because you've been in this industry for a while and you know how long it'll take you.

So I don't know what you would charge by the square foot, but on average, polished concrete, I don't think you would find anybody in the area that would do it for less than $10 a square foot.

They said they were making $15,000 off of that job and they rented the equipment that they had from United Rental.

I would believe it, yeah.

Oh, they basically send the guys around in a white, white minivan or whatever. They all hop out the minivan and all their, all their equipment's already placed wherever it needs to be because the rental companies came and dropped it off and placed it in the corner of the warehouse. yeah and then all the thing they show up with is a pump that they're turning around and sticking inside of a 55 gallon drum and basically uh spraying it down onto the floor and then one dude's riding around on these scrubbers and then the other guy's riding around on the uh um the wet scrubbers, but there's basically picking it all up. And then once it's all picked up, they don't want you to walk on it because then it's completely polished and it's a finished touch. And once it dries, then I guess that whole place, you could drop things on it and all kinds of stuff and it wouldn't do anything.

Yeah, it's impervious. So like Walmart is doing that these days. I don't know, up here, I'm not sure about where you're at. As they remodel Walmart, they don't have tile anymore. White tile is going to be a thing of the past with them. You won't find one. As they remodel, it's gone. And don't quote me to it, but I believe the last store I worked at, when they remodeled, it was about $600,000 to replace, to pull up the VCT and polish the concrete underneath.

$600,000.

But if you're spending, you're spending roughly about $20,000 No, they're probably spending close to $60,000 a year to maintain a tile floor. Just to maintain it. $60,000 a year roughly to maintain it. And then if you remodel a store and it needs a retile, you have the retiling costs on top of that. So if you do just the concrete with polished, it's imperfect. Although there are some things like you spill bleach on it or certain chemicals that will stain it and then it's just there forever for the most part. It'll dull over time if you take care of it, which Walmart doesn't, but you know, it's polished concrete where it's at. It's good stuff and it's beautiful. It's just, it's hard to believe, but it takes like, To do it correctly, you're doing it, you're going over that floor very slowly, roughly seven or eight times, sometimes nine times if the customer is really, if they're looking for a certain type of sheen. So you're, you grind it, you clean it, you grind it, you clean it, you grind it, you clean it. And then you, then you start, then you're getting into the polishing. And then between each polishing grind, you're actually putting down a densifier, which actually seals it and helps it pop it more of a shine. As it's, it's interesting stuff. I like doing it.

It was kind of reoccurring work too, though, ain't it? Like once you get an account with like, say like one of those tire places or whatever for like their front area, And you're kind of going back there continuously.

So with tile, yeah. I mean, with VCT tile, like stripping and waxing, that's always reoccurring work. It's always going to be there. It's, it's, um, you may lose the contract and contracts come and go, but it's constant reoccurring work. Once you polish it though, your, your maintenance work almost goes out the door. Like it almost never needs anything. If it's a high traffic floor. and they want it to be popping, they might hire you to come back every two or three years and do a refresh on it. The most part, it's done. Whereas if you watch my videos, you'll see I'm going into the same places a lot.

That's what I was looking at right before we got on just so that I could brief myself on what you were doing. It was like you make good videos, good content with everything that you do.

I appreciate that. Yeah. So you'll see like I'm constantly in the same places. Like I have a route that I run literally every week and I'm in the same buildings. I got one building I've been in and out now for 21 years. So.

Does it get easier when you, when you maintain them like that or whatever, because you know that it's not building up as bad from being. Oh yeah.

Yeah, 100 times easier. It's, it's always going to be easier to strip my own wax off, then to drive to Columbus, Georgia, sight unseen, and strip off somebody else's nonsense. Because, you know, some people, you know how it is, people don't know what they're doing. Or, or either they know what they're doing, or they don't care. And like, with wax, it's so easy. It's so easy just to slap down a coat of wax and just walk away or slap down a bunch of coats of wax and watch walk away. And so to me, it's I've been doing it so long, man. Like, I don't even think about it when I'm stripping a floor when I'm doing I don't I don't know. Some people ask me what my process is. And it's kind of hard for me to explain it because I don't I don't even think about it while I'm doing it. It's just second nature. And somebody actually pointed out one day that you do it by yourself. He goes, I see in most of your videos, when you're stripping and waxing, you do pretty much all of it by yourself. Another person would just kind of slow me down almost.

But if you gave those videos to somebody, then they could learn from those videos, because that's an SOP to somebody that could learn from something like that.

Yeah, kind of. And you know, that's, I don't want to say this.

Probably give that video to somebody and then they can turn around and break that down into words. Well, he started off doing this. Then he went to this. Is that how I make a lot of my SOPs? My SOPs are all on video out of the truck. I grabbed the water hose, take it to the faucet, plug it up, turn the water on.

Well, it's funny. I just recently. hired a guy. And when I say I hired a guy, he doesn't work for me. He's just all my people are subs. If you work for me, you're a sub.

Okay.

Um, but I just hired him to do some work is, you know, there's a lot of work that I have that I don't physically do. There's a lot of work I have, I don't want to do. And so I have people that do those.

And so I just hired their own companies.

In theory, yes. In theory, on paper, when they file their taxes, they are their own company, but- So they don't go out looking for other work, they just work for you? Yeah, they use my equipment and, you know, it's just easier that way. And, I mean, if they wanted to go look for other work, I wouldn't care. In fact, I would probably encourage it, but, you know, I don't think, most of them, it's their part-time gig. Right. So I have, for, for part time guys, and it's just their, their part time. So when they do something else, and then they help me out with some floors, and then I have another guy, he's pretty much full time. And if he wanted to go, you know, get some extra work, I would take it, do whatever you need. I would even let them use my equipment, and then I'm not even charging for rental or anything. Because I want them to be successful. But I just hired a guy and then one of the things I told him to do is to go to my Facebook page and watch my videos. You'll kind of get a good idea of what I do there. Which wasn't the idea when I started making video content. The idea was this is, it's, we're going into winter, my business is slowing down and I am bored. So these videos are going to keep me entertained. And it's kind of morphed into something else where now I have, I don't want to say I have a sponsorship, but I have a, I have relationships with businesses that, that, that helps, helps promote my business at the same time. So.

Right, because what you're doing is you're showing the audience your authentic self and who you are and what you do. But at the same time, you're showing off those other companies as well, too, where they're at. Yeah. So then everybody that's following you is like, oh, well, he's out there cleaning. I want to go there to go get my tires, uh, rotated or cold change from there.

So, and they, they, they keep me busy and you know, I travel a lot, like the weekend before last August that I was in Columbus, Georgia, and then all around the outskirts of Atlanta, we were in, um, Covington, Sneedville, Monroe, um, Gainesville. We were in a few other places. And then the last weekend I was in Nashville.

Okay.

This coming weekend, I'll be in parts of parts of Virginia. So we, we, we move around, we stay busy. And like I said, I got, I do have route work I do close to home, but I got people that cover that while I'm doing, doing the things that really interest me.

And, you know, do janitorial people. have uh that side of the work too because wouldn't they wouldn't they polish like school floors and stuff yeah there's some of that um so here's here's how it works do you deal with national companies like national contractors no i mean i have a i have one national uh company that that gets jobs all over the place and they sub it out to us yes which one is that if you don't mind me asking

Check Sammy. Check Sammy. I've never worked with him. So most, not all my work, but probably 65% of all the work I get, I get from these national companies. There's a bunch of them out there. There's some, some that I like working for some that I, if they ever call me again, I'll call the cops. Like I cannot stand some of these people. And, um, And they'll hire us. And so they do take a big chunk of the change, but they can keep you busy with work. Sometimes they'll sneak janitorial work in there. They're like, we need you to go in there. All you gotta do is scrub the floor, buff the floor, and maybe you swing them off to the bathrooms. It's easy. And you'll show up and the management team will be like, no, you're cleaning the bathrooms, you're cleaning the office. Let me look inside this microwave. And it's like, I didn't want to do that. I got, I got one that where they threw in the windows to like clean the windows and I do not clean windows. I won't do it. And so I had to like scramble and find a window cleaner to go clean windows for me because I just won't do it. Right. But, but janitorial guys, they can do it. And a lot of them do do it. But, um, they have, they have a lot of them just have entry level equipment. Whereas I'm running propane, I'm running, I'm running equipment that is designed to do square footage. A lot of these guys are just using like swing machines and a one tile at a time back and forth. And you know, that, that works for like small offices and like doctor's offices and stuff like that, but it's not going to work in a, in a 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 square foot, you know, grocery store.

Probably not. It'd take them forever.

Oh, dude. I've seen people. I didn't realize what the market was like until about two years or so ago when I started getting really active on Facebook with the business and being part of groups. I'll be on janitorial groups, floral groups, stripping and waxing groups. I can't tell you how many pictures and videos I've seen of guys stripping like Marshall's or Ross's dress for less right up there with a with a swing machine and some shop backs and I'm like, like, more power to you, man. Like, like, my hat is off to you because I wouldn't do it. I know how much they pay. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it with my equipment. But you know, it is what it is. So some people are, you know, everybody's gonna make a dollar.

Yeah. Yeah, I wonder about that sometimes with some of these companies. It's like, I don't understand how they even do some of this stuff. I wonder if they're catching more money on like other things that they're offering or something like that. And then that's just like something that they just add on just so that they capture that contract. I have no idea, but it mind boggles me sometimes.

Well, sometimes like, you know, with these larger big box companies, um, like for instance, you know, do you have food line grocery stores down there?

Say that again?

Do you have food line grocery stores down there? No, we don't have that. Okay.

We have, I haven't seen them.

Okay. We have them. I don't want to say they're pretty prevalent up here, but there's, there's a handful of them. I have six of them.

Okay.

And that was what my dad cut his teeth with back in the eighties. So for going on 35 years now, these sets of food lines, whatever's left of them, there's only six of the left. Now there used to be a bunch here. Um, the six of them, they've been part of my family's business for years. Um, and every single time food line changes, national contractors, they'll change every few years. Every time it's because they're going to a lower bidder. So you change hands, go to a lower bidder. They're not going to pay us more if they're paying less, they're charging less. So almost the price goes down. It doesn't quite go down, but I'll say this. In 21 years, I have the one store I've been doing 21 years, I've received an $8 raise one time in 21 years. per service, per visit. So they pay next to nothing. It's embarrassing how much they pay. But it's been a staple of my company. It's something that we've always had. It's a stable paycheck. I have people that are willing to do it. We were asking before if they have their own companies. No, because anybody who's in this business will not do it for the price I'm doing it at. I have to hire someone who's never done it before and has no idea how much it actually is supposed to cost.

What's been the hardest part?

Oh. The hardest part for me, like I'm a pretty upbeat guy and I'm pretty. It's it's it's hard to it's hard to put me under pressure, but the hardest part, I'd say, is just staying motivated. You clean the same floor day in and day out for 21 years. It is really hard to go in and give it 100%, you know, so you got to find ways. I've personally had to find ways to keep myself motivated. And that's what the videos were. It brought my attention back to the floor. It brought my attention back to detail. It kind of reignited why, why I do all this. And, um, that was probably the biggest thing is really staying motivated with, with, You know, that old saying, your cheapest, the person who's going to low ball you the most, the, your cheapest job is always going to be the one that's the most problems, right? That's generally how it is with me. And that's, so it's really hard to stay motivated. There's been times I've wanted to throw in the towel with a certain grocery store. And, uh, I've Monday, Monday, I was ready to throw in the towel Monday. I was ready to say, nah, I'm pulling my stuff. I call all my guys, it ain't working anymore. We ain't doing it. Cause I could, I got enough work. I don't need the pennies that I get from that grocery store, but it is what it is. I don't want these other guys to be out of work. So when I took, it took me, you know, driving to work that night in complete silence, complete silence. So I can just think and then just come to the realization, you know what? It's not about me. It's about these guys that are doing the work and they're happy doing the work. If they're happy doing the work, I should be happy. Like I can deal with them, you know, I don't have to go in and do it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, you can't, can't have all your apples in every single basket. So, I mean, some of those customers that you've had forever, you know, uh, you just kind of, kind of carry them on. But at the same time, I mean, if, if an older customer doesn't stand up to your standards of where your company is headed, You have every right to always allow, to let them go. Yeah. But at the same time, if you have guys that can cover that and they enjoy covering it, then I would just keep my mouth shut and just let them cover it and just keep on moving forward and putting the focus into something else.

Yeah. And that's the thing. Like I got guys that are, they're very happy going and doing it. Like they. Literally, like, dude, I got this one dude that works for me up in Cleveland, Tennessee. I've literally met this man twice in person. He worked for me for two years, never met that man in person. Because he's somebody my dad had hired, and was in politics. And when he needs time off, or he's going out of town, or he's sick, he's got he's got his own guy that takes care of it. And I'm like, it's nice. He's like, I got these people that that are fully content going and doing it. And I don't want to, if I was to selfishly, to say, I don't want to deal with that and just yank everything. I'm taking a food off their plate, needlessly, because I'm being prideful. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you're allowing you're allowing ego or allowing something to stop other people from, you know,

Yeah. And also, at the same time, it would be a loss for the stores themselves. Because when I say that I'm kind of headed up to here with that grocery chain, it's not the store, it's not the people, it's not the store managers. It's the hoops I have to jump through with their corporate office or the contractor I'm working through just telling me to dance and dance right now. And it's like, Can't you? You need the paperwork? All right, I'll get you the paperwork. But can you can you come on, calm down, like, you didn't like how my insurance was worded. Okay, I will send the email, they will reword the workman's comp in order to placate you. But you got to give me some time. That kind of nonsense. So the store is like, man, the stores, I don't want to say they love us. I'm sure there's times they hate us. But There's some of these store managers I've known my whole life, literally my whole life. Like they seen me grow up as a kid. And you know, it is what it is. That's probably, like I said, that's the biggest thing I have to deal with is like just making sure that I'm putting my ego in check. That way these guys can have their job. Cause I, there's been many times I want to yank that plug.

So when you find yourself under pressure, how are you, uh, how are you dealing with that stuff?

Like I said, I'm not, I'm a hard one to put under pressure. I'm pretty easy going. Like I I'm very chill. Uh, but when I do find myself stressed out, I always come back to kind of like two things, I guess, is what am I eating and drinking? And what am I, how much am I sleeping? Usually that's most irritable. If I'm eating garbage, if I've been eating, you know, I stopped at Bucky's and got, got two burritos and a big giant, you know, brisket sandwich and, and they went home and washed it down with a few Miller lights. I feel like garbage. So, and then I sleep terrible. So I look at those things. And then I also, you know, I got, I got two small kids and then I got a 16 year old son. You'll see my son, my oldest son, and some of the videos with me.

Okay.

So I try to spend a lot of time with them. We're also pretty active in our faith and our religion. So we stay pretty active with that. That is a big help, because at least two days a week, that's where we're at. At least on Sundays, and then again on Thursdays, that's where we're there. And that usually kind of helps keep me leveled. And also just talking to my guys. Like I said, they don't work for me. They're not my employees, but they kind of are. On paper, they're not, but in real life, they are. And I like talking to them. When I'm frustrated or stressed out about something and I find out that they're just super cool about it, then it relaxes me.

I find it being authentic with your employees is best.

Yeah.

Just talk to them, let them know, because at the end of the day, a lot of times they're just sitting there guessing how you're actually feeling. Once people start guessing, then things just get a little awkward or whatever. So I'm just completely open with my guys and tell them straight up like, Hey man, fucking shit's rough as fuck right now. Like I'm doing the best I fucking can bear with me.

That's how it is. Like we had a. We have a garage, you know, we did an epoxy on a couple weeks ago, and I set up the camera to record it because I intended to use it for content. And so my, my guy who's my one full time guy, he worked with me that day, we set up the camera, we got rolling. And when you start grinding on concrete, if you look at a slab of concrete, there's always gonna be cracks. If it's sealed, there's more cracks there, you just can't see them. Right. You start grinding off that sealer, and then more cracks show. So he already had a lot of cracks in his garage when we started. So we started running that grinder. Next thing I know, there's spider cracks just everywhere, going every which way, miles of cracks in this 400 square foot garage. And My epoxy crack sealer is low viscosity, so it's like a watery substance. You just pour it down in the cracks, and it fills the bottom of the cracks. You overfill it, and that fills the cracks. And it also joins the two halves of the concrete back together, and actually hardens it, strengthens it. And it's expensive. I started dumping it down in the cracks and turns out that all those spider cracks in his garage were all the way through to the foundation. So I would dump it down in the cracks. It was just going straight through. And, and like, so a, what would have been like a three or four hour job turned into like a seven hour job because of dealing with those cracks. And we ended up like the battery on the camera died. He's like, you're going to video anymore. I'm like, no, that's out the window right now. We're just trying to focus on like getting the job done. Those slabs are deep. Some of them, some of them are, but if on a, like a like these newer cookie cutter houses, you know, like a commercial building. I was thinking this was, this was a residential job.

I was like, that shit is deep.

No, no warehouses are deep. Um, warehouses, anything industrial or factory is going to be deep. This was a residential house in a town home.

Then that's only like a foot or two foot deep or something like that.

I would probably bet it's less than foot thick. Probably. I could be wrong. I didn't build it.

I know the slab outside or whatever for my shop, that's five inches thick.

Yeah. So I would say this one is probably between five and six inches thick. But like I dumped I dumped about $400 worth of epoxy down, down to his foundation, just pissed it away. And we had to go back out again, number one, because it'll build up on the edges. So we had these build up on the edges of the cracks that I had to grind off at the same time, and then still had to find a way to mend the cracks, because if you don't fix them, the epoxy is just going to run down in there, too. So anyhow, that was a stressful day. That's probably one of the most stressful days I've had in a while. It wasn't even really that stressful. It was just that the job turned into a longer thing. And at the end of the day, you know, we fixed it. It looked good.

It was like a poor slab being poured, just being poor quality.

Probably. I don't know a lot about concrete pouring.

Man, there's some steady concrete and there's some good concrete. We do a lot of it and I've poured a lot of it over my time. It really depends on where it comes from and how it comes that day. If it comes like super wet and stuff, then it's hard to mess with. You want it to come kind of perfect.

Yeah. And I think, you know, with these newer places like this, the house that I did, I think

cookie cutter home, cookie hut.

It was a cookie cutter home.

They like to throw those things up and do fucking shit real quick.

So there's no telling like how it was. Uh, and, but at the end of the day, like I said, it turned out all right. It just took me that initial first day. It took me over double what it should have initially taken. And you know, that was, that stressed me out. But at the end of the day, my buddy was there with me. you know, we got to work together. And that's nice. I wait, all these guys that work for me, they we rarely get to work together, because I'm almost a one man show for most of the things I do.

So gotcha. How are you managing your mindset?

Oh, that's a tough one. I don't really think about my mindset that often. I'll be honest, I just, I think I'm just naturally a positive person. My wife, usually looks at things like the glass half full and I'm a more of a glass or she's a glass half empty I'm a glass half full kind of guy and uh But when I do get stressed out, yeah, I'm more optimistic. Like I'm, she'll stress out about things. I'll be fine. But then occasionally, occasionally she'll, she'll be like, ah, it's fine. And I'll be like, what are you talking about? If we're talking about trying to get all my kids on an airplane at the same time, I'll stress out like you wouldn't believe. But, and she couldn't care less. She's just happy go lucky, but on day-to-day life, like in just running the business, You know, I just try to keep moving forward. Like I'm looking for more work and I'm not looking to have a monopoly on the floor care industry. That's not what I want to do. I don't, I'm not looking to have a crew and an additional multiple crews of guys. That's not what I'm looking to do. I'm just looking to, to do the best work we can possibly do the best work I can do and make sure my customers are happy and just keep it rolling that way. You know, that's, I'm not, I want to do, yeah, I want to do quality work. And, uh, you know, I just, And I do want to get to a point where I can keep my guys busy with work and have them doing your higher paying work. That's where I want to get to. But you know, it is what it is. I'm happy with how my business is doing though. Like the guys that work for me, they're great dudes and they, they show up, you know, there's never any issues and that's hard. That's half the battle right there is finding people that can just show up, you know?

It's hard as hell to find good workers.

What about you? How long have you been doing the pressure washing?

I've been in pressure washing since 2016, but I really didn't take it serious until 2020.

So you really started taking it seriously during COVID?

Yeah, right when COVID, pretty much the year, six months before COVID had started. Yeah. I pretty much blasted off because I lived by myself. I lived on a farm, everybody else ducked down, hit at home and phone calls started coming in saying, Hey, I can't get in touch with this con or this person or whatever. And I would show up and just literally just kept on taking off and taking off. I've done word of mouth and pretty much everything. I ran some ads a little bit one year, but I wasted about 20 grand. Yeah. didn't know if it was even doing me any good or not. And then found out that it wasn't even doing me any good, that my organic marketing was taking over everything. And I just kept on scaling and scaling. Yeah. And now I'm at the point where we've got Google, um, the Google business page going and stuff like that.

And I haven't paid ads yet either. And Like I said, I get a lot of stuff from national contractors that feed me stuff, so I ain't gotta worry about it, but just organically getting work, it's exploded since I started making my videos, just people just noticing.

That's what happened with me is the videos and all of that, just getting behind the camera, showing who I was, showing the brand, allowing that to pretty much get out and people see the work, and then once they, Once it's like, it's stuck in their head, they're like wet and wild pressure washing. Well, I need pressure washing done. I need to call wet and wild. And I have other companies call us all the time wanting to do business with us to collab and stuff like that.

So I think you're doing right is, is, and you probably noticed that it was probably why you do it is wet and wild is a memorable name. And then all of your logos are loud and very memorable. So that gets in people's heads and they, you know, wet and wild, the loud shirts, the loud graphics on your trucks, the loud graphics on your, on your machines or your equipment. Yeah.

Right. So all of that goes into hand with the brand awareness stuff. And then once I built up the brand awareness, now we're getting back into Having an agency help us out with getting the correct website, which has got five pages on it, and it'll eventually build out from there and get up to 10 and 11 pages and stuff like that where the SEO is kicking in. then the LSA, and now I'm noticing that we're ranked number three on Google to where if you go and look up pressure washing, now we're starting to get phone calls because most of the time when people call, whenever they look up something, it's going to be the first three companies or the first companies on the first page. before we were ranked like 20. And it's like, we were getting no fucking organic phone calls from that shit, but people were going and leaving reviews, but it didn't really matter because Google didn't really recognize none of that. So now that our website's legit and doing really well, now that our reviews are really doing good. And then now that, um, Now that we've got ourself ranked, this agency got us ranked on there, now we're actually picking up organic calls and we're picking up the LSA where the LSA is like $239 a week or something like that for phone calls. And you get like seven or 14 leads that come over from that.

How long did it take your website to start generating?

Well, they had the old website going whenever they got the Google stuff in place, and we were already starting to get people going to the old website, which really wasn't put together that well. website just kicked into place last night. And I got a feeling because of it being way better that my phone can probably start ringing off the hook. But the thing is they're going to the website and then putting in their information on there, but email. So then I could email with first, last name, phone number, job description. I called them back, locked them in on the phone. And it works out that way because they're already wanting to do business with us.

Now, now, now from a business standpoint, like management and ops and bookkeeping, are you a one man show on that?

Or do you have, I have a bookkeeper and I have a CPA and then I have a full tech and then he has a helper and then I'm out in the truck by myself on other jobs.

Okay, well, I saw, I think you posted this morning or yesterday that you've switched over to, from LLC or something?

Yeah, we're S Corp now. And this last tax thing that we just did, that was still under LLC. Now we're actually S Corp. So this year, it'll be even better when it comes down to all the tax stuff and everything.

And I'm going to have that transition for you. That again, how difficult was the transition?

It wasn't really that difficult. It was, it was just more, I was more psyching myself out in my head than anything, but I have myself set on a salary and then I have my guys on our, our, our hourly.

Yeah. So yeah, I thought about doing that and I would like to get to a point where I could do that with, with these guys that work for me, it would make sense.

I'm just got tired of worrying about the tax part and all of that stuff. And then it got hard to obtain actual, uh, good cut or good employees.

10 99.

They can't wear my jerseys. They can't drive my wrap trucks. They're not supposed to be out there with my stuff. So at the end of the day, it was like, I could turn around and give them the stuff and then give them white trucks and let them go around in that. But that's not where my vision goes. My vision goes to an actual rap truck, real loud, being all over the place. So in order to do that and eventually franchising out, but in order to do that, you've got to go W-2. So I went W-2 and it was kind of scary at first, but I mean, It seems to be the same dude. We're still got write-offs and all that stuff for the company and everything, but I've separated myself from my company. So I'm no longer tied to it in any remotely way.

Yeah. Well, that's good. You know, if, if, if the worst does happen, hopefully it doesn't happen, but that's good. Now, how about you about your, um, how about your podcast here? How long did it take you to get that off the ground?

Uh, I, I'm not doing that myself. I just shoot these videos and then I upload them to a, uh, platform where a buddy of mine, uh, Sebastian, he takes care of all of that. And he has a team that breaks it all down into two reels and then uploads it up to the platforms that it goes on to, which is like Apple, Spotify. We have a website and everything. I've probably shot about 33 episodes over the last year.

Is it something you always wanted to do, or is it just like you had the idea one day you're pressure washing, you're listening to the podcast, I could do this?

Well, here's the thing. It's kind of more of getting myself and my brand out there more, but at the same time, It's kind of a tool to be able to find customers like property management, builders, anything like that. I bring y'all on here. I'm adding value to you by turning around and bringing you on here and getting you out into my audience. And you never know if anybody in the audience could use your service or want to come work for you or whatever it may be. So, it's just stuff like that, pretty much just kind of like being able to weigh the network. I'm not really a talker, so to get on here and to talk, it actually helps me in sales.

I gotcha. Talking's easy.

I'll just be quiet because I don't know how to kind of carry on. But I have a thing that sits behind me that kind of gives me a dialogue of things to kind of ask. But at the same time, I chime in. But by us doing this and me doing this repetitively over and over with different people, I'm learning different people's body languages, the way that they think.

Well, sometimes, sometimes, you know, it's about the give and take what that's, that's what any conversation, not just in a podcast, but like, so when I signed up for this with you, it was probably a month and a half or so ago. I wanted to give myself enough time to, you know, number one, schedule it in. And number two, like, listen to a few of your, so I've listened to a few of your podcasts and, uh, yeah, you know, there, there are some guys that I can tell that you just click with. where you're talking and you're just you're just shooting it like you're just having fun and just having a conversation and then there's some guys where it's a little bit more like you like they're talking and you're like you're you're you're uh you're just you're kind of waiting for them because because they're doing all the talking you know what i'm saying yeah so there is it's kind of weird sometimes because i don't know who you are

Yeah.

And you come on here and it's like, sometimes I'm like, man, I'm not really getting that vibe of like how to really approach this person, but that helps me.

Yeah.

Because throughout that I'm finding some way to be able to do that. And then if I approach another person like that throughout life, then I kind of know how to kind of talk to that person where before I would just sit here and just be like, all right, I'm just going to shut up and not say no.

Have you had repeat guests? Yes. I think I've had one repeat guest. Yeah.

Okay. So are you able to like, look at the, um, the analytics and statistics, like how many viewers or listeners getting emails from, I get emails from random people that will say, Hey man, I heard this episode and I just wanted to tell you my story a little bit about my background. And I think that I would be a great person to come on to your, uh, podcast. And I actually go look them up and they're actually legit people.

Yeah. Do you, um, when you're working and driving, do you listen to podcasts or your podcast listener?

Yes. I listened to podcasts.

Yeah. Who do you like to listen to?

Uh, mostly I don't, I mean, if I'm going to listen to a podcast, it's going to be mostly like a Joe Rogan or, um, yeah, me too. The other guy, fuck, I can't see. No. The two brothers or whatever that own far one or whatever it's called. Form one.

I don't know if I know that one.

Okay, I'll have to share it with you, but he's another person kind of like Joe Rogan. I listen to stuff like that pretty much if I'm going to listen to anything like that. Mostly it's like audibles and stuff. If I'm going to be riding around listening to anything.

Oh yeah, me both. I got, I've been with audible since before they were with Amazon. I've been, I've got probably, I think the last time I checked, I got like 400 books in there. So I'm always listening to something.

I'm not a reader, but I'll listen. Oh, yeah, me too. I memorize things. That's how I get by is memorizing.

Well, all of us, all of us ancestrally didn't always read like storytelling was what we're all used to. Like storytelling was the first form of entertainment, like hearing. And so it's so I get so much more out of the out of a book by listening to it. Like, dude, I just listened to a 43 hour long George Washington biography. 43 hours long. Granted, by like hour 35, I was done. But I was committed and I'm like, I'm finishing this thing. And so I, you know, I cowboyed up and I finished it. But like, that's the kind of stuff I like to listen to, you know.

Yeah. I mean, if you enjoy that, that's a long time, 45 hours on something or 43 hours.

I mean, it is what I also like, you know, I still like novels. So I listened to, you know, Stephen King is a fun one when he's, he's long winded too. So he doesn't have a short book. Like all of his books are, you know, at least 20 hours, if not more. So like, I like a lot of stuff, you know, and, and working number one, like I said, like a one man show, You know, I got a lot of free time to listen to whatever I want to because I don't answer to anybody. I don't have to talk to anybody. I can headphones into what I want to do. And I'm basically running lawnmowers through stores. There's nothing else to do. I found, you know, I found listening to music. It makes me work too quickly. I've been doing this so long that if I listen to music, I'm out, you know, just going too quickly. And if I don't listen to anything, I'm also going too quickly because I'm stuck in my own head and I don't want to be stuck in my head. So the books, listening to books, listening to a podcast, something like that, it slows, slows me down. I pay more attention to what I'm doing. And, and especially if it's something that kind of sucks you in, that's kind of interesting. Did you listen to the new pop, the most recent, not the most recent podcast, but one of his most recent Joe Rogan ones where the dude in the dire wolf.

No. Yeah. Yeah. And then since I've listened to an actual podcast because I've been so dang busy, I haven't even really listened to the radio or anything.

I gotcha. Yeah.

Those guys that are just I'll go to the gym and won't even have headphones in and shit and just be fucking listening to every damn thing else. And I don't know why.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes that's good. Like I. I don't go to the gym that often anymore. I need to, but when I go to the gym, I'm not a, I don't listen to anything. Number one, because I don't like I'll sweat so much. My stuff comes out of my ears. Like I can't carry odds in my ears because I sweat so much, but I just go in, I do my thing and I don't, I don't listen to anything.

I just listen to whatever my downfall is to not having headphones in, in the gym is everybody wants to talk to me. And I'm like, damn, I'm in here to work out.

Especially if you go to the same gym every day, at the same time, you see the same people.

They migrate towards you and then they just look at you and then they start talking to them like, shit, shut up. I'm here to work out.

Have you always been a gym guy or is that a recent thing?

I've pretty much been always kind of a gym guy off and on. But here in the last five years or actually eight years, I've been very dedicated to it.

Gotcha. What's your, um, what's your diet? Like, cause he seemed like you're a pretty fit dude.

It was macro doubt, but here lately in the last six months has been horrible because I've been so stressed out with work and everything else, but now I'm starting to dial it back in. I usually eat anywhere from four to six meals a day, but I'm also on TRT. And then I used to take some peptides, hormones, stuff like that.

eating four to six meals a day, that can be exhausting. I've done it. I've done it. I used to do that. Four to six meals, you know, like clockwork. I get something to eat.

And, um, some people are, are you vegan?

Me? No. Do I look like I've been? No, no. I, I'm, uh, for the last five years off and on, Uh, I've been a no carb, almost what you would call a carnivore guy for the last five years.

Uh, in 2020, kind of the same way in a way, but I eat carbs, eight carbs and meat.

I, um, in the beginning of 2020, um, I weighed 300 pounds and I was just uncomfortable. I was. tired all the time, and just miserable with how I felt and how I looked and just everything. And then right around that time is when the carnivore diet was catching a lot of attention, especially from Joe Rogan and, and Mark Bell, and those guys, and I'd been listening to him for a while. And I've been knocking around the idea for a while. And funny, ironically enough, March 1 of 2020, I said, I'm going to start the carnivore diet March 1 2020. And so I did nothing but meat. And then pretty much a no, remember, I worked at Walmart at this time, March of 2020 was when COVID really hit.

Right.

And so March, I believe it was March 14, was which when, like everything just kind of hit the wall that day. no meat on the shelf. So I had it was really hard to like, I had to go to work early, and like kind of hang around the meat section and see when like something that was actually going to be there. And or actually go into the back room and be like, I'm getting this meat, I'm getting this meat, I'm getting I had to go buy it, put it away. Because I was trying strictly to only meet and for like, I lost 80 pounds in 2020, whereas everybody was stuck at home. Yeah, wait, I, I lost so much weight so quickly. It was ridiculous. My wife, she said I would, I would leave the house and go to work for eight to 10 hours, actually, probably closer to 12. Back then I'll go to, you know, 10 or 12 hours, and then come home and she'd be like, you've lost weight. since you left the house this morning. The weight just fell off of me. So pretty much for the last five years, I've been off and on carnivore. I try to stick to a low carb. If I eat carbs, I blow up. I gain weight really quickly. If I drink a lot of alcohol, not even a lot of alcohol, if I drink like two or three beers a night, I gain weight really quickly. And I feel bad. And I just feel way better. when I stay away from carbs. I don't want to say meat is the cure. I think it's just the absence of nonsense that makes me feel better.

I understand. I've been eating a lot of waffle house here lately. It seems like, Oh man.

I went there the other day. Uh, we, we took, I took my wife's car to get the oil change and there's a waffle house right next door. My four year old, she loves the waffle house. She wants to dip waffle, man. So we walked next door and I got her that chocolate chip waffle. And I was like, I want, I want side of sausage, side of bacon, six eggs, scrambled with cheese. And they're like, yeah, that's all you want. Yeah, that's all I want. So that's what I got.

Uh, how can people find you online and stuff like that?

Uh, pro shine floors at, uh, you know, on Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK, YouTube pro shine floors. Or if you just want to find me personally, Dustin Blaylock right there on Facebook.

Guys, if y'all want to watch some cool videos of floors being cleaned, follow him. Cool. We're going to end that right here because we've gone for 55 minutes, so it's actually cool that you've carried on and explained everything to us.

Well, I wasn't going to let you just interview me. I was going to interview you because, you know.

Hey man, you actually turned this into a pretty cool one because I don't know nothing about the floor clean inside or any of that. So that's why I was kind of asking about the janitorial and stuff and just trying to pull where it goes. Because I mean, at the end of the day, it kind of sounds like it all kind of goes hand in hand with what the fuck we do.

Well, it is less than like pressure washing and floor cleaning is in there. And then pressure washing, floor cleaning, window cleaning is also there. We're all in that same kind of job.

A lot of times I get these things that come over and they want you to do janitorial, clean the floors, clean the windows, clean the ceilings, pressure wash. And it's like, if you don't do all that, they don't want to even take a bid from you.

Well, that's what they want. They want to catch all to do. That's what the national companies want. They want to catch all. And the unfortunate truth is they don't care about quality work. They don't care if Nic Staton does a good job. All they care about is you show up and no one complains. You show up, no one complains, you're fine. Good job is irrelevant. So you, yeah, I do pressure washing, but I don't do vent cleaning.

And they're like, gosh, go do the vent cleaning.

They're not going to care. They're not going to care if you don't do the fence, as long as the store doesn't complain, you know, that's just, and that's an argument I had with one of the national companies the other day, like I was arguing for some more money. I was like, I need, I don't need a lot of money, but I need more money per service. And he's like, well, you know, this is what's in your contract. I said, look, man, I know what's in the contract, but you're not paying me to do what's in the contract. You're paying me to show up and not have complaints. Now that that's where we're at. So like, and unfortunately, a lot of times the only time to get paid more is to have complaints. Once you have complaints, then they'll pay you more. So you keep going. So it's, it's kind of an ass backward situation a little bit with these guys.

Well, guys, we're going to end that right here. Appreciate y'all coming on. Peace.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. And remember, pressure doesn't break you, it makes you. Until next time, friends.