North American Sweeper - June 2023

INSIDE

KEEP YOUR OPERATIONS TIGHT BY REVIEWING THESE CRITICAL PROCESSES p.22

CUTTING COSTS WITHOUT CUTTING SERVICE QUALITY p.26

Gideon W. Smith

SENIOR EDITOR

Katherine Nolan ADVERTISING

Tracy Rodean

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Melissa Kennelly EDITORIAL MANAGER

Heidi Karpinich CIRCULATION

Noah

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BRIGHTSTAR PROPERTY MAINTENANCE SERVICES, INC.

FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA

Leon Nelson, with his ready humor, lilting Jamaican accent, and open, easy-going island manner, brings a fresh presence to the U.S. pavement sweeping industry in South Florida. He also brings an utterly unique business model that is succeeding in an increasing number of areas throughout the state of Florida and parts of Georgia.

Nelson founded Superior Property Maintenance in 2010, later renaming the company Brightstar. With all the vast array of U.S. American business options available to him and abundant talent to succeed at any he selected, why did Leon choose to start a commercial pavement sweeping business?

“Because, he jokes, nobody told me it was that hard to start a sweeping business.”

FLOURISHING IN FLORIDA

There are many stories throughout the industry of sharp entrepreneurs rising from humble beginnings to build multi-million-dollar commercial sweeping service chains. The story of Leon appears to be one of those, and it is rapidly unfolding. He tells it philosophically:

My real trade is welding and fabrication. When God is preparing you, you really don’t know until you see — oh, that’s why I was doing that. Now, I’m my own welder and fabricator at Brightstar, most of the time. I taught one of our men to weld, so now he does some of it.

I used to do sweeping for Aimsley, and before that for another local company, J&P Lawson, as a helper on a truck. Aimsley is out of business now, but we continue to get advice from one of the former owners. She checks in to see how we’re doing and acts as mentor to Tandieka, our VP.

Tandieka adds to his story of the beginning of Brightstar, from its inception as Superior. She said he started the company with his car, a backpack blower, some garbage bags, and a pick stick. He began cleaning parking lots. She’s not understating it when she adds that it was the start of his realization of the American dream.

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WHAT SETS BRIGHTSTAR APART IN THE FLORIDA MARKET?

Superior was just sweeping, portering, and pressure washing. One of the things I realized and applied as one of our rebranding tactics during the transition to Brightstar is that we needed to offer more. I learned that clients want to do business with one company that will do everything.

So we’re doing paving, seal coating, landscaping, and other services. Some divisions have grown to the point that, for example, we do a lot of the city’s landscaping [Ft. Lauderdale], and we sweep the city of Palm Beach, across the island. It’s a one-stop shop at Brightstar, and we do it all in-house.

UNIQUE BUSINESS MODEL, BRIGHTSTAR

Brightstar’s business appears to be municipal street and parking lot sweeping, portering, asphalting and repair service, power washing, cardboard pickup for recycling, and construction site cleanup. The company has ordered a tow truck and will soon begin operating a towing and roadside assistance service. And, of course, Leon Nelson laughs at the notion that he might have somehow forgotten to include rolloff dumpster rentals in his comprehensive outside maintenance service enterprise.

In addition to South Florida, we serve Orlando, Panama City, Pensacola, Jacksonville, and areas of Georgia. Georgia will be one of the areas we grow in

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last because it will take more, with licensing and other considerations. We will have to pay to learn. So, how should we label this kind of hyperexpanding conglomeration of services over an evermore broadly extending land radius? Leon’s focus is on diversification, not classification. Whatever you call the model that we’re using right now — in all the areas we branch out into, we are taking it all into each.

BRIGHTSTAR EQUIPMENT

I never had new sweepers; it was always used trucks. The first new sweeper we ever bought was in 2019. It was a [Victory] Mark III. We named our truck Prosperity. We now have 32 sweepers. They’re all Victory sweepers, including a CXI, GX, Mark III, Mark I, and Mark II.

Currently, we have our fleet of sweepers, including for sweeping garages, our official service truck, and one water truck. We just ordered a T600 from Victory. We own all of our equipment for landscaping. (We bought most of that from Green Thumb Garden in Coral Springs. (We bought some of our asphalt equipment from (Browns and) places that equip rental businesses. We buy the equipment and refurbish it for our use.

We also have equipment for our cardboard recycling operation. We collect the cardboard from properties we service, it goes into the bailer in our facility, and a company picks it up.

We do have one mini rail loader that goes around to pick up the cardboard. We recently purchased

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ten 5-yard dumpsters for cardboard. We service 22 locations of a major national restaurant chain picking up cardboard. (I was just out putting stickers on the new dumpsters this morning.)

Brightstar also has roll-off dumpster rental units. We bought our first roll-off about six months ago. We now have a number of 20-yard roll-offs. We don’t go above that in length.

We just ordered a tow truck. So, we’ve got Brightstar Towing and Roadside Assistance coming on board. The truck is in manufacturing right now. We will do that launch in the next month or so.

BRIGHTSTAR TEAM

Brightstar has dozens of employees, including those in landscaping and other teams in paving. We’ve partnered with Black Gold Paving, powered by

Brightstar. Through city facilities maintenance, we got the opportunity to bring these services on board. We upgraded their training and promoted a few of our guys, and took a team of six from Ft Lauderdale to Orlando. That included supervisors and others. I stayed up there too, for three months. Now, we are operating those services in Tallahassee, Panama City, and Southern Georgia.

Our Maintenance Dept is run by Nevel White, our Head Mechanic, and Calvin Nelson assists there. We have a rover team that leaves from here [Ft. Lauderdale] every other week to maintain sweepers throughout the state. Our team members come from good backgrounds. We don’t hire people with less than 3 to 4 years of experience. Brenton Wright deals with compliance. He was with Broward Health.

Tandieka McDonald, our VP, was in upper management at Verizon when we brought her aboard initially as our Marketing Manager. She had been in leadership roles in three fortune 500 companies’ operations and sales teams. She is accomplished in financial analysis, business development solutions, project management, strategy development, training, coaching, tactical implementation, and team building.

During the transition from Superior to Brightstar, Tandieka introduced rebranding to me and how it would work.

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Our team members come from good backgrounds. We don’t hire people with less than 3 to 4 years of experience.

MARKETING AND SALES AT BRIGHTSTAR

Our marketing has been just doing the work and communicating from one manager to another manager. So, our success has been mostly due to word of mouth. Of course, we have had our hard times. But, just doing more sometimes than what it takes says a lot. It’s in making sure you have tough people that want to do the work and trying to coach them to help them improve.

We take pride in ourselves and in our equipment condition looking great, always being presentable. We see a lot of equipment from companies that look bad. We emphasize to the guys to keep the equipment clean [to make a good impression for the company].

Learning from people with great knowledge has made our success possible. Mark Schwarz from Victory

actually gave me my first sweeper, a Mitsubishi 340i, for about $10,000. We named it Spirit. I still keep it in the yard and could start it up. It’s never going anywhere. It will always be standing right here to tell the stories.

Right now, my goal is to have a billboard. This is Tandieka’s area. She’s on a break in Europe right now. When she comes back, we’re going to work on this and some other new things.

QUALITY OPERATIONS AT BRIGHTSTAR

We do spot checks, visits, and calls to customers as part of our quality management. Myself, I do what I call “around the world.” I leave Fort Lauderdale and don’t come back till three weeks later. I may spend a day or two in Orlando, drive up to Jacksonville, and come back to the office from there.

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Tandieka added during a remote email discussion for the article, customer service is vital to our business, so each customer has access to a dedicated account manager and they are able to get to someone even after regular business hours.

BRIGHTSTAR FINANCIAL POSITION

Along with all its equipment, Brightstar also owns the real estate where its impressive facilities are located. The property is a great source of company pride for the organization’s employees. Leon says simply, financially, we’re doing good.

However, we’ve had our times when we were down. For example, one of our biggest clients switched from net 30 to net 60. That was way more than a sting. It put us in more than a little spin. But, we got help from a bank and moved on from there.

A client may be good for a while and then have a financial problem. The same thing happening to you can happen to the person that pays you. Once you understand that and communicate, you can

move forward. But, you have to explain to the team. Because, logistically things need to be happening.

Another problem occurred while we were running during Covid. That was the time while we were doing our expansion into Orlando. We ran into situations where guys did not want to be working. I was running a sweeper myself during that time. I didn’t understand Covid myself; there was so much mixed information about what to do and what not to do.

BRIGHTSTAR IS SHINING EXAMPLE OF ALTRUISTIC LOCAL BUSINESS

Leon mentioned that the company will soon be adopting a street and a program called Brightsar Kids, through which we will be sponsoring some games. We thought that seemed very nice for a small business owner to do. Then, Tandieka, contributing from the other side of the globe by email, advised us that Leon Nelson’s support for good causes is much broader.

In Tandieka’s words, he is very big on supporting

children’s education and giving back to the community. He is in the process of rebuilding the entire welding program for the high school that he attended [in Jamaica] where he was privileged to obtain his welding skills. He has a big heart and wants to make sure that every child gets an opportunity to use the new technology, though they are in the country hills of Jamaica and not privileged to have access to these things. Back in December he supported the Hibiscus Girls Leadership Academy, and this is just to name a few examples of how passionate he is about community support.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY – LEON NELSON

I believe the industry is still strong. You’ll always need cleaners. We still need to do some work on the pricing, so it’s not chaotic. We can’t always let the managers

[the market] study us and be the ones calling the shots. That’s what’s happening right now. I think we need regulation on pricing.

There are all these 3rd-party companies coming in, and clients pay us to do the work and pay them too. But, managers still go for it. I think, don’t you see that you’re paying twice? Being diversified is the way to go, [i.e., because you can profit from a wide range of services].

ADVICE FOR STARTING A PAVEMENT SWEEPING

BUSINESS, FROM LEON NELSON, BRIGHTSTAR, FT. LAUDERDALE, FL

A lot of people want to go into the business, yet they have no knowledge of sweepers, the moving parts, or the cost of this equipment. I say to them, if you don’t know sweepers, leave them alone because they will take your money good. I tell them to start simple.

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Start from being a porter and work until you learn the industry. They can do janitorial work and grind their way up.

Don’t give up. A lot of times in the failure you think you experienced, you didn’t fail. What happened was that as soon as you felt a little burned you shut it all down. The business didn’t fail — you just didn’t allow it the opportunity to succeed.

Build a strong team. I’m a tough head, but what can make me tear up is having a good team and a good management staff. A good team of workers and a good management team will always propel you to success, in my experience.

Also, if there is one truth about this country [the U.S.] it is that you can be all you can be. If there is one truth, that is the boss of truths. You have people who seize on that and others just let it go. You’ve got

to start somewhere. You can do car washing or push a mower, and a couple of years later, you can have a fleet. It is truly the land of opportunity. So, I proudly display the American flag on our trucks.

Brightstar Property Maintenance Services, Inc., Ft. Lauderdale, Florida is a NAPSA Member and a minority certified and CBE certified business. The company is also a certified member of ISSA, a European industrial cleaning industry consortium.

For more information about Brightstar Property Maintenance Services, Inc., call (954) 951-2500, see www.brightstarfl.com, or email tandieka@ brightstarssl.com.

Keep Your Operations Tight By Reviewing These Critical Processes

ASSOCIA TION INSIDER

SPOTLIGHT INDEX

Running a small business means having your finger in many pies. As a small business owner, you are the face of the company, head of sales and customer service, IT technician and operations manager. Having efficient systems can be the difference between making a profit and having to close your doors.

Below, we’ll examine what we mean by efficiency and which processes to focus on when undertaking any business review.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY EFFICIENT?

When someone talks about efficiency, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most, an efficient system is:

4 Cost-effective – By cost-effective, we mean the system does not cost you a prohibitive amount or cancel out any profit you might make

4 Time-effective – When looking at the efficiency of a system, your staff will be a good source of information. How easy is a system to use? Is a particular piece of software a burden to use?

4 Not placing unnecessary burdens on staff or customers.

Efficient systems will help you to find customers, keep those customers by providing excellent customer service, get paid on time and chase up any outstanding suppliers.

When looking at the efficiency of a system, your staff will be a good source of information.

CONDUCTING A BUSINESS REVIEW –DO’S AND DON’TS

Look carefully at your processes and determine where your pain points are. Communication is vital to whatever part of your business you are reviewing, and your staff and customers should be the first you approach for information. A basic review of your business should focus on the following areas:

4 Staff pain points;

4 Customer pain points;

4 Systems review – taking into account the feedback you have already received;

4 Costs – You should have a good idea of how much you spend at each point of all your processes. If you don’t, it’s time to step back and start looking at your numbers.

CRITICALLY EVALUATE YOUR MARKETING

A marketing process that works for you will bring in more customers and, ultimately, more growth. An efficient marketing process will help you target the right person at the right time with the right offer.

Things to think about when reviewing your marketing process:

4 Are you using paid advertising?

4 Where are you advertising?

4 How much does it cost to bring in one customer?  There are better ways to attract the right customer. In the long term, it may be better to use social media (a free tool!) if advertising is eating into your profits.

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INDUSTR Y NEWS

4 Are you paying for leads?

4 Are you expecting staff to go through a confusing multi-step process to get a customer?

4 What is the average spend for a customer, and is it less than the amount it costs you to find that customer?

4 Are there processes that can be automated?

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

MAKE YOUR SALES PROCESS MORE EFFICIENT

Without sales, there is no business. It pays, therefore, to find customers as efficiently as possible.

Things to think about:

4 How are you contacting potential customers?

ASSOCIA TION INSIDER

Many of you will manage complex projects for your customers, so ensuring your project management process is efficient is crucial.

Things to think about:

4 Do you use subscription-based project management software?

4 How are you tracking projects and customers?

SPOTLIGHT INDEX

4 What is the administrative burden on your staff using these systems?

What is the average spend for a customer, and is it less than the amount it costs you to find that customer?

4 How are you scheduling projects (or customer visits)?

REVIEW YOUR FINANCIAL PROCESS

There are multiple financial processes where you can become more efficient. These include your payroll process, your invoicing process and how you pay suppliers.

Again, look at your processes and how much time they demand from your staff. Can you automate here? In some cases, employing a third party to look after this aspect of your business may be more efficient, but that depends on your financial position.

REVIEWING CRITICAL PROCESSES TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS

Take the time to talk to as many customers and members of staff as you can. Review all customer

feedback and keep communicating. Remain open to all possibilities. Sometimes, efficiencies will come from places you least expect them. A new piece of software or a new way of doing things will help you save money and improve a process, bringing in more profit and growth. Start small and build from there.  Good luck on your journey!

Sources

https://www.bluecart.com/blog/efficient-business-systems https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/how-to-run-a-business https://www.forbes.com/sites/ forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/02/14/how-to-identify-and-fixwhat-isnt-working-in-your-operations/?sh=36e5e91f1336

Below are some proven cost-cutting ideas that apply to commercial pavement sweeping companies as well as any other small business:

ASSOCIA TION INSIDER

Cutting Costs Without Cutting Service Quality

SPOTLIGHT INDEX

1. Cut Energy Waste. Even at home, you can save a lot of money by reducing electricity and gas consumption. In a business, the opportunities to save are multiplied by the building sizes, the numbers of people using them, and the numbers and sizes of equipment types. To cut monthly utilities costs significantly:

4 Eliminate unneeded electrical devices.

4 Replace inefficient appliances, lighting fixtures, and wasteful outmoded bulbs.

Instinctively, many business owners rush directly to plans for raising revenues to increase profits. They bypass serious cost-cutting as just a notion that can’t really yield a meaningful margin increase. Many view cutting services as the only alternative that can reduce spending enough to widen their profit margin. But, smaller trimming of expenses across all possible categories can often not only improve overall management efficiency, it can also significantly increase cash flow.

4 Apply weather-stripping and caulk around shop and office doors and windows.

4 Audit walls and roofs for R-values, and correct major waste in these areas.

4 Add blinds or shutters, and/or plant trees, to shade windows from direct sunlight.

4 Install timers to turn off lights in copy rooms, restrooms, and other spaces not in use. Sweeper and other vehicle fuel expenses can make or break a commercial pavement sweeping business. Cutting waste in this area can save many thousands of dollars monthly for an averagesized operation. See the annual NAS fuel cost update and follow that list of recommendations, including these examples to slash runaway fuel costs:

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4 Keep the engines tuned up.

4 Don’t run auxiliary engines while driving between accounts.

INDUSTR Y NEWS

4 Use dust control products to enable carrying less water.

4 Change fuel filters.

4 Design routes efficiently.

4 Dump waste water, vs. carrying it longer distances.

4 Turn off the engine while parked instead of letting it idle.

4 Use a cardlock to prevent the risk of fuel theft.

4 Maintain fuel injectors.

4 Convert to propane.

2. Outsource tasks when it’s cheaper than in-house.

Use

ASSOCIA TION INSIDER SPOTLIGHT

Outsourcing many business services has become a popular cost-cutting alternative across the small business

INDEX

sub-sector over the past decade. Consider outsourcing recruiting, onboarding, benefits management, other HR tasks, bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, IT systems management, housekeeping, building maintenance, and other departmental roles. Use contractors for short-term projects or more permanent part-time work. For start-up

contractors for short-term projects or more permanent part-time work.

sweeping operations, you may benefit from online virtual assistant services, local mechanics shops, etc.

3. Approach your vendors for added value. Working with reliable vendors that you know and trust matters to small business owners. However, over time, there may become too much room to improve the value you are receiving in many of their products or services. Vendors typically do not offer long-time customers discounts unless they are directly asked to do so. Be prepared to switch vendors if your current supplier can no longer offer a comparable value to their competitors.

4. Reduce your interest costs on credit accounts. Apply for extended terms for loan repayments and reduced interest charges where possible. Take the necessary steps to raise your credit rating as required to qualify for lower interest rates. Change lenders by asking competitors to buy your existing loans for your current

loan providers. Ask your local SBA representative for information on the best local resources to reduce your debt-carrying costs. Switch to credit cards that offer lower rates and discounts on purchases.

5. Utilize workspace more efficiently.

If you are heating and cooling, insuring, furnishing, cleaning, and maintaining workspaces and storages that are underutilized, reconfigure your interior spaces to eliminate wasted square footage. In shop buildings, storages, and office spaces with high ceilings or inefficient energy use, seek to reduce cubic feet of unnecessary space.

6. Transition to cloud platform alternatives. Use cloud computing to cut IT costs. Scale services seamlessly and only pay for applications and the amount of use you actually need and only when you need it. Eliminate the high costs of subscriptions to software

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suites that only contain a few applications you need. Instead of ordering custom software, look into the growing abundance of easy-to-use open-source software configuration alternatives that a clever inhouse employee might be able to use to create the programs you need.

7. Minimize inventory carrying costs.

Scrutinize your parts inventory management results to identify areas for cost-cutting. Reduce the number of less frequently replaced parts you’re keeping on hand. Shop for better pricing on inventory items and vehicle maintenance products. Also, evaluate your shipping arrangements to see if there are cost-cutting opportunities there.

8. Close unprofitable revenue channels.

Take a hard look at revenue sources that are not producing enough to justify their costs in time and/or money. Realizing the need to eliminate a service or product that is causing a net loss is as or more important than implementing new channels. Eliminating unprofitable activities and inventories opens possibilities for using the recovered operating funds and paid employee time once spent on that losing channel for more worthwhile propositions.

9. Switch to remote work as appropriate. Conduct a needs analysis to determine how much you may save by altering workplace arrangements for both administrative and field employees. Do they all really need to come into the office every day? If your business can save significantly by allowing some employees to work remotely, try it. Working from home has been shown to bolster productivity and cut turnover by as much as 50 percent, per a large research study conducted by Stanford University (Inc. magazine).

10. Go deeper with cost-cutting.

Deeper cost-cutting may be needed, for example, in payroll, which accounts for a staggering average of 60 percent of operating costs in the U.S. American businesses. Even bravely examining and eliminating customer accounts to eliminate unprofitable services provided to some or cutting accounts can leave a sweeping company operating leaner and more sustainably over time.

TIP: Don’t Cut Off Marketing!

In tight economic times, many small business owners instinctively slash marketing from their budgets. They see it as an obvious go-to area for cutting an avoidable expense, vs. a critical investment in revenue generation. But, of course, to increase profits, generating more revenue in tough financial periods is key. So, keep perspective. After all, other business managers and owners are looking for ways to save and add value just as you are during tight economic times. Focus on creative marketing strategies to show your market that the best value is in using your services.

Increasing Profits by Reducing Expenses

Instead of reacting to economic challenges by

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Scrutinize your parts inventory management results to identify areas for cost-cutting. Reduce the number of less frequently replaced parts you’re keeping on hand.

raising prices, slashing services, and/or eliminating products, first determine how much additional cash flow you need to operate well. Evaluate the above and other cost-cutting methods to calculate how much of that gap you can close by cutting operating expenses without impacting services or quality. Combining cost-cutting with carefully raising prices and/or discontinuing unprofitable service or product offerings is often the most practical and least painful approach to increasing profit margins.

Resource:

Inc. magazine report on Stanford research of productivity and attrition rates due to remote work: https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a2-year-stanford-study-shows-astonishingproductivity-boost-of-working-from-home. html

Sources

https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/ business/trends-and-insights/articles/10-waysto-cut-costs-for-your-small-business/

https://hbr.org/2019/08/is-it-time-to-letemployees-work-from-anywhere

https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivitylet-more-employees-work-from-home

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a-2year-stanford-study-shows-astonishingproductivity-boost-of-working-from-home.

html

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/businessthrive-tough-economy-2948298

https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/ business/trends-and-insights/articles/10ways-to-cut-costs-for-your-small-business/ https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivitylet-more-employees-work-from-home

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a-2year-stanford-study-shows-astonishingproductivity-boost-of-working-from-home.

html

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