Dear Old Dad – You Continue to Amaze Me!

Living and Learning in the Southcoast, MA – This is a drawing I did of my dad when I was in grad school.  I’ve written about my dad before on this blog.  He had a system.  It was a simple, multi-purpose system.  He was an uneducated man through no fault of his own.  His childhood during the Depression and his learning disability made going to school tougher than it had to be on a little kid.  He was a hard worker.  He learned how to work on the family farm up the Gaspe and in the woods.  Yup, he was  real Canadian lumberjack before chain saws. 

Dad, had no education.  However, was no dummy.  He was highly functional.  He was a trainee instructor at the Berkshire–Hathaway and when he left there, he started and operated one of the larger janitorial contracting services in the Southcoast.  And, no one knew he couldn’t read.  But, as he did say, I know my numbers and nobody will ever screw me out of any money.

He jumped into my head today.  Dad’s been gone for almost three years come November.  He would have been 81 this year.  I was minding my own business, taking a walk and Dad was the furthest thing from my mind.  Then I saw a familiar place.  Oddly enough, I’ve walked by it dozens of times.  But this time I remembered, “oh, we did that house,” and it lead to another thought.  In fact, it’s quite hard to walk around this part of town without thinking of him.  He did  at least one house on every block.  Yeah, I knew that but why today?

Then I realized how scared he must have been when he first started his business.  I had a flashback to my first day on my own and my silly idea of introducing myself everyday.  Hi, I’m Ron Fortier and today is the (insert number here) of my business.  I do advertising.  I did that for 365-days.  I remembered waking up  on occasion that first year suddenly – bolt upright in bed wondering – did I pay the mortgage?  Can I pay the mortgage?  Then I realized the other system that Dad had that I never paid attention to.  And, again I’m left in awe of you Dad!  It was so simple.  It was great management practice.  It worked.  I kept the wolf of fear away from his mind.

His system was simple.  He managed to get several contracts for commercial buildings ranging from the gas company to the state welfare office and many others in between.  You know, I know he got some of his commercial work from his residential and vice versa.  But, he also had a couple of really great customers who opened lots of lucrative doors for him.  Anyway, the commercial buildings were, for the most part, night work and offered a steady cash flow. 

The residential day work that he got was the result of his fire engine red truck with my first advertising logo (I came up with the business name) on it – Roland’s Clean Sweep Janitorial Service.  Other calls came from referrals and I’d say that was the bulk of the business.  Some of them were one-offs such as insurance jobs (smoke damage), construction clean-up (getting new homes or apartments ready for their new owners or tenants).  Some of them were seasonal both repeat and new customers.  I think we got most of the homes in Nonquit and the other summer colonies as they were once called in South Dartmouth, Mattapoiset and Westport ready every year for their owners.

So the system was simple.  Steady income and cash-flow from the night work and use the day work for repeat business and further opportunities.  “You have to have a system,” he used to say.  But I just realized it pertained to the day-to-day operation of the business as well.  Great customer service (in fact raving fans) and attention to details created lots of repeat business and referrals and a great reputation.  You didn’t need business school Dad, you could have taught it.  You sure did teach me a lot.