When Mike Ellingson married his wife, Melissa, in 1999, he drove to the wedding in a Ford F-350 restroom service truck — fully stocked with toilet paper.

“I was working the day of the wedding, so I drove my work truck to the ceremony,” he recalls. “I had an ample supply of toilet paper inside, which was a big mistake. I wasn’t really thinking — I was just trying to get there.”

Of course, by night’s end, there was more toilet paper on the truck than inside it.

That anecdote illustrates two things that have helped Ellingson build a successful portable sanitation and septic pumping business in Republic, a small town in rural northeastern Washington: Work is an integral part of his life, even on special occasions, and he learns from his mistakes.

“When I started out, I had no clue,” he candidly admits. “The whole business thing was one big learning process. But I like to learn how things work, and it’s always interesting to me to see how other businesses work, and apply what they do in my business. I’m always trying to improve.

“Over the years, I’ve learned a lot and come a long way.”

Humble beginning

Ellingson’s education in Business 101 began in the early 1990s, when he started working for 10-7 Septic Service, a small portable restroom and septic tank cleaning outfit run as a side business by a retired police officer. (In case you’re wondering, “10-7” is police call code for “out of service.”)

“The owner wanted to get out of the business, so his son and I were going to buy it,” Ellingson explains. “But then the son got married and moved away, so that left me to run the business, which consisted of about 100 accounts, most of them septic service customers.”

Ellingson was 19 years old when he took over the business in 1994. His motivation at the time was very simple:

“As a young, dumb kid, I just loved to drive trucks,” he says with a chuckle. “Plus, I guess owning your own business seemed kind of neat — you know, be your own boss and make your own hours.

“Then you learn more about it and realize you do make your own hours — 24 hours a day, seven days a week! But I’ve never been afraid to work hard, so that was a good thing.”

A good thing, indeed. On a typical day, Ellingson rises at 5 a.m. and tries to catch up on paperwork at his home office. On three days of the week, he then heads out to service restrooms — about 30 a day. The accounts are far apart; it’s common for Ellingson to drive 250 miles a day.

On the other two days of the week, Ellingson cleans septic tanks. He handles emergency septic calls on Saturdays and Sundays.

“I work an average of 60 hours a week, and 80 hours in summer isn’t out of line,” he notes. The only respite is during the slower months from January through April.

Steady growth

After he got married, Ellingson changed the name of the business to M-n-M Sanitary, which stands for Melissa and Mike. Business grew, slowly but surely.

“I had no master plan, though I wish I would’ve,” he says. “It all just kind of happened. I just kept doing good work and kept answering phone calls.”

At first, Ellingson obtained more and more special event work — local festivals and celebrations, dirt-track car races and county fairs. Then, in 2001, the U.S. Forest Service asked M-n-M to provide portable restrooms for a camp of firefighters battling a forest fire. That led to an annual renewable contract to provide the forest service with restrooms from May through October.

“One year they wanted more than 100 units, and I had only 10 available,” he says. “To avoid buying more, I rented units from companies in Spokane (about 125 miles southeast of Republic).”

As business mushroomed, so did the company’s inventory. Ellingson now owns about 135 standard portable restrooms. About 110 are from Satellite Industries Inc., and the rest are PolyJohn Enterprises Corp. units.

Ellingson operates with two trucks. The septic pumper is a 1993 Kenworth T600 that he built out himself with a 3,000-gallon steel waste tank and a 135-gallon aluminum freshwater tank that used to be a fuel tank. It’s equipped with a Masport H75V pump. The restroom service truck is a 2001 Chevrolet 3500 equipped with a 600-gallon waste/100-gallon freshwater/275-gallon deodorant mix steel tank that he bought from another service provider.

Ellingson also owns a trailer that carries a 725-gallon plastic freshwater tank. It’s used to clean out vault toilets in the area’s national forests. In addition, he carries RIDGID K-1500 and K-50 sectional cable drain cleaning machines in a small cargo trailer.

Portable restrooms make up about half of M-n-M’s total revenue, and septic tank cleaning adds another 25 percent. Two smaller business sidelines, drain cleaning and waste disposal, round out the balance.

Learn from mistakes

Making a go of the business was anything but easy during the early years, Ellingson remembers.

“For the first seven years, I also worked at a local mine and as a postal service employee to make ends meet,” he says.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks was lack of financial know-how. For instance, he borrowed money early on to buy new restrooms, something he rarely even considers now.

“I don’t finance anything anymore,” he explains. “A low debt load is a lot less risky. For instance, if I’d get hurt, I wouldn’t be able to make the payments on a loan.

“On one hand, if you don’t borrow money, your business will grow slower. But we’re not in a hurry to grow. If the community grows, we grow with it. If the community doesn’t grow, then we aren’t stuck with a lot of debt.”

Ellingson has also learned it’s critical to keep up with paperwork, especially invoices. He also found out that knowing the costs of doing business is essential to proper and profitable pricing.

“You’ve got to know what your costs are before you even make a dime,” he emphasizes. “And you can’t forget to consider your own wages in that equation. I think that a lot of times, people underprice themselves.”

Ellingson points out that a good accountant is invaluable to any small businessman. Initially, Ellingson hired one just to handle federal income tax payments.

“Now our accountant reviews our profit-and-loss statement on a monthly basis and keeps us on track. They’re helping us spend money in the right places and be sure we have enough money to pay quarterly taxes,” he says.

“Before that, I was going through life blind and not paying much attention to money,” he continues. “I’m a worker, not a bookkeeper. But now I’m more of a bookkeeper, and I don’t mind it because I know what my expenses are, which makes it easier to price correctly instead of underbidding yourself.”

Service spurs growth

Fortunately, Ellingson didn’t need any lessons in customer service. Meticulously cleaned restrooms are a high priority, and customers take notice.

“You have to take time to clean the toilets, not just wash them out,” he asserts. “And don’t forget to wash the doors. When you sit down on a toilet, the only thing you see is the door, and if it’s dirty, people think that’s really gross.’’

Good service provides another benefit — less money spent on marketing. While Ellingson admits that being the only operator in the area helps immensely, he still has to do a good job to obtain repeat business.

“I don’t do any marketing at all, except for the phone book and a Web site,” he observes. “Business just seems to come to me. And during summer, I’m usually so busy that I’m not worried about getting new customers.

“But it’s a lot of feast and famine; you work your butt off in summer and can’t wait for winter, then come winter, you can’t wait for summer so you can start earning some money again.”

Busy or slow, Ellingson enjoys one constant in his life as a hard-working sole proprietor: his continuing education in the world of business.

“I’m always trying to improve,” he says. “Every day I learn something new.”