New or Pre-Owned?

The owners of West Virginia’s Potomac Portable Restrooms tried business building both ways — buying an existing company and starting from scratch. Now they can reflect on which method works best.
New or Pre-Owned?

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Anyone who’s ever done it would surely agree: Buying an existing business is no walk in the park. The learning curve has very little … well, curve, and the sometimes clumsy “trial by fire” experiences seem to go with the territory. There are countless processes, procedures, customers, routes and employees to learn about. And, the world doesn’t come to a standstill while you figure it all out — there are still accounts to service, phones to answer and bills to pay.

And then there is starting a business from scratch, which, according to Jack and Kathy Meyer, owners of Potomac Portable Restrooms in Shepherdstown, W. Va., makes buying an existing company look easy. They should know — they’ve done it both ways.

 

BREAKING INTO THE BUSINESS

When the Meyers bought their first business, Fairfax Septic Tank Service, in 1988, they weren’t necessarily looking to get into septic pumping — they were looking to get out of a daily 9-to-5 that had Jack commuting about three hours a day to Arlington, Va., from their home in Shepherdstown.

It was Kathy’s late father, pumper Sam Koberlein of Koberlein’s Septic Service in Beach Lake, Pa., who alerted the couple to a nearby septic pumping and inspection company that was for sale. The owner had died, and the company was being run — reluctantly — by accountants. The couple jumped at the chance to start a new career with their own business.

But, the decision to buy turned out to be the easy part. Neglected since the owner’s death, the business was in rough shape, according to the couple.

What came with the purchase? “The company had one truck when we bought it and it was a sad truck — an old 1983 International with a 2,500-gallon tank,” Jack says. The Meyers also walked away with a customer list, and the one employee, who, with 33 years of pumping experience, turned out to be a valuable asset. Besides having Kathy’s father to call on for help when needed, the couple’s work history was in corporate America and finance, so it was almost all new to them.

“If it wasn’t for (the driver, the late Buck Edwards), I would have been in big trouble. He taught me everything he knew. He was gracious and giving about it,” Jack explains. Jack obtained a CDL and Edwards schooled him in driving the truck and pumping septic tanks. Kathy, meanwhile, put her previous experience in office administration to work, answering the phones and tending to customer needs. With a lot of ambition and some elbow grease, the business grew and the Meyers soon bought another truck.

 

STARTING OVER

Fourteen years after buying that struggling little business in Chantilly, Va., 70 miles away from their home, it was again time to make a change. This time, however, the Meyers had all the business knowledge they’d accumulated in running Fairfax to put to use toward a new endeavor: launching a business.

“We grew (Fairfax) to a point where we felt we could make a reasonable profit on the sale so we could start a company closer to where we lived. We got the price we wanted, and decided to start Potomac,” Jack says.

The product/service mix this time was new and different — this time the couple focused more on portable sanitation. The Meyers saw opportunity in capitalizing on a construction boom, which soon steered the majority of their accounts. From meager beginnings, the business grew quickly. A year and a half in, they hired their first employee. Today, there are six employees.

“You could see the shift,” Kathy recalls. “It was a little scary fast. The economy was good and we were growing a little too quickly.” Quickly, in that the demand was requiring quick and significant investment in their portable restroom inventory, she explains.

Today, Potomac is about three times bigger than the couple’s first business at its peak, with an inventory of 450 restrooms, 10 handicap units; six restrooms with sinks and 18 freshwater systems, all from PolyJohn Enterprises Corp. There are 18 300-gallon waste/200-gallon freshwater holding tanks, also from PolyJohn, to go with the freshwater systems. The restrooms are transported on the company’s two Explorer restroom trailers: an 8-unit and a 12-unit, made by McKee Technologies Inc.

The company’s fleet includes a 2001 International DT466 with 1,500-gallon waste/ 500-gallon freshwater steel tank, built by Lely Manufacturing Inc.; a 2000 GMC 3500 crew cab with 500-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater steel tank and a 2000 UD Trucks cabover flatbed with a 400-gallon waste/200-gallon freshwater steel tank, both built by Dyna-Vac Equipment; and two 2008 Dodge 5500s with 1,000-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater steel tanks built by Lane’s Vacuum Tank Inc.

 

NEW SET OF CHALLENGES

The Meyers benefitted from owning the previous business, but still met some unexpected challenges. First, Kathy explains, there were the startup costs associated with a new business.

“You all of a sudden discover, ‘We need this, we need that, we need a truck and we need computers,’ ” she says. “There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle to put together; when you buy a business, all of the pieces are in place — the (customers) are coming to you. When you start a business, it’s a little more footwork. You’re waiting for the phone to ring and the money’s not coming in right away. It takes a while to build up that database and get your name out there.”

It was a grass-roots effort that had Jack hitting the streets, talking to people and making inroads with customers. Initially, the company focused solely on portable restroom rentals. Today, about 25 percent of the business is septic tank pumping.

“For me, the surprise was the work involved in keeping track of all these restrooms and the billing and invoicing — I wasn’t aware what a big thing that would be, and was completely different than the septic business,” Jack says.

With the time-consuming nature of the business, simplification became essential. The Meyers made strategic software purchases to streamline invoicing, accounting and routing and delivery.

At the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo, the Meyers have been introduced to a number of efficiency-enhancing tools, which have made their business run more smoothly. The company purchased Clear Computing TAC (Total Activity Control) software, which helps with customer records, billing and dispatching. Processes and documents have become more streamlined with time and the company has become more automated.

The company’s InSight USA StreetEagle GPS, purchased about a year ago, also has proven to be a valuable tool. Meyer can view the precise location of the trucks on a street map and monitor the progress of technicians. Even the pumps on the trucks are wired to the system and Meyer knows if and when pumps are running.

“If there’s a question from a customer, I can go back and look at the history and know exactly what time (the technician) was cleaning a restroom to know that it was in fact done,’’ Jack says. “It also keeps our guys from straying too far off the beaten path.”

 

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

The Meyers’ earlier professional lives might not have prepared them for driving trucks and pondering disposal options, but it did provide them with the skills they have applied to each of their businesses.

Jack was an investment broker, and through that experience he developed a knack for communicating with people and feeling comfortable around them. “To get started in that business, you start with lots of cold calling and experience lots of rejection,” he says. “I was no stranger to calling on people. I was knocking on doors and going to jobsites.”

Kathy’s administrative experience —working for lawyers and serving as the assistant to the president of the company Jack and Kathy worked at when they met — provided a wealth of transferable skills.

Now, with the Meyer’s office located just four miles down the street, there are no long commutes to worry about and the couple is happy with the way things turned out. And, while there are challenges inherent in a husband-wife business partnership, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Buying the septic tank service company was much less complicated than starting a new portable restroom company,” Jack says. “We had some lean years. Time wise, I believe it was when we finally owned about 400 restrooms that we were able to begin breathing a little easier.

Would they do things differently, knowing what they know now? They agree: “Probably not.”



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