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Meet Dave Steinman of College Hunks Hauling Junk

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Steinman.

Dave, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
For me, the story begins in Hartford, Connecticut where I was born and raised. After graduating from the University of Hartford, I began a 35-corporate career in the airline, hospitality and travel technology industry. It was an exciting time – living in different cities and traveling the US and the globe for both work and pleasure.

After being laid off from in 2009, I decided to look at opportunities to be an entrepreneur – I had often thought about being my own boss one day, but never had the guts to walk away from the steady paycheck. Trying to find the ideal position in travel in a post-9/11 environment proved to be very difficult so I began looking seriously at the prospect of buying a business.

From childhood, I always had a fascination with junk – I can remember picking through trash while walking to and from school. In fact, I still have a copper bell from Easter Island that I found in the trash. No doubt, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree since about 60+ years earlier, my Grandfather came to this country and hauled junk using only a horse and buggy.

Little did I know that my search for a business would lead me to look closer into junk removal. After attending a workshop on franchising and wanting to take things to the next level, I was introduced to College Hunks Hauling Junk. Clearly, I was intrigued by the name alone and wanted to learn more. After a trip to Tampa for discovery day and an opportunity to meet with the two sub-30-year-old founders, I was hooked and knew this was where I needed to be.

And, we’ve not looked back. Fast forward to August of this year – we celebrated our seventh anniversary in business, Though the early years were lean, we’ve continued to grow each year and we plan to expand capacity again early next year.

Has it been a smooth road?
Small business ownership is not easy by any stretch and as can be expected, the early years are the most challenging. Our particular business is one that has taken several years to gain traction and mature. It’s more of a convenience service that relies on customers having to part with discretionary dollars. In the beginning, we went far and wide to chase the revenue – it took a few years at least to hone the model (and we’re still refining it).

Hiring has always been a challenge – finding the right team members that will fit our culture and deliver on the brand promise. By nature of the brand, we tend to hire mostly collegiate employees which lends itself to being a revolving door at times. We lose terrific team members because they graduate and go onto begin their own careers, join the military, go onto graduate and/or law school, etc. Recruiting has become a year-round activity for us and we’re almost always willing to find a place for a great individual that happens upon us…

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the College Hunks Hauling Junk story. Tell us more about the business.
College Hunks Hauling Junk is the largest U.S.-based junk removal company in the country. HUNKS stands for – Honest, Uniformed, Nice, Knowledgeable Service. Our clean-cut, collegiate, uniformed teams will remove virtually all unwanted items from your home or business in addition to providing other hourly labor services. We’ll take single items as well as perform complete residential and commercial clean-outs.

What differentiates us:

– Approximately 70% of all the items we collect are donated, reused, recycled, repurposed or otherwise diverted from the landfill.

– Our up-front and transparent pricing includes all labor, loading, sorting, disposal and transportation.

– We are bonded and insured.

– We can generally come out within 24-48 hours – and many times even same day.

While safety is our number one imperative, we strive each and every day to deliver stress free service to our clients. I am very proud that we consistently rank near the top of our franchise system in client loyalty with a Net Promoter Score of 94% (year-to-date) – far higher than some of the most iconic brands in business today.

Finally, we are proud members of the Frisco and Plano Chambers of Commerce and I’m also a graduate of the Leadership Plano.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The outlook is very bright since the junk removal business has matured somewhat – we’re seeing that all around the country. That said, I am particularly bullish on our market – the explosion of activity in Collin County is creating more demand for our services and I see no sign of that slowing any time soon. While we’re seeing other competitors enter the market, we’ve established ourselves as the go-to brand for stress-free service. That is demonstrated by our consistently high client loyalty scores and an increase in both repeat and referral business.

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