Why I Started Junk Smiths — And Why My Dad Came With Me

People ask me how I got into the junk removal business. The honest answer is: I started it for my dad.

When my mom passed, my father Norton was 82. He’d spent his whole career in waste management. I was doing equipment financing at the time, and part of my job was looking for companies that might need new equipment. I kept running into these junk removal franchises. The more I looked at them, the more I thought — this is it. This is the business my dad and I could build together. Something he’d be interested in. Something he could come into the office and help run.

So that’s what we did.

For six days a week, until he passed two and a half years ago, Norton was at the office. You couldn’t keep him away. Getting to work and spending time with him every day was awesome. I don’t know how many sons get to work side by side with their dad that long, that late in life. It’s the part of starting this business I’m most grateful for.

The name was easy. Our last name is Smith. Junk Smiths. Catchy, plays on the name, and felt right.

What This Work Actually Looks Like

My day starts at 7:30 at the yard. Team huddle. We get the crews off to their first jobs. Then I head to the office — emails, phone calls, Zoom meetings, mail, checking in with office staff on ongoing projects, marketing, leads, estimates, making sure the trucks are serviced, paying bills. Then out the door to do estimates in person.

The thing most people don’t get about junk removal until they’re in it is: it’s a grind. It’s hard physical work, but the harder part is the business side. Most customers don’t repeat on a regular basis — you hire us once, we do a great job, and then you don’t need us again for a year or three. So you have to constantly bring in new clients. That’s a treadmill that never stops.

The flip side is what’s happened over the years: just over half our jobs this year are coming from previous customers and recurring commercial accounts. That’s what builds a real business — relationships, not paid ads. That’s the biggest lesson I’d give anyone trying to start in this industry: don’t lean on paid ads too hard. Build relationships. Ads bring you a customer once. The relationship brings them back, and brings their neighbor, and brings their property manager.

A Good Customer vs. A Bad One

A good customer understands what goes into the job and appreciates the service. A bad one thinks hauling away their unwanted stuff should be free. They only see the dollar cost — not the truck, the fuel, the two guys, the dump fees, the insurance, the time.

The fix for that isn’t arguing. The fix is being transparent. We take before and after pictures on every job, so you can see exactly what we took. You only pay for what we hauled. That’s fair. That’s also how you end up with 1,300 five-star reviews.

Where Your Stuff Actually Goes

A lot of junk removal companies just dump everything. We don’t. We donate, give away, resell, or recycle 70 to 80 percent of what we pick up. When we can’t recycle something ourselves, we take it to a transfer station that’s legally required to recycle. So even our dump runs end up recycled by default.

I had a job once at a warehouse full of electric toothbrush chargers — thousands of them. Faulty. Fire hazard. I can’t say whose they were. They all got recycled. That’s the kind of work I’m proud of. That stuff didn’t go in a landfill.

The Hard Jobs

We do a lot of hoarding cleanouts. Those are difficult and rewarding in equal measure. People in those situations have a hard time letting go of items, and they deal with feelings of shame when someone sees the inside of their home. Our job isn’t just to haul stuff out. It’s to help them make tough decisions and feel like they’re taking control back. When you leave a job like that and the customer hugs you — that’s why you do this.

We’ve also had jobs that went sideways. We had a furniture cleanout once where the clients seemed to be on drugs and started getting hostile with our team. We didn’t feel safe. We unloaded their items and left. That’s the rule: my team comes home safe. Every time.

The Customers Who Become Friends

The best part of this work is the people you see over and over. We have a loyalty program — return customers get a discount, and after a certain number of jobs they get a small free pickup or a bigger discount on their sixth job. We track it on a punch card and in our CRM.

It started as a way to reward repeat business, but what it turned into is something better. Those customers stop feeling like customers. We pull up and it’s a friendly visit. They tell us what’s going on. They introduce us to neighbors. They’ve watched our business grow, and we’ve watched their kids grow.

What’s Next

We’re expanding into another county right now by acquiring a competitor. We’ve been looking at acquisitions for a while — it just speeds up the process compared to building from zero in a new market.

But the five-year vision isn’t about getting big for the sake of getting big. It’s about organic growth through providing a superior customer service experience. The reputation we’ve built in our community took years to earn. I’m not interested in trading that in to be a bigger version of average.

This business is full of copycats. People copy our style, our look, our pitch. It’s flattering. But they can’t copy 1,300 five-star reviews. They can’t copy years of showing up on time and doing right by people. That’s not something you fake.

Outside the Truck

People ask what I do when I’m not working. The truth is I work six days a week, so the seventh matters. I have two grown daughters and two granddaughters. I love going to dinner with them and hearing what’s going on in their lives. I have two French bulldogs I look forward to seeing at the end of every day. I love food. I love movies. I’m a simple person outside of work.

The work is hard. The hours are long. The stress is real. But I love this industry, I love my team, and I love the people we serve. My dad would have loved that we’re still building this thing. In a lot of ways, we’re still building it with him.

— Sean Smith, Owner/Operator, Junk Smiths

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