16: The Larry Benham Episode

In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, host Sid Graef interviews Houston-based entrepreneur Larry Benham, who has spent nearly a decade in the power washing and soft washing business—and recently launched a successful trash bin cleaning service. Larry explains how he grew multiple home service businesses by leveraging relationships, seeking out commercial contracts, and diversifying his offerings. He shares his “Ross Perot” sales strategy of securing sales before equipment purchase, the importance of asking for deposits, and how simple demonstrations can reel in additional customers on the spot. Larry also reveals a unique fundraising idea—partnering with local youth sports teams to sell his services door-to-door—which quickly added hundreds of new customers. He emphasizes consistent branding, exploring new income streams, and always continuing to learn from mentors, masterminds, and peers.

Show Notes

• Guest:

  • Larry Benham – Houston, Texas-based entrepreneur in power washing, soft washing, and trash bin cleaning.

• Key Topics Discussed:

  1. Transitioning into Power Washing: Moved from real estate to landscaping and then accidentally discovered lucrative builder contracts.
  2. Ross Perot Sales Method: Sell first, then acquire equipment—don’t be afraid to test demand.
  3. Asking for Deposits: Ensures clients have skin in the game and prevents wasted scheduling.
  4. Diversification: Jumping into trash bin cleaning for recurring monthly revenue and potential franchising.
  5. Unique Fundraising Approach: Enlisting local sports teams to sell trash bin cleaning services door-to-door, creating win-win community partnerships.
  6. Working with Commercial Clients: Seeking municipality and commercial contracts for stable, larger-ticket work.
  7. Importance of Mentorship: Consulting with peers and experienced professionals to navigate obstacles.

• References & Mentions:

  • Ross Perot (entrepreneur and founder of EDS): 
  • IBM 
  • Bimbo Bakeries 
  • Alex Hormozi 
  • Marine Corps 
  • Founders Podcast 
  • John T (industry educator)

• Resources 

  • The Huge Insider newsletter signup
  • The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide
  • The Foundations platform trial offer
  • The Huge Mastermind info page
  • Facebook

 

Transcript:

[Sid Graef]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations Podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana.

[Gabe Torres]:
I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee.

[Sheila Smeltzer]:
And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina. We're your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in the industry—folks that have already built seven- and eight-figure businesses, and they want to help you succeed.

[Gabe Torres]:
Yep. No fake gurus on this show. Just real-life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100 percent experience, zero percent theory.

[Sheila Smeltzer]:
We're going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece.

[Sid Graef]:
Thanks for joining us on the wild journey of entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.

[Sid Graef]:
Welcome back, my friend. Good to see you again. This is Sid with the Huge Transformation Podcast. As you can hear, I kind of lost my voice a little bit today, so I don't want that to be distracting for you. When you hear the interview with Larry Benham, I got Larry on the show today. He's a member of our mastermind. He's been in business for 35-plus years, but he's a guy that's not afraid to make changes. He had a career in real estate, and then he sort of accidentally got started in the landscaping business, and then he really accidentally got started in the power wash and soft wash business, at which he's done exceptionally well in the Houston marketplace. Then he added a new business line less than two years ago.

There's a ton to learn and glean from Larry. One thing I want you to look for is when he talks about the “Ross Perot Sales Method.” It's so simple but overlooked—and so incredibly valuable. I won't reveal what it is now; you'll hear it on the show. And again, everything we talk about in the show is going to be in the show notes. I appreciate you being back and listening. Please meet my friend, Larry Benham.

[Sid Graef]:
Well, hello, everyone. This is Sid with Huge Transformations, and I have my friend Larry Benham on the show with us today. I met Larry only a year ago at the Huge Convention. He came to one of our mastermind visitors’ days, and then he joined the mastermind. It's really interesting. And Larry, I don't know how long you've been in business. You've definitely got a journey behind you. Your current business—Larry’s in Houston, Texas, and he's got a large trash bin cleaning company with…you told me how many trucks you had ordered. So here's what I'm going to do, Larry: would you fill in the blanks? I know you're in trash bin cleaning now—you've been in business for a good long while. Tell me, tell everybody a little bit about yourself currently. Then I'm gonna go back in time and see where you started in business.

[Larry Benham]:
Okay. My name is Larry Benham, as it says. I am actually in the trash bin cleaning business in addition to soft washing and pressure washing, just like everybody else in the industry, it seems like. I've been doing this for nine years straight now. This is my ninth year. Sid was correct: we met just about a year ago, but that was my second convention at the Huge, and it is something I will never miss again.

[Sid Graef]:
That's good to hear. We didn't run you off. We didn't send you down the flogging lane, you know, that we take people down—no. So you've been in the home service industry for nine years.

[Larry Benham]:
Yes, sir.

[Sid Graef]:
Tell us a little bit about your journey. Like, how did you get into home services? What were you doing beforehand?

[Larry Benham]:
Well, actually, I've been in it a little longer. Many years ago, I was in the real estate game and investments. I sold my business and decided to sit back a little bit and then take time. I actually started doing landscaping and lawn yards again—just started cutting grass, bored, because I didn't have anything else to do. I took that company and grew it in three years from one lawnmower, one weed eater, a blower...and we were doing 486 residential yards a week, 77 commercial contracts, and we were handling seven homebuilders as well before I sold it.

Somebody wanted to merge with me; I didn't want to do that, and I ended up turning around and selling it. The main reason why I sold it—which really may be a good thing for other folks in our industry to look into—one of the homebuilders asked me one day if I would pressure wash a driveway. I said, “I don't even own a pressure washer.” I asked him how much he was going to pay me to do the job, and he said, “Oh, I'm gonna pay you 150 bucks.” I said, “It's not worth my time. Not going to do it.” These were new home builds, so basically all you're really doing is rinsing it off. He goes, “No, no, you're coming back to each house. You're going to do it four times.” I'm like, “So 600? We can do this.”

[Sid Graef]:
Wow.

[Larry Benham]:
I said, “How many houses?” He goes, “All of them in this community—just that one community.” They were building like 300 houses, I think. So I ended up just starting with a little itty-bitty one from Tractor Supply Company, and saw the writing on the wall and figured, “This is better than cutting grass.” And that's how it all started. I have one homebuilder to thank for opening my eyes to it. Then my single biggest customer still to this date is Bimbo, who gave me an opportunity for the commercial bids, and took off running.

[Sid Graef]:
Wow. Well, one thing—that's a pretty exceptional first client: somebody that says, “We've got 300 of these.”

[Larry Benham]:
Yeah, the homebuilder. I was actually managing seven homebuilders at the time, so I picked up all of them and ended up going from that little itty-bitty machine I bought at Tractor Supply to buying a trailer and just running all around and doing it. Then it snowballed and just kept getting bigger and bigger every day.

[Sid Graef]:
When that happened, did you see it as a big opportunity, or just a good opportunity?

[Larry Benham]:
I saw it as a really great opportunity. Just like everything, from the landscaping thing to coming into the pressure washing business, I hate to say it, but there are—someone pointed this out to me a long time ago—there are three kinds of pressure washing companies out there: there’s Chuck in a truck, there's contracts, and there's professionals. You work your way up, and you just become one of the top dogs. The opportunity is there. There's nothing wrong with competition, but you have to continually learn and educate yourself and make yourself stand out above everybody else.

[Sid Graef]:
Yeah, for sure. What are some of the ways that—early on or now—you and your company with your soft wash and pressure wash stand out? What’s your difference?

[Larry Benham]:
I guess we've been around so long, we have a good name here in the Houston area and beyond. A lot of commercial contracts, residential. When I first started, I did the builders and a lot of contacts I had. I was fortunate to get some commercial deals as well. Then even—I did the whole Angie’s List thing back then. I really figured that was the right way to go. It definitely wasn't, because you’re basically working for them. But then it was just word of mouth—keeping your commitments, keeping your business straight, and getting your name out there. As a matter of fact, I didn't have a website for two years when I first started pressure washing because I sold it when I sold the lawns, and everything. I let that one go, didn't even have a new one, and didn't have time to really sit down and do it. I was so busy with friends, family, and all the other business that was coming after us.

It was great—great times, and still is today.

[Sid Graef]:
That's a great position to be in, where business is coming in fast enough and reliably enough that you don't have to stress about, “Gotta find some work, gotta find some work.”

[Larry Benham]:
Yeah. It's so funny. I just thought about it the other day. I didn't do it this year, but last year, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is this time of year. They called me last year, two days before the rodeo was set to begin, and—ironically about this—they said, “Can you come see us to show you something, see if you can handle it for us?” And I said, “Okay.” I went over there. I don’t know if you're familiar with where the Texans play football, the NRG Stadium. Every year for the rodeo, they bring dirt in for the rodeo on the concrete. I was actually there when they just started rolling it in. I said, “Well, what's the problem?” They're like, “Do you see that dust cloud starting?” I said, “Yeah.” I asked, “When are they going to be done with the dirt?” They said, “Two days.”

They were literally running dump trucks straight, 24 hours a day, for two days—a little over two days—which created a dust cloud. They wanted the whole stadium, all the seats, washed down before the rodeo started. They said, “We're going to finish—” I had about 48 hours to get it done. Luckily, we had lights and we never stopped, and we got it taken care of. To be honest with you, 35,000 in two days is not a bad ticket.

[Sid Graef]:
That's not a bad ticket. That's really cool.

[Larry Benham]:
It was a great experience. It was a great experience.

[Sid Graef]:
Most of your early business was built on relationships. Did that come about by an existing relationship, or did they find you some other way?

[Larry Benham]:
A lot of existing relationships, but then a lot of friends and family were calling me, and my name just got out there. Even—a lot of people don’t understand this because I'm in Houston, but the coast is not far away. Maybe in the coastal areas or other parts of the country, they need to realize those beach houses have to be rinsed off every year. They have to be cleaned every year because of the salt air. I literally have customers now, for five, six years, I've never met in my entire life. We're on schedule. They call me, or I call them, and just go do it, send them a bill, and they pay it. I've never met them. That's a huge recurring business for us—it really is.

[Sid Graef]:
That's fantastic. Also, there has to be something along the way that built and developed enough trust between that person and you that they trust your company to get it done sight unseen, as far as them not having to be there—you've never met them, you’ve done it for five years, and they keep doing it.

[Larry Benham]:
Correct.

[Sid Graef]:
Where did that come from? Is that still word of mouth?

[Larry Benham]:
Word of mouth, yes. Now the website, obviously, is up and moving, and you're always going through hiccups with that—always fine-tuning it. But the name recognition is out there. I did do the radio for about a year, which even got me more phone calls. But it wasn't the best because some of the phone calls, I'd get a lot of elderly folks that couldn't afford to pay us. Or they all need discounts or help, which is part of life. You do your best to help everybody, and maybe I'm just a sucker because I do help the elderly more than anybody—I really do—because I understand the fixed income. If we have to take a little bit of a hit, we're going to do it for them, which goes a long way.

[Sid Graef]:
It does go a long way. There's something I heard one time from an ancient text of wisdom that said, “Give, and you shall receive.” You're probably familiar with that.

[Larry Benham]:
Oh, yeah, it's true. As a matter of fact, I did that today. I actually had a lady call me yesterday—or call in, or whatever she did—and I went over and looked at the house myself. They're an elderly couple, and they wanted the house cleaned because of HOA. I told her a price, and she said, “Oh, that's out of our budget.” I understand that. I said, “Well, tell me what we can do to make this work for you. How much can you afford?” She told me. So we're going to do the job for that. So it took a hit, but sometimes you just have to do that because it does go a real long way.

[Sid Graef]:
That's true. That's true. Good. So along the way, you've grown a couple of different businesses. You were in real estate, then you transitioned to lawn maintenance and landscaping, and then accidentally but now very much on purpose into the power wash and soft wash business. Along the way, you added trash bin cleaning. When did you add that?

[Larry Benham]:
Just last year. I just started. Yes, brand new for us, really. We got started with it. We sort of hesitated for about a year; I had a little bit of a health scare, so I got slowed down a little bit. But it is an up-and-coming industry—it really is—and I'm trying to captivate all of it here in Houston.

[Sid Graef]:
Yeah.

[Larry Benham]:
You know what it does—there's a lot of folks ask me, “Why don’t I do Christmas lights?” There's a lot of folks that do them. I don't care to do them. I think the guys need a break in December—that downtime—but also the trash bins are 12 months out of the year. It's a 12-month contract you sign with those who do it, so you have revenue coming in every month. And then we go back to the commercial customers a little bit. Municipalities always call us at the end of the year where they have to spend money.

But back to the trash bin thing—great, great business: recurring residential, and it just keeps building. The best single day was when I was still driving the truck the first two weeks. I showed up at one appointment and ended up—before I even moved the truck—I ended up doing five houses because they heard the truck, they saw the truck. So one neighbor called, another neighbor called, another neighbor called, and they all just started walking out. It's a very catchy thing. Right now, we have two trucks here, a third one is being built right now, and we also have our first franchise going in Miami next month.

[Sid Graef]:
Oh, no kidding. Congratulations. That's great.

[Larry Benham]:
That is great.

[Sid Graef]:
I’ve been listening to the Founders Podcast—it's all about great business founders and their biographies, mostly U.S.-based but they're all over the world. Estée Lauder built, from poverty, a multibillion-dollar empire, and she said, “The best advertising will never, ever beat an effective demonstration.” And when you said, “I was cleaning one and then got four or five more before I moved the trucks because people saw what was going on. They’re like, ‘Oh, crap—do that for me,’” that’s a built-in, get-paid-to-market marketing campaign on its own. I like that.

[Larry Benham]:
Matter of fact, the very first truck I went to pick up, I was driving it back from Michigan. I just got into Houston, and it was ironic—I had to call the maker of the trucks. I was laughing because there was literally somebody calling off of the advertisement on the side of the truck, and I hadn't even gotten back to my shop yet.

[Sid Graef]:
That's so good. That's great. It seems you haven't had a horrible struggle to get more business—people call you before you even start.

[Larry Benham]:
No, but you're always going to have to try new things. I'm not a real big fan of print ads anymore because people don't really read magazines anymore. Google ads do well, especially down here; they have done a really great deal for us in the trash bin industry. Believe it or not, Facebook campaigns— I always tell people, I believe in the Ross Perot method of selling. If you remember who Ross Perot was…

[Sid Graef]:
I remember. What’s his method?

[Larry Benham]:
Well, his method was quite ingenious. He worked for IBM a long, long time ago, and he left them and went on his own. He went back to IBM a short while later and said, “I need you to build me a thousand computers, and I want them built this way.” They laughed at him. They said, “We'll build them, but good luck selling them.” He goes, “Oh, I've already sold them. I just need you to build them for me.” So I did the same thing with the trash bin deal. A week before we even had the truck, we launched a Facebook campaign, and before the truck even arrived here, we had 128 new customers.

[Sid Graef]:
That's fantastic.

[Larry Benham]:
And of course, you gotta remember your current base and your cross-selling. That's the big thing about it. I have—what—6,700 current customers that I started calling, too.

[Sid Graef]:
I'm going to back up and ask you a different question: you shared this with me briefly—we talked about it in the mastermind a couple of weeks ago. One of the things we were talking about was a revenue expansion plan. You've got this plan for growth, and that means more revenue—and hopefully more profits. You had a very unique thing that you implemented and tested this year, to great effect. For everybody else in the world: you know how your kids have to go sell candy bars to raise money for gymnastics or soccer teams? Well, you took a spin on that, and it's been very effective. Can you walk us through it? Tell us about it. Tell us what the results have been so far.

[Larry Benham]:
Okay. As you said, all of our kids have had to sell something at some point in time, and they're not making that much money off of the product they're selling. I'm 61, and I remember selling those candy bars; they're still selling them today. So what I came up with is: why not help the kids get your name out there? What we've done is we've teamed up with a Little League baseball team—actually three teams. There's 30, 11 kids on each team, three teams—and instead of them selling candy bars, they're going to be out there selling our trash bin service. I cut a deal with them because we're doing a one-time special for 35 for two cans, and we're going to give the kids 10 bucks for every house they do.

Is it a high-ticket item for me to pay that kind of money? Yes and no. I mean, you're going to pay for marketing in any which way, but you're also helping the kids. So our first go-around, we did it—great success. The kids guaranteed me, and they've exceeded it, 300—and each kid, 10 clients, 10 customers. So we’re at 330, and I think their count right now is over 400.

[Sid Graef]:
Wow.

[Larry Benham]:
It's great. I mean, nobody's going to say no to a kid. Your neighbor’s not going to say no to your child who's selling something they want—I mean, no offense. The wife may want the trash can cleaned; the husband doesn't want to do it. It's a great avenue, and you're doing something for the community. It was my test market, and now I'm going to be pushing it to other schools and other organizations around here.

[Sid Graef]:
I just think that's fantastic. The annual revenue for a customer, if they stay for one year, is…

[Larry Benham]:
It’s 35 for one time, so the way I came up with this—and we thought about this in our original mastermind that I was at—you know, we wanted a 10,000 idea. For me, revenue-wise, that was almost 12,000. It'll be greater than that now. I don't even have a bottom-line number; I'll get back to you when we finally close the books on that one. But it's a great deal. Another aspect of it is—like in any industry, if it's pressure washing or soft washing or windows, you're driving from point to point to point to point. The best part is these kids are all in the same neighborhood. They all live there, so once you get into a neighborhood, you're there with all the kids and with all the parents. It's really a helpful thing.

So that's what we're doing.

[Sid Graef]:
Yeah, I like that. That's fantastic. So I'm going to step into something slightly different because you've seen enough business cycles. I'm sure you've had times when you ran into an obstacle so big you didn't know how to solve it. Maybe you tried something that just fell flat on its face, you picked yourself up, moved on. What did you learn from that?

[Larry Benham]:
I don't know if it was a failure, but it was an opportunity I can tell you about. One of the reasons why I went to the very first Huge was a couple of years ago, just to listen to John T teach about the garage business—the garage cleaning business. That's why I went. I wanted to see him and understand what it's all about. Houston has a very big market for that—had, let me say that—had a very big market for that. And I'm so glad because I came back, excited, and was getting ready to purchase all the equipment. It's a really big investment to get a division like that set up. That's when the commercial real estate just took a dive here in Houston. If I would have moved forward—I was going to spend anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000—I would not have gotten that money back.

It’s a great time now. We have parking garages here that you can get, and you do get, that are 100,000 a pop, but they're just not doing it when you’ve got a 15 percent occupancy rate. Downtown Houston has just taken a massive hit in general. I do tell people we have a firm policy—I don't care who you are anymore—we will not start a job unless we have half our money up front. I did lose some money on a property management company that I'd been doing work for quite a while, and one of their properties went under. I took about a 5,400 hit just on that one property.

[Sid Graef]:
Do you get very much pushback on commercial contracts when you say, “I need half up front”?

[Larry Benham]:
No, I don't. Don't be afraid to ask for it. Some of them, I will tell you, there's one at Bimbo—I'm sure you know who Bimbo is. They're my single biggest customer. I don't ask them for a thing because I've never had an issue with them, and they wouldn't do it anyway. But most folks understand—even individuals, we do the same thing with residential jobs now, just because we don't know. That's a valuable lesson because many years ago, I remember going out there to give an estimate on a house. I gave it and made a deal with one lady, and her neighbor was catty-corner, so we made a deal on both the houses. While I showed up the following week to do the job, one of them was done and the guy was on the other house.

[Sid Graef]:
Oh, wow.

[Larry Benham]:
The homeowner was kind of funny. He was standing in the driveway looking at it. I said, “I'm here to clean the driveway.” He goes, “Well, he made a better deal with us.” I said, “Well, you didn't bother to call me and tell me. I'm not mad about that,” but they just worked me, worked my numbers, to get to them. They got what they wanted. The bad part about it is, it taught me a valuable lesson right then: make sure people have skin in the game. If you're giving a number, stick to your number—don't cave. And don't be afraid to ask for more than what most people do. I'd rather have higher-paying tickets—fewer numbers, greater return—instead of having to run all around town. I can do five houses a day versus ten houses a day.

[Sid Graef]:
For sure, for sure. Years ago, we lived in Florida—my wife and family—and we were window cleaning and power washing, and I started doing roofs, but I didn't charge enough. I was “Chuck in a truck.” When I'd sell a job, I'd just say, “We'll power wash your roof, it'll look great, it's going to be 900.” I was articulate enough, I'd dress nice, I'd get the job, but I didn't really have a technique. I sold that business to a friend of mine, and then I went with him on one of his estimates. He did the exact same thing I did, except he said, “When we do your roof, we have a seven-step process: we do A, we do B...” He described them. I'm like, “Why is he calling them that? That's what we do. We do the same thing.” But he said, “It's a seven-step process,” and his price was triple what I charged, and they said yes to him faster than I'd ever gotten a yes. Then he said, “We need a 50 percent deposit in order to schedule you,” demanded it.

Skin in the game, selling for three times as much—I was like, “Man, have I been missing something big?” It taught me about sales and commitment. That's cool.

[Larry Benham]:
I like doing it that way, very much so.

[Sid Graef]:
Okay, good. During the course of what we've talked about, your businesses—I can't say they've grown themselves, but you've done things in a principled way, so they've grown with your impetus but kind of on their own. It sounds like you haven't had horrible struggles to get more business. People call you before you even start. I'm sure there's something else along the way, so let's get into that bigger question. We can’t always control the market or the economy. Storms come and go. You can only control what you do. You can advertise more, you can ask for referrals, but you can't control a huge recession if it comes. From your perspective, you've at least been through the real estate burst and crash from 2008, and other gyrations in the last 20 years. What's your perspective on, “When stuff happens, how do you respond?”

[Larry Benham]:
I hate to say it like the old Marine Corps saying, “Adapt and overcome.” You have to figure out what's going to make you better and keep you afloat when you see these hard times coming. That's one reason—honestly—why you shouldn't be afraid to diversify into another field. Going back to COVID for a second: COVID was devastating to the world, but unfortunately, a lot of folks lost their job. A lot of folks went to Home Depot and Lowe’s and bought pressure washers. Did they hurt me personally? Nah. But did they hurt some other folks? Sure, because you had folks wanting or needing to get their houses cleaned; more folks were home, more folks saw things that needed to be done, so they wanted it done. But then you were competing against guys saying, “A hundred bucks.” That’s just not us. Hold your guns, and if you have to diversify and figure out another way to keep a stream of income coming in—maybe a lower ticket item. People are not going to spend two or three thousand to have their house cleaned, but will people turn around and spend 35 to have their trash can cleaned? Sure, they'll do that. Think outside the box—really think outside the box. Don't be stuck on “I have to get more of this job or that job.” Think of other ways you can actually bring more income to yourself.

[Sid Graef]:
Very good. In that context, you said you've got your first franchise starting in Florida—you said Miami.

[Larry Benham]:
Yes, sir.

[Sid Graef]:
When is that officially open? You've got a truck order on the way…

[Larry Benham]:
The truck is being wrapped, I think, next week. It'll be up and running in probably two weeks maximum. The other thing is, I didn't really plan on franchising. They approached me about a year ago, and I said no. My whole thing is, I wanted to capture Texas. I wanted to have Houston, Austin, Dallas, maybe San Antonio—just be happy with it here. But then they came to me again, and I said, “I'm not going to open up in all these other cities. I've got four million people here in Houston; we’re doing fine.” Then they came in and saw me and talked me into it. It's something where I can grow the company and make other people money and have fun doing it, and not have the investment of opening other cities.

So it's a great thing. One of the things that we're offering and helping people with the franchise is, when you buy a franchise, you have to fork up some money up front, but then you also have to buy equipment. Unfortunately, I've learned this when I was doing trash bins—banks don't like loaning money to companies that are starting something. If you walk into a car dealership, they'll give you a loan because the car is there. Same thing with this industry. Fortunately enough, I was able to get my equipment, but I'm actually building one for the franchises. I've already got one sitting on the ground all the time for my franchise.

[Sid Graef]:
Oh, wow.

[Larry Benham]:
So I'll always have a steady stream of them.

[Sid Graef]:
Great. As we wrap up here today, think of the guy…a lot of people come to the Huge Convention, they're newer in business, or maybe their big goal is: “I did a quarter of a million revenue last year, I need to get to a million,” or “I'm at half a million, I'm trying to figure out how to break that million-dollar mark or go beyond.” What advice would you give to someone who is newer in business and in growth mode but doesn't have the experience? We'll call him “Mr. Young Hustle.” He's trying to grow. He doesn’t know all the steps. What's your advice?

[Larry Benham]:
Mr. Young Hustle is probably out there knocking on doors, going after the residential jobs. Those are fantastic—they're your base, they're long-term—but you've got to start searching out facility managers. You've got to start searching out folks with the city. Municipalities are everywhere, spending money every year, and they're always good for October, November, last-minute, “Spend that money before we lose it.” Don't be—I mean, yeah, that’s just how our government runs. And don't be afraid. I learned a long time ago, you’ve got to get ten no’s before you get a yes. Don't get discouraged. Wake up every day, grind at it, and pick up the phone. Call friends, call mentors—find you a mentor, find you a good guy that'll help you, teach you, and just listen. Always good advice. I have a gentleman I still listen to, to this day, and if I needed help or advice, I'd call him. I've called you; I've called John as well—calling for information. I don't know everything, and I don't know anybody that does. You've got to depend on each other, and that's what I think the Huge Mastermind that we do is fantastic for. There are folks I met there two years ago—the very first mastermind I did—that was fantastic. Like with the door-to-door sales thing—I know we're cutting or wrapping up really fast—but the door-to-door deal, I was apprehensive about doing it because I had the stigmatism from the vacuum-cleaner guys, the encyclopedia-selling guys, but there was a couple of different guys at the show you told me to talk to, and I did. They explained to me the whole process, and now we're launching that here next week as well. We have tablets for everybody; we've got a door-to-door program, and it is fantastic. There's even parts of that that I didn't know. The young lady asked me about something: “How many do you want them to sell every day?” and I really didn't have a clue of the numbers I'm expecting each person to sell yet. So there's still a learning curve every day that we have to overcome, but don't be afraid—pick up the phone and ask for help.

[Sid Graef]:
Especially as we grow or mature in business, that's just such good advice. You have to constantly read and study your industry and not just the industry but how to run a business—what to do.

[Larry Benham]:
One of my high school principals taught me when I was in high school: every morning, you wake up and write down your deals—what you have to do today. I still do it every single day. I have a list that I run off. I have three separate lists I run off every single day. Will you accomplish everything on that list every day? No, but you're going to delete some and add more every day. Have a plan. When you build a house, what do you have? You have blueprints. Same thing when you're running a business: you have to have a plan every single day when you wake up.

[Sid Graef]:
Agreed. Agreed. Great. Well, listen, thanks—first of all, thanks for being on the show and taking your time.

[Larry Benham]:
Thank you.

[Sid Graef]:
Yeah, I really appreciate having you on, and really appreciate having you as part of the mastermind and your willingness to help other people as well, to help them grow along their journey.

[Larry Benham]:
Thank you very much.

[Sid Graef]:
All right, pal.

[Sid Graef]:
Hello, my friend, this is Sid. Thank you again so much for taking your time to listen to today's episode. I hope you got some value from it. And listen—anything that was covered, any of the resources, any of the books, any of the tools, anything like that is in the show notes, so it's easy for you to find and check out. Also want to let you know: the mission for the Huge Convention and for this podcast is to help our blue-collar business owners like you and me to gain financial and time freedom through running a better business. We do that in four ways:

Number one is our free weekly newsletter. It's called the Huge Insider. I hope you subscribe. It is the most valuable newsletter for the home service industry, period—paid or otherwise—and this one's free.

Next is the Huge Foundations education platform. We've got over 120 hours of industry-specific education and resources for you, and every month we do a topical webinar and we do Q&A with seven- and eight-figure business owners. It’s available to you for a 1 trial for seven days.

Next, of course, is the Huge Convention—or The Huge Convention. If you haven't been, you got to check it out. It's every August; this year it's in Nashville, Tennessee. That's August 20th through 22nd in 2025, and it is the largest and number-one-rated trade show and convention for home service business builders. We've got the biggest trade show so you can check out all the coolest tools and meet the vendors and check out the software to run your business. And we've got world-class education and educators and speakers that will teach you how to run a better business. And it's the best networking opportunity that you can have within the home service business.

Lastly, if you want to pour jet fuel into your business, check out the Huge Mastermind. It's not for everyone: you've got to be over 750,000 of revenue, and you're building toward 1 million, 5 million, 10 million in the next five years. It's a network, mentorship, and mastermind of your peers, and we help you understand and implement the Freedom Operating System. We go into more detail, but you can get all the information on all four of these programs and how they will help you advance your business quickly just by going to thehugeconvention.com and scrolling down—click on the Freedom Path. Or, of course, you can find the links here in the show notes.

Sorry—I feel like I'm getting a little bit wordy, but I just want to let you know of the resources that are available to help you accelerate and advance your beautiful small business. So keep on growing, keep on learning, keep advancing. If you like the show, please take 90 seconds and give us a review on iTunes, then subscribe and share it. It would really mean the world to us. It would help other people as we continue our mission to help people just like you and me.

Thanks again for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.