okay another great episode of recycled Idaho and you are our very first junk hauler out there and it happens to be also the name of your company and I just learned something that I should have known I thought you were a franchise but you’re not no we’re locally owned you’re locally owned yeah with a franchise Vibe I like that your marketing looks like a franchise and I say that in a positive way it looks like you have a big marketing support you your trucks are clean and all that but let’s let’s rewind real quick I want to know more about Royce tell us about you like how did you a get to Idaho and get into the junk business let’s just start there yeah so my background goes with some media buying I used to work for an agency out of New York so that’s where my history comes from working for that company uh so I was able to work from home and La was getting super expensive so we we liked Idaho came here in 2008. you lived in La yeah working with for a company out of New York yeah well

what do you what’s media buying media buying goes back to infomercials okay back I was working with the uh innovator of infomercials her name was Katie Williams for a company in Santa Monica called Williams television time and so that goes back to you know those old infomercials with the Ginsu knife and so forth okay so very Innovative and learned a lot from her did that went from if she’s the was she the one on the like doing the sales on the TV or did she behind the scenes she’s behind the scenes she’s the brains to realize like TV stations have time that they’re not using by that time sell product was she one of the first ones to that space absolutely she kind of created the whole idea which is amazing I think I saw a documentary about her yeah if I don’t remember the name but it was really interesting and it was about that space yeah and it was very innovating yeah um so you started there you lived in LA and from born and raised in L.A Santa Monica Santa morning right that’s where my wife was born very nice

so awesome yeah we talked about the Lakers a lot we both root for the Lakers it’s been 2020 was cool but after that it’s been a kind of rough a little challenging yeah but we’ll get back we’ll get back to the promised land but um so what what did he like about Idaho uh we had family who lived here okay so coming from busy Santa Monica LA area come in here it was a little bit very chill it was nice took a little adjusting but you can get easily into it it’s way different I’ve only lived here I love it here I was born and raised but my dad’s from La my mom’s from Escondido my wife’s from that LA area and we go down there like once or twice a year and I love to visit but it’s also really nice to come home because I but it’s just so different like from people here I was at the gym the other day and they were talking about how nasty Middleton’s getting and I just got back from LA and I was just shaking my head I’m like like we have it so

good here like I was staying in somewhere where there was a liquor store at every corner you know so like it’s just a night and day now did you come here for opportunity or just for quality of life I think quality of life it was a good good place to raise the family and we really like it it’s beautiful here it’s a great place Boise is a great place to even start a business what year was that that you came here 2008 2008 yeah because I Met You in maybe 2011. yeah that’s when we got our start because junk caller started 2012. okay so I met in 2012 then probably yeah because that’s about the time we opened our Boise facility and you started hauling in a truck yep you know that you well explain like if people don’t know what the junk companies is that what you call your companies what is that space called Junk Removal junk removal companies yeah and you you and the junk monkeys which no longer exists were the first and they were both now they know they’re both local I knew the junk monkeys was local because

I knew who started it um so explain exactly what that is for the community the well the junk removal business I think right when we started we were actually probably the second you know that we’re here in that and uh honestly I I had no idea what junk removal was because coming from a media buying agency aspect you know we just moved here and then kind of started the business because we bought a house when it was 2010 and uh that was pretty cheap it was a great time right brought it that’s perfect timing you know I bought mine in 2011 so similar story yeah and so the house was a little bit older and so the whole process got started because we were remodeling that floor and again you know when I work in and I worked in an office the whole time so working Outdoors was a whole new experience and so borrowed somebody’s trailer and we’re hauling out this old wood from this floor in the middle of winter doing this remodel going back and forth to the dump and I think it was maybe the third time when I was

wet soggy muddy realized like man this is lame like I don’t want to do this boom I want to do this for the rest of my life well it was it was a process because it was like lame you know you’re all cold and then you realize like that’s when the light bulb went off like this is a great opportunity because people hate doing this and I call that light bulb you know opportunity it was an opportunity any any successful business I think is solving a problem yeah so that like Bobby saw a big opportunity especially back then around that time like you said you were the second junk company there’s only one other guy in town doing it okay so you were remodeling your house ripping out carpet wood everything just junking it all yeah you probably had some scrap yeah did you know anything about the scrap world at the time no I mean we started you know our Roots were like just like straight trash you know and that’s when the light bulb went off and then realized you know like this is a great business and then as we got

into it you know obviously the process of like realizing what you have to do to start a business and so forth once we got up and running that’s when scrapping came in and you realize like you know some of the stuff that you’re you’re pulling out you know being a rookie which I was which was you know good learning process that that’s when you pull metal out and you realize like okay you know you don’t want this all to go to landfill where else can you take it it was perfect timing to meet you because that was a great opportunity for us to not just throw everything into a landfill but recycle it understand the process of you know how to do that you know what saves you on costs say it helps your bottom line yeah um you know you make a little money that you probably spread around for I mean a lot of companies use it for like barbecues or bonuses and things of that nature um and before I had met you I really didn’t know much about um there were junk companies like that because it is we get

a lot of phone calls that I’ll direct towards you to be like you know a person who wants to get rid of a washing machine we can’t go do a washing machine we’re just that’s not our business model now it’s really nice to give them a solution rather than just be like oh sorry you know there’s nothing we can do I was like hey these guys will do it they’re going to charge you you know it’s not free but there’s a service for it so this is 20 2012. you started it yeah um you you are the founder the owner all the above yeah founder owner Creator had to go from the beginning of just starting a business for somebody who again worked in an office it was quite the process of learning how to start a business come up with the business name how to acquire Vehicles was there any other names that you almost landed on any like funny names you can share with us honestly I’ll tell you the process I really took a long time it took about three months to come up with a name okay it did because

I realized you know like that’s a big part of the business if you want to stand out you got to have you know something besides you know like Royce’s junk removal you want to get something a little catchy I think a lot of businesses really do owners incorporate their name I think it’s like an ego thing and I think if you can get away from that your branding’s gonna be a lot cleaner so I think you made the right decision to use like a clean like I said I I truly thought you guys like they were more of a franchise because it was after I met you years later some these franchise if your competition yeah popping up um so three months to figure out a name um we’ve done a bunch of company builds in our own company so we know that process yeah and some of the names that like I look back on I just kind of like oh that was so dumb or some of the logos we made right some sketches like I still have a lot of them on some of our reclaimed companies and it’s kind of

really cool to go look at the process yeah and see how far you’ve come um have you always had the same logo have you rebranded it over the years we have rebranded I I agree with you like if we ever do a documentary on the company we’ve got all these logos that we’ve done and you know you’re like talking about holler so you have to you know junk holler so you got the little man on the side hollering because it’s h-o-l-l-e-r you got it so it’s a play on words which is really nice so that junk hauler was a really good catch and you’re right you know we rebranded because you have to Rebrand you have to kind of do your logo just to kind of go with the times or else you’re gonna you know you gotta keep growing yeah evolve you got to adjust um we’ve we are we’re always adjusting Our Brands you know trying to make it cleaner make a new version of the logo but not too too different so you can still connect all that old branding you did yeah um and I

guess we have to you know try to compete and you know use our service we’re a service based model you know I assume you guys are too yeah and do you guys do a lot of advertising on like YouTube commercials do you do any of that or do you just get Word of Mouth we do we got some great commercials out and what’s great is we are spokes woman is 99 years old and she’s actually if you’ve ever seen our commercials that’s why I’m asking yeah she’s amazing um I heard her voice I was in a meeting and I heard her voice and it just clicked right away there’s a light bulb moment to say like wow to have her as a spokesperson and to create those commercials and come up with the concept of her just driving up in a car like solving everybody’s problems with you know just holler you know which is really amazing and she became quite famous here in the ballet because people would see her at the stores and so you’re the junk hauler lady and uh she she is tough she just recently passed away she’s really

sorry to hear that yeah yeah she’s a really good friend and she I mean she’s tough she made it through covid had covid broke a hip recovered from a hip all at like in her late 90s wow she’s tough I don’t build them like that no oh that I’m sorry to hear she passed because I love watching those commercials I don’t think I’ve seen them all I’ll have to where can I find those find those on YouTube are they on your YouTube channel we also uh broadcast them on you know KIVI which is nice I’ve seen them on there a few times um but I love that original one I think you showed me her very first one yeah you know it’s just if you got Junk just holla yeah like that one yeah yeah got Junk need to get rid of it don’t know what to do well just hollered cheers Tyler I’ll holler did you believe this we can actually Park in our garage well just holler so you do what kind of junk do you Do You Haul for someone like say I call you I get like I’m about a

house it’s a piece of and I want to rent it can I be like Royce just clean it all out yeah we’ve learned through the process of what we want to do and what we don’t want to do there’s certain things that we won’t like we don’t Holloway nuclear waste smart we don’t you don’t you’re not a hazardous waste exactly yeah that’s the point of that we’re not Hazmat we stay away from that there’s things that the city takes advantage you can take advantage of from the city to do that but pretty much we can haul away anything else you know we make people’s dreams come true literally because you know they sometimes come and they say can you take away you know this TV or like this fridge or this thing they don’t know how to do it and that’s where we come in and then you find all the right places to go you know some can come to the scrap yard but some needs to go to like the the city so it gets properly like recycled or disposed of you know and that’s what’s what’s nice especially in Ada County

they have a really good program for a lot of those things so you can find that solution do you do do you do any type of demo work do you do yeah we do light demo you know we do light demo we try not to we don’t have any big machinery that’s kind of like some night stuff for like Sledge Hammers and things like that yeah okay I’ve noticed that like that’s kind of an evolution of your outfit like you probably get asked that a lot can you like take this out can you yeah what about hot tubs do you do a lot of hot tubs we’ve we used to uh we that’s a good example of where you know we have a partnership with somebody else who has a great way of getting rid of those hot tubs okay so we work with them you Outsource that well Outsource side because that’s gonna be a nightmare it is hot tubs we learned a lesson and I think that’s where we learned through the process as I mentioned earlier like what is good what’s not hot tubs can be a real challenge like you’re

you’re you either lift it out with a dolly or you’re cutting it with a Sawzall and uh yeah I did that one time and realized like this is not our business model along with like roofing shingles as well that’s not us you know so even for us like that’s what we learned as we go it’s always evolving you know we’re always refining how we do things so we say yeah we used to do it this way but you know we really took a hard look and because of these changes to you know XYZ we have to do it like this now and that’s going to make some customers unhappy yeah but anyone that is in business will understand it you know that change is inevitable and if you’re not changing or growing like I truly think your business is a day so you’re always just trying to refine your your you know your network and your resources how many trucks do you guys have we have three three yeah two are running you know mostly two running all the time seven days a week five days a week six days we like to give

our drivers good Sunday’s off well usually Saturday Sunday I’ll cover for them on Saturday to keep them happy I think that probably means a lot I’ve always been surprised that I still see you in the truck 90 of the time yeah probably because you like it it’s fun it is fun and I like to be with the guys you that’s where you learn you know how your employees what they go through I think sometimes if you’re not on that truck with them you know they forget you’re there which is important I mean I you’ve got to spend time in the office growing the business but I always try to be on the truck so I can engage with them know the problems they’re going through and I love engaging with the customers I mean that’s a big part of what our business is about you know this may sound bad for a business it’s not all about the money it’s about getting to know the community helping people there’s genuinely people out there that really need help on solving their problems with junk removal we we do a lot of hoarder situations and that’s

not just going in and cleaning somebody’s house that’s that’s spending time with them helping their families get through some real challenging times where they have to deal with a lot of the emotional part of it you probably deal with some some deaths and things like that with cleanups yeah so that part’s really emotional for people to to let go of some of this like yeah a pile of magazines because Grandma liked them you know that’s hard for people I’ve seen with my own eyes you know it’s hard for people to let go of you yeah so I can see that completely and we deal with that a little bit on like someone passes away they want to quit the property cleaned up and you know grandpa had 27 tractors you know so we deal with that a little bit but I bet you do it a lot more than we do because most most time there’s not a lot of scrap metal involved um so yeah I could see that being really difficult especially like the hoarders yeah do you do they ever like try to get in your way try to stop you

like what if like the family hired you and then they show up and they’re like get the out of my house you know do they do any of that I think you just have to be very understanding it’s not about just removing people’s items they have to get that done because they’re moving on with their lives but you have to show respect for it and there’s a process where you’re spending time with them okay and you recognize there’s certain items that they don’t want in the landfill so if you can find a place for it that they can kind of um move it to somebody that would appreciate it that just helps the healing process makes it feel better it does and just throwing it all away yeah like there’s because some of that stuff could have some True Value too you know like there’s a lot of Collectibles it’s always a matter of finding the right people that want to collect you know whatever that is yeah but I could see that making people feel a lot better if it even went to like a thrift shop versus you know 80 County landfill

so the last probably five years or so I keep seeing multiple junk companies yeah there’s a bunch of them here why are there so many junk companies here now what’s going on that’s a good question um some word must have got out in the valley because there’s probably two new ones every week I see so many I mean I don’t I see some pop up and kind of disappear though too they’re not all surviving yeah could be um you know they’re they’re out you just I mean we’ve been here for a while we’ve established ourselves and like I said you know we’re it’s not always about the money like if you want to do long term you’re trying to build customer relationships you want this brand to be you know just like you guys are doing you know you want to be known as like Fair honest and work with them it’s it’s you could easily just get money from somebody and say like all right I want a thousand for this but you’re looking at somebody who’s going to call you repeatedly you’re building a relationship with them you’re helping them someone else

you know yeah that’s how we look at things too like I tell people like I want to do business with you for you know 30 years not three months yeah you know I’m not gonna screw you like I want to be fair you know inevitably sometimes there’s disputes there’s things that you just can’t do as a company but I think you truly build that bond with your customer and you can find Solutions together that’s the best part if you like kind of put your heads together okay well this is how we can do it yeah that’s how we can make it work together where you get your job done we get our job done and we both make a little bit of money we’re not getting rich off of one person you know yeah because that’s a and you do see companies try to do that couch people and it’s unfortunate you know and some people get taken advantage of especially in that situation maybe get an older person that just really needs help moving something yeah and they maybe have money and that’s just unfortunate if you see someone really take advantage of

them so most of these new companies coming in here are franchises I think are do you know well you got your top franchises throughout the whole nation you know those are moving in here there’s a lot of franchises but they’re moving in here along with the other ones that are just kind of starting up yeah you know they’re all getting a piece of the pie do you think there is saying the growth here in this air this Valley and they’re just trying to you know beat everyone to it and see who like which one wins I’m I’m sure they have like a even like in and outs coming here yeah you know yeah and they they probably had to wait till like okay we have the analytics of this many people and then we’ll move here we’ll franchise a couple locations I would imagine those franchise models even on the junk company have the same type of thing so to me if I were you I would think that’s a a positive you know competition that’s always just makes you have to be a little bit better you know happens to us all the

time you know our competition’s knocking on our you know customers doors and we just have to make sure we’re we have all of our poop in a group you know yeah you got to grow you gotta understand that you can be stagnant you recognize these guys are coming in but that can make you better because now you have to be on your game and so forth they’re not going to move in here unless there’s opportunity and there’s plenty of opportunity for everybody and you just got to do it the right way it makes you think smarter because you recognize they’ve got a lot of money that they’re bringing in but you know you can still be smarter and try again yeah you’re not tired you’re not as Bound by some rules too if you’re the owner operator you can be more Nimble you can make decisions quickly and that’s where we’ve really excelled like a lot of our competitions got a little bit of corporate red tape they have to navigate where we can just make a decision you know in two moves where they have 20 moves yeah you know so I think

that’s where a smaller owner operator has its advantages um and like I said I think it’s a good thing for you to see that composition comes in because that means there’s plenty of opportunity here yeah and it’s true there’s enough business for everyone to share it you know and you’ll have your business they’ll have theirs and you know you always want to compete for customers and you’ll have the crossover like just like we do with our scrap competitors um but the end of the day I do have to tell myself I’m very competitive so it’s hard for me to yeah not take things personal because I do because some people say it’s just business it’s not personal it’s kind of personal to me you know yeah but I also try not to take it home and ruin my day but I try to care enough where I care about my customer because I want to win then I have to remind myself you know that guy on the other side of the table he’s doing the same thing I’m doing I just like to think we do it a lot better and I think

you do your job pretty damn well yeah I I agree I I think I’ve learned that through the process as it could drive you crazy if you’re always looking at the competition but what you have to do is focus on what you’re about and if you have the qualities of hard work honesty that you care like you said building these uh relationships that at the end are all ingredients that are going to be successful you may not be the top dog but sometimes you don’t want to be the talk dot because you want to go to your family and spend time you could do this 24 hours worrying about where you are on the ratings and stuff but if you do the best you can and you have these great qualities you’re always going to be successful regardless yeah if you if you’re working all the time and not spending time with your loved ones are you really successful exactly when you when you’re on your deathbed and are you gonna say I’m glad I worked 100 hours a week for two years already or I’m glad I went to my daughter’s you know

basketball game I’d probably be more upset I didn’t go to my daughter’s basketball game than work in a few more hours you know you got to find that balance you know and um well anything else that junk Haulers is driving towards any big changes in the industry any super secrets you want to let us know about before we go I think we’re just going to continue to Journey on we’re going to learn through the process you know you head through economic challenges probably you know every year something like that but we’re just gonna navigate it’s great to have great relationship with with you guys you know that that makes you stronger and we’ve always appreciated everything that you continue to teach us in this industry and we’re looking forward to more growth regardless of what we see out there what do you plan to expand to any other locations have you ever been a conversation yeah we’ve got a lot of friends in different places uh we’re always looking for new opportunities and if they want to join the junk hauler team oh all you got to do is just call me and we’ll

be able to figure it out yeah so you might see a junk caller and you know whoever’s listening to this they might see a junk hauler in their neighborhood at some point exactly I love it thank you so much Royce you’re welcome Nick thanks for having me thanks