Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Audra Ellis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Audra thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
About 5 years ago, I received a phone call from Jo Locke a producer for The Discovery Channel. We were being considered for a Reality TV show regarding our Clean Out/Liquidation business. I spoke with Locke numerous times but we never connected on a show. The show would have followed us as we did our job. It would’ve been similar to Storage Wars as the network wanted us to value items as we removed them.
We were approached again by Locke three years later wanting us to do a Reality series on repurposing and restoring old items. Again, we talked a few times, but unfortunately it didn’t lead to a show.
Our most recent reality show encounter was just last year when American Pickers reached out. I did a short phone interview, but they ended up passing as they wanted more collectors, rather than resellers.
Even though these encounters didn’t lead to a show it’s still very exciting to speak to someone who creates TV shows about my small business. The first time I spoke with Jo Locke, our business only had 400 likes on social media, we were very small yet we still got their attention and that keeps me going when I have a bad day. And just maybe, probably not but maybe Mike Wolfe knows who I am. Haha
Audra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Junk in the Trunk is an estate liquidation/clean out business meaning we remove anything our clients no longer want or need. We specialize in large clean outs and hoarder situations. We are different than most clean out companies as we are extremely environmentally friendly. We are able to keep 90-95% of what we are hired to remove from ending up in landfill through reasonable resale, donating locally, restoration/repurposing, and recycling. We even have our own drop off recycling program that is offered free to our community. We are different than other recycling programs as we take 100+ nontraditional items for recycling. We accept items like shoes, clothing, writing utensils, toys, electronics, eye care products, dentures, and much more. Junk in the Trunk started after I worked at a nonprofit for many years. I was collecting items for people in need then found myself laid off and still people collected their unwanted items for me. I decided to turn my item collecting into a business where I could give back and make a living.
We specialize in hoarder situations as we know it’s a sensitive issue, and it’s much bigger than the stuff collected. Hoarding is attached to trauma, it may take time to let things go and we are here to help not judge. Those with hoarding issues tend to feel comfort knowing we are able to give a second life to many of the items they cherished for long. Hoarding is also much more common than most are led to believe. We have personally worked on around 70 hoarding situations in or around the Lansing area.
I am personally proud on how much we are able to keep out of landfills. I regularly post our recycling updates on Facebook for our following to see. This year I have also set goals on what we hope to recycle in pounds. For our smaller items (ex. Toothbrushes, Writing Utensils, Taco Bell Packets, Contact Case, etc) we have set a goal of 4,000 lbs, we are currently at 1,720 lbs and while that number seems low these are tiny items with very little weight attached.
Check out our full list of accepted materials on our our Facebook page. We are open every Wednesday from 5pm-8pm to drop off materials from our recycling list for free.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When we first started we offered our service for free. We would remove unwanted items for free, making money by selling. The problem was we booked ourselves removing items making it impossible to sell as quickly as we needed to make a profit. Then we started to get people who wanted their trash removed for free, or would tell us they have good items for us to remove but when we arrived to remove these items they gave them away before we could start. We had to switch our business model if we wanted to stay in business. We had to charge to stay afloat. Once we started to charge we received a mixed response. Some were happy to pay, others put on the pressure wanting free pick ups. Those who tried to demand the free pick ups were the same people who took advantage of us when we did pick up for free. We had to learn our value and that it’s impossible to please everyone.
We still get questions on whether we offer our service for free and my response is always we tried that for a short time but it’s too much manual labor to do for free. It sure helped me realize how much our service was worth. While I do somewhat regret starting off as a free service, we did learn quite a bit and made some great community connections during the transition.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
What’s worked best for us is just being honest and open. We do this by giving our followers the behind the scenes look at what we do. We are open with our struggles but also share our successes. We give proof of how much we recycle, we share goals, before and afters, etc.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.JunkintheTrunkCleanouts.com
- Instagram: @ladyofjunkinthetrunk
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/junkinthetrunk.housecleanouts.finders?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audra-ellis-a0468833
- Other: TikTok-@ladyofjunkinthetrunk Nextdoor-nextdoor.com/pages/junk-in-the-trunk-LLC-grand-ledge-mi