We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan Fitzpatrick. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan below.

Ryan, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

YES I take vacations. For me, starting my own business was yes to hopefully make more money, but also to have the control over what I do. I thought if I could work half as hard at my corporate job for myself I could shape that company however I wanted, and for me that included controlling my schedule and deciding when I wasn’t going to work.

The difference when you take a vacation when you have your own small business is you don’t have PTO days so unless you have a team in place you may loose out on money that you would other wise make if you didn’t take a trip. For me, I believe you have to still take time to have fun for yourself outside of your business. I think it will only help you come back more focused to grow the biz!

Ryan, 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?

We’re a Junk removal company, there are tons out there. What makes us different is our cause and business model. JDog is a Veteran & Veteran family business so you have to either be a Veteran or Veteran Family to work in the organization. The goal is to hire vets who want to continue to serve their community and bring Veteran unemployment below 1%.

Our Business model is very different from others as well. We have a warehouse where we divert as much as we can from the landfills. Not only do we recycle metals and e-waste ourselves, we also store items that are not trash and rehome them to families in need. We’re currently doing this ourselves and are partnered with Habitat for Humanity.

Not only does this bring our operating costs down to provide lower prices to our communities, we’re able to give back to those in need of second hand furniture, appliances and clothes while being environmentally conscious.

My Brother and I run the business together. We grew up in an entrepreneurial family. our mom was an early JDog franchise owner and we have worked for her in multiple capacities over the years before deciding to start our own in North County San Diego.

Seamus and I have always been best friends and talked about the idea of working together on our own business. When he moved out here and was ready for his next venture, I was burned out on my corporate life. It was just the perfect time for us to take the leap and start our own thing.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think the biggest thing I’ve had to unlearn coming from an office corporate job it that your value is not measured on the hours you sit at your desk and the amount of “busy work” you can complete. I feel that is how you measured success as an individual contributor in corporate. This is not the case when your running your own business, you need to be more focused on prioritizing what I call “closest to the money”, what actions will get us to the next step either in growth or financial gain the best way for long term company health. This is still a learning curve for me, it isn’t a 9-5 that I’m trying to pack everything into anymore so sometimes there are old habits that are hard to shake!

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

For us its Business Development targeting commercial work. In our line of business we do a-lot of residential clean outs. This is great but it can be seasonal and have ups and downs. The biggest win for us has been earning commercial business that steady and recurring. We target General contractors, property management companies, realtors, and construction companies through networking groups, email campaigns and just old fashion walking into their offices and introducing ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jdogencinitas.com
• Instagram: jdog_encinitas
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JDogEncinitas/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jdog-junk-removal-and-hauling-encinitas-and-oceanside-del-mar
• Other: https://g.co/kgs/zt8TCso

Image Credits

All take by me or a friend