Q.Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: McGuire’s Beautiful Outdoors was incorporated in November 2004 by Joel McGuire after working for three major Pest and Lawn Care companies. We provide Lawn, tree and shrub fertilization, mosquito and pest control services for residential and commercial properties in and around the northern Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando Counties. In addition to these services, we do property maintenance services such as mowing, trimming, plant bed maintenance, mulch and aerations. Our office and warehouse, located in land O Lakes on Ehren Cutoff Road is central to our service area.
Q.Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I was enrolled in pre-engineering courses with an interest in environmental studies. During this time, he started a family and resulted in a derailment of studies. During this period of the late 1980’s I began to work for a small pest control firm in Fort Pierce, Florida that had 3 additional offices in Orlando, Cocoa and Daytona Beach. I started as a commercial pest control technician and soon thereafter promoted to a service manager covering from Vero Beach to Key West. I was later sent to Orlando as a service manager to a new office in South Orlando. After this I was promoted to General Manager in Tampa, Ocala, and Lake Mary. I served in our corporate office as a Technical and Training Director and New Construction Manager. This company is now nation-wide and I received incredible training and experience there. Later I worked for the largest pest control company as a Regional Service Manager and Tampa Bay Market Manager for one of America’s largest producers of Fertilizers and Lawn Care products in their new Lawn Service division.
Q.What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: I learned much from all of my prior experiences in my 14 years of corporate pest industry including many things I couldn’t live with. I found that there were too many compromises with myself working within the confines of corporate red-tape such as honesty and integrity with customers and employees alike. I knew I could not survive long term and be the person I expected from myself. So, I decided to take a chance on being that person and in myself.
Q.What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: Don’t start a business without great experience in it. Know your numbers, budget constantly, monitor them constantly and live within them. Stay in your lane. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Be great at what you do.
Q.What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: The top skills needed to succeed in a start-up business is a strong willingness to work very, very hard. Great listening skills with employees and customers and a willingness to be in the trenches. Don’t ask someone to do something you would not do yourself.
Q.How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: Work hours are varied from week to week depending on workload. Our office is open four days a week and ten-hour days allowing for weather and other factors to roll into Friday. In 22 years, we’ve only missed servicing our lawns a handful of times. We are very reliable for service.
Q.To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: I attribute our honesty and dependability to our success. We don’t outsell our ability to service our clients. We are very disciplined to what, when and how we do our services.
Q.How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: We have always depended on our work and quality of our lawns to do our marketing for us. We have done very little in terms of advertising in all of our time. We have no sales staff but instead our Service Managers meet with new potential customers. They have to be able to back up their promises.
Q.Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: When I started the company, I had no capital but I had used money from the sale of my home, good credit, relationships from my business past and several white-knuckle years of hanging on. It wasn’t easy but nothing worthwhile is. Over the years I took high interest loans from secondary lenders and paid them off as quickly as possible. Through very disciplined budgeting we made it through some very challenging years.
Q.What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: The best way to succeed long term is to stick to your goals, morals and ethics. Treat your employees, customers and vendors with dignity and respect. Don’t look for fast money and sell things you cannot deliver.
Q.Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: Long term McGuire’s will continue as a family owned and operated business. I do not want to be part of a private equity purchase that leaves our employees and customers to the mercy of the corporate world.
Q.Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: I admire any company that is out there grinding daily to feed their families and provide valuable and honest services for people. Our country does well when small businesses succeed.
Q.How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Good employees are everything to a good business. Although finding, retaining and motivating good employees is an ever-challenging endeavor. We have been blessed with a core of long-term employees and managers. Our Operations Manager Derrick Williams and my partner and General Manager Jeremy Williams have been the backbone of McGuires for 14 and 13 years respectfully.
Q.How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: We have started and stopped additional services several times over the years in an effort to be a more complete company but found that we are better when our focus is narrower.
Q.What motivates you?
Ans: My family and the un knowns of everyday life.
Q.What are your ideals?
Ans: Grow the company to where the employees can be taken care of and live a comfortable life.
Q.How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: New ideas come from constantly challenging the norms. We ask how can we be more efficient or what would improve our efficiencies in order to keep our costs and pricing down while still achieving the type of product we expect. It is crucial to listen to the employees as well that work in the field every day. Often great ideas come from them.
Q.How do you define success?
Ans: Success for me has been that we have grown and survived during good times and bad. We have built a good reputation in our area of service and while not perfect all the time we will always try to correct mistakes quickly and fairly.
Q.How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans: Our customer base was built on word of mouth and recommendations from clients. We have strived to be the same service we started with when it was just me in a truck. We don’t take advantage of, over promise to, or sell unnecessary services to people.
Q.What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: My favorite part of being an entrepreneur has been the independence from large company directives and initiatives. I have always been able to live within myself.
Q.What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: Building a company that takes pride in there work and is very consistent.
Q.What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans: The finances
Q.What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans: Our culture is making sure all are treated the same and like family. Most people in this world would love to just enjoy life and not have to work, so we have always wanted a place were people want to come to work. Its always a challenge to make everyone happy and we try to find a common ground that works.
Q.In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans: Tough
Q.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Ans: If were to start over again I would have not changed much at all. All of the failures became learning opportunities and some of those were very costly but priceless as well.
Q.How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans: Family understands that it is a full commitment, you will miss out on family things from time to time, important dates sometimes and a lot of late nights.
Q.What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
Ans: My greatest fears were in the beginning. There were countless sleepless nights from the financial stresses associated with a start-up. I learned over time that stress exists in the absence of planning and preparation.
Q.How did you decide on the location for your business?
Ans: We have been located in Land o lakes from the start. It’s where we call home.
Q.How can you prevent mistakes or do damage control?
Ans: We do constant training and talk with the crews to come up with ways to prevent damages and getting them to see that things they do look different to other people. So always be mindful while out there.