Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Ben Cowan was just getting through some struggles with the city of St. Paul in 2009 after regulations related to 24-hour staffing at fitness facilities significantly slowed his ability to open two Snap Fitness locations when Upsize first tracked his story.
Eventually, he opened another one in Falcon Heights and, later, bought another in St. Paul. But while he was growing in the fitness industry, he also was expanding his franchise holdings into home services and personal training. By 2015 it was becoming a bit much, he acknowledges.
“At that point, I had six fitness centers, a mobile personal training company, a box business, a moving company and 1-800-Got-Junk,” he says. “I had 10 entities. I had too much going on. I had three little kids. So, I really looked to scale back the portfolio.
“I said ‘I’m going to focus on the home service businesses,’ which I felt were a larger opportunity than going the fitness route,” Cowan says.
a moving company that strives to provide a stress-free human touch for customers on one of their more stressful days.
a house detailing service that provides window washing, gutter cleaning and power washing services.
which goes to residential or business customers’ locations to dispose of difficult to remove items through recycling, donation or the trash.
Not every customer who is moving, for example, will need junk removed. But some might. And there is potential for adding synergistic companies in related home service industries.
Cowan is considering expanding, most likely through the franchise route. But if he does, or more likely when, he’ll stay focused on that category. He’s a lot more focused now than he was earlier in his days as an entrepreneur and he also has added a senior management team that he credits with bringing him back in line if he starts thinking outside the current niche.
“We have customers that use all of our services and, as the parent company gets known throughout the market, now as you’re hiring one of our brands to come into your home, you know it’s the same management team and same great employees that you’ve experienced in the other businesses,” he says. “We don’t have it figured out yet, but it’s definitely an opportunity we are aware of and chasing.”
The company has exceeded 100 employees and it reached $4.6 million in revenue in 2017. He’s expecting to do $5.5 million this year and has a goal of doubling that by 2020. Part of the strategy is the company’s motto: Happy employees equal happy customers.
Cowan works to keep those employees happy in several ways, including dedicating 7,000 square feet in a new 20,000-square-foot warehouse building solely to providing a good experience for his team. There is a kitchen/break room where employees are served breakfast every morning. There is a gaming area. There are cookouts during the summer and more.
The employee piece, he figures, is key at a time when most companies are struggling in the face of unemployment rates under 4 percent. Cowan’s company is getting referrals that provide the best of those who are available or looking for a new opportunity.
“We’re building this empire of home service businesses with a focus on those two things as what we believe will be our differentiator and key to success,” Cowan says “People know if they come work for us it’s going to be an awesome experience. That fuels the customer side. … It’s easy to teach the right employees how to be awesome with customers. We kind of feel like we’re on to something.”
In fact, he acknowledges that his parents figured out he should be an entrepreneur before he did. At six, he says, they remind him he had his first fix-it shop, with a wood sign indicating people could drop off their electronics.
“I at least advertised that I would fix them,” he says, admitting that “in reality I just took them apart and tried to put them back together. That was the first one. Then I had a lemonade stand and a paper route.”
“The stuff I know today and implemented, I learned at Cargill,” he says, adding that it became clear to him that “I need to do my own thing. I just knew that if I was focused on it I would succeed.”
Ben Cowan, CEO of 360Wow Inc.: 612.930.4464;
in**@*******nc.com; www.360wowinc.com
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