IAM343- President Leads a Commercial Cleaning Company to Make Real Impact

Adam Povlitz began his journey at Anago when he was 26. Looking to make a real impact in his professional life instead of just being a spoke in the corporate wheel, he decided to join his father in building what is now known today as one of the largest commercial cleaning companies in the nation, Anago Cleaning Systems (Anago). In 2015, Adam was promoted to President of Anago and oversees every aspect of the company including operations, finance, and the marketing programs designed to attract Master and Unit Franchisees. Previously, Adam served as the Growth Initiatives and Expense Analyst for the North American Sales & Distribution division of IBM Corporation. He holds an MBA from the University of Miami and earned a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from Nova Southeastern University. He is a Certified Franchise Executive and an ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standards Expert.

• CEO Hack: Simon Sinek's books- Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last
• CEO Nugget: Your personal income will not far exceed your personal growth
• CEO Defined: Responsibility to no one and everyone at the same time

Website: https://www.anagocleaning.com/

http://anagomasters.com/

Full Interview

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Adam Povlitz of Anago Cleaning Systems. Adam, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Adam Povlitz 0:40

Hey Gresh, how's it going? Good to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:43

Super excited to have you on Adam. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about you so people can hear about all the awesome things that you're doing. And Adam Povlitz began his journey at Anago when he was 26. Looking to make a real impact in his professional life instead of just being a spoke in the corporate wheel, he decided to join his father in building what is now known today as one of the largest commercial cleaning companies in the nation, Anago Cleaning Systems (Anago).

In 2015, Adam was promoted to President of Anago and oversees every aspect of the company including operations, finance, and the marketing programs designed to attract Master and Unit Franchisees. Previously, Adam served as the Growth Initiatives and Expense Analyst for the North American Sales & Distribution division of IBM Corporation. He holds an MBA from the University of Miami and earned a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from Nova Southeastern University. He is a Certified Franchise Executive and an ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standards Expert. Adam, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Adam Povlitz 1:49

That's a mouthful. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 1:52

So I wanted to kick everything off and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story, what led you to start your business?

Adam Povlitz 1:58

Well, so I actually didn't start my business. My father started the business back in 1989. And he had always owned businesses in the past, he actually started with a conventional commercial cleaning business with his brothers, my uncle's, in Michigan, and in 89, my grandmother moved down to Florida for the weather. And we were on vacation probably the year before.

And I could get used to all these sunny days here in Florida and so we ended up packing up moving down to South Florida. The short version of his story is that he had done commercial cleaning, and got into the franchise aspect with what would be considered a competitor, I did it for a few months with them and decided to think I could do this a little bit better than them. My story is huge. I mean, you read a lot of my story but my backstory is that I was always a finance guy. I was never frankly interested and getting into the quote-unquote family business. I was a go-at-your-own kind of guy. I was working.

I went to the University of Florida after our grads, Go Gators are gonna throw that sorry, and haters gonna hate me haven't been good for like 10 years, though, so it's okay. But I graduated, I got into investment banking realized after working those, 90 and 100-hour work weeks that I go, maybe I'm not smart enough for something because this is no way to live. So I decided to go back to school, went to University Miami, like you said, coming to MBA, and then went up to IBM.

And I was the analyst that was the cause of the growth plays, analysts, everything. Everything IBM is acronyms and initials, everything. So we read that nice long title, we would read it as na SNDOIDOID, GPA. There we go. I mean, it's just that everything's acronyms for them. That night I had kind of my moment. We were trying to do some forecasting for the next quarter. And I was having a heck of a time getting some of my forecast to tie out. Then basically, my manager said, we need to move forward.

And we'll circle back to this. But the number that I was stuck on was around, it was like, an IBM speak. It was point four, in the rest of us speak. It was $400,000. I mean, it was just forecasting tonight, it was my budget was 120 million at IBM that I was responsible for and so it was $4,000 for IBM, maybe isn't as much as it is, but when you hear $400,000 When I hear $400,000 like whoa, that's some big time. Some big-time money, right? And so it just clicked for me. I go, You know what, this is a great company.

I have nothing ill to say about IBM. But I realized that no matter what I did, I was always going to be a tiny little cog and the big blue wheel. That was IBM. So for me, I was down around Christmas time visiting with family. My dad says You got to check this thing out. I think we got something here. You got to get interested in what we're doing here.

And six months later, I came down and he goes, Alright, congratulations. You left your high-flaunting finance job, and your first job, and Anago since we're commercial cleaning, you're going to be a franchisees assistant by night cleaning a daycare, and a telemarketer by day and so I knew this was 10 years ago.

So this was pre Diaper Genie, there were no diaper genies, this was you go into daycare, and there's, you're cleaning up after 200 dirty diapers and you gotta take a deep breath. Open the bag, and tie it off real fast. Quick, inhale, exhale. Did you get it? I mean, you got it, you got a ticket move. It was great. I worked, I did that for a while. And then I moved into customer service, we call it operations, then I moved into sales.

And that was all at the Anago of South Florida. This was a regional master franchise that we did that at. And then I moved to the corporate office, and more of a traveling role. I've traveled the country, and that was our franchise owners. And I only knew so much about the business at that point. So it was very much a servant leadership, kind of a role of what can I do for you? What is it that we can do at corporate to make your franchise better, grow faster, run smoother, and take all that information back with me, I'm working on a plan to put it together for them to help them grow. And I've moved up over the years and in honor of IBM, the former president, he said he was now the title isn't president. It's Saavik. PUD. Sob I see. And I'll give you the PG version of it, but it's poor, unfortunate dumb sob in charge. So here I am, as the official and Saavik Anago, President and CEO. How I got here. That's funny.

Gresham Harkless 7:29

That's hilarious. But it's great to hear how you've seen and you've probably seen every aspect of the business. I think a lot of times when you have to make decisions, you usually have to tap into, people that might be in the position or understand exactly what they're doing. But the fact that you've been able to literally hold your breath on up to being Pacific, as I said, you literally have seen every aspect of the business.

Adam Povlitz 7:57

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 7:58

Nice. And so I wanted to drill a little bit deeper here a little bit more about what you guys are doing with Anago. Can you tell us how you're serving your clients and franchises and some of the things that you guys are doing?

Adam Povlitz 8:09

Sure, so we are a franchise model, we're unique in most franchises that you can think of are two-tier franchises, you would think like McDonald's, everyone knows McDonald's and you grow, there's the corporate office and then the franchise office and the corporate office, they sell and support the franchises we're actually a three-tier franchise model. So there's the corporate office, the master franchise office, and then the unit franchise, and to explain it, you have to flip it upside down and start with the unit.

So the unit franchise is someone who's looking to get into the cleaning business, there are literally millions of people that start and operate cleaning businesses around the US and Canada, we're actually in US and Canada. Every year, there are low barriers to entry, right? But I want to get to where I want to start. Gresh is a cleaning company and you go and buy a mop and a bucket and a vacuum, and congratulation, they are a cleaning company. The problem is most people who get into cleaning get in because of all those great features, and low barriers to entry, it's not rocket science.

But the hardest part about the cleaning business is probably the reason why was the statistic where it says something along the lines, it's like 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and then of the remaining 50 another, and 80% of those fail within a few years. Well, why do you think that is? And in our model, we've discovered that most people get into the business that they want to get into because they understand the functional side of the business, right? I'm a good cook, and someone told me I'm a great cook.

So I'm gonna open a restaurant, and most lawns and made some money one summer, I'm gonna open a landscaping business, take cleanings, not hard, I'm gonna open a cleaning business. But what most people do not understand about the business side is the business side of the business, right? So it's the marketing the accounting, what's your client acquisition cost, as most people have no idea as to ask the CEO and their job to know that.

So we realize that there's a lot of people that want to get into the cleaning business, it's actually one of the fastest growing areas. I think I just read in the US Labor Bureau Department of Statistics, that it's expected to outpace job growth everywhere in the United States, comparatively by over 30%. I mean, it's wild, how fast janitorial is growing, partly because you can't outsource it to Asia somewhere China or Vietnam, or whatever it may be. Amazon's not coming to town to replace it, you need people to physically walk into the building, and then clean the offices.

So those people who want to get into business or cleaning, but they don't understand the marketing and the accounting, and website, advertising and all that. So that's where the master franchise comes in. And so what we're actually doing is we're selling someone from Anago Cleaning Systems, we're selling them the right to buy a master franchise. And what happens is a master franchise, it's an exclusive territory. So where are you? Where are you located, grab

Gresham Harkless 11:41

Shots in 15 minutes from Washington, DC.

Adam Povlitz 11:44

To Washington, DC. So Darren Williams is the owner of our Washington, DC franchise, Darren, his brother, Mike, and their longtime buddy Roscoe bought the rights to the Washington DC greater DC area. And in DC, what they do is two things one they find those people who are interested in getting into the cleaning business and work on bringing them into a franchise. And then number two, they're selling commercial cleaning clients, so doctors' offices, regular offices, schools, medical facilities, anything like that, and then they're able to bring the two together.

And so that way, you have someone who says, Look, I know how to clean, not hard, I know what I need to do. Maybe there are better ways that you guys could show me obviously, there's always a better way to fry fish. But how do I get clients so Darren master operation comes in and says, Well, my whole background, he was a stockbroker at one point, he understands sales?

His whole background is meeting with customers, setting up the website, getting designing everything, acquiring the clients, and then getting those unit franchisees, the clients that they want. So we actually sell the barons of the world. And explain to Darren, how our model works. And we say, Look, we're going to set you up with a website, we're going to set you up with a billing system, we have a whole series of videos, books, manuals, way too many videos.

Yeah, and we just redid our manuals, we're always updating everything staying current with industry publications of the latest tools, all of that, and we teach someone who wants to buy a master franchise, how to do the marketing aspect of the business, and then how to recruit and mentor and train the folks that want to do the cleaning aspect of the business.

Gresham Harkless 13:45

That's huge. I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book, or a habit that you have something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Adam Povlitz 13:56

Since you brought up a book, I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. I did start with why I actually read Leaders Eat Last First. I think that is a phenomenal book. I've really taken everything he said and Leaders Eat Last Heart.

Gresham Harkless 14:13

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm definitely gonna listen to that audiobook now. And that's back on my list. But now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget and this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Adam Povlitz 14:28

Something my dad always said to me, your personal income will not far exceed your personal growth. Heavy, right?

Gresham Harkless 14:38

Yes, it is.

Adam Povlitz 14:39

And I love it because it applies everywhere. I don't care if you're in business, or if you're in sports.

Gresham Harkless 14:47

I appreciate that. And I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, Adam, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And always touch on this a little bit and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show, but what does being a CEO mean to you?

Adam Povlitz 14:58

Being a CEO is being responsible to no one and everyone at the same time.

Gresham Harkless 15:06

I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And what I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are doing.

Adam Povlitz 15:18

We are growing fast, right? Here's my plug, right? We are growing so fast. We actually added 14 Master franchises in the last two years. And so it's exciting for us because we're growing very fast. We're very blessed. We're very fortunate to get a hold of us. Our website is anagocleaning.com. You want to give a phone number and all that and 8002135857 either those ways are a great way to get a hold of us.

Gresham Harkless 15:51

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, we'll have those links in the show notes as well so that anybody can click through and follow up with you. It's great to hear you guys are growing great to hear there's opportunities for people as well too. So I appreciate you for all you're doing. I appreciate the time you took the day and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:10

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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