In this episode, Enmanuel Tejada interviews Jackson Blackburn, the owner of Mount Baker Window Washing and Cleaning. Jackson shares his journey of starting and growing his business, from his upbringing in Connecticut to his move to Bellingham, Washington. He discusses the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way. Jackson emphasizes the importance of marketing and building a strong brand to grow a business. He also highlights the need to focus on higher-value tasks and delegate lower-value tasks to drive business growth. In this conversation, Jackson Blackburn, owner of Mount Baker Window Cleaning and a business coach, shares insights on the power of marketing and referrals. He emphasizes the importance of investing in marketing to reach a wider audience and generate more referrals. Jackson also discusses the significance of building a vision for employees and offering opportunities for personal and professional development. He highlights the role of company culture in attracting and retaining employees. Additionally, Jackson provides digital marketing tips and emphasizes the need for systems in scaling a cleaning company.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00
Introduction
00:33
Jackson's Background and Upbringing
04:30
Discovering Bellingham, Washington
07:45
Starting a Business
11:39
Challenges and Lessons Learned
22:40
Current Role and Focus
28:46
Starting Over and Growing the Business
31:26
The Importance of Marketing
32:01
The Power of Marketing and Referrals
36:09
Building a Vision for Employees
39:02
Creating a Company Culture
46:18
The Importance of Systems in Business
55:57
Advice for Scaling a Cleaning Company
In this episode, Enmanuel Tejada interviews Jackson Blackburn, the owner of Mount Baker Window Washing and Cleaning. Jackson shares his journey of starting and growing his business, from his upbringing in Connecticut to his move to Bellingham, Washington. He discusses the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way. Jackson emphasizes the importance of marketing and building a strong brand to grow a business. He also highlights the need to focus on higher-value tasks and delegate lower-value tasks to drive business growth. In this conversation, Jackson Blackburn, owner of Mount Baker Window Cleaning and a business coach, shares insights on the power of marketing and referrals. He emphasizes the importance of investing in marketing to reach a wider audience and generate more referrals. Jackson also discusses the significance of building a vision for employees and offering opportunities for personal and professional development. He highlights the role of company culture in attracting and retaining employees. Additionally, Jackson provides digital marketing tips and emphasizes the need for systems in scaling a cleaning company.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00
Introduction
00:33
Jackson's Background and Upbringing
04:30
Discovering Bellingham, Washington
07:45
Starting a Business
11:39
Challenges and Lessons Learned
22:40
Current Role and Focus
28:46
Starting Over and Growing the Business
31:26
The Importance of Marketing
32:01
The Power of Marketing and Referrals
36:09
Building a Vision for Employees
39:02
Creating a Company Culture
46:18
The Importance of Systems in Business
55:57
Advice for Scaling a Cleaning Company
Enmanuel Tejada (00:01.32)
Cool, so we are live. Gonna go ahead and do the intro in three, two, one. All right, everyone, we are back for another episode of The Digital Toolbox. This is a podcast where we bring on guests that own home services businesses and they come on to tell their story, tell their uprising, and get some free digital marketing advice, which they can apply right now. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Our guest today is the owner of Mount Baker Window Washing and Cleaning. His name is Jackson Blackburn.
Jackson, go ahead and introduce yourself, man.
Jackson Blackburn (00:33.654)
Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me on Manny. Yeah, I am the owner of Mount Baker Window Cleaning. We're based in Bellingham, Washington and I've started that business in 2017. So I believe that this would be our seventh year in business and boy, what a journey it has been.
Enmanuel Tejada (00:51.276)
Ooh, seven years. And Jackson, you know what, man? Bring us through that. How did you get to this point where you own, like how did you start this company? Or even, you know what, let's go even a little bit before that, before you started your company, what were you doing? Who was Jackson Black?
Jackson Blackburn (01:09.258)
Well, I would say that I grew up in Connecticut in a middle-class family with an older mom that my dad wasn't in the picture. We grew up in a very wealthy place and we weren't very wealthy. My mom had been retired. Later on, she told me that we were on food stamps. We lived in a very small old house. I believe it's 100 years old now. It was actually shipped over from the Midwest on a train. I looked at an old receipt that was still around.
You could buy this house for $2,000 back in 1920. They'd ship it from Chicago over to the East Coast. And that's the house that I grew up in, which is pretty neat. I think actually the floorboards, what was that?
Enmanuel Tejada (01:46.908)
They shipped the house itself? You said they shipped a house over to you?
Jackson Blackburn (01:52.254)
Yeah, they'd ship these pre-made prefabbed houses out on trains back in the 1920s, and you could easily pop it together and erect it on a property. And there you go. There's a fully built home for you. It was $2,000. I found the receipt laying around somewhere.
Enmanuel Tejada (01:58.28)
Holy shit.
Enmanuel Tejada (02:08.352)
Dude, that's awesome. I didn't even know that was a thing back then. That's cool to hear.
Jackson Blackburn (02:12.978)
Yeah, it was. And so, you know, I grew up in this town in Connecticut until I was about, I would say 17 before I left for college. And growing up in this town was very strange for me because I was so different than the other people growing up there. You know, the norm was that you had rich parents, they had a lot of money, the dad worked in New York City, they sent you on these vacations, they developed you as athletes into the elite.
athletic programs that we had at the school. You know, the football team was always in the state championship. The volleyball team didn't lose for seven years in a row. And that was very much so not me. You know, my dad wasn't in the photo. We definitely were on the lower income spectrum for where we were living. And all I wanted to do was ride mountain bikes and try and figure out how to snowboard. So it kind of pushed me out of the norm of the social groups that we had in our community there.
And I remember there was a time where I could have kept playing baseball for high school, Oregon to the volleyball team. And I actually decided to start working at a hardware store around the corner from my home when I was 14 years old. I'm not even sure if it was legal to be honest with you being that young, but that was just the path that I took because I knew that if I was able to work at the hardware store, I'd be able to buy a mountain bike and maybe go buy a snowboard. And then maybe my first car.
Enmanuel Tejada (03:33.692)
Ahem.
Jackson Blackburn (03:36.542)
And so that was the route that I took. And I started working from a very young age in a very manly environment at the hardware store. Those were like some of my first mentors were these old Italians at this hardware store. And I don't know if they really gave me any good advice. A lot of it was just very raunchy and inappropriate, but it kind of shaped my later childhood.
until I was out the door and I got out of Connecticut basically as fast as I could. I high tailed it to Washington state because there was a lot of things that I really resonated with in Washington. The fact that we have the Pacific Ocean, we've got these beautiful mountains with snow on them. It's home to some of the best mountain biking in the world. We've got lush forests, temperate rainforests, the Olympic Peninsula. You're right next to the border of Canada.
And this town I found, Bellingham, Washington, just seemed like a dream. It was a small community, lots of mom and pop stores, lots of breweries, lots of good coffee, lots of cool people that liked doing the things that I liked doing. So for me, that was like the perfect escape out of this world in Connecticut that I didn't fully connect with.
Enmanuel Tejada (04:49.616)
Wow, that's awesome. And so when you were left to Washington, right, from Connecticut, you were how old? You were 18?
Jackson Blackburn (04:58.998)
I was 17 at the time, I think. I probably turned 18 that summer.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:04.452)
that summer and then so did you leave by yourself or did your parents come with you anybody else?
Jackson Blackburn (05:09.886)
No, I left by myself. I didn't know a single person in Washington. I was probably one of the first people from my high school in the 100 plus years of its existence to ever go to Washington. Definitely the first one to ever land in Bellingham. So yeah, it was a solo journey for sure. And it was a little bit of a shot in the dark, but I knew that was where I belonged. Like I had a yearning to be in this place called Bellingham that I'd never heard of.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:12.496)
Wow.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:17.262)
Yeah.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:21.992)
Yeah.
Jackson Blackburn (05:39.082)
until you know, six months prior.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:41.636)
That's incredible. And so what made you want to even go? How did you even find Bellingham? You took a flight from or did you drive across the country?
Jackson Blackburn (05:51.698)
Man, this is such a wild story actually thinking back because I forgot about this for a long time. People would ask me how I found it. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I found it online. That's not true. My guidance counselor, who was an old, like a very old lady working at this prestigious high school in Connecticut, just looked at me and she's like, I think you'd really like this school out in Bellingham, Washington, because they liked to mountain bike and snowboard there. And I honestly threw it in the back burner for a while because this is...
Enmanuel Tejada (06:13.303)
No!
Jackson Blackburn (06:20.374)
kind of ridiculous, they didn't have a terrain park at the mountain and I'm not sure if that's the lingo that's gonna go over your head, but there was a few things that were a little off and so I was like, oh, I don't know, I think like people say snowboarding's really good in Colorado and like in Utah, but I didn't get into any of those schools and I did get into this one. So, you know, I went for it and now thinking back, I mean, I've been here for over a decade, I've made the best friends of my life here and I'm just deeply rooted in Bellingham now and.
Enmanuel Tejada (06:34.161)
Yeah.
Jackson Blackburn (06:49.306)
I kind of owe it to this like guidance counselor from Connecticut, this old lady who knew nothing about mountain biking and snowboarding, who just said, yeah, I think this would be a really interesting place for you. And now here I am, I'm just blown away still that she made probably the best call for my life that anyone else has made.
Enmanuel Tejada (07:09.572)
That was just based off what you told her, right? I wanna go snowboarding and I wanna ride mountain bikes. And she mentioned Bellingham. That's kind of crazy.
Jackson Blackburn (07:16.082)
Yeah, I know I really owe her one. I've been meaning to write her some sort of letter and say, hey, thanks. I actually got kicked out of school really fast, but I stayed in Bellingham, so great job.
Enmanuel Tejada (07:23.41)
Hahaha!
Enmanuel Tejada (07:30.878)
That's funny, man. And so you know what, Jackson, one hour. So you moved to Bellingham, right? You're there, you're living there. How do you, what do you do next? Do you get a job or did you get into the trades? Like, did you work under somebody else?
Jackson Blackburn (07:45.878)
Well, I, so I started by going to school at Western Washington University. And within a year, I was academically dismissed. I did not want to do my schoolwork. I had no appetite for it. There wasn't a single major that was interesting to me at that point in my life, but I wanted to dedicate that much time to. And so I got academically dismissed. And I remember, I'll never forget, I got the piece of paper in the mail and was reading it.
and I go over the first couple lines and it says, Jackson Blackburn has been academically dismissed. And at first, you know, my emotions are, oh boy, like this isn't good. And then within like five seconds, I just had a huge grin on my face because I knew that meant that I could snowboard as much as I wanted to that year and just go find a job. And so it went from like extreme disappointment to, wait, this might be the best thing that's honestly ever happened to me. It's getting kicked out of school.
Enmanuel Tejada (08:44.087)
Holy shit, but then I would imagine, did you have any fear at all? Because like you're living in Washington, you're in a state that you're not from, the bills have to get paid. So what was kind of going through your head around that point?
Jackson Blackburn (08:56.086)
Well, you know, it was scary when they evicted me from the dorms and they gave me three hours to leave, to get out of there. So I remember like instantly I had called my friend, he came with his Jeep, I put everything I belonged in the back of his Jeep, I'd have to call him if I needed to change. Like, hey man, like, can you come bring my clothes in your Jeep? Like I need to change my underwear, you know, it was just, it was a scene. But eventually all my friends actually ended up.
Enmanuel Tejada (09:17.865)
Hahaha
Jackson Blackburn (09:22.03)
getting kicked out as well. They're all like in the same print circle as me. And when that none of us really wanted to do school. So they ended up getting kicked out too. And we ended up getting a house together. And then from there, you know, we're just, we're getting jobs, right? We're figuring out where we're gonna work. And that moment started a very difficult cycle for me in life. And when I say that, don't get me wrong, I had a blast.
from the time that I was kicked out of school when I was 18, 19, whatever happened, to 24, starting this window cleaning company, I went on the wildest journey of having different seasonal jobs, traveling around, seeing new places. But it was very difficult. Like it was very, very hard for me. I didn't have like a lot of, you know, financial backing. Like I didn't have a massive safety net. So it, you know, it was, it was hard. If I had messed up, I'd really, I'd feel the effect of that.
Enmanuel Tejada (09:55.825)
Mm-hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (10:19.28)
Wow. But then again, it did open. Isn't that funny how sometimes in life, it's kind of like some of the most rewarding moments of life are kind of right on the edge. So like, if you mess up, like it's all, like you kind of fucked for a little bit, but there's always, you can always bounce back. But that's funny because you had the time of your life, but had you messed up or had you made a bad decision financially, then you kind of would have been screwed a little bit.
Jackson Blackburn (10:36.823)
Thank you.
Jackson Blackburn (10:43.89)
Yeah, absolutely. But you know, looking back on it, I wouldn't trade those years for anything because I really do think it taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I was able to see a lot of different businesses running, I was able to meet fascinating people from all over the United States and also some different parts of the world. And just gained so many experiences that I don't think a lot of people have when they do that traditional, I'm going to go to college for four years, and then I'm going to get an internship, and then I'm going to get a job, and then I'm going to start a family.
Like my life was completely different from that. It was completely flipped upside down. It was chaotic. It was sporadic, but I wouldn't trade it for the world because honestly, when I look back on those times, I was actually probably the happiest I've ever been in my life because I was just flying by the seat of my pant, right? Just anything goes and I was just traveling with the wind and there's something quite beautiful about that.
Enmanuel Tejada (11:39.344)
Wow, yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. Flying with the wind, what a way to say that. I like that. Awesome. And so Jackson, boom, you're 24 years old. What happens right before you begin Mount Baker window cleaning?
Jackson Blackburn (11:44.331)
Yeah.
Jackson Blackburn (11:54.722)
So I probably had the hardest summer of my life. I had the cops called on me twice over two different paychecks. One being a paycheck that I was supposed to receive from working on a fishing boat in Alaska. And that owner ended up having dementia and some Alzheimer's and the captain left. And I thought I was gonna die on this boat because it was from 1944. It was made out of wood. It was an original World War II cargo ship. And the captain is insane or the owner is insane.
Enmanuel Tejada (12:14.427)
Oh.
Enmanuel Tejada (12:18.373)
Thank you.
Jackson Blackburn (12:23.958)
The captain leaves and he puts me in charge and he's paying me pennies, right? And I have to drive. I've never driven a boat. So next thing you know, I'm in charge of this crew. I'm like 24 years old on this massive hundred foot, hundred ton wooden warship in like the dangerous season, Alaska. And I'm like, man, I need to get out of here. Like, I honestly think this thing's going to sink. I think it might've actually, who knows? But, um, I ended up getting out, but they wouldn't pay me. And so I didn't get off the.
boat until they would pay me. The cops ended up getting involved. And then a week later, I go into this raft guiding company back in Bellingham and I worked for this guy for three days. He pays me. And then a week later, I'm like, hey, man, I gotta go. I got a job on this yacht in New Jersey that I gotta go jet to. So he calls the police and says that he gave me, he like lent me the money over the weekend. Like it was a forward in pay. And then I owed it back to him.
Enmanuel Tejada (13:18.748)
Wow.
Jackson Blackburn (13:20.87)
at which point I was, you know, no, he paid me for the three days that I raft guided for him. See, I had cops involved in paychecks in two weeks. And then I went to work on this boat in New Jersey. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. And I came back home and I was just so defeated. Like I'd had the hardest summer of my life. I didn't, I barely got paid for anything that I did. I worked my butt off all summer on this fishing boat, had a terrible experience in New Jersey on this yacht.
Enmanuel Tejada (13:33.144)
Thanks.
Jackson Blackburn (13:47.458)
got ripped off, wrath guiding and was just at the end, right? Just like, what am I doing? This is not, something is not adding up here and I can't keep living my life this way year after year. And I had a stepdad at that point who just looked at me and said, man, you need to start your own business. Like you need to do something for yourself because you keep getting fired and you keep quitting. It's just a, it had been a pattern in my life. And you know, I was aware of it too.
But the issue was, you know, I said, hey Robert, buddy, I don't have any money. I don't have a college experience. How am I going to like, what do you, it's easy for you to say, start a business. Like you've done it before. I have nothing right now. So, you know, how do you expect me to do that? And, uh, and then he told me a story. If, if you don't mind, I'd love to share it because I think it is incredible.
Enmanuel Tejada (14:39.)
Yeah, the mic is yours, Jackson. Go ahead, man.
Jackson Blackburn (14:41.646)
All right. So, so my stepdad, Robert, I actually don't know where he is anymore. He vanished one day, literally into thin air. I don't even know what country he's living in. Anyways, he used to be a surf bum in Australia. So he was probably around the same age, a surf bum. Yeah, he was a surf bum in Australia on the Gold Coast. And he was probably the same age, like around 24. When I was when I started Mount Baker window cleaning. And he just he told me the story. He goes, look, Jackson, you know,
Enmanuel Tejada (14:57.564)
a surplus.
Enmanuel Tejada (15:03.214)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (15:11.762)
I was in a similar time in my life. I just wanted to spend time at the beach. I wanted to spend time surfing, and I wanted to pursue this professional surf career. I think he'd won a few competitions. He was pretty good back in the day. And he thought, how do I make money, but I can sit on the beach and surf? What does that look like for me? And I'm speaking as if I'm Robert right now. And so...
What he ended up doing is he saw all of these huge resorts getting built in the city he was living in, all these massive hotels. And he just thought, what if I could start a cleaning company and just go clean for every single one of these? The issue is, is every single one of these hotels already had a maid service that they were using. So what he did is he walked into every single one of these hotels and he said, look, I will clean for you for two weeks for free.
And if you don't like it, you don't need to hire us. But if you do like it, I just ask that we can get a contract with you at the end. Every one of these hotels agreed. They said, yeah, two weeks of cleaning for free? Absolutely, like no brainer, done. He quickly assembled a team of maids. They went out, they cleaned for two weeks at every single one of these places. And not only did they get the contracts, but the hotels ended up paying for those two weeks. And within two weeks, right, he had the largest maid service.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:33.561)
Oh wow.
Jackson Blackburn (16:37.138)
in the town he was living in, just two weeks, all it took. Now he's got the largest maid service, and now he's sitting out on the beach, he's surfing, and he also had money to go fund other ventures, which he did down the road, but we don't need to get into that. But that story was really the information I needed to say to myself, okay, if he did that, if he was able to accomplish that in two weeks, with nothing, like it didn't really cost any money.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:41.025)
Holy shit.
Jackson Blackburn (17:05.186)
then there's certainly something that I can do.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:08.624)
Wow, that's a crazy, that is a wild story actually. And where did he get the maids from to be able to service all of those resorts?
Jackson Blackburn (17:16.13)
to surface the, oh, I mean, I'm not sure where he did, to be honest, but I don't know. I'm sure it took some work to get around to go hire everyone, for sure, like it takes work, but he did it. So yeah, it's just really inspirational. And you know, I didn't wanna do interior cleaning at all, like myself, I knew that whatever I was gonna start, I'd probably have to do to begin with, but.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:20.632)
Like, holy shit.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:41.288)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (17:43.182)
I believe it was from working on these yachts. I worked in France on super yachts. If you've ever seen the show below deck, I did that. And I had to clean windows on the yachts. And so I knew that it was something that I could do. And just looking around in Bellingham, you know, where I'm living, I'm like, man, there's tons of windows out here. There's lots of opportunity for this. And I think I had a few friends that were also snowboarders who had started window cleaning companies because they're like, hey,
Enmanuel Tejada (17:49.628)
Wow.
Jackson Blackburn (18:08.314)
You can clean windows, clean glass in the summer, and then you can take off for the winter to go snowboard. So I was like, hey, perfect. Like this is what I'm going to do. And so then I came back to Bellingham after this crazy summer and I started a window cleaning company.
Enmanuel Tejada (18:23.036)
Wow. And so how does that go? So you mentioned that you had friends that were doing the same thing, cleaning windows. And what was your first step? Were you like, did you right away get an LLC or did you first try to see if you could even make it work and start knocking some doors, maybe offer some free service?
Jackson Blackburn (18:40.47)
So I didn't get an LLC until six months in probably, but the first thing that I did is I had my friend from high school draw me up a logo, which we changed. It was good, thank you Alec if you're listening to this. I had to make a logo and then the next thing I did is I went to this print shop and I printed out a ton of these really thick index cards that had my cell phone number.
I didn't have a business phone, right? It was my cell phone number, few of the services that we offered and a discount. I'm not sure what it said. Maybe it said, maybe it was as much as 35% off, which didn't mean much because I was making these prices off the top of my head at that time, right? So it didn't mean a whole lot, but I thought it'd be incentive for people. And after I got these index cards, I punched holes through them.
Enmanuel Tejada (19:21.118)
That's right.
Jackson Blackburn (19:29.79)
and I've strung rubber bands around them. I would sit up all night punching holes and stringing rubber bands through these thick index cards. I later figured out what a door hanger was, which are fabulous. We use those now to this day. But all I had then, I didn't even know what that was, right? So I just had these index cards with rubber bands and I spent an entire fall back in 2017, putting these on the doors in the neighborhoods that I wanted to work in. And I was relentless. I hired my friends to do this with me. I like...
a thumbs off the street, not really, but like anyone who could help me, we were out there just walking around neighborhoods, stringing these things on doors.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:07.676)
Wow, gotcha, and what was the return on investment on doing that?
Jackson Blackburn (20:12.85)
I mean, it started my business. I don't think, I wasn't keeping track. You know, I didn't get into this with the, a lot of people who started pressure washing or window cleaning business have had business experience and they had this grand plan, like I'm gonna start this business, I'm gonna hire employees, I'm gonna get off the truck, I'm gonna work on sales. I had none of that. Like you have to remember, I'm 24, I just want money to go snowboarding, right? So like for me, I was like, if I make enough, I think when I got into the business, one of my friends said, hey, I can make.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:15.893)
Hahaha
Enmanuel Tejada (20:23.452)
Alright.
Jackson Blackburn (20:41.666)
$200 a day cleaning windows. And to me at that time, I was like, my eyes lit up. I was like, whoa, really? Like, it's all yours? Amazing. Like that sounds great. Fast forward to this day. You know, there are many days that we're doing 7,000, $8,000 a day. It's funny though, because that was like $200. Oh, I can go snowboard if I, you know, I can go mountain bike. That's fine. Yeah, exactly. And back then I did.
Enmanuel Tejada (21:02.084)
I could easily make that 200 last. Yes.
Jackson Blackburn (21:07.323)
So yeah, that was the start of Mount Baker window cleaning in the fall of 2017.
Enmanuel Tejada (21:12.464)
Wow, man, that's an awesome story. And quick question then, what services were you offering then? And then what does that offers, like the services that you offered now look like?
Jackson Blackburn (21:24.874)
When I first started, I called it Mount Baker window cleaning because I thought I would only be cleaning windows. In about three months, I've quickly realized that people need gutter cleaning, people need roof cleaning, people want pressure washing. And so quickly that fall, I'm renting pressure washers, I'm learning how to clean roofs, learning the best techniques, and I'm adding to this list of services. If I had known that, you know...
Enmanuel Tejada (21:45.671)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (21:49.87)
Three months prior, I would have made my name something far different and probably wouldn't have pinpointed it to one location. Mount Baker is this massive volcano we have around Bellingham. People love it. There's plenty of other companies, Mount Baker Roofing, Mount Baker Electric, and it's kind of a theme that we have and people are really attached to it here. It's a very outdoorsy community. But if I had known that we were...
Enmanuel Tejada (22:07.592)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (22:13.014)
that we would have the chance that we would be so successful that we'd be able to franchise a name and expand into services. I would not have called it Mount Baker window cleaning, but that's, that's another road to go down later.
Enmanuel Tejada (22:25.174)
Man, that's an awesome story right there. Holy crap. And then, so you know what then? Let me ask you this, Jackson. What do your days now look like? Are you still in the field? Do you also handle a lot of the front work or what do your days look like now?
Jackson Blackburn (22:40.914)
Yeah, so over the past couple of years, my day to day has varied a little bit. A couple of years ago, I got the company running at a point where it really did not need me and it still doesn't need me. But the difference is from two years ago to now today, I've realized that to continue to push the business and to continue to motivate my employees and get to that next level, I really do need to be participating.
in some bits of the day to day here and there, or not even really the day to day, but the behind the scenes stuff. And for the past two years, I was very removed from the business and we were doing fine. People were happy. Our clients were happier than ever. We had these systems, this well-oiled machine that allowed me to escape. And I took vacations. I saw friends across the country and enjoyed my time. I really had a good time doing that. But I...
Recently, I've been really hungry to push our business to the next level, to get more commercial work, to continue to develop my employees into managers and my managers into better managers or maybe even a general manager one day. And so I am committing more time to the business today than I was the same day last year. And that really, a lot of my time is spent building systems.
checking in with managers, coaching them to do a better job, and just dialing things in. And then another big piece is I want more commercial work and that takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to go make these connections with property managers, realtors, business owners, HOAs.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:17.529)
Yeah.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:23.204)
Is that worth bidding as well?
Jackson Blackburn (24:26.398)
Is that for what?
Enmanuel Tejada (24:27.584)
Is that with bidding as well, like bidding contracts with the government and stuff like that, or is that separate?
Jackson Blackburn (24:30.22)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's all part you got to make the relationship first before you can send them an estimate, right. And so that's my goal right now. Eventually, I will be pulling someone from our company into that role. But I need to go out and make those connections right now and start harboring those relationships.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:44.401)
Mmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:51.056)
Wow, okay. So then, so it sounds like you started off doing everything yourself, then you expanded to a team, then you got so systemized, and it was you had a well-oiled machine that you didn't have to do the day to day anymore. So you kind of stepped back, but now you're kind of into it again, but not pressure washing or window cleaning, but just making connections and working on the business, but not in it.
Jackson Blackburn (25:15.558)
Yeah, exactly. I don't want to once you if you're spending time working in your business, I call that anywhere from a 15 to like a $50 an hour task. If you're working in the business working on the business, now your value is more like $100 to $500 an hour. And so the more tasks that you can do in any given day that are 100 to $500 an hour value
the more you're gonna grow your company. And some of those tasks might include, yeah, relationship building with commercial accounts, doing a financial audit and building a new budget, building systems for production that are gonna make things easier for your technicians or maybe more efficient. And so those are the tasks that I'm really focused on now, instead of focusing on those tasks that you might be able to delegate to someone else to do for a lot cheaper than the value of your time. And it has to...
you have to make the conscious effort to say, my time is of this much value. Because if you devalue your time, you're gonna have a rough time growing your business because you're just not working on the things that are actually needed to push your business to the next level.
Enmanuel Tejada (26:28.156)
Dude, I totally agree. In fact, I had a mentor tell me the same thing in my life. He mentioned that, hey, do you wanna be, I mean, when you get older, like do you wanna be making $10 an hour? And I was like, no, but what are you talking about? He was like, so why are you still cooking? You know, why are you cleaning? And his point was that instead of doing these $10 an hour tasks, maybe you can delegate that out and focus those couple hours into something that's more profitable, right? That has the potential to make you even more money. So I thought that was kind of genius, a genius way to look at it.
Jackson Blackburn (26:54.686)
Exactly.
Jackson Blackburn (26:58.782)
Right, and a big issue that I see in a lot of home service business owners and how they operate their business is they'll come to me and say, hey, I'm overwhelmed with all of these tasks that I'm doing in my business, but I don't see enough meat on the bones, like enough money there to hire to delegate someone to do that job for me. And honestly, what I've found, and this is a bit of an aggressive strategy, but...
There have been times in my business where I felt like that. And what I did is I went and I delegated it. I didn't see that the money was there, but I knew that if I was able to delegate those tasks so that I could immediately start working on higher value tasks, that we could grow our business. And every time I have made that conscious decision to delegate these smaller value tasks, our business has grown from it. And we have found that money comes in. So, it's never gonna feel
Enmanuel Tejada (27:40.744)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (27:56.462)
good, you're never gonna feel good taking that next step because you haven't been there before, right? Like I don't know what it's like to run a $2 million business. So getting to that point is gonna feel uncomfortable. Like I'm gonna feel a twist in my gut, I'm gonna feel uncertainty and that's totally normal. It should, if it feels normal to you and you feel good about it, you're probably not doing the right things to get to that next step.
Enmanuel Tejada (28:22.609)
Man, that's a great way to look at it right there, Jackson. Holy shit. That's some real game right there. And let me ask you this. If you were, let's say that you were going to start Mt Baker over again today, if we're going to come back to New Jersey, which is actually where I'm from, by the way. I know you had a bad experience here with that job, but let's say you were going to start over and you were going to start a...
Jackson Blackburn (28:40.854)
Haha. It's all good.
Enmanuel Tejada (28:46.884)
You wanted to get your company to the same point it is right now where you guys are doing window cleaning, pressure washing, gutter cleaning, because I actually work with a lot of those industries. So what would you do differently? What's the first, if you wanted to go from zero to a million dollars, how would you go about that?
Jackson Blackburn (29:02.082)
Okay, first I'd start with a different name, right? I would choose something a lot broader that has a higher ceiling than Mount Baker window cleaning. I'm not locking myself in with a location and just one service. So that could be, oh man, what's it? Elite services, just as an example. I'm sure that's taken. But you get what I'm saying. So I would choose a different name. And then secondly, I'm not sure if this is doing anything different, because I do feel like I did this, but I really need to.
Enmanuel Tejada (29:05.398)
Hahaha.
Enmanuel Tejada (29:18.516)
haha
Jackson Blackburn (29:32.162)
to nail this on the head is that don't spend all of your money on equipment to start. Get the bare minimum. Rent things if you have to, where all your money should be going at the very beginning of your business is into marketing efforts and to making yourself look like a company that is far more professional and far bigger than you actually are. So that would include a branded golf shirt like I'm wearing right now. You want one of those to go sell.
you're going to need to get some door hangers, right? You're going to need to get a website, you're going to need to invest into like a Google GMB profile, don't spend money on Google ads to begin with. But you get what I'm saying, you're going to want to build up your brand, and a little bit of a presence in the town that you're in. And that's only going to happen if you have money for marketing, if you go out and spend $100,000 on a brand new truck and a washing skid, you know, the equipment to go in it.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:24.707)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (30:24.918)
Well, man, $100,000, that's the marketing budget for a million dollar company. Like if you would just spent that on marketing, you could have a million dollar company.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:36.108)
instead of on a brand new truck.
Jackson Blackburn (30:37.866)
Yeah, but the thing is I see a lot of people go out and they spend $100,000 on a truck and the equipment, and then they're like, man, I don't have any leads, like is this industry any good? And you're like, yeah, it is. You just spent $100,000 on a truck and equipment when you could have spent half of that on marketing to grow this thing.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:56.708)
Yeah, oh man, I could not agree more. I could not agree more. And what's your take on that actually, Jackson? Because I know a lot of people are reluctant, right? Because me owning a digital marketing agency, I see it all the time. I see a company that has great potential, but they're like, oh no, we rely only on word of mouth. We don't want to risk looking like one of these other companies that are out there advertising themselves. And what do you think about that point of view in their business where they don't wanna advertise, they don't want to invest into their marketing? What do you think about that?
Jackson Blackburn (31:26.01)
I think that they're going to have a very short lived career. The people that are marketing are just inherently going to get more jobs and more clients than those other businesses. Word of mouth is great. Don't get me wrong. I love word of mouth. We're very heavy into getting referrals from clients and kind of becoming famous in these neighborhoods that we're working in. So that is great. But there is another aspect of this. And you do need a strong brand to grow. If you're serious about growing a business and having a team, you need a professional looking brand.
Enmanuel Tejada (31:39.28)
Right.
Jackson Blackburn (31:55.674)
And you need to be advertising to reach more people, the more the mouth is gonna get you.
Enmanuel Tejada (32:01.16)
Exactly. Yeah. And, and, and that my argument to them a lot of time is, okay, you love word of mouth, but you only have a set number of people that can recommend you, right? That they can refer you. But if you start advertising and you do an amazing job for them, you'll have an infinite amount of people that those people are going to be able to refer you even more. So if in the end, if they want more referrals, they're going to get more clients to add, which they, which those people would then refer them again. So it's like,
Jackson Blackburn (32:26.39)
Right.
Enmanuel Tejada (32:27.564)
It's a no-doubter in my opinion. That's one of the things. And I'm glad that, you know, of course, and it's probably the reason why your business is where it is, because you've not been afraid to invest into marketing and into yourself. And let me ask you now, this Jason, Jackson, segwaying from that, from marketing, aside from marketing, what would you say is one of the, the things that kind of have helped you get to where you are, right? Is there a specific thing that you guys do for every client aside from doing an outstanding job? Is it like,
Do you guys ask for referrals? Do you guys, how do you go about that?
Jackson Blackburn (33:00.49)
Okay, I'd break this into two pieces. One is that we view ourselves as a customer service-based business that just happens to window clean, right? So I could have the same thought and go start a landscaping business. It wouldn't matter. I have the tools to train a team to be very, very good at serving our clients, no matter what service you're offering, whether it be window cleaning, landscaping, whatever it is, right?
So that's one thing. We're very good at customer service and we try to separate ourselves from the competition by having so many automation set up and having really friendly people in our office, having really friendly technicians, which brings me to my next point would be recruiting. And this is where a ton of businesses fall short. It's an epidemic that we have running rampant in the home service industry where business owners say,
Enmanuel Tejada (33:31.624)
Mm-hmm.
Jackson Blackburn (33:54.986)
I can't find anyone to work for me. The last guy I paid, I gave him 25 bucks an hour and he still left. And yeah, like you are having an issue with that, but it's not because that the entire world is just terrible at working, right? That no one out there can wash a window for you. You gotta look deeper in yourself and say, hey, like what is your job at look like? What are you offering them? How are you developing them? How are you managing them?
Right. So I guess you two pieces recruiting and managing, right. But you need to be really good at, at recruiting. You need to have offers that stand out to our newer generation. And if you try and go off the basis that companies have been for years, right. Going back to, let's say like employing a baby boomer, right. Back in the day. Yeah. Like they would take 20 bucks an hour, 15. It was probably less than right. 15, 10 bucks an hour. And they'd be happy. You know, you give them, you give them their pay.
Enmanuel Tejada (34:47.514)
Yeah.
Jackson Blackburn (34:51.234)
They have a nice family, a home with that, and that's fine. But this newer generation is very into things other than just pay, right? Like you need to be able to offer a competitive pay, but you also need to offer things like personal and professional development. This new generation wants to see a clear path of like, if they're gonna commit to something, they need to see what the outcome of them committing to that is gonna look like.
And so when you hire someone on, you say, hey, you're going to clean windows for me. I'm going to give you 25 bucks an hour. That's, that's great and all, but where's that job going? Right. Like what's your vision for the company? What's your vision for me? Am I just going to work here for the next five to 10 years, making $25 an hour, or is there some light at the end of the tunnel? So building a vision for employees. Massive, absolutely massive. Being able to show someone a vision for the company where they fit into that vision, uh, is huge. So that's why we show that when we're.
Enmanuel Tejada (35:30.17)
Right.
Jackson Blackburn (35:49.418)
doing job interviews will say, Hey, by the way, like, this is our company vision for the next three years, like, do you say, do you see yourself fitting into this? And if your dreams for your business are big enough for your employees dreams to fit into, then you have a really good chance of retaining an employee and then making somewhat of a career at your business.
Enmanuel Tejada (36:09.04)
Wow, that's awesome right there. And how do you do that in your situation? How do you take a new brand new window cleaner or a new pressure washer? Kids 18 years old just came out of high school. How do you show them the vision and how do you kind of persuade them in a way to kind of wanna be a part of your system and a part of your business, a part of what you have going on?
Jackson Blackburn (36:33.674)
I would say it comes down to two things. One of them being, we have a very unique company culture at Mount Baker Window Cleaning. So if you remember earlier, when we were chatting, I said that, hey, I started to clean windows so I could have enough money to go snowboarding and enough time to go snowboarding. And today that is still the why of the entire company. So anyone that we're hiring on, they're generally an outdoor enthusiast, whether that be a rock climber, a kayaker, a mountain biker, a skateboarder.
And so to this day, we still hold true to why I started the business and it's why they want to work here too. So they get paid a good wage, they've got a flexible schedule, and they can go do the things that they want in the outdoors. And so if you have a why that is so true that it's hard to ignore, that's going to help draw people into the business. So we've got this amazing company culture with these amazing employees who get along really well because we're on this similar...
mission, we're on the same mission, right? Like, we don't wake out of bed to go clean gutters in the rain. Like, no, I don't think anyone wakes up and they're like, Wow, it's pouring rain today. Like, I can't wait to jump in this truck and like climb up a ladder and go clean these disgusting gutters. That's not no one's doing that, right? So you need something that employees can get excited about. And a lot of that's going to come down to what kind of goals do you have? Like, why is everyone working here together? Do they enjoy who they're working with? Like, what are the other benefits that they're going to get from this? And so I would say that's like a massive part in it. And then the second
piece would probably be development. And so right in our office, we have a big chart. It's called an organizational chart. And you can dream big with this, right? So it shows all the positions that I want to have available in a few years. So it's going to include sales, marketing, possibly HR, a shop manager, and all the other positions that we already have. So when someone comes in as a technician, I'm not saying, hey man, I'm going to pay you 25 bucks an hour for the rest of your life to stay in a technician. You go, no, no.
Enmanuel Tejada (38:14.629)
Mm-hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (38:30.363)
Hahaha
Jackson Blackburn (38:31.106)
We're growing this business together and all these other opportunities will be available if you want them. And so I've had employees that have started as an assistant technician, that have moved into a technician, that moved into production manager, that moved into operations manager, that then went and started their own business in another home service, which is fantastic. I've had another who has gone from assistant tech to lead tech, to operations, to sales, and is now gonna become a lawyer.
You know, the list goes on and on and on, but you need to offer some sort of path of development for your employees or else it's just a dead end job where they are just gonna be cleaning gutters in the rain for 15, 20 years getting paid, you know, 25 bucks an hour. And that's all they'll see if there isn't a path laid out for them.
Enmanuel Tejada (39:02.088)
Ha ha ha.
Enmanuel Tejada (39:21.5)
Wow, that's a beautiful strategy right there. Now that is beautiful because you don't, because they can literally go and get paid $25. So I don't know how much Starbucks is paying or McDonald's is paying nowadays, but if you're just treating them like that, like, yo, here's your hourly rate, this is all you're gonna do. They can easily replace that job with something else.
Right? Like, like I love the fact that you mentioned that you're, you know, you have this development board and you're like, Hey, listen, you know, we're going to say, this is what we're going to be. You actually share that with them. You're like, Hey, do you want to fit this role? Cause you can work toward that. And, and also the fact that you're so like, you kind of lived their life a little bit, right? Because you mentioned you're working with snowboarders or they're, they want to make money in the summer so they can go and snowboard in the winter. And you've been there and you kind of promote that right for them to be themselves. So I love that.
Jackson Blackburn (40:13.13)
Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, it's what still draws me to work in the morning, right? Because I get to hang out with this awesome team with these like-minded goals. And I think that's everyone's why, and it's really important. And a lot of businesses that don't have a why, well, you kind of lose out on a lot of employees. If they're going to go to the next pressure washing business that pays $50 or sorry, $0.50 an hour more, why would they not unless they have something deeper holding them there?
Enmanuel Tejada (40:37.35)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I couldn't, I couldn't agree more, man. That is a beautiful way. And that's, that made me think also about my own business, right? Some things that I can implement from that. Cause it's not just about that hourly rate. It's about the mission, right? And future roles that you're looking to fit other people into. I like that. And Jackson, now I want to offer some value to you because of course you've been giving us some incredible, incredible gems.
Jackson Blackburn (40:59.287)
Absolutely.
Enmanuel Tejada (41:06.744)
you owning a million dollar plus company and you're on here giving us some good game. I want to return the favor. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, right? And we're just going to cover some basic digital marketing things that I want to that you can then these are small changes that you can implement like right now and get changes tomorrow, right? Audience, the same for you guys as well. These are now I'm going to be personalizing it towards Jackson here, but you can apply this to your own business as well. Right? So Jackson give me one second. Let me go ahead and share my screen here real quick, real fast.
Jackson Blackburn (41:33.814)
Let's do it.
Enmanuel Tejada (41:34.737)
Boom.
Jackson Blackburn (41:39.894)
Let's see what you got. Will I be able to see it? Oh yeah, here we go.
Enmanuel Tejada (41:40.136)
Yeah, you are. Yeah, come on, man. This is the best, this is the best plight, this is the best plight in the world, baby, when it comes to digital marketing. Yes, sir. Awesome. So Jackson, boom, right away, I love the setup. You can look, you see how much space it kind of takes up, right? So it says Mount Baker, it says learn more careers about, that's perfect because it takes up real estate in the person that's looking for it. A lot of companies that just have a single page website and you really can't.
It doesn't take up space. It looks just like one single line. Everybody's going to scroll past it. Quick question here, Jackson. When was the last time that you updated your Google Business profile?
Jackson Blackburn (42:17.85)
Oh man, what do you mean, like upload a photo to it?
Enmanuel Tejada (42:20.932)
that or just yeah, when was the last time you did that actually?
Jackson Blackburn (42:25.387)
Oh man, you're gonna grill me for this. I can't remember. And I know it does wonders for SEO. We actually, I might be lying, but I can't really remember. Ha ha ha.
Enmanuel Tejada (42:29.136)
Holy shit.
Enmanuel Tejada (42:37.52)
Gotcha, yeah. Well that's one thing, you know, we're definitely gonna want to go in there and optimize it a little bit, right? We definitely want to upload newer photos because we want Google to make sure that we're active. Another thing is that right here, I know you have pressure washing in Bellingham, there's actually options now that Google constantly updates. There's a lot more things that you can add on there, right? And in your case, you do pressure washing, there might be an option for window cleaning, there might be an option for gutter cleaning.
gutter installations and it's just good to max it out, right? That's our goal when it comes to marketing. It's just to max everything out so that you're maximizing the amount of leads that are coming in, right? Because let's say for example that you only have, and we can't tell because we're not signed into your account, but let's say that Google only thinks that you do pressure washing, but in reality you do so many other things, then we could be missing out on a couple of leads, right? And we just want to get the biggest bang for a buck when it comes to that.
Jackson Blackburn (43:31.479)
For sure.
Enmanuel Tejada (43:32.932)
Yep, so what I'll do is also I'll send over a quick PDF that we have that we sent to a lot of our clients, but I'll send it over to you and the audience as well if you guys need it, go ahead and DM us and we'll send that over. And it's just like a step by step guide on things that you can do to optimize it further. So I'll send that over to you. Going into your website, I think it looks pretty cool. I think it looks really personalized. And when did you get this made by the way?
Jackson Blackburn (43:50.295)
Cool, thank you.
Jackson Blackburn (43:56.239)
Uh, this was made probably two years ago.
Enmanuel Tejada (55:57.2)
We already talked about what you would do if you were to start over. So what tips would you give to somebody in the same space as you across the other side of the world or across the other side of the country? What advice would you give to a window washer or a cleaning company? If they want to scale, should they systemize? What do you think? What would you advise to those guys?
Jackson Blackburn (56:17.398)
Yeah, they absolutely need to build systems in their business. And they need to continue to build systems as well, because the systems that you put in place for a business doing, let's say $40,000 a month are going to be different than the systems that you need to implement for a business that's doing $120,000 a month or $200,000 a month. And so they're constantly evolving. And your job as the business owner or the CEO is to constantly
evaluate your business and you're kind of tweaking these levers and spinning these dials, right? Turning things back, turning things on more, and adding more value to the systems that you already have, maybe you don't need to build completely new systems, but you need to adjust them to change with the times. And so if you're sitting there and you're wondering, man, like, what are what our systems like, that's a pretty broad word, right? It's anything that can be repeated in your business, right?
It's any process that can be repeated in your business so that allows you to scale, right? You can't grow a business if you don't have repeatable actions in your company that can be done day in and day out over and over and over again.
Enmanuel Tejada (57:26.78)
that's gold right there. And how do you systemize then for your, for example, the people that are actually on your team that are actually cleaning the windows that are pressure washing, do you systemize that as well?
Jackson Blackburn (57:37.526)
Absolutely, we have a two week training program that everybody goes through. For the first week, they don't touch a single piece of equipment. Plenty of other companies when they hire someone, they go, hey, jump in the truck, we're gonna go clean these windows, you'll just learn as you go. Like that's not what we do because I've realized a long time ago that just leads to chaos and also poor expectations, right? So we've got a two week training program in that training program, we're walking them through all sorts of safety training, we're doing chemical application training.
Right. Working at Heights training. Uh, we're going through video modules. We're taking tests. And then the second week we're just, we're just shadowing, right? We're just shadowing other technicians and learn and seeing what they're doing. Uh, and practicing ourselves so that by the third week. They're ready to roll out also included in there. We've got an employee Bible or a handbook, right? That's so many pages long. It was such a pain to write. Uh, that includes a lot of the systems we've got, uh, SOPs we have.
a daily routine checklist. Like there's so many documents for our employees to indulge in so that they know like exactly what they're supposed to be doing, at what point in the job they're at.
Enmanuel Tejada (58:50.756)
Wow, that's awesome. You really take hiring seriously, hiring and training. That's good to hear, man, because a lot of people, like you said, just throw them in the truck, all learn as you go. But then like you said, the results are not as measurable. They're not as repeatable.
Jackson Blackburn (59:03.306)
Right. And if you look at like a company like McDonald's, wherever you go in the United States, like that burger is going to taste the same, right. And it's the same thing for a service company. Like if you want to grow your service company, that thing needs to be repeatable wherever you're at, right? Whatever crew is doing it, whatever location it's at, it needs to come out somewhat the same. Because if it's if it's not, you got it, you got an issue, and you need to go back and reevaluate the training and systems that you're actually giving your employees.
Enmanuel Tejada (59:11.185)
Yeah.
Enmanuel Tejada (59:31.592)
That's gold right there. So anybody listening, definitely go ahead and systemize because if you want to get to doing things at the level that Jackson is doing them, you need repeatable actions. That's gold right there. I love that golden nugget. Jackson, let's go ahead and wrap it up here. So if people want to get in contact with you, whether they want to be a mentee of yours or if they want to be a client of yours, what's the best way to get in contact with you on your business?
Jackson Blackburn (59:54.243)
I would say head to home You can get more information about the coaching that I provide. And then also I'm on Instagram, it's home I just started the page, so don't judge me, but I'm really excited to start growing that this year. And so I can reach more business owners and help them accomplish similar goals to what I've been after.
Enmanuel Tejada (01:00:17.18)
Boom, awesome. There you guys go. That was Jackson. He owns Mount Baker Window Cleaning. He's also a coach. So if you guys definitely, you guys should definitely reach out to him for that. He is an expert and anybody looking to take their business to the next level, reach out to Jackson. Jackson, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. Everyone, that was another episode of the Digital Toolbox. Stay tuned. We're gonna have a few more amazing guests coming onto the podcast. You don't wanna miss it. Stay tuned. Take care.