All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossum with veteransradio.net.
We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.
Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.
You can reach us at 800-693-4800.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today Andrew Wilson, a captain in the United States
Army after he got out.
He got himself into the business world and actually a little bit of both before he got
out.
Andrew, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Hey, thank you for having me.
While we're glad to have you on, we often talk to veterans in the business arena and
that's kind of why we're interested in talking to you.
But before we get there, why don't you explain to the Veterans Radio listening audience a
little bit about your background, where you grew up, how you ended up in the military
and some of that experience.
Sure.
So, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Kansas.
And I always was really interested in athletics.
So I went to North Dakota State first with a football scholarship and finished up at
Pittsburgh State University.
And during playing athletics and being kind of involved in that team atmosphere and the
physical nature of football, I was like, I got to find a job that's going to use those
skills that I've learned in the real world.
And I got involved with some of the stuff with ROTC and started to see like, hey, I can
either go man the copy and machine at a business and work in a cubicle or I can go jump out
of planes and go to Ranger school and become an infantry officer.
And that's kind of how I found my way to the military.
I mean, it comes from a big military family or anything where there's lots of pressure
to go.
But I really wanted a job coming out or a career that utilized the skills I had.
And I loved being part of the team.
And the military was the next great fit for me, I think, coming out of the university
with a marking degree and playing football, going into becoming an infantry officer.
Well, before we get to your military career, I've got to step back.
And for those who are true football fans, we know that North Dakota State University
is a football powerhouse.
So that was a great program that you were with.
But tell me a little bit about, because it's always good for people to sort of understand
ROTC and kind of how you, you know, did you go into it for helping pay for education?
And, you know, is that an option that you'd encourage kids today to look at?
Yeah, you know, I did it, I already had a football scholarship, but I looked at it as
a way to, you know, have a leg up and move into my next career and get, you know, training
that I wouldn't be able to anywhere else.
But I always tell my own kids and other people, I mean, there's no reason if you have some
talent, you're physically fit.
There's millions of ways to pay for school.
You know, and actually my third year into ROTC, I was able to replace my military scholar,
my football scholarship with a scholarship from ROTC, which was actually even a little
bit better, you know, and it helped free up money actually for the football program to
give a scholarship to someone else so we could have more people on the team with full scholarships.
You know, the option with ROTC was great.
I mean, you get some great adventures and training while you're going to school.
You can even get, you know, some money and a stipend.
And you know, it's a great place to kind of get developed while you're going to school
and not just be another student.
So I really loved ROTC program.
Well, it's good to hear.
And again, I think it's good for every parent and grandparent and uncle and aunt out there
to be thinking about, well, maybe that's the way my relative gets into college and pays
for it.
Maybe they ought to be looking at an ROTC approach.
But let's move on.
You got commissioned.
Tell us about your time in the U.S. Army.
Right.
So, you know, I became an infantry officer.
That's what I wanted to do.
You know, I wanted something that was really physical and focused on being a leader of,
you know, men and getting out there and doing things that are physical and went to Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, was my first duty station with 82nd Airborne.
After going to Fort Benning for about a year and doing Airborne School, Pathfinder School,
Ranger School, you know, the whole gauntlet of schools that you go to to become a leader
in the United States infantry.
And you know, we served and it was pretty quiet up until 9-11 happened.
You know, we never thought, you know, we thought the enemies of the future were some big country
out there that would be fighting someday and 9-11 happened.
And it kind of changed, you know, the path for my life because we got deployed to Afghanistan
shortly after 9-11 and got to serve there.
And I was a platoon leader and it was a great experience and I loved it.
And you know, the weird thing is, being in Afghanistan, it's maybe jumping forward because
it was where I found my first business, to be honest.
I was reading a Fortune Magazine article.
I was going to go to graduate school when I got back because my time of active duty was
almost up.
And you know, I said, instead of graduate school, I'm going to take that money and put it into
something that's, you know, going to make money for me long term.
And that's what I found 1800 Got Junk.
One of the businesses I bought was reading a Fortune Magazine from Firebase Loara on
the Pakistan border in Afghanistan.
So, you know, it was amazing.
The trail where it took me and how I found, you know, my passion for my businesses.
Well, veterans radio listeners were talking to former Captain Andrew Wilson, Airborne
Ranger, did three tours in operating and during freedom and one tour at Operation Iraqi Freedom.
You have just explained to us that a magazine article led you to a franchise opportunity.
I think by this point, almost everybody in the country has heard of 1800 Got Junk.
But go ahead and tell us what that business is about and sort of how it was attractive
to you and why did you get involved?
You know, I was looking, I was going to go get my MBA and, you know, I was looking at
a year or two of going to school and getting in a lot of, you know, different studying
again and being in books.
But I found a business and I looked at a few different ones, but it really related to me
because, you know, owning 1800 Got Junk, which is, it's kind of a waste removal company that
really prides itself in kind of a high level of service in an industry where it's never
expected and it kind of revolutionized that and changed an industry with the way they've
done business.
And I just really loved the aspect of, you know, leading teams of people heading out
there every day kind of, you know, accomplishing a task and it might be removing junk, but
it's, you know, it's wowing every customer that they possibly can get in front of and
completing a mission.
And it kind of related to being a platoon leader in a sense, you know, I mean, so many
of the skills I learned as an infantry officer related right into owning a business like
1800 Got Junk and just kind of motivating, providing purpose, direction, motivation for
these guys to go out there and, you know, not just accomplish a mission, but make money.
And you know, it's just a great transition.
I got lucky.
I was the 24th franchise partner in a system now that has like 300 franchise partners.
You know, we were a small business back then and now it's a huge, you know, multinational
company, I mean, a company that's in many different countries across the globe and it's
pretty amazing to get in there at the ground floor and it was a great run when I did own
one of the underguts, Joe.
And what year did you get involved and what territory?
How did you settle on your territory?
Like, so I was from Kansas City.
I was living at Fort Bragg and me and my wife, she had a, we had a child right before I went
to Afghanistan the first time.
And you know, I wanted, when I got out of active duty to move back to Kansas and Kansas
City was a great city.
So I chose that it was an available city that hadn't been purchased yet in the franchise
system and I decided to buy a 2800 cat junk there.
And we, when I got out of active duty, when I came back home, we relocated and we started
kind of really on a shoestring budget and a big dream.
And luckily it all worked out.
It was a big gamble.
This sort of starts with, you know, one guy in one truck, right?
So, so what did you, what were you able to build it to?
Where did that gamble lead you?
Right.
So we started in 2003 with one truck and myself as the only employee and my wife.
And then we started, you know, I hired a few people I knew and friends in the area to help
out when we needed it.
And you know, the first few years, I'm not going to lie to you, we're very challenging.
I mean, we were used to being in the military where everything you have is pretty much covered
and paid for health insurance.
You know, you've got a place to live.
You never go hungry.
You get paid vacations.
You might get sent off to war once in a while, but to be honest, sometimes that's more relaxing
than business ownership.
But you know, right now, when we sold that business, it was probably doing close to 2.5,
maybe pushing closer to $3 million of revenue.
You know, we started out.
What did you sell in Andrew?
2014, I believe is the year that I sold out to and I sold that business because, you know,
it's a long story, but while I owned that business, I still went back and did a couple
more tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as a reservist.
I became a civil affairs officer actually.
And I also went back and did almost two and a half years during that business ownership
period as a civilian in Afghanistan and running a counter-surgency program.
So, you know, the first four years was my life almost, I mean, three to four years building
that business.
Once I built it to a certain level, I was able to continue service in the reserves.
It wasn't active duty anymore, but the wars just kept going on and on and I wanted to
serve more and I was able to do that.
And then, you know, I was able to even go back again as a civilian and support the war
effort.
You know, the business really provided a lot of opportunity to me and my family and then
my wife had moved to Oklahoma because her family was here.
I've gone so much and when I came home finally, she didn't want to come back to Kansas City,
so we decided to move to Oklahoma and that leads us to the next business adventure, which
was the You Move Me franchise that we now own and operate here in Oklahoma and Oklahoma
City in Tulsa.
And tell us what You Move Me is in terms of a business operation.
Right.
So You Move Me is a, you know, it's a moving company.
We moved people's household goods, so we moved businesses from one location to another and
it's really built on the same aspect and focus that 1-800-GET-JUNK was built on.
It's part of O2E brand, the family of brands, but You Move Me is one of their newest brands.
We were the first franchise partner in the system basically.
We were able to launch it with Brian Scoot-A-More, become one of the first franchises, but, you
know, we built this business now.
We almost do 2,000 moves a year.
We sometimes are employing up to 50 people.
We have an office in Oklahoma City in Tulsa and, you know, it's a really interesting industry,
but it focuses on a high level of customer service where people don't expect it, you
know.
I mean, that's really what O2E brand is all about.
It's going into businesses and industries where people have done it for 100 million
years, but, you know, there's never been that real focus on customer service and that's
what we do at You Move.
We really focus on the customer here for their move.
And I think many veterans, those transitioning out of service might be reluctant about the
costs associated, maybe not the risk, but the costs associated with entering into a franchise
arrangement.
Can you talk a little bit about that, how you decided and sort of what your mental process
was to jump in and make that financial commitment?
Yeah, I mean, you know, if I go back to 2003, to be honest, there was a great program called
VETFRIENDS and I don't know.
I mean, I still does exist, but it was an organization that got franchisers to join in and help,
you know, Americans, America's best veterans get into business at a lower cost than it
might be for other people because they would actually give you not a full franchise, but
a reduced franchise fee.
They'd give you a free territory if you bought one.
Every franchise had a different deal out there, but 1-800-GET-JUNK decided to give me basically
a free territory if I bought one and that covered the whole city of Kansas City pretty
much.
So I got into it about for a 50% discount.
You know, I mean, we did extensive budgeting to make sure we were viable and we'd be able
to survive, but I think that's the one piece of advice to give any veteran out there is
they really need to go into this with a realistic approach and idea of what is possible.
They need to, you know, really think that in the first few years, you're not going to
be paying yourself out of that business.
So you have to have a very secure financial footprint, but for a lot of guys coming out
of the military that have been deploying a lot, hopefully they do have a good nest there,
some piece of money out there that they can draw on, or they have their retirement, which
would be great.
For someone retiring out of the military, I think moving into a franchise system would
be an awesome idea because we're used to in the military going to a school.
We're not reinventing the wheel.
We're just kind of figuring out how to make the wheel spin faster.
You know, it's like the flywheel effect.
But you know, and that's why franchising seems to be a great fit for veterans because, you
know, we're used to going and being trained and getting kind of a playbook and going out
there and executing it, you know, at a very fast speed.
And that's what franchising really is.
I mean, we don't want to reinvent the moving industry.
We wanted, or the junk industry, we wanted to learn it from someone else and go out there
and make money by doing it better than other people can do it.
And I think you mentioned something that's worth repeating here, which is, and now that
you've been a business owner for almost 15 years, you've probably talked to a lot of
business owners who've had the same experience that you commented on, which is, hey, in the
first couple of years, you're not making any money here.
You're reinvesting everything so that you can build a long-term asset.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
And, you know, when I came in, when I first started the business, to be honest, I had
a marketing degree and I'd been an infantry officer.
And there wasn't a lot of resources to kind of give me a realistic idea.
The good thing about a franchise system by law, I mean, they have to give you a realistic
idea and they let you talk to other franchise partners before you sign up, even ones that
have quit.
So you're being a realistic idea of that, hey, I did $500,000 and I made $30,000 off
that in the first two years or something.
So, you know, I really, I probably wasn't as prepared for the first few years as I could
have been, but I was more than a lot of people moving into.
I mean, it took the third year before we really started to see even me replacing my infantry
captain's salary, which didn't mean I was getting rich at that point by any stretch
of the imagination.
But you know, a lot of people in the military would ask me like, why the heck did you leave
a great career?
You're doing awesome.
You would have a retirement if you'd stayed in for 20 years.
And you know what I said to them, six or seven years into the business is I own a business
that's ticking off more money than your retirement is already and someone else is running it
for me.
So, I mean, there's a lot more risk.
I'm not guaranteed that income forever, but you know, I mean, there is a big siege upside
to taking the risk.
It's just, I think people got to be realistic.
You're not going to come out and just be making money your first two or three or four years.
I mean, you might make a salary or pay yourself and you know, and some people get lucky and
then make it big and quick, but it's not very likely in a franchise system.
I mean, you're not likely to fail if you execute the system like it's designed, but you're
not going to get rich in one or two years.
I mean, it's like you said, it's a long term investment.
You're building an asset that you can either sell or you can hire or bring on partners
to run and continue to get a residual income at some point, you hope, while you don't work
at all in the business per se, you might work on the business some, but not in it as much.
Another correlation I wanted you to talk about between sort of the military life and running
a family business is the role of the family.
You mentioned your wife a couple of times.
Can you kind of talk about how that structure, that partner support is important in both
aspects there and sort of similar?
Yeah, I think, I mean, in the military, I mean, all of us have deployed.
We know we are only as good as the people at home taking care of the family.
I mean, you've sucked so many families fall apart during deployment.
I mean, from whatever reason, the whole family structure was not there.
You know, I mean, in a business, it's the same exact way.
Like, my wife for years has done the books.
She's done a lot of the HR stuff.
My daughter who's older does the Facebook pages.
She takes pictures.
Some of my other kids have gone out on jobs when other employees haven't shown up.
I think, unless you just have deep pockets, I think you've got to move into this thing,
thinking of it as kind of like a unit has a family support group.
You better have some type of support group to make your business successful.
And most of the time, that's a, you know, a nuclear family like I have a wife and kids
and everything, parents and grandparents.
You need that support because there's going to be lots of challenges.
There's going to be times when that bank account and the cash flow is low and either you just
have great credit and great banking relationships or you turn to some type of same way for,
you know, those ups and downs.
But you know, I think it totally relates.
I mean, if you've got a weak family structure and a weak family support in the military
when you're deployed, you see what happens.
It's the same exact way in a business, I think, especially when you do start a family-owned
business.
That's a great point I had thought of before, but it is important.
Well, one of the other things I guess I'd like you to talk about as we begin to wind
down this interview process.
And we're talking to Andrew Wilson, who was in the U.S. Army, is a terminal rank, was
captain.
Andrew, as you looked at this, how long did it take you to, and you got to think back
15 years now, it's a whole different story, right?
Back in 2003 when you're thinking about this, is this a 30-day decision, a three-month decision?
What do you find when you talk to both in your own experience but with other business
owners, how long does it take somebody to wrap their mind around this?
You know, for me, it was almost, it was over six months.
I mean, I think a good timeline for someone would be to start looking now.
I mean, you're never too early.
Start coming up with ideas and even go work in part of the industry part time, as you
could, just to see if you like it or not.
But I started about six months out.
When I was in Afghanistan, I sent an email off to 1AundergotJunk and I thought I was
probably crazy, like telling him, hey, I'm here in Afghanistan and I'm interested in
looking this as an option.
And, you know, fast forward six months later, I think it's when we finally actually opened
our doors or more, or a little bit more.
So I mean, it wasn't an overnight thing.
And the good thing about franchising is by law, they have to go through a certain process.
So you can't just call them up and be like, I'm ready to sign up and buy the business
and open tomorrow because they want you to succeed.
I mean, if you succeed, they succeed because they make money up, you making money, and
they make money up, you succeeding because they want to show everybody that their system's
awesome.
I have to say, not all franchise partners are created, or franchise e-pours are created
equally.
And I think that's why people have to really do their homework and find one that, you know,
has a history of success, provides the support, and their franchises are profitable and make
money because a lot of them, you're buying a job instead of buying a business.
And that's, you know, I was lucky and found O2E Brands, which, you know, the track worker
speaks for itself.
There's lots of people making a lot of money and one that got jumped for sure.
But it's been a great experience for sure.
I've enjoyed being a franchise partner.
Andrew Wilson, if folks want to learn more about O2 Brands or about you and your franchise
businesses, how do they follow you?
How do they track you?
Right.
So, I mean, with O2E, I mean, you can search the different.
You can put an O2E on Google and there's going to be a million things.
Brian Scootemore is, you know, one of the most sought after entrepreneurs out there.
If you look at Brian's story, I think you'll learn a lot about, you know, his humble beginning
to now owning a multi, you know, $300 million franchise organization.
You know, as a veteran, I would personally, I mean, if you look me up, you can find me
on LinkedIn, Andrew Wilson, you can look up, you move me, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, you can
find my contact information.
I'd be willing to mentor or discuss this step with any veteran that's interested in the
future.
I love, my goal this year was to try to help two veterans get into business and, you know,
it's August now and I haven't succeeded yet, but I've got a few much left.
So, I wish someone would call me and that's interested in starting a business and I'd
love to look at it with them and at least tell them honestly what I think.
Well, we want to thank you, Andrew Wilson.
That's a great offer.
We're glad to be able to bring it to our veteran radio listeners.
This is a, certainly a step many veterans should consider.
I think I saw somewhere something like 9% of business owners are veterans.
So, you know, you won't be out there alone.
There'll be a lot of folks with you.
I want to thank you, Andrew, for being on Veterans Radio today.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawson.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by going to veteransradio.net.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-6934800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Your number again, 1-800-6934800.