Have you ever thought of starting a service business? Have you ever wanted to start any kind of business but just didn't have the capital to get started? With minimum supplies on hand, you can start a dog poop pick-up business and here to tell you how is Matthew Osborn, the man himself! Matthew ran a successful business for years and now teaches others how to do the same. Enjoy!

I remember trying to get my husband to start a pooper-scooper business back in 1999 but he laughed and mocked it as a joke. He said, "as much as we hate cleaning up dog poop, I don't think anyone is going to pay to have us do it for them." I am sure that you ran into many such remarks when you started your business back in 1988; how did you address such ridicule?

Back in 1988 people thought I was crazy. They said "It'll never work" and things like that. Some people couldn't grasp the concept of the service and would ask "How could you make any money doing that?"

For me the challenge of turning the concept into reality was exciting and I got a lot of pleasure from making it work.

I also realized that the very novelty, the newness of the idea, and the fact that it made people laugh would make it easier to get publicity and create a lot of word-of-mouth, which really helped to spread the word about the service when I had almost no money for marketing.

No one sets out in life thinking, "I am going to shovel dog poop for a living." So what was it that lit that light bulb in your head? The one that shouted, "Start a pooper-scooper business and you will reach success."

I recognized a problem that nobody else was offering to solve for people. That was the main thing. I knew people had a real problem with cleaning up after their dogs for several reasons. A lot of two-income households simply didn't have much free time and the little time they had to themselves -- well, they just had better things to do than shovel dog poop.

I also knew that some people had dogs and loved them dearly, but had physical problems with cleaning up after them (like guide dogs, for instance), and of course there was the simple "yuck" factor.

I also recognized that this type of service business fits perfectly with some real trends in our society -- the trends toward specialized services, people working more hours every week, people indulging in the "small luxuries" and so on. Faith Popcorn talks about these kinds of trends in her book "Clicking," too.

I would imagine hauling off that much poop would smell pretty bad, if not nauseating. How long did it take you to get used to the smell or is there a special trick that you use?

Ha! No special trick. It can get kind of nasty sometimes, but it's not unbearable.

Besides finding the right clientele, one of the biggest obstacles has to be finding a place to unload all that poop. How did you go about finding a dump that would take it and is it costly?

When I started, there was really no practical, legal way to get rid of it. Even though everybody put the waste in their own trash, technically it wasn't supposed to be in ordinary household waste. I even had a client hire me because his trash pickup people refused to take away the dog poop.

I had to fill out a "special waste profile" with the Ohio E. P. A., get permission from them, then take that paperwork to the local landfill and get permission for a trial period to dispose of the waste at the landfill.

Over the years there was never a problem with it and I gradually got permission to dispose of more and more waste. Eventually we were taking more than 2,000 pounds of dog waste to the landfill every week. Finally we ended up getting a dumpster service who had their own landfill, so it wasn't a problem at all.

Disposal regulations vary from state to state, and even from locality to locality within states. It's a good idea to check the rules wherever you happen to be.

What is the hardest part about poop removal and why?

Same as most businesses, keeping a commitment to customer service. It's easy to say "We're committed to your satisfaction," but on a Friday afternoon when a customer from across town calls to say "you missed some," or "you left a bag on the lawn," then it can be a drag to drive all the way over there to take care of it.

But it's important to keep people happy. After all, the whole idea of the service it to make life easier and more pleasant for the customer.

The hardest jobs are the first-time jobs and one-time jobs where there is a great deal of accumulated waste. Those can be a lot of physical work! Working in the rain and cold, or in the heat of summer can be a challenge, too.

What happens when you want to take a vacation? Do you hire someone to fill in or do you simply give your clients a vacation notice, like you would in a traditional job?

Either way. When you're working by yourself, you can let people know you'll be skipping a week, or you can arrange schedules so that you'll do some people ahead of time, some people a few days later than normal, and make a few days free. When you hire someone, then you can manage to keep the normal schedules and take some time off. Although, for my first few years, I just didn't have a vacation.

Being that this business is a service, it must be difficult to take time off without pre-scheduling it, so what happens when you have come down with the last minute flu?

That's similar to the vacation situation. One thing about getting sick, though -- once I was self-employed, there was no advantage to me in being sick, since I had to work anyway. I found that I got sick less often than when I had been able to call in sick working for other people!

In your book, you mention painting signs on your vehicle. Do you consider this to be one of the best advertising strategies and why/why not?

This was one of the most cost-effective marketing techniques, yes.

Making the signs on the vehicle attractive and easy to read from across the street helped create awareness of the service, and people could see that their neighbors were using the service. After awhile people would call and say "I've seen your trucks all over town." We sometimes received calls from people in their cars, who saw the trucks on the road and wanted to call right away to learn more about the service and sign up.

Your book talks about the nitty-gritty of running a pooper-scooper business, even down to spraying one's shoes with disinfectant after every cleaning. Have you ever had or heard of a case where this was not done and a major consequence took place?

No, thank goodness! Still, there is a risk of spreading canine pathogens, even if the risk is fairly small, so it's best to be on the safe side.

What are some of the funniest things that have happened to you or others, when going out on a job?

Not long after I started the business, I was cleaning up for a woman who did dog grooming out of her home. She'd broken an ankle and needed some help with scooping while she was recuperating. After I'd cleaned up in the back yard a couple of days, she asked me if I'd be willing to clean up from other animals.

I said "Sure," and she said, "Well, I've got a couple of monkeys upstairs." One of the upstairs bedrooms was mostly taken up by two very large cages... oh, about 6 or 8 feet on each side, with a monkey in each cage. Naturally there was the mess in the bottom of the cages to clean up... not too hard, since there were newspapers spread there and all I had to do with that was roll up the papers and put new papers down. But the wire cages themselves had to be scrubbed with disinfectant, and that was the most time-consuming part of the job.

Oh, and the monkeys loved to be vacuumed. That is, with a sweeper.... the upholstery attachment. The lady had instructed me not to keep eye contact with the monkeys since that would make them mad and they'd get kind of out of hand... so twice a week, there I was... picture me avoiding eye contact with the monkeys, running a vacuum cleaner and sweeping their backs while they ate lunch watching Regis and Kathy Lee on TV. That was their favorite show, I was told. What a way to start out. But keeping the customer satisfied was the key then and has been ever since.

What have been some of the horrifying experiences?

The first vehicle I was able to buy for the business was a tiny Honda Civic Hatchback. When I'd go to the landfill with hundreds of pounds of dog poop in the back of the car, that was pretty unpleasant -- and I would imagine having an accident in the car, and what kind of news that would make.

Driving that tiny car into the landfill, among the monster-size garbage trucks and landfill equipment was kind of scary, and I used to get stuck in the mud and have to be pulled out by another truck. One of those drivers said something about how I shouldn't be there with my "toy car." I was really glad when I was able to switch to actual pickup trucks!

I would imagine the scariest part about this career choice, would be meeting up with a mean guard dog, that wasn't properly locked up. How do you assure your safety when walking into these yards?

It's certainly something to be aware of, even though most of the time it's not a problem. In most of the yards, the dog is not in the yard while it's being cleaned, and where the dogs are in the yard, most of those dogs are friendly.

Every now and then there will be a dog that just does not want someone in the yard. In those cases I don't push the dog. If a dog indicates that it's not going to let me clean the yard, or appears threatening, I leave a note and make arrangements for the dog to be kept inside or otherwise restrained on the day I'm scheduled to clean the yard.

It is important to watch out for the dogs, to understand what signs to watch for that indicate aggression in the dogs, and to have experience (or knowledge) about how to behave around an aggressive dog.

Although it's rare, it sometimes happens that an owner may let a dog into the yard, not realizing someone is there. When confronted by an aggressive dog I keep the shovel and scoop between me and the dog, don't turn my back on the dog, command the dog to "Stop!" in a stern voice, and then talk soothingly to the animal while very slowly backing out of the yard.

Can one run a pooper-scooper business in an area where it snows heavily or would this be a seasoned job in which they would have to locate work during the snow season?

It depends on how heavy the snow is, the duration of sub-freezing weather, and how frequently it snows. There are year-round scooping services at least as far north as Toronto. Lots of times snow melts off within a couple of days, so it's possible to make up for a missed day within the same week.

Even when the weather stays cold for a long time, as long as there isn't repeated snowfall you can keep up with the new waste as the dogs go on top of the snow. If the temperature doesn't reach thawing for several weeks and it keeps snowing every few days, it's possible that several weeks of cleanups would have to be cancelled.

How long does it take to clean up an average sized yard with one dog?

Ten minutes or less.

So in your estimation, how many houses could one reasonably take care of in one eight hour day, if driving within a 30 mile radius?

Thirty houses a day shouldn't be a problem.

When reading your book, you mentioned that you finally hired employees to help run your business. How does one go about the bookkeeping process of payroll, taxes, and such?

I hired a payroll service. That was the best $40 a month I spent. For a small monthly fee the service took care of ALL the paperwork related to employee payroll taxes. They would keep up with all the federal, state and local regulations, complete all the required paperwork, calculate the taxes, compute withholding, send me all the completed forms and all I'd have to do is write the checks. I highly recommend using a payroll service.

Does each of your employees carry their own health insurance or do you provide it for them?

I paid for Worker's Compensation premiums, but other than that they had to take care of their own insurance.

What would you consider to be the biggest expense in running a pooper-scooper business?

For a one-person business, the biggest expense will probably be advertising. When you hire employees, the biggest expense will be payroll and payroll taxes.

Taking into account that each individual's work habits, cold calling techniques, and other aspects that are important to starting a home-based business are different, when do you estimate someone could start to turn a profit in this business?

That depends on how much they invest in marketing at the beginning.

In my case, I had almost no money for marketing at first. Strictly speaking, I made profits after 30 days. For the number of hours I was working I was certainly making more money per hour than I was at my regular jobs. But it took about two years before I was able to make a full-time living strictly in the scooping business. I think that's about normal.

It's not something that's going to provide a full-time income right away in most cases. It takes time to create awareness and acceptance of the concept and build up a solid customer base.

Visit Osborn's website at http://pooper-scooper.com/