Small Business Strategy | Steve Collins

Episode Transcript of: Small Business Strategy | Steve Collins

Alan
Welcome back. I have here today with me Steve Collins. He’s the founder and president of Marvel main. Steve, welcome to today’s show.

Steve
Thanks, Alan. Thanks for having me here today.

Introduction of Steve Collins and his small business history, his bio can be found below.

Alan
So Steve, can you give us background on your career history how you got to where you are today?

Steve
Yeah, this is a fun story. For me. I love to tell it because I was in a very high tech background. And I moved to a very low tech background here with Marvel mates. I started out after college doing a lot of international business. Nihongo Ohana shimasu.

I speak Japanese. And so therefore, after I graduated from college, I got recruited into a startup company. And I started doing a lot of business in Asia Pacific, started flying out to Japan quite a bit. Australia, Korea, England, here I am right out of college. And my company, knowing that I have this Japanese background, sent me out to Japan to do business. For them. I was doing sales and training.

And I loved it. I am flying around the world, staying at the best hotels, eating the best food. And it was a great gig for someone coming out of college. After that I got recruited out with a few startup companies, a few different software companies. I’ve been in enterprise software space. And back in about 2002 2003, I decided it’s time to move on from this I’ve been helping other enterprises build up.

And what’s really happening what what’s happening for me throughout this process, it’s great, I’m enjoying myself, I’m doing a lot of great things, during this time actually became married to my wife, and we love it. But I needed to stop traveling.

So I went out looking to acquire a business at that point that I really didn’t care about what the business did, what I was looking for is a business with a good growth stream, a good revenue stream, and something that I could take my high tech background, my sales, my marketing, management, and also the computer side of things, and change into something new and something exciting.

And so what I did is I took over a company called Marvel maids it had been around, it’s been around for 34 years. And at the point we acquired it was about 10 years ago. So what we did is we rebranded the company and took these kind of high tech principles and put it into a very low tech business.

Alan
When you when you took over Marvel maids, I guess, how did you keep the momentum going? new management team coming in there, you had your own ideas? And

Steve
yeah, that’s that’s a great question. And so what happened at that point is we had quite a big staff. And so I didn’t want to toss out all the apples out of the applecart. I wanted to leave things how they’ve been, you know, this is a company that’s been well established for over 24 years at that point.

And I wanted to make sure to kind of leave it the way it was our customers knew Marvel maids is a certain way our employees knew Marvel maids is a certain way. And so I left that I sat back, I watched I had a great team in place at the time that came over with a transition.

And so I just let them do their jobs. And I sat back and said, you know, what can we change to make this a better company? What’s going right today? And and how can we put new processes into place to make this a best practice company.

Alan
So this is your first company that you’re running?

Steve
It is in college, I did a computer consulting company, and we were out there consulting with customers, helping them with their computer issues that had been kind of a spin off from while I was in high school in college, actually managed a computer store.

And that was a great learning process. For me, I learned a lot from the owner of that business on how to run a business effectively, and how to manage people and how to get great customers. And so I took that into the computer consulting business, and then finally into Marvel maids,

Alan
did you feel that your position as a new owner of Marvel maids, and you had a group of existing employees was ever challenged? Or they said, Steve, why should we follow you? Yeah, I’m the new kid on the block.

Steve
I actually didn’t have that with my company. I came in listening, learning from my employees, I, you know, I don’t know everything. I never claimed to know everything I go out. And I seek the best from people I know, I always want to make sure to surround myself with the best team, I always hire people that are smarter than myself and bring that team in place.

And so what I did is I just sat back and listened to all the ideas that these employees had, and said, Let’s do it. And I encourage them along the way. And how often did you have to meet with the group, I was meeting with them on a daily basis, I’m just listening to what they’re enjoying about their job, what they’re not enjoying about their job, and then also what they’re hearing from their customers.

And then most importantly, listening to those customers. You know, what’s going right today and what’s not going right today?

Alan
So how do you feel the business environment is today? The business environment

Steve
today is actually a lot better than it was two years ago. And you’re gonna hear that from everybody you talk to? It’s going well, we’re picking back up. Silicon Valley with resurgence of high tech is going very well.

Alan
So when we look at your business model, it’s basically you have a set of maids. And they’re they’re going into how do you how do you work that model?

Steve
Yeah, so our model, when I took over the company, it was jump on a bus and go out to the car. summers use a customer’s supplies and hope that everything goes right in the meantime. Oh, and by the way, the employees that were there, oh, who are these people that are going out into the customers houses. So as I said, I guess we’ve gone through three phases in our company’s history.

One is the phase when I took over and just leaving things how they are two is back in about 2008. We changed the way everything works in the company. We went out and bought company vehicles, we rebranded the company. And more importantly, we started using environmentally friendly products and our employees are out in the customers homes.

They’re out around Clorox and all these other products, and we wanted to change that. And so we’ve put environmentally friendly products in their hands, because they’re out there smelling those fumes.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Steve Collins. He’s the president of Marvel maids here in the San Francisco Bay area. As Steve I like we need to take a quick break. But after the break, I want to come back and talk about how you know when you have a great business idea or setting up strategy for the future, and how that gets implemented. The company sounds great.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Steve Collins. He’s the president of marble Maine’s right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Steve, before the break, we’re talking about how you transition from an employee into owning your own business. So I like to move this section though over to talk about strategy. Well, your defining strategy is the CEO of the company. How do you know when you have a good idea?

Steve
Yeah, strategy is critical, I think to any business and any business success. Um, that was one of the most important components when I took over the business back in 2003. is we put a strategy in place, you know, what, where’s the company today? Where do we want the company to be tomorrow? And how do we put those pieces together?

And so what we did is we put out a strategy, we actually use something called the one page business plan to plot that strategy. It kept things very simple. I think that’s very important as you’re planning a strategy is to keep things simple. If you start going crazy with these ideas, having 30 page business plans, and plotting out that strategy, it gets difficult to manage that business.

And so what we did is we said, Okay, we want to be a company that services, the entire San Francisco Bay area, we want to be a company that treats our employees well, which in turn means we’re going to treat our customers well, we want to be in an a kind of company that exposes our employees to less of these chemicals that are used in cleaning companies.

And we want to make sure to treat people, right, we want to make sure to do all these background checks and credit checks. And make sure that when we’re putting a person in a customer’s home, that that person feels secure, that they can trust that person, they’re off at work, they’re busy professionals, and they need to know that that person that’s in their house, they can trust them.

And so all these pieces came together in that strategy.

Alan
So when you’re, when you’re setting your plan, how do you get that plan communicated down to your employees?

Steve
Yeah. So again, this comes back to making sure that we’re talking to our employees on a daily basis about who we are as a company, we’re a company you can trust. And so if our employees know that we’re a company you can trust then they communicate that out to their customers, when they arrive, they present themselves in a way that says, we’re a company you can trust,

Alan
Steve, what are the most important factors you feel that causes small business to fail?

Steve
I think it’s not planning properly and poor execution. So not planning properly, again, goes back to strategy. If I didn’t put down on paper, what I’m going to do as a company, then how can we execute on it. And then number two is pulling that team together in place to execute on that strategy. So if I can’t execute on the strategy, then forget it. It’s all useless.

I think as part of that component is making sure you have great people on your network to mentor you. I am surrounded by professionals, I have a phenomenal network. And I use that network to ask questions too. And also to make sure that I’m connecting those people out to other people in my network. I think that’s all part of the great picture.

Alan
So how is starting company today different from 10 years ago?

Steve
Yeah, 10 years ago was a very different environment. I think back then we were in a recession actually. It was a very challenging business environment. That’s part of the reason I actually acquired this particular business. It was more of a business to consumer business, didn’t really matter what was going on. And in the grander economy, everybody needs your house clean.

And so that’s part of the reason we took over this particular business. And so we’ve kind of maintained that focus on the consumer and delivering great results.

Alan
You know, when you when you rebrand the company, what did you find it difficult for recognition of how to get your brand known to the right people?

Steve
Yeah, I think that was part of how we change our strategy to in the beginning. 10 years ago, when I took over the company. It was focused on kind of the broad masses, let’s just serve as everybody. And I think that’s a challenge, you can’t really be one thing to everybody, you need to be one thing to serve a certain group. And so what we’ve done is we’ve just gone after the upscale market.

So we service everything from the mansions at Pacific Heights to the condos in downtown San Francisco.

Alan
Do you ever get into concierge services or

Steve
sometimes our clients will ask us to do personal services for them pick up their dry cleaning, or whatever it is, and we can help our customers wherever they need help.

Alan
So Steve, if someone did come use the services of Marvel movies, how do you how did they go about

Steve
that? So they just go to the website, it’s Marvel maids.com/quote.html It’ll they can put in their information will come back right away.

Alan
And then typically, for an ongoing customer relationship, how often do they the customers come in? To have people in the home? So

Steve
we have some customers that use this on a daily basis? Some go every week? Some go every other week? And some say You know what, I need you every month. Some say Mom’s coming into town. I need you every six months. We service everything we service, the move outs, the movements, all those we work with the apartment associations, the condo associations.

Alan
Very good. Well, Steve, it’s enjoyable having on today’s show.

Steve
Thanks again for having me today.

Alan
So Steve Collins, the president of Marvel maze. For more information, you can visit his website at Marvelmaze.com Thanks, Alan. We’ll be right back after these messages.

 

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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About Steve Collins

Steve became the President of Marvel Maids in 2003 and quickly was able to grow the company. Prior to coming Marvel Maids Steve worked in the international business community and in the software enterprise industry. He has a passion for business and entrepreneurship.