Often, savvy entrepreneurs look for businesses that are out of the way, things out of the ordinary but businesses, that have a good customer base and stable income. This is an extremely interesting story. He had always considered mobile truck wash efforts very profitable and he believed stationary truck washes were a huge waste of money. That was until one year when a new franchisee joined our Oklahoma City team. He runs a franchise company called Car Wash Guys; http://www.carwashguys.com. As it turns out, the franchisee was previously employed by Blue Beacon Truck Washes, the largest truck wash chain in the US. They make about $138,000,000 per year with 80 truck washes and the company is very close. Tim, our franchisee, was a truck manager for them and before we bought our franchise he started washing cars in OKC even though he knows best how to wash trucks. He had a two-year non-compete with his former company, which we have honored in OKC. He has tons of experience and he told me that the business is solid and we should really get into it. Later that year, I sold a franchise to a person in WA state who owned car washes (5) and made a deal with a truck stop on an Indian reservation. He never started the plan, but the numbers we did on the spreadsheet looked great. and very profitable.
Even as a serial entrepreneur, I had never considered fixed site truck wash business as mobile truck wash business seemed much more efficient and less overhead; http://www.truckwashguy.com. So even with all this knowledge in the team, we still haven’t entered that market. One of our competitors in the car wash industry purchased two
truck wash chains for a total of fourteen truck washes and proclaimed it more profitable than its other car washes by 5 times more money. They now own nearly 100 truck and car wash locations across the country. After some further thought, a franchise buyer who owned Fuel MAN, an East Coast fuel card for fleet owners, approached us in South Carolina about using the Truck Wash Guys name to develop a truck wash. trucks in the middle state. At that point we decided to start working on the details. Then a franchisee in OH made a deal with a truck stop between Columbus OH and Pittsburgh, to operate a 24 hour truck wash and defrost business. He thought how easy this is and now we have also done a deal in WV on a truck wash. Our Ohio franchisee at the time contracted with another partner in WV.
Still reluctant to fully dive into the full-service truck wash subcategory, we found our Ohio franchisee doing his best to put together a deal with Pilot Truck Stops. Pilot Truck Stop has the most truck stops on the planet and sells 8% of all diesel fuel in the United States. So we planned a pilot on pilot program. Our temporary setup is a trailer unit, found at truck stops and washes make sense. Then we work on plans for a building to send to the Construction department. for your approval, meanwhile the offers in
OH and WV and SC were suddenly in the works. We thought that if our agreement with the truck stops worked out well, the truck stops would get more traffic and fuel sales while generating
revenue and a percentage of the truck stop’s total take for the privilege of working there. We are so used to washing trucks and we have on our team a gentleman who sells Simonize truck washes and has been in the car wash and pressure washer equipment business for 20 years. Through the use of fuel man fuel cards as currency on the East Coast and the name recognition of Pilot, we thought we could enter this industry and take over.
There is a shortage of truck washes across the country and also a shortage of truck oil change facilities. A franchisee could be trained by our truck wash prototypes and probably be the best performing franchisee in our mobile truck wash.
division; then quickly establish themselves in their own markets. Pressure washing companies that specialize in washing fleet trucks should, in fact, consider this type of strategy to enter the fixed site truck washing business.
If you study entrepreneurial companies, you will actually see that many companies fall in the markets because of the opportunities that are presented, it is amazing the opportunities that exist and how fast companies can grow when they can handle the demand of those markets. Think about this.