Adam (00:07)
Welcome to Jobber’s Masters of Home Service, a podcast for home service pros by home service pros. I’m your host, Adam Sylvester, and I want you to crush it in business. Is your business growing or expanding? Are you hiring more people or getting more trucks on the road? Then what kind of trucks do you buy, and do you buy new or used, or do you lease? Do you buy? Do you put cash down? Do you let your employees take your vehicles home with them? Do you let your employees drive at all?

What about insurance and liability? All these different things? If those questions are on your mind, we’re gonna give you answers to those today. My guest is Erica Krupin, and she has intimate knowledge about this kind of stuff. And we’re gonna give you a game plan to buy your next truck because we don’t want you to do it poorly or unwisely. We want you to do it the right way and get off to a good footing. So Erica, welcome to the show.

Erica (00:56)
Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam (00:58)
So Erica, tell our audience, you know, we’re familiar with you, but tell our audience who you are and what you do.

Erica (01:03)
My name is Erica Krupin and I’m the owner of Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin, which is a dog waste removal business and I scoop dog poop.

Adam (01:10)
Bingo, and you do it so well, too. So I love your brand. Everybody loves your brand. You have awesome vehicles. Your whole branding is just so smooth and so great. What do you think a lot of our listeners are getting wrong when they make a purchase or they’re looking at vehicles? Like, what do you think is the mistake they make when they’re looking at this whole expanding their fleet?

Erica (01:12)
What I have seen is folks not buying the right type of vehicle for what their industry is. So for us, if we’re the dog waste removal, we’re hauling the waste away. If we have an option to buy a car versus a truck, we should probably buy the truck so we’re able to keep the waste outside of the vehicle. 

That’s something that I have seen, and also, are you getting a good deal on a vehicle, but maybe it’s bad gas mileage, or you’re buying a very large vehicle when you’re doing route work, and you’re in tight neighborhoods where it’s going to be difficult to park. So those are kind of things that you need to think about, where you’re servicing the gas mileage, and just think it through, play it out. How do you want your fleet to look when you have three cars, five cars, or 10 cars? How does that look in the future?

Adam (02:20)
Yeah, it matters, right? Like, we don’t want to just go out and just buy the first thing we see on Facebook Marketplace or the dealership. We need to actually think it through because a house cleaner is going to have different needs than a construction guy, and a painter is going to have different needs than a pressure washing company. And so I think our listeners just need to pause for a minute. They don’t need to like rush into anything and just think it through for a few weeks.

Erica (02:41)
I agree. When I first got started, I did a 2007 Chevy Cobalt, and that’s all I had, and I had to put a Cargo trailer on the back of it with a hitch. I was able to haul the waste away, but I didn’t have the extra funds to go ahead and buy another vehicle. So I figured out what I could do with what I had, and then looking forward, I’m like, all right. Well, I’m hauling the waste I need to get a truck because the dog poop gets really heavy, and I would notice that the cargo trailer was kind of tweaking to one side, and eventually, something, something bad was going to happen to the frame of that car.

Adam (03:15)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think functionality is probably the most important thing. I remember with my gutter business in the early days, we had just a itty bitty truck and then we had a little bit bigger truck. They’re both beaters. And then when it died and we were like, so what are we going to do now? And I just had this idea. said, hey guys, do you think it’s crazy to get a van? 

And they instantly were like That’s the best decision we’ve ever, yes, a van. And so we ran vans, and we still do run vans because a van made more sense for us. We need the space, we need the height, and we also wanted the wrap, which we’ll get to in a second. But I just think that our listeners, instead of thinking like, I gotta have this and that’s what all my competitors have, maybe you actually could use something different. And I think it’s good wisdom to just think, pause for a minute, don’t rush into it, and really think through, like ask your team. Have you ever asked your team what they wanted? Got their buy-in. Hey, what do you guys think we really need?

Erica (04:11)
No, no, I haven’t, but that would be a good idea. I’ll take that home with me next time.

Adam (04:16)
Let’s talk through the branding piece of it. So you had a clunker, I had a clunker. We’ve all started with clunkers. Do you regret that, or do you think that was a good decision?

Erica (04:27)
No, I don’t regret it at all. I mean, that’s how I had to get started. If I had to get a loan to buy a vehicle or wait to save up the money, I might not be sitting here chatting with you.

Adam (04:37)
Yeah, yeah, I think we just need a start. I think a lot of clients, whatever perception, negative perception people have of a beater vehicle, we can overcome with our personality and our ownership, and like us being on site in those early days. And so I don’t think people should let that. I’m really not a fan of it when people go out there and just buy a brand new truck.

Erica (04:58)
Oh, we can talk about that if you want to, because I had that. I got loans on some of the vehicles, actually all of the vehicles that were brand new, because in my mind, I just wanted to have these reliable vehicles. I didn’t want things breaking down. I didn’t want to have issues. And so I did, used debt to leverage it. It was all fun and games until we had some accidents, and it’s like, Oh, do I have gap insurance? I hope I have gap insurance.

Adam (04:59)
Let’s talk about that.

Erica (05:26)
And so it’s kind of like a trade-off. If you’re far enough in business to where you can absorb those losses, I think, yeah, leverage debt. when you’re smaller and you’re just getting started, if you can find a vehicle that is decent, that looks good enough, it’s not rusty and put a wrap on it and pay cash for it, I think that is the smartest way to go in those beginning years.

Adam (05:49)
Let’s talk about the insurance, and you mentioned car wrecks and I’ve never even heard of Gap Insurance. So, what is Gap Insurance? And just tell us what your opinion is of insurance in general.

Erica (05:59)
Well, I just actually got dropped from my insurance company on the 10th of June because we had two accidents last year within six months. Two company vehicles were totaled by the same woman. It was ouch. I didn’t know if my business was actually going to stay afloat last year because I had loans on these vehicles and one of the vehicles, I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, it was on a Friday.

My insurance provider said, Yeah, you’re good to go. And the paperwork wasn’t submitted. So I actually did not have insurance on that vehicle. They had to figure stuff out on the back end because I had insurance. I had been, I sent the information in, but they had messed some stuff up. And I don’t know they had to file an insurance claim on their end. I’m not sure, but they ended up covering the vehicle. 

(06:52)
But it took almost five months for any gap insurance or anything to kick in. So even though I didn’t have this vehicle anymore, I was still having to make that car payment on it.

Adam (07:02)
So, would you have done anything differently?

Erica (07:04)
Yeah, I wouldn’t have rushed. I would have paused. I would have actually reached out to, I use Cycle CPA for my accounting. I would have actually reached out to them and said, Hey, let’s play this out. What does this look like six months from now, eight months from now, two years from now? Because I’m so short-sighted. I need to just make sure I’m getting over to Sally’s house to scoop her dog poop. That’s all I’m thinking about right now. I’m not looking at what it’s going to do to the bank account, that interest rate.

Because the interest rates when you’re frazzled, I don’t know how they do it, but the dealership they like sneak stuff in, and your payment is just way crazier than what I had originally thought. So yeah, I would have had the conversations and be like, okay, maybe we’re not gonna be able to wrap this new vehicle. Maybe I might have to go get a clunker that costs $2,000 or $3,000 just to bridge the gap until I can figure out what to do moving forward when the emotions aren’t so high.

Adam (08:07)
I can totally relate to that. A couple of years ago, I had a staff member call me, and he said he got in a car wreck. I was like, okay, you know, whatever, call the insurance, call the police, whatever. And they call me back and say, the insurance card’s not in here. I was like, okay, well then let me send you the policy. Send him the policy, and they should all be on there. He goes, well, I went through each one, and we have like over 20 vehicles between trailers and trucks and all this kind of stuff. And basically, it wasn’t insured. One vehicle out of my entire fleet, personal and business, wasn’t insured. And that was when I got in a car wreck.

And it was really stressful. So all it would have taken would have been for me to spend an hour at any point that year of just, hey, let me just review all my insurance cars, make sure every single vehicle is insured. And if they had been, I would have had peace of mind. And if I caught this, I’m like, my gosh, I’m so glad I caught this before I got in a car wreck. So I think our listeners just need to know. Insurance can be easy if you get an insurance agent. Just take it slow. Just take it seriously. If you take it seriously and go about it, because I think that you and I just want to get to our work. We want to get to our clients. We’re just going to get on the road and go. And kind of like, you guys figure this part out. You’re my intern agent. But at the end of the day, it comes down to us. We just have to be really diligent that we take this seriously.

Erica (09:18)
Yeah, I like that you said that, like slow down, and yeah, I don’t really don’t understand insurance, but like take the time to understand your policy because on my policy, I actually had gap insurance on there, but I wasn’t filing a claim with gap insurance through the insurance. I had purchased additional gap insurance when I was at the dealership because, like I said, when they get you in that back office, I don’t know what goes on. My brain just goes. I had all these additional coverages, and going through the dealership was a nightmare because they’re not really on my side. And so I was double-insured. I’m like, this is crazy right now. Why is this taking me five months? I want this. I need this vehicle paid off now. So then I’m able to figure out what I’m going to do to get my next vehicle. Because financially, when you’re a small business and you’re in growth mode, right? So you’re reinvesting. So the profits are much lower.

And that’s where I was in the business, because I was investing in the wrap, was investing in the brand, I was upgrading the vehicles. And so there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room, and I was stressed to the max.

Adam (10:21)
I’m a big fan of having a local insurance guy. You can get insurance online now and everything, but I’m a big fan of having a local guy who does your insurance because here’s the thing. Every six months or every year, you can have him shop around and get you a better price. Now it doesn’t affect the insurance agent at all because it’s still his business. He just has multiple carriers he can use, and he can say, well, you know, it’s been a year since that speeding ticket two years ago. So now it’s been three years. Now that falls off, and your rates go down. There’s a lot of variables in insurance that can actually change pretty regularly.

And so I’m a big fan of getting somebody who will just ensure all of your vehicles and say, hey, man, I want you to shop my vehicles every single year. I will always want the best price. I’ll always want the best coverage. And I want you to like spell it out for me. I want to sit down with you because if you do, then you just have more clarity. I got a vehicle through Carvana once, and the insurance was through there, and it was very convoluted, like you said. And I was like, what? I really don’t even know what this insurance is. If I’d gone through my insurance agent, he would have explained it to me. He would have made sure my best interests were in mind. So I’m a big fan of just having a local guy to handle that for you because he has a lot of skin in the game.

Erica (11:28)
Yeah, even if you don’t quite understand it fully be like, okay, worst case scenario, if my, if my employee smashes it into the back of somebody and they get hurt, the vehicle is totaled and the person that they hit gets hurt and they sued me. Am I covered? Right. Like I want to know. Yes. I want to know that stuff. And then I don’t need to know all of the terminology. I don’t have time for that.

Adam (11:51)
Yeah, 100%. So let’s say our listeners got the insurance thing taken care of. The next step in choosing a vehicle, I think, is presentation, reliability, and that kind of thing. And so would you say, let’s say someone has a clunker and it’s time to hire another person, another truck on the field, but they have a little bit more money. Should they buy brand new, do you think? Or do you think they should lease? Do you think they should buy something that’s like five or six years old? What do you think?

Erica (12:17)
I think you need to look at what your finances are. Think how much money you have, how much you’re able to invest, and then make the decision from there. If you don’t have the five or six grand to put into a vehicle, then you might have to get a loan. But be aware and be careful. Understand the terms, understand what your interest rate’s gonna be. Can you afford that payment? And is it the top amount you can afford? Like if your payment’s $700 and you can only afford $700, I personally wouldn’t do that. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and me personally now in the stage I’m at, I’m only purchasing vehicles cash right now. I’m not getting any more loans on vehicles.

Adam (13:01)
You’re done with the whole loan thing. It’s just, it hurt too much.

Erica (13:03)
It did, it hurt way too much and I don’t want to go back to that until the business is much larger to where it can absorb a $20,000 or $30,000 vehicle being wrecked.

Adam (13:16)
Yeah, yeah, I think that listeners can take out a loan if they want to, but they need to put something down. Five thousand dollars down, ten thousand dollars down is ideal. Obviously, it brings the interest rate down, brings the total payment down. But I think that the bigger picture here is that if you’re relying on your vehicles to represent you and to give your clients good feelings, that’s not enough. It helps. I’m a huge fan of nice vehicles. But if you don’t have the cash, it’s better to let everything else speak for itself. Hey, our customer service is amazing. I’m here, smiling at you. Mr. Jones, I’m gonna take good care of you guys. I’m the owner. And you can compensate for the vehicle that you don’t have yet by just in other ways until you can afford these nicer vehicles, because money’s tight in those early days, and just going out and getting this huge loan and like, yeah, I got this sweet truck. It’s like, yeah, but it doesn’t feel so sweet when you’re paying almost $1,000 a month for it and you can’t afford it.

Erica (14:13)
It looks good. Like you said, it looks good, but it doesn’t feel good I still get a lot of attention just from a hot pink magnet that says dog waste removal Yeah, I have beautiful branded vehicles and I’m like, okay and I’m still picking up customers from these magnets on my my little clunker that I bought off Facebook for $4,000.

Adam (14:32)
Yeah, the clunker can do it. So, how do you go about the whole wrap scenario? Because I know that you don’t necessarily want to wrap a vehicle that’s too old because then you’re sinking money into something that could break down like I wrapped I wrapped in 1995 Chevy diesel and Probably don’t regret it, but it’s I don’t have it anymore So like, know, there is a line where you’re like, I don’t want if it has too many miles. Then you’re putting money into it. That’s not necessary. So, what are your thoughts on that?

Erica (14:58)
Going back to look at the finances, see what you can afford. Cause I did mine in stages. First, I got the magnets, then I did lettering, and then I did a partial wrap, and then I did a full wrap. So it kind of evolved over, I don’t know, three or four years. If you have an older vehicle and it has some rust on it, I would suggest doing lettering. You can do some really fun stuff with just some simple lettering. Okay, if you have a vehicle that’s a little bit older, but it’s in good shape, it doesn’t have a bunch of rust on it, do a partial wrap. Test it out. But I’m a firm believer in keeping it simple yet bold. So like, mine’s hot pink. I don’t have a ton of stuff on it, but it has who I am, what I do, and how to get in touch with me.

Adam (15:38)
Yeah, a little hack that I’ve learned is if you are starting off with really humble beginnings and you can’t afford even a decal, you can get vehicles that are all the same color. So, in my lawn care business 15 years ago, I always got a white truck. That’s all I white, white, white, and I had a lot of people mention, Wow, is your company the one with the white trucks? Now, you might think, well, Adam, everyone has white trucks, but not necessarily. And a lot of companies don’t have all the trucks that are white.

And so that’s kind of a hack, you know, it’s a cheap way of going. But if you can afford to put like a hundred and fifty-dollar magnet on there, it’s even better. But I am a fan of, like, the all white or all the same color truck, because then people identify you as like the guy with the white trucks.

Erica (16:20)
Yeah, I actually got a rainbow poop emojis and put those on my white truck just to stand out a little bit, and people would steal them all the time. So I was always having to replace them, but it’s those little things. It costs like, I don’t know, maybe $5, but it stood out.

Adam (16:34)
I want to pause our conversation and talk about jobber because we’re talking about our vehicles and what kind of impact our vehicles have on our whole reputation, our whole brand at large. How does Jobber enhance your brand with your business?

Erica (16:48)
Well, Jobber helps me save money in the business, so I’m able to be more organized. Then I can take that money and I can invest it into my employees and then invest it into the vehicles because that’s what’s really important. It’s spending a ton of money on different software, where things are very disorganized. It doesn’t matter what software you have. If you’re not getting back to your customers and you’re not delivering a good experience and you’re leaking oil in their driveway, they’re going to be so mad at you.

So that Jobber has helped me kind of keep everything organized, keep everything boring, so I’m able to focus the energy and the money on the good, exciting stuff.

Adam (17:24)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think our vehicles are this professional and I think Jobber is also this professional. So when those two meet and our clients are like, wow, you guys are so good and so professional. But if we had like some pen and paper or some cheesy software, they’d like, wait a second, it wouldn’t be on brand. So I think Jobber helps us stay on brand.

Erica (17:42)
Yeah, and a lot of people think my company is massive because I have a lot of Google reviews. The fleet is so organized. The customer communication is so strong. When I tell them that we’re only a team of three, they are beside themselves. They’re like, what do you mean? Your company looks large. I’m like, thank you so much.

Adam (18:01)
And speaking of vehicles and everything, Jobber has integrations like tracking vehicles, which are pretty cool, that people can check out. So if you need to enhance your brand and give your clients a better experience, then you need Jobber. Jobber makes everything more professional and easier for the client. So go to jobber.com/podcastdeal. Take advantage of all the fleet tracking integrations and start using Jobber today. 

(18:25)
Let’s talk about the difference between like the different wraps, wraps, partial wraps, decals, lettering, and magnets. Let’s break those down for people. What are the differences between all those different things?

Erica (18:34)
Okay, well, a magnet is less expensive. You can buy these off Vistaprint, or you can contact a local person in your area that can produce a magnet for you that will go onto your vehicle. You just have to make sure you get one that is the size of your vehicle and where you want to place it. And you want to keep these very, very simple because a lot of times they’re smaller. So who we are, what you do, and how to get in touch with you. Don’t get weird with your writing, have it be bold. You want someone to be able to see it when they’re driving past you, going 25 miles an hour, 45 miles an hour. The thing is with these is you have to be careful if you hop on the expressway. A lot of times, those magnets will fly when they can. They can fly off your vehicle.

Adam (19:13)
That’s right, if they’re not on there perfectly, cleanly, they’ll fly right off.

Erica (19:17)
Can I tell you a tip really quick? So if it’s a little bit chilly out, what you do is you pull the magnet in, you put it on your dashboard and you let it get warmed up so it’s pliable and then reapply that back onto your vehicle while it’s still warm and make sure to go around the edges and make sure those edges are nice and flat.

Adam (19:33)
Interesting. That’s a good little hack. So magnets are the cheapest way to go for sure. And then lettering is a version of a wrap. Just very simple, but it’s put on the same way. I could decal. Would you say this the same thing?

Erica (19:43)
Yeah, it is or like a higher grade decal. You can get some of this stuff. You can even get this at Home Depot, Lowe’s, a big box store and do it yourself if you are really, really scrappy. But the companies use a higher quality product. I believe it’s called 3M. And it should last longer, and it will be straight.

Adam (20:01)
Yeah, exactly. Make sure your magnet’s straight too. So decal and then and then the partial wrap is when you actually go to a wrap company and they wrap like half your vehicle or your hood or your doors or something like that. I never got a partial wrap. I’ve only done full wrap.

Erica (20:14)
Right. OK, go back to the magnet just really quick. Price-wise, you’re looking at like maybe 50 bucks, maybe 100 bucks for a set of two. It’s relatively cheap. For lettering, when I paid for that, it was under $500. think it was between $200 and $500 with labor. Then we go up to the partial wrap. That’s where you can wrap, just maybe the hood. You can do the front. I personally did the back end, and I wanted my back end to be super, super hot pink.

So when somebody was behind me, they could see the brand color, who I am, what I do, and how to get in touch with me. That was around $1,200 to $1,400 in American dollars. And then we upgraded to the MacDaddy, the big wraps.

Adam (20:56)
Yeah, yeah. So that is one potential regret that I have. My tendency is like, no, go big or go home. So, if I am going to spend a bunch of money on a wrap, I’m going to full wrap. Do the whole thing. But I never actually considered a partial wrap, and I kind of regret it because we bought the vehicles we bought were new. And so they’re perfectly white and clean. And so we could have saved some money and done a partial wrap on the back.

And I think if you get a good designer, you can actually have the same pop with a partial wrap than you do with a full. I didn’t slow down enough. I didn’t think about that. I was like, no, no, we’re doing the full. And if I had really thought it through or had a podcast like this to tell me, I probably would have really considered a partial wrap to save because a full wrap is five grand where we are. And a partial wrap is probably like half of that. 

$5,000 is a lot of money. I wish I had spent $2,500 every single time I get a wrap instead of $5,000. So that’s just a little hack for our listeners. Don’t disregard the partial wrap. It’s a very viable option.

Erica (21:58)
Absolutely, especially if you position it right, and you do it well, and keep it clean, and it’s like for me, I was thinking to myself, well, where’s the most wear and tear in my vehicle? It’s in the front on the driver’s side door, so if I’m gonna bang it up, it’s gonna be on the driver’s side, so let’s wrap the back of it. So then that way, if I have this for a long time, the wrap will last me, and I can save some money.

Adam (22:21)
Yeah, so you really did think this through. I appreciate that. How long do you think wraps last?

Erica (22:27)
Well, I don’t know yet, because mine keep getting totaled. [Adam laughs] I hear four years. I hear about four years.

Adam (22:34)
I think so we have one vehicle that we got in a say it’s it’s three years old and it’s starting to show some wear and tear it really is I think we’ll probably it’ll probably last one more year and then we’ll want to start thinking about getting it replaced I think four years max is probably otherwise it doesn’t look good anymore it’s a wrap but it it needs to look clean it does have dings all over it and scratches and scrapes and all that kind of stuff.

Erica (22:58)
Yeah, mine, I want to say mine’s a couple years old and it’s still looking pretty good. It’s pretty vibrant. And the place that I went to, if there’s any issues, like I scratch it or I bang something up, if it’s small enough, they actually repair that for me. Yeah, finding somebody that’s local, that’s willing to do that is really important because you do need touch-ups. Like, these things aren’t show cars. We’re working, we’re making money. We have employees in them that maybe, you know, they don’t treat it with, they don’t put respect on it like they should.

Adam (23:26)
Right. I never thought about that. I’ll call my guy and see if he’ll give me a little TLC on it. So, if you could go back, would you? I want to hammer this home a little bit more: full wrap or partial wrap? If you had to choose,  which one do you think is better for most people?

Erica (23:44)
For most people? I really just wanted to create brand awareness. My brand is that hot pink. I want somebody when they see the hot pink color, and they’re not in their 80s, they’re not thinking Mary Kay. They’re thinking Kroopins Poopin Scoopin, okay? And so for me and my brand, if I can afford it, go bold. Do it. But still keep it simple. Don’t have so much writing on it to where it’s like, wait, what do you do? What’s going on? I’m confused now.

Adam (24:12)
Let’s talk about that for a minute. The design, did you hire a designer for your wrap?

Erica (24:16)
Yes. So during that time, I reinvested into my brand. That’s the reason why I did the partial wrap in the beginning. One, because of finances, and two, I didn’t have a logo or a brand that I actually liked. So it was like, I’m not going to invest all this money into it. So once I got my brand actually done, that’s when I was like, all right, let’s hit it. Let’s build this fleet out that I’ve had in my head since 2018, 2019.

Adam (24:40)
Yeah, you’re basically ready to do a full wrap once you have a full brand. 

Erica (24:42)
Yes. 

Adam (24:44)
So I have a designer who does my designs and stuff, and my wrap company was like, yeah, we’ll wrap it for you, or we’ll design it for you. I was like, yeah, send me a design. And it was terrible. It was terrible. I was like, guys, a third grader could have done better than this. And so I think there is a difference between an installer and like a designer. There are people who sit on their computer all day and design a wrap versus just the installer. Make sure you’re getting a really good design.

A buddy of mine, Darren, really labored over this for like months. He’s a perfectionist, but his wrap looks awesome because he really was diligent and making sure the designer got it right. My tendency is just like, yeah, that’s good enough. Let’s do it. So I think a designer’s help. You don’t have to spend very much money on design. Would say $500 or less on a design for a wrap is all you need to spend. No more than $500.

Erica (25:30)
Okay, that’s good to know. When I redid my brand, it was a hefty investment. Brands cost thousands.

Adam (25:36)
The whole branding is different, but if you have someone doing just a wrap, like if you, if someone’s out there listening, like they need a new whole new brand, when the designer does the wap, it should be like an add on, like a $250 to $500 hour add on. It shouldn’t be at this big of a cost, at least from my experience.

Erica (25:51)
Yeah, and if you don’t like it, don’t be afraid to have those conversations because you are investing. So even if you have to go back and forth with them and say, this lettering is too low on the bottom of the vehicle, when you actually put it on there, it tilts downward. So you’re not going to be able to see it. I need you to move it up a couple inches. Or hey, the lettering is kind of weird where the door splits or where the gas tank is. Can we tweak that a little bit? Or can we make it smaller or larger?

And if your wrap place won’t do that, find another one that will, because this is your billboard for your business.

Adam (26:24)
Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about that for a minute because my opinion on this is that there is no better way to spend $5,000 in marketing than on a vehicle wrap. I just think like it’s the moving billboard. People see it every single day and we have clients all the time. So yeah, yeah, we see your vehicles all over town because of the wrap. so that $5,000 that you could spend on Google ads or Facebook ads or postcards or whatever.

The wrap is, in my opinion, the very best way to spend $5,000.

Erica (26:55)
I agree. And then everything changed with me. I mean, the way that I drive, I got to be a little bit more professional because we’re you know, it’s not good for the brand. Where I park. I’m parking either in the very front or I’m parking in the back along that main road so everybody can see my billboard for my business. 

Adam (27:13)
Okay, everyone wants to know, do you let your employees drive your vehicles home with them?

Erica (27:19)
Yes, I do. But note here, you have to have a vehicle policy in place. Are you going to allow them to drive them on their own time? 

Adam (27:30)
Like to Walmart, to the parties every night.

Erica (27:32)
Yes, to go get food, you know, on a Sunday night. Like, what are the rules? Because if an accident happens, which this is what happened to me, a vehicle accident happened on a Sunday at 7 p.m. when the technician was off the clock. I didn’t have a strong conversation. It was just kind of loose. And so after that, I actually had to develop a policy. Like, you drive this to and from work.

If by any chance you need to take it for some other reason, there needs to be a conversation. You don’t just take it on your leisure time. And if I catch you doing that, you’re gone. You’re out the door.

Adam (28:02)
Yeah. And I think that if you don’t have a shop or home base, it totally makes sense for your employees to drive vehicles home. We have a shop, our employees come in and leave in their own vehicles. But if their job site’s going late and they’re near their house already and they’re like, hey, can I take the vehicle and come back? My rule is if it makes sense for you to take it home and come back, then yes. It doesn’t make any sense for you to drive the vehicle home from the shop.

But if you’re at a job site and it’s late and it’s getting, then yeah, sure, take it home, coming back. But like, don’t take it to Walmart, don’t take it to the restaurants. And you need to tell your insurance agent that that’s a possibility. Because you want to be covered in case your employee makes a bad decision, drives to Walmart off hours, and they get in a car wreck. You want to be covered for that. So make sure your agent knows that’s a possibility. But I want to be reasonable. I don’t want to make our employees drive all over the place for no reason. I don’t be unreasonable about it.

What about backups? So do you have any vehicle backups in case your main vehicle breaks down? What do do then?

Erica (29:01)
Yeah, I always have an extra one. My husband said this. If you have two, you have one. If you have one, have none. And so we like to have an extra one just in case.

Adam (29:08)
Yeah, that’s so true. Is the backup as nice?

Erica (29:15)
No, no, this thing’s clunky. I mean, it’s got rust, it’s loud, it’s got a magnet on it. I actually drive that as my personal vehicle now because I lost so many vehicles last year. I was like, one, I’m not getting another loan. Two, I can be incognito. Nobody knows who I am when I’m driving around this little beater. And it keeps me humble. It reminds me, be smart with your finances, Erica, because those almost broke your business last year. And so it’s good to have something. And if not, just have a backup plan. Can you rent a vehicle? What are you going to do if you go down? What’s the plan of action?

Adam (29:47)
And we are talking about working smarter and being smarter, having a backup vehicle. I know that  I feel like it comes down to two things. You can either buy pretty new. So you have few breakdowns and just have one, or you can have a much lesser vehicle and two of those. And it just kind of depends on what your risk tolerance is and what your personality is. I mean, I’ll be honest, it is nice having new vehicles that rarely break down, but it’s cheaper in the beginning to have two vehicles that are $7,000 each that might be 10 years old, but having two. And you need to make friends with the mechanic. You know, and be like, hey man, I need you, I need you right now. I need you to get me expedited and like, you know, like send pizza for lunch. Like you need a befriending mechanic so that he gets you in fast. So you’re only down a day or two instead of like a week.

Erica (30:34)
I do this. take them in donuts, slurpees, cookies, whatever. I’m like, Hey guys, how are you? How was your day today? And sometimes my husband would be like, you didn’t bring me any cookies. I’m like, you’re not fixing my car.

Adam (30:45)
Like, hey, Erica’s here. Get a car and quick. Yeah, totally works every time. 

Erica, this topic seems so simple, but it’s so important. Picking the right vehicle, getting the right insurance. I think we gave our listeners a lot of things to chew on to make sure they make the right decision when they’re buying their next vehicle. These are the three things I think listeners can implement right now. Number one is you need to take insurance seriously. It doesn’t have to rule your life or take all your time, but you do need to review it probably on a regular basis, an annual basis, make sure your insurance agent is shopping around, getting the best price and making sure that they know exactly if if your employees take your vehicles home, they need to know that kind of stuff so you have the right coverage, but make sure you have the right insurance in place because it can be catastrophic if you don’t. Number two is don’t rush. This is a big decision for many years to come, so you wanna make the right decision. Get the right vehicle, think through all the different uses you’re gonna use it for and make sure you know how much you can afford. Don’t max out that payment. Like Erica said, if you can afford $700. Don’t do $699. Do like $600. Make that payment reasonable. Build some margin into that cost of your vehicle. Because if you spend all your money on your car, you’re probably going to regret that. And number three is keep the wrap simple. You don’t need to have a million different things on the car wrap. Keep it simple. Your logo and your phone number, right, Erica? 

Erica (32:06)
Yeah, keep it simple, stupid

Adam (32:08)
Exactly, no QR codes, all this text.

Erica (32:12)
You don’t need to have all the text, you don’t need to have your Instagram, your Twitter, your Nextdoor app, none of that stuff. I like to just have the phone number and the email address as big as I possibly can have it on the vehicle. And that’s it.

Adam (32:26)
Yeah, exactly.

This is great. Last question for you. know, this business is hard and if it was easy, everybody would do it. And I just feel like, you’ve been you’ve been pressing on hard and it’s really inspiring. What gets what gets you up in the morning? What empowers you? Why do you do this whole business thing?

Erica (32:43)
I just can’t, I can’t quit. I know that there’s so much opportunity out there and especially being here and being around other small business owners and seeing what the opportunity is, I have this drive to just keep on achieving and seeing what I’m capable of before it’s time to get it done. Yeah, and so that’s what really, that’s what keeps me going. And I love to travel too, and traveling’s expensive.

Adam (33:10)
I like that. How do people find out more about you, Erica?

Erica (33:12)
You can look me up on the internet, on the interwebs. It’s Erica Krupin or Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin on YouTube and Instagram, and Facebook. And I host The Scoop with Erica Krupin podcast on all your major streaming platforms.

Adam (33:27)
Great, well, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.

And thank you for listening. I hope that you heard something that will help you make better decisions when you’re buying your next vehicle. I’m your host, Adam Sylvester. You can find me at adamsylvester.com. Your team, your clients, and your family deserve your very best. So go give it to them.