Chatter That Matters podcast (2026): Brian Scudamore on the importance of being willing to fail

[00:00:03:07 - 00:00:09:14] Brian Scudamore: I developed an attitude. I call it “WTF” attitude, which is willing to fail.

[00:00:09:17 - 00:00:26:09] Tony Chapman: I spent my life in marketing and branding. I’ve worked locally and globally, entrepreneurs to multinationals. I have to say, there are very few brands that live both as a question and an answer. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is one of them.

[00:00:26:10 - 00:00:30:05] Brian Scudamore: It starts with taking a chance and imagining bigger possibilities.

[00:00:30:08 - 00:00:48:14] Tony Chapman: To me, it’s one of the most brilliant branding exercises of all time, and it’s born from a single and simple human truth. Most of us hate clutter, but we live with it. We stack it in garages, hide it in basements. We promise ourselves that we will deal with it someday. 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.

[00:00:48:17 - 00:00:55:26] Brian Scudamore: Dreaming about that vision in your mind of what the future could look like, if you ask yourself, what if?

[00:00:55:28 - 00:01:16:00] Tony Chapman: A promise of instant relief and convenience and the promise of future possibilities. Behind that simplicity sits something far more complex. A company that charges a premium for professionalism, crisp trucks, clean uniforms, cheerful service, and an operation built on culture but run with surgical precision.

[00:01:16:01 - 00:01:20:06] Brian Scudamore: A company is all about people. Find the right people and treat them right.

[00:01:20:13 - 00:01:25:14] Tony Chapman: At the heart of it all is Brian Scudamore, a school dropout turned Harvard case study.

[00:01:25:15 - 00:01:31:13] Brian Scudamore: We can’t afford to be, as leaders, the smartest person in the room. Otherwise, I think we are in the wrong room.

[00:01:31:15 - 00:01:50:02] Tony Chapman: He took a $700 pickup and an idea born in a McDonald's drive-thru, turned it into a $700 million empire. He built O2E Brands, ordinary to exceptional, on the belief that even the most unglamorous work could be transformed when you combine vision, systems, and people who care.

[00:01:50:05 - 00:01:55:26] Brian Scudamore: When customers are happy because employees are happy, everything works like magic.

[00:01:55:29 - 00:02:05:25] Tony Chapman: Today, he is a mentor, a dragon on Dragon's Den, and just an extraordinary human being that is about to offer you some fabulous lessons in life.

[00:02:05:26 - 00:02:11:03] Brian Scudamore: And we, as entrepreneurs, often do not follow the traditional mold.

[00:02:11:05 - 00:02:16:00] Tony Chapman: Brian Scudamore doesn’t remove junk. He removes excuses for why something can’t be great.

[00:02:16:04 - 00:02:31:20] Brian Scudamore: It could be using AI to find that better way. It could be finding a better culture and better people to get to a better way. It could be building a better mousetrap. There is always opportunity around us.

[00:02:31:22 - 00:02:47:13] Tony Chapman: Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters, presented by RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast, and ratings and reviews are always welcome and always appreciated.

[00:02:47:16 - 00:02:49:13] Tony Chapman: Brian, welcome to Chatter That Matters.

[00:02:49:17 - 00:02:52:06] Brian Scudamore: I am happy to be here, Tony. Thank you for hosting.

[00:02:52:07 - 00:03:06:14] Tony Chapman: Maybe to frame it in monetary terms, you have built a $700 million empire out of junk. And if the rumor is true, it all began as you were traveling through a McDonald's drive-in. So if you could take us back to that moment.

[00:03:06:16 - 00:03:27:08] Brian Scudamore: I was one course short of graduating from high school. All of my friends, every one of them, got into university, except me. I thought, oh my gosh, I am going to have this fear of being left behind. What am I going to do? And there I was in the McDonald's line. In front of me was a pickup truck that said Mark's Hauling on the side.

[00:03:27:08 - 00:03:46:29] Brian Scudamore: It had beat-up old sides built up on the box. I looked at this truck, Mark's Hauling, and I said, that is my ticket: to go find a way to pay for college, create my own job. It was a tight summer job market, and I talked my way into college. I said, hey, listen, I don’t want to be left behind, I am smart enough.

[00:03:47:00 - 00:04:09:04] Brian Scudamore: Even though I did not work hard enough in Grade 12, and they let me in. This junk removal business that I started within two weeks paid me enough. I made enough money to pay for my college education that first year, and I wasn’t left behind. What is interesting is I quickly found out I was learning much more about how to run a business.

[00:04:09:07 - 00:04:36:19] Brian Scudamore: Not by studying in school, but by learning on the streets. I created this business that was called The Rubbish Boys. Today we are 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. But in those earlier days, it was myself. I started recruiting friends and employees as quickly as I could. As we grew, we became The Rubbish Boys, and I looked back and said, gee, you know, I really was getting the best MBA by being out there on the streets, so to speak.

[00:04:36:19 - 00:04:57:23] Brian Scudamore: But the moment it all ended was three years into my university education. I sat down with my father. He is a liver transplant surgeon, recently retired. I said, Dad, I got some good news. I said, I am leaving school. I’m literally quitting to go full-time into this business. He couldn’t believe that his oldest son was quitting to become a full-time junk man.

[00:04:57:24 - 00:05:25:21] Tony Chapman: How does that go over at home? Today, a lot of young adults are dealing with the cost of four years of university, how much it’ll apply to the future job market, and they’re going to have to have tough conversations at home with their parents or their mentors in terms of making decisions like you made, and also making decisions that might be contrary to how the Canadian dream, in fact, the Western dream was supposed to be chased.

[00:05:25:22 - 00:05:47:20] Brian Scudamore: I think it’s important as parents, which of course I am one, of three kids that I get to parent, and I try and listen to the fact that not everybody is the same. Not every situation has everybody going to school. My kids have got two in university, and my third one, who knows what will happen? Will all of them finish university?

[00:05:47:20 - 00:06:12:27] Brian Scudamore: I did not quit learning. I just found a different way. I think it’s important to look at kids today and say what is best for them. Yes, we can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in college, or like a recent guest on Dragon's Den the other night, there was this woman who started a liquor business. She literally pitched her father and said, Dad, I know you have been saving up for college for me.

[00:06:13:03 - 00:06:32:18] Brian Scudamore: I have got a proposal. I have got a business proposition here. I want to run my own business. I don’t want to waste money on school. Sure enough, she convinced him to fund, instead of an education, a different kind of education: learning on the streets. She has had an incredibly successful growth period out in the Maritimes, and she has got a fantastic business.

[00:06:32:18 - 00:06:51:15] Brian Scudamore: But she took a road less traveled, as some of us do. I think what’s important in this type of economy, where jobs are not guaranteed and careers are not guaranteed, sometimes you need people to take risks and become entrepreneurs. We, as entrepreneurs, often do not follow the traditional mold.

[00:06:51:17 - 00:06:59:07] Tony Chapman: Does it take a certain DNA to have the courage and discipline at his young age to blaze your own trail? Or is it something that you think is within a lot of us?

[00:06:59:08 - 00:07:15:20] Brian Scudamore: I think it is in a lot of us, but it does take courage. For me, sitting down with someone like my father, who has done more school than anyone I’ve ever met, to try and persuade him that me leaving college was a good idea, that was the tough one. As an entrepreneur, we learn to sell our ideas.

[00:07:15:20 - 00:07:34:15] Brian Scudamore: We learn to take risks and chances. Sometimes you just have to believe in yourself and take the chance. I could have gone back to school. I could have pleased my dad as he said, you have got one more year, just go finish. But I said, Dad, my business opportunity. I’m used to, or I have learned to, strike while the iron is hot.

[00:07:34:18 - 00:07:58:14] Brian Scudamore: I’ve got this opportunity that is working for me. I’m making money, and I’m learning and I’m having fun. What if I just go back to school one day if this business doesn’t succeed? I developed an attitude. I call it “WTF” attitude, which is willing to fail. I, in fact, wrote a book under the same title. That “willing to fail”-ness is, what if you just take a chance?

[00:07:58:14 - 00:08:27:20] Brian Scudamore: What if you take a risk and try something? It could be mowing lawns. It could be doing gardening. It could be painting homes. You find some simple service actually helps you find your passion. My passion has never been junk removal or hauling away junk, but it’s been in building teams, building cultures, creating a road less traveled for franchise partners that have joined us in this journey of building phenomenal businesses and phenomenal lives for many of our people.

[00:08:27:27 - 00:08:52:18] Brian Scudamore: So it starts with taking the chance and imagining bigger possibilities. Is it in our DNA? Maybe, but I think it can be learned. I think people, if they have the courage just to try something, if they have always wanted to start their own business, don’t go start Google and Microsoft and Instagram. Go start something really, really small like all those founders did and see what it might become.

[00:08:52:21 - 00:08:59:10] Tony Chapman: What did your dad [do]? Was it that moment, or how long did it take before he looked at you and said you made the right decision?

[00:08:59:12 - 00:09:16:00] Brian Scudamore: Well, it took some time. I learned years later that he used to talk to some of his patients about his proud son that was building this business. But it took a long time before he told me, and it took 15 years. I remember the day. I will bring you right back to the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

[00:09:16:07 - 00:09:34:12] Brian Scudamore: I show up as a finalist. I was dressed in a tux. My dad, it was so cute, he was also dressed in a tux, proud of me. When I won the award as Entrepreneur of the Year, he put his hand on my back. He just said, I am proud of you. I am like, Dad, it took you 15 freaking years to tell that to me! Come on!

[00:09:34:12 - 00:09:43:02] Brian Scudamore: And he is like, you know, I was worried about you. I was worried that you would not find your way, but I should have trusted you. Here you are today.

[00:09:43:05 - 00:10:00:06] Tony Chapman: Was there any envy where he kind of wished that he had blazed his own trail? Or was he very happy with the body of work that he produced in his lifetime, knowing that it was somewhat of a paved path? I mean, you take your degrees, you do your residence, you become a doctor, you get your 10,000 hours of practice.

[00:10:00:09 - 00:10:03:10] Tony Chapman: But in your case, I mean, you’re zigging and zagging all over the place.

[00:10:03:11 - 00:10:20:23] Brian Scudamore: Yeah. You know what? I think at some point my dad might have looked at it that way. But today, as he is in his 70s and I am in my 50s, we have connected over a glass of wine over the idea of actually how similar we are. He was a trailblazer while I did junk removal and building a franchise empire.

[00:10:20:29 - 00:10:43:14] Brian Scudamore: He did it in bringing liver transplants to Canada. He went off to Europe. We lived in England, he lived in Sweden. He learned his trade, a very complex one, but then brought it with great pride to Canada back home. He created a liver transplant program that was revolutionary. So, a trailblazer, just of a different sort, working within the frames of government, which is very difficult.

[00:10:43:17 - 00:10:46:14] Brian Scudamore: Lots of rules to follow and lots of schooling to complete.

[00:10:46:16 - 00:11:03:05] Tony Chapman: And The Rubbish Boys was, to me, almost sounded like a punk rock band. You were pretty young in life, you had eight years to hit $1 million in revenue, but you had the courage again to fire your entire company to restate what matters most.

[00:11:03:07 - 00:11:20:24] Brian Scudamore: Like you mentioned, The Rubbish Boys, that sounded like a band. What do most bands do? A bunch of young guys and gals get together, friends who play instruments, and they want to change the world through music. They figure things out as they go along. I think that I was no different. I did not know what I was doing.

[00:11:20:24 - 00:11:41:21] Brian Scudamore: I had not been schooled on building a business, and I had to figure it out on the fly. One of the first lessons I realized is I was not a great leader. As a new leader, five years into creating my business, I was half a million in revenue, five trucks, excited by our growth, but very overwhelmed that I didn’t know what I was doing.

[00:11:41:21 - 00:12:03:02] Brian Scudamore: That really boiled down to I didn’t know how to lead. I realized I was not having fun in my business anymore. The joy was gone. Why? Because I did not have people that were happy people. I did not have people that were like me, that see a world full of possibility. So I brought all these employees in, all 11 of them, and they say one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

[00:12:03:02 - 00:12:24:06] Brian Scudamore: I decided to get rid of my entire team. I took all 11 and said, listen, I started with two words: I’m sorry. I owned it. I said, this is because of me not giving you the love and support you need to be successful, maybe not having found the right people. I didn’t give you a vision to believe in, and I’m a new leader learning how to figure this out.

[00:12:24:06 - 00:12:46:16] Brian Scudamore: So I apologized, got rid of everybody, and started again. A company is all about people. Find the right people and treat them right. I started hiring people that I saw similar values in, that I could have fun with, that believed in smiling around the customer and making the customer feel good, and that sense of relief when their junk was gone.

[00:12:46:18 - 00:13:12:05] Brian Scudamore: That changed the world for us. As the business started to grow and evolve, of course, you mentioned we changed the name. I said, The Rubbish Boys is not something that is understood, as we want to expand into the United States, south of us. People did not understand the word rubbish. It is more of a British/Canadian term. I came up with this play on the Got Milk? campaign from the 90s, and I said 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.

[00:13:12:08 - 00:13:33:17] Brian Scudamore: Of course, the phone number was not available. I called and called and called, and after 59 phone calls, I finally tracked down the owner, the government of Idaho, the Department of Transportation. It was the government that owned this number. There is no way I am getting it. I got in touch with Michael in the phone room. I said, Michael, I need this number.

[00:13:33:17 - 00:13:49:03] Brian Scudamore: I have talked to you three days in a row. I don’t know what to do here. He is like, I think he just wanted me off his back. He said, Brian, this number is important to you. We don’t really need it as much as you sound like you do. He sent me the AT&T fax form, and off we went. The number was mine for free. The rest is history.

[00:13:50:08 - 00:14:02:13] Tony Chapman: You took a phone number, and this is obviously the days before websites and emails and such, and institutionalized it. It must have just been one of the most exciting moments in your life when that government official from Idaho said you can have it.

[00:14:02:14 - 00:14:24:06] Brian Scudamore: I think it’s like many things in life, if you really believe in something and you see the picture in your brain, and you’re willing to obsess a little bit, as I did. I hired a designer and I paid them $2,000 to design the logo. That is the same as it is today. It hasn’t changed. That logo of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? was created before I got the phone number.

[00:14:24:13 - 00:14:44:08] Brian Scudamore: A little bit crazy from most people's minds, but I said, you know what, I see this, I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to somehow make it happen. I was excited by it because the 1-888-GOT-JUNK? phone number, the guy wanted $100,000 for, and I got the better number for free. But I don’t think I had any idea what we were creating in this brand.

[00:14:44:12 - 00:15:03:25] Brian Scudamore: What was McDonald's worth when the McDonald's brothers got bought out by Ray Kroc and decided to create something bigger and better together? Nobody really knew what it would become. I think it was the same thing with 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. It was pure possibility, but just how big that possibility could be, I had no idea back in that day.

[00:15:03:29 - 00:15:13:12] Tony Chapman: So I want to see if there is a contradiction of this. You write this brilliant book, Willing to Fail. We talked about it earlier in the show, but then you also come out and say, people don’t fail, systems do.

[00:15:13:16 - 00:15:37:22] Brian Scudamore: So when we know we need success that’s duplicatable, that’s repeatable over and over and over in an operating practice. For example, if I show up in a truck back in the days of the early 1-800-GOT-JUNK? days, and I wow a customer, put a big smile on their face, I did a big cleanup and sweep up at the end so that it never looked like there was any junk left behind.

[00:15:37:24 - 00:15:57:16] Brian Scudamore: I want to systematize that so that our truck team members don’t fail. They don’t have to think about the little details. They know there is a system or a process, a 1-800-GOT-JUNK? way, if you will, to do things. I read the book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, and I was so inspired by this book.

[00:15:57:17 - 00:16:17:28] Brian Scudamore: For a guy that doesn’t read and can’t focus very well, very ADD and doesn’t do well in school, I read this book cover to cover in one sitting twice. What I learned was: build your business out like a franchise, no matter what the business is, to have a greater chance of succeeding because people don’t fail, systems do.

[00:16:18:00 - 00:16:46:26] Brian Scudamore: Now, a perfect example is, if a customer expects us to show up in a clean, shiny truck with friendly, uniformed drivers, to be on time, to have upfront rates. How do you systematize those things? How do you put together the practices where you recruit the right people? That’s a system. You train the right people? That is a system. Then you have operational systems to inspect what you expect, to make sure people are delivering to the customers what you have made promises on.

[00:16:46:29 - 00:17:07:23] Tony Chapman: I understand that. So how do you attract people within your world that are going to approach what you offer them with passion and pursuit, but at the same time, know that it is a system that is integral to the success of this brand, that we need to have a promise made and a promise kept, no matter where that truck shows up?

[00:17:07:25 - 00:17:29:02] Brian Scudamore: You can have amazing operating systems like McDonald's or like some top airlines in terms of their safety and how they maintain their planes. But if you don’t recruit the right people, if you don’t train those people the right way, the operating systems don’t matter. It really comes down to our hiring. We win "Best Company to Work For."

[00:17:29:04 - 00:17:51:11] Brian Scudamore: According to so many different contests and awards out there, The Great Places to Work Institute and so on, because we are really, really, really careful in finding the right people. It goes back to 1994, five years in, when I fired those 11 people. I learned that you can’t compromise. You can’t have just a bum in a seat. You have got to have the right person sitting there.

[00:17:51:14 - 00:18:11:22] Brian Scudamore: How do you interview for that? Something we do differently. People ask me all the time, how do you find such great people? I say, how do you find great friends? When people think about it that way, they don’t sit down with a resume in front of them of the friend that they are about to befriend and say, so what kind of beer do you drink?

[00:18:11:22 - 00:18:30:28] Brian Scudamore: What do you do for fun? You do not ask all these questions. You just get to know someone and find out what makes them tick. What do they value? You have shared common interests, and you talk about them, and you see if there’s a fit. It is the same thing as recruiting friends. You get out there with your potential people, and you get enough of your people to interview someone.

[00:18:30:28 - 00:18:53:11] Brian Scudamore: We take a lot of time interviewing the right people to ensure we have got it right, and we get together as a team. All the different people that interviewed that one potential employee. What do you think? What’d you like? Where’s the value alignment? We want a great diversity of opinions, of backgrounds, of opportunities and challenges someone might have.

[00:18:53:12 - 00:19:02:19] Brian Scudamore: We want people to come to the table and challenge the status quo, not just become a part of it. For us, that has proven to make all the difference in the world.

[00:19:02:21 - 00:19:27:08] Tony Chapman: You talk about your culture being your competitive moat. Are you surprised that others don’t realize the value that comes with taking the time to hire the right way, train the right way, and operate the right way? I mean, does that shock you that you continue to build a moat? You continue to build the strength of your business, and competitors saying, I could duplicate what you do, can’t, because they don’t understand the value you place in that.

[00:19:27:10 - 00:19:47:17] Brian Scudamore: It surprises me in that it’s so simple, it’s so easy. But people don’t take time, I think, to understand what’s most important. We have a rule that we say. People often say the customer is always right, the customer is king or queen in the relationship, and I beg to differ. I say, you know what? It is actually one step up from that.

[00:19:47:19 - 00:20:07:23] Brian Scudamore: It is our people that are the kings and queens of the relationship. We know that if we find the right people and treat them right, they will in turn find the right customers and treat them right. If the customers are treated right, then that makes everything else work in terms of the growth of your profits, your opportunity, your reputation, and so on.

[00:20:08:00 - 00:20:25:15] Brian Scudamore: So it really does matter the most. But I think you get people like I was five years into my business, not knowing any better, and just hiring who you could quickly to get them in the right seat because the business was growing and you needed help. But it isn’t just any help. It’s taking the time to find the right help.

[00:20:25:17 - 00:20:46:12] Brian Scudamore: I think companies have a responsibility, and I am not just talking a social responsibility to give back to the community and so on, but a responsibility to take care of and develop their people. We have an opportunity as leaders to make a difference in the lives of our people. Why not take advantage of that and not in a manipulative way?

[00:20:46:13 - 00:21:05:10] Brian Scudamore: Why not take advantage in leveraging that as your biggest tool to make your company a great business? When customers are happy because employees are happy, everything works like magic. It really is the secret sauce to creating a great business. Start with the right people. Treat them right. Don’t compromise.

[00:21:05:12 - 00:21:22:25] Tony Chapman: Speaking of secret sauce, talk to me about this special ingredient. Cameron Herold, who you talked often about helping you engineer your hypergrowth years. What was it about him that you said, “He deserves to be on my line” and at times even dictating the play?

[00:21:22:27 - 00:21:48:04] Brian Scudamore: I was the vision culture guy. I needed somebody to help balance that with the execution. As someone who is ADD like myself, I often suffer on the execution side. I just: here is another idea. Let us go try this. Cameron came in, and it was interesting because he really helped take us from $2 million in revenue to $106 million in revenue over seven years.

[00:21:48:10 - 00:22:11:06] Brian Scudamore: We were in the same Entrepreneur Organization forum group. He said he’d never work for me. Then one day there was a spark in his eye, and he came in and did some consulting and didn’t leave until seven years later. What Cameron and I did really well, we were a little nitroglycerin, sort of like so much energy coming together that after seven years it became dangerous.

[00:22:11:12 - 00:22:34:03] Brian Scudamore: We were still best of friends. Everything was great, but he was too similar to me. Fire, Ready, Aim! Type. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!. We moved too fast. It made me realize that Cameron and I are still great friends. We talked the other day, and it made me realize at the time, someone can be the right person for your business for a certain amount of time.

[00:22:34:03 - 00:22:51:22] Brian Scudamore: It doesn’t necessarily mean forever because as a company grows, there could come a day when I am no longer the right person for my own business. Now, I’ve got the founder hat. No one can ever take that away from me. But there are times where you go, how do I really have the skill to continue on, to take it to the next level?

[00:22:51:22 - 00:23:12:15] Brian Scudamore: We can’t afford to be, as leaders, the smartest person in the room. Otherwise, I think we are in the wrong room. Cameron would understand it as well as anyone else. He might not have understood it the day I let him go. But years later, when we patched up our friendship, he realized he got a great life out of what he learned and leveraged it into the speaking circuit.

[00:23:12:15 - 00:23:31:14] Brian Scudamore: He has written way more books than I have. It was one of those things where you go, hey, listen, we have got to take our situation and sometimes evolve and adapt based on the circumstances changing. What he led me to was Eric Church. It has been 14 years. Eric has taken us from $100 million to $700 million.

[00:23:31:15 - 00:23:43:01] Brian Scudamore: He will get beyond a billion. We are that two in a box, the yin and yang, working together that Cameron and I were close to, but not quite perfect.

[00:23:43:03 - 00:23:59:21] Tony Chapman: When we return, more from Brian Scudamore. Then my three takeaways, where I talk about people, willingness to fail, and Brian's painted picture.

[00:24:30:17 - 00:24:52:17] Brian Scudamore: Imagine big ideas like getting on The Oprah Winfrey Show or us getting on The Ellen DeGeneres Show or getting in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Tony Chapman Podcast. Come on, right? There are things out there that are big that you dream up. One day, when they happen, it is proof that dream big, and you never know where those ideas might lead to.

[00:24:52:20 - 00:25:07:17] Tony Chapman: Today, my special guest is Brian Scudamore, the kid that turned a $700 pickup into a $700 million empire. He shares more on what matters most, to what matters most to you.

[00:25:07:19 - 00:25:33:18] Tony Chapman: Now, somebody that works a lot with clients and their branding. What I was really impressed with is the time you took prices up 50%, and you positioned junk removal as a premium. Not only was it a bold move, it was very insightful, realizing that we were not just in the removal of junk: we were in the business of peace of mind, convenience, immediacy, and everything else that’s baked into your vision. Did that take a lot of courage on your part?

[00:25:33:18 - 00:25:43:24] Tony Chapman: More importantly, how hard was it to win over people that already bought into your dream, realizing that they now have to resell it and restage it as a much different product?

[00:25:43:25 - 00:26:05:20] Brian Scudamore: I think that people, our franchise partners in particular, and our people internally as employees, connected with a bigger purpose. They knew that this was something that was more emotional, that we were making space for possibilities. What does that garage become once the junk is gone? Maybe it is a place where a father and daughter train to run a triathlon.

[00:26:05:22 - 00:26:37:16] Brian Scudamore: Maybe you’ve taken a basement, and now it becomes a yoga studio. Maybe you take an attic and convert it to a place where you start a thriving business. People have these spaces that are jammed with junk: possibilities are just awaiting. I think when we help to get our employees and our franchise partners to understand what was really in our DNA, our bigger why of making space for possibility, but also making it so easy that people could just point, and their junk would disappear.

[00:26:37:18 - 00:26:59:08] Brian Scudamore: There was a level of professionalism and entertainment and peace of mind that our business would bring with this happy-to-help mentality, and we knew we were better. If we were going to bring in better people and have better systems that cost money, that amount of money meant we needed to invest in ourselves.

[00:26:59:08 - 00:27:10:19] Brian Scudamore: But where was that going to come from? Charging a higher rate to make sure that we could put ourselves in a position that was so much better than the competition could ever touch.

[00:27:10:22 - 00:27:19:18] Tony Chapman: So some of your philosophies, which I really like because they are memes, they’re easily shared that people can get behind. One of them is the vivid vision idea.

[00:27:19:20 - 00:27:37:24] Brian Scudamore: Yeah, I call it the painted picture. It is funny because Cameron wrote a book on it. He calls it The Vivid Vision, and it is a great book. Where this all came about was, I was a natural visionary. I could see the future, and I could create it in my mind, and then believe it to the point that it would happen.

[00:27:37:27 - 00:27:55:00] Brian Scudamore: Cameron one day said to me, he said, you know, I am not a visionary. That is Brian's job. I can’t even think in vision. I said, well, Cameron, that’s not true. You can. I sat him down and I said, so imagine you are going on a vacation, a dream vacation tomorrow. Where would you go? What does it look like?

[00:27:55:01 - 00:28:15:07] Brian Scudamore: Paint the picture for me. What are the sounds? You’ve got that Corona bottle in your hand. You are sitting on the beach. You feel the wind blowing through the palm trees. You’re with your girlfriend, your beautiful son. You are just loving life. You’re on this vacation. He created the picture with so much detail that he said, oh, wow, you’re right.

[00:28:15:12 - 00:28:36:21] Brian Scudamore: Anybody can envision something. It is dreaming about that vision in your mind of what the future could look like. You ask yourself, what if? What if we got on The Oprah Winfrey Show? Which we did. We set that vision and 14 months later it happened because we saw it first in our minds. We put it up on a big, can you imagine? wall!

[00:28:36:21 - 00:29:00:13] Brian Scudamore: While we were interviewed, I was interviewed on stage in front of Oprah, in front of 35 million people in one day. It was an incredible moment that helped to launch our brand into the hemisphere, into the world's mega-sphere of marketing. One of the things that I love most about that was it was an idea that everybody said, you can’t get yourself on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

[00:29:00:15 - 00:29:09:04] Brian Scudamore: We put it in our painted picture. One of my favorite quotes, Walt Disney said, "It is kind of fun to do the impossible." He’s right.

[00:29:09:06 - 00:29:30:25] Tony Chapman: I could see you embody this. What is also fascinating is you get your employees to write out their life dreams. How does that work within corporate culture? At times, their dreams might be as far removed from the day-to-day workload that they are into and something completely different. How does that manifest into something that adds value to their life, as well as the livelihood of the business?

[00:29:30:26 - 00:29:53:15] Brian Scudamore: We want people to be happy ultimately. I think that people have a stopover in the world of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. I’m talking to someone later today, Alana Smith, who was an employee of ours in our people department for years, a fantastic woman. She had a couple of kids. She came and left, came and left. Today she and I are going to be talking over Zoom about her business.

[00:29:53:15 - 00:30:24:16] Brian Scudamore: She’s created a business that she wants to promote to the world in natural foods, and she’s got these snacks that are incredibly healthy for little kids, babies, toddlers, and she has created a business out of it. When she told me she was leaving the business, of course she was a fantastic person, a great employee. I didn’t want to lose her, but to lose her to go chase her dream and start her own business, her products now showing up at Walmart and Loblaws and all over the place.

[00:30:24:16 - 00:30:31:14] Brian Scudamore: It makes us smile that we go, oh, we might have inspired another entrepreneur.

[00:30:31:14 - 00:30:47:00] Tony Chapman: Today entrepreneurs, everybody wants to be the next Zuckerberg, the billion-dollar dot-com. But you’ve turned ordinary into extraordinary: removal of junk, painting, house washing. What do you think a lot of entrepreneurs miss about the power of the ordinary?

[00:30:47:02 - 00:31:25:10] Brian Scudamore: I think there is a lot of opportunity in ordinary. I don’t know if entrepreneurs are missing it, or if we have just got a fondness for it. But the junk removal industry, when I started back looking at the pickup truck in the McDonald's drive-thru, it was an ordinary, boring, dirty business with no customer experience. What an opportunity! When we looked at the painting business, WOW One Day Painting where we can paint someone's home in a day versus the two weeks it takes to go in and out, or Shack Shine - window washing, house washing, gutter cleaning, house detailing, the industry we’ve created, also adding Christmas lights.

[00:31:25:15 - 00:31:48:23] Brian Scudamore: It has been a phenomenal business for us. It was born out of a very, very ordinary space. Entrepreneurs are trying to find a better way, and it could be using AI to find that better way. It could be finding a better culture and better people to get to a better way. It could be building a better mousetrap. There is always opportunity around us.

[00:31:48:25 - 00:32:10:01] Brian Scudamore: There are so many competing products. On my journey in the Dragon's Den, I am like, if I see another sports drink, kill me, you know? There are just all these different variations of sports drinks and who they serve and what’s in them. It is so competitive. But people continue to find a better way. Kudos to them.

[00:32:10:03 - 00:32:24:23] Tony Chapman: Are you still willing to fail when you have a $700 million business heading to $1 billion? Or does your appetite for risk change because the status quo is working so well for you, the operations, the systems, and how you are recruiting?

[00:32:24:26 - 00:32:45:17] Brian Scudamore: Am I willing to fail? Of course. Willing to fail means make some mistakes, run some tests, learn a ton. It doesn’t mean gamble the whole company. If someone said, hey, could you take that $700 million business and put it all on black? You might end up walking away with a $1.5 billion business.

[00:32:45:20 - 00:33:06:29] Brian Scudamore: To me, that would be foolish. What I mean by failing isn’t risking losing it all. Failing is, take a part of it and try something different. What part of the business do we need to reinvent and do better before the competition does it? What’s another form of service? We have been about full-service junk removal since we started the company.

[00:33:07:05 - 00:33:27:29] Brian Scudamore: Going into people's homes and taking the junk from a renovation or a spring cleaning and a one-off event. But what if we could have a regular ongoing subscription where people need to use us over and over for different things? What about reinventing the way people access our service? You know, there are the do-it-yourselfers.

[00:33:27:29 - 00:33:46:28] Brian Scudamore: There are people that do not want us to come in and do the full-service junk removal, but they still need junk removal, maybe at a different price point. How can we help them? So, willing to fail, let us go try some new things. Some will work, some will not. Hopefully, the ones that work are big enough that we can scale them, and it was all worth it in the end.

[00:33:46:28 - 00:33:55:11] Brian Scudamore: But that’s how entrepreneurs learn, is by stepping up and having the courage to fail. If we play it too safe, we’re not going to grow.

[00:33:55:13 - 00:34:09:08] Tony Chapman: You stepped into the den, you know, as a dragon, and immediately became very popular. I think the reason being is that your positivity and the advice that you bring and the encouragement. What have you learned about yourself being a dragon?

[00:34:09:14 - 00:34:31:18] Brian Scudamore: It has reminded me that I am a happy guy, with lots of words of encouragement, that I can find the good in anybody, and it might drive people nuts sometimes. Even the dragons, my fellow dragons, will say to me while we’re filming, they are like, don’t you ever see problems with anything? I guess it is just that glass-half-full type mentality, that there is always an opportunity.

[00:34:31:24 - 00:34:52:29] Brian Scudamore: People talk right now about the opportunity or the challenges of AI and how scary it is. Look at what it is going to do for modern medicine to make us even healthier and better and solve diseases in a quicker way. Look at social media and all the challenges that causes, but look at all the gifts and the businesses that have been started because of it.

[00:34:52:29 - 00:35:16:09] Brian Scudamore: So there is good and bad to everything. There are pros and cons, there are opportunities and challenges with anything, but it’s the people that step up that go, okay, what are the positive sides here? If someone was to encourage me like Brian might encourage someone else, what do I do differently? What if I saw a real positive angle behind something that was really challenging in the world?

[00:35:16:09 - 00:35:19:09] Brian Scudamore: The climate, politics? It doesn’t matter.

[00:35:19:11 - 00:35:41:14] Tony Chapman: A recent post I put up on LinkedIn talked about The Founders' Dilemma by Noam Wasserman. I am always curious, especially entrepreneurs like you that declare my attention span. Do you miss the days when you had to stand on that tightrope, and you weren’t sure if you were going to fall off or not, that every step you took was an important step?

[00:35:41:16 - 00:35:48:17] Tony Chapman: Or are you feeling now in this stage of your life? I am really happy the way the machine is going. I do not need to feel that again under my feet.

[00:35:48:20 - 00:36:11:00] Brian Scudamore: I don’t miss the days of having ten paychecks payable to Brian Scudamore in my desk, wrapped with a rubber band, waiting to be cashed. That was stress. That was a little too challenging. The days of like, will this opportunity pay off? Can we do this? Is this possible? How do we continue to follow up and make magic happen in this one opportunity area?

[00:36:11:02 - 00:36:43:22] Brian Scudamore: Those are still happening, and we get to do them every day. My role now, as I get older, I am in my mid-50s and loving life, the opportunity for my leadership is inspiring others in our business to get up on the tightrope, to take some risks and look down, to build some confidence and figure out how can they do something big for themselves and for others by taking some risks and being willing to fall off and fail on that tightrope.

[00:36:43:24 - 00:36:59:21] Brian Scudamore: I don’t want people to experience stress that is just out of control, and that certainly happened in my life in many situations. But being willing to fail is putting yourself out there to take some risks for the payoffs that could come from your boldness.

[00:36:59:24 - 00:37:10:04] Tony Chapman: Just before we got on the interview, you mentioned your three children, and I am curious what their relationship is with you compared to what you were with your dad.

[00:37:10:06 - 00:37:38:03] Brian Scudamore: I think I put a little less pressure on them school-wise because of what school meant to me. I want them to do their homework. I want them to enjoy the quality of the school experience and the quality of the work that they put in, but I have tried to teach them that school isn’t so much about learning just the material as it is learning how to socialize and interact with people and share an idea and talk about your passion.

[00:37:38:03 - 00:37:54:23] Brian Scudamore: There’s so much you can get out of it, but less pressure, and the pendulum might have swung too far. My dad had a good amount of attention on me for school and becoming someone in life, and maybe I don’t put enough on my kids. I don’t know, but so far it seems to be working.

[00:37:54:23 - 00:38:05:09] Brian Scudamore: I hope it does. What I want for my children is that they are happy and they feel fulfilled and that they have made a big difference in the world. To me, that is what really matters.

[00:38:05:11 - 00:38:27:09] Tony Chapman: Brian, I always end my Chatter That Matters with my three takeaways. I hope the listeners have others. But the first one I really focus on is people and how important people and relationships are to you. I go back to even the time your dad patted you on the back 15 years later when you won the Entrepreneur of the Year and said, I am proud of you.

[00:38:27:14 - 00:38:57:05] Tony Chapman: Although you both followed different paths in life, you both pursued being trailblazers, and I think it’s an important lesson for people to not judge people by their resume or their career or their journey in life, but by the values and the things that matter most to them. The second one really is this willingness to fail that has really defined a lot of what your organization is all about, even though you could say, well, you spent a lot of time in the ordinary, you do that in an extraordinary way.

[00:38:57:08 - 00:39:17:21] Tony Chapman: I think it’s because you are willing to take on legacy and status quo and find a better and build a better mousetrap. One again is defined by people and promise. The third one that I think is beautiful is this concept of the painted picture, and you talked about being on Oprah. She calls it The Secret, but manifesting your future.

[00:39:17:21 - 00:39:44:22] Tony Chapman: I love that even this, I paid $2,000, which back then must have been a lot of money to you, to get a logo designed before I even had the number. I think that those lessons in life are lessons that you can apply, whether you are choosing to be the next liver transplant surgeon in Canada like your dad was, or someone like you who just decides that the path that I am going to follow in life is a path that I want to define versus maybe what society defines for you.

[00:39:44:22 - 00:39:52:09] Tony Chapman: For all of that and more, I truly appreciate you taking the time, investing that time with us in Chatter That Matters.

[00:39:52:10 - 00:39:58:09] Brian Scudamore: Thank you, Tony. Thank you for asking me to be on your podcast. Amazing.

[00:39:58:11 - 00:40:05:25] Tony Chapman: Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter That Matters. It’s Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let’s chat soon.