Career Path Of An Owner At A Cleaning Company
Sean's career path began with entrepreneurial ventures as a child, like selling soda at school, then evolved through various sales roles, including an oil change sales job where Sean learned about "sales and about discipline and cold calling". This culminated in taking over the operations of a cleaning company, transforming it from a sole proprietorship to a thriving business, ultimately leading to Sean becoming the Owner and CEO of Cleantech Inc.
Entrepreneurship, Sales, Business Development, Leadership, Small Business
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Sean Meer
Owner, CEO
Cleantech Inc.
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
Finance
Consulting & Related Professional Services, Real Estate
Sales and Client Management
Scholarship Recipient, Greek Life Member, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Early Entrepreneurial Ventures: Showed initiative from a young age by buying and reselling soda to schoolmates, demonstrating an early understanding of business and profit margins.
2. Sales and Cold Calling Experience: Gained valuable experience in sales and cold calling while working at Cadillac, which taught him discipline and communication skills.
3. Unexpected Opportunity: A phone call during his senior year led to an opportunity to grow a cleaning company, which ultimately led him to become an owner and CEO, demonstrating that career paths can be unpredictable.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Please include any internships or jobs you had before your current role.
Absolutely. It's been an interesting career path. As a kid, I was always looking for ways to make money.
Both my parents went to work when it was dark out, and it was my responsibility to get myself to school from the age of 10 or 11 onwards. On my way to school, I would stop at the grocery store and buy three 12-packs of soda for the bulk discount. I'd take them to school and sell them for a dollar apiece. It cost about $8 to $12 for the three 12-packs, and I would come home with $36.
I did that until I got in trouble and couldn't do it anymore. I also used to go out and wash decks at a local medical center. That wasn't exactly paid work; the owner of a cleaning company would take me to his family's diner next door. They'd give me a cheeseburger and french fries, or whatever it was, in exchange for me doing a little bit of work.
I also washed windows. My first proper job, where I had to clock in, was as a dishwasher at that diner. After that, I went off to Arizona State. I was the first generation in my family to go to college, and I thought I was going to make my family proud.
I was getting my degree in finance and planned to go into investment banking to make a lot of money and make the family proud. I did everything I needed to do. Over summers, I got jobs I felt would set me up for interviews or give me a better chance of getting one of those jobs.
It started with me working in the car business in various sales roles. My first job was working for Cadillac, selling oil changes. I was paid minimum wage, and got $7 for every oil change customer that showed up. That taught me a lot about sales, discipline, and cold calling, as I had to make a hundred calls a day. After that, I sold cars and then worked for Rocket Mortgage in a mortgage banking internship, which was also a sales role.
At the end of school, I was trying to set myself up to work in New York in banking. Then I got a phone call from that cleaning company that I'd worked with when I was a kid. They asked if I could help grow their cleaning company. This was during my senior year, in the spring semester. I said, "Yeah, I can grow a cleaning company, sure."
So, I grew it really, really fast remotely from ASU, adding a lot of business, specifically with Chick-fil-A for six-night-a-week cleaning. This wasn't initially a cleaning business; the owner was doing most of the work himself, so he was like a sole proprietor. I basically grew it and grew it and grew it, and worked him out of a job.
Then I told him I was going to start my own cleaning company. I offered him two options: either I start my own, or he could be a minority shareholder in it, and we could transfer over all the assets of the old company. So, I came into a hometown small business, grew it, and then took over the operations, finance, accounting, sales, HR, data systems – everything you can think of. I just kept growing and kept working. That's pretty much how I became the owner of a cleaning company.