David Degroff from Always On Call Labor joins the Restoration Rundown podcast.
Podcast Date: Friday, October 27th
Time: 9:00 AM (EST)
Where: Youtube and LinkedIn Live
David: Well, Always On Call is a restoration industry specific labor provider. All I know is restoration and that’s what my guys go do every day of the week. I started back as a helper in 2004. For a company out of Fort Myers and the hurricane Charlie hit back then. That was my first exposure to anything storm related, anything to restoration labor.
It was kind of fly by your shorts and figure out how to get it done. It was during that time I was handed a laptop and said, this is exactimate. This is how you draw a wall, figure it out. And then the guy left.
Ben: Getting you thrown right in the fire.
David: That’s it. So from there, I ended up with my own build back company a couple of years later because I had, you know, a background in construction and building and I was the redheaded stepchild.
Nobody wanted to go deal with that. So I put my hand up and before I knew it, I had my own company doing that for a little while. You I had struggles with business partners there, so that didn’t work out too well long term. And I ended up getting hired on by another company to start their Build Back division.
And I did so well that within six months they had an interested investment group that wanted us to expand to Orlando. And they put me in charge of that and I spearheaded the expansion and was running the division before long in Orlando. That was around 2009, 2012, almost 10 years in the industry.
I found myself getting burned out, not wanting to be on call, not wanting to earn the same dollar over and over and over again. And I quit. Or I tried to quit. Tried to get away from the industry. I spent a year building a brewery in Orlando, broken strings, it’s still there. It’s over by the soccer stadium and as that was wrapping up, one of my former employees who is now running another company, he called me up.
He said, hey, listen, I need some help. I just landed a big hospital job. I got to look good. I can’t have day labor because they’re not going to do it for me. I said, what do you need from me? He said, send me some of your guys that know what I’m doing that are willing to work for me. And that was how it started.
It was just a couple of guys here and there. And I was like, wow, look, I just made 400 this month doing that thing. And it was pretty crazy. Never would have thought it took on a life of its own and became its own business, but I had to stop everything else. I was doing kind on the side and put all my attention towards this and we grew. At least 100 percent every year that we’ve been in business, up to this year.
So, we’re now a multi million dollar organization. We’ve had upwards of 300 people live on the ground. We had an opportunity at 600. We have the people, but we weren’t able to find, lodging that worked for both ourselves and the clients at the time. So, but after about eight years of doing this, I have, we’ve got a roster of over a thousand people that we feel like we could confidently mobilize in any given situation.
About Always On Call Labor:
We help you be more profitable. We help you solve your labor issues. We help you take jobs of all sizes. We are short term supplemental labor.
https://www.alwaysoncall.info/
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Benjamin Ricciardi is the founder of Ironclad Restoration Marketing, A digital marketing agency that specializes in the Restoration and Cleaning industry based in South Florida. Benjamin is the author of The No Bulls**t Guide to Internet Marketing for Restoration Contractors and hosts The Restoration Rundown Podcast, a podcast that is focused on everything related to marketing and owning a Restoration and Cleaning Business. Connect with Benjamin and Ironclad Restoration Marketing on social media for the latest tips and tricks on how to grow your Restoration Business.