Interview with Jack Ellison Founder of Clean Square

JACK ELLISON - SHOW NOTES - CLEANING PROCESSES WITH JERRY 

Summary

Given a choice, would you hoard information or share it with the rest of the world to grow together? Jack Ellison, Founder of the CleanSquare community and Vice President of Sales and Distribution at Cleanslate Group, joins the Cleaning Processes podcast today to get into why he would not and how he’s built his community solely to help business owners and people in the cleaning industry learn from each other unselfishly.

Jack got into this business about 25 years ago, starting with landscape architecture. Realizing he was making more money bartending part-time than through his full-time landscape architecture job, he decided to get into real estate management and gradually got into property management. He then gained interest in the supplier side. He formed a company called SiteStuff Inc., which he ran for five years before venturing into various senior sales and distribution roles in companies. CleanSquare is his passion project – a dedicated community that aims to help people help one another – that birthed out a pesky problem: some people had all the knowledge but were unwilling to share it with others. Jack sincerely believes that it’s every knowledgeable person’s responsibility, no matter the professional roles they’ve undertaken, to share the wealth of expertise and information they’ve gathered with those who would benefit from it. It is like-minded folks that make his community a true success!

In today’s episode, he talks about the importance of knowledge-sharing, networking, education, and collective growth, sharing valuable insights from his professional journey to connect with you. He also shares tips to succeed in the real estate industry despite market fluctuations, like those brought in due to the coronavirus pandemic. Do not forget to tune in!

Highlights:

●        Jack’s experience as an entrepreneur with SiteStuff and how he led the business from million-dollar monthly losses to a $100 million empire in 5 years.

●        Cleansq’s mission: Create a community that’s always open to giving each other feedback, helping with questions, and, basically, sharing knowledge wholeheartedly. CleanSquare is designed to be an unselfish knowledge-exchange community.

●        Lessons on management and distribution.

●        Networking and the power of the community.

●        Jack’s experience at the ISSA show.

●        Why Jack believes industries will be better prepared for any unprecedented changes worldwide if they happen, taking note of the lessons from the pandemic.

About Jack

Jack Ellison is the Founder of the CleanSquare community and Vice President of Sales and Distribution at Cleanslate.

Connect with Jack

Website: Cleansq.com

Email: jack.ellison@cleansq.com

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cleanjack/

Connect with Us

Website: https://www.podpage.com/cleaning-processes-with-jerry/

Different Sites Below
https://direct.me/jerrybauer

Jerry Bauer
Hospitality Cleaning 101
Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com

Transcript

PODCAST INTRO: Hi, and welcome to “Clean Processes with Jerry”. This podcast is number 90 and is dedicated like the others to building an online community of like-minded individuals and businesses in the chemical and cleaning industry. We are going to share ideas, tips, solutions, and stories to solve problems and expand our markets. Please join me every other week, when we will frequently introduce a special guest that just might be you. I work for ChemStation of Boston as a Senior Sales Consultant. I also write the blog, Hospitality Cleaning 101. If you ever have questions, feel free to reach out. And I will answer on a future podcast if you like. At the shows end, I will include my contact information as well as my guest. 

Jerry Bauer:Today, we have Jack Ellison of CleanSquare, who has many of the same qualities and ideas of building an online community. I know you'll love this show. Jack, are you here with me today? 

Jack Ellison: I'm here, Jerry. Thank you. 

Jerry Bauer:Well, now I actually see you because we are as well on Zoom. Jack, thanks for joining me today. You and I came across a couple months ago, that me starting the podcast, you have something that you started out actually a lot sooner than that call CleanSquare. But we're gonna get that into a minute or so. Jack, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started this whole journey that somehow we all are in the same time?

Jack Ellison: Yeah, I find this business, Jerry, again, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to be on your podcast. I discovered it a couple of months ago and I've been following you ever since. And it's very unique, the people that you start to bump into as you start to really explore kind of the new era with social media and all this thing. And finally, J and Sam, folks are getting into this to this. So it's kind of exciting to kind of see the different personalities come out. And you're one of those. So thank you for hanging out. But I got into this business about 25 years ago, I was in property management study of all things landscape architecture and I got out of school, I was making more money bartending part time then going into landscape architecture. And I decided to kind of get into real estate management. For Real Estate Management, I kind of took a curve about three or four years into that because I believe saw the vendors but I thought I think they were at the time we were making really the place to make the money, make the opportunity. And it was better than sitting in an office 12 hours a day and you're out and about shaking things up in the field. And I got into property management and I love that. But I really saw the supplier base really got interested in the supplier side because it's just that they could go different locations and meet with different people and that of all things back in 2000s led to a .com startup. This was before .com were really taken off. And we formed a company out of Austin, Texas, I'm a Texas boy originally lived in the northeast, we formed a company called Site Stuff. And if you've been around the industry for a while, the Site Stuff is a company that pulled together property managers across the United States and said, why are you buying as if you're one property here, one property there, why not buy as your entire portfolio and that's really the group buying within the property management's really started. And I got into that and loved it, it was very crazy. We went from zero sales, I think we were losing a million dollars a month when I started to the .com and went to about 100 million within five years. So just some crazy growth, the whole technology piece was interesting. And we were building a shopping list. I know that sounds very foreign and how you can go in and build a shopping list and how to order things. But we have built a shopping list back in 2000, which was cutting edge back then, which is kind of funny to think and quite honestly internet was still cutting edge. Most properties didn't have the internet back in 2000, which was really crazy. But I bumped around there after leaving there after it's kind of the growth curve and spark and chemical family shortly thereafter. And I worked for 12 years as Spartan as a divisional manager overseeing the Northeast and the Caribbean and people go “How do you oversee the Northeast and the Caribbean?” And I think Spartan is a good group of guys and they joked about I was probably the least likely to get arrested in the Caribbean. So that's how I got assigned the Caribbean growth down there. But I wrote that for 12 years and had a great time was not looking to leave that but I've kids and they were getting older and I was doing about 200 nights a year on the road and I decided to stay local and went to work for EDP supply which was recently acquired by Imperial Date. So that's kind of the short story of how I got in the business.

Jerry Bauer:Wow. Going back just saying now, I had to share this because I owe this person. Even though he's passed. I owe them his due diligence, because you’re making me reminding me of this. [Inaudible 00:05:00] the year 2005. And I think that might have been before that was before in Facebook, I believe that was even before Myspace, though, I worked for a gentleman who started a website called esoap.com And he started getting the same thing you and I are working on together, like-minded people to join in, he got people to join, and he got advertisers and everything. But he assumed he asked, he worked for David Feldman with myself. And then when we got bought out, I think he passed shortly after that. But , some people just see this years and years, much further than you and I, because some days, I'm late to the party, but then this party, and I think the one that you and I are enjoying right now, we are on the very beginning of this building an online community. So can you talk a little bit about CleanSquare, what you're trying to develop here?

Jack Ellison: Yeah, so this is a passion project. We joked early for our pre call, we joked about I'm kind of personality, I think you're the same way that we have our what we do for a living, but we always need some little something to kind of keep us balanced. And, for me, it's my kids, and this CleanSquare project. And again, CleanSquare, it's a website. But what it is, is basically the frustration and the problem I see within the industry of Janssen side is there's all this wealth of knowledge, you and I've never met you in my 20 plus years. But I build this community, and I kind of put it out there and all sudden, you said to me, I gravitated to you. And now we're here up to date. We're here today, but there's a lot of knowledge out there. And there's a lot of good people that want to share what they know, I found through this project, and I'll show a screenshot in a second. But I found that this project that there are certain people in this business that want to hoard everything they have, the knowledge and they're not willing to share it. And I think that's a bad approach to how we approach the market. Because the average age of this industry is probably, I'm close to 53, I've got imagine the average age is somewhere in that early 50s. And I think that the responsibility of us that have been in the business for a while is to pass along some of that knowledge to both people getting into the business, whether it be distributor reps, whether it be end user customers, whether it be contractors starting business up, but share that wealth of knowledge that we have for them, that hopefully we can strike a connection with. And that's the whole premise of CleanSquares is. It’s not for money, it's not for me to go out there and say, hey, look what I created, but it's more so for my passion, my love of the industry that I can bring and see a community together to say, let's come together and let's share some information. Let's get some contexts, not only on a local level, but hell out. Jerry, I'm meeting people across the world now. I've met some people in France, I've met some people down in South America, and I'm starting to network with these people. And like everything in this business, you learn from others. And I'm learning a lot of how people do business and how they operate in other markets, what their problems are just by creating this little community. And the short of it is it's nothing more than a website with a different spaces. And I can show you a screenshot of what this thing looks like, if you don't mind.

Jerry Bauer:Certainly. 

Jack Ellison: And I'll share this here. But basically, this is you gotta cleansq.com, what you will see is just basically a community and it's like any other LinkedIn, it's like Facebook groups. But what this allows me to and what I'm building out here is what this allows me to do is, I might be able to put spaces in, if you go to LinkedIn, which I think is great, if you go to Facebook, which I think is great. People come and they just kind of regurgitate, here's my problem. And maybe some people will give feedback to it. And that problem just kind of filters down further and further. And it's within a week, there's 20 other things above it will be advertising, whether it be another problem or by hey, here's a thought. And what this allows us to do is people to come in and basically talk about nothing but cleaning in the whole business of cleaning. I don't care if you're a distributor, if you're an end user, if you're a manufacturer, but you can come into the space. And there's all these different spaces you have here in the far left that we can put buckets. So as people have questions, it's not just going into a general funnel and being redressed, we can actually put it into these different spaces. And those different spaces are like a reservoir or a library, if you will, that people can come into you says, I'm really not interested in this product reviews, but I would like to see a supplier directory. I would like to see, who are some of the suppliers out there, or I'd like to come in and see what's going on with autonomous equipment and basically take that specific need just you have to learn or share something with it. So that's the whole premise. And again, LinkedIn is great, Facebook's great, but I don't know if you're like me or others like me, but I go to LinkedIn. I'm focused on networking with someone within the jam space. And next thing I know, I'm looking at a puppy dog running across the railroad tracks not to get by train. So those are the things I really want to keep a focused, I guess synergy on the business of cleaning.

Jerry Bauer:And I'm also sad, a guy joined three or four months, I don't get spam, where people just trying to sell me stuff. I mean, we’re getting a little on again with that. But I guess that's hard to control. And also, you can control this a lot better. So I really like it. I like the idea of you doing it. It's you talked about our title clean. By doing this, you've been able to meet many people. It was the same reason I started the podcast was to show others how we can come together, how we can share information. And this week I had a guy a person called me out in Dallas, Texas, and I listen to this, I fortunate about this. It just drove me to doubt that someone's listening. Someone's asking questions, someone's helping me. He then explained to me what he did for a living. Of course, then I had about four questions. At the end of the day, I had more questions for him that he had for me. But it's a way to stay fresh in the industry, because something that I hear, something I've talked about, I can use in a sales presentation, or helping out a customer or brand. So I congratulate you on it. Now is the ratio you have now is it mainly manufacturers, is mainly Janssen, is it mainly raps, or is it too early to tell how it's shifting out?

Jack Ellison: It's probably too early, it's kind of I've been working on for about a year in all hours afternoon, 5-9 job if you will, my 5-9 project and 5pm to 9pm but it's gaining traction. We'll be at ISISA show next week with, we'll be handing out some cars to have people join. What I'm really looking for is 1000 core. And this is not for everybody. But I want to make that clear, I'm not looking from just people come to kick the tires. The website is really for the community for lack of a better word, the community is really for people who want to learn and want to give knowledge out and again, I've had people say, “Well, I want to protect my knowledge, because I don't want to give that up to competitors”. So when you go to a trade show, don't you? You go to a trade show and you're sitting right next to your competitors, they're walking by, they're hearing what you're saying, it's not that private. At the end of the day, do they like you? Do they like your product? And do they trust you in that relationship bond? That's how it happens. It's not because they heard, you have a better technique to finish a floor. It's about more than that. But right now what I'm seeing is a healthy mix of end users, I would say it's a third, third, third, I'm having manufacturers, distributors and end users. And that's the intent, create this form that those three entities can come together. And this is the one interesting thing that I've been thinking about as I'm looking at this, as I'm having conversations with people who are on the community is you think about a manufacturer and I didn't learn this from a manufacturer when I worked for Spartan, I didn't understand this fully when I went to work for EDP supply in the sales management position. I realized all of a sudden that these manufacturers within the Janssen space, there's easily counted over 1000 manufacturers that they have given some product or some service to the Janssen industry, what you should do now, what I do now. But if you think about the math on this, EBP had around 250 core suppliers. Of those 250 core suppliers that each came out with on average two to three new products a year. So do the math on that, 250 times three is 750. How many days are in a year? 364, you'd have to introduce two new products every single day and it's just impossible. So when you use the kind of the three lines, you've got the manufacturers, you got the end users, and you got the distributors in the middle. If you've got that many products being launched being pushed into distribution, how many of those products are actually making it to the end user? And more importantly, is that message from the manufacturer to the end user? Is it very clear and precise? Is it the right message feeding happened? It's not in part of what I'm going to look to do with CleanSquare is trying to help manufacturers, distributors, and end users better understand those products because if I'm a property owner or property manager, I want to look at something like autonomous robot scrubbers, I now have a place that I can go to and say, it's not me looking for the manufacturers, I can go to one spot, click on one space within the website and say, here's what I need to know about that. And there'll be experts within that, whether it be again manufacturers or distributors, experts that are there to network with and hopefully grow that business.

Jerry Bauer:So, can I guess a manufacturer of a floor care company, would they then foot up YouTube links on Myspace? So I mean to go to see some of the stuff?

Jack Ellison: Absolutely. And again, I don't want to create a feel like you're being sold, because like you said LinkedIn feels like I'm being solicited five times a day now on LinkedIn. And I think it's more if you come there network, if a sale comes out of that, that's great. But what I don't want to happen on the website is the next thing it becomes a big bulletin board. But if you could come there, and you just say, Here's my problem, and you have multiple manufacturers or one manufacturer that comes there and says, I can solve that or one distributor says, I can solve that, and a network is made and a connection is made, I think I've accomplished my goal. And again, it's just a big task. I was told by several industry leaders that you're taking on a task that ISSA can't solve. I think the Luxor I have that ISSA doesn't have as I filtered. I don't mean that disrespectfully, but ISSA has to make sure that they're keeping everyone happy. At the end of the day, I'm trying to keep the people that are part of my community happy and not everyone do I want in the community, when I say I'll have the right to unnecessarily sell authoritative, but I'm not looking for people just there to come there and try to pitch their goods, I want them to give as much as they take.

Jerry Bauer:Have you had to go out and the only word I can think of is workman, if you had to tell anybody within your community this is what we're built it for? 

Jack Ellison: Not yet. I wish you had that problem. Because I think that's when you get to that level of a Facebook type of problem, but not yet. And everyone's been respectful. I think everyone understands it. But in the day, you or me or sales folks, you got manufacturing or sales folks you got end users who are looking to spend money that's going to be those kind of little bit nudge-nudge, but I think at the end of the day is at some point, I'll have a community manager that I'll hire that will kind of keep everyone in check. But at the end of the day, if everyone can come out and say, it's more positive than negative then I think I'll be okay with that.

Jerry Bauer:Now how has, this is off CleanSquare for a second, or it might be incompetence side, you'll have so many. Coming out of COVID, and you've worked in the industry for many years, what have you seen as the biggest change coming out of COVID? Do you think that, what's your opinion of the whole thing? Do you think we're destined to fail again? Or do you think people are listening or I always liked people to give there two cents worth?

Jack Ellison: I think, I'll be optimistic for humanity. There's less the old saying, I hate people, but I love humanity or encounters like that. And I get frustrated with people sometimes because it's funny, I made the comics to Clorox, one of my friends there, Jeff, who's a senior guy within Clorox. I made the comment that their new slogan should have been during COVID. I told you so, because we've been all messaging, this is coming, this is coming, you need to have these processes in place, these products in place, these procedures in place. And when it came, it was as you know we were just busier than we've ever been in our entire life. I was slightly jealous of a lot of my friends who were kind of just laying low, staying at home and not working too, too hard, but I probably made more money during that time. I think I had more fun during that time. I was more frustrated during that time, but it made me a better person as far as a professional. But I think we'll come back, we'll get lazy again like everything else and we'll come back and hit us. But I think part of our responsibility is to continue to wave the flag, continue to educate folks and I think if we do that, I don't think it will be as bad as it was this time because I think a lot of philosophies on business supply chain are changing very drastically and I think you're going to see much, I wouldn't say a much better reaction but I think you'll see us do a better job when let's call it a COVID 2.0 whatever the bug of the month maybe, so that's my thoughts.

Jerry Bauer:So I understand and I agree with you. I hold that one too much of a loaded question I asked that question, because I shaved my head, my deep down pinion changes every day. But going to the ISSA show I'm glad to hear you're going, I went last year, they were just come out of COVID. It was very good not a lot of people know many people were not there what I am saying that people the traffic, there were many vendors from Schneider. Unfortunately, I can't go in this year. Is there anything specific you're looking for an ISSA? Are you looking for anything new on the horizon? Are you there primarily for claim square and meet some new people?

Jack Ellison: No, I'll be there with my employer and 95% of what we doing my current employer. Now this is a little side venture, side passion project with CleanSquare. I'll be there with my current employer CleanSquar which we focus on laundry and were washed chemicals for the long term living facilities. My favorite thing though ISSA to say, I love seeing people there, I love I know a lot of people through my time there so I love kind of reconnecting with those and getting a handshake and saying “Hello” and “Good to see you again”. But my favorite thing, Jerry, is I've got a little secret and I probably shouldn't share this but get badges where I can sneak in before the show starts. And my favorite thing is on Thursday before the show ends is get there about two hours before you're actually allowed to get in. And I shouldn't be saying this, but I do. And I walked the perimeter. And the perimeter is where the up and coming things are, you'll see the big houses like the GP, the Casey's, the Go Joe's, they'll have some innovation, and they'll have the big booths. But I like to see what's on the fringe because those are the guys with a 10/10 booth that are that can probably be spending enough money to get there. But most of them don't have a good idea. But some of these guys have some next level thinking going on. And I like to kind of see those before they hit the Wall Street really full force.

Jerry Bauer:Well, I didn't know that was going to be your answer, because I went last year and I did the exact same thing. And I don't remember the specifics of how I got in early, but I did and it was great. Now I will tell you that I went for work. Last year, however, I had two pockets. I had one pocket full of business cards, I was at another pocket that I was introducing this podcast, because at that time I said coming soon, that time I was trying to recruit people to be guests and things like that. So I'm glad to hear you're doing it for both sides work as well. So what's the best way to get a hold of you, or would it be to go to CleanSquare to sign up? And there is no cost?

Jack Ellison: No, there's no cost. No cost whatsoever. It's a community, I'll ask you to register but it's CleanSquare cleansq.com. It's open 24/7 days a week. So it's no charge. But I've asked you to come in and take a look at it. And again if you're looking to learn but also give. My big thing right now in the cards I'll handle it I say is I'm looking for 1000 thought leaders, not 1000 people looking to kick the tires, not 1000 people just looking to take not give, but 1000 thought leaders not only within the United States, but across the country, across the world that really have a passion. And again, I think I'm crazy for having a passion you probably think you sometimes what the hell I get excited about cleaning and people look at me when you're starting up because I'm starting to clean podcast as well. In this website, we're going to about cleaning. I don't think people realize that cleaning is, I think I heard a number of the day was a $10 billion industry. It’s a $10 billion industry and the surprised about as we all think we're experts because guess what we clean our home, we clean a little bit of work, we see cleaners, we recommend what's clean, what's not. So we all think we're experts, because it's a $10 billion industry. And we've got manufacturers, no disrespect to people putting magazines, but people, they spend $100 of $1,000 a year within our industry for magazine articles, and you don't get you but I look at that magazine, once I lay it down, maybe I make a mental note. But I think the biggest thing I could have on this podcast and I again, I really appreciate you having me on here is if I can find 1000 people that truly would come to the website and say, “You Know what, I'm gonna sign up and there's a top right, there's a little logo says sign up”, we ask for your email address and kind of just your name and that's it. If we can get 1000 people sign up, and then I call it like the church, if you can do one posting once a month or once a week, either ask a question or say, “Hey, listen, I've got some expertise in this” and start trying to build some connections, I think 1000 will go to 5000. I think 5000 will go to 10,000 very quickly. And the interesting part is the ISSA website or the LinkedIn Community on ISSA, which is getting just kind of a funnel of just stuff coming in, no sorting, no kind of networking, if you would, I think they have maybe around 40,000. And I'm looking at the whole country I'm going there's more than 40,000 people that are in this business, whether you're again, a manufacturer or distributor or end user. And I think part of that reason they don't have more than 40 is just we're still a little bit on the leading edge of low technology. But I think this next generation comes we're coming in see the importance of networking. But if I can get 1000 people to come in and really contribute to, adding something to it, learning something from it, networking, I think this thing will take off. And I think a year or two years from now, people will come back and say you know what, that's a tool I use a few times a week to kind of better myself as a professional within the space.

Jerry Bauer:Well, I think you do half the job. It's not convenient, and good luck with the podcast. It’s not competing with me. We're working actually side by side. It's kind of years ago, of course we put it in a restaurant. And I forget where I've heard his story more than once and I know it's true. Backwards, on restaurant and then another person decided they were going to put a restaurant across the street and everybody got scared. So that's gonna make the first place go out of business. Well, “No”, again, the first place doubled. They both did well, because it attracted people, more people got attracted to each other. So I wish you all the walk in the world. I love the idea what you're doing. You probably beat me to the punch but I would have never been able to figure out the website because I'm still having a tough times trying to figure out my microphone here.

Jack Ellison: Yeah. Well, the interesting thing I'll put on there too, if you sign up you'll have access to and this is what's interesting. Again, we talked about a $10 billion industry. I've been actively looking for people like you that are putting content out there. Content meaning a podcast, either audio, video, both, and I think I've only identified about 10 or 15 people who are doing it. So for us, those 10 or 15 people surely be and myself were kind of blazing the way a little bit within our space. We're a little bit behind as far as gaming websites and gaming kind of podcast. But as far as the Jameson history, we're the ones with a machete kind of blazing that path. And even the guys that ISSA are doing a good job. I think his name is Mr. Krause. He's doing a great job as well. But I think collectively, the 10 or 15 of us, there's going to be probably within the next three or four years, probably 50 plus, but I think there's enough space and enough room within this industry to have that level of content being pumped out. Because we're never going to stop cleaning, I think it's going to improve. Its robotics come down, we're going to shift direction of how we even look at the industry. So what does that change look like?

Jerry Bauer:Mostly fine. There's very few people doing this. If you do what web search, look up cleaning podcasts, there's not a handful that may divide. And I've been a lot of it's not that I'm trying to be them. I'm trying to learn from them, just to steal some of their ideas and stuff like that. But I think we both are doing great job. So I appreciate you joining me today, and good luck with ISSA, and we'll both continue doing the content.

Jack Ellison: Well, thank you much. And I definitely want once I get my podcast started out, I want to have you as a guest as well. So

Jerry Bauer:Thank you. And again, the best place someone to get a hold of you is to send out a link or an email directly to through the website.

Jack Ellison: Yeah, it's jack@cleansquare.com or sign up and there's a chat feature in there. You can find me that way as well, but www.cleansq.com. So thank you, Jerry.

Jerry Bauer:I appreciate you have a great day and fantastic weekend. 

Jack Ellison: You too, sir. Thank you. 

Jerry Bauer:Thank you. 

Jack Ellison: That was great. 

PODCAST OUTRO: And I thank Jack, very much for joining me today. So wish to thank you each of the listeners for joining as we're slowly adding subscribers to our show. Currently we are in most podcast apps and now including iTunes. If you have time, please rate, and like our show and share any of our episodes. If you ever have any questions concerning this podcast or others, don't hesitate to contact me at Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com Have a great day. Continue to wash your hands for 20 seconds and stay safe.