Play Podcast  (Right click to download)

Turn on the Dr. Phil Show and you'll see the 1-800-GOT-JUNK people removing four tons of clutter from a packrat's house. Since the company's inception in 1989, 1-800-GOT-JUNK has hauled away more than one million truckloads of weird stuff, including 18,000 cans of expired sardines. One of the fastest growing companies in North America, the company has more than 260 franchise locations in 38 United States, four Canadian provinces, and parts of Australia and the United Kingdom.

Originally known as The Rubbish Boys, the company was rebranded in 1998 as 1-800-GOT-JUNK to take advantage of its new, e-commerce business model called Junknet. The Rubbish Boys began as a no-tech company in 1989 when Brian Scudamore, fresh out of high school, bought himself an old pick up truck and invested $700 in the business. His goal was to become the FEDEX of junk removal. The company is on target to do $100 million this year.

Developed from scratch, the Web-based JunkNet does three things: handles all of the booking and dispatching tasks of franchisees' customer calls, acts as the central repository for customers' personal information and histories, and manages company accounting functions.

The company has won numerous business and humanitarian awards, including the Fortune Small Business's Best Bosses Award, B.C. Business Magazine's Best Company To Work For Award, Profit 100's Canada's Fast Growing Companies Award, and Entrepreneur's Fortune 500.

Resources

1800GOTJUNK Web site

Bio

One of the principle architects to this explosive brand, Cameron G. Herold joined 1-800-GOT-JUNK in December 2000. As chief operating officer, Cameron has brought a wealth of experience to the leadership team. Prior to his arrival at the "Junktion," Cameron was employed by Ubarter.com, a division of Network Commerce (NASD: NWKC) in Seattle, Washington, as vice president of corporate development; as president of Barter Business Exchange in Vancouver, British Columbia; and as vice president of franchise development for Coast to Coast Franchise Services (Boyd Autobody & Glass). In these positions, Cameron was involved in the sale, branding and integration of 120+ franchise locations, development and deployment of e-commerce and Internet strategies, negotiation of corporate acquisitions and development of numerous strategic partnerships.

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer