The Secrets of Septic Success: Insights from Caleb Ingram, founder and CEO of Iron-Vac

Pete: 00:00:17

Hello and welcome to Get Flushed. I'm Pete.

Before I begin today's episode, I've got a special mention for Damon Powell and the team at FMC Advisors who made a generous donation to support the show last week.

in June: 2022

Damon will be joining me again for another episode soon, but in the meantime I'd like to thank him for his donation which has covered the hosting fee for the show for the next 12 months. I'll put a link to episode 81 in the notes. Today's episode features Caleb Ingram, the owner and founder of Ironvac over in Arkansas.

Caleb actually began his career as a hospital administrator before starting his own business as a septic pumper in his mid-20s.

After he sold that business, he found a niche buying and refitting second hand trucks and in little more than seven years, IronVac has grown into a major player in the industry. Caleb talks about his role as a CEO, his relationship with his team, and the joy he gets from seeing his employees grow and succeed.

We talked about the ideal setup for a sanitation truck for anyone coming into the industry. And towards the end of the chat, Caleb makes an unbelievably generous announcement about a vacuum truck giveaway that you really don't want to miss.

Before I play the interview, I'd like to apologise for the fact that we had some trouble with the audio on this one.

The microphone that Caleb had planned to use didn't quite work as we hoped and because he's based in a working factory, there was a little bit of background noise and some echo. I've done my very best to improve the sound, but I'll be honest, it's not as good as I would have liked.

We did talk about recording the episode again, but the content is too good not to share and I don't know if we could capture the same energy again without it sounding rehearsed. I hope the audio quality doesn't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

Pete: 00:02:11

So I'm delighted today to welcome Caleb Ingram, the founder and owner of IonVac. Caleb, welcome to Get Flushed Pete.

Caleb: 00:02:18

Thanks for having me, man.

Pete: 00:02:19

It's lovely to see you and have you on the show. I'll begin with a shout out to members of your team who've made this possible.

Riley and Ray really do appreciate their help in getting you in the hot seat today, so well done them.

Absolutely so Caleb Ironvac is described as one of the leading manufacturers and dealers of vacuum tanks and vacuum trucks in the us A fairly sizable operation, I gather.

Caleb: 00:02:43

ferent states. As of April of: 2024

We had a central Arkansas location that was kind of the motherhead. And then we had a central northern Illinois location that was kind of a satellite location for us.

And all of that was well and good, but it just made sense when we had an opportunity to acquire a bigger facility in central Arkansas to go ahead and consolidate and shift down the team members that wanted to, as well as our leadership team that was up there and just go under one roof. It just felt like it made things a little bit easier for us for production and sales and shipping.

Pete: 00:03:25

So is that a purpose built facility or was it an existing unit?

Caleb: 00:03:29

It was an existing facility, but oddly enough, it used to be an equipment sales building in the 70s and then it just changed hands a few times. And I'd always had it on my radar just based off of location. And I finally convinced the owner about two years after I contacted him.

I finally convinced him to sell it to me.

Made a transaction with him last year and was able to remodel and upgrade and update the facility as well as bring in gas lines and heat for our commercial painting and increase the electricity so that we could upgrade our machines and shift some machines down from Illinois. So now it's extremely purpose built for what it is.

Pete: 00:04:08

So on site you do absolutely everything from start to finish of the production process?

Caleb: 00:04:13

That is correct, yeah. So we source the chassis both new and used. We get allocations from the factory level on new trucks and then on used chassis.

We started out as a used truck dealer, so it's a game that we completely understand and it allows us to continue to be in that market. I would say the majority of our market as a whole is a used buyer. That's something we understand, we take pride in. That's where we started.

And so it's kind of the backbone of what we do. It just so happens that we also understand the new market extremely well. And so we do both. And so that allows us to build our own tanks.

Whether it's low carbon or stainless steel or polished aluminum, we can do all of that here, as well as the painting and the priming and all the prep, all the fabrication and the add ons. And then we add it to the chassis. We build the bumpers, we create everything, inlets, everything you can think of for a septic truck.

We either currently do or have done or in the process of doing. It is exciting to have completely insourced our entire company.

Pete: 00:05:17

How many employees are you running with at the moment, Caleb?

Caleb: 00:05:20

We are probably around that 40 range if I had to guess right at the moment. Of course, sadly enough it kind of fluctuates depending on who's the only one in the shop.

You know, sometimes there's a little bit of a turnover there depending on the department. We were as high as 58 and as low as, you know, 39. It's just depending on the year I guess.

Pete: 00:05:41

All permanent employees or do you bring in seasonal contract workers when you have those peak demand periods?

Caleb: 00:05:47

It's all permanent for us. Everybody is here on site. We used to do a little bit of remote work, but that didn't make as much sense either. And so everybody's on site now.

Pete: 00:05:57

And have you got some long term stayers, people who've been with you since the very beginning?

Caleb: 00:06:01

Oh yeah, since I started just as a one man shop, I've had several guys. Since I've only been doing this seven years, they've been here almost six years. So that's, that's a big deal.

You know, before I even had employees, they came on and stuck with me.

And then as we've gone through the acquisition process with a couple of competitors, we have picked up employees from them that were there 20, 25 years that are now with us. And so we kind of constitute them as I would say, somewhat grandfathered into the system.

And so some of our guys have been building tanks for, you know, three decades.

Pete: 00:06:35

There's huge amount of experience within the company by the sounds of it.

Caleb: 00:06:39

Yeah, absolutely.

Pete: 00:06:40

Well, maybe come back and talk about the company. But I'm very keen to hear your story in that. I know that you began originally as.

Pete: 00:06:46

A suction truck operator.

Caleb: 00:06:48

Oddly enough, it starts before that. I actually have a bachelor's degree in hospital management which is something I most certainly hated doing, sadly enough. I did that for a few years.

I also went back to school and got a master's degree in business administration. And I hated the corporate healthcare world.

And I had a friend that was in the construction business and I was talking to him about how much I hated my job and where I was at in life. And he said, man, you ought to look at getting a septic truck and just let me send you some referrals. And so one thing led to the next.

I was like, you know what, I'm just going to take this Jump. I absolutely hate what I do. I'm not making any money. My wife's pregnant, she's in school. I was like, I've got to do something.

I think I was like 26 at the time. And this was probably. Well, this was almost 12 years ago. I said, you know, I hate this. So I bought a truck sight unseen out of Buffalo, New York.

And it was a used, worn out, septic truck. And I thought, well, this will be good. And the guy wrecked it right in front of my house right before it showed up.

And so he wrecked it at the stoplight. And so I'd already quit my job and I paid for the truck and I'm making a note payable on the truck plus interest.

And I was like, man, this is, this is worst case scenario. So the truck sat in the shop for three months because it essentially totaled the front end of that truck and it was thousands of dollars.

So in the meantime, I had to get on Craigslist, find another truck, got it licensed, temporarily started pumping and was going door to door just trying to figure out what is a septic tank. Who needs septic pumping? Who are the big players? This was the North Houston, Texas area of the United States.

And I thought, well, I'm either going to starve or I'm going to make it big. And I just kind of stayed in it as long as I could. And I would tell my wife, I said, look, I have no plan for today.

I do not know how I'm going to make money, but I will not come home until I've pumped at least one septic tank. She'd say, well, good luck. And so I would leave the house early in the morning and try and find somebody that needed a septic tank pumped out.

And eventually one thing led to the next and I was able to get in with some people who could see me work. I was able to get in with some more referral resources. I picked up some construction contracts for portable toilets.

And within a 15 month period, I had five trucks and I was doing, I don't know, maybe 140 jobs a month on average with my three drivers. And so septic pumping fit me really well. We grew extremely fast. And I loved it. I loved everything about it.

I just felt like pumping septic tanks was just living the dream. It's liquid white, so it's not glamorous. People don't instinctively flock to it. And for me, I just felt at home.

You know, it was kind of a mix between blue collar, like, okay, this is almost a skill Trade, but you have to have a business mind to do it.

And I kind of came from the business world and I thought, well, I can count well enough and I can budget well enough to where I could feel like I could find a profit in here. And I was able to do that. And I started making more money pumping septic tanks than I had ever made in my life doing anything.

It just fit me like a glove. I just really took a lot of pride in it. I took a pride in my community and my trucks and my drivers. And it felt good.

I just felt more alive doing that than anything I've ever done.

Pete: 00:10:14

I'm blown away by that and I'm not especially surprised because I've spoken to a lot of people and I felt myself, you get almost like a buzz off it once you're in there and hands on, pumping away. I don't think people understand that.

Caleb: 00:10:26

That's exactly right. Especially if you felt like a failure.

You know, if you feel like everything you've done has not given you any life, giving you any energy or giving you any meaning, but all of a sudden you find a rhythm where it's like, hey, you know, this is not a glamorous thing. People laugh at it. You say, what do you do? I'll pop subjects. They're like, oh, you know, I'm sorry to hear that.

You know, I'm kind of laughing the whole time because I'm like, you know, I'm making really good money and as long as you don't want to do it, that means I have the opportunity to do it. And so I felt a lot of pride in. I had more energy than I ever had. And I was kind of carving my own path and becoming my own man.

And my wife got to see that in me, my family as well. And so it was what I needed at the time because I was kind of a loser and didn't have anything going on.

I wanted to be somebody, but didn't know how to be and didn't know what it took and learned a lot of it the hard way just by being in it and having never done it. Is really expensive learning curve, both monetarily, physically, mentally, but it was fantastic.

And my goal was always to move to Arkansas, where my wife's family is from. And I had a friend who really wanted to buy my company from me.

And so it made sense at the time for me to sell him my pumping business and move to Arkansas. So within a two year period we had built and sold a pumping business and moved to Arkansas.

So when I got to Arkansas, I started another pumping company because that's, you know, what I knew how to do. And I got humbled really quick. Pete. The north Houston market afforded me access to about 5 million people.

And the entire state of Arkansas only has about 3 million. But the county I live in only has about 80,000.

And so it was a very humbling experience for me to move from a big market to essentially a no market economy and try and make it doing the same thing. And so I realized, wow, I cannot make it here, like, I made it there. So I had to adjust my mind. And I was doing pumping again.

I was back in the truck. I didn't have drivers because I wasn't getting a lot of business.

I started completely over and I was renting a little house, and the house was just a nightmare, covered in mice and had snakes everywhere. I had a young daughter, my wife had just finished school, were trying to carve out a new path and actually brought two trucks from Texas with me.

I said, I'm going to sell one of the trucks. I don't need a backup truck. I don't have enough business. So I went to sell my backup truck.

I ended up selling it for more money than I had bought it for a few years before that. And I hadn't really done a lot to it. I did repaint the tank. Now tell my life. Something tells me that I can do this.

And I think that I'm smart enough to source chassis, healthy chassis, and I just need to find somebody who can build me tanks and pumps. And then I think I could find a way to sell septic trucks. And so she said, well, okay, let's just try that.

So I was still pumping and I found a guy, ironically, in the town that I live in, who actually built septic tanks. Four septic trucks.

Pete: 00:13:40

That's fate.

Caleb: 00:13:41

Yeah, it was unbelievable. Yeah, I just felt extremely blessed by that. And so I reached out to him, I said, hey, we need to talk. I need tanks. I'm going to build trucks.

I'm going to do this. And he said, okay, sounds good, but, you know, I have no interest in selling you any of my tanks. And I was like, well, why not?

He's like, well, I don't really take you serious. You know, I don't know you from anybody. I don't think you really have any money. So it kind of hurt my feelings.

So we went back and forth for a couple months and finally convinced them to sell me a tank. And then the next thing you know, he had built me, 36 tanks. And I put them on 36 trucks.

Pete: 00:14:19

Sold all 36.

Caleb: 00:14:20

They sold all 36 of them? Yeah, all over the country yesterday. And I thought, hmm, this is something. So I started looking for investing.

Pete: 00:14:30

What were you doing to reach the market, Caleb? How did you let people know you had those trucks available?

Caleb: 00:14:34

For the most part, Pete. I was on Craigslist, which was just kind of insane. It didn't make any sense. But people were finding trucks on Craigslist.

And so I was marketing on there and I would cold call companies and say, do you need a septic truck? And you know, they'd hang up on me or they'd say, you know what, I don't, but just send me what you have.

So I said, I sent them a list and they'd go through it. And I was learning a lot, you know, in a new market again. And eventually I said, I've got to grow. So I found an investor and he helped me grow.

And then we grew again and again. And eventually I was able to buy out the tank company that originally helped me get started.

And so that was a perfect marriage for me and the older gentleman, Ron, who owned the company at the time. That really made me happy. I think it made him and his family happy. It was kind of a passing of the torch. I was able to acquire them.

Of course, I was already building my own tanks. I had no idea how to do that. So I was rolling tanks on the ground by hand in my shop and I was my only employee. And then I hired my brother.

He came up here and helped me.

Then we hired another guy, and then we hired another guy, and then we bought out that tank company and then we hired another guy and then we bought out another tank company in Illinois, expanded our facilities, expanded our offering in sourced again and then bought out another building and then expanded it and increased what we were doing, increased our machines, our capabilities, and then moved again and Consolidated sold our Illinois branch. And so now we're here and we're on a 10 acre facility. We operate like 34,000 square feet.

And sadly and ironically and from a blessing standpoint as well, we still outsource some of our truck activity because we don't have enough space again in our current building to even begin to do everything that we've always done. And so that's all a response to growth and it's fantastic.

So probably in the future, not too distant in the future, we'll add on to the building again and add some more cranes and just attack it because we've been able to pick up some fleet contracts in our retail sales and our custom work still continues to grow. It has just been a unique ride, Pete. I never expected really to do what we're doing or create the kind of demand that we've created.

Personally, I feel like God's had a big hand in it and it's just been extremely fun to watch. I've loved watching the young men that have come up with me kind of turned into mature men.

I've had a lot of guys in their early 20s start with me and now they're closing in on 30, 31, 32. And watching them develop as young men and professionals has just been super exciting.

And I've watched them in their financial situations change as a result of their hard work. And I've watched their families grow and I've watched them grow in their maturity and it's just been fantastic.

I'm not an overly older guy myself, so I've grown with them and I've been grateful for that.

And we have several older gentlemen that work with us that really help us on the wisdom side of things and how to think about our industry and how to treat people and how to grow. And that's just been phenomenal.

Pete: 00:17:57

I'm amazed that it's all happened in seven years, Caleb. That's such a short span.

Caleb: 00:18:02

Yeah. Thank you very much.

Pete: 00:18:03

An incredible journey. I'm exhausted just hearing seven years.

Caleb: 00:18:08

Yeah. Thank you very much, man.

Pete: 00:18:10

I've got to ask, what do you do to unwind? Because that sounds like it's full on 24 7.

Caleb: 00:18:14

Oh, it is 24 7. And it's. You know, when you're self employed, everybody thinks what you have all the time and the energy and the freedom and the money.

Do whatever you want. It's just not the case. But I spend a lot of time with my family.

I have a ranch here in Arkansas and I do a little bit of ranching and I do a lot of hunting and a lot of fishing. I'm a doer, I guess I'm always moving. I always think my mind never turns off. It's kind of a double edged sword. It's good for business.

It's not fantastic personally because you're up all night thinking about things. I just constantly turned on and I very rarely turn off.

And so a lot of my extracurricular revolves around getting outside, even getting away from people to some extent. And I don't mean that in a negative light.

Pete: 00:19:01

No, I totally understand that.

Caleb: 00:19:03

I kind of disappear into God's nature and I Get on the river and I get out in the woods. I hunt deer and turkeys and I fish and I just hunt a lot of ducks here in the delta of Arkansas. And all of that is just super regenerating for me.

It really keeps me in line.

Pete: 00:19:18

The two things that come out just talking to you now, and we've not spoken before today, the first is that you've got a very clear sense of personal values, and that's been really common in the interviews I've done for this part of the show. Max and Joe Shelton, you've all got very clear personal values and you've put those beliefs into action.

The second thing that comes from that is that you've really shared that with other people. It's not been about you. You know, you've brought other people with you and you've helped other people to grow and mature and learn.

And that's just phenomenal that you've been able to do that in such a sharing and giving way. So hats off to you for that and sincerely, I mean that.

Caleb: 00:19:58

I appreciate that, Pete. I appreciate the good words.

Pete: 00:20:01

Business can be pretty cutthroat sometimes, but I certainly don't get that impression.

And certainly talking to your team, you've got an incredibly loyal and supportive crew around you, which I think must make a huge difference in the business world.

Caleb: 00:20:14

Oh, it's huge. It's just been kind of phenomenal for me. I didn't expect that much loyalty from people, and I don't mean that crudely.

They seen something that they like here, and that has taught me a lot about how we treat people.

We put a lot of emphasis on our culture, and for the most part, we all kind of enjoy the same things and we try and include everybody and we try and celebrate each other's birthdays and births of their children and, you know, anything that's going on or if someone's got a funeral in the family, we try and really pay our condolences and be a little family. You know, I always tell the guys, it's just us. You can say, well, this is our business, it's Ironvac, but we are the business. I am the head of it.

And so this is kind of like my little second family here. And I love everybody that's on my team and they're kind of all hand selected. And my sales guys have been phenomenal.

Pete: 00:21:03

Joe, I was going to ask about your recruitment process. How do you make sure you've found the right people for the business?

Caleb: 00:21:08

I've never been a great picker of Knowing exactly. Okay, have I picked out the greatest candidate here?

I go off of a hunch, and it sounds ridiculous to some degree, but I'm like, man, what do I see in you that I feel like is a core value and does it align with my culture here? Like, Riley is somewhat new to our team. He's sitting here with me.

We picked him up to do marketing and IT in SEO management for us and website development. I never met Riley until he came in here and plot well. I don't have to know a lot about him to know a lot about him.

I see how he presents, and I see I can get a sense of who he is just by talking with him and his values and where he comes from. And they very much align with most of the people on our team. And so I said, hey, you know, you're a younger guy. I don't.

I don't know your marketing background, everything, but let's try this, man. I mean, worst case scenario doesn't pan out. It either you don't do a good job, or I don't agree with what you're doing and we do something else.

But so far, he's done a fantastic job. Now, I don't always get it right. I've gotten it wrong a lot.

But I try and find young, hungry men and women that have a desire or hunger for achievement, which is one of our core values. And if I see that, I try and get a hold of them early and say, hey, look, you can do something here.

You know, if this is something you want to do, the sky's the limit with your department, you know, because there's no one else in it. And so my CFO is a really young guy. My vice president of operations is a young guy. And sometimes we catch heat from that.

You know, in our industry, it's. It's somewhat saturated with older gentlemen. And most of the time, they think they know everything. And I'm not.

I'm not slamming them, because they do. The thing is, they know everything, and they're very hard to compete with, but they very much have undermined a group of young, hungry men.

And I'm not saying that to even speak ill of them. It's just we've carved out a niche in the industry by being so young and being so hungry.

And my salesmen especially, they just want it really, really bad. And I love that. We don't always get it right. I'll be the first to tell you, we don't always get it right.

Sometimes we can't deliver on the Things that we promised or we built a truck that needed some attention. And so we try and make it right. That's a core value with us too. If we can't get it right, we're going to try and make it right.

It's manufacturing, so it's all over the board. Everybody does invest, but we try really, really hard and we're excited about being the youngest player in the industry.

Pete: 00:23:40

There's probably a good point just to cast an eye across the wider vacuum and sanitation tank manufacturing industry in the U.S. is it a very big market, Caleb, or is there just one or two companies that tend to dominate?

Caleb: 00:23:52

It is a very large market that is a little bit of a wild west. There's some small players and then there's some giant players.

There's a lot of mom pop players and then there's some really big companies that have a big footprint that everyone has always bought from.

But in the liquid waste sanitation department of like what we do, the septic or Greece or Portican, there are some really large players but there's only a handful of them.

And then there are several medium duty market sized companies and then there's even more number of small mom pop shops that are building 30 trucks a year or 30 tanks a year and selling them wholesale. From what I can gather, Pete, within our network of vendors we are considered top 10 in the United States for what we do.

Specifically we own septictrucks.com and so we are nothing more than septic trucks. That's who we are. That's what we do. We're closing in on 30 septic truck sales just this month.

It doesn't sound like a whole lot, I guess if you average that out.

Pete: 00:25:00

No, it's one a day though.

Caleb: 00:25:01

Yeah, that's. Yeah, that one a day especially we use October's numbers and so very few companies doing that in the United States.

However, the big guys will do much more than that.

So there are some direct players that we compete with that do 5, 6, 7, 800 trucks a year and we'll probably never be on that level because of the capital intensity that it takes to get there. It's not really something that I want to pursue. I want to be really good at what we do, but I don't want to try and do it a million times.

I love the customer focus. I love the one on one attention. We've kind of found a rhythm with our number and we want to be really good in that space.

Pete: 00:25:43

Well, that's fair enough. When you mentioned earlier about the Bulk of the sales go on to use chassis. Is there a reason for that? Is it a price driven decision, do you think?

Caleb: 00:25:57

Yeah. So as we started out, I could not get access to new chassis. So it was the only market that I understood.

It was the only market that I could compete in. I was not afforded an allocation at the factory level. That came from years and years of grinding and, you know, networking.

When you don't have any money and you're just a broke 30 year old kid trying to make it, very few people take you serious. So that's where we started. And so it was something that we couldn't get away from even if we wanted to.

ed into new trucks I think in: 2019

We could not even source used chassis at, you know, 200% of the original cost that we bought. The price went up 300%. It was insane. We could not access the chassis. I said, well, we have to pivot in a new truck.

And my team looked at me and they said, well, we've never sold a new truck. And I said, well, today's the day I called Peterbilt. We ordered 45 new chassis.

w that we would have survived: 2020

Now we're at a point where we have allocations at the factory level with Mac, Peterbilt International, Dodge Freightliner, Ford. Anything that you can think of that is sourced in the United States, we're able to get access to.

Pete: 00:27:22

That in itself is a huge achievement. You know, seven years in and you've gone from a standing start. Well, worse than a standing start because you lost your first truck on delivery.

Caleb: 00:27:32

Right.

Pete: 00:27:33

You've gone from that point to having factory allocations with all of those manufacturers. That's incredible, man.

Caleb: 00:27:39

Yeah, thank you.

And we've been to the factories and we've met with the manufacturers and we've toured all the factories that we can tour, I guess, including the engine factories and the transmission factories. They seem to really appreciate us and our business. And of course it's highly reciprocated. Without them, we wouldn't have any product.

And so it's been a wonderful marriage with our dealer group.

Pete: 00:28:00

Is there one make or model a truck that pumpers prefer over anything else?

Caleb: 00:28:05

If I could pick, if I could say, man, what's it going to be just based off of all the trucks that I've run through my own little pumping businesses and the ones I sell.

I'm going to be biased and I hope that my other manufacturers don't necessarily hear this, but I'm going to pick, I'm going to pick a Peterbilt every time. I believe firmly in the history of the, of the brand. I have run Peterbilts myself. I've had 389s, 348s, 335s and there's something about them.

I mean, Paccar owns both Kenworth and Peterbilt. You know, I've run Kenworths in my personal fleet and had good success with them, especially my pre emission Kenworths.

But I'm going to choose a Peterbilt just personally. Now that being said, we sell more Macs MD6, MD7 than we do anything else. And I think this month alone we've sold 12 of them.

And that is a bread and butter truck for the small septic comfort. And that's kind of who we were and kind of how we started. And that's what we know.

And so Mac has put out a really good product as well as international on the single axle level. But if you're going to go tandem axle, I'm going to choose a Peterbilt548.

And mainly because Mac doesn't offer just a heavy class 7 baby 8 in the tandem world. They offer a heavy spec like a Granite, which is nice and we sell a lot of those.

But I'm going to choose a Peterbilt548 if I'm going to start my next pumping business. That's what the truck is that I would choose.

Pete: 00:29:37

I think you're allowed to have a personal favorite and that in no way diminishes the value or the reliability of any of those other vehicles. Vehicles. It's just, you know, that you as Caleb prefer Peterbilt. That's cool, man. You're allowed to do that.

The one question I've been thinking about all week, knowing that we were going to talk today is is there a world's best design for a septic truck or does it really depend on the position and the location and the budget? What's the best spec that you could configure?

Caleb: 00:30:07

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. I do not discredit these guys from not wanting to spend a lot of money and going cheap. I mean, I'm a septic pumper, that's what I did.

And I was the cheapest of the cheap. I was going to try and make my own tools, you know, I'm always going to be that cheap guy.

truck. I'm going to locate a: 2006

And I'm going to look for a Cummins, you know, and try and roll with that. And I'm going to put a steel tank on there every time. And I build aluminum and I build stainless frequently.

But if you're going to have to ask me Caleb, what would you do? What is the bread and butter man? It's going to be a pre emission single axle pier build.

Pete: 00:31:06

With a steel tank?

Caleb: 00:31:07

Yeah, with a steel tank. And I just can't get away from carbon in my mind. I started with carbon, hence the name iron in the name Iron Vac.

I mean I was only selling steel tanks. I couldn't get access to aluminum. So steel has always been close to my heart. And the strength is there, the longevity, how we build them.

I can build a steel tank Pete that a lot less than aluminum tank or stainless tank. I have that much confidence in it. I love the weight distribution of steel.

do that, I'm going to build a: 2500

orrectly, you're going to get: 1500

I'm going to buy a pre emission single axle Peterbilt 335 and I'm doing a brand new 2,500 gallon steel tank. And I'm going to say to myself, okay, I'm going to pump three or four tanks a day in this. I'm going to start a business and support my family.

Pete: 00:32:13

Yeah, no, it all makes sense. In the portable toilet market a lot of operators have gone to sliding tanks where they put them on a smaller truck, maybe an F150.

Are you doing any of that work?

Caleb: 00:32:25

, Dodge Ram: 5500

And we kind of start in that: 1200

It wasn't as lucrative for us and we could not really compete on volume with the gas you're producing hundreds of those and hundreds. And so we said we're going to stick with what we know.

And most of the time we get humbled when we get outside of our lane, when we go right back to what we know.

Pete: 00:33:09

Well, stick to the knitting. That's what they always say.

Caleb: 00:33:11

Yeah, that's right.

Pete: 00:33:12

Yeah, definitely. You do some really cool social media stuff as well.

Caleb, is that reflection of the age of the company, that young employees and everyone's comfortable and familiar with the world of TikTok and Insta?

Caleb: 00:33:24

That's exactly right. And seeing how the majority of our market was kind of aging in terms of providers, they haven't had the need for social media.

They had such a network and a long standing history of business that they didn't need to play social media. Well, I didn't know how to break into the market so I needed to play social media. And so we've done that as strong as we can.

And most certainly, like you said, our younger men here and our younger women understand technology better than anyone. But we don't have the long standing history of being able to get in with the companies that have bought from us for 20, 30 years.

We haven't been around that long. And so in order to get the word out quickly, we had to really understand how to play the social media game.

And to the best of my knowledge, we do it very well, especially compared to our competition.

Pete: 00:34:16

Oh, you do. It puts a very human face to the company.

It makes you really approachable, shows you humor because, you know, there's usually a few gags or just some things that make you smile when you watch those reels.

Caleb: 00:34:27

Yeah. Thank you.

Pete: 00:34:28

You do all of that in house on your iPhones, dear?

Caleb: 00:34:31

That's right. We do it all in house and we always have. We've never outsourced any of it.

We did outsource the production of a company wide video last year, fall of last year, and a friend of ours, Matt Walton, produced that and that was fantastic. And so we've kind of fed off of his knowledge and learn to do some other things.

Pete: 00:34:50

But even your customer testimonials and truck of the week and things like that, that's a really effective way to show everybody what you do and how you do it. It works really well.

Caleb: 00:35:01

Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, we take pride in that.

Pete: 00:35:04

In fact, you've really nailed that. You've totally grasped the value and the concept and you know, the marketing world nowadays is very different to what it was 20, 30 years ago.

Caleb: 00:35:14

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And as you know, Pete, just in the podcast world, even the word podcast is foreign to a lot of the generations before it's the boomer generation, especially like my father's generation. Five years ago, he wouldn't have never known what the word podcast was. Blogging, nothing like that, social media, Facebook.

He wouldn't have understood it if someone hadn't mentioned it to him.

And so I do think there's some hesitancy there or I don't know, a false idea of the value of a podcast or YouTube videos or something where they say, well, I can't understand that that would bring any value to me. I'm old school, I don't need to do that, you know, those kind of things. And that's fine if it works for you, keep doing it.

For us, we wanted to really attack it because we felt like that's where our users were.

Pete: 00:36:01

What's the average age of your customers? Is there a profile that you've noticed, a demographic that you sell to?

Caleb: 00:36:07

It has seemed to me just in the last seven years that I have seen kind of all the age ranges from the guy who's 21 years old and just wants to start his company to, you know, an 82 year old man who's like, hey, I'm going to buy this truck. It'll be the last truck I ever buy.

And so you have that mom pop type situations or plumbing company that says, hey, I'm going to add this truck to my offering because I'm tired of outsourcing this.

On average, I would say most of them are middle aged or they are on the retail side or the custom shop, it's usually first or second generation septic pumper and it typically goes to that mid-30s to late-30s year old guy. Now on the fleet side, those are larger companies that, you know, order multiple trucks a month.

I'm not really exactly sure how old those guys are, but most of the time they're leasing those trucks out anyway and I don't know who they lease them to 100%. But most of our market, Pete, I would assume to be in that early middle age bracket.

Pete: 00:37:05

Do you know, I think it's really encouraging that there are so many younger people coming into the industry. Your story just reflects the fact that you can really make this work.

And it just needs a hard work, dedication, a few long hours, you know, without a doubt long hours.

But people see that and I don't know that there are many other industries where you can go from zero to a really influential position, position with industry within seven years. I can't imagine it happening unless you're Elon Musk and you can throw millions of dollars at things, right?

Caleb: 00:37:32

Yeah, you got to start with money. And that's one thing I didn't do. I didn't start with any money.

In some weird reality speed I probably could have my family had a little bit of money, but I tried not to request any money from them. It was really important to me to be self made, even if it was going to be harder. I just wanted to write my own story.

And so we probably could have grown faster or bigger maybe with some help, but I don't know, just something about it, man, I just, I really wanted to be my own person. I didn't want to take any handouts or promises or anything like that. I just wanted to figure it out on my own.

Pete: 00:38:07

Yeah, well, it sounds like you've done that. You had news of a competition or a giveaway that you wanted to share.

Caleb: 00:38:12

Yeah, yeah, I've got it right here. So what I'm trying to do, Pete, is I'm trying to look at who we are as a company. Who am I as a person? Where is my value? What's my legacy going to be?

I mean, if I believe in this community of people, like how much do I believe in them? What did septic pumping do for me? And so from a philanthropic piece, this is the part of our business that I get excited about.

These are the things that really challenge me and help me grow as a person.

I'm at a point where at work where my team really takes care of me on day to day operations and I'm able to delegate out a lot of my responsibilities. And so I'm trying to be the creative visionary for the company and keep that track going.

And one of the most fun things that I can think about doing is giving a pump truck away to somebody who a is kind of on the last leg with their truck or somebody who's somewhat extremely deserving. They've been in the industry for a long time. Their family recognizes them as a hardworking person.

And they just, they said, look, I want to enter my uncle John. And it's competition because he really needs a new truck and he's not going to take the time to go buy one or spec one out.

He just really needs one and he's really deserving. Well, that gets me excited. I mean, I would have killed for some help in the beginning with a healthy truck.

And having experienced an unhealthy truck right out of the gate, it's always been near to my heart to say, you know, what if I could give somebody a leg up? What if they could just not experience what I experienced and just have a little bit of peace in it?

So we were going to build a brand new septic truck on a used chassis, and we're going to source it with a new pto, new tank, new pump, new bumper, new everything.

We're going to completely service the truck, check it over, replace the brakes, adjust the clutch, replace the clutch, it feeds the clutch, go through the whole thing and try and create a $100,000 truck. And then our goal is to give it away.

We wanted to be able to fill out a giveaway [email protected] and be able to submit that, or do submit a short video telling us about who your business is or why you could use a new truck or what does your current pump truck look like? And just create some awareness about our company, but also let people know that, hey, look, we are septic trucks. We build these.

We love the people that buy from us. We want to give back to the people that buy from us.

And so if it's a guy that's starting his own business, branching off from his parents, an older man that can just really use a new truck, we just thought it'd be a lot of fun to do this and to get excited about, especially in the fourth quarter. And then we want to do it every year. It's something that we really want to announce in the fourth quarter of every year.

And then, lord willing, will announce a winner on December 23rd of each year and hopefully give that truck before the end of the year. And that way, the first of the year, somebody can be ready to rock with a new pump truck.

Pete: 00:41:09

That's incredible. It really is. And testament to you and your team for having the willingness to play it forwards. I'm blown away by that offer.

It's absolutely incredible. So people can enter that by visiting septictrucks.com that's right.

Caleb: 00:41:24

Septic trucks.com and there'll be a giveaway link there and you can submit and, you know, put your video, do a testimonial, whatever you want to do. And then we will siphon through them and figure out, hey, okay, this person is really deserving of this.

And then we'll announce the winner December 23rd.

Pete: 00:41:41

Hopefully it'll be a Get Flush listener who's heard this podcast.

Caleb: 00:41:44

Yeah, man, absolutely.

Pete: 00:41:46

And they jump onto the septictrucks.com website and have a look. They're either nominated or they nominate themselves.

That would be a tremendous follow on episode for me to come and do, and I'd love to be part of that story and share the tale of the winner and follow the journey of that truck as it goes into service with its new owner.

Caleb: 00:42:04

Yeah, fantastic. That'd be wonderful, Pete.

Pete: 00:42:07

Yeah, that's amazing, man. That's a hugely generous offer and one which I think a lot of people will set up and start to take notice of. Iron Batman.

Caleb: 00:42:15

Yeah, thank you.

Pete: 00:42:16

That's really cool. It really is. I'll put links in the notes for the show so people can visit septictrucks.com and find the giveaway.

Caleb: 00:42:24

Absolutely. And Pete, I really appreciate you letting us be on the show. I mean, it's fantastic. It's the first podcast we've ever done and it makes me happy.

I get excited about this world and so I love your enthusiasm. And, man, you have been a blessing and a joy to visit with Pete.

Pete: 00:42:39

I appreciate you just listening to you talk about your manufacturing process. I'd love to come and do an on site visit and just see things firsthand.

Caleb: 00:42:46

Oh, Pete, that'd be fantastic, man. We'd love for you to come see us and show you around, man. I really appreciate that.

Pete: 00:42:52

Well, excellent. Maybe 20, 25, we can make that happen.

Caleb: 00:42:55

That'd be fantastic, man. Lord willing, we'll be here.

Pete: 00:42:58

Well, thanks for your time, Caleb. I really appreciated that, really enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Caleb: 00:43:04

Thanks a lot, Pete. Thanks for having us. And y'all have a wonderful week.

Pete: 00:43:11

Every once in a while you meet.

Pete: 00:43:13

Someone who makes a really positive impression on you. My interview with Caleb was one of those occasions.

I finished the conversation with a huge smile on my face and I felt that I'd made a friend for life. Now that you've heard the chat, I hope you feel the same way. I think you can hear from my voice that I was literally stuck for words.

When Caleb told me about the truck giveaway, it's an unbelievably generous offer. That truck will be worth $100,000, and he plans to do it every year.

The competition is restricted to residents of the United States, but you can find full details of how to enter by visiting septictrucks.com I'll put a link at the top of the notes for this episode.

If you're looking to set out as a septic pump on your own, or you're looking to grow your business, or you know someone in the industry who really deserves that prize, fill out the nomination form and make sure you mention Get Flushed. Keep your fingers crossed, and who knows, perhaps we'll both be celebrating your win on December 23rd.

Before I go, I'd like to say I'm always looking for new guests to appear on the show. It doesn't matter if you're a business owner like Caleb, a driver, a fleet manager, a new entrant, or a longtime pumper.

I'd love to share your story on Get Flushed. Recording is free, and technical glitches aside, it's usually a very easy process.

All you need to do is visit GetFlushed online booking to reserve a slot to chat.

Once again, thank you to Caleb, Riley, Ray and the rest of the team at IonVac for making this episode happen, thank you to Damon for the support, and thank you for your time. I've been Pete and you've been listening to Get Flushed, the world's favourite sanitation podcast.