It’s a rare case in which a first-gen commercial pavement sweeping business owner has spent virtually his entire career in professional roles within the industry. Such is the unique story of Adam Jakes, Owner and President, Quality Sweeping Service, in metro Minneapolis. Through the past 17 years, Jakes has grown his business on a slate of services including sweeping, pressure washing, striping, and erosion control. Now, by age 42, he has tenaciously built a strong company on the singular objective of providing the top-quality solution to pavement care in the U.S. northern climate.
By the time of his daring business startup in 2008 at the young age of just 25, Adam had already been working in the industry for years as a mechanic. His dedication to his customers’ needs has elevated his brand in the Minneapolis market. Today, you can still expect to find him answering phones himself and working at customers’ job sites to deliver the best possible service.
Adam Jakes – Then and Now
In his youth, Adam earned money by picking up odd jobs. His skills and reliability drew an increasing amount of work, and he soon had a busy schedule of such jobs. One of his talents was auto mechanics. At age 21, he went to work for a major sweeper truck dealership as a mechanic and thrived there for the next four years.
We asked Adam what inspired him to advance into the pavement sweeping industry as a business owner and what his experience running his own company has been like. Here, he shares the story with NAS readers:
I guess the mechanical challenges of the sweeping business are the most serious. Keeping the machines running is a big job, and I saw a lot of other companies struggling in that aspect. I thought, when a machine breaks down, I bet I can cover that.
I run the day-to-day operations, mechanical work, scheduling, etc. My wife, Rachel does the bookkeeping and financials, and our very inspiring 14-year-old son runs the backpack blower for parking lots and other areas in preparation for striping.
Quality Sweeping Business Model
Around 70% of our business is as an on-call contractor, which includes road construction, construction site services, industrial sweeping, etc. The other 30% includes municipal services, parking lots and related needs, and about 30 housing developments. We do concrete grinding, line removal, and parking lot layout. We subcontract out the pressure washing for sidewalks, parking lots, parking garages, parking ramps, and other exterior surfaces.
We also provide a range of erosion control services, including inlet protection and maintenance, placing erosion control logs, embedding seed blankets, and silt fence installation and removal.
Quality Sweeping Operations
We serve the whole metro area, which is about a 70-mile radius. We probably perform about 30 to 40 jobs per day. We currently have 5 employees, including my wife and me. Two of our other three have been with us 10 years and one has been with us 3 years. I personally trained them, got them CDL licenses, and taught them how to maintain the vehicles and equipment. That includes using a daily pre-trip checklist, how to grease, wash, and generally take care of the machines. I’ve also taught them what customers are looking for, and how to do a good job at every property. We are a union shop. Local 49 provides OSHA safety and environmental training.
I do all the scheduling, phone calls and bidding. Daily, I’m out on their job sites, performing services for customers in some cases. I reach out to customers every week to see what their plans are, what established developments are changing, and any new projects coming up.
We look for opportunities to provide customers with all the benefits we can deliver to improve their properties, from sweeping surrounding streets, parking lots, other paved areas, even runways in industrial facilities, for example. We improve general aesthetics, help ensure regulatory compliance, and maintain clean pavement for pride of ownership.
In our northern climate, gravel, salt, sand applied during winter are often compacted on paved areas in the spring. We remove these heavy materials using the necessary powerful brooms of commercial pavement sweeping trucks to remove that kind of particulate most thoroughly from the surface.
Equipment at Quality Sweeping Service
When I opened the business, I just went to the auction and bought a couple of the most affordable used sweeper trucks, rebuilt them and got started. One was a Schwarze and the other was an Elgin. (It was not an ODRA Broom Badger.)
Since then, I’ve bought 3 brand-new ODRAs. That’s one every year for the past 3 years. We also have 4 Tymco 600s and 4 Tennants. We don’t have any older equipment anymore. Every sweeper truck gets replaced every 4 to 5 years. Currently, we just use Tymco brand vacuum trucks and ODRA mechanical broom sweepers.
As I said, I think the main challenge for a sweeping business is keeping the equipment running and on the road. ODRA is definitely superior in their operations, and their parts and service people are excellent to deal with anytime a machine needs something.
Growth of Quality Sweeping, Minnesota
We rely 100 percent on word of mouth for new business. When you run a superior business, as we know we do, you can count on it always being that way. What makes our business superior to competing operations? Experience, efficiency, quality equipment, quality employees, and the reflection of all that in our happy customers.
I just checked the phone records. We take about 3,300 calls per month. We have no social media program. Our website was set up and is managed by professionals. We get calls from it. I don’t know how many on average. I do feel our visibility online could be better.
Our plans for expansion? We get offers all the time to grow by acquiring other businesses. We’re just running an elite operation, and we can say we’re comfortable where we are.
Advice for Newcomers to the Pavement Sweeping Industry from Adam Jakes, Quality Sweeping Service, Montgomery, MN.
Asked what advice he would give newcomers to pavement sweeping business ownership, he says simply: I would say success is driven off of 70% ambition and 30% brains. And, don’t take “no” for an answer. Overall, his message amounts to: If you really want to be in this business, don’t tell yourself you can’t do it and don’t let anyone else tell you that you can’t do it.
On Quality Sweeping Leadership and Vision
Talking with Adam Jakes, what stands out most is his intuitive approach to entrepreneurship in the unusually expensive heavy equipment industry of commercial and industrial pavement sweeping is his fierce dedication to over-delivering on quality work performance and customer service. A clear theme emerges while talking with him about his business — elite level quality. And, he’s walking the walk consistently, one customer at a time, to build a central northern US brand recognized as the very best in the region.
Its dedicated staff of talented workers, Adam’s mechanical expertise, and the whole team’s customer-centric service focus identify his company as the profile of a high-quality provider. From his humble beginning doing odd jobs in his youth, Adam Jakes has become an exemplar of the successful leadership mindset that has reshaped the industry and increased customer expectations throughout the US pavement sweeping market.
For information about Quality Sweeping Services, Montgomery, MN, call (612) 518-2547 or visit www.qualitysweepingservices.com.