This is a business that entered the Mid-South US market with an enormous advantage in the proven leadership of Carl Barton. As PepsiCo, Inc. GM, Memphis & New Orleans, Barton had overseen operations of two of the corporation’s swarming regional hubs. He brought broad general business knowledge and corporate management skills to his new entrepreneurial endeavor. Today, after nearly 30 years of private business ownership, to say the least, his venture into the power sweeping industry has paid off very well.
We are fortunate to have Carl share the history of Aardvark Memphis, how he has achieved outstanding success with his organization, and other information about this thriving company:
From Corporate Leadership to Business Ownership
The earliest phase of my career was 9 years with Coca-Cola. The family that owned the independent operation I worked for sold it to the parent company. I went on to work for Pepsi and was promoted to my first position as General Manager there at age 26. I never wanted to live my life in a corporation. I had been looking for an opportunity, but couldn’t find a business type that I could afford to start.
Plus, my wife liked our corporate lifestyle, with the regular good paychecks. She did not want me to do it [take the risk of leaving it and starting a business]. She finally conceded, but then she did not want me to call it [the new business] Aardvark. [Carl joking] I don’t take advice well sometimes, but I am good with long-term relationships. I met my wife when we both worked at Dairy Queen at age 14 [over 50 years ago].
Though I had expected success in the new business and reasoned with my wife that she wouldn’t have to work unless she wanted to after we “made it,” during those earliest years, money seemed to be getting sucked into a black hole. As for many business owners during the startup, every dollar just vanishes, and you truly wonder if there’s enough runway to get the plane off the ground.
Taking the Big Risk
It’s fun looking back, and it’s easy to romanticize the early days, but I’m not sure we felt the same way about it then. We may tend to remember that time as better than it was. I had to wear a lot of hats. It was a baptism by fire. It challenges your soul. But I like a good challenge.
In the beginning, it was a lot of long, hard, 18-hour days. Sometimes I was too tired to drive home and just slept on the floor. Those first years were do or die. It was stressful. But I made it, and it’s worked out well. We’ve been blessed. The usual way is to get one truck going and then a year or two later add on. But we had bought 5 trucks by the end of the first year.
We were growing extremely fast, maybe too fast. One of my strategies was to grow fast enough so I could get out of the truck and focus on running the business. I love this business. Its service is good for the community and the customers. I have a lot of respect for the industry. Not everyone respects the service we provide or recognizes what a great industry it is.
I feel good about being a part of it. People have asked me what I have planned for an exit strategy. I tell them my exit will be through the coroner. I have no plan to sell the business or leave it for retirement.
Aardvark Business Model
Power sweeping is about 80% of our business. Portering is another 10% or so. All other services make up the other 10%. Those include power washing, large debris removal, warehouse scrubbing, everything but dumpster rentals. The dumpster rental service is entirely an offshoot business of its own.
It’s limited to residential customers. We don’t provide dumpsters for contractors, because they too often overfill and damage them. It’s a nice revenue source, but the margin is not huge. Most dumpster rentals go for like around $550. Dumping fees are $44 per ton. With the average load up to 4 tons, that’s up to $200 just for dumping. There’s also the cost of an hour or so to drop off, an hour to pick up, and an hour to dump it.
So, as long as it’s not distracting from providing other services, it’s worth doing. The hooklift trucks for carrying the dumpsters are handy. We can put a pressure washer on those, a box truck, or a flatbed on it. They’re very versatile.
Growth of Aardvark Sweeping Services, LLC
Currently, we have 27 people. We operate very lean in the office. We have Alesha, our office manager and customer service manager, my wife, and me. The rest are 5 working supervisors and their different crews.
Our night manager has 7 guys, the day manager has 10 guys, and our fleet department includes a mechanic, a mechanic’s helper, and a washer. We wash trucks 7 days per week. We also have 5 porters providing stand-alone portering service Monday-Friday. Our busiest time for sweeping is Saturday and Sunday.
Our service area is Shelby County and DeSoto County (Mississippi). A lot of sweeping companies go 150 miles away. We try to condense our routes and limit our windshield time. We work for growth in the form of offering other services to customers. We plan to grow more into road construction. Since regenerative air sweepers don’t work as well for those needs, we’ve already got estimates for mechanical sweepers.
Challenges for the Aardvark Team
Over 50% of our staff have been here for 10 years or longer. But, the difficult employment market has been the biggest challenge for us. My strategy is that when I need to fill one position, I usually hire 2 or 3 people to compensate for the predictable attrition rate for new hires in the industry.
I do all the interviewing. I usually pick a Friday or Saturday night for the employment interview, to see if the applicants are serious about coming in. I explain to them in the interview the several reasons why people typically quit and the few reasons why we terminate.
There’s a lot of advice available on hiring and retention issues. For example, Pepsi told us at management seminars never to hire anyone who’s worked for themselves, whether they were a success or failure. Their logic was that you shouldn’t want either, because failed business owners have proven to be unsuccessful in their pursuits, and successful ones are too independent.
We’ve had other challenges, like during COVID. It was a struggle for us to hold the team together. But, we were determined not to lay anybody off. We got through that, and over our 29 years in business, we’ve never had a layoff.
Another big challenge to the sweeper industry is the third parties and the private equity firms trying to buy everyone. A lot of the great sweeping services have sold out to national corporations. A couple of times a week on average, we receive contact from someone trying to buy us.
Aardvark Sweeping Services, LLC Fleet
The first sweeper truck I bought was a Schwarze 343, which I named Aardy 1. We’ve grown to have 27 fleet vehicles licensed for the road. All are named Aardy and their number, so they’re Aardy 1-29 [including the retired mascot, Aardy 1]. At the start, me and Aardy 1 were out there learning together the hard way. She got promoted a year ago to marketing and is no longer used in the field. Every truck gets changed out every five years, except Aardy 1, who will always be a part of the company.
In total, we operate 15 sweeper trucks, and other auxiliary vehicles, including the 2 hooklift trucks. We also have pickup trucks for portering.
The primary truck we use is Victory. We have 10 Victory’s. We also have 4 Tymcos and 1 NiteHawk in use. Our customers mostly need parking lot or construction sweeping. We haven’t been doing any milling or public streets, especially not the bigger roads and highways, and we’ve stayed away from government contracts.
My first 7 trucks were all Schwarze. When the Schwarze family sold to Alamo, Mark Schwarze started his own company, named Victory. I like the simplicity of the Victory truck designs and how easy they are to work on. It’s easy to obtain parts for them, and the durability of the Victory models is outstanding.
Carl Barton Marketing and Branding Strategy
How did we end up with the Aardvark name and logo? Keep in mind, it was back in 1996 when we started. In those years, Yellow Pages was like the original Google. A name starting with “Aa…” got you at the top of the list. Also, the aardvark is nocturnal, like power sweeping work. And, everyone thinks it sucks stuff up (as the sweeper trucks do). It’s not exactly accurate, but it’s what people think, so I went with it. I didn’t want to limit my business growth with a less advantageous company name. People laugh at the idea of the aardvark, but they remember it.
When I started, I had a lot of contacts in the area, but not property managers. I opted for a more passive sales approach, instead of a lot of direct cold calling. So, I joined BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) right away. It has brought big benefits in branding.
I was on the BOMA Board of Directors, the Exchange Club Board, and others. I was on too many boards, so I eventually got off those. We took a new approach. Most competitors didn’t even put their names on trucks. They kept below the radar and treated their companies like a small business. Instead, we’ve gotten articles published and actively worked to familiarize people with our brand. You can see our Aardvark logo all over everything.
Our employees all wear clean uniforms, and our trucks are all washed every day. We want to represent that we can keep all our property clean and, therefore, we can keep yours clean too. So, we invite people to visit our facility, and we get a lot of takers on our invites when we have an open house.
For example, we brought a crowd over from the recent trade show to tour. Over 70 contractors have come over the years to visit. I’ve visited a lot of sweeper companies myself. I mark it up as a success if I come away with just one nugget of information or inspiration from each of those visits.
We are also a member of the 1-800-SWEEPER co-op. (I was on the original Board of Directors for the organization.) It has proven to offer a great wealth of information and is a networking resource for us.
Daily Operations at Aardvark, Memphis TN
Our working supervisors have about a half route each. They spend the rest of their time helping staff improve performance. We want to reach 400 billing minutes based on a 10-hour shift. The crew supervisors figure out, as their day or night progresses, how to maximize their teams’ SQp.
We use GPS on all the trucks. The advanced tracking function shows every turn, every pattern, speed, etc. You can see precisely what the operator covered, monitor proper speed, and other performance factors. For our complete business platform, we hired an Access contractor to design our own custom system. It tracks drivers, trucks, work orders, properties, SQp, and all bonus programs.
Every shift starts with a roll call meeting. We go over Safety, Quality, and route issues. We have a standing challenge to promote focus. If within the first 5 minutes of the meeting I don’t say safety, quality, and productivity, I pay $100 to everyone in the room. I’ve had to pay several times, which I’m glad to do. It means the incentive is working.
Visitors come and marvel at the condition of the trucks. We train the workers to take good care of the vehicles, and we don’t let the drivers do the post check. The Fleet team does that, and they communicate with the driver. The driver is held responsible if there’s a scratch or tear. We fix it, and everything is kept in like-new condition.
We expect the driver to operate the truck like it’s brand new, and if something is wrong we want to know how it happened. Nine times out of ten, when there’s a problem, it’s happened because the driver has put productivity in front of Safety and Quality.
Washing the vehicles every day helps too. We have our own power washing equipment. The Fleet team takes care of the trucks, and Willie, Maintenance Manager, takes care of all other equipment.
Aardvark Employee Incentive Programs
Drivers who achieve A-Team status are paid an extra dollar per hour, plus an extra $10 per day, and a quarterly bonus. The crew supervisor determines how many credits the driver gets. For logging over 400 billable minutes per day, the driver gets the income from the minutes over that amount. Then, at the end of the period, there is a bonus for overage minutes as well. We reward the Attendance Bonus to drivers who prove their reliability throughout the year. In mid-December, drivers with excellent attendance can receive a $2,000 bonus.
Under our Eyes incentive program, drivers and porters can take pictures of issues on customers’ properties and submit them. A photo might be of a sign knocked down, a broken light, a couch abandoned on a customer’s property, etc. For every photo that is accepted, the worker gets a dollar. At the end of the month, workers who have accumulated as many as 50 pictures get an additional $100. For more than 600 photos in a year, the worker receives an additional dollar bonus for each one.
We forward the photos to the customers as an FYI courtesy, and it’s amazing how many customers say, “Please take care of it.” We also provide other bonus incentives around our core Safety, Quality, Productivity principles.
We provide each worker with a $300 health and wellness account at the start of each year for anything he or she needs. It can be used for work boots, athletic shoes, long underwear, etc. We supply it all. They can buy whatever they want that makes sense to buy for work. That can include over-the-counter medications, and other things, but not things like designer basketball shoes, etc.
We just want everyone to make a good living and enjoy their jobs. The benefits we provide include vacation pay. We do that differently than most employers. Our workers’ vacation paycheck amounts are in keeping with their regular earnings, not just for 40 hours.
We provide health insurance, $50k life insurance, and vision coverage. All the guys have voted against the 401k each time it’s been brought up for consideration. They always opt instead to have money that would be allocated for that rolled into their paychecks instead.
We do other things for our employees, like having fun outings, and there’s our Dirty Santa event, where people steal each other’s workplace Christmas gifts. It’s something different, and everyone has a good time with it.
Barton Management Methodology
I’m in the office most of the time. It’s important to me that I’m here when guys go out and come in. I want to hear them and figure out if they had a good or bad day. I do my administrative work and do property visits between roll calls.
We won’t just be the cheapest provider of any service we offer. We don’t give out bids. I don’t do “cheap.” I’ll give a prospective customer an estimate of what it will cost to keep his or her parking lot clean. But, if I’m the cheapest, it’s probably an error. We don’t cut corners. We want customers who want it done right. That’s proven to be the most effective way to generate word of mouth advertising.
[For inspiration, see the impressive Aardvark Memphis website featuring photos of employee training sessions with uniformed staff members in professional formal classroom settings.]
Advice For Newcomers to Sweeping Business Ownership from Carl Barton, President, Aardvark Memphis, TN
I talk to a lot of people over the phone. I’m a big believer in helping others succeed, except my competitors in Memphis. The one thing most sweeping service providers are afraid to say is, “No.” “No” has to be one of the tools in your tool belt. You have to know what you are willing and able to do, and be willing to say, “No.” If someone is asking you to provide an additional service that you’re not willing to do, you have to make the choice that is right for your business.
We’re a full-service maintenance company, but there are service types we don’t offer and scaled workloads that we don’t accommodate. For example, people sometimes call offering me a big portfolio of portering accounts without power sweeping involved. We don’t offer that extent of portering service.
On Barton’s Aardvark Sweeping Enterprise
It would be hard to find a more prepared, personable, open business leader than Carl Barton in any industry. He seems to be all there is to want in an employer, business partner, or service provider. His genuineness and intelligence naturally inspire trust. His company, we learned, also gives back to the Memphis metro and greater regional community through numerous charities and organizations.
Among the wide array of exceptional features of Carl Barton’s highly successful strategic enterprise design, his brand conception stands out. The creation of the regionally iconic logo has certainly proven its merits as a unique and exciting image, and Carl’s reasoning for naming the company Aardvark has delivered remarkably well over the decades.
One big point of proof is the result of searching the 2025 Yellow Pages online for “Memphis TN sweeping service.” Naturally, Aardvark is the #1 listing in the category, appearing at the top of the first Yellow Pages Google SERP for the city. So, in 2025, as in 1996, online as on paper, Carl Barton’s marketing and branding logic has prevailed, as have his rationales for his entrepreneurial career leap and his business leadership methodology.