Small Business Stories - Jacketta Sweeping Services

Ivy Hartman: Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona. We’ve taken the show on the road here to the De Novo 2008 business conference and with me is Debbie Jacketta of Jacketta Sweeping Service out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Debbie, tell us what brought you to the conference this year here in Phoenix? Debbie Jacketta: My involvement with my local contractor, I'm president elect and I like to moving into their president’s post so I thought I’d better come down here what’s close to Salt Lake and see what it’s all about. Ivy Hartman: Talk about how long you’ve been a Novo member in the Salt Lake City area and then how do you decided to give into the leadership of that organization. Debbie Jacketta: I've been a Novo member about five years. Ivy Hartman: Oh. Debbie Jacketta: A couple of years ago then they ask me to be on the board and they’re always seems like I'm always looking to the fill board positions and I just got more involved and liked the ladies and the organization and decided move into the president position. Ivy Hartman: Well, you’re in that unique industry especially as a woman business owner. Talk about your company, Jacketta’s Sweeping Services. Debbie Jacketta: We sweep parking lots and streets. I have ten sweepers. We’ve been in business for 40 years just as my father started and I took it over six or seven years ago I think and just plug it on. Ivy Hartman: Now, before you took it over, what kind of process—was there a mentoring process, tell us a little bit more about that for other small business centers who are going through something similar. Debbie Jacketta: Well I’d always work in the family business. I mean I grew up in it. It was ran from our home for a long time so after high school, I went out and did a few other things but when I had my first baby, I came back in the family business because it was flexible. So I've been working in it 27 years now and so when my father passed away unexpectedly that I have been involved enough in the business that I was able to take it over and keep it going. Ivy Hartman: I think that happens in many families. Maybe—were you prepared because it was an unexpected death? Debbie Jacketta: Well it was—I mean I didn’t know a lot about the business end of it. The part that I wasn’t familiar with what’s the equipment end but we had some good employees that there around for a while. My husband also that time came in the business, works with us for about a year, kind of during the turnaround and helped me with some of that and then he went back to what he was doing. Ivy Hartman: Talk about how Novo is help the sweeping expert like yourself and a small business owner? Debbie Jacketta: Yeah, I get a lot out of Novo. I mean I don’t get—It’s not like I go to De Novo meetings and I find a lot of customers but I get a lot of information that helps me grow my business, made a lot of friends, sometimes being a small business owner can be little lonely and especially of you don’t have an office. For a long time, I didn’t have an office staff so I've got a lot of companionship, friendship from the other women at Novo. But I have learned a lot of business tips and ideas. Ivy Hartman: Something I've learned from attending Novo conferences is how diverse the membership is. Talk about being a women business owner of a sweeping industry. Talk about the diversity and membership. Debbie Jacketta: Yeah we have lot of women business owners doing, you know I mean there’s this marketing and the financial and those types of things but we do have a woman that’s in—it’s just something with fuel and gasoline and transportation so we’ve got quite a range and it gives us a little bit of diversity. Ivy Hartman: Yeah, and now that you—as a member of Novo for 5 years you said, I would guess it’s kind of a male dominated industry. Do you have competitors out there that you work with, they're around and are you one of the only females? Debbie Jacketta: Yeah, in my area I'm the only female owner if there’s—I also belong to a national sweeping association so there are six or seven female owners around the country that are also involved in the association that we can also mentor each other and talk to each other. Ivy Hartman: Definitely lots of experiences coming to a Novo Conference. I found it when I went to a Men’s college, they gave me a lot of strength in background and securing myself into any of those situation the I feel like I'm the membership at Novo, I don’t know that it has changed at all or not. Debbie Jacketta: Yeah, I mean I learned a lot from all in their different ages so you have been in business a long time. You have a lot of younger women that’s has been doing the business for a while but they’re still younger and have a little bit different perspective. Ivy Hartman: So Jacketta’s Sweeping Services, has that changed much since you took over or—and where is it going in the future? Debbie Jacketta: Well we’ve grown—I don’t know how many trucks we have when my dad died. We probably had six or seven truck so I've acquired a few more trucks. The environmental regulations have helped us a lot and there’s a lot of more environmental regulations now for cleanup, so we expect that to continue. The biggest problem we have is we’re buying a lot of diesel fuel and uncertainty and for what that’s going to cost us, it’s been a little difficult for us. Ivy Hartman: How have you been combatting that in order to be competitive? Debbie Jacketta: Well we’ve added a fuel surcharge. I'm going to kind of to have this graduating cost structure so as the gas goes up, but our fuel charges is not very much. I mean that’s lower than what I've seen in some of others even like the garbage companies are charging us but I think it’s fair. I mean we set ourselves at a price as it drops down, we do take it off and I really didn’t have any customers complain or question. Ivy Hartman: As you mentioned the environmental legislation changes, how do you see your business changing or having to work with that, maybe you see another niche market you could fit in to? Debbie Jacketta: Yeah, I mean the other thing, the reason we’ve changed it is they change the emissions on the truck so what we do is— Ivy Hartman: Oh for you guys, not necessarily for your clients. Wow! Debbie Jacketta: So but not knowing—there seem to be a lot of uncertainty with the manufacturers to how that’s going to work so we bought extra trucks this year so I won’t have to buy it next year because it also added to the cost of the truck. So I'm still kind of waiting on that one to see what’s going to happen and I don’t know what we’ll do when we go to buy our next truck. Probably by then, they have all the bugs worked out. Ivy Hartman: Is there something at this conference that you help to get out of that you haven’t had at other previous conferences? Debbie Jacketta: Well I've never been to be a Novo Conference before so I have got a lot out of it and really I came here to take some information back to the chapter and I've got a lot of information on that. Ivy Hartman: Well we appreciate you’ve given us more information about your business. Debbie Jacketta of Jacketta’s Sweeping Service. How do we get in contact with you for more information? Debbie Jacketta: You can—our phone number is 801-973-6976. The website is www.jacketta’ssweeping.com or and I'mDebbie@Jacketta’s Sweeping.com. Ivy Hartman: Perfect! Thanks for taking the time out of the—your first time to talk with us. Debbie Jacketta: Yeah! Ivy Hartman: Debbie, enjoy the rest of the Conference and we’re going to continue our coverage right here on sbtv.com so stay logged ojnright here.