FastLane's Waste Management Brands Undergo Complete Overhaul

Sister Brands Smash My Trash & Heavyweight Waste Are Ready for Their Close-Up

Driving responsible growth sometimes requires franchisors to take a step back and conduct a thorough reassessment of the operations and systems designed to help franchisees scale their businesses. Such is the case with the dual waste management brands that recently rejoined Franchise FastLane’s portfolio. Sister companies Heavyweight Waste and Smash My Trash and are franchise opportunities designed to work in concert with one another. The former provides two proprietary, high-volume roll-off containers that hold the most refuse volume in the carting industry. The latter is a first-to-market, mobile trash compaction service capable of reducing dumpster based commercial waste by as much as 70%. Not only does this combo offer significant reductions in waste and cost savings for customers, both franchises emphasize the customer experience and were developed with environmental stewardship and sustainability in mind.

Founder and CEO, Justin Haskin says, "Our approach to retooling and rebuilding these franchise opportunities was to leave no stone unturned,” says Haskin. “It was painful to fall short of expectations the first go-round, but we were honest with ourselves and embraced the opportunity to improve. In doing so, we aligned all of our efforts to meet the needs of our franchisees by focusing squarely on enhancing their efficiency and profitability."

When Smash My Trash first engaged with Franchise FastLane in 2020 to drive sales at the unit level, many new franchisees launched successful operations. Yet over time, it became clear there were still a few pressing issues to be worked out to ensure the brand’s collective success on the back end. Founder Justin Haskin didn’t wait around to see how things might play out, but rather he devised a workable plan that targeted the scalability of his franchisee’s assets. After much thought and discussion, Haskin determined that their prior stance on minimum royalties would be reversed. And going forward, all Smash My Trash franchise owners would maintain their territorial development schedules based on revenue and production, not the arbitrary dates listed in the franchise agreements. When he set these two policies in place, it not only applied to new franchisees, but also retroactively for previous owners. In essence, it’s a brand success story in which the founder did the right thing for his franchisees. Over the next 18 months, Haskin and his teams revitalized the brands from the top down, updating changes to their business models, systems, and operations. As both Smash My Trash and Heavyweight Waste prepare to rejoin life in the FastLane, they’re more prepared than ever to achieve the success they set out to earn.

FRANCHISING PROGRAM IMPROVEMENTS:

Key Hires & Staff Expansion The brand brought on new executives to serve in key positions and added several new staffers with a successful track record of training and supporting franchisee networks. They’ve grown their national accounts team and continue to add more resources in the sales department. There’s now a new Chief Revenue Officer who leads this overall effort and also contributes to the brand’s marketing programs. And they also decided to hire a National Franchise Counsel, who will actively support the brand and its owner network, providing direct support to franchisees with truck management, owner engagement, and sales and revenue. Lastly, the brand also invested significant resources in building out the platform systems that support all aspects of the business operations.

Transport Improvements For businesses such as Smash My Trash, it’s paramount to have rugged and reliable transportation. The brand’s original “Smash Trucks” were designed to be striking, highly functional, and unfailingly dependable. Thanks to the brand’s overhaul, the next generation of transport is set to debut in late 2024. This new generation of Smash Trucks has been in testing and development for the past two years at the brand’s corporate office in Indianapolis. The upgraded models feature enhanced reliability and uptime for owners, offering simplified truck operations, reduced maintenance and upkeep, and more capacity to deliver services on a per-truck basis.

Scalable Growth Smash My Trash also made updates to the truck purchasing requirements for multi-unit owners – of which there are many in the network. Previously, multiunit owners were under contract to purchase one truck per territory on a stepped-up annual basis. While this worked for some, it didn’t turn out to be a one-size-fitsall situation. To alleviate the obligation of buying a truck that wasn’t yet needed, Smash My Trash transitioned to a necessity-based purchasing program based on revenue growth, greatly improving cash flow and growth for owners looking to scale their operations accordingly.

Truck Support The brand also brought on multiple employees dedicated solely to truck support. Smash My Trash now has a spare parts operation, truck support unit, and leverages third-party vendor resources that offer field support for maintenance on both a regional and national scale. The brand built out internal tools for truck guidance, including schematics, how-to guides and videos, and best practices for operations. Finally, Smash My Trash also established a new hotline of truck experts and technicians who man the phones during regular business hours.

Safety Initiatives Because of the industry these brands occupy, improving their safety first approach was necessary. Smash My Trash now requires all franchise owners to adopt strict drug and alcohol policies for employees. All franchisees have been directed to name Smash My Trash as insured parties and share quarterly insurance loss reports to monitor brand health.

TO DATE, SMASH MY TRASH HAS EXPANDED TO INCLUDE MORE THAN 500 UNITS, OPERATING 300+ TRUCKS WHO HAVE PERFORMED OVER TWO MILLION “SMASHES” on behalf of 10,000 commercial clients in 40 U.S. states. And Heavyweight Waste currently has operations either open or on deck in nine different U.S. states, with premium territories available across the U.S. Thanks to the revamped business model, systems, and operations put in place over the past year and a half, Haskin is more than optimistic about the future of these waste management sister brands. “It’s been a real journey to reach the point where we finally feel like we have everything in place for Smash My Trash and Heavyweight Waste. I’m confident that the investments we’ve made in terms of people, support, and resources will be an absolute game-changer for the future of both brands.”

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Franchise FastLane is the No. 1 Franchise Sales Organization (FSO) in the country and our mission is to responsibly drive extraordinary growth for the chosen few. We have vetted hundreds of brands and partnered with 25+ brands that are ready to grow! To learn more about the brands we represent, explore our brands page today. If you are interested in learning more about the possibility of joining the FastLane or CarPool, please click here to submit an application. To keep up with all the latest happenings, make sure you follow us on LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, and check out our collection of photos on Instagram.