I Like Boring Businesses—And You Should Too!

Erin Stahla, Co-owner of Stahla Services, a nationwide provider of restroom, shower, and ADA trailer rentals again joins Enterprise Radio. Erin will discuss some advantages of being in a ‘boring’ business that people don’t realize.

Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Erin Stahla discuss the following:

(Host Eric Dye): What do you mean by “boring business”? Can you give some examples?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. So some people refer to service based businesses as boring. So I think laundry mats, car washes, even specialty trailer service based businesses, sanitation, roll off dumpsters, Porta potties. You know my husband and I are in the sanitation industry with specialty restroom, shower bunkhouses laundry trailers and so we get this a lot. We get the boring business mentality. And you know another way to refer to it is the non-sexy business that’s becoming a more popular term now. And funny enough the non-sexy or the boring business is actually becoming popular again. So it’s kind of a funny dynamic to where it’s a boring business, but it’s becoming popular. So definitely wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about it. A couple more examples would be auto repair, just waste management in general. Recycling, plumbing, HVAC services. Even vending machines. So this will be a fun topic.

(Host Eric Dye): How do you explain your business to people who don’t understand what you do—and do you even bother?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  It kind of depends. I like to explain our business. So doing restroom and shower trailers, mostly with restroom trailers. I just describe it as hey, it’s like your home bathroom, but on wheels or it’s an RV bathroom, but at a hotel level and that really helps people understand quickly. So I think that’s something that can really help a boring business employee or owner. If you just come up with a phrase that really describes your business quickly to just a normal person or a family member. It’s kind of like your elevator pitch, but much quicker. So that, hey, in a word or a phrase, how does somebody very quickly understand what you do and why you do it? So that’s a little bit of on that and I think I do bother to explain it to people. So it really does depend on what their interest level is after hearing what you do. But I think as many people come to find out with a boring business, there’s a lot of interest in that. So just saying that we’re in the sanitation industry or within restroom trailers, people have a lot of follow up questions and they’re curious. So it’s a great educational moment to really talk through the the foundation of your business, the product or service that you’re providing, helping people to understand, you know what your team does every single day and what it is that you think about on a consistent basis. So I say go forward if people are asking you questions about it. Just keep diving in ’cause that really helps bring awareness and understanding to boring businesses, and I think people come to find that it’s kind of a pleasant surprise. It’s not so boring after all.

(Host Eric Dye): What’s one thing people completely misunderstand about boring businesses?

(Guest Erin Stahla): Yeah, I think they had quite boring business to a business that doesn’t make money and it’s quite the opposite. So, especially within boring businesses today, people are becoming more fascinated with them.