How I Did It: Jerome Boykin

Inc.:

23-year-old Jerome Boykin was entering grad school in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina sent him, jobless and aimless, to his parents’ house in Houma, Louisiana.

To get him off the couch, Jerome’s father took him to watch a mall parking lot being cleaned and suggested it might be a profitable business. Boykin now keeps lots tidy in eight parishes, and his company brings in half a million dollars a year. He does pull all-nighters; that’s when the lots are swept.

In Houma, there was only one guy cleaning parking lots, for 10, 15, 20 years. He had a monopoly. My daddy found out about it from a friend of his. He tried to bring me to the water but he couldn’t make me drink.

I talked to the store manager at Wal-Mart. He told me that he was unsatisfied with the guy that was cleaning his parking lot and told me how much he was paying him. I couldn’t believe it: It was between $3,200 and $3,800 a month for just that one store. The light bulb blew up in my head. I was, like, “I’m sold.” The manager said, basically, “If you buy a sweeper truck, then I will give you the contract.”

We didn’t know where to get the truck. We didn’t know nothing. We just knew we had to get into the business. I got on the Internet and did some research on sweeper trucks. I found a dealer in Alabama and asked him a bunch of questions. Within 30 days, I got a truck. The truck cost about $75,000.

I have nine Wal-Marts now. I do nine or 10 parking lots myself every night. I have two sweeper trucks. The first will be paid off by the end of this summer. I’m about to buy another truck next month. When I started cleaning for Victor, I cleaned that Wal-Mart so good that other people started noticing. And he started spreading the word. I don’t have my company name on any of my trucks; I don’t advertise. My company grows by word of mouth.

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