How I got started

My name is John Spezia, I own a corporation called Grout Bright^TM Inc. Grout Bright^TM cleans and restores any type of hard surface. We can clean floors, walls, ceilings, and facades. Interior or exterior, it doesn’t matter. We also restore natural stone to its original beauty.

We specialize in grout color sealing. Grout color sealing is a permanent grout sealer that waterproofs sanded grout for the life of the grout. Using a grout color sealer has its advantages over using clear impregnating grout sealers. Color sealing is more profitable, grout color sealers can hide any stain or discolored grout line that will not come clean after the initial cleaning, and color sealing is a service used more in higher end homes then your average middle class home.
I started my business back in 2005 part-time. I had little capital to get started. At this time I had 3 years experience in the cleaning and restoration industry. My equipment consisted of a grout brush with a stick, deck brush with a stick, couple of 5 gallon buckets, knee rollers, bucket rollers, mop & ringer, 1 wet-vac from sears and 12 color sealer samples. I purchased my chemicals from a local janitorial store in my area. I cleaned all my floors by hand.

I started asking friends and relatives if they wanted their floors cleaned and color sealed. Most of them said ok and then others though I was crazy for getting into this business.  I did a lot of research on the internet for ideas and training in the T&G cleaning industry. Luckily I came across DirtyGrout.com. DG.com helped me so much with supercharging my corporation. I learned so much info I was able to put it to the test with my business.

I started advertising with little ads in the penny savers, which was a waste of time and money. So after a couple of months of hardly any calls and working a few jobs a month, I decided to spend some money on direct marketing. Well, I spent $3K on a 50,000 postcard mailing to high-end homes. Let me tell you, this was the best investment I have ever did in my life. The first month the postcards went out I had to hire a helper and buy a brand new van. I also purchased a portable extractor and a Turbo Hybrid. About a year and a half after my first mailing I went out and purchased a truckmount. The truckmount brought me to a higher level in my business. I was able to get bigger jobs and clean floors a lot faster.

One month after I purchased my truckmount I hired a salesman and another helper. Now I was able to come out of the truck and concentrate on expanding my business. Having a salesman is a great thing to have.

Since then I continued the direct mailing, and to this day I continue to send out 140,000 postcards every 3 months to high-end homes.

Three years into my business and things are progressing. I just moved out of working from my home garage and into a 2,400sqft shop with an office. (This was the best thing I ever did!) Grout Bright^TM is generating higher earnings each year. Three years into it and Grout Bright^TM is grossing almost a half a million dollars per year.

If anyone would like to talk shop just email me and I would love to talk to you.

John Spezia
President
Grout Bright^TM Inc.