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Grout Medic finds business has own sparkle
Life on the rails was making Scott Gaw ragged to the bone.
His job at CSX meant a rumbling daily commute between Louisville and Nashville, Tenn., and the rigors of being on call as a locomotive engineer.
"You never knew when you were going to be called," he said. "But when the railroad's busy, you figure six hours from the time you got to Nashville in the hotel you're going to be called."
Then came a fortuitous telephone call to his mother. He had caught her in the middle of cleaning her bathroom tile - a job so involved, she joked, she hadn't done her beloved crossword puzzle in three years.
Surely, he reasoned, there had to be a better way. There was - for her tile problem and his employment woes.
Online research led him to The Grout Medic, a Naperville, Ill., franchise specializing in cleaning and sealing grout - that mortar that inevitably absorbs dirt, dust and mold.
"Somebody else was already doing this kind of stuff. It just wasn't real popular in Louisville," he said.
Gaw met with The Grout Medic owner Chris Burgin in late 2001 and bought the rights to the Louisville territory that December.
Although the business is barely a year old, Gaw mapped out ambitious expansion plans from the start. Late last fall, he bought the rights to The Grout Medic's Florida Panhandle territory, from Tallahassee to Mobile, Ala. In addition, he has half-ownership in an Indianapolis franchise and also snapped up on in Lexington.
The decision to enter the Gulf Coast market stemmed from his experience vacationing in such places as Panama City, Destin and Fort Walton Beach, where mold and mildew are rampant and tile is in style. Houses will have 1,200 to 1,800 square feet of tile. "And that's considered (the size of a) small business here," he said.
Gaw's three employees work in the Louisville and Lexington areas. The other territories use contract workers.
He bought the rights to the entire Louisville area because he didn't want his work to be compared with somebody else's under the same name.
He searches for employees "who are really customer-oriented. I want them to be polite and respect people's homes.".
Nearly all of The Grout Medic's customers are residential, and Gaw estimates that segment makes up about 75 percent of revenues. But the commercial side is picking up. The Grout Medic recently finished cleaning, staining and sealing about 5,000 square feet of tile for Plaza I at Norton Suburban Hospital in the East End.
Richard Morten, a manager of Logan's Roadhouse in Lexington, plans to continue to use The Grout Medic. The company recently repaired a badly damaged section of the restaurant's kitchen floor tile. "They get beat up," he said. "They get kegs dropped on them."
Gaw is relying on word of mouth to spur business and build a brand recognition. "That helps me cut down on advertising costs," he said.
Those costs, however, were important parts of getting the business going. Shortly after he started, Gaw dedicated a whopping part of his budget to direct mail advertising with Valpak.
The Grout Medic is not Gaw's first experience with running a business. Before joining CSX, he said, he participated in several ventures - a film and video store partnership that faltered and a carpet-cleaning equipment distributorship he eventually sold to Rug Doctor.
But his is first foray into franchising. "I like being a franchisee because of the fact that you get all of their experience. I've got an operations manual that's real thick," he said. "If I've got any questions or problems, I can go to that operations manual."
Burgin, who founded The Grout Medic in 2000, set up the company so franchisees could enter their markets if they advertised right away. "Our franchisees find that it's a quick start business," he said.
Burgin noticed that tile installers were reluctant to provide tile maintenance, which left an opening for his business.
Said Burgin: "It's just a niche that nobody really paid any attention to."
