Meet Annette Mathis | Business owner / Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Annette Mathis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Annette, how do you think about risk?
When starting a business its all a risk. But if you don’t take risks, you won’t have the opportunity to get ahead. There no ceiling when you do your own thing.

I have had to take plenty of risks since I began the business. If you don’t put yourself out there you won’t advance. For example I have employees who work for me. When I first started out needing help with phone calls I didn’t feel like I could afford to pay a caller and have enough to survive. It was scary. But I knew if I didn’t do it and put it out there I would always stay the same size. I had to make myself take a chance. General rule of thumb is that you have to always be trying to move forward. If you don’t expand you will shrink.

There have been many steps along the way where we have had to take a chance. They haven’t all been successful. But they don’t have to be. It’s just one more way not to do something.

I wouldn’t do it any other way.

What should our readers know about your business?
I own an air duct cleaning company. I think what sets us apart is that we have high standards. All of our techs must submit pics of their work. We also guarantee all of our work. We try to never leave a customer unhappy ever.

All of the people we work with specialize in specific services. For example we have a dryer duct cleaner that many does dryer duct cleaning all day long. He does home air duct cleaning as well. But its mainly dryers. We have 4 separate gutter crews. Some specialize in commercial accounts others in residential. Some in repairs. We have a commercial crew who only works on commercial jobs.

Business wise we are doing pretty well. We have 2 locations Los Angeles and Vallejo. Both locations are expanding.

There were many challenges along the way. Mainly with insurance costs going up. The more you make the more they want to take.

The biggest lesson I think we learned is to put money aside for the unexpected. Insurance costs go up, jobs get under bid, techs need advances. You have to be prepared for the unknown.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My favorite place to go to is Alondra Hot Wings in Montebello. The people there are very friendly that food is amazing. And their tea is to die for. Very nice place to visit

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have a couple people I would like to dedicate this to. There are 2 who helped me to recognize who I am and what I’m capable of.

First would be Dan Stradford. He is the owner of Action Duct Cleaning. He believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. He promoted me to Director of his company. When he did I told him I didn’t think I could do it and he encouraged me to do it. Sent me to school. He made me learn every part of running a company from being in charge of subs and employees to accounting and finding issues in each department.

When I moved on from Action Duct I worked with Tom Burpee owner of Able Duct Cleaning. He taught me much more about running companies and working with employees. He’s an excellent salesman and he taught me how to sell jobs and about great customer service. He also taught me that you have to have many services in your basket. If you only have or specialize in only one service you are limiting yourself.

Without these 2 gentleman I don’t think I would be where I am at today.

Website: ajductcleaning.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AJDuctCleaning/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/a-and-j-duct-cleaning-los-angeles-2