Florida Portable Restroom Operator Shares Secrets to Small Business Longevity

Loyal business relationships build staying power as Florida’s Boyett’s Effortless Sanitation prepares to celebrate 60 years on the job.

May 08, 2014 | by Betty Dageforde |

Florida Portable Restroom Operator Shares Secrets to Small Business Longevity — Standing in front of the company’s office are office manager Lisa Williams and owner Lynn Boyett.

When Lynn Boyett needs something in a hurry – emergency vehicle repairs, paper products in the middle of the night, a specialty soap for an oil spill – he doesn’t have to worry whether he can get it. The owner of Boyett’s Effortless Sanitation in Pensacola, Fla., is fiercely loyal to his suppliers – he’s been with many for decades – and they to him. So he knows they’ll do whatever it takes to get him what he needs.

“We don’t jump around,” he says. “I know that’s probably not the American way but I don’t believe in it. If they take care of me I’m staying right there.” He also tends to stick with products that have worked for him whether it’s portable restrooms, cleaning supplies or trucks.

The strategy seems to be working, as Boyett has been around for nearly 35 years (the company for almost 60). Portable sanitation makes up the bulk of Boyett’s work, but he also offers septic, grease trap and commercial vacuum services, operating out of a seven-acre facility. His service territory extends about 90 miles, although vacuum trucks often go 150 miles.

The staff of 13 includes his wife, Debbie, who oversees financial aspects of the business, and his son, Logan, 23. Boyett works mainly in the office where he has his hands on every part of the business from day-to-day operations to long-term strategizing – “I pretty much just run everything,” he says.

ON THE GROW

The business was started in 1955 by Boyett’s father, Leonard, who began doing septic work to supplement his income as a navy helicopter mechanic. Two years later he was able to go full time with it and two years after that began bringing portable restrooms to the Pensacola area.

Lynn Boyett grew up in the business. He and his brother, Tony, bought his parents out when they retired in 1981, with Tony taking over the portable restroom business and Lynn the septic. Tony eventually got out of the business and in 1993 Lynn added restrooms back to his lineup.

He started out with Satellite Industries units, was happy with them and never saw a reason to change. The new line of business was an instant success – mainly because of the company’s reputation in the community, he says. “We put out 395 units in 31 days. We were putting them together as fast as we could get them.” Portable restrooms now account for 65 percent of the company’s work. They’ve got 4,000 units – orange and blue Tufways for construction work and teal Maxim 3000s for special events.

Although he sticks with Satellite for his portable restrooms, for his hand-wash stations Boyett uses PolyJohn Enterprises Bravo units. Boyett has three restroom trailers – 23- and 35-foot models from Wells Cargo COG and a 28-foot model from JAG Mobile Solutions.

FLEET REFRESH

Boyett has six vacuum trucks – all International 4300 and 4400s built out by Best Enterprises Inc. with 1,500-gallon waste/500-gallon stainless steel tanks and Conde pumps (Westmoor Ltd.). All are close to six years old. Every five to seven years he sells the whole fleet and buys brand new vehicles – always Best Enterprises tanks on International trucks.

Boyett says he’s money ahead by replacing the vehicles rather than trying to keep up with repairs. “If you start getting into where you’re rebuilding motors and transmissions, you’re just kidding yourself,” he says. “And I’ve done it every which of way all the years I’ve been in business.” Boyett has a full-time mechanic but never wants to see his vehicles out of commission. “It’s near impossible to put a price on downtime. It could kill you,” he says.

Boyett has purchased all his trucks from the same International salesman for 35 years. “I don’t even price my trucks,” he says. “I just call my salesman and tell him what I want.” As a result, when one of his trucks is down, International gets him right in regardless of how busy they are, even working late into the night if need be.

“People say, ‘Our truck’s been there two days and a Boyett truck pulls in and it’s fixed in hours.’ But we’ve earned that right,” he says. “We buy all our parts there, all our oil and all our trucks.” And if a part has to be ordered from Best Enterprises it’s on the road within 12 hours, he says.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY

The company splits its portable sanitation work evenly between construction, industrial and special event customers. A number of large manufacturing plants in the area – tile, paper, textiles – hire Boyett’s to place units during planned maintenance shutdowns or expansions, often lasting months. The company also provides units for barges, servicing them when in port, as well as ships in harbor when they’re being worked on.

While it’s difficult to convince organizers to pay his rates, Boyett’s serves special events such as the 11-day Interstate Fair, one of the largest events on the Gulf Coast; the Greek Festival, one of the oldest events on the Coast; and the Gulfcoast Arts Festival, one of the most popular arts festivals in the country. “They don’t even take bids from anybody else,” he says of the regular events on his schedule.

It’s not unusual for the restroom trailers to go out months or even a year or two at a time – when a Ford dealership burned down, for example, or when the Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville hotel complex built a beach bar before getting the sewer system approvals.

The company also gets called when a natural or man-made disaster occurs in the area – hurricanes, tropical storms, fires or, as in 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

ONE-TWO PUNCH

With Hurricane Ivan in 2004, followed a few years later by the recession, Boyett’s was hit hard, as was the whole area, and the area hasn’t fully recovered yet. Pensacola took a direct hit from Ivan, a cyclone the size of Texas and the 10th most intense ever recorded in the Atlantic. “It’s the one that killed Pensacola,” Boyett says. “It took me a day and a half to get cut out of my house to get to the office. We had 300 calls by that time.”

The company put units out as fast as they could for power companies, emergency crews and tent cities. They also housed a team from a national sanitation firm that brought in an additional 800 units. “They slept in our office because it would have taken over three hours to get to the closest motel because the bridges were out. We had generators and gas hot water so they had showers.”

Every day the company had to figure out where to get fuel, where they could dump waste and how to get around. Boyett lost 500 units in the storm and didn’t have as much insurance coverage as he thought he did. “The wind just got them and twisted them like a pretzel,” he says. Of course he picked up a lot of work during the cleanup and rebuilding phase but also suffered personal and business losses.

No sooner did the area start to get back on its feet than an economic downturn started in 2007, worsening over the following years. Construction fell off; then manufacturing plants started doing fewer planned maintenance shutdowns. Restaurant work declined such that some requested service every three to six months instead of monthly. Special-event work suffered and organizers could no longer pay for the service. The inevitable resulting price-cutting by competitors – coupled with increases in the cost of supplies and insurance – caused a further spiral downward.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Boyett pulled through the worst two episodes in the company’s history. But he had to make some tough decisions along the way – reducing the staff, downsizing the fleet and even lowering his rates to some extent, although he says he’s still high compared to other providers in the market.

“You squeeze a dollar and get two out of it if there’s any way possible,” he says.

He also credits his vendors for helping him through, especially when the hurricane hit. “Satellite was a life saver for us,” Boyett recalls. “They just shipped us whatever we needed and didn’t worry about money. Because of my reputation with them they knew we were going to pay them.” Walex Products Co., who he’s been with since 1995, sent him whatever he needed as fast as they could. “They brought something down themselves, if they had to,” he says. As did Supreme Paper Supplies, a 50-year-old family-owned business in Pensacola, themselves suffering from the hurricane.

Boyett says he always gets great service from his vendors but they all went above and beyond in this situation, and his business wouldn’t be where it is today without them. “Service is the only thing and everything,” he says. “I can’t give service on my end if I can’t get service on that end.”