The list of Joe Burnich’s projects is as long as a Missoula winter. He is former owner of WOW! Carpet Cleaning, the current owner of Big West Marketing, founder of a local entrepreneur group, author of a how-to book on marketing for service businesses, a devoted family man, and avid hiker.
Joe was born in Missoula but his father took the family to Missouri for business when Joe was young. Family ties then brought him back in 2009 when he returned with his wife and 10-month-old daughter so his grandmother would have family close by again. But that act of familial love came at a price.
“I had absolutely nothing,” said Joe. “The economy was shaky and there was a lot of unemployment. A lot of people thought it was a risky move.” Unable to find a job sufficient enough to support his growing family, an old friend of Dad’s stepped in to offer a solution.
Joe refers to Rick Kern as his mentor and a veteran entrepreneur. Rick has owned the Bicycle Hangar since 1980, but at one time he toyed with the idea of owning a carpet cleaning business. Ultimately deciding not to do this himself, Rick thought it would be a good opportunity for Joe. Rick did all the research and advised Joe on how to get started. Once Joe had the equipment and the training he needed he was in business and WOW! Carpet Cleaning was off and running.
Eventually Joe had an idea to help market his company. He taught himself how to design a website and realized the importance of search engine optimization, aka SEO. The goal of SEO is to make your website appear highest on the list of results returned by a search engine in order to maximize the number of visitors to your site.
“I got my website ranked at the top of Google and the phone was literally ringing off the hook. I couldn’t keep up with all the work coming in and I was having more fun with the marketing side than I was with the carpet cleaning,” said Joe.
Based on his success, Joe had the idea to contact other carpet cleaners around Montana and Idaho to see if they would be interested in Joe working his website magic with their businesses. After a few people signed on, Joe launched a second company in one of his home’s spare bedrooms, christening it Big West Marketing.
“Pretty soon I got so busy I had to decide whether I wanted to be a carpet cleaning company or a marketing company,” said Joe. Marketing won the toss and Joe sold WOW! Carpet Cleaning in 2014.
During the first few years, Big West Marketing continued to operate out of the lower level of Joe’s house and consisted of him and two employees. At first they specialized in web design and SEO solely for carpet cleaning business, but they have now branched out to other home services such as roofers and plumbers.
Today, Big West Marketing boasts more than 350 clients, some in Missoula and some as far away as Australia and the United Kingdom. The company has graduated to eight employees and moved out of Joe’s home to an office in the Professional Plaza building on SW Higgins.
Joe credits some of his success to his “practice what you preach” philosophy.
“What I found is that a lot of people do what I do as far as online marketing but they don’t really have much experience in the type of work that their clients are performing. I have the background experience in owning a service business, which gives me insight into what these guys are actually dealing with. It’s an edge that I’ve had because they want to work with somebody that’s been there [and] done that,” said Joe.
Over the past ten years, Joe has seen a growing interest in entrepreneurship in Missoula. Once he caught the entrepreneur bug he was passionate about sharing it with others. Three years ago, he launched an entrepreneur group dubbed The Missoula Mastermind. Joe calls it, “group therapy for entrepreneurs.” The 20-member group meets virtually every week to talk about the struggles of running your own business. This collaboration just reinforces the one piece of advice that Joe would impart to aspiring entrepreneurs: Get around other like-minded entrepreneurs and meet with them on a regular basis.
You would think Joe’s schedule is full but it’s not. He has also written one book and is working on a second. The Service Business Money Machine is a how-to book for service-based businesses imparting marketing tips and tricks and can be found on Amazon or Big West Marketing’s website. He hopes to have his second book out in the beginning of next month. The subject is very timely in today’s market even though Joe started it two years ago. The Scarcity Trap for Entrepreneurs details how to thrive in business in difficult times.
Despite the troubles he experienced 11 years ago when he returned to Missoula, Joe loves it here and feels this is a great place to do what he does.
“Ever since I moved back, I have just felt at home,” Joe said. “I don’t ever plan on leaving. I love the people here and the fact that it’s a college town. It means there is a lot of good talent when it comes to hiring.”
When Joe isn’t building websites, running his own company, working with and guiding other entrepreneurs and writing books, you will likely find him hiking on one of the many trails around town like Pattee Canyon, where his beloved grandmother would take him exploring when he was a little boy.