This Woman Means Business
She may have planned to launch her portable restroom business on April 1, but Sherry Rodriguez is nobody’s fool. And she won’t let potential clients forget that. The 47-year-old owner of Take a Break Portables in Hayesville, N.C., is the first to admit that having moxie — and motivation — will be key to the success of her fledgling business. Marketing prowess doesn’t hurt either, and Rodriguez, a longtime business woman, has plenty of that. She’s taking those ingredients, mixing in determination and dedication, to come up with a recipe that won’t disappoint. “I’m so committed,” she admits. “I’m not going to sit back and watch this fail.” Originally from Virginia, Rodriguez and her husband, Ray, have lived in Florida for the past 20 years, where they still run a promotional products company and a land development business. But for the past 16 years, the parents of two grown children have owned a home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where they now reside 95 percent of the time. That’s why, when Rodriguez first considered entering the portable sanitation business a few years ago, she knew she had found the perfect location. “The setting here is beautiful. It gave me a place to come that I loved the most,” she says. While Rodriguez had considered various retail and franchise endeavors, she found the Clay County area ideal for a portable sanitation business. “There is an unbelievable amount of growth in our area,” she says, specifically in the residential and commercial sectors. “I’ve had a chance to assess (the market), and I felt it was an unbelievable business opportunity.” Her timing was good. Clay County recently established a mandate that all building projects must have portable restrooms onsite. “You can’t even get a permit without them,” Rodriguez says. With timing, location and business acumen on her side, Rodriguez was poised to move forward. “The area was accustomed to accepting what was offered to them. I wanted to see something different around here,” she says. That “something different” was Take a Break Portables, which she knew would bring her people-pleasing skills to a new level. Rodriguez did her homework for close to two years, researching the business, the geographic area and the competition. “I honed in on surrounding counties to assess competitors. That was probably the biggest thing for me to decide whether I would move forward,” she says. With only one restroom contractor in the area, Rodriguez felt the region was ready for another supplier. “My competitor has never had a competitor,” she says. That was about to change.

DUCKS IN A ROW
But while Rodriguez realized potential clients might compare her to the competition, that was never her intent. “I will brand myself differently,” she says. “We are not comparing apples to apples.” That, in essence, became a mission statement for Take a Break — which, with only three employees and one truck, plans to service four rural counties in a 30- to 40-mile radius. And she didn’t want to take the approach of low-balling prices either. “If I don’t place value on my services, how can I expect (clients) to?” she says. Because her units are new, and because she’s focused on keeping them as clean as ever, Rodriguez charges $10 more than her competitor. In preparing to establish her business, Rodriguez first began exploring financing, through various lending channels. “It was a crash course for me. I didn’t want to use up my own cash,” she says. “It does require a tremendous amount of cash flow and planning.” She finally was approved for a traditional bank loan, which led her to the next big step — securing a truck and equipment. Rodriguez opted for a 2007 Ford F-350 with a stainless steel tank (300 gallons waste/110 gallons fresh) and Tommy Lift system from Best Enterprises. She says through her research she knew she would need either an F-350 or F-450 to accommodate her needs. The truck can carry four restrooms, but Rodriguez purchased a flatbed trailer to haul additional units as her business grows. Her inventory started with 22 Hampel Corp. restrooms in a “soothing yellow” color. “I wanted something very pleasing to the eye,” she says. The color, she says, also distinguishes Take a Break units from others peppering the area. Rodriguez has a total of 120 units on order that should arrive by October, as well as two ADA units and two sinks from Five Peaks Technology. “I really would love to have 200 to 250 units in a year’s time,” she says. Everything is stored at a friend’s property on the site of a historic feed mill. Rodriguez realizes that selling herself and her business is the next, and perhaps most important, task in launching Take a Break. And those marketing skills come from her many years in the promotional products industry. “We had to help people for over 17 years. We would help every company, from a bank to a hospital. Our goal was to go in and be their brains and say, ‘Let me tell you what you can do.’ ”

MAKING HER CASE
“How do I sell them?” That’s the first question Rodriguez asked herself as she planned to approach local construction contractors — all of whom already had a supplier. She had been “flying under the radar” for about 18 months doing planning, researching and preliminary marketing work, but she knew there was only one way to hit the ground running — visit potential construction customers face-to-face. “I want them to see and hear what I have to offer,” she says. “I’m here to do it better than my competitor,” Rodriguez touted to potential clients. Still, she quickly realized, “In a small town, there will be individuals who won’t switch.” And she endured her fair share of ridicule early on. She a p p r o a c h e d construction sites where men laughed at her. “They said to me, ‘You don’t look like someone who would do a (portable restroom) business,’” she says. But eventually her determination and communication skills helped land her first client — three weeks earlier than her scheduled launch. “(In March), I had builders who had asked if I was up and running,” she says, so she did a soft launch, shipping 15 units. “It was very critical for me,” she says. “It allowed me to crawl through it and work out the kinks. I could have had all 22 units out, but I had to make sure things were running accordingly.” Several factors have helped Rodriguez in establishing Take a Break as a viable competitor. While some might consider her gender a factor to overcome, Rodriguez considers it an asset. By adding her “woman’s touch” on customer service, she says she focuses on making sure all units meet her tough standards for cleanliness. “The last thing (a builder) needs is for a customer to walk up to a home and smell waste,” she says. She believes potential clients will consider that meticulousness a plus.

MEETING CUSTOMERS
And being familiar with all aspects of the business allows Rodriguez to speak intelligently about everything from delivery to sanitizing to her EZ Tracker GPS system. In starting a fledgling business, she indeed does it all — from ordering, cleaning and inspecting units to marketing the business and making sales calls, often face-to-face. That has prompted doubting Thomases to recant, “Oh my gosh — this woman means business.” She also believes her focus on customer service has paid off. “Customer service will be our No. 1  priority. They have to know and feel I am sincere in my approach. If for any reason (they) are not 100 percent satisfied, I don’t charge one red penny,” she says. “They can never fault me for doing my best.” Just a few days before the April 1 launch date, orders started to pile up, a development that prompted previously skeptical builders to reconsider the new  kid on the block. All it took to generate the orders, Rodriguez says, was gaining the ear and trust of the first few customers, still not an easy task for a newcomer. But Rodriguez knows where to place her thanks. In addition to having a supportive husband, she says, “I have met people who have truly stopped and listened; they gave me the opportunity.” That support came in the form of longtime friends from the Hayesville community. “When I went to the builders I’ve known for a while, I threw (my) idea out. People were very supportive,” she says, especially when she became proactive in her business research and planning. “I have really been blessed with people who have supported me. “In a small town, everybody knows everybody. That is the absolute best form of advertising.”

BUILD THE INFRASTRUCTURE
Rodriguez may not have been able to predict what would happen when she opened for business, but she did succeed in launching early and convincing some of her competitor’s clients to give her a shot. And she now is closer to achieving her personal goal as a portable restroom operator. “Most of us would probably say (success is) when you break even or make money,” she says. “My goal was to set up the infrastructure and get out there and make it the most successful female-owned restroom business. That has been the measure of my success.”

CLAY COUNTY 2007 BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
Take A Break Proud Recipient of the Clay County 2007 Business of the Year

Christmas Parade