Jeff Taylor was an engineer and Jack Christopher worked in insurance when the two neighbors began discussing the possibility of a business partnership while waiting for their daughters at the school bus stop. Despite their corporate success, they shared a desire to own a service-based business with established processes. That led them to open the first TWO MEN AND A TRUCK in Mississippi in 1999. After 27 years of building a premier reputation in the moving industry, the partners recognized a growing need among their clients for a professional solution to purge and dispose of unwanted items.

On January 26, Jeff and Jack officially launched TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK in Metro Jackson. Now working alongside Jeff’s son, Brennan, the team is ready to take this standalone concept to customers in the area who need junk removal. The team hopes to leverage their long-standing community relationships to help families declutter and simplify their lives. 

Jeff sat down with 1851 Franchise to discuss his longtime partnership with Christopher and the upcoming launch of their TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK franchise. Here’s what he had to say:

1851 Franchise: Frame your personal story for us. What do you want us to know?

Jeff Taylor: Jack and I have been business partners from the beginning, starting in 1999 when we opened TWO MEN AND A TRUCK. We were the first location in Mississippi. We feel we’ve been very fortunate in establishing and sustaining a good reputation. It’s rare to have a franchise or business for almost 30 years and then be able to add another service offering.

TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK is a separate company and entity, but the name naturally connects the two, so co‑branding is very important to us. We want to maximize the benefit of both brands. TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK will be separate, but we’ll certainly utilize the 27 years of brand equity we’ve built with TWO MEN AND A TRUCK.

1851: What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?

Jeff: I’m an engineer by trade. I was working for a small private family firm, but I always had aspirations to do something on my own, ideally a service‑based business, since I’d worked in service businesses before. I had no idea it would be moving.

Jack and I were neighbors, and we’d talk about going into business together at six in the morning while getting our daughters on the school buses. We saw the TWO MEN AND A TRUCK brand in a neighboring state, thought it was local at first, and later realized it was a franchise. We’d been looking at different franchising opportunities because we liked the idea of already‑established processes. When we found out it was a franchise, we expressed interest, went to the home office in Michigan, and meeting the people behind it was what sold us. We did local market research for about a year to see how it might do in our market, and then purchased the area and launched in 1999.

Jack was in the insurance business. We didn’t want the business to carry the burden of both of us full‑time from day one. I was the managing member, but we’ve always been 50/50 partners. Jack has been day‑to‑day for the last 12 years. That’s how we got into TWO MEN AND A TRUCK, and we then moved into TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK.

1851: What was your perception of franchising prior to becoming a franchisee, and what do you want people to know about franchising now that you are in it?

Jeff: I liked the community aspect and the fact that there’s already a set of established best practices drawn from many units. I’d worked in a small private firm, never in a franchise environment. The best practices I knew were specific to that company. 

With franchising, there are proven processes you don’t have to reinvent. You also hear the statistics about how many independent businesses fail within 24 months. Those statistics look very different when you involve franchising — there’s much more success. I believe that’s because you have a proven set of processes and, importantly, a strong franchisee-franchisor relationship, which was very important for us.

1851: What made you pick this brand? What excites you most about this company?

Jeff: We’ve been doing haul‑away since we opened. If we were performing a move and a customer said, “I’ve got this refrigerator or couch I can’t put on the curb and I don’t have the ability to move it,” we’d take care of it as an accommodating service. Over time, that evolved into more of a defined service. We’ve also been doing junk removal using the same type of truck we’ll use for TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK, but under a more generic TWO MEN AND A TRUCK junk removal brand.

The need has always been there because part of moving is purging and disposing of things you don’t use. What excites us is that this is not just an ancillary service; it’s a standalone, separate entity with its own daily focus, requirements, metrics, and goals. We’ve already seen the demand. We’ve established a strong reputation for moving household goods and have the skill set for that, so moving junk is a natural extension.

We’re fortunate in our frontline staff, the customer‑facing team. We can message that these are the same team members people have relied on for their precious household items, and now they can trust us to handle what they’re disposing of. We expect a lot of the same customers, but also new industries and customer segments. It gives us another service and another touchpoint. We feel both brands will enhance each other. Whichever service a customer uses, they may end up using the other as well, and our messaging will incorporate both brands.

1851: What do you hope to achieve with your business? What are your plans for growth? 

Jeff: We’re going to start with the low‑hanging fruit — the relationships we’ve built over 25-plus years. We want to make sure we’re getting the word out there. We really feel we’ll see growth quickly through co-branding and the additional customer touches both brands provide. We will start with two trucks and multiple containers, but we expect we’ll need to expand based on both capacity and contingency before long. It’s a matter of letting our existing relationships and referrals be the foundation for establishing new relationships.

1851: Is there anything else about your story you want us to know?

Jeff: One of our partners is my son, which is special. He’s involved in TWO MEN AND A TRUCK operations and has been here for eight years. I’m excited about that opportunity. Our marketing director, Shelby, is my oldest daughter, so this is a tight-knit family business. I didn’t envision this almost 30 years ago when I was putting her on the school bus and talking with Jack. I didn’t realize we’d end up working together. She’s been here about 10 or 11 years. Both have been unexpected but welcome surprises.

In general, partnerships can be hard to sustain, but Jack and I have been partners for almost 30 years. It’s been very successful because we try to always look at the big picture and focus on the needs of the customer and our team members. Looking back, choosing franchising in general, and specifically TWO MEN AND A TRUCK and now TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK, is something we would definitely choose to do again.

1851: What advice do you have for other people thinking about becoming franchise owners?

Jeff: Always do your due diligence, however that looks for you. For us, that meant going in person to meet the franchisors, understanding their philosophy, how they operate, and what their values are, especially regarding the franchisee-franchisor relationship. We reached out to other franchisees before we signed on.

We tried to talk to people regionally and nationally, in similar demographics, with different tenures — those in business a long time and those in for only a year. We wanted as much information up front: relational aspects, what they discovered after joining, whether expectations were met, and whether they’d choose to do it again. Everyone we talked to had no regrets.

In franchising, there’s always a royalty — a percentage you pay to be part of the system. We’ve always asked ourselves, “Minus the royalty, is this something we could be successful at on our own?” Our experience has been that franchising provides enough value — in systems, support, and brand — that it more than justifies that royalty.

ABOUT TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK:

Headquartered in Michigan, TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK is a full-service junk removal company that is committed to conquering your clutter. The company handles furniture pickup, appliance removal, debris cleanouts, and more, offering a hassle-free experience for residential and commercial customers. With over 70 locations across 23 U.S. states, the brand operates as a franchise-based business, and each location is independently owned and operated. TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK is part of ServiceMaster® Brands, a leading franchise provider of needs-based residential and commercial services in the restoration, cleaning, moving, and bioremediation industries. ServiceMaster was founded as one of America’s first franchise businesses and does business under seven brands today across 50 states and nine countries that generate more than $3.5B in system-wide sales. TWO MEN AND A JUNK TRUCK is the sister brand of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK, a trusted moving company founded in 1985, which operates 430 locations in 48 U.S. states, as well as in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.