As Florida takes precautions against this new virus, The Junk Boys have kept a close eye on the news. Stores shut down, the curfew went into effect, and the order came out to wear masks in public. We’ve been keeping our distance, staying in, and being careful.
We switched to a minimum or no contact pickup procedure, and added a couple more precautionary measures, like wearing gloves at all times on the job, and keeping hand sanitizer in the truck at all times.
Staying Productive
We’ve been taking this downtime as a blessing in disguise. Every day, Kurt and I meet up and think of every possible productive thing we could do that day. Doesn’t matter if it is cosmetics for the truck or trailer, work on the computer, work on the phones, or repair and maintenance. We write a little list and get started.
This way, even through this slow time, we can commit full-time hours to our business. We know that to make it work, you have to put in work. During this lockdown, there’s not much else we could be doing anyway! This business and the ability to work through a national pandemic is really a gift. Even just considering the mental effect that stir craze can have, having a daily list of goals to work through has kept us on our rockers.
The Battle with SEO
For the past two weeks or so, we’ve been focusing on SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The Junk Boys working on SEO is similar to a child trying to build a propulsion rocket engine. Extremely difficult to even wrap your brain around, let alone execute. That being said, we know it’s possible to build rockets, and we know it’s possible to optimize a website for the search engines. So the biggest hurdle is not to be overwhelmed by the complexity of the task and to take it day by day, little by little.
The learning curve was quite steep, but we’re proud to say we’ve completely reworked the website not once but three times. A completely new and polished look shows that The Junk Boys means business, and The Junk Boys means professionalism. As far as SEO goes, we know we have a long way to go, but at least we are a couple of steps down the illuminated path instead of stumbling through the darkness.
Real-Life Work
In other, less boring, less computer news, we’ve been using this downtime to make some crucial upgrades to our trailer. Improving the look of our work rig is probably one of the most rewarding things for me personally in terms of the business image. We changed the way our back gate works, added a swinging gate latch with a rear panel for support, as well as scrubbing the deck with some good ol’ fashioned pine sol. Smells great. We still need to saw off some exposed screws so that we can keep our hands intact… maybe tomorrow.
We also had some of our trailer signage broken, so we went to our local signage shop, My Sign Today, and got a replacement panel and vinyl lettering. It’s nice to have such good quality and customer service so close to home.
This is blog post #2. Come back here for updates on what we’re up to and what we’re thinking about. Here’s to the age of information.
Tanner Beaty
Co-Owner & Operator of The Junk Boys
