Oh, the joy of the sweet singing of the pressure washer. Back in my day I worked on the floor at a casino and cocktailed, so you can imagine how I’d randomly wake up in the middle of the night hearing the machines singing in my head. These days I wake up to the singing of the pressure washer.
My how the Frog has grown. When we first started out my late husband and I ran the business, when we needed help my father-in-law and brother-in-law would lend a hand. Well, now the Frog is more than that and family members aren’t enough to keep the fort going.
As I’m sitting here typing it’s just a glimmer of how large we’ve grown in the past 7 years thanks to great management and hard, hard work. Our team of employees has consistently worked hard to provide the best sales and service.
Used to be the day that I’d answer the phone, do all the internet, sales, logistics and help move equipment. In fact when the late husband got sick from terminal cancer I’d throw on my tennis shoes and use the J-bar to move the three door cooler with our warehouse guy.
Now the day comes that I’m not answering the phone as much as I’d like, can’t possibly handle even a fourth of the sales and heaven forbid any of the warehouse guys saw me trying to move a piece of equipment. Truth be known, I think some of the new guys think I’m incapable of moving equipment and helping out but I’ll tell you I didn’t come out with nine stitches in my arm for nothing… yup, there’s a story and maybe pictures of it on the web somewhere.
But, those days are over. There’s just not enough of me to go around. I cannot possibly do everything that the business needs by myself and we are very blessed that the business has outgrown simple owner one-size-fits-all. Of course I try to keep my hands in as many parts of it as possible, but we do have folks whose sole job is to sell, others who simply do internet, others who are dedicated technicians and others who just move equipment. And, as I used to say when I was the principal, the most important person at the place was the janitor. At the Frog I think the folks who clean the equipment are very valuable. They do a great job and pay attention to detail, ensuring doors work properly, seals are installed and that grime is gone!
Thank you, Central Florida, Orlando, Kissimmee and international clients, it’s thanks to you that this little family run business has grown and is growing out of our Megawarehouse on South Orange Blossom Trail.
I think it hit home the other night as I walked the warehouse with one of the buyers and the warehouse manager. The warehouse manager says to me, well, we’re almost out of sandwich prep tables. We need some more. I looked at the rows upon rows of used sandwich prep tables and pizza prep tables and megatops, I said, count how many we have. He counted, it’s 12. Baby, what a long way we have come- it used to be that we were happy to have just one unit in stock… now twelve isn’t enough… thanks to your support we’re able to share the variety with you. And when you’re shopping for used restaurant equipment variety, prices and integrity count.
We also have a dedicated Finance Manager. I’m not certain on this but I know we’re the only dealership in Central Florida who has an IN HOUSE finance manager and we may very well be the only dealership nationally… in fact I’d tend to believe that.
But really we’re just focused on doing what we do. Thanks for believing in us and being there. We love start ups, we love to work with you, in fact my next post will be about an old customer who called earlier today!