Clintar Owner Spotlight: Andrew Kousik
An inspiring story of hard work and determination – meet Andrew Kousik, a Clintar franchise owner who started as a snow shoveler and has worked his way up to co-owning two franchises!
Check out our Owner Spotlight video to find out more about Andrew’s journey and how he is setting ambitious goals for the next two years.
Please introduce yourself and the market/ territory you serve
I’m Andrew Kousik, and I service the Toronto downtown market. I’ve been doing that since 2005, so roughly 17 years we’ve been servicing.
I was looking for something different. I used to always work outside when I was a kid. I tried with different avenues working in, in different corporate fields, and I’ve always wanted to get back into the landscaping. And at some time I applied at Clintar in fall, winter of 2002, and I got hired as a snow shoveler. From that point on, that winter worked as a snow shoveler, and that summer I ended up being a supervisor, which took into account my horticultural background.
About eight months into it, I was trying to figure out where I was going to go with my life and career and stuff. And there was a few people ahead of me. There was the manager and then there was the VP of Clintar at that time, which still is Terry and I was like, well, maybe I need to open a, a franchise. And I started inquiring about that.
Fall of 2004 I ended up, you know, signing the franchise agreement, and I started operating in spring of 2005 which was exciting, nervous didn’t really know what I got myself into at that point. Then I, once I started operating, it felt all natural and it was an exhilarating experience for me starting a business. It was just something, a new adventure.
It was something that I’d never thought I’d be doing at that point in my life and I was super excited when I started.
What are some benefits that most people don’t know about Clintar?
I think one of the biggest benefits is the amount of owners, the amount of franchisees that we have working in a system. Being able to pull from different offices, if we have some questions learning experiences working with our corporate office and, getting additional training and help going forward.
I think the whole encompassing Clintar, working as a team there’s been a lot of advantages throughout the years. If we’re not sure I can reach out to a franchise in Kitchener or up in Ottawa and ask them a question of a similar situation, how they’ve dealt with it, and then vice versa. We’ve gone out to help other franchisees when they’ve had severe snowfalls and they’ve reached out to other offices to come and help them.
We’ve gone down to help in London once or twice when they’ve had excessive snowfalls and they need additional help. And we’ve gone down and helped them out. So I think the camaraderie and being able to work not only as a small business owner, but working within the system, it’s been advantageous.
You can’t do it alone. What can you tell us about the people you work with?
Robert used to work for a corporate office, used to do all the technology computer backups and helping run their softwares. We took over a Toronto West franchise, it was a goal of mine at one point to expand my organization, my franchise to the area to encompass more of the Toronto area and the opportunity presented itself.
Having a partner at first, it’s like a marriage. You know, there’s some good, there’s some bad, there’s some indifferences. But it’s been a great experience. We’ve grown our organization, we’ve attained some great customers in the healthcare industry. We’ve grown our staff, grown our team from within as well.
Senior employees grow from within. It’s been exciting. It’s been great to see that as well. And we’re always looking forward to continue to grow the company in the future.
Tell us about your family outside of Clintar.
I’ve been married for 21 years to my wife Karen. I have two daughters. One is in university at Queens, the other one’s in grade 11. Two more years, and then she’s off to university and we’ll be an empty nest.
It’s exciting watching your family grow and I think part of having the franchise has given me a bunch of freedoms that I may have not been able to have, like to be able to spend additional time with my family during the summertime.
Comes with the team that we have built around us, comes with having a partner that I can rely on when I need to go away. He’ll pick up my end of the business, vice versa. When he goes away, I pick up his end. So it’s been advantageous from that way as well.
And the family, they’ve enjoyed it. We’ve gone to different conferences with the family. They’ve enjoyed meeting the Clintar franchisees. Also we’ve seen other families when we’ve met them at conferences you know, you hear about them getting married, having children, you’re like, oh my God, has time flown by. While we’ve been on this, working with Clintar on this life journey, right? So it’s been really interesting.
What are your immediate goals over the next 2 years?
I think next few years we can see some positive growth, expanding our team hopefully seeing some of our staff grow with it and just moving forward in a positive growth direction.
Working with our clients on sustainability, working with our clients on helping find solutions for themselves, expanding our services to different areas and hopefully being able to encompass more of what the client’s requirements are, and being a single point of contact for different projects that we can outsource for them so they can come to us.
