More calls will not grow a septic company if its trucks are stuck waiting to unload. A full schedule will not protect your profit if the wrong jobs consume your day. And being excellent at the fieldwork does not automatically make you excellent at running the business.

Those are some of the practical lessons Jon Jouvenaux brings to this episode of the Excavation & Septic Profits Podcast. Jon is president of BBB Septic & Portable Toilets and founder of VibraWaste. His experience connects two conversations that excavation and septic contractors cannot afford to separate: building a stronger business today and preparing for the wastewater challenges ahead.

I sat down with Jon to discuss profitable services, customer relationships, dispatch technology, disposal access, and the equipment he developed when an operational problem demanded a better solution. This is not a conversation about buying another truck and hoping growth follows. It is about understanding what keeps your business moving, what slows it down, and where your next opportunity may be hiding.

Watch the Full Interview with Jon Jouvenaux

Prefer to watch on YouTube? Watch the complete Jon Jouvenaux interview here.

Start with the Work That Actually Makes You Money

Jon's path into septic began with mechanical work. BBB was a fleet-repair customer, and he also helped run its portable-toilet route. Later, he and his business partner joined an ownership buyout. His background taught him an important distinction: knowing how to do the work and knowing how to build a business around that work are different skills.

When a newer operator asks him for advice, Jon starts with a question about which work earns the most money with the least effort. That is not an invitation to cut corners. It is a challenge to understand your service mix instead of treating every booked job as equally valuable.

A septic-pumping route, a system installation, and a portable-toilet rental do not behave the same way economically. Jon describes portable sanitation as a rental and route business, while the septic side is a service business. They can share wastewater infrastructure and fleet resources, but that does not make their costs, scheduling needs, or profit drivers identical.

For excavation and septic contractors, the lesson is straightforward: look beyond the top-line revenue on a job. Consider the crew time, travel, equipment demands, disposal requirements, and follow-up involved. The work that keeps everyone busy is not always the work that builds the strongest business.

Build Relationships Before Someone Needs a Septic Company

When I asked what he would prioritize if he were starting over with one truck and limited capital, Jon pointed to marketing and relationships. His examples included local networking and offering free Septic 101 education to real-estate offices.

That approach puts useful information in front of people who regularly encounter septic questions. A real-estate professional helping with a property transaction may need an inspection, a clear explanation, or a dependable service provider. Teaching them before that urgent moment creates familiarity and gives them a reason to remember your company.

Jon describes this outreach as productive, but he does not offer a guaranteed lead count or revenue increase. Its value in the conversation is the principle: become a trusted resource before you ask to become the hired contractor.

Your website, online visibility, and follow-up should support that trust. When a referral checks you out online, they should quickly understand what you do, where you work, and how to reach you. Relationship-building and digital marketing work better when they tell the same story.

Track Demand, Revenue, and the Time You Cannot Get Back

Jon's management discussion moves from phone calls to revenue and labor. He talks about tracking which department callers need, whether they are first-time or repeat customers, year-over-year revenue, employee overtime, and the online sources bringing people to the business.

Those measures answer different questions. More calls can indicate growing demand, but they do not automatically mean better jobs. Revenue can rise while unnecessary overtime erodes the benefit. Knowing where inquiries originate helps you connect marketing activity with what customers actually request.

The same thinking applies to equipment. Jon recalls a truck-engine decision in which the impact went well beyond the repair bill. His point is that downtime also removes a working asset from the operation.

“The most expensive part is for the revenue that I lost while that truck was down.”

That observation matters when comparing repair, replacement, and backup capacity. The cheapest immediate option may not be the lowest-cost business decision once you account for the work a truck cannot perform. Jon's experience is a reminder to evaluate the whole operational effect, not just the invoice.

Disposal Access Belongs in Your Growth Plan

One of the most important parts of the interview is also easy to overlook: a pumping company has to unload before it can keep serving customers. Jon describes disposal fees, restrictions at receiving facilities, and the disruption of losing access to a place where his company could dump.

“We have to be able to have our trucks empty in order to continue to function.”

That pressure helped drive his company's decision to develop its own wastewater-processing infrastructure. But Jon does not present ownership as a simple purchase that solves every problem. He describes land, storage, travel logistics, commissioning difficulties, and the work required to make the operation function.

He also discusses alternatives used by other operators, including partnerships and arrangements with treatment facilities. These are examples of local solutions, not a universal permission to discharge wastewater or bypass an approval process. Any operator considering a new disposal arrangement needs to establish what the receiving facility and applicable authorities actually allow.

If you are planning to grow, disposal capacity should be part of the conversation before the next truck arrives. More equipment and more booked jobs are not much help when the unloading side of the business cannot keep up.

How the Muckraker Grew Out of a Real Operational Problem

VibraWaste's Muckraker was not introduced in the interview as technology looking for a problem. Jon describes the opposite: debris in incoming wastewater caused blockage, extra labor, and trouble in downstream equipment. He needed a better way to receive and screen that material.

His account follows a development process involving early screens, ideas drawn from vibratory equipment, prototypes, and changes to how the basket moved material. The resulting system uses a vibrating screen and an auger to remove and compact captured trash and debris.

Jon gives an unloading example of a 4,000-gallon truck in ten minutes at 400 gallons per minute. VibraWaste's own product information also states an up-to-400-GPM screening capacity. Actual performance depends on the material and operating conditions; the interview is not an independent performance test or a guarantee for every load.

The distinction between screening and treatment matters. Removing trash from the incoming stream can help protect equipment and improve receiving operations, but the screened liquid still requires appropriate storage or downstream treatment. The Muckraker should not be confused with a complete, stand-alone solution for every wastewater contaminant.

Recovered Truck Time Is an Opportunity, Not Guaranteed Profit

Jon connects faster unloading with a business question: what could your trucks do with the time they get back? In the interview, he describes a conditional example in which recovering two productive hours creates room for another septic job. Using his assumptions, he estimates roughly $10,000 in additional monthly revenue per truck.

That is a revenue illustration, not a documented profit increase or a promised return on investment. Another job has to be available, scheduled, and completed. It brings its own costs. The equipment investment also has to make sense for the operator's volume and disposal situation.

Jon is clear that he has not calculated a universal truck-count threshold at which a receiving system becomes the right investment. A smaller operator with low utilization may need a different answer from a busy fleet with repeated unloading delays.

The broader lesson is useful regardless of the equipment you choose. Identify the bottleneck, put a realistic value on the capacity it consumes, and compare solutions using your own numbers. Do not buy on a headline savings claim alone.

The Next Chapter: Seeing Waste as a Potential Resource

Toward the end of the conversation, Jon discusses work his team is developing around biosolids and soil-amendment production. It is a forward-looking discussion about what wastewater resources might become, not proof that every technical or commercial challenge has already been solved.

His team captures that ambition in a short slogan:

“It's only waste if we waste it.”

The outlook is encouraging, but the distinction between an existing screening machine and a developing resource-recovery process must remain clear. The interview does not provide test results proving destruction of PFAS, microplastics, or pharmaceuticals. Those aims should be understood as development goals, not established capabilities of the Muckraker.

For owners watching the industry evolve, Jon's message is to keep learning. He points to conferences, peer conversations, and business reading as ways to avoid figuring out every problem alone. Growth requires more than determination. It requires better information, better systems, and people who can help you move beyond doing everything yourself.

Build a Business That Can Support the Growth You Want

The strongest lesson from this episode is that marketing, operations, and capacity belong in the same plan. You need the right customers to find you, a team that can serve them, and an operation that can handle the work profitably.

Learn more about Jon's companies at BBB Septic & Portable Toilets and VibraWaste. Watch the full interview for his perspective on building a septic business and tackling the disposal challenges that come with it.

If you are an excavation contractor or septic contractor who wants your marketing to support a more deliberate growth plan, send us a message today to find out how Excavation Marketing Pros can help you attract the right opportunities and build a clearer path from inquiry to booked work.