In 2023, it appeared Jason Birdsong had a good thing going with the septic business he and his wife Erin owned. They had a large staff, loyal customers and lots of work. But he was just about ready to hang it up. “I was exhausted, the cash flow wasn’t there, I was working 70, 80 hours a week and getting nowhere,” he says.
What turned it around for him was a meeting with a friend at the WWETT Show that year. He learned that working harder was not what he needed to do. He just needed a different mindset and focus.
The company, JT Services, is located in Claremore, Oklahoma. They work within a 50-mile radius providing full-service septic work, plumbing and drain cleaning, portable restrooms, and storm shelter sales and installations. They operate out of an eight-acre property with two office buildings, a parts and supplies building, and a shop.
Erin is director of administration. Their daughter, DJ, is a high school senior and has a part-time job, but also works two or three hours a day as Birdsong’s assistant, helping him keep his schedule. She also organizes his nearly 300 daily emails — eliminating the junk and prioritizing the rest in a ranking system where one is “not important” and five is “deal with right now.”
There are 36 people on staff — two septic pumpers, three septic repair technicians, four installers (septic systems and storm shelters), two portable restroom technicians, two licensed plumbers, two mechanics, seven call center workers, an inventory specialist, yardman, accountant, office personnel and managers. Birdsong prefers to call them “team members” rather than employees.
Birdsong has been able to pass on his newfound enthusiasm and focus to his staff, allowing him time to work on improving the industry as a whole by serving as president of both the Oklahoma Onsite Wastewater Association and the National Association of Wastewater Technicians.
He is still a busy guy, but now he’s enjoying the ride.
THE TURNAROUND
Birdsong says he’s gone through a lot of personal growth over the last couple years. “I really had a very small mindset on what I wanted to become or what we wanted to do with the company. My mindset was, ‘I’m going to make it eventually, I’ve just got to work a little harder.’”
Meeting with Jamie Miller, owner of Miller’s Services in Virginia, at the WWETT Show changed that, he says. “He asked me the hardest, but simplest, question anybody has asked me — ‘What is your ‘why’?’ After an intense conversation, he told my wife and I to go back to our room and have a conversation. We thought we had great answers — I wanted to help people, my wife wanted to provide jobs. But Miller said those were not viable reasons to take all the risk and lose sleep.” He also pointed out the realities of overhead — more staff, equipment and revenue don’t necessarily translate into more profit.
The couple ultimately saw a bigger picture, and for them their “why” became generational wealth and leaving a legacy of financial freedom for future generations. With that in mind, they became laser-focused. “We quickly started investing in ourselves, dialing in our vision, learning our numbers and putting goals on paper,” Birdsong says.
Their commitment to themselves was tested when Miller said he’d give them high-paying positions at his company if they couldn’t come up with a good “why.” They were tempted, but declined. Miller then recommended a business coach, Mike Agugliaro of the FuDog Group in New Jersey. He and Birdsong meet twice a week via Zoom and have an in-person meeting every two months.
After they got themselves on track, they were able to bring that vision and culture to their team and grow them, as well. “When you do that and invest in them, the business and the trade side comes naturally,” Birdsong says. “And that has created an unstoppable culture.”
FULL RANGE OF SERVICES
The Birdsongs got into septic work in 2006 when they decided it was time to get out of their dangerous wrecker and repo business. They also sold and installed storm shelters but merged the two companies in 2024. They added portable restrooms in 2022 and plumbing and drain cleaning in 2024.
Septic pumping. Most of the company’s pumping is for residential systems. But they do have a few commercial customers. “We have a couple of butcher plants,” Birdsong says. “We pump out their stuff, but it has to go to a completely different disposal facility, and it’s classified as nonhazardous material.”
The company uses a 2015 Kenworth from Imperial Industries with a 5,000-gallon steel tank, and a 2015 Freightliner Cascadia built by a local company with a 2,500-gallon steel tank. Both have National Vacuum Equipment blowers and carry Prototek flushable tank locators, RIDGID sewer cameras and Crust Busters tank agitators.
Septic Repair. Out of frustration, Birdsong created a separate division for septic repairs rather than having the pumpers handle it. “It’s just too hard for them to carry a bunch of tools and parts, so they spend a lot of wasted time driving back and forth,” he says. “I believe the industry is transitioning to having repair experts who just do repairs.” The techs use Dodge ProMaster vans, fully stocked with parts and tools to deal with 99% of what they run into every day.
Plumbing. The company added plumbing services because they saw a need for it. “A lot of our septic stuff turns into plumbing,” Birdsong says. “So, having licensed plumbers on staff enables us to take it one step further.” The crew operates out of two Dodge ProMaster vans stocked with Viztrac sewer cameras (Amazing Machinery) and RIDGID cable snake machines. They share two Bobcat E20 mini-excavators with the repair guys.
UNDERGROUND WORK
The installation team handles both septic systems and storm shelters. They utilize two Bobcat E60 excavators, a Bobcat T66 track loader, a Freightliner full-sized tandem-axle dump truck, and two monorail trucks with Del Zotto beds.
On the septic side, about 90% of their installs are aerobic units from Clearstream Wastewater Systems. Their conventional systems are mostly subsurface, pipe-and-gravel, with 1,000-gallon tanks.
Storm shelters are from four manufacturers in a variety of styles, both steel and concrete. “Shelters are a necessary evil here,” Birdsong explains. “Oklahoma has a large number of destructive tornadoes. In 2024 a tornado came through Claremore and wiped out over 350 homes.”
It’s a seasonal business, he says — but shouldn’t be. Demand rises drastically after a tornado, then drops off as people forget all about it. “I have tried to change that mentality, but no matter how many discounts we offer through the winter, sales are not there,” he says.
PORTABLE SANITATION
Birdsong began offering portable restrooms because they got calls for it and heard a lot of complaints. Knowing nothing about the industry, he sought help from a friend in the industry, Tim Smith, owner of A King’s Throne in Iowa, who also sold him two used vacuum trucks.
They have about 215 portable restrooms and 30 hand-wash stations (all from PolyJohn) and two luxury trailers (Lang Specialty Trailers). Construction accounts for about 80% of their work.
Service is done using a 2024 Dodge 5500 and a 2012 Ford F-550 with 800-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater Imperial stainless steel tanks and Masport pumps. For backup they have a Ford flatbed with a 330-gallon waste/100-gallon freshwater slide-in tank with a Fruitland pump from a local company.
Birdsong says they have very high cleaning standards and hold the guys accountable for their performance. For quality control, his daughter conducts random cleanliness checks.
The company uses deodorant products from Walex and J&J. “One thing I learned over the years is don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” Birdsong says. “So I like to have two suppliers for almost everything.”
Jobs in this division have been hard to fill, Birdsong says. “A lot of people can’t be alone all day. Right now we’ve got a great set of men but in the beginning we struggled.” Fortunately Birdsong and his wife both enjoy running routes, so they filled in when needed. “It got us out of the office and it was not the same thing every day,” Birdsong says.
TEAM SUPPORT
Birdsong says they pay their staff quite a bit more than competitors. “People don’t realize how costly turnover is,” he says. “When you create a culture where people enjoy coming to work and you pay them well, they want to be there. And your customers will see it because they are being delivered ‘wow’ service.”
Birdsong believes in having frequent meetings to provide ongoing support and education. On Mondays the outside personnel meet at 7 a.m. for “team huddles,” typically led by Birdsong. There are also weekly hour-and-a-half training sessions led by division managers or outside experts — Tuesdays for the service division, Wednesdays for site services and Thursday for the call center staff. All-company meetings are currently held quarterly, but will probably change to monthly in the near future.
