Ted’s Trash Takes Command of Sales

Ted’s Trash Service is a third-generation, family-owned waste management company based in Independence, Mo. It has been serving the Kansas City metropolitan area since 1960 and has grown from a one-truck operation to a local powerhouse with dozens of trucks and roll-off dumpster rentals for residential and commercial garbage and recyclables.

All that growth came from referrals and word of mouth. The company didn’t employ a traditional sales force.

But soon a number of competitors began to enter the market, and company drivers started seeing a lot of other trucks along their routes. Company officials were able to identify competitors’ customers that they would have liked to lure away but needed an efficient way to reach out to them without having to hire a huge sales team, says Matt Albin, Ted’s Trash’s chief financial officer.

Albin worked with Dusty Ferrell, the company’s general manager, to look for software solutions to their sales dilemma. They eventually selected CommanderAI, a provider of sales intelligence technology specifically for the waste management industry.

“We liked their story; their demographics,” Albin says. “They could identify with us and our team size. They were growing, just like we were growing. Their owner and founder had expertise in the trash business, and that meant something to us.”

Ted’s Trash chose the Commander solution at the end of 2025. “It was a pretty quick decision,” Ferrell says, adding that installation of the solution was also very quick and seamless.

Since the company had never actively reached out to customers before, the active outreach approach that CommanderAI offers was entirely new to Ted’s Trash.

The solution’s AI agents retrieve data on customers, competitors, and geographic footprint, then generate messages directly to prospects. Geo-based prospecting digitizes door-to-door sales outreach, identifies high-potential leads, keeps users from chasing unreachable accounts, and prioritizes prospects that fit current routes.

“It’s helping us build sales from the ground up,” Albin says. “Before, if we were going along a route and identified some accounts that we would like to have, we had to find the right contact then try to connect. Commander sends out 75 emails along that route in a matter of a few hours.”

“CommanderAI opens up a whole new line of communication,” Ferrell adds, noting that in a short time the solution generated 461 emails, with 442 opened, nearly a 96 percent open rate.

The platform also includes CRM capabilities, with a centralized location to manage, track, and update prospect and customer information.

Even though it’s only been a few months since going live, Ted’s Trash is already seeing positive results from the CommanderAI solution.

“Everything is different now,” Ferrell says. “With Commander’s CRM platform, we can close a deal immediately.”

To help ensure that Ted’s Trash communicates with the right person, the technology surfaces up to three decision makers per prospect. Rather than the several weeks it could take to close a deal before, the technology enables deal completion much more quickly. The average time to close is a week or two, considerably shorter than before.

Additionally, the technology enables Ted’s Trash to concentrate sales and marketing efforts on the customers offering the best profit potential.

“Our future is to keep building with this platform, to keep building the heatmap and the prospects, and to keep using this as our driving sales force,” Albin says. “Without Commander, we would have to have boots on the ground. This really helps us efficiently contact potential customers on a mass scale.”

The Payoff

Since installing CommanderAI, Ted’s Trash has seen the following results:

• 30 percent more deals closed compared to similar-sized waste hauling companies;
• a 96 percent open rate for marketing emails;
• shorter deal closings; and
• marketing/sales efforts focused on prospects with the highest profit potential.