Ark Valley News - With a wink and a smile

Valley Center residents Jerry and Lisa Winkley are looking forward to new doors opening a month after Jerry retired from his ownership role with Service Master Clean in a Wink.

With a wink and a smile
By Matt Heilman
Last Updated: September 04, 2014

Faith and family highlight career

On a cold February morning in 1988, Jerry Winkley put on his topcoat and tie and walked through the snow, trying to drum up business. With his wife, Lisa, and two young sons at home, Winkley knocked on doors.

He started with a well-known Wichita neighborhood that looked like a solid bet to find potential customers. He left 100 door hangers on the front doors of homes in College Hill and knocked on every door that received a hanger. After he reached out to 100 potential customers, he'd leave another 100 hangers and knock on 100 more doors. He kept at it until he broke through.

"It was called blockbusting," Winkley said.

The outreach continued beyond College Hill and carried on until he got his new business off the ground. Over time, the work that began with the walks through the snow paid off.

Now 54 years old, Winkley is retired from his role as the owner of the Service Master Clean in a Wink network of franchises based near 45th North and Hydraulic in Park City. Winkley's last official day at Clean in a Wink was Aug. 1, but his work isn't finished with the company that offers deep cleaning of homes and businesses and specializes in disaster restoration.

In the relationship with the Service Master parent company, Winkley teaches continued education within the company's broad network. He said he would like to build a sales, coaching and accountability network across the franchise system, helping franchises across the country grow like Clean in a Wink has in south-central Kansas, employing more than 100 employees.

"Service Master has four objectives," Winkley said. "Honoring God in all we do, helping people develop, pursuing excellence and growing profitability. Those four make a nice balance."

Through the years, Winkley has guided teams to clean up messes that often seemed unfixable. Storms, flooded basements, large spills and scattered piles of debris challenged Clean in a Wink employees over the years. Each time, they've been able to answer the call.

"It was a lot of hard work and a lot of prayer," Winkley said.

When he walked through the snow with the door hangers more than 26 years ago, Winkley didn't know much about damage restoration. But he was confident he found the right business to provide for his family. In 1988, as the newest Service Master franchisee, he was listed in the phonebook, but the completion of his training with the company didn't come with a list of customers.

Service Master was a growing company in the United States and internationally, but Winkley had his work cut out for him. The young husband and father, previously employed as a youth pastor and a diesel mechanic, signed a contract to start a Service Master franchise in the fall of 1987 when his second oldest son, Jonathan was one day old.

At the time, he was working as a youth pastor in the small town of Lorraine, located between Ellsworth and Lyons in Ellsworth County.

He enjoyed working with the youth, but for full-time work, he wanted the opportunity to work with his hands while providing a service for people. Winkley was trained as a diesel engine mechanic, but his color blindness limited his capabilities as the work became more computerized.

He became interested in Service Master after hearing several ads for the company on Paul Harvey's radio show, which he listened to every day.

With Lisa's support, Jerry Winkley moved his family to Wichita. In the winter of 1988, the family packed up its belongings with help from local farmers in Lorraine.

"We moved in the middle of a blizzard," Winkley said.

The Winkleys moved to a small home in southwest Wichita and Jerry got to work, traveling through the city to find customers. He had a relatively small window to make the opportunity work.

"We thought we had enough money saved where we could survive four to six months on our savings," Winkley said. "So, we just lived very, very carefully."

In the beginning, Winkley would come home in the evening after knocking on doors and calling insurance agents all day and Lisa would ask him if he had any leads.

The timing of the first big lead proved challenging.

On March 24,1988, Lisa Winkley had a birthday, her first since the family moved to Wichita. Jerry made her a promise before he left for work that day.

"I promised that no matter what happened that day, I was going to take her out for her birthday," Winkley said.

That morning, after he said goodbye to Lisa and his sons, Winkley got his first job from an insurance agent. A large basement featuring a player piano and a pool table was flooded.

Winkley had never done a water-loss job and he had no employees. He couldn't turn down the work, but he didn't want to break his promise to take his wife to dinner.

"I knew I was in trouble," Winkley said.

He called a friend he met at church and offered to pay him for a couple of hours of work on the basement so he could celebrate his wife's birthday.

"Then, I would work all night to finish the job," Winkley said.

After her birthday dinner, Lisa worked with her husband through the night to clean up the flooded basement. The Winkleys worked as a team, but were also able to rely on assistance from other area Service Master franchises when needed.

It didn't take long for the Winkleys to earn a solid reputation with the company.

"By the second month, we had started paying most of the bills for the business and after about four months, we were able to start paying ourselves an income," Winkley said.

Winkley's business grew along with his family. His Service Master Corporation started humbly in a small rental property in Wichita and moved five times before finding its home on about five acres near 45th North and Hydraulic about 20 years ago. The company adopted the Clean in a Wink title about 17 years ago.

Since starting the business, Jerry and Lisa Winkley had one more son and two daughters, all of which graduated from Valley Center High School. The couple also has two grandchildren.

Today, one of Winkley's first customers attends a class he teaches at Wichita's Central Christian Church on Sunday mornings. She's still a customer as well as a friend, Winkley said.

He's appreciated the support from customers and his family, but looking back to the walks in the snow more than 26 years ago, Winkley indicated his faith more than anything carried him through.

"Matthew 6:33 says, ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you,'" Winkley said. "We felt we were seeking God when we came in to the business. We felt we were doing exactly what we needed to do, so somehow He would provide for us. We just didn't know how soon."

Nor how much. When Winkley retired, Clean in a Wink had about 110 employees, about half of them working full-time for the company.

"Our original vision was someday we would grow to a couple employees if we really, really grew," Winkley said.