This Post is for the employee who is on the fence about starting a business or has taken the plunge and found out it's tougher than you thought. It's also a post for the guy who has no choice but to start a business. It's for the young guy.
The following is not original material. It's old. It's stolen from history, the history that was made over the last 500+ years. Nothing in this world is original, EVERYTHING is ripped off. The sooner you understand this the better off you are.
It's simple, anybody can do it. You have no choice because you have already taken it.
The garbage test. Most people have a garbage can under the kitchen sink cabinet. When the garbage can is full and overflowing what do you do? Do you look around to make sure your wife isn't looking then put your garbage on top. Then quickly shut the door and walk away? If so, you will have a difficult time in business. It means you pass the buck. You shun from responsibility. You don't take charge. It means you're lazy and lack priorities. It means you can't manage time well. It means you failed the test. Business will be a long and hard road for you.
What if you're single and live alone? That means you don't care. That's a problem.
What if you take the garbage out early? What if you noticed is was starting to get full and you pulled it out, bent over, shook out a bag and put a fresh one in? It means you care. It means you understand time management. It means your honest with yourself. In business it's a foundational core to good work ethic. You will do well! Congratulations.
I'm not writing this because I care about you. I'm writing this because all I really care about is my customers. They matter to me. You see, I don't know you so how could I care? Here's the point, you are about to screw my customers. Not just me, but all of us guys who have been in business, made mistakes and fixed them. I'm not being hard on you, after all you don't realize your doing it. You're new at this contracting thing. It's not your fault.
You will screw my customers however. You will underbid, and make it tough on the rest of us. You will undercharge and tell your customer the rest of us overcharge. You will do this because you lack mileage, you lack experience.You will make mistakes then cover your a$$ instead of being honest and telling the truth. You will do this because you are scared. Fear is powerful, it makes honest people dishonest. Over time your business will mature, it will grow up. Your business will tell you that what you were doing in the past is effecting your future. Remember, a business is honest, people are dishonest. Every time you make mistakes you make it hard on the rest of us. It's called reputation. Reputation is important.
The rest of this are cliff notes. It's meant to nudge you on the right path to success. It's all random thoughts in my head and it has no order, but it's all important. It's meant to make you think. Everything you read after this matters to my customers, it matters to my business.
1.) ECONOMY
This is obviously on everybody's mind these days. Ignore it. The economy has almost $20 Trillion dollars floating around in it. America is a consumer driven economy based off of consumption. This is good for a business owner. It means consumers are judged based on what they purchase, how much they spend, and what people think of them. It's selfish but true. People feel good spending money. If you passed the garbage test you have nothing to worry about.
2.) HONESTY
Be honest and stop lying. Those are some tough words, it's hard to choke down and it's hard to hear. Your customers want you to be honest, honesty builds trust, trust builds relationships. Relationships = currency. Honesty allows you to sleep well at night, sleep is important. Are you honest? I bet I can prove you wrong?
Do you have a blog? Does it have photos? Are the photos real? I visit a lot of blogs and see fake garbage everywhere. I see people trying to be something they are not. A small business wants to look big. A big business wants to look small. We window dress our lives to fit other people, to fit conditions. STOP IT, it's costing you money and customer hate it.
Customers are bombarded by people pretending to be somebody else. Customers are sick of it. Customers are not dumb, when you think to yourself "I'm small, broke, and new.....I need to look big and seasoned" that's a lie. Everybody does it and that's a problem. If you want to succeed be different. Show the customer you're honest, they will love you for it. They will pay you more for it.
When you're honest you build credibility. My blog sucks when you compare it to everybody else and the photos they take and photoshop. All my photos are done with my Android phone. I have an edge though, I'm honest. I don't put garbage on it, I don't lie, and I don't pretend. It feels good to be honest.
Does that mean a blog that has professionally done photos is lying? No, if you think that your missing the point.
Customers will sniff you out and you will lose. Just be honest and start small, tell your customers you are new. When you write make it real, don't pretend, don't give in to the fear. I can't stress the point of being honest enough, it's everything to your business. It does have some initial problems though.
At first people won't like you. You will see some people that love being lied too because we have a culture of marketing that's built around trickery and lies, they will leave you. So much of what you see is fake. Ask your kids what the best cereal in the world is and they will tell you "Fruit Loops" or "Captain Crunch". The cereal companies window dress the boxes and make them seem fun, healthy, and popular. They even entice with prizes. They become so convincing even adult consumers fall for it. They pay $5 a box to be lied too. What the company is really selling is a box of crap that your organs can't process. It kills you.
But guess what? Honesty always wins. People will come back to you. You will build a reputation of being honest and people will trust you. It takes time, your fighting culture. Confused? I'll explain.
I recently wrote a blog post on my blog explaining how a cheap Chinese valve busted and caused a home owner $7,000 in damage. The same part made in America is only $2 more. I'm proud of that article, it was honest. For starters I don't stock Chinese crap on my truck and tell my customers they are getting a quality valve. That's not honest. When I went on a service call it was a real customer and I took real photos with my Android in the back of my truck. I didn't use a fake background and pawn it off as professional. I'm not good with pictures, my customers forgive me......they just want me to be honest. I wrote the article being honest. My customers need honesty and I deliver it. It's not just me, ask any of the older guys on the forum and they will tell you the same thing.
Like I said, some people will leave you because being honest scares people. Fortunately the people that scares are not the customers you want. After some time the great customers come back, they will look to you as the authority in your market. You will be the only one because your competition is too scared to be honest. But your smarter than that, you want to sleep well at night so you are humble and tell the truth. One day you will wake up and you will find droves of customers looking to you for advice. They will pay you for it. You went to the edge and you won. Your competition stays in the middle and wallows like a pig. They lose.
3.) FEAR
I touched on this a little but it's worth exploring. Fear drives emotion. It makes us do dumb things, it makes us be dishonest. You need to get past that if you want to win. Risk and fear go together, lots of risk=lots of fear. This is the question though, what are you really risking? Well, if your honest you risk NOTHING! See how this works?
You have nothing to fear, everybody has fear. Ignore it. One day you will be dead, shortly after you will be a memory. Years later you will be forgotten. Right now you are just supposed to be the best you can be, fear and risk comes from dishonesty and insecurity. It's not real, it's made up. It means nothing.
It will destroy your business. It will effect your customers and you will lose if you give in to it. Eliminate fear and keep the risk, risk is good. Risk is where the profit is. Fear takes it from you. Understand the difference and you win.
4. GRATITUDE
Want to know why people fail? They lack gratitude. I know, it's a tough thing to grasp. I lost everything once, I didn't have gratitude for what I had and I lost it. Lets talk about that.
Grateful people are the best people in the world. They are trustworthy, and they are honest. Grateful people have don't need to worry about much. Why? They are grateful for what they have. What's the lesson here?
If your starting out and you don't have much money be grateful for what you have. Being grateful makes you smile, it makes others smile. It sends a signal to a customer that's it's OK you don't have all the equipment you need, they see somebody that's honest and grateful. You become trustworthy, your shortcomings are OK. People surround themselves with people they like, not the guy with the most tools. If you fail be grateful for the failure, when your grateful for a failure you learn, you grow, you focus on the good stuff. When your not grateful you focus on failure, you focus on fear. Fear causes you to be dishonest, it grows like a disease. You lose. Just be honest ok?
5.) SUCCESS
Success feels good. For your new business to grow you have to fail more times than you succeed. Failure = success, if you get past failure you get to see success. Don't worry, keep your head on straight and focus on the things that matter and you will succeed. Every time you have a little success more success is built off it. The shoulders of failure is is a road, not a road block. Keep your chin up.
6.) COST
Know your cost. Study it daily. Find the truth or you will lose.
7.) PRICE
What are you worth? What is honesty worth? Honesty is directly related to what you are worth. In business we call that "value". Focus on honesty and you will have no problem understanding what people will pay. They will tell you.
8.) MARKETING
Don't sweat it, it's easy as pie. If you read everything above and it resonated with you word will spread like a brush fire. Not at first, but it will spread. The secret to word of mouth is built in this post. Word of mouth is good because it tells you how much value you created in the market place. If it's not spreading you screwed up. Don't take my advice on this, ask any of the seasoned veterans here and they will agree. Many of us don't spend a dime on marketing.
9.) GROWTH
Large companies are an illusion. Focus on staying small and master it. Once mastered growth is easy. Many people see dollar signs with having employees, talk to a business owner over the age of 50 that has been part of growth and you will discover small is better. I will tell you this, in the last 25 years every single construction company that I have known personally that grew to multiple crews is now bankrupt. Every single one. The ones that didn't decided to eliminate employees, stay small, earned a profit, and eliminated stress. Stress is dangerous, avoid it.
10.) INCREASE YOUR LUCK
You need to increase your luck. This doesn't happen by accident, you need to do a few things everyday to help yourself become lucky.
That's it. I wasn't serious about not caring. I do care, I care more than you think. I love people, I love strangers. I like the idea that my life can benefit others. Sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable but I had to say it. If you read everything I wrote and comprehend it you will understand why.
Mike
The following is not original material. It's old. It's stolen from history, the history that was made over the last 500+ years. Nothing in this world is original, EVERYTHING is ripped off. The sooner you understand this the better off you are.
Who am I
I'm nothing. I'm just one of many who has failed enough times and has made enough mistakes that certain things started to make sense. Time heals all wounds. Although my post count says "1", I've actually posted close to 5,000 posts on this forum. I had to change my user name. It happens. I'm over it. The following is a summary of 5,000 posts, I'm posting this for selfish reasons, more on that later.The Garbage Test
Business isn't hard. People are hard. Emotion is hard. Circumstances are hard. Business is easy, you have to be honest, hard working and have good ethics. We all think we have these qualities, even your parents told you so. That's bull$$$$ though, we can't all be honest and ethical right? Look around, look on the 6-O'clock news, some people are rotten. To find out if business will be easy for you or difficult you need to pass a test -The Garbage TestIt's simple, anybody can do it. You have no choice because you have already taken it.
The garbage test. Most people have a garbage can under the kitchen sink cabinet. When the garbage can is full and overflowing what do you do? Do you look around to make sure your wife isn't looking then put your garbage on top. Then quickly shut the door and walk away? If so, you will have a difficult time in business. It means you pass the buck. You shun from responsibility. You don't take charge. It means you're lazy and lack priorities. It means you can't manage time well. It means you failed the test. Business will be a long and hard road for you.
What if you're single and live alone? That means you don't care. That's a problem.
What if you take the garbage out early? What if you noticed is was starting to get full and you pulled it out, bent over, shook out a bag and put a fresh one in? It means you care. It means you understand time management. It means your honest with yourself. In business it's a foundational core to good work ethic. You will do well! Congratulations.
I don't care about you-I care about my customers
I'm not writing this because I care about you. I'm writing this because all I really care about is my customers. They matter to me. You see, I don't know you so how could I care? Here's the point, you are about to screw my customers. Not just me, but all of us guys who have been in business, made mistakes and fixed them. I'm not being hard on you, after all you don't realize your doing it. You're new at this contracting thing. It's not your fault.
You will screw my customers however. You will underbid, and make it tough on the rest of us. You will undercharge and tell your customer the rest of us overcharge. You will do this because you lack mileage, you lack experience.You will make mistakes then cover your a$$ instead of being honest and telling the truth. You will do this because you are scared. Fear is powerful, it makes honest people dishonest. Over time your business will mature, it will grow up. Your business will tell you that what you were doing in the past is effecting your future. Remember, a business is honest, people are dishonest. Every time you make mistakes you make it hard on the rest of us. It's called reputation. Reputation is important.
Summary of 5,000 posts
The rest of this are cliff notes. It's meant to nudge you on the right path to success. It's all random thoughts in my head and it has no order, but it's all important. It's meant to make you think. Everything you read after this matters to my customers, it matters to my business.
1.) ECONOMY
This is obviously on everybody's mind these days. Ignore it. The economy has almost $20 Trillion dollars floating around in it. America is a consumer driven economy based off of consumption. This is good for a business owner. It means consumers are judged based on what they purchase, how much they spend, and what people think of them. It's selfish but true. People feel good spending money. If you passed the garbage test you have nothing to worry about.
2.) HONESTY
Be honest and stop lying. Those are some tough words, it's hard to choke down and it's hard to hear. Your customers want you to be honest, honesty builds trust, trust builds relationships. Relationships = currency. Honesty allows you to sleep well at night, sleep is important. Are you honest? I bet I can prove you wrong?
Do you have a blog? Does it have photos? Are the photos real? I visit a lot of blogs and see fake garbage everywhere. I see people trying to be something they are not. A small business wants to look big. A big business wants to look small. We window dress our lives to fit other people, to fit conditions. STOP IT, it's costing you money and customer hate it.
Customers are bombarded by people pretending to be somebody else. Customers are sick of it. Customers are not dumb, when you think to yourself "I'm small, broke, and new.....I need to look big and seasoned" that's a lie. Everybody does it and that's a problem. If you want to succeed be different. Show the customer you're honest, they will love you for it. They will pay you more for it.
When you're honest you build credibility. My blog sucks when you compare it to everybody else and the photos they take and photoshop. All my photos are done with my Android phone. I have an edge though, I'm honest. I don't put garbage on it, I don't lie, and I don't pretend. It feels good to be honest.
Does that mean a blog that has professionally done photos is lying? No, if you think that your missing the point.
Customers will sniff you out and you will lose. Just be honest and start small, tell your customers you are new. When you write make it real, don't pretend, don't give in to the fear. I can't stress the point of being honest enough, it's everything to your business. It does have some initial problems though.
At first people won't like you. You will see some people that love being lied too because we have a culture of marketing that's built around trickery and lies, they will leave you. So much of what you see is fake. Ask your kids what the best cereal in the world is and they will tell you "Fruit Loops" or "Captain Crunch". The cereal companies window dress the boxes and make them seem fun, healthy, and popular. They even entice with prizes. They become so convincing even adult consumers fall for it. They pay $5 a box to be lied too. What the company is really selling is a box of crap that your organs can't process. It kills you.
But guess what? Honesty always wins. People will come back to you. You will build a reputation of being honest and people will trust you. It takes time, your fighting culture. Confused? I'll explain.
I recently wrote a blog post on my blog explaining how a cheap Chinese valve busted and caused a home owner $7,000 in damage. The same part made in America is only $2 more. I'm proud of that article, it was honest. For starters I don't stock Chinese crap on my truck and tell my customers they are getting a quality valve. That's not honest. When I went on a service call it was a real customer and I took real photos with my Android in the back of my truck. I didn't use a fake background and pawn it off as professional. I'm not good with pictures, my customers forgive me......they just want me to be honest. I wrote the article being honest. My customers need honesty and I deliver it. It's not just me, ask any of the older guys on the forum and they will tell you the same thing.
Like I said, some people will leave you because being honest scares people. Fortunately the people that scares are not the customers you want. After some time the great customers come back, they will look to you as the authority in your market. You will be the only one because your competition is too scared to be honest. But your smarter than that, you want to sleep well at night so you are humble and tell the truth. One day you will wake up and you will find droves of customers looking to you for advice. They will pay you for it. You went to the edge and you won. Your competition stays in the middle and wallows like a pig. They lose.
3.) FEAR
I touched on this a little but it's worth exploring. Fear drives emotion. It makes us do dumb things, it makes us be dishonest. You need to get past that if you want to win. Risk and fear go together, lots of risk=lots of fear. This is the question though, what are you really risking? Well, if your honest you risk NOTHING! See how this works?
You have nothing to fear, everybody has fear. Ignore it. One day you will be dead, shortly after you will be a memory. Years later you will be forgotten. Right now you are just supposed to be the best you can be, fear and risk comes from dishonesty and insecurity. It's not real, it's made up. It means nothing.
It will destroy your business. It will effect your customers and you will lose if you give in to it. Eliminate fear and keep the risk, risk is good. Risk is where the profit is. Fear takes it from you. Understand the difference and you win.
4. GRATITUDE
Want to know why people fail? They lack gratitude. I know, it's a tough thing to grasp. I lost everything once, I didn't have gratitude for what I had and I lost it. Lets talk about that.
Grateful people are the best people in the world. They are trustworthy, and they are honest. Grateful people have don't need to worry about much. Why? They are grateful for what they have. What's the lesson here?
If your starting out and you don't have much money be grateful for what you have. Being grateful makes you smile, it makes others smile. It sends a signal to a customer that's it's OK you don't have all the equipment you need, they see somebody that's honest and grateful. You become trustworthy, your shortcomings are OK. People surround themselves with people they like, not the guy with the most tools. If you fail be grateful for the failure, when your grateful for a failure you learn, you grow, you focus on the good stuff. When your not grateful you focus on failure, you focus on fear. Fear causes you to be dishonest, it grows like a disease. You lose. Just be honest ok?
5.) SUCCESS
Success feels good. For your new business to grow you have to fail more times than you succeed. Failure = success, if you get past failure you get to see success. Don't worry, keep your head on straight and focus on the things that matter and you will succeed. Every time you have a little success more success is built off it. The shoulders of failure is is a road, not a road block. Keep your chin up.
6.) COST
Know your cost. Study it daily. Find the truth or you will lose.
7.) PRICE
What are you worth? What is honesty worth? Honesty is directly related to what you are worth. In business we call that "value". Focus on honesty and you will have no problem understanding what people will pay. They will tell you.
8.) MARKETING
Don't sweat it, it's easy as pie. If you read everything above and it resonated with you word will spread like a brush fire. Not at first, but it will spread. The secret to word of mouth is built in this post. Word of mouth is good because it tells you how much value you created in the market place. If it's not spreading you screwed up. Don't take my advice on this, ask any of the seasoned veterans here and they will agree. Many of us don't spend a dime on marketing.
9.) GROWTH
Large companies are an illusion. Focus on staying small and master it. Once mastered growth is easy. Many people see dollar signs with having employees, talk to a business owner over the age of 50 that has been part of growth and you will discover small is better. I will tell you this, in the last 25 years every single construction company that I have known personally that grew to multiple crews is now bankrupt. Every single one. The ones that didn't decided to eliminate employees, stay small, earned a profit, and eliminated stress. Stress is dangerous, avoid it.
10.) INCREASE YOUR LUCK
You need to increase your luck. This doesn't happen by accident, you need to do a few things everyday to help yourself become lucky.
- Eat healthy
- Exercise
- Wake up extra early
- Surround yourself with the people that matter most
- Set goals and stick to them
- Pre-plan your day/week and don't change it
- Learn to say NO
THE END
That's it. I wasn't serious about not caring. I do care, I care more than you think. I love people, I love strangers. I like the idea that my life can benefit others. Sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable but I had to say it. If you read everything I wrote and comprehend it you will understand why.
Mike