First off: Apologies for not posting in so great a while. Part of the reason is how successful (and therefore time-consuming) the 30 day challenge turned out.

WOW, Ladies and Gents…

So, that little experiment with my son kind of BLEW UP.

In a good way, that is. My 14-year old son Pierce and I challenged ourselves to make a profitable Bizness from scratch in 30 days or less using no more starting capital than you could get by having half a garage sale.

Starting with $62.66 to buy a few signs that said, “SCREEN REPAIR: Windows and Screen Doors. 719-360-9559. We Come To YOU!”, we made over $1,000 profit in one month in our spare time.

But THEN..!

 The momentum created by doing all the free advertising on Craigslist,  Facebook, and Fixr… plus a few signs that are still out there… ADDED to a boatload of return customers and referrrals up the wazooo… have kept us hopping like a one legged man in a butt-kickin’ contest.

😉

Last weekend we did 23 screens from four customers that were all referred by one happy customer. THIS weekend we have no less than 34 screens to fix or build from scratch. Bizzy, bizzy. We actually need to free ourselves from the monster that this Shoestring Bizness has become! How to begin?

THIS is where Step Five comes into play: Now WRITE Everything DOWN.

Why should I undertake the time-consuming task of recording everything that I did and learned along the way? Why keep a list of anything other than names, addresses, and telephone numbers of existing clients so we can sell to them again? Why take the time to record checklists and procedures, the do’s and don’ts that we already know?

Simple. So SOMEONE ELSE can read and use those checklists and procedures.

See, Shoestring Step Three: Learn To Create Value is where we create value for others. But Shoestring Step Five: Now Write Everything Down is where we truly begin to create value for ourselves.

Here’s the deal… if I can give clear-cut, easily understood written directions to a reasonably intelligent person that’s willing to accept an hourly wage… that person may be able very soon to accomplish in eight hours what my son Pierce and I can do in 3 1/2 hours.

Say we have a $400 job that costs $50 in materials to do. We COULD make a clean, quick $350 and spend 3 1/2 hours to do it. OR..! We could pay an employee $12.50 an hour, or $100 to do the job.

Well now there are still the expenses of advertising (minimal, now that we have an established reputation and repeat customers) and materials (lowered of course by our volume purchasing). But rather than:

• Taking Phone Calls ( :10minutes)
• Making Phone Calls ( :10 more)
• Maintaining Ads (another :10 )
• And DOing the actual WORK ( 3:30 hours)

…how’s about we opt to do only the first three. After all is said and done, the $400 job with $50 material expense and $100 labor expense gets handled. $250 ends up in our pockets. Only :30 minutes have been spent doing any kind of work. If my math is right, that’s $500 an hour!

Hey, Steppers, this is AMAZING. So, I have a window cleaning company as another one of my endeavors. Right in the middle of writing this post I got a phone call for for a new customer  window cleaning. Then I made a phone call for window cleaning to the subcontractor that has more time and does a better job than me. Total time spent: about :10 minutes! Didn’t even slow me down. It’s WIN/WIN/WIN: the customer gets a great job done. The sub gets a good paying job that he wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ll get paid a goodly sum for finding the work and connecting the two.

Okay Steppers! Sorry for such a long furlough between posts. You can count on me to add more soon.

Keep Stepping,

Kurt