In this post, an update about where we are in the Challenge and how effective Bandit Signs have been in promoting our little Screen Repair Bizness.

Okay, so I haven’t posted in a while about the Thousand Bucks in 30 Days Challenge. Since we’re cutting it extremely close, I want to bring everyone up to speed. There’s only five days left to clear $1,000 profit. We did have some hang-ups, but are still extremely optimistic.

Replacing a screen door brings in $39 for fifteen minutes’ work and $4 worth of material

To review, I’m doing the Challenge for two purposes: first and foremost, to teach my son that opportunity exists everywhere… that he may NEVER tell me or anyone else “Oh, it’s the ecooooonomeeee… no one will giiiiive me a job…” Horse puckey. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together (and many without) can do Shoestring Step ONE: Get OFF Your ASS.

The other Steps kinda follow that one, Sparky.

The second reason I’ve been doing the Thousand Bucks in 30 Days Challenge is to prove to everyone following this blog that not only is it possible to “Shoestring” a bizness into profitability quickly… it’s downright EASY if you know (and follow!) the Shoestring101 Steps.

So the terms of the Challenge have been to:

1. Start with less money than you might get from a garage sale. We used $62.66.
2. Create a small bizness opp that profits $1,000 within 30 days with spare time effort
3. Self-fund the small bizness; begin with almost nothing and generate funds to grow the biz along the way
4. $1,000 ‘Profit’ means that all the ‘seed money’ invested and expenses are paid for, and there’s a thousand bucks left over.

I’ve been working only with spare time, and mostly on weekends so that my son can be involved. Now that it’s summer, I’ll be able to take him with me on weekdays to finish strong. We’re gonna have to!

So here’s where we were: with about half the month still yet to go, Colorado Springs Mobile Screen Repair was at $490 PROFIT. But we came upon a problem…

The calls dried up.

Good thing that along the way, we tracked all four advertising methods to find out which had been most effective. The best happened to be Bandit Signs (those pesky little things you’re going to see on the side of every road for the next five months because elections are coming up). Well, I had a choice of whether to pay $62.66 for another SIX signs… or $209.40 for another FIFTY.

Fifty is what we did. Gotta love volume discounts. But spending $210 when we were up only $490 took us backwards to $280 profit. Then ANOTHER hang-up occurred: the signs got delayed in delivery. We only got them in last Friday, June 1!

Nuts. I had put so much stock in the signs that I stopped working with the other three advertising methods altogether. That was dumb. Because while the calls we were getting from Craigslist and other free listings were less AND of lower quality… meaning that less of the phone calls turned into actual jobs… at least the price was right. I could and should have kept the gravy train rolling on only three wheels while I was waiting on the signs to appear.

But appear they did, and Friday afternoon Pierce and I promptly set about distributing them. We placed about a dozen signs in grassy areas near stop signs in our neighborhood.  Results were QUICK! While we were yet driving around (my part) and punching holes in grass with stakes (Pierce’s part), we got two calls! Pierce and I did a screen door that very evening, and scheduled up the whole weekend with the calls that rolled in afterwards.

Where does that kid get his gooood looks? Oh wait… I know…

Long story short (I know, too late 😉 ), we brought in another $319 in sales with about $92 in expenses. That’s $227 profit added to the $280 profit we had before, for a total of $507 in the black.

And we got five more days.

Well, it was a bit of a nail-biter there for a while, waiting on the signs. Still is. Looking for about a hundred bucks profit per day on the side over the next five days. I’m pretty confident we’ll make it… but it isn’t a certainty by any stretch. Watch this space! Within the next five days I’ll be posting the final installment of this series, and let you know if indeed we made a Thousand Bucks in 30 Days.

Keep Stepping,

Kurt

DISCLAIMER: Yup, you might’ve guessed it: the “Bandit Signs” link above and elsewhere on this blog is an affiliate link. That means that if you click on that link and order signs, I’ll get a small commish. It was a happy surpise to find out they offered affiliate sales. BUT..! I don’t recommend that you place a big order, just a small one like I did initially to test what’s working. That’s Shoestring Step Four. I began with six signs, then used the PROFITS after the fact that they (fortunately) worked… to buy more. You can bet I wouldna dropped $210 for my very first order if I didn’t know that the media (the sign) and the copy (what’s on the sign) worked for this market. Oh, in case you want to see an even better converting sign, ping me at kurt (at) shoestring 101 dot com.