$500,000 revenue so far... Warning: Protect Your Idea

[Ubermensch]

I have moved to phase two of my campaign. My new enterprise is up, running and profitable. I just returned from an awesome trip to the Caribbean (shared some of the pics with some of my Fastlane brothers). As the title says, I've hit just under $500,000 revenue so far, at around 25% margin (yes, when it is ALL said and done, and there is at least one more comma attached to that figure, I will prove it all). It is now time to seek out strategic partners to put sales and marketing on steroids.

A very recent experience prompted this thread. I recently began working with an old, seasoned marketer in my new industry.

Believe it or not, my idea and concept is so powerful that it is enough to make some want to quit their current business and market my package fulltime. Mr. Old Man Marketer is no exception. This particular Mr. Old Man Marketer is no exception. After just a few days, in fact, he asked for an exclusive. At the time, I was tempted to accept his offer, and even accepted it verbally. While Mr. Old Man Marketer continued to bring viable opportunities to the table, it soon became clear that we were not entirely on the same page.

For one, the old man marketer is much older than me, and has already made a modest amount of money (his business probably nets him half a million per year). At this point, he can almost retire. Because of this, he is not as hungry as me. He is probably content with a million dollars per year, and anything above that is gravy to him. If you've read my posts, you know that my aspirations far exceed this. A million dollars won't even buy a Bugatti... and it certainly won't shut up @GrumpyCat !

I say that I have moved to phase two of my campaign, because the nature of my conflicts with people have changed. In phase one, my conflicts were personal: Negative relationships with non-believers, doubting friends and family, extremely unsupportive girls, and a few particularly mentally draining personalities caused a lot of depression and self-doubt. When things got particularly bad, I would get on the Fastlane, and post some crazy shit... just to stay sane. I built up a lot of animosity here because of it, and I also made connections with those who related with the pain and struggle of the grind. For me, the theme of phase one was certainly the 11th Law of Power: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky. In Fastlane terminology, this simply means avoiding the 9-5 mentalities, the brains locked in matrix-style thinking. From such people, nothing can be gained, and everything that you need – your time, your energy, your focus, your positive mental state – can be drained.

In phase two now, I no longer have to deal with the non-believers. Even my doubters (at least the ones in real life) believe now, so the doubters have been converted to full-time haters. They see that, once again, I have started a successful enterprise... and even a dolt can see that it has global potential and extreme scalability.

Part of the theme for phase two seems to be Commit To No One. Right now, I am applying this to Mr. Old Man Marketer... to the nth degree. Without getting into the details, I began picking up on disrespectful cues from Mr. Old Man Marketer. So, I simply have him working with one of my older business partners now. When you have a powerful idea, you will naturally attract partners with the resources to help you grow and scale at a rapid pace. Being the aggressive types, it is natural for them to ask for an exclusive. I see now that to grant such a thing is a gargantuan mistake. In fact, I believe that the reversal is true: Not only should you not give up an exclusive, but you should do the opposite… aggressively pursue as many strategic partners (aka referral partners) as logically possible. If your opportunity is truly global in scale, then the likelihood of one marketing partner helping you take over the entire marketplace – no matter how big the marketing partner is – is unlikely.

I am writing this for my benefit as much as yours. As I type this, ideas for new and fresh marketing partners simmer in my brain, and in a few minutes, it will be time to pick up the phone and start dialing for dollars.

So, my fellow hustlers, protect your idea. Protect the contacts, resources, ideas as much as you can in ironclad agreements. Make sure you have an attorney fuse a non-compete and non-circumvent together. If you’re really the creator and originator of your idea, it doesn’t matter what new arrivals that you bring in think and say. At first, I was tempted to get angry at Mr. Old Man Marketer, but I am content to let him unknowingly make me money and let him work with my partner.

Remember: It is the guy who gets the last laugh – the one you cackle all the way to the bank – who wins.

 

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[Marc B.]

Solid advice - thanks for sharing! It's very difficult, but not impossible to scale alone. It's easy to make mistakes of ambition and forget to protect your idea in the midst of implementing big changes to your strategy. In your case: taking on another partner. Success is attractive, and you can't trust that everyone who comes up willing to help is just in it for you.

 

[theag]

Guess who's back, back again..

 

[GuestUser113]

 

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[Ubermensch]

It's interesting to look back on where I was when I posted this, and where I am just a few weeks later. The attitude shift was worth it.

Solid advice - thanks for sharing! It's very difficult, but not impossible to scale alone. It's easy to make mistakes of ambition and forget to protect your idea in the midst of implementing big changes to your strategy. In your case: taking on another partner. Success is attractive, and you can't trust that everyone who comes up willing to help is just in it for you.

I'm going to make a million dollars in a year - this year - for the first time in my career. I'm already up half a million.

I'm using the commission checks I'm getting in real life to recruit people. Recruiting is the key to me capturing all of the market. I can only get so many deals myself. If I have quality partners out there hunting deals - and using my networks' resources to close deals - then I can help them make $100,000.00 - $1,000,000.

I'm actually getting quality recruits, because I prove my income with pictures of my commission checks, deposits, and cash (of cashed checks). My clients are real-world commercial buildings. My strategies increase property values immensely (one of my clients facilities' value increased by a seven figure amount), and everything I do requires no money out of pocket for the customer.

I'll give you an example.

One of my clients is a large commercial office building. They use large amounts of electricity and natural gas. For a long time, I have brokered both energy components, and I get paid every month, as my clients pay their bills.

Nowadays, the market is flooded with energy brokers. I adapted by offering strategies that no other broker offers. One of those is LED lighting, and energy efficiency in general.

That same office building is spending a lot of money on energy efficiency upgrades, including LED lightning. Here are the benefits that the customer will get:

A rebate from the utility. The short explanation is that utilities are compelled to give financial incentives to both residential and commercial customers. These incentives are given to a convenience store, grocery store, local gym, office building, industrial warehouse, manufacturing plant, etc. The incentive can be large. One of my larger clients recently received over $100,000 in total incentives. (again, I prove all of this to my recruits. They get to see everything, from my high-profile clients in downtown cities, my six-figure commission checks... they get to see behind the curtain and see what makes big things like this happen, and how to cash in on the booming energy efficiency market.)

Here is an example for the utility in Chicago, ComEd:
https://www.comed.com/documents/business-savings/py7_zero-t12_coupon.pdf?FileTracked=true

A tax incentive from the federal government.


FYI - the following was sent out by ComEd to all SME's in their customer base. :


Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

What is a T12 fluorescent lamp?
Many small business have T12 linear fluorescent lamps lighting their buildings. T12’s are recognizable because they are 1 ½ inches in diameter. Many of these lamps operate on older magnetic ballasts that are very inefficient and are no longer available for sale. In an effort to encourage the market to convert to more efficient lighting systems, the U.S. Department of Energy has created higher performance standards for color quality and efficiency that are making many T12 lamps obsolete.

What now? Consider replacing inefficient T12 lighting systems with newer T8 lamps with electronic ballasts. There are several significant benefits when removing T12’s from the ceiling. Comparatively, T8 lamps:

• Are more efficient than T12’s, so in a majority of cases fewer lamps can be installed and the space will appear brighter
• Have much higher color rendering capabilities, which will make colors more vivid and increases visibility
• Offer much longer life than T12’s, often times greater than 80,000 operating hours
• When installed with electronic ballasts, operate very quietly

We are here to help!
Our Small Business Energy Savings (SBES) Trade Allies are here to help you receive incentives for retrofitting your T12 lamps and magnetic ballasts to T8 lamps and electric ballasts. The process is simple and incentives are up to 75 percent off the project cost. Visit ComEd.com/Small BizTradeAlly to get started.


................................................................................................................

@MJ DeMarco
@Vigilante
@AllenCrawley

Would be nice to get some in-put from the legends on this one.

Here's my Fastlane translation.

Utility companies are being forced by the federal government to become more energy efficient. In turn, these utilities from California to New york are often giving their residential and commercial customers cold, hard cash to replace their fluorescent lights with LED lights. Many other type of energy efficiency upgrades apply for this.

I've got clients getting $100, $500, $50,000+ rebate checks from their utilities.

Look downtown Detroit. Look downtown any city in Ohio. Look downtown Chicago, New York. All of those skylines are painted with fluorescent lights. 90 - 95% of it is non-LED lighting.

The building owners need to jump all over this, and they have been slow to do so, because (until recently) a perfect system and process wasn't in place.

You need to make it easy for building owners of this size - and for small businesses like convenience stores and grocery stores - to execute these types of transactions.

You need to be able to go in there and Glen Gary Glen Ross a deal, because it is too good to say no. Typical objections (price/lack of budget) don't apply, because the customers don't pay any money out of pocket.

To me, this means having billions of dollars in financing available to finance both residential and commercial energy efficiency upgrades.

And because my partners and I are the only people I'm aware of doing the amount of business we're doing $20,000,000+ on lighting alone last year...

For the past year and a half, I've been perfecting the process, and I have it down to where it's actually a pretty explosive business opportunity. I say that, because most people can figure out how to get a few homeowners and a few business owners to go through our process. It's pain-free. No cost up-front EVER. The customer only pays once the lights are installed, and then the monthly payments are LESS than the monthly energy cost-savings.

 

[jazb]

you've just said protect your idea. now any one of us can read that and copy what you're doing ?????

 

[Ubermensch]

you've just said protect your idea. now any one of us can read that and copy what you're doing ?????

High barrier of entry.

Let's play devil's advocate. Let's say you want to go do this yourself.

Great. First, go start an energy brokerage. To be licensed by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) or any of the other state regulatory bodies, you need to have an actual energy brokerage license. In many cases, to get an energy license, you need a year's worth of energy experience. How do you get the energy experience? Go work the sales desk at some energy brokerage.

After you get an energy license, then you need to get contracts with energy suppliers. Today, easier said than done.

Suppose you find an energy supplier to take you on. Do you know how to price accounts? Do you know the difference between matrix pricing and fixed pricing? Do you know what types of clients work with either strategy? If you know, you can add value to your client by lowering their invoices and taking advantage of their load factor (the frequency and consistency with which they use energy). If you don't, you could lose a deal to a broker like me, or one of my brokers.

Let's say you want to sell LED's. Even a five-year old can find LED suppliers online. It's more than that, though. Are your lights DLC-approved? Are they UL-Rated? Do they have five year warranties? If not, good luck getting utility rebates.

Do you have the financing companies that will finance the LED retrofits for your customers? Not just vendors who SAY they do on their website. I mean, do you know which energy finance companies to use... the ones that are actually closing deals? I know which ones work, because I'm closing deals with them on a weekly basis.

Most importantly, do you have a way to sell a no-cost-upfront solution to the customer... and then get paid from the deal as soon as the customer signs as opposed to after the lights are shipped, and then installed? GETTING PAID FAST is the key to success in this business. Fast commissions just aren't a reality in this business.

Now, find an opportunity where you can do both... electricity/natural gas AND commercial LED.

 

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[jazb]

High barrier of entry.

Let's play devil's advocate. Let's say you want to go do this yourself.

Great. First, go start an energy brokerage. To be licensed by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) or any of the other state regulatory bodies, you need to have an actual energy brokerage license. In many cases, to get an energy license, you need a year's worth of energy experience. How do you get the energy experience? Go work the sales desk at some energy brokerage.

After you get an energy license, then you need to get contracts with energy suppliers. Today, easier said than done.

Suppose you find an energy supplier to take you on. Do you know how to price accounts? Do you know the difference between matrix pricing and fixed pricing? Do you know what types of clients work with either strategy? If you know, you can add value to your client by lowering their invoices and taking advantage of their load factor (the frequency and consistency with which they use energy). If you don't, you could lose a deal to a broker like me, or one of my brokers.

Let's say you want to sell LED's. Even a five-year old can find LED suppliers online. It's more than that, though. Are your lights DLC-approved? Are they UL-Rated? Do they have five year warranties? If not, good luck getting utility rebates.

Do you have the financing companies that will finance the LED retrofits for your customers? Not just vendors who SAY they do on their website. I mean, do you know which energy finance companies to use... the ones that are actually closing deals? I know which ones work, because I'm closing deals with them on a weekly basis.

Most importantly, do you have a way to sell a no-cost-upfront solution to the customer... and then get paid from the deal as soon as the customer signs as opposed to after the lights are shipped, and then installed? GETTING PAID FAST is the key to success in this business. Fast commissions just aren't a reality in this business.

Now, find an opportunity where you can do both... electricity/natural gas AND commercial LED.

What is stopping someone from setting up a telemarketing room full of salespeople + convincing commercial building owners to replace there fluorescent lighting to LED. they make the order, then you go out and buy the products, get an electrician to replace the fittings (charge him for the leads too).
now if they don't have the money, get a 3rd party to finance it.

just playing with angles here, idk much about it, but i've seen jobs been advertised for these roles.

 

[Ubermensch]

Nothing... in fact, that's exactly what I'm doing now. I just signed a call center to start selling small commercial, as well as my recruiting package.

Not a bad idea to actually charge the electrician for the leads. Thing is, we have technology that is tuber-compatible, so electricians are not needed. Just take out that 32 watt fluorescent T8, and replace it with an equivalent 18 watt LED replacement. Same or superior lighting quality, brightness, etc. I have clients - large commercial buildings - that have purchased excess of 10,000 orders, and the building staff of engineers, maintenance techs, and property managers installed them on their own.

@Achilles

See? No objections.

 

[Choate]

Nice, so there's a large barrier to entry keeping you above the competition so much that you can freely discuss your idea without the worry of copycat companies.

To make it go truly fastlane and remove yourself from the business, what is your end game? If you have someone take it over, that's a lot of training/knowledge to get to where you are now. Perhaps a sell?

 

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[GrensonMan]

"I've hit just under $500,000 revenue so far"

"They get to see everything, from my high-profile clients in downtown cities, my six-figure commission checks"

So you have just under $500,000 in revenue and yet you claim you have six-figure commission checks (note the plural) which would imply that so far most if not all of your revenue has come from just a few sources. Then you mention your high profile clients in downtown cities. That's a lot of plurals and I don't see how that adds up to $500,000.

Treat me like a recruit and show me these six figure commission checks.

 

[Achilles]

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So you have just under $500,000 in revenue and yet you claim you have six-figure commission checks (note the plural)

I don't see how that adds up

Math ... in school I always thought it was bullshit. Turns out, that bullshit can out-shit a bullshitter. Comes in handy when the world believes Mohammed is an 18 year old schoolboy who traded his way to $40 million dollars in profits on his lunch break.

 

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[randomnumber314]

"I've hit just under $500,000 revenue so far"

"They get to see everything, from my high-profile clients in downtown cities, my six-figure commission checks"

So you have just under $500,000 in revenue and yet you claim you have six-figure commission checks (note the plural) which would imply that so far most if not all of your revenue has come from just a few sources. Then you mention your high profile clients in downtown cities. That's a lot of plurals and I don't see how that adds up to $500,000.

Treat me like a recruit and show me these six figure commission checks.

He did say " we're doing $20,000,000+ on lighting alone last year..." So that $500k is his commission from that $20m or whatever he's done this year.

 

[GrensonMan]

@Ubermensch As luck would have it, I'll be taking in the beautiful views of Chicago during the weekend of July 4th. Your references to comEd indicate that you are a resident of the area perhaps. Being that I consult for utility companies for a living, I may be a prime candidate to be converted. I would love to meet up and see these six-figure commission checks. Hell I'll even buy you a drink if it's all true.

 

[theag]

@Ubermensch As luck would have it, I'll be taking in the beautiful views of Chicago during the weekend of July 4th. Your references to comEd indicate that you are a resident of the area perhaps. Being that I consult for utility companies for a living, I may be a prime candidate to be converted. I would love to meet up and see these six-figure commission checks. Hell I'll even buy you a drink if it's all true.

 

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[GuestUser113]

@Ubermensch As luck would have it, I'll be taking in the beautiful views of Chicago during the weekend of July 4th. Your references to comEd indicate that you are a resident of the area perhaps. Being that I consult for utility companies for a living, I may be a prime candidate to be converted. I would love to meet up and see these six-figure commission checks. Hell I'll even buy you a drink if it's all true.

 

[Determined2012]

Still sounds like an MLM to me. Uber, are you the (one of the) founder(s)?! Is this an MLM?

 

[Ubermensch]

He did say " we're doing $20,000,000+ on lighting alone last year..." So that $500k is his commission from that $20m or whatever he's done this year.

Thank you for contributing some reading comprehension to this thread.

@Ubermensch As luck would have it, I'll be taking in the beautiful views of Chicago during the weekend of July 4th. Your references to comEd indicate that you are a resident of the area perhaps. Being that I consult for utility companies for a living, I may be a prime candidate to be converted. I would love to meet up and see these six-figure commission checks. Hell I'll even buy you a drink if it's all true.

@GrensonMan As luck would have it, I'll be taking in the beautiful views of Chicago during the weekend of July 4th.

"Your references to comEd indicate that you are a resident of the area perhaps."

Chicago is nice this time of year, and I am not there right now. My reference to ComEd merely indicates that the opportunity exists in that marketplace. I could have just as easily cited DTE for Michigan (which is a major state for this...), Ameren for southern Illinois, or AEP in Ohio. The opportunity is national. Utilities on most states are handing out rebates for energy efficiency. In my opinion, there is no better B2B sell than combining this with high commission in nat gas/electricity, along with dozens of proprietary and unique cost-saving strategies that apply to businesses of most sizes. These strategies haven't really been unleashed on the marketplace... until now. I know because I worked with the creators of and founders of these ideas as they formulated them or shortly after they launched.

"Being that I consult for utility companies for a living, I may be a prime candidate to be converted."

Possibly. Do you have pre-existing B2B contacts? If you have access to commercial retail facilities like gyms, coin laundries, grocery stores... those are prime candidates for - at the very least - LED lighting. Like I said before, the cost is $400, and that gives you access to everything: My manufacturing contacts, international and domestic logistics, US Based warehousing, access to billions of dollars in financing.

"Still sounds like an MLM to me."

"Still"? This is the first time I'm hearing about MLM in this thread.

"Uber, are you the (one of the) founder(s)?!"

Yes, I am the first Uber.

"I would love to meet up and see these six-figure commission checks."

@GrensonMan

PM me. I'll show you the checks - before you sign up - like I do with everyone.

If you're in the Midwest, you can come to one of my skyscraper clients. I am going into recruiting mode, on steroids. I'll be hosting meetings at buildings - clients of mine - for new people. If you sign a non-disclosure agreement with Uber, you can show up to a pre-scheduled meeting. I'll introduce you to the building engineers in the basement, and the head of property management who runs the whole show.

If I take you to the top of a sky scraper in an important downtown city, verify to you that the Mayor's Office is excited as hell about our success (because they're pro clean energy), and I take you to the roof of that motherfcker, and I say how does it feel like to stand on top of the only building in the city with LED lights, would you sign up? Would you see why 3:00 - 3:30 of the song below is literally the anthem for the RI$E @S&P of Uber? Many do. Many see the light. Heh-heh-heh...

That's basically my hypothesis here now. Now that I've actually hit it. Now that I've actually cracked the code on this thing, it's just time to flex. Show people what they can do, and that no one else is doing it.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

"Still"? This is the first time I'm hearing about MLM in this thread.

"Still sounds like an MLM to me."

Lets see...

Name dropping. Check.
Mentioning of big sales figures. Check.
Mentioning of big commission checks. Check.
Avatar of a stack of cash. Check.
Big talk about big companies and big people. Check.

MLM?

Nawwwwwwwww...

Like I said before, the cost is $400, and that gives you access to everything: My manufacturing contacts, international and domestic logistics, US Based warehousing, access to billions of dollars in financing.

Sounds like an incredible distributor kit, an international business all wrapped up in a little bow tie, for just $400.

 

[Formless]

Rosetta Stone should release a course on Futurese.

I've grown up listening to Hip Hop all my life and I have trouble understanding what he's saying.

 

[Polarbeans]

Mohammed is an 18 year old schoolboy who traded his way to $40 million dollars in profits on his lunch break

HAHAH I remember when you posted that

 

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[Gsuz]

Like I said before, the cost is $400, and that gives you access to everything: My manufacturing contacts, international and domestic logistics, US Based warehousing, access to billions of dollars in financing.

 

[ZCP]

Could this be the first thread to make 'GOLD' 'Waste of Time'?

 

[Nick314]

Like I said before, the cost is $400, and that gives you access to everything: My manufacturing contacts, international and domestic logistics, US Based warehousing, access to billions of dollars in financing.

This most certainly violates E--and smells like MLM, or some form of "system".
Sounds like selling an event, not promoting a process.

 

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[GuestUser113]

I am wasting my time on this bullshit thread. I hope you do make it. But for now, you are a distraction. I am putting you on my ignore list. Goodbye.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: THIS IS MY LAST MEME THAT WILL BE POSTED ON THIS FORUM.

 

[Determined2012]

"Still"? This is the first time I'm hearing about MLM in this thread.

You have posted about this business before (in another thread/ elsewhere on this forum) and I asked you there (then) in the thread if it was an MLM...or I sent you a PM asking if it was an MLM (I can't remember now, but I know I asked, because it sounded so much like an MLM, but you never stated if it was or not)...hence me asking (again)...

Either way if you are f*ing up commas, and getting 6 figure commission checks off (an MLM) ROCK ON!...


I was still just curious if it was indeed an MLM... Seems it is, but you just don't want to flat out say that because of the MLM stigma on the forum. But if you are succeeding with an MLM then I feel there is no reason to not own it/ claim it.

 

[S&P]

Why all the hate?

 

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[Kevin D. Smith]

I'm not sure about the Midwest but as far as the West Coast this idea wouldn't be nearly as lucrative. In California (Washington and Oregon are following suit) there is something called Title 24. Proposed by the CEC (California Energy Commission) it is an energy initiative to make all commercial buildings what they call "Net Zero Energy Usage". In layman's terms it means that for the most part any commercial building will generate all the energy it needs. That's the pipe dream anyway.

A little background on myself, I've been in the electrical industry for the past 5 years. I was a field electrician for three and then a purchasing agent for an electrical contractor doing $8,000,000+ for the past two years. I have both bought parts for jobs like this and done lighting retrofits with my own hands.

The way this business works out here in California is similar but there are a few more hoops to jump through. The first part that jumps out to me is the labor for the actual job. The OP states all he has to do is essentially replace the lamp for the fixture meaning anyone who knows how to change a lamp can do the job. In California that won't slide, when you retrofit a certain percentage (I apologize for not having the number) of your building you must become code compliant, which means being Title 24 compliant. Title 24 states that all commercial lighting must be dimmable withing a certain range (again I apologize for not having the hard number). Florescent lighting is not dimmable by traditional means you must have a proper dimmable ballast to do so. What I'm saying is that the replaceable LED lamp that fits into the old fluorescent spot does not fly here because it does not meet Title 24.

The other thing I know is that the actual money comes from the utility companies and federal programs. When I talked to a guy who did this I wish I got some hard numbers out of him. He made a decent living but I don't know about 6 figure commission checks. He basically went around to any building and tried to sell them on it because there was no upfront cost for the building. All they would see is money off their bill and a large tax credit.

What I'm trying to get at is there's a lot of cost for this business out here. Since you have to contract an electrician or an equivalent "lighting technician" there's added cost there. The "lighting technician" will bid it's price at the same rate as the electrician so there's no saving money. You're going to have to buy Title 24 approved retrofit kits, which as a purchasing agent the cheapest I found was $80 per kit. Then there's the cost for getting rid of the old lamps the cheapest price I found was at $0.33/per 4ft fluorescent lamp. Also you have to get rid of the old ballast too, which if I remember correctly was about $1.00/lb. In California you have to contract this process out of state because of hazardous waste requirements.

With all of that said there are a lot of these guys who are ignoring the Title 24 requirements because it's not really being enforced yet. However it's the general consensus with my peers that enforcement will but fully up and running in about 3 years time.

Now for some math:

Let's say you sold this to a standard office building that had 300 2x4 3 lamp fluorescent lights. If you're doing this the compliant way already that's 300(one kit per fixture) x $80 (the cheapest I found the kits) = $24,000. Let's say you're doing it this guy's way that would be 900 (3 lamps per fixture) x $8 (the cheapest I found the LED lamps) = $7200. Keep in mind there's no factory discount for these retrofit kits because you cannot buy direct from the factory. You have to buy from a supplier so there's another middle man.

Now for the electrician. Where I live in California the standard bid rate is about $75/hour per electrician. A standard bid time of an office with furniture (cubicles) would be around 20-25 minutes per light. Again simple math 300 (lights) x 20 (minutes per light) = 6000 minutes or 100 Hours. Another thing to keep in mind is that this is all based on private work. As soon as you get into any government work you're going to have to increase the labor rate due to prevailing wage. Back to the math 100 (hours) x $75 = $7500 which would be a very conservative labor rate. Then what ever else the contractor has to take care of you're paying for as well.

Now that you have all these lamps and ballasts what are you going to do with them? If you used my contractor it would be 900 (lamps) x .33 = $297.00 + Freight for the lamps. Then if you're lucky all your lights have electronic ballasts which weigh roughly 1/2 a pound, 600 (ballasts) x $1.00 (per lb) = $300.00 + Freight. Older ballasts can weigh up to 3 lbs. However if you're not doing this the legit way don't worry about the ballasts.

With my rough math the cheapest you can do this job would be $15,747. I added 10% to the contractor's bid to cover their extra costs as well. Like I said though these numbers are the most conservative I could think up so it's probably not realistic. The other think I'm curious about this is the actual amount the utility companies are handing out for these retrofits. I know there is money to be made, but I doubt it is as much as you can make in the Midwest.

All in all if you're looking to get into this business on the West Coast just be sure to do your homework on Title 24 and current building codes. Be sure to find a good electrician as well there's a lot of hacks out there.

 

[Ubermensch]

Part One

@S&P

Have you been listening, brother? Be careful... it'll make you a monster... heh-heh-heh...

You know that scene, in all superhero movies, when the talkin' just stops, and the action starts?

You know what I'm talking about, brother. It's that part of the movie that makes the trailer so dope. All of the great ones have that moment, when the hero is called upon to use his Spidey sense, and extreme nervous system strength to beat up the villain.

What is our villain, brother? As we discussed on the phone, we have no great villain, no evil facing us. Winston Churchill pronounced some of the greatest speeches ever recorded, at arguably, the most epic time in human history. How can you not look at that, and feel a sense of both awe... and jealousy. Awe, that good triumphed over evil, and that Sir Winston's name echoes throughout eternity. Russell Crowe's Maximus Desimus Meridius - "what we do in life echoes in eternity" - would be proud.

Indeed, there are times when I feel like Cesare Borgia himself, whose name you should be deeply familiar with, if you've read Law 1 of 48 Laws.

Ask yourself, brother. Ask yourself a question. As you go throughout your day, listening to Robert Greene interviews, audio books, and monologues, ask yourself this question.

Considering that Greene is - in his own words, and in the words of others (see London Reel interview) - the modern-day Machiavelli, is the scene below merely entertainment, or is it something more?

Ah, spooky.

Niccolo Machiavelli himself, in the flesh, speaking to Cesare The Great, the actual Prince who would later be the inspiration for Machiavelli's great work: The Prince. This is the scene in which Cesare converts, spiritually, to the dark side. You can literally see his soul inhaling the smoke simmering off of Machiavelli's fiery words. Fiery. Fiery, fearsome and ferocious. As Cesare breathes, he accepts the cold, hard fact that he must "treat fortune roughly."

So, is the scene merely entertainment, or is it something more? Is it a glimpse into the reality spelled out by Greene in the 48 Laws? After all, Greene himself has said that the dark power games people play in extremely Machiavellian cultures - Hollywood, the music industry, boxing are three examples he cites - are what inspired the 48 Laws, because the stories were identical, only less bloody.

I suppose that is the point, brother. The point is that if we are to have our moment...

If we are to make history ours, we must make her say our name. If we are to become men - true men - we must make a name... that will shout throughout history. We must have that moment when we thrust our swords - metaphorically, or otherwise - through the chests of our enemies. We must have that moment, after the blood has splattered and spilled, in which we stand up and declare to the world: I AM CESARE BORGIA!

@Vigilante

Focused.

How focused do I appear?

@ChasingPaper

Some food for thought:

"But, relax, all these techniques - and a score more - also work on your enemy. And like you, he's 100% certain they don't work on him. Heh-heh-heh.

Once, having mastered these techniques, you'll be well prepared to "go to work" on your enemy. That is, if you master these techniques, before and better than, your enemy does!" Dr. HAHA Lung, Mind Control - The Ancient Art of Psychological Warfare. Page xiii, Introduction.

"And this is an example where your logic ("higher reasoning") overpowers your (false) perception." Dr. HAHA Lung, Mind Control - The Ancient Art of Psychological Warfare. Page 3, Perception and Power.