Making Money For Dummies (And In a Crowded Market)

[welshmin]

Yes, I agree.

A lot of the websites for businesses owned by older folks usually look poorly done. It runs across all industries from what I've seen....from pest control to nail saloons to etc. They are definitely not learned in marketing.

My expertise lies in risk management/safety regulations. With that said, my biggest concern/interest in executing this is the cost of workers comp insurance.

A lot of our clients are in the heavy duty fields...be it construction, landscape, etc. A lot of them are paying out the butts for workers comp insurance, which is required (at least in my state of California)...laws vary state by state.

To explain a bit (at least for CA):

When you start a business, you are liable to provide treatment for your employees if/when they get hurt. This is why workers comp insurance is required in the state. The rate varies on your field and number of your employees and payroll. The more your employees get hurt, the higher your rate is, like car insurance. And if you have employees working above 7-10 feet? That alone will propel the rate even higher even if your record is clean. Some insurance companies won't even take the risk at all.

For physical demanding fields, the rates are very high. Even the small mom and pop type businesses in this field I consult with are paying 1.5-3% times the average rate. One client usually hires former inmates, since those guys aren't marketable to most other fields. Others rely on those who can't speak English well. Some of the clients are/were forced to shrink in size because of the high workers comp rate alone. The law in CA is really towards the employee, and it doesn't help that the low scumbag lawyers run ads all day long to promote that.

If you're making $10/hour and hear an ad that says "Did you get hurt on the job? Call us, we will get the most money for your!"...it sounds pretty good. And once word gets out that Jon Smith is litigated and not working at all, while still getting paid by the states, other employees who are also making $10/hour follow suit.

Could you sub-contract the jobs to individuals / businesses? Or would that not give you enough control over the quality of the service? I suppose you could vet them first though and hold them accountable to a degree - i.e., don't perform don't get more jobs from me.

 

[jazb]

Can you really bring new employees up to scratch on all the aspects carpet cleaning in a couple of days ? and then have them out doing jobs no problem?

 

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[kkompoti]

Scale and magnitude come to mind. Scale may be harder to achieve so you may want to opt for something with magnitude.

scale can be achieved through time. not so much time.
and it also depends on what country you live in.
for example i can scale my ten beehives to 600 beehives and live fastlnish...
if i scale to 3500 beehives then i can go buy a house in an island of my country and live happily and stress free ever after..

providing a service for farmers is a great idea. people who provide service to farmers such as machinery and stuff are not so well educated...but farmers tend to go to the people they now.
it is really difficult to present an alternative and make farmers to come to your business....
also in lot of countries farming is being done the oldfashioned way... they continue doing what the grandparents used to do. and maybe they buy some better macinery. but thats all... there are not so many farmers going to pay for some tech mumbo jumbo...only well educated ones and maybe some farmers that start right now but they are the minority.

 

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[Raoul Duke]

I don't like hi tech, super sexy businesses. I like simple, tried and true, with high probability of success businesses. That's just my temperament.

Examples? Or, how do you go about finding these dinosaurs?

 

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[Wolf0427]

I always come here and head directly back to this thread, there is something here for me, it is just taking a while for it to finally click in my brain, I just keep reading it over and over and over.

 

[KSR]

Seriously ICK, thank you for this. Such an inspiring read that is also insightful and helpful - for newcomers that are a little confused. I'd recommend this read. I think i'll give Millionaire Fastlane a read and probably buy the rest of it this week. Thanks again ICK.

 

[Mckenzie]

You want to know the truth? EVERYONE has some type of limiting belief inside of them. People somehow have this perception that I am some invincible dude that plows through obstacles with ease. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

I am human. I feel fears just like you. I feel uncertainty just like you. The moment I “overcome” some limiting belief, I discover another one. Hah!

The major shift for me occurred when I changed my beliefs on what it means to be a man.

MOST MEN ARE FULL OF CRAP

Most will never admit that they need help. They’re full of crap. I was one of them.

If you were to ask me not too long ago what it means to be a man you would’ve heard stuff like, “bold, fearless, strong, blazing your own path like a beastly warrior, 100% zero F*cks given”.

In reality, I had this fearless outer shell but I was deeply insecure about how others perceived me. The simple thought of asking somebody else for help was painful for me because it meant that I was unable to achieve my goals on my own accord, which I interpreted as a sign of NOT being a real man. This is all BS. Ego. Pride. Bravado.

Then one day I had a 2 hour long talk with a guy I highly admired. Many of you are familiar with his name. He was running a $120k/mo SaaS biz in the real estate niche. This guy flipped everything around for me. He had all of the qualities that I perceived a real man has: strong, powerful, confident, successful, blazing his own path. BUT he also possessed many traits that I formerly perceived as beta male/weak: patient, loving, humble, willing to openly admit REAL flaws and personal failures to the world.

There are guys whose humility is their form of pride then there are guys who are genuinely humble. Who is this guy? How is he so different?

He introduced me to his biz partner. The partner was also the same way. I had never seen successful guys on that level being so ridiculously honest about their weaknesses, failures, hopes, and dreams. It was the most empowering thing I’ve ever witnessed. Somewhere along that line I subconsciously finally gave myself permission to act in a similar light.

I can think of a handful of men in my network who are ultra successful, but deep down they’re unhappy and aren’t asking for help because we live in some bullshit society that tells men that we’re weak if we talk about our deepest insecurities and failures.

We ALL need help once in a while. We ALL need somebody to lean on.

I don’t know anything about you, but I know me…and I’m just a regular guy who has his ups and downs like everybody else. I’m learning and growing everyday. I’m not who I was. The beginning of wisdom starts by saying “I don’t know”.

If success means having all the answers and having everything sorted out then I’m not successful and very much at peace with that.

Thank you IceKreamKid. This definitely applies to woman too. I myself experiencing every single "weaknesses" you mentioned here.

 

[Otis Bogue]

THIS. This is where I am at. My business is currently on the absolute bottom of the price scale for what's being charged in my STATE, because the competition in my AREA is lower priced than the rest of the state.

Can someone tell me what "USP" is? (Maybe it was in the book?)

I am working on ways of adding value so that I can leverage the perception of my clients and not only dominate in customer acquisition (as my competition is pretty unsophisticated in marketing) But also increase my pricing to a level that's more towards the premium end of the spectrum. This conversation is FABULOUS, as I have watched 2 carpet cleaning companies start, struggle for years with little to no profit, and eventually SINK as the sole proprietors basically burned out.

The older I get, the lazier I become. Back when I first started I would try to build my own systems from scratch. It would take FOREVER to get something that was streamlined and running like a well oiled machine. Now I just ask successful people what systems they use to automate their biz then find some way to apply that same methodology to mine.

The most important one IMO is the marketing system because that's what generates leads. No leads=no business.


Yes and no. The USP is one of the most misunderstood concepts in business. Most people think it's a sentence that you'd put in an ad.

Does Starbucks have the best coffee in the world? Absolutely not.

But they give you the entire experience. It's the smell of freshly ground coffee beans when you walk in. It's the carefully chosen audio tracks playing in the background. It's the beautifully decorated walls, vintage looking furniture, it's the attitude.

The USP is the entire experience. This is what allows them to charge ridiculous prices for what was formerly a commodity that was sold for 50 cents per cup.

So what is the USP for carpet cleaning? Proprietary cleaning solutions that give you a more thorough, deeper clean. Licensed and certified employees that care about the work they do. Faster drying times. Friendly customer service that calls 1 week after the cleaning just to make sure that you were thrilled with the work done. We send you 2 physical letters in the mail after cleaning just to say thank you and to ask for referrals. We don't treat you like a number. We treat you like a friend and actually show it. We care. We care. We care.

That's what enables you to charge higher premiums. Showing that you care and are willing to go the extra sMile for the customer.

It's the bigger picture. The entire experience.

 

[B_Mac]

THIS. This is where I am at. My business is currently on the absolute bottom of the price scale for what's being charged in my STATE, because the competition in my AREA is lower priced than the rest of the state.

Can someone tell me what "USP" is? (Maybe it was in the book?)

I am working on ways of adding value so that I can leverage the perception of my clients and not only dominate in customer acquisition (as my competition is pretty unsophisticated in marketing) But also increase my pricing to a level that's more towards the premium end of the spectrum. This conversation is FABULOUS, as I have watched 2 carpet cleaning companies start, struggle for years with little to no profit, and eventually SINK as the sole proprietors basically burned out.

Yeah, it's in the book. It is your Unique Selling Proposition. Or what makes you different than others, and why a customer would want to come to you instead of someone else. I read this thread late last night, so maybe my memory is fuzzy, but one of ICK's USPs is the formula he uses for cleaning carpets. It gives a look that POPs that a homeowner won't achieve using something like RugDoctor.

 

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[UncommonWay]

Holy shnykies I completely forgot this thread existed.

Folks, this thread was created in 2015 and quite a few things have changed(at least in the carpet cleaning arena) so if you’re looking to get into this niche then I want you to be aware of a few things.

Direct mail doesn’t work nearly as well as before. It still works, but the conversion rate is definitely on a downward slope.

I’ve shifted to using FB advertising as a result. I’m not sure how long the party will last, but right now $1,000 in ad spend yields 300 leads. Results may vary based on your area and I happen to be in an incredibly good area for this type of biz. This stuff reminds me of the glory days of AdWords when clicks were dirt cheap.

I’ll upload my funnels on here when I get a chance. The marketing principles remain the same. Use some good bait to get the lead then wow them with great service so that you keep them forever. The backend targeting stuff does get a bit technical, but if a simple guy like me can do it then so can you.

Party on and keep moving forward, folks!

I would love to see what you've learned about Facebook advertising, since I am using that first my lead gen business.

 

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[Guest06196]

Hi @IceCreamKid

Awesome thread. Too many gold nuggets to fit in my one post. Reading it provides me with much more value than doing a course at a prestigious university. My high-level conclusion:
I feel more confident now to deal with issues that come with a business thanks to numerous tips in this thread.
I feel encouraged that I can move back to a smaller, "boring" city because there is money everywhere.
I feel validated. I've been thinking recently, whatever I do doesn't matter. Just don't get stuck in a dead-end job. Expose myself to different trades and I'll have more opportunities to discover needs and acquire new skills to satisfy those needs. (my background is like yours, Asian, so cleaning has been off-limits)

I'll go on and finish your other Gold threads.

I'm finding it very difficult making a meaningful connection in the dating scene because all I ever think about is biz and investing. Very few people think the way that we do at this forum. At the heart of everything, what we want is freedom. 99% of the population doesn't even think about that.

3 times in the past week I've been asked, "Do you watch Game of Thrones?" and I just can't relate to that. I'm going to binge watch it this weekend though because I'm curious to see what the fuss is all about.

Hey @IceCreamKid, you don't need to watch any TV show to have a good conversation and build connection. Like you mentioned earlier, we sell to people's emotions. Ask "why is it your favorite show? Which character do you like the most? Why?" Use open-ended questions with superlatives to elicit positive emotions. When emotions are aroused, people start to give the relationship meanings. Memorize the conversation as much as possible and use high points to tease her later. Obviously don't overdo deep conversations. Switch between deep and shallow so she won't freak out. In the process, enjoy yourself. You're being a good conversationalist because you're likable and easy to talk to, not because you desperately need something from her. Exactly like the way you make contribution to this forum.

I also asked myself, why no one as of yet has revolutionized the service industry with a product like Uber. They are so many companies in the niche, who already offer quite a lot of technical advances, but all have more of a closed marketplace with inhouse staff, at least from what I have found.

Should be a huge business for for the most needed services like cleaning, gardening, handyman etc. to offer an open/sharing marketplace, where all people can offer their skills and you are only the middle man.

A lot of people are already doing it.
Example below
TidyMe | Book Trusted Home Cleaners, House Cleaning Services
Stacey Jacobs
"...she built the site, engaged the cleaners, started marketing and had her first customers in seven days."
Page 97, The 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris
Judging from the Google review and website analytics, I'd say it's a very successful Fastlane.

 

[miraman]

Hey there IceCreamKid, quality post.

I'm posting because my father owns a small contracting company and has been doing work on people's houses for over 30 years. Lately I've been trying to convince him to scale it up but he always becomes hesitant when I bring that up because he is afraid of losing control.

The company is just him and another guy who do small jobs for loyal customers. He does no advertising, has no online presense, and gets ALL of his customers by word of mouth. He is a very personable guy and does an amazing job every time, which is why he doesn't want to give up control by scaling the business. That's also why people keep coming back for repeat business.

The only issue I have with this is that he is getting old and has some health problems, yet he continues to do brutal manual work all day rather than hiring out the work, scaling, and managing. Additionally, if he or his partner can't make it to the job or are having health problems then there is only one person there to get the job done which in my opinion is an unreliable way to go about the business.

He says that he wants to pass the business down to me when he retires, in which case I would work on scaling the business while leveraging his existing customers.

I just want to hear your opinions/thoughts on the control issue that he is worried about, and how you might go about avoiding any issues with this in the long-term if you were to scale up a manual labor business such as this.

Thanks!

This is similar to my situation. I run a lawn landscape business and always been afraid to let go of control because every time I hire someone they crap out on me or do a bad job or whatever. If I had someone I could trust that could take the reigns and scale it like you said, that would be great. You need to show your dad you can do that or he will just stay doing it his way forever.

(just noticed how old this thread is. lol - oh well)

 

[Fightrepreneur]

Do you have a recommendation on learning how to write copy for EDDM? So far I've been doing a Udemy online marketing course but its mostly tailored to copy for blog posts etc. Still good though.

Also, when I google every door direct mail I get a ton of results.. is this the site? Every Door Direct Mail® | Mail for Less with EDDM® from the USPS®

I've been parsing this thread for nuggets, actually came across it a couple weeks ago, good stuff but I generally limit my time spent on forums to ensure I don't get caught in the web of action faking. It opened my eyes to the world of "low entry" services where you can add value by going the extra mile without requiring years of work/school for certification.

I started a service business to target my local area, hoping to market to the massive student population in my area down the line (had a bitch of a time today trying to find someone in the procurement department to figure out their policy).

I'm offering the first service free, no risk, no signup, for the customer. The ONLY thing they need is to trust me enough to deliver my promises. My first plan is to distribute flyers manually in my neighborhood (very old school but trying to actually take some action). The flyer does not specify pricing or ask anything of the customer, it simply lays out the problem and offers a free trial with no strings attached to decide if the service would be valuable to them. I checked with my city codes today and called the local PD to make sure there's no issue with putting flyers on doors or parked windshields, they basically said its fine as long as they don't have signs up saying no solicitation. It rained tonight so sadly I couldn't canvas the 'hood with my copy, tomorrow is another today.

I think direct mail marketing may be my silver bullet if I can get the copy down.

My goal this next week is to provide value for ONE person. If people won't try my service for free its gonna be a tough sell to try to get paid. I have a lot to figure out and test but I'm at the point where I have to start marketing to gauge the response.

Would you mind if I PM'd you a couple details about my service business?

 

[tmb22]

They SHOULD be able to do it on my website but I've been too lazy about putting an online scheduler on there. Admittedly, I've lost the passion that I once had for the biz.

Clients currently either call, text, or e-mail to book an appointment. We give them 3 hour arrival windows and overlap them with other openings in order to give the technician more leeway. Clients receive a text message 30 minutes before actual arrival.

For example, arrival time:
8-11
10-1
12-3
2-5
4-6

By doing this, you're able to squeeze in more jobs in a day than your average carpet cleaning company and have less downtime.


Just my 2 cents, but offline biz models are much more difficult to execute while working full time compared to online.

In an ideal situation, the skills you're learning from your job are directly transferable to your fastlane project.

Thanks for the reply. My full-time job is way more flexible than most, so I have a decent amount of time to devote to this. It's just sporadic, so I've looked into hiring a company like Ruby Receptionists or Pat Live to handle the phones and booking appointments. Do you or anyone else on here have any experience with one of these?

Also out of curiosity, @IceCreamKid what is most of your passion in these days? Options? Ecommerce?

 

[tmb22]

They SHOULD be able to do it on my website but I've been too lazy about putting an online scheduler on there. Admittedly, I've lost the passion that I once had for the biz.

Clients currently either call, text, or e-mail to book an appointment. We give them 3 hour arrival windows and overlap them with other openings in order to give the technician more leeway. Clients receive a text message 30 minutes before actual arrival.

For example, arrival time:
8-11
10-1
12-3
2-5
4-6

By doing this, you're able to squeeze in more jobs in a day than your average carpet cleaning company and have less downtime.


Just my 2 cents, but offline biz models are much more difficult to execute while working full time compared to online.

In an ideal situation, the skills you're learning from your job are directly transferable to your fastlane project.

If you or anyone else cares, Online Booking & Scheduling Software for Home Service Businesses | Zenbooker has been the best looking option I've seen for a job scheduler to embed into your website. It's pretty customizable

 

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[Ing]

A ver interesting thread!
Im in a Job about 25 years now and I developed the same opinion about service towards customers.
I m earning a 6 fig euro income with much time to spend for ME.
But Im so interested about the theory of all that stuff and the way not to use the internet, but the real world is son amazing for me.

The last 10 years I concentrated much energy to practice the 20/80 principal. Its amazing, how service on the right customers and rejecting the wrong makes the life easy.


Im on a point now, where I d like to start a side project for interest and for a way to retire earlier. For me and some friends!

Here a question: is it a good idea to start a business with good friends?
How to divide the work and the benefits?

 

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[FirstLawMotion]

My primary goal for this thread is to hopefully open your eyes to the fact that although everyone is jumping on the online entrepreneur bandwagon, there is still plenty of money to be made in the offline world. Hopefully it helps somebody out.

You can take almost any old school biz and apply basic direct response marketing principles to the advertising to scale it to a very good 6-figure income. I'm guessing you can scale it to 7-figures as well, but I haven't done that myself nor am I going to pretend that I have.

The Details

Why carpet cleaning?

-Solid profit margins. A $300 job will require $10 worth of cleaning solution. There's also the cost of gas, insurance, etc but the profit margins still remain good if you apply the proper tweaks to the biz. If you play the bait n' switch game like a lot of the competition then you won't last long.

-Recurring revenue. IMO, the greatest benefit of recurring revenue is that it gives you the opportunity to acquire customers at breakeven or even a loss in some cases. I try not to take an upfront loss on a customer though.

-Any ordinary man can learn to clean carpets. It takes plumbers and electricians months or years to get certified, but you can learn to clean carpets in a weekend.

-Low start up cost. If you know where to look and buy used stuff, I'd estimate that you can start the biz for around $1k. As you scale up, you'd want to buy better equipment and a nicer van/truck.

-Unsophisticated competition. It's quite easy to gain traction in this niche because the competition mostly hasn't spent any time learning marketing. Most will just say stuff in their ads like, "XYZ Carpet Cleaning. Call us for the best price". My prices are in the top 10% most expensive for the area. Positioning, positioning, positioning.

-SIMPLE. SIMPLE. SIMPLE. No fancy knowledge needed. EPC, CPC, CPA, none of that.

The Story

I took over the steering wheel of a carpet cleaning biz earlier this year. For years, it was struggling with approximately $50k annual profit. Where I live, you're poor if you make $50k.

I immediately began implementing marketing systems for customer acquisition and customer retention. I never changed the website simply because I'm lazy and running 3 other businesses alongside the carpet cleaning biz. I'll get around to it one day.

There are 2 types of entrepreneurs: the Elon Musk types who create brand new innovative products. They don't need to spend any money advertising because their products are so unique and attention grabbing. Then there's everyone else...the guys who cast a wide net selling many ordinary things. They need to advertise.

The biggest help was that I started using a service called Every Door Direct Mail. This allows you to send postcards to entire zip codes at nearly half the normal postage rate. The postcards had all of the classic elements of direct response marketing.

-Stating the problem

-Addressing objections

-Establishing credibility

-Testimonials

-Risk Reversals

-Described what was unique about our service/product

-Call to action

What I found is that depending on the zip code, I would get back $3-7 for every $1 spent on advertising. Neat. Scaled it like a kid in a candy store once I knew the metrics.

You are literally one direct response marketing campaign away from making a cool 6-figures, perhaps 7-figs...even if you're in a boring niche like carpet cleaning. Study direct response marketing. Once you have the direct response skills embedded into your brain, you can go into almost any niche and make a very good 6-figure income. Or you can just keep it simple and jump straight into carpet cleaning. It's not sexy, but it just plain works.

Here's the YouTube vid that inspired me to jump in. Last I heard, the guy was doing $3M/year in carpet cleaning.

Ask me anything about direct response marketing, the pitfalls of this niche, the process of cleaning, or just anything in general. There are a lot of details I left out simply because it would be too much to type in this already long post.

Jump in. Take action today. Success loves speed.

Very interesting, Congrats!

 

[Andrewjgong]

My primary goal for this thread is to hopefully open your eyes to the fact that although everyone is jumping on the online entrepreneur bandwagon, there is still plenty of money to be made in the offline world. Hopefully it helps somebody out.

You can take almost any old school biz and apply basic direct response marketing principles to the advertising to scale it to a very good 6-figure income. I'm guessing you can scale it to 7-figures as well, but I haven't done that myself nor am I going to pretend that I have.

The Details

Why carpet cleaning?

-Solid profit margins. A $300 job will require $10 worth of cleaning solution. There's also the cost of gas, insurance, etc but the profit margins still remain good if you apply the proper tweaks to the biz. If you play the bait n' switch game like a lot of the competition then you won't last long.

-Recurring revenue. IMO, the greatest benefit of recurring revenue is that it gives you the opportunity to acquire customers at breakeven or even a loss in some cases. I try not to take an upfront loss on a customer though.

-Any ordinary man can learn to clean carpets. It takes plumbers and electricians months or years to get certified, but you can learn to clean carpets in a weekend.

-Low start up cost. If you know where to look and buy used stuff, I'd estimate that you can start the biz for around $1k. As you scale up, you'd want to buy better equipment and a nicer van/truck.

-Unsophisticated competition. It's quite easy to gain traction in this niche because the competition mostly hasn't spent any time learning marketing. Most will just say stuff in their ads like, "XYZ Carpet Cleaning. Call us for the best price". My prices are in the top 10% most expensive for the area. Positioning, positioning, positioning.

-SIMPLE. SIMPLE. SIMPLE. No fancy knowledge needed. EPC, CPC, CPA, none of that.

The Story

I took over the steering wheel of a carpet cleaning biz earlier this year. For years, it was struggling with approximately $50k annual profit. Where I live, you're poor if you make $50k.

I immediately began implementing marketing systems for customer acquisition and customer retention. I never changed the website simply because I'm lazy and running 3 other businesses alongside the carpet cleaning biz. I'll get around to it one day.

There are 2 types of entrepreneurs: the Elon Musk types who create brand new innovative products. They don't need to spend any money advertising because their products are so unique and attention grabbing. Then there's everyone else...the guys who cast a wide net selling many ordinary things. They need to advertise.

The biggest help was that I started using a service called Every Door Direct Mail. This allows you to send postcards to entire zip codes at nearly half the normal postage rate. The postcards had all of the classic elements of direct response marketing.

-Stating the problem

-Addressing objections

-Establishing credibility

-Testimonials

-Risk Reversals

-Described what was unique about our service/product

-Call to action

What I found is that depending on the zip code, I would get back $3-7 for every $1 spent on advertising. Neat. Scaled it like a kid in a candy store once I knew the metrics.

You are literally one direct response marketing campaign away from making a cool 6-figures, perhaps 7-figs...even if you're in a boring niche like carpet cleaning. Study direct response marketing. Once you have the direct response skills embedded into your brain, you can go into almost any niche and make a very good 6-figure income. Or you can just keep it simple and jump straight into carpet cleaning. It's not sexy, but it just plain works.

Here's the YouTube vid that inspired me to jump in. Last I heard, the guy was doing $3M/year in carpet cleaning.

Ask me anything about direct response marketing, the pitfalls of this niche, the process of cleaning, or just anything in general. There are a lot of details I left out simply because it would be too much to type in this already long post.

Jump in. Take action today. Success loves speed.

You've inspired me to take the leap into carpet cleaning. After being in reselling books for awhile, I've concluded that I need to build something more local. Getting my loan next week and I've been doing a lot of on-off research the past few years, but really put some heavy research the past two weeks.

Hope you're still around the forums. I'd love to ask you some questions regarding your current setup and get some pointers from your point of view.

 

[Sheps]

Are you saying that higher perceived value equates to higher actual value? From a consumer stand point.

 

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[Trevor Chaumont]

Hey there @IceCreamKid,
I've been doing a lot of research about starting a carpet cleaning service since I read this post. My area is expecting a 20k+ population boom in the near future and I think now is the perfect time for me to make the jump. I have a couple of questions though, my first being what can I do, if anything, to combat the possibility that more and more people go from carpet to tile or wood paneling? I guess I could also offer the option of cleaning tile or panel floors, which may not make as much money but could be a good option to offer.

 

[Hallsy86]

@IceCreamKid Are you using HWE with a truck mount or VLM cleaning? Even used vans and truck mounts are pretty expensive from what I've seen around here. I'm thinking I might start out doing VLM and work up to the truck mount.

 

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[Kevin90]

@IceCreamKid

What are your thoughts on the window cleaning biz?

What I see...

1. Opportunity - Just like carpet, windows are everywhere (residential and commercial).

2. Low start up cost - Seems like professional grade equipment/supplies will run a couple hundred bucks.

3. Competition - From what I gather, most local window cleaners lack the marketing, biz dev, and overall professional skills discussed in this thread.

One of the bigger downsides...

In Ohio, the winter season lasts from mid November to the end of March. My uncle is in the biz and has another service job in the off season. But when the spring/summer season hits, he is slammed with work and constantly has to turn down biz since he is a one man show.

 

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[cutthroughstatic]

Perhaps he would be interested in learning how to roll profits over into passive investments. In a few months I'll start a progress thread outlining how I invest in stock options for monthly cash flow. Stock options are F*cking phenomenal bro. They give you so much control if you know how to adjust your portfolio correctly.

The whole thread is filled with gold.

But I am curious to learn more about this. I have traded options myself quite a bit but have not found any success whatsoever with it.

Thanks

 

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[Stanley Mala]

 

[cutthroughstatic]

In the meantime, research everything you can on selling theta. Selling theta is what tips the probabilities in your favor so that you can become the casino thanks to the elements of time decay and implied volatility(IV).

Thanks for the reply. Are you covering your selling of the calls by buying the actual stock? Or no?

If you don't want to get any more in depth at this time, that is okay. I am just intensely curious now because I am like the trader you described. Except I started in the fool's gold land of penny stocks before I traded legit stocks and then dabbled in options.. I haven't lost a ton but I have never made enough from a trade to justify the time/risk involved in it.

I have a friend who follows Warren Buffet's principles as a value investor - he focuses solely on a company's fundamentals and the amount they pay in dividend. Great long term strategy... but you have to be able to invest a good chunk up front to really see the effects of compounding interest paid through reinvesting dividends.

 

[OVOvince]

btw as always, good thread man. thanks a lot

 

[OVOvince]

If you look around your area, the larger print shops offer all of the services that you need. The one I use took care of the graphics design, delivery routes, and printing/mailing for me. The only work done on my end was sending them the payment.


I try not to assume that I know what will get a response from the market. I can't tell you how many times I thought, "This will for sure get leads!" only to be dumbfounded by the low response rate.

Your mindset going into this should be something like, "I am going to do a bunch of split tests. Long ads and short ads. I'm going to start small with my ad spend in the beginning and after I find the most effective mail piece, the name of the game is to nail and scale".

Demographics matter a lot in this niche. I'm Asian so don't call me racist, but I'll be straightforward with you: Don't send carpet cleaning mailers to Asian neighborhoods. You might as well flush some cash down the toilet.

If you want to be super specific with your targeting then aim for the white neighborhoods where the wives stay at home, drive Tesla vehicles, and wear Lululemon yoga pants. I know that's a really random way to target customers, but trust me on this...after you have a few thousand clients in your database, you start noticing trends.

The customers you want:

• have large libraries in their large homes
• drive Tesla vehicles
• skinny white ladies who stay at home. I honestly don't think I have any customers who are both obese and wealthy.
• have housekeepers/maids
• outsource a ton of their activities: gardening, pool, heating and air conditioning, etc
• biz owners
• have college degrees

Customers you don't want:

• People on welfare(Their carpets are usually trashed because they don't own the property therefore they don't give a shit about spilling soda on the floor and leaving it there)
• Ghetto neighborhoods
• Customers with multiple large TV's throughout the house and large movie collections
• Areas with small homes
• blue collar neighborhoods

hey man thanks a lot. you are right about split testing. i have done this in the past and still generated a response, so i thought a tweaked and professional looking piece of mail would do better. appreciate the heads up on the print service shop, that one was driving me crazy.

last question, does your print shop have an audience targeting service in which they prospect specific types of people to receive the mail?

for example, let's say I wanted to send mail to only lawyers that have bad google or yelp reviews? can they scrape out businesses in a certain city like that?

 

[kelvinleang]

ICK,since you jacked it up from your buddy's original price, how did your customers react or respond to it? How do you raise your prices "seamlessly"? Like when customers don't react to it much.

Because in my country,there are not much home cleaning type of service as compared to yours. Also, even though there are a few small businesses of this type in my country, I still want to validate the demand for this service by going door-to-door and offering them an MVP version of my service(Vacuum cleaning only). How much do you think should I initially charge them for? These few companies have a certain range on their prices. Should I charge the same? or is it ok to charge higher right off the bat? I was inspired by you being able to charge a lot higher rates by delivering exceptional services. I would want my business to be like it as well.

Sorry for the long post and for my english, ICK. Hope you respond! Thanks!

 

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[kelvinleang]

It's cool, thanks @Learner Guy and @iAmTrade!

 

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[Learner Guy]

After a ton of due diligence, it's looking like I may be purchasing this business.

Even if you're not going to post the question that's still unresolved, maybe you could post a bit about how you've gotten to the stage you have? I for one would be interested to read!