Hi everyone! Michael here.
Short on cash? Don't have any Fastlane ideas to work on? Do you wish that somehow, you could get some traction to improve your life?
Perhaps you should start a service business! Hear me out.
You don't need much (or ANY, if you're hungry enough!) cash initially.
You can start selling and generating profit damn near overnight.
The skills you learn can be applied to any of your future endeavours, personal or professional.
I'm writing a short guide / story here on how I've built a landscaping business, in hopes it might inspire you to get your own business going. This isn't super short, but hopefully is an interesting read.
*** Please note: I'm not an authority figure - I'm not a millionaire yet, don't have all the answers, and certainly haven't always made the best decisions. I just hope my path can help you on yours ***
My story starts a few years ago, right after I graduated from high school. I travelled for a while and developed an interest in agriculture and sustainability - this led me to create a little organic garden that produced food for farmers markets and restaurants.
My first landscaping client found out about my garden, and wanted one in her own backyard at her cottage. Without any experience or money, I awkwardly fumbled through the sale and made a deal with her. We agreed to a project where I would build a garden using logs and materials from the forest around her property, and import soil and seeds. I literally borrowed my parents Toyota corolla and put plastic bags full of cow crap into the trunk to drag out to my clients property. I didn't have power tools, so I used a hand-saw to cut up old dead trees from the bushes.
I spent four or five days building this garden for her. My labour earned me $1000, which made me pretty happy at the time!
Word kind of got around about my gardening, and I scored some simple cleanup jobs. I pulled weeds, cut shrubs, and put mulch onto garden beds. I didn't have much experience doing this sort of thing before, but it wasn't hard. I just did what I thought would make peoples homes look better, and charged really low prices for it. Work kept coming in. Initially, I was still borrowing my parents car when I could, and used super cheap hand tools purchased with money from previous projects.
Before long, I bought my first pickup truck - a 1998 Dodge Dakota. It did the trick though - it could hold a lot more gardening material and tools than my parents car! My Uncle and I even fixed up the rust and painted the truck in his backyard, giving it a cleaner appearance. Around this time, I started to take my business more seriously. I made business cards, started telling more people what I was doing, and started to figure out how to price jobs.
The next jump I had was getting into services beyond gardening - I actually got two clients that wanted to lay interlocking stone, and just needed a "young strong kid" to do the grunt work. During those projects, I was actually getting paid to learn how to do stone work (a much more lucrative service!).
Screw school, Mom and Dad... I'm getting paid to learn how to do this business thing! My business was starting to pick up. I had a little trailer, my truck, and some more sophisticated tools to get work done.
After I had my truck stolen on a cross-Canada road trip (a story for another day..), I was looking to buy a cheap truck online near my hometown. By chance, the truck I decided to buy was actually owned by another landscaper - somebody my age who had a much bigger company. That person ended up becoming a mentor to me in a lot of ways. He shared business ideas, marketing techniques, pricing information, supplied me material, and saved my a$$ a couple of times. To this day, that relationship is invaluable to me... but I would have never met that mentor unless I'd gone through those earlier steps that put me in the right place at the right time.
As time went on, I continued to grow my business organically. Added equipment, eventually hired a full-time employee, built a website, etc. To be honest, a lot of this time getting my business off the ground has been stressful. I had to support myself fully from the business, in addition to re-investing what I could, WHILE figuring out how to actually run a business! I definitely had absolutely no clue what I was doing when I started. I just made do with what I had available to me, and busted my butt off working in the dirt and sun.
Now, nearly entering my third season of landscaping, I'm starting to get a grip on the business and my work. My company can effectively offer services for gardening, stone installation, snow removal, tree removal, property cleanups, and more. What's really cool is that I'm actually taking over another business in my town related to landscaping - a 25 acre tree farm. I made a deal with the previous owner of the business to take over his headache for no money down.
This tree farm has a great office space, drive-in workshop, and tons of equipment (like a skid steer!) that I have access to. I'm going to re-brand the tree farm under my own company name, supply trees and other plants for gardening, and operate my landscaping services from the property. The corner property its on has ridiculous visibility and traffic, and will really add some credibility to my brand.
The (basic) plan for the upcoming year is to settle into the property, mechanize my landscaping services more (mini excavator, skid steer, mechanized wheelbarrow, etc), build a great team of employees, and generate enough profit to invest in a multi-family home before the end of the season.
There's definitely some big challenges to overcome in the upcoming season, but I'm really excited about it. I love my work. If I didn't make it clear enough though, being self employed has been incredibly difficult in a lot of ways - it's taken TONS of hours of work and research, has strained my relationships, has pushed me beyond physical limits I thought I had, absolutely destroyed my bank account more times than I care to remember, and more. It's been one hell of a journey to get wrapped up in, though I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm proud of where my business is today and where it's going - only a few years has been a lot of progress since my parents Corolla. Even though I haven't "made it" yet, I feel great hope that I can become financially free in a relatively short period of time. Owning my own small business gives me a great sense of purpose, control over my income, and responsibility.
If you don't already have your own business going, and the idea interests you, I'd urge you to JUST START! I didn't really have a grasp of where I was going (or how I could possibly get there) when I started... but those things become more clear as you walk down the path. Whatever it is you want to do, you almost certainly have enough to get started on it right this moment.
Maybe your first service will be gardening or lawn cutting. It could be window washing, house painting, renovation work, roofing, or something else you already have experience in. Perhaps you'll design websites or take beautiful photographs for people. I don't know what your skills or interests are, or what your local market is like. What I DO know is that if you're good at something that helps other people, you can get paid to do it, and can build a business around that.
I hope this helps you get some gears going about how to get your own little business going. Who knows where you could take it?!
Feel free to ask any questions you have or leave any criticisms you want. Cheers!
Short on cash? Don't have any Fastlane ideas to work on? Do you wish that somehow, you could get some traction to improve your life?
Perhaps you should start a service business! Hear me out.
You don't need much (or ANY, if you're hungry enough!) cash initially.
You can start selling and generating profit damn near overnight.
The skills you learn can be applied to any of your future endeavours, personal or professional.
I'm writing a short guide / story here on how I've built a landscaping business, in hopes it might inspire you to get your own business going. This isn't super short, but hopefully is an interesting read.
*** Please note: I'm not an authority figure - I'm not a millionaire yet, don't have all the answers, and certainly haven't always made the best decisions. I just hope my path can help you on yours ***
My story starts a few years ago, right after I graduated from high school. I travelled for a while and developed an interest in agriculture and sustainability - this led me to create a little organic garden that produced food for farmers markets and restaurants.
My first landscaping client found out about my garden, and wanted one in her own backyard at her cottage. Without any experience or money, I awkwardly fumbled through the sale and made a deal with her. We agreed to a project where I would build a garden using logs and materials from the forest around her property, and import soil and seeds. I literally borrowed my parents Toyota corolla and put plastic bags full of cow crap into the trunk to drag out to my clients property. I didn't have power tools, so I used a hand-saw to cut up old dead trees from the bushes.
I spent four or five days building this garden for her. My labour earned me $1000, which made me pretty happy at the time!
Word kind of got around about my gardening, and I scored some simple cleanup jobs. I pulled weeds, cut shrubs, and put mulch onto garden beds. I didn't have much experience doing this sort of thing before, but it wasn't hard. I just did what I thought would make peoples homes look better, and charged really low prices for it. Work kept coming in. Initially, I was still borrowing my parents car when I could, and used super cheap hand tools purchased with money from previous projects.
Before long, I bought my first pickup truck - a 1998 Dodge Dakota. It did the trick though - it could hold a lot more gardening material and tools than my parents car! My Uncle and I even fixed up the rust and painted the truck in his backyard, giving it a cleaner appearance. Around this time, I started to take my business more seriously. I made business cards, started telling more people what I was doing, and started to figure out how to price jobs.
The next jump I had was getting into services beyond gardening - I actually got two clients that wanted to lay interlocking stone, and just needed a "young strong kid" to do the grunt work. During those projects, I was actually getting paid to learn how to do stone work (a much more lucrative service!).
Screw school, Mom and Dad... I'm getting paid to learn how to do this business thing! My business was starting to pick up. I had a little trailer, my truck, and some more sophisticated tools to get work done.
After I had my truck stolen on a cross-Canada road trip (a story for another day..), I was looking to buy a cheap truck online near my hometown. By chance, the truck I decided to buy was actually owned by another landscaper - somebody my age who had a much bigger company. That person ended up becoming a mentor to me in a lot of ways. He shared business ideas, marketing techniques, pricing information, supplied me material, and saved my a$$ a couple of times. To this day, that relationship is invaluable to me... but I would have never met that mentor unless I'd gone through those earlier steps that put me in the right place at the right time.
As time went on, I continued to grow my business organically. Added equipment, eventually hired a full-time employee, built a website, etc. To be honest, a lot of this time getting my business off the ground has been stressful. I had to support myself fully from the business, in addition to re-investing what I could, WHILE figuring out how to actually run a business! I definitely had absolutely no clue what I was doing when I started. I just made do with what I had available to me, and busted my butt off working in the dirt and sun.
Now, nearly entering my third season of landscaping, I'm starting to get a grip on the business and my work. My company can effectively offer services for gardening, stone installation, snow removal, tree removal, property cleanups, and more. What's really cool is that I'm actually taking over another business in my town related to landscaping - a 25 acre tree farm. I made a deal with the previous owner of the business to take over his headache for no money down.
This tree farm has a great office space, drive-in workshop, and tons of equipment (like a skid steer!) that I have access to. I'm going to re-brand the tree farm under my own company name, supply trees and other plants for gardening, and operate my landscaping services from the property. The corner property its on has ridiculous visibility and traffic, and will really add some credibility to my brand.
The (basic) plan for the upcoming year is to settle into the property, mechanize my landscaping services more (mini excavator, skid steer, mechanized wheelbarrow, etc), build a great team of employees, and generate enough profit to invest in a multi-family home before the end of the season.
There's definitely some big challenges to overcome in the upcoming season, but I'm really excited about it. I love my work. If I didn't make it clear enough though, being self employed has been incredibly difficult in a lot of ways - it's taken TONS of hours of work and research, has strained my relationships, has pushed me beyond physical limits I thought I had, absolutely destroyed my bank account more times than I care to remember, and more. It's been one hell of a journey to get wrapped up in, though I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm proud of where my business is today and where it's going - only a few years has been a lot of progress since my parents Corolla. Even though I haven't "made it" yet, I feel great hope that I can become financially free in a relatively short period of time. Owning my own small business gives me a great sense of purpose, control over my income, and responsibility.
If you don't already have your own business going, and the idea interests you, I'd urge you to JUST START! I didn't really have a grasp of where I was going (or how I could possibly get there) when I started... but those things become more clear as you walk down the path. Whatever it is you want to do, you almost certainly have enough to get started on it right this moment.
Maybe your first service will be gardening or lawn cutting. It could be window washing, house painting, renovation work, roofing, or something else you already have experience in. Perhaps you'll design websites or take beautiful photographs for people. I don't know what your skills or interests are, or what your local market is like. What I DO know is that if you're good at something that helps other people, you can get paid to do it, and can build a business around that.
I hope this helps you get some gears going about how to get your own little business going. Who knows where you could take it?!
Feel free to ask any questions you have or leave any criticisms you want. Cheers!
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