Building An Old School Service-Based Business From Scratch...

[BrokieBroke]

Week 1:

I will be updating this thread weekly COB Friday with my progress on starting a carpet cleaning venture from scratch. At the end of every post I will update with the weekly targets and go over whether I met them and any issues I could use help with. This is an accountability thread more than anything else. It is the antidote to many months of action-faking - so to speak.

Just for a quick background and where I am now:

I am based in a first-world country and have had entrepreneurial aspirations for a while now, just never acted on it. I read MJ's books and as cliché as it sounds, it really was an eye-opener. I just couldn't go back to my 9-2-5 after that. I've been working a semi-successful corporate job, but at 27, I thought it's time to stop and consider whether I'll be willing to do this for life. Nope. Despite that, I was unable to find my 'calling' in any business venture that would motivate me to jump head-on (I still find myself thinking like a consumer unfortunately). Add to that, I have not had a major FTE like MJ's caught-in-the-snow moment, but I've had a series of incremental (less 'forceful') FTE's that took time to build up enough for me to decide I could not go on any further. To cut this story short, I found myself without my corporate job a few months ago (for different reasons I can't list out here) so I took the time to find a business that could help me get me into the game. I have some savings to get me through and staying with my family helps too. I do have a partner and two kids which complicates things exponentially.

I decided a sweaty start-up would be the thing for me, which is why I settled on carpet cleaning. I live in a big city and most residential places are still carpeted in my country. Although it violates the commandment of Entry, I still think I could attempt to provide value that would help me skew value over my competitors (and God knows there are many). I have not made much progress until last month where I registered my business name, built a website, bought equipment and a second-hand (more like sixth hand) van, and all the rest of it. All I need now is to get me some customers. I'm not taking this last bit lightly though. I understand that a lot has to be in place before I close my first sale.

Targets for this week:

1. Beef up my Google Business Profile enough to make my business stand out.
   • This should actually not be that difficult as a lot of the guys on this industry still rely on traditional marketing.
2. Generate at least 5 leads.
3. Close a sale (my first):
   • I realise this is a bit ambitious as I haven't got the first clue on how to do that. But I've read enough threads on here to actually give it a go.

I'll check in by next week but could also add to this thread with questions and general thought dumping.

 

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[Gigantic_brain]

Week 1:

I will be updating this thread weekly COB Friday with my progress on starting a carpet cleaning venture from scratch. At the end of every post I will update with the weekly targets and go over whether I met them and any issues I could use help with. This is an accountability thread more than anything else. It is the antidote to many months of action-faking - so to speak.

Just for a quick background and where I am now:

I am based in a first-world country and have had entrepreneurial aspirations for a while now, just never acted on it. I read MJ's books and as cliché as it sounds, it really was an eye-opener. I just couldn't go back to my 9-2-5 after that. I've been working a semi-successful corporate job, but at 27, I thought it's time to stop and consider whether I'll be willing to do this for life. Nope. Despite that, I was unable to find my 'calling' in any business venture that would motivate me to jump head-on (I still find myself thinking like a consumer unfortunately). Add to that, I have not had a major FTE like MJ's caught-in-the-snow moment, but I've had a series of incremental (less 'forceful') FTE's that took time to build up enough for me to decide I could not go on any further. To cut this story short, I found myself without my corporate job a few months ago (for different reasons I can't list out here) so I took the time to find a business that could help me get me into the game. I have some savings to get me through and staying with my family helps too. I do have a partner and two kids which complicates things exponentially.

I decided a sweaty start-up would be the thing for me, which is why I settled on carpet cleaning. I live in a big city and most residential places are still carpeted in my country. Although it violates the commandment of Entry, I still think I could attempt to provide value that would help me skew value over my competitors (and God knows there are many). I have not made much progress until last month where I registered my business name, built a website, bought equipment and a second-hand (more like sixth hand) van, and all the rest of it. All I need now is to get me some customers. I'm not taking this last bit lightly though. I understand that a lot has to be in place before I close my first sale.

Targets for this week:

1. Beef up my Google Business Profile enough to make my business stand out.
   • This should actually not be that difficult as a lot of the guys on this industry still rely on traditional marketing.
2. Generate at least 5 leads.
3. Close a sale (my first):
   • I realise this is a bit ambitious as I haven't got the first clue on how to do that. But I've read enough threads on here to actually give it a go.

I'll check in by next week but could also add to this thread with questions and general thought dumping.

Good Luck!

 

[EngineerThis]

I know an inventor, who basically lost all the million dollar fundings due to a crazy business partner… so he started ground zero cleaning houses. 6 months later he has 10 employees and is running the business doing great! Simple old school works!

 

[Nick T]

Week 1:

I will be updating this thread weekly COB Friday with my progress on starting a carpet cleaning venture from scratch. At the end of every post I will update with the weekly targets and go over whether I met them and any issues I could use help with. This is an accountability thread more than anything else. It is the antidote to many months of action-faking - so to speak.

Just for a quick background and where I am now:

I am based in a first-world country and have had entrepreneurial aspirations for a while now, just never acted on it. I read MJ's books and as cliché as it sounds, it really was an eye-opener. I just couldn't go back to my 9-2-5 after that. I've been working a semi-successful corporate job, but at 27, I thought it's time to stop and consider whether I'll be willing to do this for life. Nope. Despite that, I was unable to find my 'calling' in any business venture that would motivate me to jump head-on (I still find myself thinking like a consumer unfortunately). Add to that, I have not had a major FTE like MJ's caught-in-the-snow moment, but I've had a series of incremental (less 'forceful') FTE's that took time to build up enough for me to decide I could not go on any further. To cut this story short, I found myself without my corporate job a few months ago (for different reasons I can't list out here) so I took the time to find a business that could help me get me into the game. I have some savings to get me through and staying with my family helps too. I do have a partner and two kids which complicates things exponentially.

I decided a sweaty start-up would be the thing for me, which is why I settled on carpet cleaning. I live in a big city and most residential places are still carpeted in my country. Although it violates the commandment of Entry, I still think I could attempt to provide value that would help me skew value over my competitors (and God knows there are many). I have not made much progress until last month where I registered my business name, built a website, bought equipment and a second-hand (more like sixth hand) van, and all the rest of it. All I need now is to get me some customers. I'm not taking this last bit lightly though. I understand that a lot has to be in place before I close my first sale.

Targets for this week:

1. Beef up my Google Business Profile enough to make my business stand out.
   • This should actually not be that difficult as a lot of the guys on this industry still rely on traditional marketing.
2. Generate at least 5 leads.
3. Close a sale (my first):
   • I realise this is a bit ambitious as I haven't got the first clue on how to do that. But I've read enough threads on here to actually give it a go.

I'll check in by next week but could also add to this thread with questions and general thought dumping.

Some tips for your first sale...

Frame your mind right to get rid of nerves... Your goal is to actually serve your first customer, not "sell" them. Whenever you are making your first touch. Don't think "I need to sell this person", Think, "I have a really good service that people should know about and I would be a jerk for not sharing it."

Think win-win, who might have the most urgent need, and ability to pay for my services. This will tell you who you can provide the most value to in order to make an offer.

Dream Outcome x Perceived Likelihood of Achievement/Time Delay x Effort & Sacrifice = Value (Alex Hormozi)
The higher the pain/importance the more value you can provide/charge for. (Is there urgent events) An offer I thought was interesting in the past was $20 spot cleaning. Obvious upsell when you clean one spot and the rest looks dirty.

Get a deep understanding of how your customers "Feels" before and how you want them to "Feel" afterwards. Make them "Feel" like they can't help but refer you.

Good luck on your journey, the trick is to stay in the game long enough to figure it out!

Look into business models and the Five Commandments of Unscripted Entrepreneurship
"Businesses should fulfill a real need, have barriers to entry that protect against competition, give the entrepreneur control, be scalable beyond linear effort, and allow for the detachment of time from income.

 

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[mario.scaling]

Week 1:

I will be updating this thread weekly COB Friday with my progress on starting a carpet cleaning venture from scratch. At the end of every post I will update with the weekly targets and go over whether I met them and any issues I could use help with. This is an accountability thread more than anything else. It is the antidote to many months of action-faking - so to speak.

Just for a quick background and where I am now:

I am based in a first-world country and have had entrepreneurial aspirations for a while now, just never acted on it. I read MJ's books and as cliché as it sounds, it really was an eye-opener. I just couldn't go back to my 9-2-5 after that. I've been working a semi-successful corporate job, but at 27, I thought it's time to stop and consider whether I'll be willing to do this for life. Nope. Despite that, I was unable to find my 'calling' in any business venture that would motivate me to jump head-on (I still find myself thinking like a consumer unfortunately). Add to that, I have not had a major FTE like MJ's caught-in-the-snow moment, but I've had a series of incremental (less 'forceful') FTE's that took time to build up enough for me to decide I could not go on any further. To cut this story short, I found myself without my corporate job a few months ago (for different reasons I can't list out here) so I took the time to find a business that could help me get me into the game. I have some savings to get me through and staying with my family helps too. I do have a partner and two kids which complicates things exponentially.

I decided a sweaty start-up would be the thing for me, which is why I settled on carpet cleaning. I live in a big city and most residential places are still carpeted in my country. Although it violates the commandment of Entry, I still think I could attempt to provide value that would help me skew value over my competitors (and God knows there are many). I have not made much progress until last month where I registered my business name, built a website, bought equipment and a second-hand (more like sixth hand) van, and all the rest of it. All I need now is to get me some customers. I'm not taking this last bit lightly though. I understand that a lot has to be in place before I close my first sale.

Targets for this week:

1. Beef up my Google Business Profile enough to make my business stand out.
   • This should actually not be that difficult as a lot of the guys on this industry still rely on traditional marketing.
2. Generate at least 5 leads.
3. Close a sale (my first):
   • I realise this is a bit ambitious as I haven't got the first clue on how to do that. But I've read enough threads on here to actually give it a go.

I'll check in by next week but could also add to this thread with questions and general thought dumping.

How do you plan to get your first client? Are your target customers facilities, regular people...?