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Gravy's Hustle Thread: $100k/mo or Bust!

GravyBoat

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What's up Fastlaners!


I haven't posted on here in quite some time.


I joined the forum in late 2013, before reading MJ's book. I found the Fastlane Forum through a forum called Luxury 4 Play (about cars). Someone had posted a link in the "business" section. I always asked myself, 'how do people afford these crazy cars?!' So I decided to delve down the rabbit hole and find out.


In 2014, I attended the Capitalism and Bacon meetup in Houston, Texas. There, I was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship. We had a blast over the long weekend, and made some life long friends to boot.


I lived in Idaho/Washington for the vast majority of my life. From 2014-2017, I started several online businesses, all of which failed in one way or another. Either I didn't put in enough effort, or the products weren't viable. I learned alot about myself during this time, and don't regret "action faking," since it taught me many invaluable lessons. I also found myself growing stagnant, and comfortable during this time. I partied alot, F*cked around, had an IT job making around 60k/year (age 18-22).


One day, in late 2017, I found myself laying in my girlfriend's bed, Netflix blaring in the background. I was blankly staring at my phone. I wondered how I had gotten to my current position. I wondered what else there was in store for me. I would equate this to my "F*ck this event," only it was a long time coming. I packed up my few belongings into my 87 Honda CRX, called my boss and told him I was quitting on the spot, and decided to move to Southern California.


Thankfully, one of my friends from the 2014 meetup was in a similar position. We ended up getting a house in San Diego, which we deemed the "Entrepreneur Hustle House." Since, we have had 2 other Fastlaners live with us, and countless others come to visit.


I had absolutely no money when I first moved here. We're talking maybe 3 grand saved up. I should have had alot more, but I was still in sidewalk mindset at the time. I started a drop shipping business, which ended up making a few k/mo, and sustaining me for a while. This didn't last, and before I knew it, I had maxed out several credit cards trying to keep this business, as well as others, afloat, alongside paying my rent.


I tried running an ad agency for other businesses as well, but realized it was inauthentic to myself. This floated me for a few more months, but came to a screeching halt one day when I realized I didn't even have enough money to pay rent.


This was possibly the lowest point in my life that I had experienced. I had crushing anxiety, defeating depression, and was overall underachieving in every aspect. I knew I could do much better, which is the reason why I felt so terrible.


The year before, I had met a guy in LA who owns a window cleaning business. I remember posting about it here long ago, he was actually trying to sell it. I asked him if he would let me work for him for a few days (another time where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to pay rent.) Thankfully, he let me, and in doing so, taught me the ropes of what he does. I soaked up information, asked lots of questions, and tried to gain clarity on the situation.


Last year, I decided to bite the bullet, swallow my pride, and start an offline service business, just like he had.



I set up a Yelp page, made my Google listing. Printed out thousands of door hangers and flyers. Spent my last few bucks on a squeegee, mop, and bucket, and began hitting the doors. I had a fire lit under my a$$, and nothing to lose, so I went as hard as I could, every day, until I started getting jobs.


Due to the low startup costs, and low barrier to entry, and insane work ethic driven by necessity, I was profitable within about 48 hours of deciding to start this business. I haven’t let up the gas since. By the end of 2019, I had grown the business to over 20k/mo revenue, around 80% margins. My only expenses were marketing, and a little gas to get to the jobs. I threw two ladders inside my sedan, used a hose, bucket, mop, and squeegee to perform home services for customers.


I realized in order for this business to scale past 20k/mo, I need systems in place. I have since hired a full time secretary to deal with all day to day, and help me create systems. I implemented a CRM, accounting software, and automated lots of daily tasks. I also became legit, finally got insurance, and a business license (LOL). I have also hired another employee to work in the field.


I have done alot of “soul searching” in the past few years. I took alot of time for myself, and really dug deep. What kind of person do I want to be? If I could do anything in the world money aside, what would I be doing? What is AUTHENTIC to my character, and what are things I really love doing?


I realized my gifts are along the lines of helping others. I genuinely want to push other people along to achieve their goals and dreams (especially when it relates to my personal story). My long term goals include blowing up my “entrepreneur hustle house” concept, only this time, I will own the houses, and rent them to young people who didn’t go to college, as a sort of “incubator tank” for businesses. I want to push young guys especially, just like myself, because I’ve seen the power of it.


My current goals, in line with my larger goals are:

Scale the offline home service business

Create YouTube videos helping others do the same thing I have done

Network with those people

Get them to move in together

Invest in their businesses (once I have more capital)


I want to create an ecosystem for myself in the future. So I am taking steps to get there today.


I will use this thread as a place to hold myself accountable, but mainly for a place to be able to look back and see my story over the next few years. I miss posting on the Fastlane Forum. It was a huge part of my childhood, and has led me to meeting some really cool people. I owe it to other readers and members to document my journey.


I hope other people can relate to countless business failures, action fakes, and losing lots of $ in the process to find something that actually works for them.


Comments/questions/concerns welcome.


David
 
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GravyBoat

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It’s been a while since I’ve updated this thread and I sincerely apologize for that.

I will do my best to update this more regularly, because I know the impact reading threads here had early on in my journey.

Last month, we had our first 50k profit month, including my first 10k profit day, followed shortly after with an 11k profit day.

I have gone through over 15 employees in my quest to divorce myself from doing the work. Currently have 3 very good guys working for me, plus one full time assistant.

Just fired the new sales girl after she didn’t show up for work twice the second week! Sad!

Hired another sales girl starting Monday.

I haven’t done any of the work myself in months thanks to some pushing from guys in a few mastermind groups. If you don’t have a good circle to surround yourself with, you will get caught up and not pushed forward. My advice is cut anyone who doesn’t actively want to see each other win, and only allow positivity inside your headspace, because you only get so much energy in a day.

I plan to take the service biz to over 100k/mo potentially by the end of the year, if not, next year.

I will admit to not going as hard as I should have this year. I am also working on 2 other businesses, the info/consulting biz (in home services) and a totally unrelated gym product biz which I think I have another progress thread on. That launches in a month, and we just re launched the info biz with sick new ad videos. Also working on personal branding stuff to boost credibility in the space.

I am semi burnt out on the service biz, but that has been solved by automating the work and sales processes. I spend about 1 hour a day on the service biz currently but it’s hard to force myself to work on it.

I’ve also done a fair share of F*cking off since my last post. Gone on 10+ “vacations” or fun trips disguised as business trips including 4 Vegas trips. Mexico trip. Skiing. Etc. Moved into a brand new nice apartment paying almost 3k/mo for a one bedroom. Haven’t exactly been going balls to the wall, but I guess I’m working “smart” instead of hard?

I still don’t feel even remotely “successful” even though I made in one month what most people make in a year.

My next moves will be bigger. I am currently working on a short film that will be possibly the coolest thing I’ve done with my life to date. Once it comes out, I will for sure post here.

My next few weeks consist of an investor conference in Miami on a 40M boat, a trip back home to see my parents, and lots of filming. I am also training new sales girl and trying to ramp up volume.

I feel like I need more to do. I’m hungry as F*ck. I don’t feel the slightest bit satisfied. My basic needs are met but I know I’m meant to do big shit so it’s time to work on that.

Value I can provide / Things I’ve learned:

If anyone is involved in any type of service business, we have a Telegram chat that pops off daily discussing how to help each other. DM me and I’ll add you so we can bounce ideas off each other.

Working IN your business = you value your time at $20 bucks an hour, and you are kidding yourself with any excuses to not hire immediately.

Surrounding yourself with people that truly want each other to win, so they can share in successful, fun times is paramount to success. Find a squad and get in a group chat. Daily accountability.

Nightly meetings with yourself or housemates/accountability partners will change your life. It makes it so you can’t go too far off the path you should be on. Write down your to do list each day, take a picture to look back on. Erase once done and move the next most important task up the list. Simple as that.

Money past around 15k/mo seems very similar...

Money sitting in cash is actively inflating away and needs to be put into an asset ASAP.

While I don’t have millions yet, I should by next year if I keep going at this trajectory. I’m keeping no more than 30k cash and putting the rest into assets (other businesses, crypto, buying items that won’t depreciate). This is the first time in my life where I’ve actually had any “investment” money and I am seeking professional help to ensure it doesn’t get pissed away somehow.

If it doesn’t make you money, or can be written off, you CANT afford it!

Do yourself a favor and go on Groupon. Find the nearest “float tank” or sensory deprivation tank to you. Go in that shit. It’s like meditation on steroids. My friend and I were at the bar one night a while back and decided to go in the float tank every day for 30 days. It was one of the most life changing things I’ve ever done. Totally changed my trajectory in life. Made me rethink my path. I beg of you whoever is reading this to hit a float tank and thank me later.

Above all, take MASSIVE action and don’t pussy foot around your goals. You’re only getting older the longer you wait. There is absolutely zero excuse for not taking action despite what your mental gymnastics might tell you. It’s all bullshit. Get an accountability partner that doesn’t have YOUR programming, because they will see right through things that your own brain can’t figure out. It will shortcut your path to action.

Till next time.

David

PS: I have finally achieved my goal of never working from a laptop or computer again. I used to be an IT guy in my slow lane job, and I realized it was the most inauthentic thing I could ever be doing. I was still GOOD at it, because I had work ethic, but I had zero computer skills, and was mostly good on getting other people to help me do the technical side.

Fast forward a few years, I realized the last thing I ever wanted to do was be on a computer. I am NOT good at working computers. What I am good at is communicating and connecting the right people together to make things happen. I’m BAD at doing the actual work. Through this realization, I vowed to one day never use a computer again.

Ive gone several months without opening up a laptop at all. The next step, after maybe a year without it, is to throw the laptop off a 4 story building, and never buy another one. Actually I’ll donate it to some young hustler looking to get in on the game.
 
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GravyBoat

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Maybe not impossible but- not likely. I mean who can work 30 straight days -all day long, with no hiccups, you would need around 120 customers just for one month in your example, and not sure if everyone needs windows washed monthly, so you would need a ton of customers. It just seems unrealistic to me as a solo operation anyway.

Ya man. Makes total sense. It could never work out. Just don't even bother starting anything. Keep sitting on the sidelines.

I wish I had 120 customers per month. Taking LTV and upselling into consideration, might even make enough to hire your a$$ and put you to work.
 

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Nobody makes 20K a month washing windows by themself.

Why not?

Let's math it out:

- 30 days in a month
- $666 per day
- Let's assume he does 4 houses in a day
- That's $166 per house.

This.... doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

In his youtube video he offers some numbers as well:

Basic washing service - $175 per house (above my $166 estimate)
Upselling additional services - $275

He also finds houses where he can hit that $275 number in 45 minutes worth of work where possible.

He also says he was working non-stop with no weekends and it took him 8 months of grinding to get there.

He was also spending roughly $3k per month on adspend.

So.....

Why is this impossible?
 

AgainstAllOdds

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Nobody makes 20K a month washing windows by themself.

I can confirm that @GravyBoat 's numbers are real.

I spent a week out in San Diego and during that time was able to see exactly what he was doing. The numbers are very much real and in my opinion should be growing with time.

If you want to knock @GravyBoat for anything, it shouldn't be his business, but his idiotic spending on stupid shit like diamond rings that he ends up trading when drunk for a ride home from Mexico.
 

GravyBoat

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The main reason for this thread is because I'm sick of hearing excuses from people.

There is literally NO excuse not to do this and make $ TODAY. No virus, no shutdown, no nothing.

These times will pass. I'm seeing a reoccuring theme between action fakers / complainers. It doesn't matter what day it is, or what's going on in the world. There will always be an excuse not to take action.

What the F*ck else better do you have to do? Watch more YouTube? Read more business books? Listen to more podcasts?

Do you really thing you're just one video/book/podcast away from success?

Here's a tip: Cut the bullshit. Lock your business books away in a cupboard. Block YouTube and Instagram. Block your podcasts. Block any other dopamine hits that let your brain THINK you're taking action, when you really aren't.

Go start a home services business exactly like I did. Fall FLAT on your face. Fail. Learn. Fail. Learn. Do it again until you make money. Then repeat. And repeat again.

Then scale. Then build systems.

The beauty of what I'm doing is that it doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter if you went to school. It doesn't matter if you've failed in business for the past 10 years. It doesn't matter if you've action faked your way to your current situation.

You can pick this shit up TODAY and make money TODAY. The first job you get pays for ALL of your startup costs.

You can float your AdSpend on Yelp for a month straight, 2 months if you know how to game the system. I did this. Made a bunch of money and didn't pay a dime till later.

There are just no more excuses. Every time I hear an excuse or complaint in other threads, I'm just going to start roasting.

I want people to skip YEARS of hardship, self doubt, udder failure, action faking, etc. I wanna see people quit their shitty jobs. I want to see that spark that hits when you FINALLY make something work. Do something that's PROVEN to succeed quickly, just to get some success under your belt. This will allow you TIME and MONEY to pursue another business, or scale this business if you so choose. Either way, the choice is yours.
 

GravyBoat

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To elaborate on my previous post.

I've been installing SEAMED rain gutters straight up from Home Depot and Lowes. Been sticking them out the window of my shitbox car, since I don't have a truck or van yet. Check it:

IMG_2253.PNGIMG_2255.PNG

Anyway, I've been getting lots of requests for SEAMLESS rain gutters, and been having to turn them down, since I don't have the machine that can make them out of raw material, nor do I have a truck or trailer to carry it. So I'm basically pissing away thousands of dollars per week in revenue I could be getting.

I called every rain gutter installer in San Diego and they're all booked out for 3-6 months, and wouldn't take on any new projects. I was BLOWN AWAY by this. I can't believe not a single company would take my leads at least.

So I'm at Lowes one day bitching to the guy at the Pro desk about my problems. Suddenly, some random passerby overhears my convo (I think I was being obnoxiously loud, but I digress), and says "bro, my dad does seamless rain gutters, he's been doing them himself for 30 years. Has the machine, truck, and trailer!"

I get his number immediately.

Going to send him at least 2 jobs per week. These jobs can range from 1k - 5k gross. Let's say they average 2.5k... that means I can charge this guy $300-$700 per job commission, OR, help him and split it 60/40 or 70/30 or something. We still haven't discussed, but either way, that's an extra 1k/week in my pocket MINIMUM if I pull some deals off. Each of these leads costs me around $14 bucks... LOL

The point of this story: If you SIT ON THE SIDELINES like mister miraman over here, you would never get yourself into these situations. When you're in the action, balls deep, doing things and playing out scenarios, THAT is when the universe bestows you some opportunities.

When you don't do shit, and "wait for the golden opportunity," you lose. When you take any opportunity you can, then jump to better and better ones, that's when you win.

Installs are proving to be a good supplement to regular business. I set up a second Yelp page just for them. Today's job, took around 8 hours:

IMG_2247.PNG
 

GravyBoat

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For those who don’t know. I am making a short film as a tribute to the hustle, and to motivate others that going from 0-1 is in fact possible.

The point of the film is not to make money for myself (although I will have a back end offer to hopefully offset costs). The point is, to give some entertainment value back to the entrepreneur community, while simultaneously proving a point: TAKE F*ckING ACTION NOW!!!

I get so many people that hit me up, that haven’t started yet. For whatever reason, they’re stuck in their own heads. They have excuse after excuse after excuse, with varying levels of validity.

Ive talked about this to the ends of the earth, now all I can do is SHOW you.

If you want something, go get it. End of story. The world doesn’t give a F*ck about your excuses, problems, “buts,” or any other reason why you HAVENT done something. The world only cares when you HAVE done something.

The premise of the film is simple: I have to make $500 dollars cash before the sun goes down... or I don’t come home...

I will have nothing besides the clothes on my back. No money. No car. No tools. Just my bare hands.

It will be Survivor style. I simply have to create $500 worth of value before the day is over.

I am going to get dropped from a Helicopter in a residential neighborhood in Suburbia California.

I will have 12 hours to conjure $500 bucks with my bare fists.

My dream would be for this to go viral, and set off a chain event “Challenge” called the “Rags to Riches” challenge, where I inspire other people to make their own version of the challenge.

I rented a helicopter and hired a Hollywood tier film crew with my own money, out of pocket. I have zero expectations to make the money back.

All I ask for is your support by watching, commenting, and sharing the video once it drops.

I will keep y’all posted on the date. We are filming this weekend.

I hope this short film inspires you as much as it did me.

David
 

GravyBoat

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GravyBoat

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Hope everybody is out there getting after it today.

In the past ~6 months, I've figured out what it takes to REALLY run a business.

It takes hard a$$ work. It takes mistake after mistake, losing money on something and teaching yourself lessons thru failures.

It takes 3AM nights, 5AM mornings. It takes stress, crazy days, and full schedules.

It takes you being resourceful. It takes you going "All In."

If anyone out there is not achieving what they want right now, and they aren't experiencing the above, there's probably something "off" with what you're doing.

How I see it is like this.
--------- Extremely crazy
------ Crazy ------ Hire people
----- More customers ------ Build systems
----Start ----- hire management
This is how your workload should play out thru the first few months/years of a business.

If you haven't gotten to the "more customers" part yet, which most people never get to, then you need to reassess A your business and B your hustle. If one of these things is wrong, you'll never start climbing the hill (see above).

Just wanted to put this out there because I'm getting alot of PMs and seeing posts from guys who aren't putting in the work. Success without a large dose, I'm talking a few years MINIMUM, of hardcore grinding, isn't a thing. It's smoke and mirrors.

Go put in the damn work and you'll get the results. There are no shortcuts. You don't bet on getting "lucky" like the people you're comparing yourself to. There's only a few things you can control in life and one of them is how hard you work. Your hustle. Your resilience. Your work ethic. Your attitude.

Start realizing how lucky you are to be in a position to be ABLE to provide value to others. 95% of people can't do this. They either aren't gifted with the traits needed, or they're physically disabled. Most people reading this are capable of alot more than they're currently putting in/getting out, myself included.

Work harder, then work smarter over time. Again there are NO shortcuts.

Get off YouTube. Get off social media. Stop reading books. Go take F*cking action.

There's no better way to learn than trial and error. You're not gonna find the magic bullet, the magic secret if you "just watch that 17th YouTube video you have open in your browser tab... maybe it's in there...". No. It's not. It's at the end of a hard day's work where you feel physically and mentally exhausted. When you've been in the trenches. THAT is when you think of "silver bullet" ideas that really help you scale and progress.

So cut the bullshit and get to work. There's no better time than now. Especially with this lockdown. We have nothing to do BUT work. Do NOT waste this time with Mental masturbation on YouTube, Facebook, books, whatever. You're giving your brain little dopamine hits when you "research." You're action faking and mentally masturbating. Your brain doesn't know the difference. So go re wire yourself to enjoy REALLY working.

Go get yourself a whiteboard and write down your 3 most important tasks you NEED to get done. The word "research should be found NOWHERE on your board!!! Instead, the words "call," "buy," "Start," "Create," "Build" etc should be on there. Put that whiteboard front and center in your living room. In fact, go put it where your TV currently is. I want to see pictures of whiteboards in front of TVs.

If you really want it, go get it.

/Rant

Update with my stuff:

Second location already making some $. Pretty sure it's been like 4 days. It's proving I have a system in place, or the resemblance of one. Hiring another person in the next few days as well. I've outsourced 50-75% of work I was doing at this point, and still making decent profits. Time to expand now that I have some breathing room.
 

GravyBoat

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More value:

The biggest ahha moment for me was switching my service business to commercial.

Let’s just say we charge on average $300 per house for residential.

To make 3k/day, you’d need to do 10 houses.

Each worker can do roughly 3 houses a day reliably. Sometimes 4 or 5 but let’s say 3 to be safe.

To get 10 houses, you’re looking at around $20-30 per lead. So let’s just say it costs $250 for the 10 houses.

I need to pay the guys at least $75/house to keep them happy. So that’s $225 per guy x 3.

$3000 - $675 - $250 = $2075 profit for the day. Not a bad day, but check this out:

We call Property Management companies and get foot in the door. Also send them snail mail. One bites.

We do a small apartment complex for them for $1375. Turns out it’s critical and they were having leaks. Worker goes and busts it out in the same time as a residential. He can do 3 a day but let’s just say I pay him $200 for the entire unit. $1175 profit.

Because of the dope “systems” we have in place, such as awesome before/after video footage of the property, The property manager turns around and asks if we can clean her other 9 properties. AOV on these is $1775 per property.

So now we just made around $15,000 profit from ONE point of contact.

A residential home owner could never pay you $15000 dollars. It just doesn’t make sense. Even if they had 10 single family rental properties you’d be getting a few grand for servicing them all.

Dealing with 10 customers whims and becks and calls each day becomes a gigantic headache... all for 2k profit... hmmm. There’s a better way.

Make 2k profit by dealing with ONE point of contact thru commercial... OR... make 10k profit in the same day of work still dealing with 1 or 2 property managers.

So the sales girl I hired, her goal is to call every property management company within a 2 hour drive of us. I need to build relationships with all of them and become their one stop shop for all their properties. We give deals if we can do multiple at a time.
 

GravyBoat

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I realized something crazy today.

Your energy has an ROI. You can choose to do whatever you want with it. Some peoples ROI is 100m, others is 100 dollars, on the same amount of time and energy.

You can take supplements, tweak sleep, diet, exercise, and surround yourself with energy. But ultimately, everyone has roughly the same potential expenditure of energy as the next person.

Most people live in with a scarcity, negative energy. There’s always something going on in their head that causes hesitation.

That’s why some people make $0 dollars in the same 24 hours that some make 1m.

It all comes down to having an abundance mindset, vs a scarcity mindset.

Once you realize that life is just a game, and your “failures” are really just lessons learned, you unlock abundance.

Once you prove to yourself that you can do something once, then again and again, you unlock confidence.

Once you reach a goal you’ve set out to achieve, you unlock safety, stability, and reassurance that you in fact, CAN do it.

I see a lot of people with negative energy not achieving shit because they don’t have abundance, confidence, or reassurance. They instead have scarcity, excuses and ultimately a negative outlook on life.

Here’s the way to fix it:

Set a small goal for yourself each day. Name ONE THING each morning as your MOST important task.

If you do this one thing, you win. End of story. ALL you need to do that day is the one single thing that you deemed most important. If that’s literally the only thing you did that day, then went back to sleep in your bed for the rest, you still won. Because you moved closer towards your ultimate goal.

If you DONT set this “One Thing” as your most important task of the day, chances are, you won’t do it, because you aren’t clear on your path to your goal.

Make this one thing very, very small. No more than 2 or 3 hours of work. If the task is larger, break it down into sections of 1-2 hours each.

After a few weeks of accomplishing your “One Thing” each day, you will start to feel like you’re succeeding. You get at LEAST one “win” each day. After 3 weeks you’ve now taken 21 steps closer toward your bigger goal. You can now smell the goal, taste the goal, it’s in plain sight in front of you.

After a while, this will start to create confidence. Then abundance.

I am going to make another post outlining exactly how I structure my whiteboard to ensure success. I don’t leave this shit up to chance because the odds are NOT in your favor.
 

GravyBoat

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I just purchased a small business for $20k.

It should add $100-300/day in profit within 6 months from now.

The business is semi automated so won’t cause me much added stress.

Update on Home Service Biz:

Sales girl of 2 weeks closed 11k worth of work, with the potential to be 300k+. What a god damn good idea.

She closed a hotel manager that also manages 30 other hotels. The 11k job will take 2 days and cost me around $700 in labor/expenses to complete. So let’s just say 10k profit.

If we do well (which we obviously will), he is going to have us do the 30 other hotels.

This should be some nice repeat revenue for the biz. So glad I steered in this direction.

Should be a good week!
 

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Getting into rain gutter installs as well. Found a guy who does seamless. Going to outsource to him / partner with him on those jobs. Discussing further on Monday.

Employee and I working very well together. Assistant is also doing awesome.

Also have another meeting with a property management company on Monday AM, to do all of their apartment complexes.

Pushing this angle as I'm now legit, so at least some barrier to entry there. Meaning I have licenses and insurance and shit (which I didn't for a long time).

Overall everything is going well but I feel the need to grow faster.

YouTube is going ok. Still making hella videos. Just upgraded studio. Boom lights, studio monitors, legit mic, sound box, big a$$ whiteboard behind me. Chair is still shit. Trying to be as authentic as possible in videos.

IMG_2252.jpg

Gonna crush this shit. Stay TUNED.
 
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Wrapped up filming yesterday evening.

Was absolutely legendary.

Completed the challenge of making $500 in one day with zero money, no car, no phone, and no tools.

Started the day out in a sleeping bag at a park, like a literal homeless person. Then proceeded to conjur up $500 dollars out of thin air without asking for it. Only providing $500 worth of value.

I actually pulled in $600 because the last guy tipped $100.

My next move is to blow this project up. Going to put a few grand in ads behind the video when it drops.

If anyone has experience in getting videos to catch waves or gain traction, please hit me up.

Im beyond excited to drop the project.

3EA15A7D-EC1F-4A05-8462-751EF42D1966.png
7F4E6519-906B-487E-AF94-2ED41EE601BB.jpeg
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F*cking CRUSHING August already.

I now have 3 SOLID crew members that are fast, don't ask questions that they shouldn't (basically do as they're told), problem solvers, and people pleasers (good with customers). The one guy even upsells for me.

I now have a secretary team taking care of most of the customer back and forth.

Now I just need to get the secretaries and the crew guys communicating.

My job has been meetings, bigger plays, and hustling for lots more work.

It was a huge eye opener becoming "responsible" for other people's work, because if I don't get them solid hours, they don't make $, and get pissed and leave. It's very fair. I hustle, they bust it out, and everyone is happy. I don't hustle? It all goes to shit.

The hardest part right now is finding enough work to keep them all busy every day.

Had my first 1k profit day totally hands off as well (meaning I layed in bed all day, I did absolutely check up on stuff but didn't have to "do" anything).

Time to RUN it up!!
 
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Hit $2275 profit today. Not my fattest day but fattest in the last two months for sure.

I cannot describe the feeling when EVERYTHING goes right in a day. From wake till sleep, it couldn't have gone better. I felt like an absolute King the entire day, walking around with a beaming smile on my face while working hard, managing people, coming home etc. It was absolutely wonderful and I just wanted to make a note in my log so I don't forget this day. Wow.
 
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Booked a job from a neighbor yelling at me while on a roof today. Got his number and set him in the calendar. He saw me spraying his neighbors rain gutters, and told me he needed me to do his too.

Guy had 3 BMW's parked in the drive way, he obviously didn't care about price. Literally keeping up with the Jones's.

Another FAT day of profits! The reason I'm posting screen shots is for MOTIVATION TO GET OUT THERE AND DO IT YOURSELF!!!!!!

For ANYONE struggling! Please! Take a close look at what I'm doing. You can so easily do the same. Even if you're in the same city there's so much demand out there, there's room for everyone.

90515112_230992387945878_3530317432021319680_n.jpg90513051_212745459811092_3887965122605350912_n.jpg
 
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What's your favorite way to clean the gutters? Do you get on the roof or clean from a ladder?
I always get on the roof if I can, which is around 90% of the time. Sometimes there's just no way, or it's too steep.

This makes it go much quicker. Moving the ladder around and getting into weird angles is what takes the longest amount of time.

Also, you need to factor in the cleanup. The less mess you make, the less mud/dirt/shingle dust you have to clean at the end! I try to dry scrape as much of the chunks as possible before blasting with a hose or pressure washer.

One thing I've been doing recently is upselling on roof pressure washing. Just upsold a dude yesterday for $1350 extra. His gutters were trashed and his roof had serious growth on it. I went up there, took pics, and showed him. He agreed on the spot.

From the roof is always the easiest unless it's too steep or too sketchy. It will cut the time in half.

Also try not to let much of the debris go down the downspout because they can clog easily. Always dig as much of it as you can before hand into a bucket. I created a little hook for my bucket that can easily hang from the rain gutters as I scoop the stuff out.

It's a dirty job but trust me, when you get paid at the end, you won't even remember :)
 

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I’m getting traction with my Facebook Ads. Some people in my industry said to stay away from Yelp, but it looks like it’s a preferred platform of yours. Might have to jump on it!

Facebook ads work.

Yelp works.

Home Adviser works.

Thumbtack works.

Google Ads works.

Porch.com works.

Knocking doors works.

Word of mouth works.

Upselling works.

Everything works. There's a reason why these platforms exist. I can delve into great detail with my experience with each if that would be helpful.

The naysayers are the ones who either don't understand how to use the platform, get frustrated, or something else is just wrong (their mindset, business, etc).
 

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Update:

Home service biz is still crushing. Got a sick deal with a pressure washing biz doing 4m/year to outsource all their window upsell jobs to me and my team. Got two solid guys keeping them busy. Doing less work myself but still alot (every day)...

I've decided it's time to bow out and work ON the biz and not IN it. I've been stuck in this loop for too long, it's really time now. I'm posting for accountability. If I haven't done it by the next 3ish months I'm F*ckin around and need to be called out.
 

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Yeah, yeah, yeah..... but what about the girlfriend where you was laying in her bed :blush:

Great job! I'm confident that before you know it, you will have grown the window cleaning business as large as you want it and be on to your next life! I kind of did the same thing in a way but I didn't know about an after life of my 1st business until I was IN it for almost 2 decades. It sounds like you have a heck of a head on your shoulders and you will do very well. Congratulations! And by the way, I was just saying that if someone would start a window cleaning business, was good at it, treated the workers right and treated the customers right..... they could be rich very fast!
 

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Went to a YouTube meetup last night. Met some dude with 510k subs. He gave me a ton of tips to think about.

Having my assistant do lots more SEO work. We will follow a formula until something "trends." Then it should take a few "trending" videos in order to "blow up" meaning, once you get something that trends, a % of people will follow you. Once you have a few K subs, all your new content will get lots of views because everyone gets the notification.

Also got an interview on someone's podcast. Just gonna keep networking and pushing. I'm FAR ahead of 95% of people at that meetup. Most have zero plan of action and are just posting random vlog stuff or art stuff, with no aim.

The guy said me and this other guy would figure it out, because we're doing it professionally, meaning, we have no choice BUT to figure it out. He's right.
 
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Nobody makes 20K a month washing windows by themself.
Why not?

Let's math it out:

- 30 days in a month
- $666 per day
- Let's assume he does 4 houses in a day
- That's $166 per house.

This.... doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

In his youtube video he offers some numbers as well:

Basic washing service - $175 per house (above my $166 estimate)
Upselling additional services - $275

He also finds houses where he can hit that $275 number in 45 minutes worth of work where possible.

He also says he was working non-stop with no weekends and it took him 8 months of grinding to get there.

He was also spending roughly $3k per month on adspend.

So.....

Why is this impossible?


Correct, I have a guy who helps me some days. And I should have clarified. Not just washing windows.

Doing "full exterior house cleaning." So this means, $275 for rain gutter cleaning, $275 for windows, $275 for pressure washing, $125 for solar panels, all on the same house.

What has allowed me to make this work is upselling, and customer LTV.

Also doing rain gutter installs which can be ~$700 profit for half a day of work. Go hit one of those, go hit another window job for $225 in a day.

Another thing I've done a bit of so far is commercial, where you hit a bunch of apartments all in a row for less margin, but more volume.

The services this business offers go hand in hand with eachother. We also do Christmas lights installs in the winter months, done that for 2 years now. Those can make over 1k/ea profit, for a few hours of work.





To clarify further: this business is nowhere near "set up correctly" or scaled, or systemized. I'm still going through the mad dash of trying to train a guy to take over what I've been doing (quoting, scheduling, customer back and forth, job applications, etc.

I'm absolutely terrible at accounting, math, system esque shit. My strong suit lies in fast paced hustle, resourcefulness, and people skills IRL.

Goal is to double down on strengths and outsource weaknesses.
 
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Wow i was amazed and shocked at the prices folks are willing to pay to have windows cleaned. Here in the UK people only want to pay £20-£30 per house. What a tight bunch we are over here..lol

That literally couldn't be profitable here, unless you're willing to take a huge loss and consider LTV of the customer.

There is also alot of competition, so it drives down prices somewhat.

BUT

I only want to work with home owners who don't care about price.

Most of the people I work with don't notice the difference between spending $225 and $325. They only care about quality, timing, and seeing a polite young guy with a bright smile at the door.

So might as well charge $325 and do a damn good job.

Great thread. Thanks for sharing. Don't see enough hustle threads like this around here lately. Keep going. :)

For real. I should have started this earlier but I was so busy. At least I'm getting around to it now. Will keep it up.

Love this!! You're the Gary V of Windows. Crush it crush it crush it!!

Also I would get a used truck, maybe, don't end up in some sort of Final Destination situation in case of car accident lol

Thanks for that. He and I have the same personality type. I agree with 95% of the stuff he says.

What I don't agree with is the whole "wait 20 years" stuff. The "Fastlane" is all about NOT waiting in the "slowlane" for wealth. To create that shit yourself. This business is not "Fastlane" at this point, since it breaks some of the commandments. But it's a damn good start, and allows me funds to throw at other business ventures. It can and will become Fastlane once I divorce my time from the biz.

Trucks aren't the move for this business, because you can't lock them. Vans are the move. I just spent a bunch of $ fixing up this car, but purchasing a used van is next on the list of big purchases.



In other news: Closed a commercial cleaning company yesterday that has hundreds of accounts. They are aiming to upsell window cleaning services, but don't quite have the capacity to hire a full time guy. So they're outsourcing to us.

This forced me to systematize pricing, rather than have me do it all. The manager there said he wanted to be able to quote his customers without me getting involved, and he knows nothing about windows. So I walked him through a bunch of scenerios as well as created spreadsheets for each type of building.

Should be a good relationship that brings 3+ jobs a week. Once this is ironed out, I will set out to close as many of these guys as I can.

Today was another fat day of rain gutter cleaning. Profits attached:
IMG_2515.PNG
 

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Agreed. To say “it doesn’t work“ when it doesn’t work for them just shows they’re frustrated.

Exactly. If someone is having an issue, please by all means post the full story here. I will try to help them with it.

That being said, Yelp and Home Adviser BUY their leads from spots on Google. So if you can figure out AdWords, you're crushing them. I have NOT figured this out yet but it's on the list. Not high priority unfortunately compared to other things, but I will likely hire someone within the next 3 months.


I actually hired someone from this forum @sonny_1080 that hit me up within an hour of posting.

I value 80/20 speed over the "best." And that's not to say anyone is better than someone else. When I want something done, it gets done in a very very short amount of time.

I am going to be needing alot more copy in the future so I will use multiple people, to get different perspectives, as well as test different people's take on it!

I hope my window cleaner doesn’t see this thread. Here in the U.K. I pay him £8 every two weeks!!

Why are people paying $175 to get their windows cleaned in USA?

People are paying $700 to get their windows cleaned, all over the world.

Its all relative. If someone is willing to clean an entire house for $8 bucks, then they will win jobs. But they'll become trapped when their earning potential is only $24 bucks a day (3 houses). That's not sustainable, or profitable.

The customers you want in this business are not people who pay you $8 bucks. Those are the same customers that complain about tiny shit.

You want people who don't notice the difference between $300 and $400 bucks. You bump your margins, time per hour, whatever. They get a service they love and call you back. They don't complain. If they really don't like you, they still don't complain, because they don't have time. They simply don't hire your company in the future.

I have a hunch if I started this business in the same city as you, I could still make it profitable. You only take on customers and commercial clients that have money. You absolutely do not deal with tire kickers. I don't want to associate with those people EVER. Complainers = headache in any aspect of life. F*ck em!

@GravyBoat I have a question. I have been thinking of Home Services Business for a while but I have a full time job and dman scared of heights (cant even clean fans in house).

So I was wondering if I can start such a businesses relying on FT/PT employee (which initially could be funded from my job income?) to do actual work and I focus on branding, marketing and sales? Do you think this approach will work?
Absolutely bro! You can 100% do this with employees only. In fact, that's what I wish I was able to do.

Unfortunately, when I started this business, I had negative 50 grand to my name and was literally putting change in my gas tank to get to jobs.

My issue now is that it's hard to divorce making a F*ckload of money (more than I've ever made) while doing jobs myself. I do have other people doing other jobs. But the margins on those jobs is much lower than if I skip the employee and do it myself.

I told myself, I will stop working IN the business once my time is actually worth it to work only ON the business. That time has arrived.

You simply get the jobs and outsource them. It's the most simple form of business I can think of. Find a few reliable call boys to start and start handing them work. Make sure the customer pays YOU and not THEM.
 
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I have semi recovered from the loss in the business recently, and ended up splitting the job into two jobs. Two new people are hired and working. One is better at some things, the other is better at others.

The first person has legit corporate experience with executive assistance, so it’s cool to get a fresh take on some things.

We are expanding as usual. Trying out San Francisco market. Seems to be good thus far.

As far as providing value, I’m coming to a loss as to what else I can say about this business.

One thing I will say that I’ve been drilled on recently is the Fastlane Commandment of Control. If you don’t have control in your biz, the universe will remind you over and over until you fix it, sometimes with very costly mistakes.

MJ was not joking when he made those commandments. Anyone reading this that doesn’t know what I’m talking about, save yourself LOTS of headache and make sure your biz adheres to them.

My new businesses will be built with those things in mind FIRST.

Oh I also hired a financial advisor that I’m meeting with once a week… he is very by the book, so I get checked on stuff I forget. I recommend learning your personality type, and hiring people (or consultants), or becoming friends with people who fill your pitfalls. (IE I suck at finances, so I pay someone that’s good to play that role, etc)

More to come. Stay tuned. Big shit on the horizon.
 

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Despite the chaos going on in the world right now, the past 2 weeks have been two of the most profitable weeks my business has ever seen.

Been absolutely crushing it. Keeping my head down, although it's damn near impossible to block out everything.

Have had a few customers concerned so I told them I would communicate via text/phone, and they didn't have to meet me or my employees in person. Worked out great! We don't need the customer there anyway.

Taking videos of everything and texting them to the customer. They love it!

Today's loot:

IMG_2679.PNGIMG_2680.PNG
 

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In the group, I have a few guys killing it. One is black, one Mexican, 2 white guys.

Something I've realized is that there are certain people in every race, gender, age, etc that "have what it takes."

Sure, you can generalize with putting labels on people. But in reality, that's just an excuse.

If you want it bad enough, you'll overcome any adversity or whatever you may face. Some might have to work harder than others, is that gonna stop you?

Finding the right customers is a learned skill. Most people that I get calling/texting are fine. 95% I'd say. It's recognizing red flags thru communication. If you have a hunch the person is gonna be a pain in the a$$ to deal with, it's literally better to just cease communication, than to try and get the job.

Leave that job for someone else who's at a lower stage in the game, and is willing to deal with more BS to get $.

I'm also not knocking doors. The customer has no clue who is gonna show up at their house. I've thought about this alot, and concluded that it doesn't matter much. Because my name is David, alot of Mexican guys are named David, etc. Doesn't matter.
 

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New location in Orange County is not going well.

It requires too much of my time for barely any profit. I realize it's still in it's infancy and people don't know what to do yet... wondering if I should pull the plug until I have more time to focus on it... I'm not even scraping the surface of the SD market yet... decisions decisions.

Employee shitshows have been happening as well. I'm paying these guys really good money (around $25/hr) I'm not sure why I'm still scraping bottom of the barrel guys... I'm talking guys with broken down vehicles that are sloooow. I'm paying by the job as well, not by the hour. So I don't understand why they aren't busting their asses. Or they might be, just need more training...

Maybe I should stop using Craigslist but Idk where else to get semi skilled manual labor quickly... tried FB marketplace and it's the same. Also tried Indeed a few months back. Gonna post another ad there and see what happens. Can't be having these F*ckups.
 

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