Saying Hello

[Skywayne]

Hi Fastlaners!

My name is Wayne. MJ, thank you for the MFL. Great, great content. I am a voracious reader, and it's my opinion that you have crafted something really special.

So far I've been through the entire "Ask Me About Ecommerce" thread, and I'm looking forward to more.

About me: I'm an asset protection attorney by trade (specializing in offshore planning), and I also work as general counsel for a commodities futures fund. Both jobs are on contract, and that contract expires at the end of this month! I have an M.O. of working really hard for a couple years and then burning out, living off savings, and repeating the process. In a way, I surrender to indentured time and then live life as a free man for a little while until I run out of cash.

I'm here because I want to find balance between my ability to make money and my desire to be free. I am not a consumer . . . almost everything I own fits in a 5x5 storage unit.

I've started my own law firm "on the side," and I made more than $30k in my first month . . . but it doesn't feel Fastlane, as I'm constantly "selling" on a personal level in order to get new clients, and the asset value appreciation end of the Fastlane mathematical model is missing. I'd rather have a website that does the selling for me. Fulfilling orders (as Biophase and MJ both said) seems more satisfying on some level.

By nature, I am a doer. Like my grandfather always says, "Shoot first, ask questions later." What I'm looking for from this forum is some mentorship, perhaps an opportunity to JV or apprentice with some of the more experienced Fastlaners, community, and friendship.

I'll kill two birds with one stone and go ahead and show my mug here:



Okay, okay . . . let's be fair. The rodeo picture is about 18 years old (I'm 35), and neither the Porsche nor the Ferrari are mine, but I did some free legal work in exchange for having the 911 for a four day weekend.

Look forward to getting to know you all!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[PatrickP]

GREAT intro!

Welcome to the forum.

Good to have you here.

To me 30K the first months sounds VERY good. It would seem to me after being in business a few years it could easily be triple or even 10 times that amount especially if you own the firm and bring on attys who work for you.

As you are probably aware a paralegal only makes approx $20 - $30 and hour and yet many law firms bill their time at $200 - $250/hour. To me that screams fast lane especially if you can ramp up to 10 full time paralegals over a few years.

Add to the debt collection, ebooks for new attys just getting started etc.

 

[theag]

Welcome to the forum, great intro! You should connect with globalwealth, hes in a very similar business.

 

[Skywayne]

To me 30K the first months sounds VERY good. It would seem to me after being in business a few years it could easily be triple or even 10 times that amount especially if you own the firm and bring on attys who work for you.

As you are probably aware a paralegal only makes approx $20 - $30 and hour and yet many law firms bill their time at $200 - $250/hour. To me that screams fast lane especially if you can ramp up to 10 full time paralegals over a few years.

Add to the debt collection, ebooks for new attys just getting started etc.

Hey Patrick, thanks for your reply . . . .

Yes, I felt really good about $30k in profit, but there is one problem, I am still trading time for money. I am ADDICTED to the CENTS framework, and it seems that a law firm like the one I just started only has very limited scalability (thought great magnitude). I spent almost all my time last month servicing the two new clients I obtained, and there is only so much of me to go around.

Now, perhaps a VA could be trained to handle a lot of the issues . . . but I really don't want to start a brick and mortar practice that ties me to paralegals, employment laws, a lot of overhead, etc.

What really sounds appealing to me is running a business that sells something tangible that could be sent to millions of people and/or for which people have a recurring need. Another problem is that at the end of the day, I just don't feel good about the product I'm selling as a lawyer.

What sounds really, really good is what you mentioned second . . . and that is selling an ebook to and/or training lawyers. I already own LifestyleJD.com with the intent of teaching lawyers to market (they are so bad at marketing, with the exception of personal injury attorneys).

The other thing is that I ignored my own desires as a young person and went to law school to chase money, not understanding what I was getting into. Of course, that's my fault for not taking the responsibility of figuring things out earlier, but I would really like to actually produce something of quality. Working with metal (making production knives, for example) really appeals to me, and then being a drop shipper for other retailers is something I would LOVE to do.

It's interesting that I'm starting to see Fastlane businesses all around now. Yesterday, in Target I noticed candles selling for $15 apiece! What could that cost to produce? $3, mabye? Sell it to Target for $5 and then they sell a million of them? Now that appeals to me!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[CommonCents]

It's interesting that I'm starting to see Fastlane businesses all around now. Yesterday, in Target I noticed candles selling for $15 apiece! What could that cost to produce? $3, mabye? Sell it to Target for $5 and then they sell a million of them? Now that appeals to me!

LOL that is funny. My family is in the candle mfg biz that are sold in many high end retailers for 15-150 bucks. My father thought the same at first, how easy, melt wax and pour it in a glass container with a wick! He did no due diligence. It's terribly complicated, saturated, requires high$$ for automation to compete, and low margin (wax prices driven by oil prices etc...) to customers such as Target. I'm trying to help them rework some new direction a bit to get into home party/direct sales where the real margins and positive cash flow exist.

 

[Skywayne]

LOL that is funny. My family is in the candle mfg biz that are sold in many high end retailers for 15-150 bucks. My father thought the same at first, how easy, melt wax and pour it in a glass container with a wick! He did no due diligence. It's terribly complicated, saturated, requires high$$ for automation to compete, and low margin (wax prices driven by oil prices etc...) to customers such as Target. I'm trying to help them rework some new direction a bit to get into home party/direct sales where the real margins and positive cash flow exist.

I didn't mean to imply that the candle making would be easy . . . in fact I assumed that it would require capital investment (at the minimum) and hedging raw materials costs. But it just struck me that manufacturing anything that is a consumable and in demand (i.e. people are buying $15 to $150 candles in a recession?!?!) would be an amazing business to be in.