Hey people!
I am still a bit shocked and my always-self-reflecting brain is still sparking with weird ideas on how this happened, but I really am signing a $20000 deal now made from one FB post I wrote 3 days ago. I will link it in the end of this text here.
I first read The Millionaire Fastlane about a year ago, on summer 2023, when I was in a midst of a life-shattering crisis. Now I consider it my FTE but there and than it was an almost suicidal situation. Crumbling relationship, pink-slipped on a job, empty pocket, 2 hungry dogs and 2 hungry cats, huge bank account minus and no idea on what to do. At one of those dark days I almost decided to end my life (taken care of my pets before the deed by sending a scheduled message to a person who won`t abandon them for sure) when I was suddenly relieved by a happiest of occasions. And that relieve, not too long-lasting, gave me some spare time to come up with something. And that something was a post in my local community FB group that I can do some house-keeping and repair work for cash. That post, written in Russian (I live in Israel and about 15-20% of the population know Russian) and posted in just one place unexpectedly brought me some customers. Just enough cash, going around the sink-hole of my bank account to feed my pets and have something for dinner myself. Some of those customers were one-timers, but some stuck and I still occasionally do some work for them.
Than, my situation started to gradually improve. I started a new job, very low-tech but well-enough payed to slowly catch up with my bills. Than I started a part-time cleaning and home repair hustle and after 4 month of work I quitted as my hustle started bringing almost as much as the work and I went to focus on it as my business. Around this time I started my progress thread here so you can go and see the journey if interested. After my cleaning started paying the bills I decided to do one more step. The cleaning was a business not fulfilling the commandment of entry, and I just happened to be interested in something that was harder to enter. Me and two of my business-partners decided to study landscaping and gardening. My partners took my business day-to-day completely off my shoulders and I went to work for a local gardener to get field experience. And after almost 2 months of me gardening we bought our own set of equipment, watched the best motivational video ever and went out into the world to actually do it on our own!
And than came the advertisement question... We advertised cleaning by putting printed ads on the doors of multi-story buildings. But how to get into gardens? Around that time I had a discussion with a friend of a friend, a designer. We were arguing about the best way to advertise. He stood on the grounds of "branded ads" - non-personal, professionally-looking printed ads spread as wide as possible. I remembered my experience with handyman job and argued for personal posting with photo of me attached. The argue went nowhere and I decided that this is the perfect opportunity for me to check both approaches. I designed a tri-fold flier in free editor (printed 5000 of them for roughly $500) and I wrote a facebook post in my "local helpingSpiderman neighbour" style with some additional emphasis on gardening. This time it was 7 local groups and 2 languages - Russian and Hebrew to test. Fliers we started to put in mailboxes a week ago. A post went online on Thursday.
Well, it was not what I intended. Fliers brought exactly 0 results. No calls, no messages. But boy, ow boy, those Facebook posts. Today, first day out of Sabbath, I got around NIS 1000 ($280) small 15-minutes repair orders, about the same in gardening orders and one elite villa builder who wants me to work on his projects making gardens (and any other work we can)! And he even gave me a test order worth $20000 in just labor costs! Apparently due to the war there is a large shortage of Palestinian construction workers in Israel now (they were a huge part of workforce before 07.10.23) and anyone able to wield a hammer is worth their weight in gold. THE MARKET HAS SPOKEN AND I LISTEN!
It also means that Facebook ads, at least for me, are much more valuable than any non-personified advertising. Here is one of the posts I made. Just compare the like-repost count with similar posts in the same group.
P.S. I just wonder, how will a line "one post brought me $20000 deal" will look if I ever want to apply for marketing agency?)
I am still a bit shocked and my always-self-reflecting brain is still sparking with weird ideas on how this happened, but I really am signing a $20000 deal now made from one FB post I wrote 3 days ago. I will link it in the end of this text here.
A little backstory
I first read The Millionaire Fastlane about a year ago, on summer 2023, when I was in a midst of a life-shattering crisis. Now I consider it my FTE but there and than it was an almost suicidal situation. Crumbling relationship, pink-slipped on a job, empty pocket, 2 hungry dogs and 2 hungry cats, huge bank account minus and no idea on what to do. At one of those dark days I almost decided to end my life (taken care of my pets before the deed by sending a scheduled message to a person who won`t abandon them for sure) when I was suddenly relieved by a happiest of occasions. And that relieve, not too long-lasting, gave me some spare time to come up with something. And that something was a post in my local community FB group that I can do some house-keeping and repair work for cash. That post, written in Russian (I live in Israel and about 15-20% of the population know Russian) and posted in just one place unexpectedly brought me some customers. Just enough cash, going around the sink-hole of my bank account to feed my pets and have something for dinner myself. Some of those customers were one-timers, but some stuck and I still occasionally do some work for them.
Than, my situation started to gradually improve. I started a new job, very low-tech but well-enough payed to slowly catch up with my bills. Than I started a part-time cleaning and home repair hustle and after 4 month of work I quitted as my hustle started bringing almost as much as the work and I went to focus on it as my business. Around this time I started my progress thread here so you can go and see the journey if interested. After my cleaning started paying the bills I decided to do one more step. The cleaning was a business not fulfilling the commandment of entry, and I just happened to be interested in something that was harder to enter. Me and two of my business-partners decided to study landscaping and gardening. My partners took my business day-to-day completely off my shoulders and I went to work for a local gardener to get field experience. And after almost 2 months of me gardening we bought our own set of equipment, watched the best motivational video ever and went out into the world to actually do it on our own!
The dilemma
And than came the advertisement question... We advertised cleaning by putting printed ads on the doors of multi-story buildings. But how to get into gardens? Around that time I had a discussion with a friend of a friend, a designer. We were arguing about the best way to advertise. He stood on the grounds of "branded ads" - non-personal, professionally-looking printed ads spread as wide as possible. I remembered my experience with handyman job and argued for personal posting with photo of me attached. The argue went nowhere and I decided that this is the perfect opportunity for me to check both approaches. I designed a tri-fold flier in free editor (printed 5000 of them for roughly $500) and I wrote a facebook post in my "local helping
The results
Well, it was not what I intended. Fliers brought exactly 0 results. No calls, no messages. But boy, ow boy, those Facebook posts. Today, first day out of Sabbath, I got around NIS 1000 ($280) small 15-minutes repair orders, about the same in gardening orders and one elite villa builder who wants me to work on his projects making gardens (and any other work we can)! And he even gave me a test order worth $20000 in just labor costs! Apparently due to the war there is a large shortage of Palestinian construction workers in Israel now (they were a huge part of workforce before 07.10.23) and anyone able to wield a hammer is worth their weight in gold. THE MARKET HAS SPOKEN AND I LISTEN!
It also means that Facebook ads, at least for me, are much more valuable than any non-personified advertising. Here is one of the posts I made. Just compare the like-repost count with similar posts in the same group.
P.S. I just wonder, how will a line "one post brought me $20000 deal" will look if I ever want to apply for marketing agency?)
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