Learning from my 2 biggest business FAILURES!

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!  There is no other way to say it!

It is very tempting to ignore failures you have in life. Whether they are in business or in personal relationships, there is usually a lot of pain associated with them.

But, if we are going to be honest in our dealings with other people, we have to be open about our failures as well as our successes. In this post I'm going to share my two biggest business blunders. I survived both of them, but at great emotional and financial cost.

My first foray into the business world was going in with two buddies and starting a carpet cleaning company. This was no little endeavor; none of this grab a Rug Doctor type carpet cleaning machine and throw it into the trunk of my car. No, this was a big deal: with full size vans and professional truck mounted carpet cleaning equipment; tens of thousands of dollars went into each rig.

Next, we established a 'phone room', with two 13 'man' crews of phone salespeople; operating from 9 AM to 9 PM each day, five days a week. Each truck had a crew of two carpet cleaning technicians, and our trucks were on the road from 8 AM to 8 PM six days a week. We cleaned carpets in over 3600 homes a year, many of them on a 'repeat' basis.

To be honest, there wasn't a lot of profit with all of the start-up costs involved. But we figured the profits would come once the business was established. What came however, was the recession of 1982. During the recession people tightened their belts, quit cleaning their carpets altogether, or rented some cheap ineffective carpet cleaning machine from the local hardware store.

We tried to survive: we let all but one or two of the phone salespeople go (they concentrated on calling our previous customers, trying desperately to drum up some work); and then, one by one, we disposed of each of the truck-mounted rigs.

LESSON ONE: avoid starting a business which requires a great deal of capital investment.

Business number two was a discount grocery store offering slightly dated or about to go out of date grocery items at a 30 to 50% lower cost than retail. While there was some capital investment such as shelving, grocery carts, cash registers, etc., the building was rented. There were two problems with this business:

1. keeping the shelves stocked ( it was hard to find a consistently good supplier),

2. the bigger problem was that this was a passive business. on a day to day basis, we did not know if we would be busy or bored. On a really good days we would make enough money to cover overhead and show a nice profit. Then we might have two or three days with nobody coming in the store.

It is no wonder that most new retail businesses fail. We kept the store 'alive' for three years, mostly to keep our hard-working employees getting a paycheck.

LESSON TWO: never start a business where you wait for your clients to come in the door.

The upshot of all this was that my next business venture was a commercial office cleaning business. With this business I have avoided both the pitfalls:

1. The start-up costs are low,

2. You acquire the clients, and having done so, provide a quality service and they will continue to generate revenue for years.

John Maxwell, in his book Failing Forward, says that failure is a natural thing. We all fail - the question is whether or not we will learn from our failures.

I've leaned a great deal from mine and now enjoy a six figure income. How about you? Are there some failures in your past? What can you learn from them?

Interested in learning more about being successful in business? Start here and get 52 weeks of practical small business advice.

Ready for YOUR Palace?

Can a simple decision to make money by cleaning offices change your life?

A few years ago a biologist and researcher came up with a term he called “the adjacent possible".  It’s a complex theory but here’s a simple way to look at it.  Think of being in a house that magically expands with every door you open.  You walk into a room and see three more doors leading out.  Once you open one of those doors you enter another room with another three doors leading to yet new rooms.  Keep opening doors and eventually you’ll realize you’re in an expanding palace.

When I decided to make money cleaning offices, I had no idea how many doors that would open up for me. Yes, I still have a commercial cleaning business, but over the last several years I have added landscaping, house cleaning, window washing, and at one time had a commercial carpet cleaning firm with over 3600 residential customers.

A palace? Maybe yes, maybe no. But from that simple decision to make money cleaning offices, a whole new world of opportunity and income level possibilities opened up to me.

Ready to do the same?

For more information: http://cleanup4profits.com/

Using your memory at work!

As an active person, you are 'juggling' a multitude of activities in your life. Some of those are personal but many are work related. I want to share with you how I use my memory most effectively in managing my business. 

The answer is simple - I don't even try to use my memory! 

I don't use it to try and remember who needs what supplies and when and where.

I don't use it for keeping track of my inspection or training schedules.

I don't use it to remember what training and employee has received or still needs.

I don't use it to remember employee names phone numbers or job start and finish times.

I don't use it to remember job follow-ups on customer or complaints or requests.

By now you're probably getting the picture. Using your memory to assist you with your tasks you need to perform is a wasted use of the mind you have.

All of us have been blessed with a wonderful thing called the mind. The mind uses your brain to function. Many people have compared to the mind to a computer. There is no comparison. Computers are wonderful tools; they can store data and perform incredible calculations, but they can't think.

You, on the other hand, are a creative thinking being with unlimited potential. For you to succeed in business, your mind needs to be free to reason, deduce, use logic, and create opportunities. You will not be successful in business if you clutter your mind with junk, facts, figures, dates, times, etc.

Whether you're using a note pad or a digital device; 

all routine tasks, 

all appointments,

all requests,

all the complaints,

all the suggestions, 

all the inspections, 

all meetings, 

everything should be recorded in a place where you can easily access it. Doing so leaves your mind free of all the clutter so you can reason and think.

For more business advice and a free 52 week newsletter to help you build your business, check this out.

Start your own lawn care business!

I am so excited! I have had a number of subscribers ask me if we had ever provided business services other than office cleaning or residential house cleaning. The good news is that we have developed a number of side businesses: including providing lawn care service to both residential and commercial customers.

Providing lawn care service is a great way to enter the world of self-employment and to provide financial security. I had never intended to get into the lawn care business, but one of our commercial customers requested a quote for the weekly mowing of the lawns in their office park. I was able to jump right into the commercial lawn care business because I already owned a pickup, a 16 foot trailer, a trimmer, and both a riding lawnmower and a push lawnmower.

You don't have to start out on such a grand scale. If you own a push lawnmower and a weed eater, plus a way to haul them around; I can show you how to start your own lawn care business. Start small, purchase additional equipment as you need it, and develop your own part-time or full-time lawn care business.

Why introduce a lawn care business guide now? Yes, it is Fall as I do this, but I'm bringing it up now for two reasons:

1. Lawn Care is more than mowing. Fall and early Winter seasons don't bring a total end in cash flow for lawn care businesses. In fact, Fall and Winter opens the door for soil preparation, leaf and snow clearing, which can bring in lots of extra cash. In snow country, in fact, you can seed a lawn by spreading seed on top of the snow.

2. You need time to develop the business properly. When does your mowing season start? It will vary, depending on where you live and also upon what the customer wants done. Does your customer want Spring lawn cleanup? That's when their mowing season begins. Each customer is different, but if you're going to advertise do so on month or two before the official lawn care season starts.

Here are some of the reasons to consider a lawn care business:

Tax Breaks:

When you work a normal job, your employer pays you your salary on your paycheck. When tax time comes, you may have a few deductions you can make but there is not much leeway. However, when you are self-employed, you can avoid paying many taxes. There are many ‘write-offs’ so you can reduce what you pay in taxes.

Profitable use of time:

When you are self-employed, one of the benefits is that your time spent is your time spent. You don’t have to work 8 hours, you just have to get your tasks done. You get straight to it and don’t mess around. Therefore your time is spent much more efficiently. Also, you can combine your personal errands with your work errands.

Set Your Own Hours:

You don't have to come in at a certain time to start your job or leave at a certain time. You can set your own business hours. If you have a part-time business it is possible to schedule your lawn care business around another job.

Vacation when you want:

You don't have to wait for your boss to approve your vacation, you schedule it as business allows. Plan ahead, pace yourself, and schedule the vacation that you desire.

Be Your Own Boss:

You don't have to answer to anyone but yourself (and your scheduled customers). If a customer is difficult to work with, discontinue your service. You choose who you work for.

You Control of Your Income:

The more effort you put into building your business, the more you'll get out of it. This is the best business growth motivator I know! At a J-O-B, you will most likely get paid your salary or hourly wage regardless of how hard you work. Oh, there may be raises and promotions, but there are limits as to how big these will be. And the reality is you have to wait for someone to offer these to you. When you work for yourself, the opportunities are limitless.

If you're interested, I'll be offering this 50 page business guide within the next week or so. 

Find it here as well as many more self-employment ideas.

Earn A Great Part Time Income as you Make Money Cleaning Offices

We all need a few extra dollars to spend now and then, but taking on another job, even if it’s part-time can really cut into your family life. 

If this is your problem then you may want to learn how to make money cleaning offices or other commercial buildings in your spare time. This is a great way to build financial security, pay off debt, pr send the kids to college without student loans.

First: One of the benefits of creating your part-time job and earning the extra income you need. Is that you get to set you own hours!  If you can work on Monday and Tuesday nights and not Wednesday through Friday because you have plans with your family, then you could schedule yourself to only work two nights a week. Locate several small offices that would need your services once a week and still have free time on the nights that you need for your family. By setting up your schedule like this you can generate some office cleaning income and still have some flexibility with your work hours.

Second: You can also plan on how much money you want to make each week, making sure your customers (cleaning accounts) meet those needs. When you decide you need more income you can simply add more customers to your list. Do a good job, build up a reputation and you can easily increase your office cleaning  clients. Growing slowly, maintaining a balance with your new business and other responsibilities is one thing you need to do if you are serious about learning how to make money office cleaning and be a success at it.

Third: You will need to decide what kind of service you will offer such as light commercial office cleaning. Work from a proposal and a check list. You list what you will and will not do, such as not cleaning carpet, or not dusting people’s desk that have important papers on them (but you will dust their desks if they move everything to the center of the desk). Make sure your list to includes only those tasks that you are willing and able to provide. This way everything is clearly explained between you and your clients.

Fourth:  Always keep your word and don't make promises to your clients that you can't keep. If you can't show up for your appointed time be sure and let them know and arrange another time to do the job. Most clients will be okay with this as long as you let them know what happening.

For more info:  http://makemoneycleaningoffices.com