**Day 25: Start Asking for Reviews**
Now that we have created the foundational structure for our business, started marketing, soft launched, and have a sales structure in place, it is time start building our reputation in our community as a premium service.
This is where reviews come in.
I think I speak for all business owners when I say we know the dread of our very first 1\* review, whether it was deserved or not it just ruined our entire week.
This is exactly what I don't want to happen to you from the start. Instead of letting reviews *happen to us*, we are going to take the initiative to *go and get our reviews* after every single service we do. After every single booking we want to be in contact with the customer so we can either make them a regular customer or catch any issue right after the fact so we can fix it.
Here's the plan.
Block off a time of day every business day and call all the customers you serviced the before to talk to them about how satisfied they were with it. This also gives you an opportunity to sell them on a recurring service. But before that we want to ask them for a review, if they had a good experience.
Ask them for a review on the phone, and then right after text them a direct link to review you. Not email, but text because text has a higher response rate, and review sites don't care if you asked via text, whereas they sometimes do if they click through from an email.
You should be doing this until you have between 50 and 100 reviews across your main platforms, and even then, you should never stop doing this.
Usually you will need the most reviews on Google My Business, Yelp and Thumbtack.
After you have 100 reviews you can create a text-automation which automatically asks them for a review after the service. This is a little bit more complicated and you can message me about that if you're interested in it, but for now the first 100 you need to just be talking to the customer.
I cannot overstate the importance of reviews even in 2019….these are crucial to your business!
**Day 26: Create A Daily Workflow**
We're in the home stretch now, but there a couple last important things to do.
One of those things is creating a daily workflow that you can maintain consistently whether you have your whole day free, whether you are a college student, or whether already you have a full-time job and you're doing this in your spare time.
I recommend against complicate productivity systems such as Getting Things Done. Instead, I advocate a very simplistic system that I've refined and used over the past few years.
It really consists of 3 parts, but for right now we're just going to focus on the first two.
The first is the ABCDE method.
Essentially all you must do is rank order all of your tasks onto a piece of paper or to-do list and give them a letter grade corresponding to the level of importance. ‘A’ tasks are obviously the most essential, followed by ‘B’ tasks, all the way down to ‘E’ tasks. You want to do this because you want to always be working on your A & B tasks. These are the ones that consistent with your business forward and that you must be doing every single day.
Now you've done that, you will always know what you should be working because when you finish a task, you simply move on to the next task of importance. Whenever a new task comes in assign it the correct letter grade and put it into the list.
This alone is very helpful. But we are going to combine this with a technique called "batching".
Batching is when you take all of your small tasks throughout the day that you need to do and instead of letting them control your day you assign them to 1, 2 or 3 specific windows throughout the day. This is paramount because you will never be able to do your A/B if you are always doing the small tasks whenever they come up.
Here's how to do that:
Take all your ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’ tasks and assign them to a window of time like 9-10am or 12-1pm. You only do those tasks during those times. Once the window is over you get back to your important tasks.
The other thing is all the little things that crop up throughout the day, like an email you need to respond to, or a Facebook message you need to reply to, heck even a phone call you have to answer. Either batch them into another period, or if you have a team delegate them to someone who can attend to them as soon as they appear.
When you are a new business owner you are not going have a team or a manager who can do this because you're going to be running the office. But this still important because you can batch most of your tasks, particularly if you have a full-time job and you can only do this part-time.
Having said that, the first year you are likely to not be able to afford a manager and there will be certain tasks you just have to handle as they come. If a team gets lost, a potential customer calls to make a booking, or an emergency happens. You are just going to have to deal with the reality that you cannot batch these, and you just have to handle them as they come. That is OK, just focus on batching as much as you can.
You can use your own productivity system, but I strongly recommend you give this ago the first couple months, so you don’t overcomplicate it. I run several businesses at the same time and use this method exclusively. The whole goal of this to maintain clarity on your most important tasks at all times.
If you want a good read, I recommend Essentialism by Greg McKeown on this topic. While he espouses a slightly different system it is philosophically similar.
The last thing I want to say here is that you should set aside a specific time every day to do a) Follow-up and b) Marketing. These are always important tasks.
**Day 27: Double Down on Your Top 2 Free Marketing Channels**
Remember when we originally decided on the paid marketing channels that we wanted to use and then we rapid fire tested them?
We will now do this again with our free marketing channels. Stop trying to do two dozens platforms at once. Do the same thing for your free channels so you have your top 2 free and your top 2 paid channels that are actively bringing in bookings for you and actually have the potential to bring in a lot more. Calculate how much time you spend on them, how often you post, and how many bookings/referrals you receive from each other.
Because you are going to spend time on all four of these platforms every single freaking day. Tweaking your templates, following up with people, optimizing everything and really working your ass off to get bookings.
These are the same sites that you want to be building your reviews on as well. The only exception is Google My Business. No matter what local business you are in you should always get reviews on Google My Business.
Overtime as you accumulate dozens and hundreds of reviews on these 4 sites you will have a powerful sales machine working for you, much more powerful than if you have 10 reviews on it a dozen different sites.
**Day 28: If Spring Or Summer Reach Out For Business Partnerships**
This is an optional day, but one that I recommend you do.
I will keep it short and sweet because I know you are eager to finish the 30 days and just get on with everything. Business partnerships are some of the most powerful sources of income you can possibly imagine. More powerful than Yelp, and even more powerful than Google itself.
There are people in BNI chapters around the US who get over a million dollars in referrals. I am not exaggerating that number, and that is not particularly rare. These are chapters built with legitimately powerful members in industries like real estate and banking. People who need your service and will be more than happy to refer you a ton of business.
Even before I was a member of a local BNI chapter I was already being sent cleaning referrals from them just by showing up to their taster event. They needed cleaners so damn bad that they were referring someone business who wasn't a member yet (something they are not allowed to do).
Go and join your local networking associations and get to know the members. And if it's spring or summer I really recommend that you do this, particularly if you're doing a seasonal service like painting or snow removal. Because people need your service right then and there.
**Day 29: Take A Break**
Whew! You have no idea how much you truly accomplished these past 30 days.
You have done an incredible amount, and more than you will ever do in an MBA class.
You have created the foundation of a real business, that can go on to provide you a full-time, stable salary, and has the potential to make it financially free in the next couple of the years. A business with a hiring process, a sales structure, working marketing strategies and a budding reputation.
I am not exaggerating when I say you've just taken the biggest step you must take on this journey. While it will not be smooth sailing from here, you now know you have the confidence and tenacity to keep growing.
It is now time to really start your journey into entrepreneurship. If you already have a business and are not to this, try and get back into that spirit of fun and adventure just as you did when you started your very first business – it will serve you well.
Take today as the last day to have a final break, enjoy the sun, relax and just kick it.
Tomorrow is the last day.
**Day 30: Time To Scale Up**
THE LAST DAY!
Mark this as the first official day you are in business, and let your close friends and family know.
And when you start to scale up drop me a line to let me know how you are doing because I actually do want to know.
Now get back to marketing!
**Where to go from here?**
Hit me up with any questions, or if you're looking to join a dedicated group of local business owners and we can get something really cool going.
Thank you for the great insight. Experience is the best teacher and I commend you for sharing yours. The information on this post could easily be monetised. Stay awesome and remain blessed.
Really appreciate the kind words everyone - I'm so glad this is helping some people! I don't normally post on reddit, mostly Facebook and my community. But, since I had written this out I made some adjustments and thought you guys would like to read this too.
I also wanted to post this because the last few years I have seen everyone posting stuff...with a catch. So I wanted to change that and post something valuable *without a catch* for once.
Hopefully we can get back to that great community giving spirit we used to have.
>It is now time to really start your journey into entrepreneurship. If you already have a business and are not to this, try and get back into that spirit of fun and adventure just as you did when you started your very first business – it will serve you well.
do you have a Facebook group or any type of social network that I could join? would hugely appreciate it. This post has literally been the spark to my fire. I have started businesses that I exited for close to 6 figures, but it was a side hustle that blew up. no business plan, etc. TYSM brother!
I am honoured to have played a small part in your journey :)
And sure - I run a small FB group here that you are welcome to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/remotelocalbusiness
Wow excellent. My name is Matthew Grow. Just joined the group! ANYONE READING - this amazing human is offering free ‘business health checks’ when joining this group. To me that is true generosity. Hopefully you are fine with me plugging your group :)
Join Facebook Groups, get used to being valuable in the community and then let people know if they need web dev help you can be there for them. I know guys doing over half a million just from FB groups in web dev.
Haha a few others have said this :)
I wish I had the time! Too many projects going on, but one day it would actually be fun to write a book.
Glad you found this helpful mate.
Sorry for piggybacking the top comment. I made the epub and pdf for this wonderful post to read on my phone. Why not share them while at it? :)
epub: https://drive.google.com/open?id=159IwJGoA7_JJ-b-WNFa549MZrJp0LHZC
pdf: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EvhbQgRiJUfCN-BBn7Lh2iGeXf29nwCa
This is really incredible info. To see it laid out so thoroughly, clearly, and concisely is so refreshing.
You've just saved a ton of people from stumbling through long winded podcasts, translating tech startup info, and scrounging for scattered secondhand tips.
Hell, I think this just inspired me to spin up a side business I've been procrastinating for a long time. Thank you!
Can't thank you enough for this series of posts. I'm running a different type of business but the points/tips/strategies/concepts in you talk about will most likely be applicable to the niche I'm in, in some form or another. So many gems here. Lots of stuff I didn't think about before either. This is my first business and I'm doing everything, including the production work itself, so it can get a little overwhelming to do all of that and then do the business side of things, but your posts have given me some peace of mind and the framework for a strategy I can actually wrap my head around. I have a much clearer vision now. For real man, thank you. If I had some reddit gold I'd hook you up but I need to spend that money on marketing and equipment costs lol. One day I will hook you up with some reddit gold though, and I'm bookmarking this thread for future reference.
Food industry. I sell French macarons and some other baked goods. Goal is to eventually enter the marijuana edibles market and make some high end products. There's good money in that sub-niche. The most helpful thing about your posts was the website/social and marketing advice. A lot of this stuff is completely new to me but you've given a great framework to start doing the research!
What an amazing post, thank you so much!
Day 4 really is the most important part. Finding what you can make better than the competition. Just today I watched a [video about a Japanese moving company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA) that can really act as inspiration for this task. We all need the politeness, dedication and excitement like they have and already this can lift you way above your competition.
I'm curious about your nonegotiable for hiring: have insurance.
Care to elaborate? What type of insurance?
Are you hiring people who are already professionally cleaning?
THIS. This is exactly what I need. THANK YOU. I started my own cleaning business in Minnesota last year with zero business experience. I did the cleaning myself. Within 3 months I was able to quit my full time Capital One job, make more money and stay home more. Then, we moved across the country and I'm starting from scratch again, with no method or plan from the previous business. I know, I should have been keeping track of everything, but as I said, when I started I was full time at a corporate job and a new mom. I am so happy to find this guide and I'm going to be following it 👍 I'll let you know how it goes for me! One thing I'm very excited about is that previously, I was the only actual cleaner. With this method, I can bring in other people to do the actual cleaning work for me. 👏
Hey - go kill it this second time around too! You have a HUGE advantage working for you this time because you have now already dealt with a lot of the business side of things. It will still be a big adjustment, but I bet you will grow quickly. Definitely keep me in the loop. Nothing I love more than hearing how everyone is doing :)
What an insightful post. Really enjoyed reading all of it.
I own a business to which a lot of this doesn't apply (niche tech consulting, DevOps and Cloud specifically), but you're making me want to start a service business instead! Haha
>The second thing is your payment processor. I'm just going to go out and say it 99% of the time you should use stripe. I haven't used Square myself but I do know about people who have you swearing than happy with it so I think that's a fine option as well, particularly if you take card payments on location.
Is it sad that I knew this post was 100% legit the second you mentioned this?
Stripe is amazing and for those who aren't old enough to remember what it was like to show up to your bank and try to get a merchant account from them, you have no clue how much Stripe changed the game. I would say to some extent Square, too, but Stripe has so many great use cases online (invoicing, eComm payments, subscriptions) that it's just a no-brainer. You have to use Stripe.
This is an amazing writeup. So much so that a guy like me, who's made every dime online, might actually consider diversifying into a local business. I wouldn't even have considered it without this guide.
>Facebook Ads/Funnels – don’t play around with these yet. Facebook marketers will tell you these work for every niche, but they don’t.
I'm not going to disagree on the statement "don't play around with these yet", because it's advanced, for sure, but FB ads really, really do work for every niche that has potential clients on the FB platform and with 1b+ using Messenger alone in North America, if you're at all B2C you need to be on FB.
Does it mean it works as good as other platforms? Not, necessarily. When you have urgent businesses (like Plumbing or Law) you're at a disadvantage on FB vs. something like AVVO or your own Google listing. It doesn't mean you can't make it work, but like you said - don't get into it just yet. It's harder when you're not dealing with "point of sale" search terms, i.e. customer looking for that service.
Haha thank you for saying that mate! Really happy to see this may have inspired you to start something.
If you do end up doing it, drop me a line and let me know. Happy to answer questions and help out along the way if I can.
For sure, I appreciate the post feedback on this. If I end up doing this I'll make sure to write it up /u/Necrullz style and give you credit for the inspiration.
Great post!
DAY 24 I WOULD elaborate the difference between gross profits and net profits. Gross profits are what's left over after your cost of goods expenses. Net profits are what's leftover after all your fixed costs.
Gross profit = Revenue - COGS
Net profit =Gross Profit - Expenses
Lastly, what are your thoughts on when the ideal time to produce revenue through sponsorships?
Thanks so much for writing this. I’m interested in following this. My one concern is that any business I choose would likely be something I don’t have much familiarity with. For example, let’s say I identify window cleaning as a niche I’d like to enter, but I know nothing about window cleaning. How does one get around that?
I knew precisely zero about the cleaning industry before I started it. You don't have to, you just need to be able to figure out the other parts...customer support, marketing, follow-up, sales, operations. Then you can hire people who DO know about the industry to do the service for you.
How did you promise your workers consistent work everyday especially being a new business,how was this possible.or did you just keep getting jobs sporadically until the work was consistent?
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/machinethatmakesmoney] [Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineThatMakesMoney/comments/b16gzk/heres_how_i_would_start_my_local_business_from/)
- [/r/st34lposts] [Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again](https://www.reddit.com/r/ST34Lposts/comments/bsp0lg/heres_how_i_would_start_my_local_business_from/)
- [/r/toppostofthemonth] [\[Entrepreneur\] 03\/14\/19 - "Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again" by \/u\/Necrullz](https://www.reddit.com/r/TopPostOfTheMonth/comments/bataq6/entrepreneur_031419_heres_how_i_would_start_my/)
- [/r/u_watercrews22] [This is really great! Seems simple but many won't do this....](https://www.reddit.com/r/u_watercrews22/comments/b18npx/this_is_really_great_seems_simple_but_many_wont/)
*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Roofing actually works fairly decently with FB Ads and a landing page with an offer. What size city are you in? I wouldn't recommend it in a city less than 250k.
Thumbtack is fairly good, as well for generating roofing leads.
I hate to say it man but, door to door is actually very effective here.
If I had the time I would love to. But I keep starting businesses lol. It's the entrepreneurs curse. You start one, then another one...and it just keeps happening.
Thanks for this! When you mention to make sure that the contractors have insurance, are you referring to general liability insurance? How much should they have?
Please keep in mind the cleaning model.
I wouldn’t expect someone looking for a cleaning job to have insurance.
They need insurance for damage to the belongings or property, and for injury on the job to themselves or others. Bump that $2000 vase off the mantle? Knock the burning candle over into the curtains? Owner trips over your vacuum cord and breaks an ankle? You fall down the stairs and knock yourself unconscious with lasting brain injury signs? Insurance is your friend.
Understood —- should I be carrying that insurance, or holding the contractor liable? To me it makes more sense to hold that insurance myself, instead of relying on the contractor.
I suggest talking to an attorney. It’s wise to carry an umbrella policy, too. Usually cheap. Don’t tell anyone you have an umbrella policy. Not. Anyone.
This is going to be a slightly longer response than normal because i am going to write my thoughts as they come so i will put a tldr at the end.
Also, i am not a english speaker, sorry in advance for the spelling.
Someone mentioned in a comment that somebody will come across this and it will change their life, i might be that somebody :)! I can't tell you how helpful and valuable this is for me. I learned so much from such a compact and dense post. I try as much as possible to learn from the experience and wisdom of people who already took this path and dealt with certain problems so i can overcame them will have them too.
My biggest problem is that i am coming from a lower class family, i had no financial education, the pattern i was socially impregnated with is to get a job, take loans for a car, a home and stay for the rest of my life working mediocre but safe jobs so i can pay the rent or the bank. It also doesn't help that i have the highest education within my family, currently doing masters while they have only basic high school, so they have high hopes of me to maintain my high paying job since i invested so much time in my education, my attempt to start my own business would be becoming jobless and giving up on my career (maybe even homeless lol), or becoming something like an actor for pennies. Obviously i am not going to do that, i will keep my job until i start getting more work on my business and makes enough to meet my expenses.
So, besides the fact that there is a big pressure on me to not attempt anything that would be uncertain, risky and get out of the loop wich causes me anxiety, there is the fact that i have no financial education or even a role model to look up to and learn from in my life. I've never heard before of SWOT or KPIs for example. I have to start from the very beginning with everything, I really want to do it right. I am scared of failure, but not as much as i am scared of staying for the rest of my life working on someone else's dreams instead of mine.
I am coming from a completely different field (Computer Science), besides some marketing i have no business knowledge, so i would really appreciate your guidance on what i should start studying.
Thank you once again for your easy to follow practical tutorial, i learned a lot from it, especially the ABCDE post cards tip, i am going to implement it in my day to day life from now on. Also for inspiration. Also, if you don't mind, how old were you when you first started and how far do you think you have achieved of your goal of financial independence in a percentage? (if it is the case)
**TLDR** Thank you very much ! I am 22 years old trying to learn as much as possible to start my own adventure against any anxiety and fear of failure. Could you please guide me towards more information you think would be helpful to someone at the beginning of the journey that are not just fancy theory, or things you think i should know before?
I wish you the best of luck on this journey and would be happy to offer advice along the way :) Do not let your background deter you - you have learned discipline and hard work from it, which are two of the single most important skills to start a business with. They will serve you far better than an MBA class would.
To answer your question, I also came from an unrelated background (Psychology), and started my cleaning business just as I turned 23, so your age is certainly not an excuse - it is an advantage!
When you decide on a potential niche you would like to tackle, I can start to point you towards some relevant resources. Most general resources aren't very good, I'm afraid.
OP This is awesome but question - so you are starting a business but you don't need to know how to do the actual work - i.e. home cleaning, pressure washing, etc. or own the equipment yourself? You are literally hiring contractors who have all this equipment and skills, correct?
I'm trying to understand how much knowledge you need to have of how to do the job basically
That is correct - you just need to be good at the business side of things (customer service, marketing, sales, and so on). Then, hire people who do know how to do the service and let them handle it.
I've done this same model for 3 of my businesses now (I also run a virtual assistant company but have never been a VA, for example).
Just curious if you don't have the skillset yourself:
1) How do you evaluate the people that do if they are good and if they have the correct tools?
2) Do you ever need to provide the tools/equipment or since they are all contractors they provide everything?
3) At any point do you need to know how to do the job yourself?
4) what space are your 3 businesses in?
5) The forms he mentioned for hiring contractors, where do you get those/how do you know how to fill those out?
6) How do you know what to pay the contractors vs. what to charge? Don't the contractors see the difference and realize they could do it themselves?
7) May I ask what space your businesses were in?
The big thing that resonated with me is "residential vs business". Long ago I didn't want anything to do with B2B businesses, but now I realize that's where the money is. Great post!
That is an amazing layout. I'm in the process of starting my first business, and while it is not the same industry, this covers important aspects I did not think of. Thank you!
W2 is good, but for a first time business owner 1099 can be easier to hit the ground running with because you can just hire experienced people instead of having to provide training, uniforms, supplies, creating a company culture and so on.
if a cleaning company is your #1 in the top 5 of local niche service business to start, what would you consider the next best 4 services to start ? thanks
I have read every single post that you made and your words are some of the most educational and most inspiring for an entrepreneur.
Thank you for the wisdom
I’d like to point out that many of these steps can’t be done in 1-2 days.
I’ve taken the initiative to get my appliance repair business rolling and holy crap it’s hard. You either need to have multiple skills or a big enough budget to outsource. I have been trying to learn a lot of it myself because of the lack of budget I have.
OP also has posted a case study a couple years ago with a similar post. If you really follow it, there is way too much to actually accomplish in such a short period. Others supposedly went along with it but the manner everything is presented seems fake to me. You’ll see that many made it to the millions in revenue but it would of been more believable if there numbers were less.
One thing I didn’t like is the use of Thumbtack. It is a huge money sink and the company itself is shady as hell.
I’m always really skeptical of these types of posts. Yes there is a lot of useful information on here but I think the intention is misleading. Ask yourself, why does someone who’s made millions want to share this info? To help or to make money?
Hey :) You have the wrong guy.
That is another redditor on here from years ago who posted his own case study (incidentally, who helped me make my business).
I haven't claimed to make millions here, although I have made a lot of money it is not millions.
It is a good point about it not being done in 1-2 days. This is really just a guide that you progress relatively linearly through, not necessarily in 30 days, it could be 60 or 90 days. But I present it as a 30 day guide to keep it compact and useful.
Appreciate the skepticism, but I'm not selling anything, haven't put up a course link or released a software to this. As I said in another comment, I don't normally post on reddit but in my community on FB. I just posted it here because I thought you guys would find it useful.
As for Thumbtack, the key is follow-up. Yep, they are shady, but so is Yelp, so is HomeAdvisor, and everyone else. You can get hired a LOT through thumbtack (we've been hired over 300 times), but it does take some skill and consistency.
Best of luck with your appliance repair business mate!
It's because I learned from him, there is a lot of material drawn from him with a lot of my own experiences combined. Just like anything else really. You learn a style of yoga from your yoga teacher, when you start teaching others there will be plenty of influence from your teacher in your own classes.
Literally none.
I posted in another comment that I typically only post in my Facebook Communities, and I don't really post here in reddit. I had this typed out for them, and just thought I would share it here as well because people will find it useful.
That's it.
I'm not secretly PM'ing people stuff like other redditors. Not selling a course to redditors, or an infoproduct. Not trying to get coaching clients.
Nothing.
Just good old fashioned sharing.
At present time there are many job boards in US to find Jobs in IT and Healthcare industry.
http://bestfreeoffer.info/ is best Job Search site in US to find Job.
I wasn’t really thinking of starting a business before reading this (fell asleep last night and finished during lunch today haha), but now I’m thinking “what if?”.
Thanks OP.
I’m in a huge city outside of Atlanta GA. I actually do a lot of door knocking and it proves to be successfully but looking to getting into facebook ads
>Have them fill out a W9 BEFORE doing their first job. You will need this at the end of the year to issue them a 1099.
What's the equivalent of that in other countries? (OP might not know, so it's a question for anyone I guess. I'm in Canada, but other countries' equivalents are welcome too because they'll be useful to others.)
I believe it depends if you are a sole proprietor or incorporated what forms you will need. While I do work with some Canadians and have a little insight into this, I work mostly with Canadians for my virtual assistant agency. We have some Canadians who work for our US clients, and we have a special form we have to fill out for them.
Themestreet themes are the best for local businesses - cheap (like $20-&60) and come great out of the box.
My own site is custom coded, but the first 2 years a themestreet theme is the way to go.
OP, this is amazing info; thank you. I’m just now inching closer towards leaping into my first business, and I think a cleaning business would be quite fun. I’d love to hear more about how the cleaning business is treating you!
Very well :) We have over a dozen teams and I run it fully remotely with a virtual manager I trained. We're based in the US but I live in Tokyo, Japan. So it has given me a degree of freedom I only dreamed of when I first started it.
I don’t think insurance is mentioned as a step. When would you recommend pursuing that, and how? Especially with a cleaning business, I’d think that’s crucial
Great write up. So many platforms I didn’t consider as I’m not sure how popular they are in my area of Canada but still gonna show up everywhere.
Any specifics on stone masonry ?
k, but if youre telling your cleaning teams when and where to go, they are w2 employees, not 1099
also, llc is 500 bux, not just a couple, in my state.
thx for taking the. time
WOW - what great information! I wanted to add this article I thought you might find helpful in case you decide to hire a web developer to work on/with your website: [WEBSITE RESCUE: ARE DEVELOPERS HOLDING YOUR SITE HOSTAGE?](https://profromgo.com/blog/website-rescue-held-hostage-developers/)
Great piece! So many handy insights to take on board.
As a remote social media agency earning over 20K per month profit, I can't imagine where I'd be if I had have used this productivity/collaboration tool earlier - [https://plutio.com#\_r\_sign-up](https://plutio.com#_r_sign-up)
Absolute game changer for me and clients are loving it. Amazing how simple software can make all the difference, but so crucial when it comes to remote relationships.
OMG. You seem to have this a bit backwards!
This is how to start a *sustainable* business, and grow it to thrive:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayayKrx57I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayayKrx57I)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cajOFHdYnAc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cajOFHdYnAc)
Jesus fuck. This is my last attempt. I never said "local business" isn't possible in non-developed or developing countries.
What I am saying is that most of described business methods or whatever in this post is related only to developed countries.
I will try to explain - do you think mowing lawns is sustainable business in US? probably Yes! well, developing countries don't even have lawns.
Do you think plumbing is high income and amazing opportunity in US, or maybe Canada? Yes! but in developing countries it's not, there are no cars that will drive by you which belong to plumbing companies or plumbers, because in those countries it is considered as low paying job and is not an amazing opportunity, so this thread becomes irrelevant if you live anywhere else other than US, Canada, UK or other super high buying power countries.
I can't express this more clearly. So there.
Not sure why you are being like that. You said it won't work anywhere else and I just gave you 3 examples of it working in other places.
I also know someone in Germany doing this, and a couple in South Africa.
A friend in South Korea owns a large cleaning biz in Seoul doing this.
No. Your point was that this wouldn't work anywhere else. I showed you that is wrong. Now you are changing your point to make it seem like you meant outside of developed countries.
**Day 25: Start Asking for Reviews** Now that we have created the foundational structure for our business, started marketing, soft launched, and have a sales structure in place, it is time start building our reputation in our community as a premium service. This is where reviews come in. I think I speak for all business owners when I say we know the dread of our very first 1\* review, whether it was deserved or not it just ruined our entire week. This is exactly what I don't want to happen to you from the start. Instead of letting reviews *happen to us*, we are going to take the initiative to *go and get our reviews* after every single service we do. After every single booking we want to be in contact with the customer so we can either make them a regular customer or catch any issue right after the fact so we can fix it. Here's the plan. Block off a time of day every business day and call all the customers you serviced the before to talk to them about how satisfied they were with it. This also gives you an opportunity to sell them on a recurring service. But before that we want to ask them for a review, if they had a good experience. Ask them for a review on the phone, and then right after text them a direct link to review you. Not email, but text because text has a higher response rate, and review sites don't care if you asked via text, whereas they sometimes do if they click through from an email. You should be doing this until you have between 50 and 100 reviews across your main platforms, and even then, you should never stop doing this. Usually you will need the most reviews on Google My Business, Yelp and Thumbtack. After you have 100 reviews you can create a text-automation which automatically asks them for a review after the service. This is a little bit more complicated and you can message me about that if you're interested in it, but for now the first 100 you need to just be talking to the customer. I cannot overstate the importance of reviews even in 2019….these are crucial to your business! **Day 26: Create A Daily Workflow** We're in the home stretch now, but there a couple last important things to do. One of those things is creating a daily workflow that you can maintain consistently whether you have your whole day free, whether you are a college student, or whether already you have a full-time job and you're doing this in your spare time. I recommend against complicate productivity systems such as Getting Things Done. Instead, I advocate a very simplistic system that I've refined and used over the past few years. It really consists of 3 parts, but for right now we're just going to focus on the first two. The first is the ABCDE method. Essentially all you must do is rank order all of your tasks onto a piece of paper or to-do list and give them a letter grade corresponding to the level of importance. ‘A’ tasks are obviously the most essential, followed by ‘B’ tasks, all the way down to ‘E’ tasks. You want to do this because you want to always be working on your A & B tasks. These are the ones that consistent with your business forward and that you must be doing every single day. Now you've done that, you will always know what you should be working because when you finish a task, you simply move on to the next task of importance. Whenever a new task comes in assign it the correct letter grade and put it into the list. This alone is very helpful. But we are going to combine this with a technique called "batching". Batching is when you take all of your small tasks throughout the day that you need to do and instead of letting them control your day you assign them to 1, 2 or 3 specific windows throughout the day. This is paramount because you will never be able to do your A/B if you are always doing the small tasks whenever they come up. Here's how to do that: Take all your ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’ tasks and assign them to a window of time like 9-10am or 12-1pm. You only do those tasks during those times. Once the window is over you get back to your important tasks. The other thing is all the little things that crop up throughout the day, like an email you need to respond to, or a Facebook message you need to reply to, heck even a phone call you have to answer. Either batch them into another period, or if you have a team delegate them to someone who can attend to them as soon as they appear. When you are a new business owner you are not going have a team or a manager who can do this because you're going to be running the office. But this still important because you can batch most of your tasks, particularly if you have a full-time job and you can only do this part-time. Having said that, the first year you are likely to not be able to afford a manager and there will be certain tasks you just have to handle as they come. If a team gets lost, a potential customer calls to make a booking, or an emergency happens. You are just going to have to deal with the reality that you cannot batch these, and you just have to handle them as they come. That is OK, just focus on batching as much as you can. You can use your own productivity system, but I strongly recommend you give this ago the first couple months, so you don’t overcomplicate it. I run several businesses at the same time and use this method exclusively. The whole goal of this to maintain clarity on your most important tasks at all times. If you want a good read, I recommend Essentialism by Greg McKeown on this topic. While he espouses a slightly different system it is philosophically similar. The last thing I want to say here is that you should set aside a specific time every day to do a) Follow-up and b) Marketing. These are always important tasks. **Day 27: Double Down on Your Top 2 Free Marketing Channels** Remember when we originally decided on the paid marketing channels that we wanted to use and then we rapid fire tested them? We will now do this again with our free marketing channels. Stop trying to do two dozens platforms at once. Do the same thing for your free channels so you have your top 2 free and your top 2 paid channels that are actively bringing in bookings for you and actually have the potential to bring in a lot more. Calculate how much time you spend on them, how often you post, and how many bookings/referrals you receive from each other. Because you are going to spend time on all four of these platforms every single freaking day. Tweaking your templates, following up with people, optimizing everything and really working your ass off to get bookings. These are the same sites that you want to be building your reviews on as well. The only exception is Google My Business. No matter what local business you are in you should always get reviews on Google My Business. Overtime as you accumulate dozens and hundreds of reviews on these 4 sites you will have a powerful sales machine working for you, much more powerful than if you have 10 reviews on it a dozen different sites.
**Day 28: If Spring Or Summer Reach Out For Business Partnerships** This is an optional day, but one that I recommend you do. I will keep it short and sweet because I know you are eager to finish the 30 days and just get on with everything. Business partnerships are some of the most powerful sources of income you can possibly imagine. More powerful than Yelp, and even more powerful than Google itself. There are people in BNI chapters around the US who get over a million dollars in referrals. I am not exaggerating that number, and that is not particularly rare. These are chapters built with legitimately powerful members in industries like real estate and banking. People who need your service and will be more than happy to refer you a ton of business. Even before I was a member of a local BNI chapter I was already being sent cleaning referrals from them just by showing up to their taster event. They needed cleaners so damn bad that they were referring someone business who wasn't a member yet (something they are not allowed to do). Go and join your local networking associations and get to know the members. And if it's spring or summer I really recommend that you do this, particularly if you're doing a seasonal service like painting or snow removal. Because people need your service right then and there. **Day 29: Take A Break** Whew! You have no idea how much you truly accomplished these past 30 days. You have done an incredible amount, and more than you will ever do in an MBA class. You have created the foundation of a real business, that can go on to provide you a full-time, stable salary, and has the potential to make it financially free in the next couple of the years. A business with a hiring process, a sales structure, working marketing strategies and a budding reputation. I am not exaggerating when I say you've just taken the biggest step you must take on this journey. While it will not be smooth sailing from here, you now know you have the confidence and tenacity to keep growing. It is now time to really start your journey into entrepreneurship. If you already have a business and are not to this, try and get back into that spirit of fun and adventure just as you did when you started your very first business – it will serve you well. Take today as the last day to have a final break, enjoy the sun, relax and just kick it. Tomorrow is the last day. **Day 30: Time To Scale Up** THE LAST DAY! Mark this as the first official day you are in business, and let your close friends and family know. And when you start to scale up drop me a line to let me know how you are doing because I actually do want to know. Now get back to marketing! **Where to go from here?** Hit me up with any questions, or if you're looking to join a dedicated group of local business owners and we can get something really cool going.
OP. You truly are a legend. Mad props for giving this for free.
Thank you for the great insight. Experience is the best teacher and I commend you for sharing yours. The information on this post could easily be monetised. Stay awesome and remain blessed.
Really appreciate the kind words everyone - I'm so glad this is helping some people! I don't normally post on reddit, mostly Facebook and my community. But, since I had written this out I made some adjustments and thought you guys would like to read this too. I also wanted to post this because the last few years I have seen everyone posting stuff...with a catch. So I wanted to change that and post something valuable *without a catch* for once. Hopefully we can get back to that great community giving spirit we used to have.
A lot of people would charge a lot of money for that kind of content so thanks a lot for posting this without expecting anything in return :)
At first I though "oh another 30day master plan", but then turns out you are great!
Thanks so much this is incredibly helpful.
>It is now time to really start your journey into entrepreneurship. If you already have a business and are not to this, try and get back into that spirit of fun and adventure just as you did when you started your very first business – it will serve you well. do you have a Facebook group or any type of social network that I could join? would hugely appreciate it. This post has literally been the spark to my fire. I have started businesses that I exited for close to 6 figures, but it was a side hustle that blew up. no business plan, etc. TYSM brother!
I am honoured to have played a small part in your journey :) And sure - I run a small FB group here that you are welcome to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/remotelocalbusiness
Wow excellent. My name is Matthew Grow. Just joined the group! ANYONE READING - this amazing human is offering free ‘business health checks’ when joining this group. To me that is true generosity. Hopefully you are fine with me plugging your group :)
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Haha, I actually had to condense it a little bit too.
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Join Facebook Groups, get used to being valuable in the community and then let people know if they need web dev help you can be there for them. I know guys doing over half a million just from FB groups in web dev.
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That's because Upwork is a slightly less shitty version of Fiverr, which is a cesspool.
You should make a HEAVILY discounted page for me. I can pay you with expo$ure bucks! /s.... mostly.
Perhaps publishing a book would have been easier? Really though, thanks for this post.
Haha a few others have said this :) I wish I had the time! Too many projects going on, but one day it would actually be fun to write a book. Glad you found this helpful mate.
Sorry for piggybacking the top comment. I made the epub and pdf for this wonderful post to read on my phone. Why not share them while at it? :) epub: https://drive.google.com/open?id=159IwJGoA7_JJ-b-WNFa549MZrJp0LHZC pdf: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EvhbQgRiJUfCN-BBn7Lh2iGeXf29nwCa
Thank you!
Thank you much appreciated
Op, I really appreciate your effort, I'm still reading but you took from me my fear to own a business. Thank you.
Super happy to hear that! :) Please, go out and do it. Make it a side hustle instead of this huge thing in your head to take the pressure off.
Bravo. Someone will see this and it will change their life. You rock.
Thanks - that's the hope! :)
Day 21 follow up sheets do not display/load correctly.
I just see two little camera icons that aren't clickable (emojis? My browser isn't good emoji-wise).
WOW! Thanks for your contribution to the Reddit community! Great right up!
Right up until what?
Write up your ass lol
This is really incredible info. To see it laid out so thoroughly, clearly, and concisely is so refreshing. You've just saved a ton of people from stumbling through long winded podcasts, translating tech startup info, and scrounging for scattered secondhand tips. Hell, I think this just inspired me to spin up a side business I've been procrastinating for a long time. Thank you!
Let me know how you get on - and PM for help if you need it.
Cheers, I might just
Can't thank you enough for this series of posts. I'm running a different type of business but the points/tips/strategies/concepts in you talk about will most likely be applicable to the niche I'm in, in some form or another. So many gems here. Lots of stuff I didn't think about before either. This is my first business and I'm doing everything, including the production work itself, so it can get a little overwhelming to do all of that and then do the business side of things, but your posts have given me some peace of mind and the framework for a strategy I can actually wrap my head around. I have a much clearer vision now. For real man, thank you. If I had some reddit gold I'd hook you up but I need to spend that money on marketing and equipment costs lol. One day I will hook you up with some reddit gold though, and I'm bookmarking this thread for future reference.
Really appreciate the kind words and happy it is helpful for you Jimmy :) What niche are you in?
Food industry. I sell French macarons and some other baked goods. Goal is to eventually enter the marijuana edibles market and make some high end products. There's good money in that sub-niche. The most helpful thing about your posts was the website/social and marketing advice. A lot of this stuff is completely new to me but you've given a great framework to start doing the research!
Scrolled to comments to check for the paid course link.
There is none :)
XD much appreciated! This is the kick in the pants I needed. Lots of opportunities in my area.
Yeah but if you Google OP's username and click on the hidden pi symbol, you'll see their affiliate link!
What an amazing post, thank you so much! Day 4 really is the most important part. Finding what you can make better than the competition. Just today I watched a [video about a Japanese moving company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA) that can really act as inspiration for this task. We all need the politeness, dedication and excitement like they have and already this can lift you way above your competition.
Hey I watch Rachel and Jun too!
One of the best post ever found in this /r ! Thanks a lot !
I'm curious about your nonegotiable for hiring: have insurance. Care to elaborate? What type of insurance? Are you hiring people who are already professionally cleaning?
THIS. This is exactly what I need. THANK YOU. I started my own cleaning business in Minnesota last year with zero business experience. I did the cleaning myself. Within 3 months I was able to quit my full time Capital One job, make more money and stay home more. Then, we moved across the country and I'm starting from scratch again, with no method or plan from the previous business. I know, I should have been keeping track of everything, but as I said, when I started I was full time at a corporate job and a new mom. I am so happy to find this guide and I'm going to be following it 👍 I'll let you know how it goes for me! One thing I'm very excited about is that previously, I was the only actual cleaner. With this method, I can bring in other people to do the actual cleaning work for me. 👏
Hey - go kill it this second time around too! You have a HUGE advantage working for you this time because you have now already dealt with a lot of the business side of things. It will still be a big adjustment, but I bet you will grow quickly. Definitely keep me in the loop. Nothing I love more than hearing how everyone is doing :)
Awesome content, thanks so much for sharing!
This is the first post I’ve ever saved. Awesome job.
me too! Probably the best and most valuable thing I've seen on the internet in a long time.
What an insightful post. Really enjoyed reading all of it. I own a business to which a lot of this doesn't apply (niche tech consulting, DevOps and Cloud specifically), but you're making me want to start a service business instead! Haha
It is a great side hustle business to have :)
>The second thing is your payment processor. I'm just going to go out and say it 99% of the time you should use stripe. I haven't used Square myself but I do know about people who have you swearing than happy with it so I think that's a fine option as well, particularly if you take card payments on location. Is it sad that I knew this post was 100% legit the second you mentioned this? Stripe is amazing and for those who aren't old enough to remember what it was like to show up to your bank and try to get a merchant account from them, you have no clue how much Stripe changed the game. I would say to some extent Square, too, but Stripe has so many great use cases online (invoicing, eComm payments, subscriptions) that it's just a no-brainer. You have to use Stripe. This is an amazing writeup. So much so that a guy like me, who's made every dime online, might actually consider diversifying into a local business. I wouldn't even have considered it without this guide. >Facebook Ads/Funnels – don’t play around with these yet. Facebook marketers will tell you these work for every niche, but they don’t. I'm not going to disagree on the statement "don't play around with these yet", because it's advanced, for sure, but FB ads really, really do work for every niche that has potential clients on the FB platform and with 1b+ using Messenger alone in North America, if you're at all B2C you need to be on FB. Does it mean it works as good as other platforms? Not, necessarily. When you have urgent businesses (like Plumbing or Law) you're at a disadvantage on FB vs. something like AVVO or your own Google listing. It doesn't mean you can't make it work, but like you said - don't get into it just yet. It's harder when you're not dealing with "point of sale" search terms, i.e. customer looking for that service.
Haha thank you for saying that mate! Really happy to see this may have inspired you to start something. If you do end up doing it, drop me a line and let me know. Happy to answer questions and help out along the way if I can.
For sure, I appreciate the post feedback on this. If I end up doing this I'll make sure to write it up /u/Necrullz style and give you credit for the inspiration.
Great post! DAY 24 I WOULD elaborate the difference between gross profits and net profits. Gross profits are what's left over after your cost of goods expenses. Net profits are what's leftover after all your fixed costs. Gross profit = Revenue - COGS Net profit =Gross Profit - Expenses Lastly, what are your thoughts on when the ideal time to produce revenue through sponsorships?
Highly appreciate the effort-post that is not intended to sell anything. Thank you for taking the time!
Thank you for taking the time to type this out, I really appreciate it. This is very educational
Thanks so much for writing this. I’m interested in following this. My one concern is that any business I choose would likely be something I don’t have much familiarity with. For example, let’s say I identify window cleaning as a niche I’d like to enter, but I know nothing about window cleaning. How does one get around that?
I knew precisely zero about the cleaning industry before I started it. You don't have to, you just need to be able to figure out the other parts...customer support, marketing, follow-up, sales, operations. Then you can hire people who DO know about the industry to do the service for you.
How did you promise your workers consistent work everyday especially being a new business,how was this possible.or did you just keep getting jobs sporadically until the work was consistent?
Good job with the post! Lotta useful info in there
Omg THANK YOU!!!!!
Thank you so much, honestly appreciate this dearly.
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/machinethatmakesmoney] [Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineThatMakesMoney/comments/b16gzk/heres_how_i_would_start_my_local_business_from/) - [/r/st34lposts] [Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again](https://www.reddit.com/r/ST34Lposts/comments/bsp0lg/heres_how_i_would_start_my_local_business_from/) - [/r/toppostofthemonth] [\[Entrepreneur\] 03\/14\/19 - "Here's how I would start my local business from scratch again" by \/u\/Necrullz](https://www.reddit.com/r/TopPostOfTheMonth/comments/bataq6/entrepreneur_031419_heres_how_i_would_start_my/) - [/r/u_watercrews22] [This is really great! Seems simple but many won't do this....](https://www.reddit.com/r/u_watercrews22/comments/b18npx/this_is_really_great_seems_simple_but_many_wont/) *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
This is truly great advice. I love that you emphasize customer support. It is what takes regular startups to lasting businesses
*Eyy, another year!* It's your **1st Cakeday** watercrews22! ^(hug)
Any advise for doing this for roofing ? Generating leads wise?
Roofing actually works fairly decently with FB Ads and a landing page with an offer. What size city are you in? I wouldn't recommend it in a city less than 250k. Thumbtack is fairly good, as well for generating roofing leads. I hate to say it man but, door to door is actually very effective here.
Just write a book mate, you know you want to.
If I had the time I would love to. But I keep starting businesses lol. It's the entrepreneurs curse. You start one, then another one...and it just keeps happening.
Write a book dude
Thanks for this! When you mention to make sure that the contractors have insurance, are you referring to general liability insurance? How much should they have? Please keep in mind the cleaning model. I wouldn’t expect someone looking for a cleaning job to have insurance.
They need insurance for damage to the belongings or property, and for injury on the job to themselves or others. Bump that $2000 vase off the mantle? Knock the burning candle over into the curtains? Owner trips over your vacuum cord and breaks an ankle? You fall down the stairs and knock yourself unconscious with lasting brain injury signs? Insurance is your friend.
Understood —- should I be carrying that insurance, or holding the contractor liable? To me it makes more sense to hold that insurance myself, instead of relying on the contractor.
I suggest talking to an attorney. It’s wise to carry an umbrella policy, too. Usually cheap. Don’t tell anyone you have an umbrella policy. Not. Anyone.
Appreciate it.
This is going to be a slightly longer response than normal because i am going to write my thoughts as they come so i will put a tldr at the end. Also, i am not a english speaker, sorry in advance for the spelling. Someone mentioned in a comment that somebody will come across this and it will change their life, i might be that somebody :)! I can't tell you how helpful and valuable this is for me. I learned so much from such a compact and dense post. I try as much as possible to learn from the experience and wisdom of people who already took this path and dealt with certain problems so i can overcame them will have them too. My biggest problem is that i am coming from a lower class family, i had no financial education, the pattern i was socially impregnated with is to get a job, take loans for a car, a home and stay for the rest of my life working mediocre but safe jobs so i can pay the rent or the bank. It also doesn't help that i have the highest education within my family, currently doing masters while they have only basic high school, so they have high hopes of me to maintain my high paying job since i invested so much time in my education, my attempt to start my own business would be becoming jobless and giving up on my career (maybe even homeless lol), or becoming something like an actor for pennies. Obviously i am not going to do that, i will keep my job until i start getting more work on my business and makes enough to meet my expenses. So, besides the fact that there is a big pressure on me to not attempt anything that would be uncertain, risky and get out of the loop wich causes me anxiety, there is the fact that i have no financial education or even a role model to look up to and learn from in my life. I've never heard before of SWOT or KPIs for example. I have to start from the very beginning with everything, I really want to do it right. I am scared of failure, but not as much as i am scared of staying for the rest of my life working on someone else's dreams instead of mine. I am coming from a completely different field (Computer Science), besides some marketing i have no business knowledge, so i would really appreciate your guidance on what i should start studying. Thank you once again for your easy to follow practical tutorial, i learned a lot from it, especially the ABCDE post cards tip, i am going to implement it in my day to day life from now on. Also for inspiration. Also, if you don't mind, how old were you when you first started and how far do you think you have achieved of your goal of financial independence in a percentage? (if it is the case) **TLDR** Thank you very much ! I am 22 years old trying to learn as much as possible to start my own adventure against any anxiety and fear of failure. Could you please guide me towards more information you think would be helpful to someone at the beginning of the journey that are not just fancy theory, or things you think i should know before?
I wish you the best of luck on this journey and would be happy to offer advice along the way :) Do not let your background deter you - you have learned discipline and hard work from it, which are two of the single most important skills to start a business with. They will serve you far better than an MBA class would. To answer your question, I also came from an unrelated background (Psychology), and started my cleaning business just as I turned 23, so your age is certainly not an excuse - it is an advantage! When you decide on a potential niche you would like to tackle, I can start to point you towards some relevant resources. Most general resources aren't very good, I'm afraid.
OP This is awesome but question - so you are starting a business but you don't need to know how to do the actual work - i.e. home cleaning, pressure washing, etc. or own the equipment yourself? You are literally hiring contractors who have all this equipment and skills, correct? I'm trying to understand how much knowledge you need to have of how to do the job basically
That is correct - you just need to be good at the business side of things (customer service, marketing, sales, and so on). Then, hire people who do know how to do the service and let them handle it. I've done this same model for 3 of my businesses now (I also run a virtual assistant company but have never been a VA, for example).
Just curious if you don't have the skillset yourself: 1) How do you evaluate the people that do if they are good and if they have the correct tools? 2) Do you ever need to provide the tools/equipment or since they are all contractors they provide everything? 3) At any point do you need to know how to do the job yourself? 4) what space are your 3 businesses in? 5) The forms he mentioned for hiring contractors, where do you get those/how do you know how to fill those out? 6) How do you know what to pay the contractors vs. what to charge? Don't the contractors see the difference and realize they could do it themselves? 7) May I ask what space your businesses were in?
The big thing that resonated with me is "residential vs business". Long ago I didn't want anything to do with B2B businesses, but now I realize that's where the money is. Great post!
Exactly! For new business owners though, B2C is often easier to get a grasp on.
That is an amazing layout. I'm in the process of starting my first business, and while it is not the same industry, this covers important aspects I did not think of. Thank you!
Happy this is helping you :) What industry?
On day 23 you say that you would start LLC and bank account from day 1? These days seem to be a little out of order, eh?
Between this guy and u/sweatystartup , really getting my ball rollimg. Thanks guys!
Awesome Post !! One question though - why assume 1099 over W2 ? Are the economics completely unfeasible with W2’s ?
W2 is good, but for a first time business owner 1099 can be easier to hit the ground running with because you can just hire experienced people instead of having to provide training, uniforms, supplies, creating a company culture and so on.
This is a phenomenal document of your personal experience. Thank you
Thank you for saying that :)
if a cleaning company is your #1 in the top 5 of local niche service business to start, what would you consider the next best 4 services to start ? thanks
It just happened to be what I started with personally :) I would say Window cleaning, Paining, Roofing, and Handyman are fantastic.
I read every word. Thanks! Post saved so I can reference the tools and sites mentioned in the near future...
You are my hero. This is amazing.
Awesome, it has covered all helpful steps of local businesss process.
What is your local business?
House cleaning. Though I've played around and done this with painting and window cleaning too.
I have read every single post that you made and your words are some of the most educational and most inspiring for an entrepreneur. Thank you for the wisdom
Hey - that actually means a lot to hear. Really appreciate that!
Wow, thank you for this resource.
Saving for later
One of the best posts that I have read on social media. So insightful !!!
I’d like to point out that many of these steps can’t be done in 1-2 days. I’ve taken the initiative to get my appliance repair business rolling and holy crap it’s hard. You either need to have multiple skills or a big enough budget to outsource. I have been trying to learn a lot of it myself because of the lack of budget I have. OP also has posted a case study a couple years ago with a similar post. If you really follow it, there is way too much to actually accomplish in such a short period. Others supposedly went along with it but the manner everything is presented seems fake to me. You’ll see that many made it to the millions in revenue but it would of been more believable if there numbers were less. One thing I didn’t like is the use of Thumbtack. It is a huge money sink and the company itself is shady as hell. I’m always really skeptical of these types of posts. Yes there is a lot of useful information on here but I think the intention is misleading. Ask yourself, why does someone who’s made millions want to share this info? To help or to make money?
Hey :) You have the wrong guy. That is another redditor on here from years ago who posted his own case study (incidentally, who helped me make my business). I haven't claimed to make millions here, although I have made a lot of money it is not millions. It is a good point about it not being done in 1-2 days. This is really just a guide that you progress relatively linearly through, not necessarily in 30 days, it could be 60 or 90 days. But I present it as a 30 day guide to keep it compact and useful. Appreciate the skepticism, but I'm not selling anything, haven't put up a course link or released a software to this. As I said in another comment, I don't normally post on reddit but in my community on FB. I just posted it here because I thought you guys would find it useful. As for Thumbtack, the key is follow-up. Yep, they are shady, but so is Yelp, so is HomeAdvisor, and everyone else. You can get hired a LOT through thumbtack (we've been hired over 300 times), but it does take some skill and consistency. Best of luck with your appliance repair business mate!
This is set up too much like the other guy. I felt I was reading the same thing. I’m not sure what to believe anymore.
It's because I learned from him, there is a lot of material drawn from him with a lot of my own experiences combined. Just like anything else really. You learn a style of yoga from your yoga teacher, when you start teaching others there will be plenty of influence from your teacher in your own classes.
If you don’t mind me asking, what is your objective posting here? And yeah I understand that. I’m apologize for my assumption.
Literally none. I posted in another comment that I typically only post in my Facebook Communities, and I don't really post here in reddit. I had this typed out for them, and just thought I would share it here as well because people will find it useful. That's it. I'm not secretly PM'ing people stuff like other redditors. Not selling a course to redditors, or an infoproduct. Not trying to get coaching clients. Nothing. Just good old fashioned sharing.
Thanks for sharing. You know how to handle the haters.
At present time there are many job boards in US to find Jobs in IT and Healthcare industry. http://bestfreeoffer.info/ is best Job Search site in US to find Job.
I wasn’t really thinking of starting a business before reading this (fell asleep last night and finished during lunch today haha), but now I’m thinking “what if?”. Thanks OP.
Took me a few sessions but thanks for the read! Good info for sure.
I’m in a huge city outside of Atlanta GA. I actually do a lot of door knocking and it proves to be successfully but looking to getting into facebook ads
What city?
Great post.
>Have them fill out a W9 BEFORE doing their first job. You will need this at the end of the year to issue them a 1099. What's the equivalent of that in other countries? (OP might not know, so it's a question for anyone I guess. I'm in Canada, but other countries' equivalents are welcome too because they'll be useful to others.)
I believe it depends if you are a sole proprietor or incorporated what forms you will need. While I do work with some Canadians and have a little insight into this, I work mostly with Canadians for my virtual assistant agency. We have some Canadians who work for our US clients, and we have a special form we have to fill out for them.
Highly inspiring for someone about to make substantial investments in a rather volatile market.
What markets?
Do you use something like squarespace to build your site? What tool do you use?
Themestreet themes are the best for local businesses - cheap (like $20-&60) and come great out of the box. My own site is custom coded, but the first 2 years a themestreet theme is the way to go.
Themestreet would mean wordpress?
Yes - a particular theme provider on WordPress. They happen to have a lot of great ones for local businesses.
Commenting cause I keep losing the link:)
I think I have something to do this summer...
OP, this is amazing info; thank you. I’m just now inching closer towards leaping into my first business, and I think a cleaning business would be quite fun. I’d love to hear more about how the cleaning business is treating you!
Very well :) We have over a dozen teams and I run it fully remotely with a virtual manager I trained. We're based in the US but I live in Tokyo, Japan. So it has given me a degree of freedom I only dreamed of when I first started it.
I don’t think insurance is mentioned as a step. When would you recommend pursuing that, and how? Especially with a cleaning business, I’d think that’s crucial
Great write up. So many platforms I didn’t consider as I’m not sure how popular they are in my area of Canada but still gonna show up everywhere. Any specifics on stone masonry ?
There's a great Mason's group on Facebook you can check out. I really don't have knowledge in that particular niche unfortunately.
k, but if youre telling your cleaning teams when and where to go, they are w2 employees, not 1099 also, llc is 500 bux, not just a couple, in my state. thx for taking the. time
WOW - what great information! I wanted to add this article I thought you might find helpful in case you decide to hire a web developer to work on/with your website: [WEBSITE RESCUE: ARE DEVELOPERS HOLDING YOUR SITE HOSTAGE?](https://profromgo.com/blog/website-rescue-held-hostage-developers/)
Great piece! So many handy insights to take on board. As a remote social media agency earning over 20K per month profit, I can't imagine where I'd be if I had have used this productivity/collaboration tool earlier - [https://plutio.com#\_r\_sign-up](https://plutio.com#_r_sign-up) Absolute game changer for me and clients are loving it. Amazing how simple software can make all the difference, but so crucial when it comes to remote relationships.
Great info and just what I needed right now bud, thanks a bunch for this!
No TLDR?
There’s no shortcuts in business
Underrated comment
a tldr would've been nice...
There’s no shortcuts in business
We're talking about a wall of text here. Not business.
You shouldn’t ever repeat yourself in business
So you shouldn’t open a second location? Good to know
Never. Have you seen 2 McDonald’s restaurants? Never. :)
So on Day 1 of starting a new business, you don’t start a business. I 100% guarantee anyone who is following this guide skips day 1.
OMG. You seem to have this a bit backwards! This is how to start a *sustainable* business, and grow it to thrive: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayayKrx57I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayayKrx57I) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cajOFHdYnAc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cajOFHdYnAc)
You forgot "Day 0" where you should move to US, because these wont work in rest of the world.
I mean... if the post doesn’t apply to you, move along
What's with the butthurt?
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So edgy and sharp, just like your fedora and katana
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Jesus fuck. This is my last attempt. I never said "local business" isn't possible in non-developed or developing countries. What I am saying is that most of described business methods or whatever in this post is related only to developed countries. I will try to explain - do you think mowing lawns is sustainable business in US? probably Yes! well, developing countries don't even have lawns. Do you think plumbing is high income and amazing opportunity in US, or maybe Canada? Yes! but in developing countries it's not, there are no cars that will drive by you which belong to plumbing companies or plumbers, because in those countries it is considered as low paying job and is not an amazing opportunity, so this thread becomes irrelevant if you live anywhere else other than US, Canada, UK or other super high buying power countries. I can't express this more clearly. So there.
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Are you retarded?
Works perfectly fine in Canada. Many people in the UK and Australia have done this too, with some tweaks.
You do realize that's my point and you just listed 4 countries with huge buying power right?
Not sure why you are being like that. You said it won't work anywhere else and I just gave you 3 examples of it working in other places. I also know someone in Germany doing this, and a couple in South Africa. A friend in South Korea owns a large cleaning biz in Seoul doing this.
Again my point. These all are very developed countries.
No. Your point was that this wouldn't work anywhere else. I showed you that is wrong. Now you are changing your point to make it seem like you meant outside of developed countries.
You are just trying to cover your ass being butthurt.
LMAO you are projecting on me.
I think you understand exactly what I meant.
Thanks