I may have stumbled on a fun way to do business. I ended up working about an hour and a half from home for the first part of the week. The guy I was working for had two large homes and a business and he wasn’t happy with his ‘local’ window cleaners. Anyway, this is in an area my family regularly visits to play. So, we turned it into a working vacation. Myself and two of my kids went up Sunday evening and set up camp. We then tackled a bunch of work before mid day on Tuesday and then played through late afternoon Wednesday.
Anyway, now I’m thinking, why not take the show on the road more often. Place an ad where I want to do some camping or visit relatives or whatever. Do some work while in that town. Play the rest of the time. All tax deductible and a fun way to combine work and play. Anyone ever try this? That is, anyone ever have any success lining up jobs that might be hours from home? What worked?
How about arriving in a town on a Monday, canvassing, working a couple or three days and moving on? Seems like it would be a neat way to do some traveling. What are your thoughts?
A couple of thoughts. Will your insurance cover you on out of state jobs? Also, make sure the states you visit don’t require a license or other certification.
Some years back I used to go to Cape May, NJ to clean 3 small beach houses for a regular customer. She would let me stay at one of them for a long weekend. The 3 houses only took me 4-5 hours total. I would go there with a few buddies and make a golf weekend out of it. It was pretty good while it lasted. She paid me for the cleanings, even a bit for travel. I stopped doing it a few years ago because I got to busy to take off for a long weekend. She always wanted it done right when the rental season was starting.
My family has a small cottage a few hours north of where i live in Toronto. I’ll go up for a week or so and clean the windows at a few other cottages. Its great throwing the boat in the water and going to work on the islands, sure beats rush hour traffic.
Outer Banks NC for me. Struck a deal with a long time customer of mine. Their home takes me about 2 hours (2 X’s a year)and their beach front condo takes me about 30-45 mins. 5 hours labor for a condo that rents for $2,500.00 a week aint too shabby of a trade off. They initially threw the keys to me for free but i insisted on the barter thing.
I usually carry at least minimal tools with me when we travel for that reason. You just never know what opportunities may arise. This really paid off for me once when I blew a car engine while out of state. I made enough in a little Arkansas town to repair my car, hotel and food, and still left town with more than I came into it with. After that, it became a quarterly pilgrimage. I’ve even ventured to say that I would like to buy myself a nice travel home and go on an extended working vacation to see more of this fine country that we live in.
