For me it was doing things I don’t like to do. I tried cleaning chandeliers and hated it. Now I refer that work to a local guy.
Focus on the things that you enjoy doing. That was the biggest lesson I learned from having my business. We don’t need to be a jack of all trades.
all right, I know there’s more failures out there guys, I want to learn from your mistakes.
I’ll share Ben…
In my opinion this has been an utter failure up to now in this business (self employment.)
I need to make it as optimized and as effective as possible.
Everything else is basically on autopilot now and works great.
But I suck at design and content when it comes to advertising!! Time to delegate that responsibility to one of the experts.
you can download a bunch of the WCR postcard templates and you can print out four on a page, maybe do two or three pages of your top 8 or 12 favorites and carry that with you to your favorite customers. just say “hey I’m thinking of creating a few more postcards would you mind telling me which of these you like best” they can put a checkmark next to or write it on a list or something like that. then you’d get direct feedback from the kind of people you want to be working for, which post card appeals to them.
as far as systematizing marketing, we don’t do any paid advertising other than the stamps on the postcard that I send out every month. I do two things now, I’ve gone through and created a spreadsheet with every customer we’ve done work for and I go back at the beginning of every month and I send a “long time no see” postcard to people that we did work for 6 months ago, 12 months ago, 18 months ago, and 24 months ago (this does not include the people who asked us to call them at a future time, i call those instead). on the back of the card it has a current price slot so if their price needs to go up I just put the higher price there.
I also will look up houses that I would like to do work for, especially houses that I would have a difficult time being able to walk up to their front door to put a postcard on the door and I mail those out. I mailed out probably 500 in August or September and we got $2000-3000 dollars worth of work out of it, (for $220 total cost) plus those customers may become recurring customers especially since still get a reminder card 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, etc… later
I received a fax ( you can tell it wasn’t recently) from the UK Foreign Trade Office. (Genuine and trustworthy). It gave the name of a guy in Dubai who was looking for UK construction services consultants. His contact was the UAE agent for General Motors (that checked out too) who was developing new property. My working partner and I travelled to Dubai at our own expense. I cant go into all the painful detail but I lost 50 grand and a house as a result. The end user client loved our work but the agent never paid. The learning outcome? Develop a nose to smell trouble as early as you can. The bigger the job the bigger up front money you ask for. Walk away at the first sign of trouble. The bigger the carrot, the bigger the belly ache. Remember - on every pitch for new work - you are assessing them not just them you. They need to convince you that you should work for them. Don’t get too absorbed in your own pitch alone.
What a great a thread.
My biggest failures over the year have all involved cases of me abdicating instead of delegating. I took my eye off the ball and blindly trusted the wrong people.
Hey Ben thanks for sharing the way you do things and advice.
Like Chris said it a great thread.
I hope more members share so we all can learn.
This is actually a good topic.
I would say my biggest business mistake was not thinking big enough from the beginning. I envisioned myself working solo for too long and then with only a helper until the end of my career. This was modeled on a local guy who was very successful and retired with own home and millions in the bank in his early 50’s. I think he is living his dream in Hawaii now. So I blindly decided to follow in his exact footsteps to hopefully achieve his same results.
My vision now includes multiple crews/vehicles/gear and a larger customer base.
BTW: later on I heard that the local guy who succeeded had a brilliant financial guy who invested very well for him and essentially reduced his retirement age by ten years…
Mine were in regards to marketing and advertising, I made the same mistake for years. I would get a phone call about his or that and it always seemed a reasonable fee for what the sales person on the other end of the phone was selling, I put an ad in a police directory that none of the police in the area even received, 3k on a 2 year video ad in a medical center, another 2k on a real estate cover they hand out to all potential buyers oh I did get one call from that lol a $200 job for 2k.
So if you want to know where not to advertise, I’m your guy. 
New biz license here. Worn out, phone ringing off hook. Not prospects. Guy wants to sell me a space in a golf publication. Three hundred bucks. Promises I’ll be the one, only, and exclusive window washer in it. Almost went for it. The pub was for the guys to see the layout of the holes; that it would be seen thirty thousand times. But wait…my friend plays there, all the time. Wouldn’t he know the layout of the holes? So after I said no, the Manager calls me back. Said no again. Then the big shot District Manager calls me back to bully me some more. Geesh. That being said, am taking notes here. Thanks Ben and WCS, and Steve076 I too gotta get the word out. Thanks…looking fwd. to a great first year. Great thread. I’m learning.
Membership with the BNI was about the worst investment of time and energy I ever made
tell me more
Reading and participating in a few forums, thankfully saved me from the BNI crowd. It is almost as bad a the Multi Level Marketing guys.
Biggest fail was definitely working with my brother. Family is great, just don’t mix it with business.
Well for 500 bucks and change I bought a year’s enrollment in my local chapter because I thought it would be a good way to market my services and develop contacts among other professionals and entrepreneurs.
To a certain degree it was beneficial, in that I met some interesting people and got a couple jobs that compensated financially for the membership fee.
But the troubling aspect was how the whole organization was run. In theory, the BNI regulates its chapters to ensure that leads and referrals are being traded consistently. In practice, their requirements just goad the group into a circlej*rk where much less is actually happening than anyone will admit.
For point of reference, I got 2 actual jobs during the 4 months I attended, one of which was for another member who turned out to be a bit of a psycho. 4 months of hour-long meetings every week at 7:30 am, for two jobs. No thanks.
Add to that how members are the ones who fulfill administrative functions at the local level, and it just seems absurd.
Oh, and they have attendance rules, too. If you are going to miss a meeting you are expected to arrange for a substitute to attend in your place and represent your business. Miss too many (like 3) and you get the chapter officers (other members, working for free) breathing down your neck to show up or get the boot.
It’s nonsense.
@TheWindowCleanse
Wow! That was going to be the first one I said!!
I bit off into so many things years ago it was kinda sad really. Kinda like that “poo-b-gone” stuff.
Remember Screen Magic?
“The dirt just…
(wait for it…)
…vanishes into thin air…like magic”
And there go’s ol’ Tory buying a 5 gallon pail of that garbage. lol
@LoveGlass
I did that one too.
Whole freaken page too…
I argued with the lady about why someone would actually call me, cuz if I was playing golf (and I HATE golf) I’m not going to be reading some stupid magazine.
But nobody ever accused me of being smart so I did it. Not one call. Of course.
Here’s another one I did:
Radio commercials durring Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura
They ran 4 times a day during those spots.
I cleaned their freaken 5 story monster of a building with 4 helpers and took 4 days to do it, plus I gave them 1000$
the ad even said I was giving 50$ gas cards for the first 10 callers, this was when gas almost hit 5 bucks a gallon
Wanna hear the funny part?
I freaken pulled over in my truck when I heard it, all excited thinking I was the man and stared at my phone…and kept staring…
then checked to see if it was on…
haha now THATS funny right there. Dumb ass.
The ones I got invited to were at restaurants. I was expected to buy the food at some point plus some other stuff very much related to what you described.
They can keep it.
I was just talking about this today. Radio works, but only if you go in for the long term and a sheeeeit load of money. AND, you need to be a player. Not a solo operator or running two crews. Think about the guys you hear advertising on a regular basis when you listen. They have lots of employees and the jobs are usually decent size,or the deal in volume sales. It takes a while for the brand recognition to hit as well, so it takes a lot of repetitive advertising.
It does not work for small guys like us (meaning me) that run one or two crews. We spent $$$$ and ended up less than breaking even after a year or so.
Lesson learned.
You did better than me. Not even one call.
I’d have called for the gas card at least but NOPE.
I have a hard time calling people back. Hopefully sendjim will help.
I also don’t push upsells much.
My company name is pretty limited to 1 service and 1 city. Thankfully there’s google
I’d like to hear from the pressure washers too.
