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0:01:31 Check it out today, sidehustlenation.com/bcstack and now on to the show.
0:01:38 Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show greatest hits collection.
0:01:44 A service business is one of the fastest side hustles to get off the ground and you can
0:01:48 scale it by hiring other people to deliver the work.
0:01:52 But is there an advantage to staying as a solo operator?
0:01:55 To find out, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown.
0:01:59 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:02:03 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because you don’t want to swim in a roped off sea.
0:02:07 And tipped to Jimmy Buffett for that one.
0:02:09 Today, we’re tackling freelancing versus building an agency and we’re doing this through the
0:02:14 lens of a couple friends of the show who both run cleaning companies, again, trying to find
0:02:19 guests in similar industries so they can speak each other’s language.
0:02:23 But keep in mind, the stuff that we’re about to cover applies to any service business,
0:02:27 online, offline.
0:02:28 On the agency side today is Chris Schwab from ThinkMade.com.
0:02:33 And when I say agency, I mean basically you’re running the show and other people are doing
0:02:37 the actual labor because you might remember Chris from episode 294, which was a couple
0:02:42 summers ago, discussing how he built the cleaning business to 60 grand a month in revenue without
0:02:47 ever doing any cleaning himself and had scaled back his own involvement to just 10 minutes
0:02:51 a day.
0:02:52 You can find more about Chris at localbusinessmba.com.
0:02:56 On the freelance side, on the solo side, I’m excited to introduce Ken Fagnow from SmartCleaningSchool.com.
0:03:03 Ken’s a former engineer and a father of five who’s got his cleaning business dialed in where
0:03:08 he can knock out the work himself in just a couple days and enjoy five-day weekends
0:03:13 with his family.
0:03:14 Stick around to hear the contrasts between these two entrepreneurs, find out which model
0:03:18 makes the most sense for you, and learn how to avoid the dreaded valley of despair that
0:03:24 often afflicts service businesses.
0:03:26 Notes and links for this one are at sidehustlenation.com/showdown3.
0:03:31 The first voice you hear will be Ken’s on what attracted him to cleaning in the first
0:03:35 place.
0:03:36 Ready?
0:03:37 Let’s do it.
0:03:40 We were just looking for some different options.
0:03:42 The engineering field was not the environment that I wanted to be in.
0:03:46 There was a lot of divorce in there where I was at, and we’re starting a family, and
0:03:51 it was working a ton.
0:03:53 I just saw great flexibility in a side hustle of a cleaning company.
0:03:56 My wife started it.
0:03:58 It was an opportunity to pursue our dream through entrepreneurship.
0:04:03 As you and her doing the work throughout?
0:04:05 In the beginning, it was her and I doing the work, and then she said, “Well, this is your
0:04:11 business now, so I’ll stay home.”
0:04:13 That’s what we always wanted.
0:04:14 We’re her to be stay-home mom, and we homeschooled the kids.
0:04:18 I took over the business 2005, 2006, and been at it ever since.
0:04:23 I’m in my second version of it, so I sold my first one, and we were able to relocate
0:04:27 to our hometown.
0:04:28 That’s a little bit of our story.
0:04:30 I don’t want to take up too much time with that.
0:04:32 Okay.
0:04:33 I’m sure we’ll dive into some of the different nuances there.
0:04:35 Chris, what inspired you to get into the cleaning business?
0:04:39 For me, it was right before my final semester at college at the time.
0:04:43 I was in this place of knowing I wanted to travel the world.
0:04:46 I was in an international relationship, so partly it was commitment to my significant
0:04:51 other, but it was partly that drive to see the world as well.
0:04:55 I knew I had to have some sort of job that would allow me to work remote, and I was deciding
0:04:59 between web development, which I’m not very good at, but at the time I thought I was,
0:05:04 and starting a business.
0:05:05 I decided that one more requirement would be that I don’t want a boss.
0:05:10 I obviously have a great respect for freelancers, but as I hadn’t been in the workforce that
0:05:14 long, I didn’t have much more of an in-depth understanding of how to be your own boss as
0:05:18 a freelancer, because it felt to me like with clients, it was more of a boss situation.
0:05:23 I drifted more towards a traditional entrepreneurship model than I did towards web development,
0:05:28 and I wasn’t super serious, if I’m honest.
0:05:30 I was serious about having something remote and paying me, but I wasn’t super serious
0:05:34 about the idea specifically, but I’d read about some guys on Reddit who had started their
0:05:40 own cleaning companies and had done kind of a follow along style thing.
0:05:44 This was many years ago, they did it now.
0:05:46 I figured that I could set aside $5,000 to $700 over the summer and just try it out as
0:05:52 a side hustle.
0:05:53 I wasn’t super committed to the idea, but it was local.
0:05:57 I felt that a lot of local cleaning companies weren’t marketing very well.
0:06:01 They could be fantastic at the cleaning.
0:06:02 They could be fantastic at customer service, but they weren’t getting enough customers.
0:06:07 I felt like I could do that part of the equation well.
0:06:10 I could market, I could do sales, I could do some of the other business side of things.
0:06:14 I figured if I could bring on some contractors from day one, I’d be able to, at least with
0:06:20 one team, provide them some jobs by the end of summer and earn a little bit back.
0:06:26 I started it kind of from the mindset of a side hustle, but with the intention to grow
0:06:30 it into its own thing where it’d be able to run itself.
0:06:34 That was the reason behind the why behind it.
0:06:38 That’s interesting.
0:06:39 I want something where I could be international or I could be remote.
0:06:41 I’m going to start a local, in-person, surface-based business.
0:06:44 I don’t know if my mind would have gone there, but you’ve figured out how to make it work,
0:06:50 and I think that’s really inspiring.
0:06:52 Chris, do you remember where those first customers came from?
0:06:56 You say, “Okay, this is what I’m going to do this summer.
0:06:57 I’m trying to get these first customers.”
0:06:59 I should add just an addendum to that.
0:07:01 The reason I liked the idea of local was I was so bored of Gary Vee and Grant Cardone
0:07:07 and these other types of, they’re very great entrepreneurs, but I was bored of that type
0:07:10 of business, the super hustle all the time type of business, and softwares of service
0:07:15 businesses.
0:07:16 You heard all the same thing.
0:07:17 In 2016, it was all the same stuff.
0:07:20 I just didn’t, that type of business didn’t appeal to me.
0:07:23 Little did I know it would come.
0:07:25 Local was just something different, and I figured I’d give it a try.
0:07:28 To answer your question, our first customers came from a combination of Craigslist and
0:07:33 Thumbtack, so I wouldn’t recommend Thumbtack in 2020, but back then it was an absolutely
0:07:39 fantastic place to get people, and we had a great follow-up sequence that other people
0:07:43 weren’t using, and it allowed us to get hired hundreds of times that first year.
0:07:47 It was a big source of, our main source, I would say, even of marketing initially.
0:07:51 Very nice.
0:07:52 Ken, what about you?
0:07:53 Where did these first customers come from?
0:07:56 We started our company, we were living at an apartment complex, newly married, we had
0:08:01 our first baby, and the apartment complex property manager, one day, this is how the
0:08:07 business started.
0:08:08 He sees my wife at the balcony, they were already friends, and he’s like, “Oh man,” and my
0:08:13 wife, Teresa, says, “What’s wrong, Brett?”
0:08:15 And she’s at the balcony talking down to him, and he goes, “The cleaners,” and then that
0:08:20 was implied that there’s a lot more to it.
0:08:23 And he just looks up, and he’s like, “Hey, Teresa, you’re at home, do you clean?
0:08:26 Would you like to clean?
0:08:27 If you go get insurance, I can give you some work at the apartment.”
0:08:31 She’s like, “I don’t clean, my husband does, though,” but she said, “I’ll do it,” so
0:08:36 she went and got insurance.
0:08:37 That’s how the business started.
0:08:38 But that’s where our company began with apartment complexes, ours that we got referred to others.
0:08:44 That same property manager connected me to Coal Banker real estate agent, which got me
0:08:50 into a preferred vendor network at Coal Banker, and access to 500 agents in my area.
0:08:55 And I just became a little whipping boy for the first year, like, “Can go here, can go
0:09:00 here,” and I just learned how to do the different aspects of cleaning myself, completely solo.
0:09:05 And from there, that started spawning into, like, it was all one-time jobs, and it led
0:09:10 into recurring jobs over time.
0:09:12 And I developed a little niche of what I would serve, but it started from apartment complexes.
0:09:18 As these apartments were turning over, or…?
0:09:20 Yes.
0:09:21 Okay.
0:09:22 Yes.
0:09:23 Move in, move out, cleanings for apartment complexes, and then that moved into real estate, what
0:09:27 I call presentation, sale-ready presentation cleaning, to get a house ready for sale.
0:09:32 And then those clients would move somewhere, and they wanted to hire me to where they were
0:09:35 moving into, “Hey, can you clean more than once?
0:09:39 Can you clean every two weeks?”
0:09:41 And then just kind of, it was very much a referral.
0:09:44 And like Chris, I didn’t use Thumbtack, but I was using Service Magic back in the late,
0:09:49 in the 2007 to 2013 range.
0:09:52 They were fantastic.
0:09:54 They turned in Home Advisor and Home, I don’t recommend Home Advisor in 2020, but Service
0:09:58 Magic in the beginning, they were fantastic, but that’s where I got my leads from.
0:10:02 Okay.
0:10:03 Are there any similar marketplaces that you see being that have a strong potential today
0:10:09 for somebody getting started?
0:10:11 I think Google My Business is very strong, and it’s free.
0:10:14 Sure.
0:10:15 Just like setting up a profile there.
0:10:16 A local, yeah, Google Local Business profile.
0:10:20 That’s a great way you can do it.
0:10:21 I know Chris probably has his list of them being the same industry.
0:10:25 I personally, since I’m small and work small, I like to develop relationships and go through
0:10:30 networking, connect with people, and get into different various Facebook groups.
0:10:34 I believe Facebook is tremendous, especially where there’s groups of people that might be
0:10:39 hovering in one place that are in a niche that you’d like to serve.
0:10:43 Find the people you’d like to serve, find out where they hang out, and then go hang
0:10:47 out there.
0:10:48 Just like this.
0:10:49 Side hustle nation, people that want to learn how to do a side hustle, they end up congregating
0:10:52 in this tribe.
0:10:53 I said to find where my ideal client hangs out and go serve them.
0:10:59 Yeah.
0:11:00 Chris, so Thumbtack isn’t so good in 2020 anymore.
0:11:03 Are you just relying on the existing customer base word of mouth at this point?
0:11:07 What are you doing proactive marketing on any other channels?
0:11:09 I’d say two things there, and I’ll give you my marketing list as well, what we’re doing
0:11:14 now.
0:11:15 First is, the list is always going to change.
0:11:18 Because of that, you have to build early on a very strong client retention system, because
0:11:22 if you’re always focused on one-time cleans and it keeps changing, you’re going to have
0:11:26 periods of droughts.
0:11:28 If you’re able to convert a significant number of one-time cleans into regular customers
0:11:31 and keep them, that’s where the magic is, and that’s what’s going to sustain you more
0:11:35 than any marketing ever will.
0:11:37 For me, we do residential primarily, but given the situation over the past few months, we’ve
0:11:42 drifted a little bit more into commercial by necessity.
0:11:46 It’s been interesting to note the marketing differences between commercial and residential.
0:11:50 For us though, the common ground between both commercial and residential is, as Ken said,
0:11:55 it’s Google My Business is huge.
0:11:58 It was big when it came out, but every year it’s even bigger.
0:12:01 I’d say in most cities now, Google My Business is more important than Yelp.
0:12:05 There’s still some cities where Yelp is super important, but no matter where you are in
0:12:09 the planet, you want to have a strong Google My Business profile with a lot of reviews
0:12:13 and have it consistently used and updated.
0:12:17 That’s important.
0:12:18 Local service ads, if you’re in North America, is very big.
0:12:20 It’s different than Google AdWords, but they give you a consistent price per call, and
0:12:25 it’s worth the quality of the leads.
0:12:27 Those are the two big ones for us.
0:12:28 Other than that, I would say outside of the Google ecosystem, Facebook ads was very strong
0:12:36 for a while, and then it stopped, but it’s starting to become effective again.
0:12:39 I couldn’t tell you why because I’m not an ads expert, but particularly around seasonal
0:12:43 holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, having a strong Facebook ads campaign is a great way
0:12:48 to get customers, and it doesn’t cost a lot.
0:12:51 Interesting.
0:12:52 I’m clean enough for a party or something.
0:12:55 Seeing that we’re both in the cleaning industry here, and you have an audience ranging that
0:12:59 is looking at all different types of businesses, or maybe already in them now, inside hustles,
0:13:03 what’s unique about the cleaning industry, and I’m sure, I know Chris, I’m sure this
0:13:07 is part of his decision process as it was for mine, I wanted to find a business model
0:13:12 that allowed me to build on something, to build a consistent level of recurring income.
0:13:18 It’s like a membership program.
0:13:20 There’s a lot of companies like, hey, plumbing, electricians, carpentry, there are one-offs
0:13:24 everything’s a one-off, unless you can get like a six-month service plan or something.
0:13:28 But with cleaning, they’re designed to be weekly, bi-weekly, every other week, monthly,
0:13:34 and they are fantastic because you can build a tremendous amount of stability in your profits
0:13:41 and make it predictable.
0:13:42 I could not have optimized my company on a one-time model.
0:13:46 The way I optimize it is because it’s recurring, it was predictable, and I recommend if anyone’s
0:13:50 choosing a side hustle, hey, not go pick cleaning, but find something that you have a recurring
0:13:55 model available.
0:13:56 Is it primarily residential for you two, Ken?
0:13:59 In my first business, it was 90-10, 90% residential.
0:14:03 In this business, I’m in the Philadelphia area now, I build it a little differently.
0:14:06 I’m 50-50.
0:14:08 I think it’s also important, a diversification within your own industry if you can find one
0:14:13 that’s more stable and hard times and one will get hit.
0:14:17 So it’s a good question.
0:14:18 I do like your point about recurring revenue, yes, it’s going to get dirty again, yes,
0:14:23 that grass is going to grow again if I’m in a lawn mowing service, yes, the dog is going
0:14:26 to keep pooping in the backyard if I’m in the pet waste removal business.
0:14:29 It’s like, yeah, this stuff makes a lot of sense.
0:14:32 Okay, it lends itself well to a recurring type of client.
0:14:36 Chris mentioned this $500 to $700 in startup costs.
0:14:40 Ken, you mentioned the insurance piece.
0:14:43 Was that the extent of the startup costs for you?
0:14:45 Can you give a sense of what that cost?
0:14:47 Yeah, this is probably one of the most inexpensive businesses that you can start in the planet.
0:14:52 I don’t know if many that are cheaper to do it legitimately, professionally.
0:14:56 The first differentiator, are you required to get insurance?
0:14:59 No, but it’s a major, major trust builder and differentiator for you.
0:15:04 And you’re looking at, like you said, probably $400 to $1,000 per year to get $2 million
0:15:11 of general liability insurance.
0:15:13 And that’s the basic foundation of what you need.
0:15:15 And then the rest of the startup fee or startup costs would just be getting, from my side,
0:15:20 from a solo side, would be the equipment, a vacuum cleaner, some cleaning supplies.
0:15:26 It’s helpful if you have a car that runs.
0:15:29 So those things, I mean, for $1,000, you’re ensuring to do a down payment on it, plus
0:15:34 your basic expenses to get started and equipment.
0:15:37 For $1,000 or less, you’re off and running, and you can make that back in a few jobs.
0:15:42 Chris, what about you, so the five to 700, is that insurance, website, initial marketing
0:15:48 for bidding for jobs, what was that, what did that go towards?
0:15:51 So I can give people some real numbers, because I still remember them.
0:15:54 Five to 700 was the super initial investment, kind of like the week one investments.
0:15:59 I did spend a little bit more that month, but that’s because I actually made some back.
0:16:03 So for us, the five to 700 covered really basic website, the domain name, insurance for
0:16:09 one team.
0:16:10 It’s an ever friendly residential cleaning association.
0:16:12 They’re not around anymore, but at the time they covered independent contractors so that
0:16:15 we use them.
0:16:16 They had cheap insurance for that type of agency that I was doing.
0:16:20 That was the main expenses.
0:16:22 The rest was all pushed towards paid marketing and paying the cleaning teams for trial cleans,
0:16:26 because I would have them come clean my apartment, but I would pay them for that as well.
0:16:31 They knew it was a trial clean, but they still did the work, so they still got paid for it.
0:16:34 If I were to start today though, I’d agree with Ken.
0:16:37 If you could put aside 1,000 to 1,200, that would be a much better place to be than five
0:16:42 to 700.
0:16:43 You could do it on that, but you never want to be that tight with a new business.
0:16:46 So for us, the first month, to give you guys kind of a rough estimate, that first month
0:16:50 when I didn’t know anything, I spent about 1,200 total at the end of that month.
0:16:56 So five to 700 the first week, but we made about 22 to $2,300 in revenue.
0:17:00 So we broke even by the end of the first month, just about.
0:17:03 So your initial investment, it’s going to come in two stages.
0:17:07 It’s going to be what you need to get up and running, but then it’s going to be the initial
0:17:10 funds that you need to actually market with as well.
0:17:12 So you can get jobs for free, especially on the solo side, but if you’re starting the
0:17:16 way I did, you’ll want at least a couple hundred bucks set aside for marketing.
0:17:20 More with Ken and Chris in just a moment, including Ken’s ISO model for service businesses
0:17:25 that’s initialize, stabilize, optimize, and how Chris fought his way through the valley
0:17:29 of despair to come out stronger on the other side right after this.
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0:19:49 Ken, is there a ceiling to how many new jobs you can take?
0:19:53 Like if your phone rings today, “Hey, I’ve got a new commercial office building.
0:19:56 I need you to come in,” or “I’d love to get a quote from you.
0:19:59 Are you saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll be there at three or I’m good now.’”
0:20:03 This would be the main, maybe one of the biggest cons of staying solo as a freelancer is, sure,
0:20:11 you are limited by your own ability to perform and so if you build a team, you can start
0:20:16 to scale that out.
0:20:17 You say, “Yes, there’s only so many houses or offices that I personally will take or
0:20:21 want to take.”
0:20:22 However, and this brings up a bigger point that I was hoping Chris and I could dive
0:20:27 into because I think it’d be a lot of fun, it’s called, “You’ve got to pick a side.”
0:20:31 There’s two ways you can do this.
0:20:33 You can go to the solo optimized route or you can go and you can build something big
0:20:39 and scale it and do it with teams and do it the way Chris has done it.
0:20:43 I love Chris’s term.
0:20:44 Maybe he can use it, but in the middle is where we all die.
0:20:46 What do you call that, Chris?
0:20:48 It’s coined by a friend of ours, Derek Christian, who’s also in the cleaning industry.
0:20:52 It’s called the Valley of Despair where you’re stuck between both stages.
0:20:56 It’s the adolescent stage in the EMF.
0:20:58 It’s not a good place to be.
0:21:00 Back to your question.
0:21:01 For me, in my solo cleaning school, I run my own solo cleaning company and I’m also
0:21:06 teaching others how to start a cleaning company and how to go through what I’ve built up called
0:21:11 the ISO model, initialize, stabilize, optimize.
0:21:14 There’s phases of growing a solo cleaning business, but always staying solo.
0:21:19 At the end of that rainbow, you have a business that is optimized, meaning you can clean houses
0:21:25 ultra efficient and make really, really good profit per house.
0:21:29 I’ve had over $100 per hour cleaning in solo cleaning and I was doing two days a week at
0:21:36 50 to 60,000 in profit back when I was fully optimized.
0:21:39 Now, I didn’t start that.
0:21:41 I didn’t start there.
0:21:42 It took me time to get there, but see your question, part one of the answer would be,
0:21:46 well, if you’re new, you just take whatever you can get and build your business out and
0:21:51 you work as much as you’re willing to work, and then over time, you start to implement
0:21:55 efficiency improvements, so you take less, you can build waiting lists of customers,
0:22:00 you can start charging more.
0:22:02 There’s lots of little things you can do to basically build this like Tetris-like schedule
0:22:06 that works for you and your family, but produces the goal of income that you’re looking to
0:22:10 produce.
0:22:12 That’s the strategy for you to stack up all the work on two days a week and just knock
0:22:16 it out.
0:22:17 That was what I chose to do in my old business.
0:22:20 My strategy this time around is a little bit different.
0:22:22 I’m probably going to stack up as much as I can on two or three days.
0:22:25 I’d like to get to 100,000 in income this time on two or three days, but I have online
0:22:31 business, so I’m looking to be at home a lot of the week too, and then we’ll see, I may
0:22:35 sell that again.
0:22:36 I don’t know.
0:22:37 If you ever get pushed back from a residential customer, you’re in and out of there in like
0:22:41 45 minutes and you’re like, “100 bucks, like what?”
0:22:44 I wish I was that fast.
0:22:45 Actually, it’s counterintuitive when you think, “Well, hey, you used to be here four
0:22:50 hours, but now you’re only here three.”
0:22:53 People that think that way have a by-the-hour mindset, but really what they really want
0:22:58 is this.
0:22:59 If you ask the customer the question, “I’m going to continue cleaning your house with
0:23:02 excellence.”
0:23:03 It’s going to look awesome.
0:23:04 If it’s anything missed, you let me know, but check this out.
0:23:07 I’m going to finish faster than I was, so I won’t be in your house as long.
0:23:11 You don’t have to worry about the cleaning person being there all day long.
0:23:15 I’m going to be in and out, and as long as I maintain the same level of excellence, wouldn’t
0:23:19 you be happier?
0:23:20 They’re always saying, “Yes, that would be awesome.”
0:23:22 You’re actually doing them a service by being out faster, but maintaining the level of excellence
0:23:27 and continuing to keep that level of trust high between you and the client.
0:23:31 Is that ever frustrate you to get a call?
0:23:33 I just don’t have the capacity to take this on right now.
0:23:36 It feels like I could turn money away, or I could hire somebody at even 25 bucks an
0:23:41 hour to go and do this work for me, a perfectly qualified cleaner to go do this for me and
0:23:47 just take my profit on the top.
0:23:48 I struggled with that for years, because I didn’t just make the decision to stay solo
0:23:53 from the very beginning.
0:23:55 I did have employees for about two years.
0:23:57 I wasn’t good at it.
0:23:58 I really wasn’t, because I was in the Valley of Despair, so I was there.
0:24:02 I experienced it.
0:24:04 Many times, I wondered, “Well, maybe I should dip my toe back in.”
0:24:08 Ultimately, in 2011, ’12, ’13, I decided to stay solo, because I had a big dream of something
0:24:16 I wanted to accomplish that wasn’t cleaning related.
0:24:20 I needed my cleaning business to do something for me.
0:24:23 It needed to be a certain amount of time and a certain amount of money, so that I could
0:24:26 go do another side hustle, ironically.
0:24:30 With that as a goal, I made a decision and say, “No, I’m not going to teeter with turning
0:24:36 down work.
0:24:37 No, I’m going to max out what I personally want to do, get the most I can per client,”
0:24:42 and I had a referral network.
0:24:44 I have friends that I could give other business to, and maybe I could take an affiliate on
0:24:49 that, a small commission on that, or it’s just good faith.
0:24:53 I send them business, and down the road, I get business from them, and so you can look
0:24:57 at it different ways.
0:24:59 I like that.
0:25:00 We had a guest in the SEO space who was booked up with his freelance SEO consulting, started
0:25:06 a very similar thing.
0:25:07 He was like, “Well, I got other people I trust.
0:25:09 I can’t take on your project, but let me send you to this guy.
0:25:11 Hey, would you pay a finder’s fee?”
0:25:13 He ended up building a whole side business just around that referral element.
0:25:16 I was like, “Oh, this is pretty cool.
0:25:18 Chris, what got you through that value of despair?”
0:25:21 Yeah, this is a fun little story time.
0:25:24 For me, it was October 2016.
0:25:27 In the middle of my final semester at university, I was very solidly in the value of despair,
0:25:32 also university of despair, I guess.
0:25:34 It was midterm time, so a lot of despair all around.
0:25:37 We’d grown very quickly from about zero to 20,000 a month in about 90 days, so it was
0:25:41 a ridiculous amount of growth.
0:25:43 What are you thinking at that time?
0:25:44 Are you thinking like, “I am this entrepreneurial alchemist.
0:25:48 I willed this into existence,” and now look at this thing.
0:25:53 It’s funny.
0:25:54 There was so little I understood about business.
0:25:56 A big part of it was luck.
0:25:58 My profit margins were low because I was reinvesting everything back into marketing, so I was barely
0:26:02 paying myself.
0:26:03 Obviously, that’s changed with time, but I was in this situation where I was studying
0:26:08 for exams.
0:26:09 I was answering the phone all day, handling cleaning teams, marketing, and doing everything.
0:26:14 I was really deeply unhappy, and it came to a climax Halloween week where I was booking
0:26:20 seven, eight people a day because it’s Halloween week, and everyone wants their house cleaned
0:26:24 before the party and after the party.
0:26:26 I made such a stupid mistake, and I didn’t ask my cleaning teams if they wanted time
0:26:30 off with their family for Halloween.
0:26:32 I just assumed they would want to work on Halloween day because it’s extra money.
0:26:36 It was just a grave mistake, so I scheduled them in, and then that morning, half my teams
0:26:41 called off, something like six teams called off that day, which is a lot of bookings that
0:26:46 are not getting done.
0:26:47 It was 10 or 12 bookings that were not going to get done, and every other cleaning I searched
0:26:51 for hours that day before calling customers, every other cleaning business in that city
0:26:56 was booked solid, or if they weren’t, they did not have a good reputation, and so I had
0:27:01 to call all my customers and let them know the cleaning that they booked a month ago
0:27:05 was not going to be happening, and so I wouldn’t call it a nervous breakdown, but it was on
0:27:10 the edge.
0:27:11 I had a dozen people screaming at me, and it was at this moment that I decided there’s
0:27:15 no way that I could possibly run this business, even if it makes me a lot of money.
0:27:20 There’s no way that I could deal with this every day for years.
0:27:23 It’s not a business.
0:27:24 It’s this soul-sucking job that I built into myself and called a business, and so for me,
0:27:30 the way that I really escaped it was, well, two things.
0:27:32 I’ll keep it to one, though.
0:27:34 I knew I needed an office manager, but I knew that I couldn’t afford an office manager
0:27:38 full-time.
0:27:39 I didn’t even have an office base, so there was nowhere for the office manager to go.
0:27:43 I’d read the four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss a few times, and he talks about virtual assistance
0:27:47 a lot, and so I thought, is there a way that I could find someone who used to work for a
0:27:51 family business based in the US who could do the majority of what I do, but they don’t
0:27:56 have to be in DC?
0:27:57 I started looking for someone who used to run a family business, and I found two people.
0:28:02 They agreed to try it out.
0:28:03 They’d never worked as VA’s before, but I trained them up to handle most of the office
0:28:07 tasks remotely besides the hiring, and this was another stupid mistake, but I ended up
0:28:12 working out.
0:28:13 A week after I trained them, I took off to Japan for a week, and I just basically ignored
0:28:17 my phone unless it was an emergency, and I just let them handle it.
0:28:20 I threw them in the deep end, and they handled things okay, and I came back, and my business
0:28:24 was still in one piece, and so this was the first inkling that I had that I could run
0:28:29 a business in a very minimal amount of time each day and have it function and not fall
0:28:34 apart.
0:28:35 So, over the next few months, I started to work on systems with them, started to teach
0:28:39 them how to do stuff more in depth, and started to remove myself bit by bit from each different
0:28:44 area of my business.
0:28:45 Okay, very nice.
0:28:46 So, they’re working from home.
0:28:47 They’re working remotely.
0:28:48 They’re fielding your phone calls.
0:28:50 They’re scheduling the different teams on the ground to go to the different addresses,
0:28:56 and you’re just paying them an hourly wage or a salary, but how does that work?
0:29:00 So in the VA industry, and you’re quite knowledgeable about this as well, Nick, we do it by the
0:29:05 minute basis, and so what I do is I have them track their time.
0:29:09 So in an eight hour day, for a cleaning company of my size, we didn’t need someone working
0:29:13 eight hours a day.
0:29:14 We needed someone working maybe two to three hours worth of time, but available for eight
0:29:19 hours a day for when things came in.
0:29:21 And so I worked out a higher rate that I would pay them, but with the agreement that they
0:29:26 would track their time, and instead of paying eight hours a day, it would be on a contract
0:29:30 basis for the amount of work done each week.
0:29:33 And so we paid them to be available during that time, but only to be paid for the minutes
0:29:38 they put in.
0:29:39 Okay.
0:29:40 Interesting.
0:29:41 So it was like based on whenever the phone rings, the clock starts precisely.
0:29:45 And so that was a good middle point that they were happy with because it meant that they
0:29:48 could take on other high paying clients as well during their day.
0:29:52 And they weren’t just beholden to one client because they were their own boss as well.
0:29:56 And so we found a happy medium between us where I could afford them and they could afford
0:30:00 to pay attention to us.
0:30:02 That was the second thing.
0:30:03 You get to use two things and then only give us the one.
0:30:07 The second thing for me was shifting how I thought about my business.
0:30:10 And the EMIF really is a big shift in how you think about your business too.
0:30:14 I hadn’t read the EMIF at this time, but the way I started thinking of my business was
0:30:18 I knew that I couldn’t remove myself from everything all at once because I tried that
0:30:21 initially after the Japan trip.
0:30:23 And there was a big drop in quality because I basically transferred 20 different hats
0:30:27 for myself to two other people.
0:30:29 And so they were overwhelmed.
0:30:30 So I wanted to find a way where I could only have them do working on the areas that they
0:30:34 were good at.
0:30:35 And so I started to look at how big businesses structure their business.
0:30:39 And the way any big or medium sized business structures their business is by having different
0:30:43 department heads for each department.
0:30:45 You have a sales head, you have a marketing head, you have a communications director,
0:30:48 right?
0:30:49 You have a customer service agent.
0:30:50 So I thought, could I outsource each area of my business as if it were a big business
0:30:57 and assign a department head to each one?
0:30:59 And so that’s what I did.
0:31:00 I assigned the customer support and the teams to, so the customer support to VA1 and the
0:31:06 teams to VA2.
0:31:07 So the front end was being handled by VA1 and the back end was being handled by VA2.
0:31:13 Then I outsourced the sales to someone.
0:31:15 Then I outsourced the marketing to someone as if they were a marketing head.
0:31:18 And so I started to think of my business as if it were a big business and how all the
0:31:23 different moving parts work together so that I could outsource them one by one instead of
0:31:27 just throwing it all on someone else.
0:31:28 And so that was the other big thing that really worked for me was finding a way for someone
0:31:33 to step up and take responsibility for each part that they were an expert at.
0:31:38 Were those hires similarly structured in terms of the payment or was it this sprint to get
0:31:44 to where revenue justified those hires?
0:31:47 So we tried a little bit of everything.
0:31:49 We’re pretty solid now, which I can explain, but we tried everything.
0:31:51 We tried salespeople on the ground.
0:31:53 We had people doing door hangers.
0:31:54 We had professional marketing agencies.
0:31:57 But what ended up working for us was finding an expert in their field and negotiating either
0:32:04 if it’s a sales or marketing job, a retainer fee plus ad spend so that they’re earning
0:32:09 something the better they perform for us, or if it’s an office or customer support job
0:32:14 offering them a higher pay rate, but for the minutes that they work instead of the full
0:32:18 day.
0:32:19 And so what I’m saying is there’s no standard pay structure.
0:32:23 It depends on the position that you’re outsourcing in your business at the time because there
0:32:27 are different pay structures that work better for different positions.
0:32:31 But the two most common were paying by the minute per work or coming to some sort of
0:32:35 commission agreement.
0:32:36 Okay.
0:32:37 Gotcha.
0:32:38 Like a performance basis on new business that you bring in for us.
0:32:41 Right.
0:32:42 And so one thing that did not work for us was I tried to have my VAs who were not salespeople.
0:32:47 I tried to entice them to become salespeople as well.
0:32:50 I was going to offer them a bonus for every person that they closed, for every good review
0:32:54 that they got.
0:32:55 But the problem was I was spreading them too thin and they were not salespeople.
0:32:59 They didn’t have years of sales experience.
0:33:01 And so I could have these bonuses in place, but they weren’t getting used that much because
0:33:05 that wasn’t where their strength was.
0:33:07 And so don’t try and fit a square peg into a round hole, right?
0:33:11 Don’t try and force a person that you hire to be something that they’re not.
0:33:14 Gotcha.
0:33:15 And that has been, I guess, a common mistake for people looking for outsourced help is
0:33:21 like, well, I’m doing all of these roles in my business.
0:33:24 Like, why can’t I hire somebody to do that?
0:33:26 It’s like, no, like you can compartmentalize, departmentalize that a little bit more.
0:33:29 You set everybody up for success.
0:33:31 Nick, I would even take that expression, that quote from Chris, the round square peg round
0:33:36 hole, whatever.
0:33:37 I think that applies to, in general, if you’re coming into a business, into a side hustle,
0:33:43 want to know yourself, know your personality, know your goals, what your dreams are.
0:33:46 Do you want to go through the route and become like Chris, or do you want to stay small?
0:33:52 Like I think you don’t have to start small and like there’s so many cleaners that come,
0:33:56 they start small, then they feel like they have to scale.
0:33:59 It’s like required.
0:34:00 Well, if I want to make more money, I have to scale.
0:34:02 And some people don’t want to.
0:34:03 Some, like I’ll stay at home mom, they want to start a side business.
0:34:06 They’re already good at cleaning.
0:34:07 There’s tremendous pros of cleaning.
0:34:10 They’re already good at it.
0:34:11 They can make great money and they can be flexible.
0:34:13 They’re scheduled.
0:34:14 They can clean when they want.
0:34:15 It’s very therapeutic for them.
0:34:16 It relieves their stress while they’re doing it.
0:34:18 And they can bring home great money.
0:34:19 And then I don’t want to hire people.
0:34:20 I don’t want to scale.
0:34:21 And down the road, they might want to, but it’s just, some people may just want to pick
0:34:26 one of these two sides as per the name of this particular podcast.
0:34:30 That’s a really good point, me and Ken were talking before as well, about it’s very easy
0:34:35 these days to be sold a dream that’s not yours.
0:34:38 And I think that’s always been a problem in business, but now, so more than ever with
0:34:41 movements like the digital nomad movement or becoming a virtual assistant, which the
0:34:46 term is always expanding.
0:34:47 It’s almost meaningless at this point.
0:34:49 You need to be very clear on what your end goal is very clear.
0:34:53 For me, when I started, my vision of what I want my business to be has changed quite
0:34:57 a few times over the years.
0:34:59 I have the lifestyle of what I originally wanted, but the vision of what it will be
0:35:03 at the end is very different than it was at the start.
0:35:06 And if you end up buying into a dream that’s not yours, it’s going to get you stuck.
0:35:11 And maybe you’ll do well for a year or two years or five years, but you’ll eventually
0:35:15 get stuck because you, you reach a stage where you hit the initial goal that you had in mind,
0:35:20 but you never have a bigger end goal.
0:35:22 And so you don’t, you can’t get unstuck unless you actually map that out.
0:35:26 And so mapping that out at the beginning is so important.
0:35:30 And with Ken, for example, in our industry, it’s very common now, and I talk about this
0:35:34 all the time, because this is the way I run my business.
0:35:37 It’s very common to push solo cleaners.
0:35:39 You’ll see it in every thread and every comment, a solo cleaner says they’re overwhelmed.
0:35:43 The second they say that there’s a hundred comments saying you need 10 systems in your
0:35:46 business.
0:35:47 You need two virtual assistants.
0:35:48 It’s the same advice all the time, but it’s not right for that person.
0:35:51 If you read what that person wrote and you listen to what they want out of their business,
0:35:56 you’re telling them very bad advice.
0:35:58 It’s good generic business advice, but it’s bad personalized advice.
0:36:02 And so you have to be very clear on what that person and you yourself went out of your business
0:36:06 before you can find a way to get to whatever the next stage is for you.
0:36:10 Yeah, I like that.
0:36:11 Don’t get sold a dream that’s not yours.
0:36:12 Kind of know where you’re going, know what you want to get out of this thing, and go
0:36:15 down that path.
0:36:16 Like even if it’s quote the slower path or if it’s going to lead you through this valley
0:36:19 of despair, whichever it is, like know where you want to take it.
0:36:23 And Nick, there’s, there’s so many people, I believe listening to this podcast, they’re
0:36:27 in a job that they don’t like.
0:36:29 How many people, I mean, they got a taste of this work from home freedom.
0:36:33 Oh man, I got to go back to that place at some point.
0:36:37 And maybe it rekindled the dream, the fire, like I want to get out, I want to get out.
0:36:41 And they make their dream, like I want to have my own business on the side.
0:36:45 And maybe you’ve seen this and people have you’ve interacted with and like the dream
0:36:48 becomes I want a side hustle.
0:36:50 That’s my dream.
0:36:51 And then they get a side hustle, they get out of their job and they’re doing their side
0:36:55 hustle, they’re doing their dream, but then they realized that the side hustle wasn’t
0:36:59 the dream.
0:37:00 They made it the dream and they become unhappy with what they’re doing.
0:37:03 And they don’t get themselves, they don’t attach their why to something that’s emotional
0:37:08 quickly with an end goal, they’re going to phase out and they’re going to end back up
0:37:13 at that desk they were just sitting at.
0:37:15 So that’s a good point, Ken.
0:37:16 I guess I would say then what we’re all saying here is you can transition later if you need
0:37:21 to because your goals and your life will be different.
0:37:24 But when you start your side and also your business, you want to start your business
0:37:28 as close to the stage you want to end up at as possible.
0:37:31 So day one, you want to be as close to that stage as possible, whether you want to be
0:37:35 a freelancer and optimize your income then, or you want to run an agency style business
0:37:39 where you’re not doing the work yourself.
0:37:41 As soon as you start your business, you have to be as close to that end stage as possible
0:37:45 because it’ll make everything easier if you can versus Chris, you going out and cleaning
0:37:49 in the early days, like, I want to test this out, I want to see how I like it.
0:37:53 And then I’m going to hire people later.
0:37:54 It’s like, no, I’m going to hire people from the very onset.
0:37:57 Right.
0:37:58 So this is like from my own personal stress and mistakes and breakdowns.
0:38:02 I knew I wanted to travel, but that was it.
0:38:04 It’s a very vague goal with business.
0:38:06 I want a business that lets me travel.
0:38:07 That’s the most generic business in the world these days.
0:38:10 And so I got stuck in this valley of despair, this adolescent stage in the emeth, as he
0:38:15 calls it, because I wasn’t clear on what I wanted.
0:38:17 And so I had a job that was 12 or 14 hours a day instead of seven or eight hours a day
0:38:22 because I was pedaling my feet.
0:38:23 I didn’t know where I was headed.
0:38:24 I didn’t have any road map towards any end goal.
0:38:27 The vague goal that I had was grow my business bigger and then somehow skip a stage and then
0:38:32 not have to run my business.
0:38:33 There wasn’t a path there.
0:38:35 So you have to have it mapped out.
0:38:37 Yeah, step one idea, step two, question mark, question mark, step three, profit.
0:38:42 More with Ken and Chris in just a moment, including how Chris runs ThinkMades in just
0:38:46 five to 10 minutes a day and how Ken sold his original cleaning business, even though
0:38:50 it was centered on him doing the work.
0:38:52 I never thought I’d say this, but another spreadsheet of mine has bit the dust.
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0:41:24 Chris, can you give a sense of the time that you’re putting into operations today?
0:41:29 Sure.
0:41:30 So these days, this is another funny story me and Ken have talked about.
0:41:35 You’re going to hear a lot of these stories.
0:41:37 So for me, I spend about five to 10 minutes a day on my cleaning business.
0:41:41 I work all day, but on my other businesses these days.
0:41:44 And it’s hard for people to believe that because it’s a business with people in it.
0:41:48 It’s a very people-intensive business, the cleaning industry.
0:41:51 And there’s a lot of moving parts.
0:41:53 But this is the power of having an agency-style business that you’ve learned to work well
0:41:58 with and that you have hired the people to be in the right places.
0:42:01 So for me, I have my office managers handling the office work.
0:42:05 I have a sales guy, a marketing guy, a bookkeeper handling those parts of the business.
0:42:09 So at the end of the day, the only thing that I actually need to do is check in with them.
0:42:14 And sometimes I’m bad at that too.
0:42:15 Sometimes I won’t check in with them for a couple of days, and then they get annoyed
0:42:18 at me, but I won’t check in with them.
0:42:20 But the only thing you really need to do is jump in and say, “Hey, how’s it going to
0:42:23 each person in your business in different areas?”
0:42:25 And if everything’s going well, you can log off.
0:42:27 And if it’s not, you can chat with them for a few minutes and come up with a solution.
0:42:30 Me and Ken, we’re talking, a lot of people get stuck with a mentality that business has
0:42:35 to be a lot of work.
0:42:36 And it does it first.
0:42:38 It does have to be a lot of work at first.
0:42:40 And if it doesn’t, you find a unicorn.
0:42:42 The first two to five years, your business will be a lot of work.
0:42:46 But I talked to people who’ve been in business since 1979 or 1985, and they’re still working
0:42:52 eight or 10 hours a day in their business.
0:42:54 They’re doing something wrong there if that’s the case.
0:42:57 There’s no judgment there, but they’ve had time where they should have been able to work
0:43:02 on each part and optimize it a little bit more.
0:43:04 What I guess I’m saying is you have to be able to measure your progress and you have
0:43:10 to see how other people who are a step or two ahead of you are operating their business
0:43:14 so that you know how to actually get to that stage as well.
0:43:18 So I was talking to a guy in one of the Facebook groups in the cleaning industry.
0:43:22 He will sit there, and he’s been in the group for years, and he’s never said a single positive
0:43:26 thing.
0:43:27 He calls everyone doing better than him a scam.
0:43:29 We’ve all seen these people, and it’s impossible to run a business in 10 minutes a day.
0:43:33 But I told them there are tens of millions of business owners who are not in their business
0:43:37 at all.
0:43:38 There are so many shopkeepers.
0:43:39 There are so many textile industry owners.
0:43:41 There are so many people in every industry imaginable who are business owners who haven’t
0:43:45 touched their business in years because they have the right people in place.
0:43:48 It’s a normal evolution in business to eventually have someone in place handling each part of
0:43:53 it for you so that you’re able to just oversee the big picture.
0:43:57 If you’re stuck in a mindset where you think business has to be work, take a step back and
0:44:02 look at what people who are a little bit ahead of you are doing.
0:44:04 And if they’re still working just as hard as because if they’re not, which I’d bet you
0:44:08 that they’re not, then this is a limitation that you’re facing yourself.
0:44:12 You need to reframe how you start working on your business again.
0:44:15 Now, Ken, 5 or 10 minutes a day, doesn’t that sound appealing?
0:44:18 Well, sure.
0:44:19 He chose that path and he has owned it and he’s optimized it and I applaud him for it.
0:44:24 I didn’t choose that path.
0:44:26 Now, what’s nice is if you are a freelance solo, you can choose that path at any point
0:44:31 if you want to.
0:44:32 You always have the option.
0:44:33 What Chris and I are both saying, it sounds like if you’re going to get started in this
0:44:37 business or any, go grab the e-myth book.
0:44:40 And that because you really, I’ll give an example too, of a company that didn’t grab
0:44:45 the e-myth book right away and I found another cleaning company, probably in the same group
0:44:49 that Chris found his gentleman and we got on a phone call and I was trying to help them
0:44:54 out and after just hearing their numbers, I cringe and I feel sorry for them.
0:44:59 And they have a good business.
0:45:00 It’s doing $400,000 in revenue, which is really good.
0:45:04 And digging in further, I find out, okay, so you’re in the office.
0:45:09 You’re working those eight hour, nine hour days handling everything, six days a week,
0:45:15 their husband and wife with kids, six days a week at the office, not seeing their kids
0:45:19 much.
0:45:20 And out of a $400,000 revenue, they’re pulling out $30,000 to $35,000, $30,000, $35,000
0:45:28 in a salary and the business is doing no profit.
0:45:31 And I just pause and I said, well, let me ask you a question, just a contrast really.
0:45:37 That’s your business, $400,000 in revenue.
0:45:40 You’re working six days a week, you’re hardworking and you’re keeping $30,000.
0:45:45 My business is just me and my revenue is not even $100,000, but yet my profit is double
0:45:52 yours at $60,000 and I’m only working two days a week, not six.
0:45:56 I’m working one-third of the time and making twice as much.
0:45:59 I said, so what do you think is wrong with that picture?
0:46:03 And just that same mindset that Chris was talking about, it just didn’t register, we
0:46:08 didn’t talk again, I wish them well and there’s a lot of that and that company, they started
0:46:13 off with a dream of growing and growing and they just, oh, I got too many clients, I need
0:46:17 to bring on some employees and it’s always the growth happens and then they try and fix
0:46:22 it with systems and then they’re supposed to lead with systems and then let the growth
0:46:26 fill in.
0:46:27 They do it backwards and they get themselves in that value of despair and I didn’t want
0:46:31 to go that route.
0:46:32 So yeah, Nick, five and 10 minutes does sound good, but I was perfectly happy with what
0:46:37 I had optimized, I mean, five-day weekends and still making enough money for my family
0:46:43 and it gave me other days of the week to work on my other side hustles to make other income,
0:46:48 which I was able to build up an online business during that time and I was with my kids.
0:46:53 So that was the path I chose.
0:46:54 So I’m not saying that I prefer Chris or Chris prefers mine, I think each of your listeners
0:47:00 will have to decide if they want to go into a side hustle.
0:47:03 They need to pick a side, that’s what the point is.
0:47:05 Go small and optimize and find your perfect business or go big and do it right, but don’t
0:47:12 get stuck in the middle.
0:47:13 Yeah, they bring up an important point about the profit margins and being able to pay yourself
0:47:18 and minding those.
0:47:19 Chris, is there a target margin that you’re shooting for on a per job or per month basis?
0:47:24 Okay, it’s a really good question.
0:47:26 It ties into exactly what Ken was saying with the guy he just talked to.
0:47:30 Profit margins, the more you outsource through your business, are going to be lower.
0:47:35 So you’re going to have to build a bigger business to get the same pay because you’re
0:47:38 paying everyone to do the work for you, right?
0:47:41 It’s not cheap to do that.
0:47:43 For us, we’re in an industry where there’s a big difference between profit margins with
0:47:47 employees versus contractors.
0:47:50 So it’s a little hard to generalize, but generally, because I work with painters and lawn care
0:47:54 guys too, I have some general knowledge of the local industry.
0:47:57 Generally in this industry, you want to aim for between 8% and 30% profit.
0:48:05 If you run a massage parlor, for example, and you have a physical location that you’re
0:48:08 paying for and beds and therapists, I know a guy who ran a $70,000 month massage parlor.
0:48:14 His profit was good in the industry and he was profiting 8% a month, but that was really
0:48:19 good for him.
0:48:20 Most people weren’t profiting anything at all in that industry.
0:48:22 In the cleaning industry for us, the way I’ve set up my business, if you really truly want
0:48:27 to do minimal work, the owner will pay themself between 10% and 17% of revenue by the end of
0:48:34 the day.
0:48:35 I’m closer to the 10% because I outsourced absolutely everything.
0:48:38 I think it works out to between 12% and 14%.
0:48:40 So if my revenue is $500,000 a year, I’m only going to be making $65,000 or so from that
0:48:47 business, for example.
0:48:48 But you’ll need to work 10 minutes a day, so trade off.
0:48:52 But you do have a lot more liability.
0:48:54 You have a lot more chances for one of your teams to screw up by accident or for a customer
0:48:58 to be unhappy.
0:48:59 So there is a lot more risk that you’re taking on.
0:49:01 If you’re doing 300 or 400 jobs a month versus 30 or 40, there’s a lot more stuff that can
0:49:06 go wrong as well at the bigger scale.
0:49:08 And so that’s a risk that I take, but it is a bigger risk.
0:49:13 Leave yourself more open.
0:49:14 Do you have any of those nightmare scenario stories outside of the Halloween episode,
0:49:19 where something bad happened with one of these crews or on somebody’s property?
0:49:25 This is a little specific to the cleaning industry.
0:49:27 I actually don’t know if I can say this one on there.
0:49:30 Is this a family-friendly show?
0:49:31 Keep it PG.
0:49:32 I’ll tell you after the call.
0:49:33 This is not a PG story.
0:49:35 Okay.
0:49:36 It’s not.
0:49:37 But we haven’t had too many bad ones.
0:49:39 One of the ones we did have, though, was a person who was selling their house.
0:49:43 And we take before and after pictures.
0:49:45 We ask people for permission to do that.
0:49:47 We clean their house very well.
0:49:48 It was actually our A team cleaning that house, and they really are a truly amazing cleaning
0:49:52 team.
0:49:53 And they did a great job.
0:49:54 And there was no scratches left.
0:49:55 Again, we had the before and after photos, and they must have forgotten that we took
0:49:58 those because they scratched up their marble surfaces, and they scratched up different
0:50:04 areas of their house, like the fan above the stove tops.
0:50:07 And then they sent that to us, and they said, “Our team damaged it.
0:50:11 They were going to sue us for the damage.”
0:50:13 They were trying to basically sell the house and make a lot of money out of us by damaging
0:50:17 their own equipment and their own household.
0:50:19 And luckily, we took the before and after photos, otherwise we probably would have been
0:50:22 screwed.
0:50:23 Oh, my gosh.
0:50:24 Yeah.
0:50:25 Was that something like a liability policy would typically cover if you hadn’t had that
0:50:28 backup?
0:50:29 Well, yes and no.
0:50:32 Yes, if it’s unintentional, which wasn’t our fault at all, but it would cover it was unintentional.
0:50:39 But the way they were describing it, I think they would have actually had a pretty compelling
0:50:42 case to make some money out of us.
0:50:44 So they were trying to hold this hostage from damage that they caused themselves.
0:50:47 So there are things like that.
0:50:49 There are typical things like people leaving money in weird spots to see if the cleaner
0:50:52 will take it.
0:50:53 Our cleaners always text us a picture of it and we laugh about it, but people will test
0:50:57 you in little ways.
0:50:58 So there’s always things like that.
0:50:59 That’s interesting.
0:51:00 I never, okay.
0:51:01 Yeah, like here’s the sock drawer.
0:51:03 That’s kind of funny.
0:51:04 Do you ever get the threat of, so you’re taking a margin on top of this labor, do customers
0:51:11 ever go like, “Why am I going through this company?
0:51:13 Why don’t I just work with this team directly and save money or pay them a little bit of
0:51:17 it more?
0:51:18 Like just cut out the middleman.”
0:51:19 Does that ever come up?
0:51:20 Sure.
0:51:21 Yeah.
0:51:22 Early on, before I knew how to deal with that, that hit us very hard.
0:51:23 The first year in business, a great team of ours was slowly siphoning off clients of
0:51:27 ours to build their own thing and they did successfully.
0:51:29 We basically did the marketing for them and they built their own cleaning business and
0:51:32 stole those clients.
0:51:33 It’s very rare.
0:51:34 I’ve talked to so many clean business owners.
0:51:36 It happens, but it’s so rare that this actually happens.
0:51:39 But there are occasions where cleaners will take customers’ years behind your back.
0:51:43 I was going to say, they need to have the mindset of an entrepreneur to be successful
0:51:46 with it.
0:51:47 There’s a lot of folks that work in team cleaning systems.
0:51:51 They just want to do the work.
0:51:52 They don’t want to do the business.
0:51:54 Then when they try, there’s a typical, “Oh, I’m good at the work.
0:51:58 I can make more money because I run the business,” but then they don’t know how to run a business.
0:52:02 They don’t have the mindset.
0:52:03 They haven’t read the books.
0:52:04 They haven’t listened to the podcast like this and they miserably fail and then they
0:52:06 end up, “Hey, can I have my little job back?”
0:52:09 It’s bad for everyone when that happens.
0:52:11 I know companies that when they see entrepreneur like Tendencies or Desire in their employees,
0:52:16 they’ll encourage them and say, “You know what?
0:52:18 You want to go out on your own?
0:52:19 I’ll help you.”
0:52:20 That’s totally fine.
0:52:21 You can help the community and provide another cleaning company in the area.
0:52:25 There’s enough houses, enough offices to be cleaned.
0:52:28 Trust me, we’re not that competitive.
0:52:30 We tend to help each other out a lot.
0:52:32 Look at me and Chris.
0:52:33 We’re in the same industry.
0:52:34 We’re friends.
0:52:35 We help each other.
0:52:36 Well, you’re in different cities.
0:52:37 That helps.
0:52:38 He’s in London.
0:52:39 But what he’s saying is absolutely true.
0:52:41 I’ve helped several people start a cleaning business in D.C. where we’re based.
0:52:45 It’s never been a problem.
0:52:46 I think we’ve ever once had a customer conflict between each other.
0:52:51 If you’re even in a medium-sized city, there’s so many people who need cleaning or so many
0:52:55 people who need a local service, there’s no way that you’re going to be interfering with
0:52:59 each other unless you’re really determined to.
0:53:01 Well, and this is one of those examples, too.
0:53:03 The pie just continues to get bigger as more and more people outsource this chore versus
0:53:08 it’s probably orders magnitude what it was 20, 25 years ago or something.
0:53:12 That’s a cool place to be in this rising tide.
0:53:15 Ken, early on you mentioned selling the original business.
0:53:19 I’m curious, if it’s you doing the work, what is the asset that you’re selling?
0:53:24 Just the customer list?
0:53:25 I’m curious how that works.
0:53:27 It was.
0:53:28 I went through a pretty tedious process with this.
0:53:32 There was lots of online resources I was able to find on how to evaluate your business.
0:53:38 I did so.
0:53:39 There was nine different points.
0:53:40 I honestly evaluated that and it became a profit multiplier.
0:53:44 The ones about, well, you doing the work, I got a low grade there, obviously.
0:53:49 But the ones on customer retention, when my average customers were five years and they
0:53:54 were totally loyal to the business, and yet to me, obviously, but I had to find the right
0:53:58 person to fit in to my spot.
0:54:01 Then things like keeping amazing books, keeping your numbers, those are so vital.
0:54:06 The brand that you had, there’s little factors on how the recurring model.
0:54:10 I had a really good multiplier, it was around three, and then I looked at some comps from
0:54:15 a Biz Buy/Sell website, and I was able to come up with a price that seemed reasonable.
0:54:19 You have to know how to shop it around.
0:54:22 I did not sell it to another cleaning business because that wasn’t going to be the max I
0:54:25 could get for it.
0:54:26 I sold the dream, not the business.
0:54:31 I found someone that was working $16, $17 an hour, that was a good friend of mine already,
0:54:37 that he was not happy with his job, he was 25 years old.
0:54:40 He just wanted something more.
0:54:41 He wanted his own business, flexibility, and he was hurting his body operating these machines
0:54:46 he was doing.
0:54:47 I just presented him a dream and said, “Here’s what I’ve been doing.
0:54:50 I’ve built a company 15 years.
0:54:52 I got all these little clients.
0:54:54 Here’s what it’s worth.
0:54:55 Here’s what it does.”
0:54:56 If you were to take this on, you could triple your income, and you could do it on a fraction
0:55:01 of the time you’re doing now.
0:55:02 That allows you to pursue the other things in your life that you’d like.
0:55:06 He was so excited.
0:55:08 We were sitting at Starbucks a few days later, talking about this for three hours.
0:55:11 Within two weeks, he’s going on his first airplane ride ever to go to a cleaning conference
0:55:14 with me in Dallas, and two months later, he’s got the down payment money to buy the business,
0:55:21 and I go through a process to train him and to go through all of my clients and work out
0:55:26 arrangements.
0:55:27 Some people didn’t take the transfer, and I worked that into the price.
0:55:30 People said no, but most of them did.
0:55:33 It was a wonderful transition.
0:55:34 You got to find the right person.
0:55:36 I’ll tell you, you can sell a solo business.
0:55:38 If you do it right, you have to sell the dream, like the dream of what the business can do
0:55:42 for him.
0:55:43 Here he is.
0:55:44 It’s two years later, Nick.
0:55:46 Everything I sold him would happen for him.
0:55:48 He has done it.
0:55:49 I’m so proud of him.
0:55:50 His name is Ian Trainor, Albany Pure Cleaning, and Albany, New York, where I used to be.
0:55:55 His business is cruising.
0:55:56 He’s getting clients on his own.
0:55:57 He’s fully trained.
0:55:58 He’s teaching me some things now, actually, but his income is triple what he used to be,
0:56:02 and he’s working the schedule he wants.
0:56:05 He’s achieved his dream, and he’s thankful.
0:56:07 All right.
0:56:08 That’s an important note, sell the dream, and not in a scammy, sleazy way, but because
0:56:11 a typical business buyer investor type is like, “I don’t want to touch this thing.
0:56:16 The owner was doing all the work.
0:56:18 I want to be more hands-off and just get a return on my money,” so it’s like, you got
0:56:22 to find a different type of buyer that’s still a sellable asset because of this recurring
0:56:27 nature, but just have to position it a little bit differently.
0:56:29 Chris, do you think, I mean, is that the end game for think-mades?
0:56:33 Like, you’re going to have a big exit down the road?
0:56:35 What do you want to take this thing?
0:56:36 No, and this is so controversial what I’m going to say, but I’m going to say it anyway.
0:56:41 It’s funny, again, me and Tim were talking about this, and you’re going to hear that
0:56:44 a lot.
0:56:45 I’ve really changed this past year and a half on what I want out of my businesses, and I’ve
0:56:49 become a lot more clear, precise than what I want.
0:56:51 For me, what’s important is giving back to my local communities, and there’s certain
0:56:54 ways that we’re doing that now that we weren’t financially capable of before.
0:56:59 So I’m starting not single-mindedly, but I’m starting to reposition the way I view my businesses
0:57:04 and the way they’re going to continue growing in the future towards community service.
0:57:08 So they’re not nonprofit, but they’re like a nonprofit type of situation where I’m guiding
0:57:13 them towards supporting organizations that are really important to me.
0:57:17 So that’s one thing, but the other thing is, I actually have reduced intentionally the
0:57:22 size of my business the past year and a half of think-mades.
0:57:25 We were breaking that seven-figure barrier, and I was reaching a point where there’s
0:57:30 a couple of different stages.
0:57:32 When you go from zero to six-figure business, that’s your first business usually.
0:57:35 That’s where you start to learn about systems, and you start to put them in place.
0:57:39 And then from low six figures to low seven figures, there’s a whole new set of systems
0:57:43 that you have to put in place, and a whole new set of people that you have to put in
0:57:46 place, and a whole new type of work that you have to learn.
0:57:49 And every big chunk of revenue that you add, you have to keep having your business evolve.
0:57:54 At one time, relearning and redoing all that appealed to me.
0:57:58 But these days, I actually am very comfortable with the way my business runs, where it’s
0:58:03 at, the profit margins it has, the client retention that it has.
0:58:06 And so I’ve come to a point where it’s actually not desirable to continue growing it, because
0:58:12 I’d have to sacrifice more in order for it to continue growing, both of my time and
0:58:17 my money.
0:58:18 And I’d have to ask more of my people.
0:58:19 For us, the company culture is very important.
0:58:22 I also run my VA agency.
0:58:24 And one of the big things for us when we hire our VAs is that they’re coming on because
0:58:28 they want their own life too.
0:58:30 They don’t just want to work from home job.
0:58:32 They want their own work life balance as well.
0:58:34 And we promise them that when they come on with us.
0:58:36 And that’s what I want for my cleaning teams as well.
0:58:39 And so if I were to continue growing bigger, I’d be pushing and pressuring my teams and
0:58:43 my managers more than maybe they’re capable of, or I’d be taking more away from their life
0:58:47 just to continue growing a little bit more.
0:58:49 And so now at the stage amount in my businesses, it’s all about balance, a balance between
0:58:54 giving back to my local communities, but also a balance not just for me as the owner, but
0:58:58 for the people who work for me.
0:59:00 And so we’re finding a sweet spot where we don’t actually need to grow too much more.
0:59:04 That’s awesome to hear.
0:59:05 I think that’s a good place to wrap this up as well with like finding that sweet spot.
0:59:09 Having the business support the lifestyle that you want, support people, support the
0:59:14 communities rather than having it just be a drain and something that you dread doing
0:59:20 and all the things that can go into that pursuing growth for the sake of growth.
0:59:24 Chris mentioned his VA company, that’s inovalocal.com, I-N-O-V-A local.com specifically built for
0:59:32 local service type of businesses like cleaning companies and localbusinessmba.com.
0:59:37 Like you said, hey, only 10 minutes a day on cleaning operation, but lots of other projects
0:59:40 in the fire.
0:59:41 I’m always excited to see what you’re up to.
0:59:43 Check it out, localbusinessmba.com.
0:59:46 Ken is over at Smart Cleaning School.
0:59:49 Any parting shots closing arguments before we wrap up here, Ken?
0:59:53 I would say this.
0:59:55 You need to really figure out why you’re starting a business and what you’re trying to accomplish
1:00:03 and take this podcast episode because we are two diverse and two contrasting models to
1:00:10 one industry, and I think this contrasting model could apply to other business models
1:00:15 out there.
1:00:16 I think it’ll be very similar, so figure out what kind of a business owner you’d like
1:00:20 to be.
1:00:21 Would you like to do the work because you love the kind of work, you could be therapeutic,
1:00:24 you love the feeling of it, and hey, you’d love to stay small and optimize and have four
1:00:29 or five-day weekends.
1:00:31 Or do you want to grow it big and go through that value to spare and push through it and
1:00:36 get to the other side where Chris is at and then be able to pursue that lifestyle and
1:00:40 freedom and the other end of it?
1:00:42 My biggest takeaway is what we talked about already is just pick a side, don’t get stuck
1:00:46 in the middle, and both Chris and I, I’m sure Chris would agree that both of us are available.
1:00:51 If you just want to bounce ideas off us, I have a podcast, Solar Cleaning School, you
1:00:55 could check that out.
1:00:56 Chris has plenty of resources.
1:00:58 I’m available, and so Nick, my takeaway is just pick a side and don’t question it.
1:01:04 Pick a side, set a goal, go after the goal, and make it happen.
1:01:07 I like it.
1:01:08 Chris, any closing arguments to add or are you good?
1:01:11 That was great advice.
1:01:12 I wish I had something profound to say, but I don’t.
1:01:14 I guess the only thing I’d say is it’s all about balance.
1:01:17 It’s easy when you start your business, whether it’s going to be a solo or an agency, whatever
1:01:20 stage you’re at.
1:01:21 It’s very easy to get consumed by it, but you have to put limits in place.
1:01:25 You have to have sacred time for exercise, for family, for other parts of your life.
1:01:30 Otherwise, it will become all about business, it will become all about money.
1:01:34 Even if you never intend that, it might be years before you get out of that trap.
1:01:38 All I’d say is go with the intention to work hard, and honestly, but make sure that you
1:01:43 have balance as well when you start your business.
1:01:45 Sounds good, guys.
1:01:46 Really appreciate you joining me.
1:01:48 Really appreciate your involvement and engagement inside the Sinocell Nation community, and
1:01:53 we’ll catch up with you soon.
1:01:59 Again, big thanks to Chris and Ken for sharing their hard-earned wisdom in today’s show.
1:02:03 Be sure to check out Chris’s stuff at localbusinessmba.com, and you can grab Ken’s solo cleaning
1:02:08 a quick start guide at smartcleaningschool.com.
1:02:12 That is it for me.
1:02:13 If you liked this conversation or any other Side Hustle Show episode, be sure to tell
1:02:17 a friend about it, and then hit the subscribe button in your podcast, Player App.
1:02:21 Thank you so much for tuning in.
1:02:22 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen, and I’ll catch you in the
1:02:26 next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
1:02:28 I’ll see you then.
1:02:29 Hustle on.
1:02:31 This edition of the Side Hustle Show is sponsored by Squarespace.
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0:00:00 Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits Collection.
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 What’s up?
0:00:08 Nick Loper here.
0:00:09 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show because your life is your lecture.
0:00:12 Just a quick solo episode of 40 today.
0:00:14 In honor of Father’s Day, I wanted to share some of the best advice I’ve received from
0:00:19 my own dad over the years and how we can all work to apply it in life and in business.
0:00:25 For the sake of background, dad is a chemical engineer.
0:00:28 He’s not an entrepreneur in the traditional sense in that he spent decades really of his
0:00:33 career at one company but still had lots of entrepreneurial experiences and I think insights
0:00:39 along the way.
0:00:40 I know I’ve shared some of these in bits and pieces over the years but wanted to run through
0:00:43 my top 10 bits of fatherly advice here on the show today.
0:00:47 The funny thing is that almost all of these were very literal conversations which now
0:00:52 30 years later I’ve extrapolated to have a broader meaning that may or may not have
0:00:56 been attended at the time and as I think about the kind of advice I want to be passing
0:01:01 along to my own kids, I think these kinds of concrete illustrations might be a really
0:01:07 effective way to do it, especially if they turn out to be the chronic overanalyzing types
0:01:11 like me.
0:01:12 Ready?
0:01:13 Let’s do it.
0:01:17 Lesson number one is it’s not a piano.
0:01:20 This is something dad would say as we were working on home improvement projects when
0:01:24 I was a kid.
0:01:25 And what he meant by that was it doesn’t have to be 100% perfect.
0:01:30 Which isn’t to say he didn’t care about quality, he absolutely did, just that sometimes it’s
0:01:35 better to finish the job than stress over every last detail.
0:01:39 Perfectionism is definitely something I still struggle with so I try to keep this one in
0:01:42 mind and apply it to my work today.
0:01:45 In startup speak, this isn’t anything new, this is the MVP, the minimum viable product.
0:01:50 Read Hoffman of LinkedIn put it this way.
0:01:53 If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’re launched too late.
0:01:58 If you’re waiting to launch your service, your website, your YouTube channel, your
0:02:02 podcast until it’s perfect, you’re probably never going to get it out there.
0:02:06 The first versions of most of my projects were pretty awful looking to the point where
0:02:11 I literally was kind of embarrassed to share them, which is why that read Hoffman quote
0:02:15 rings so true.
0:02:17 But they were functional, they did the job.
0:02:19 Remember, it’s not a piano and for most things in life, good enough is good enough.
0:02:24 Lesson number two is you can figure it out.
0:02:27 I mentioned that dad was an engineer, a career path that neither my brother nor I followed,
0:02:33 but some of that still managed to rub off.
0:02:36 Particularly he would encourage us to be curious about how stuff worked and he was really
0:02:40 methodical in a lot of processes and chores around the house and he made sure to let us
0:02:45 know whenever we were stuck that we could figure it out.
0:02:49 And honestly, this was a little annoying for kids who just want the answer, but he was
0:02:53 big into the Socratic method or basically teaching you by asking increasingly more difficult
0:02:59 questions and letting you find out the answer on your own.
0:03:02 Everything is learnable.
0:03:03 The answers are out there.
0:03:04 They might not always be easy to find, but you can figure it out.
0:03:08 In fact, one of my new favorite newsletters is Ebiz Facts by Nile Dordy, EbizFacts.com
0:03:16 if you want to check it out.
0:03:17 And in one of his recent editions, he highlighted this.
0:03:20 He wrote about an email that he’d received that said, “Hey, I want to start an online
0:03:23 business, but I heard that PayPal doesn’t work in some countries.
0:03:26 Do you know if it works in South Africa?”
0:03:29 And Nile’s first thought is, “I don’t know if this is going to work out for you, man.”
0:03:33 Because instead of googling that question yourself and finding the answer in 10 or 20
0:03:38 seconds, you emailed a complete stranger on the internet and hoped for a response.
0:03:42 He was like, “Don’t be like this guy.”
0:03:45 Instead, cultivate the skill of figuring things out.
0:03:48 And he called that the number one skill for making money online.
0:03:52 So be resourceful.
0:03:53 Be curious.
0:03:54 There’s a reason that a lot of the episodes here focus on, quote, “reverse engineering
0:03:59 successful businesses.”
0:04:00 I think that’s dad rubbing off.
0:04:02 We’re trying to deconstruct the processes that works for other entrepreneurs because
0:04:07 I believe if we can take something complicated and building a business unquestionably is
0:04:12 complicated, but if we can break it down into simpler steps, then we’re far more likely
0:04:17 to move forward.
0:04:19 Lesson number three is sharpen your pencil.
0:04:22 And again, this was very literal advice as in, “Look, I will help you with your homework,
0:04:27 but sharpen your pencil.
0:04:28 You can’t do good work with a dull pencil.”
0:04:31 Now interpreted a little more broadly, this was dad’s way of saying, “The tools you
0:04:35 work with matter.
0:04:36 Respect them and respect your work.
0:04:38 Don’t make things harder than they have to be.
0:04:40 In your business, you can do a tools audit, a pencil audit, if you will.
0:04:44 Are their products and software that you’re using today, are those the best fit for the
0:04:49 job or do you have some dull pencils in there?”
0:04:52 Now, I found this lots of times over the years from trying to build functional websites with
0:04:57 GoDaddy’s website tonight software I think it was called back in the day instead of bucking
0:05:02 up and learning WordPress like I should have.
0:05:04 This could be setting up automations in Zapier, run more efficiently.
0:05:09 This could be bringing on additional team members.
0:05:11 This could be optimizing your top performing content, but sharpen that pencil and recognize
0:05:16 it’s an ongoing process.
0:05:18 It’s likely to get dull again.
0:05:19 That’s when you use it.
0:05:20 And why a pencil over a pen?
0:05:22 Well, because it’s okay to make mistakes in a race.
0:05:25 The number four is to do work you’re excited about.
0:05:28 After college, I took a job with Ford that moved me from Washington State to Washington,
0:05:34 DC.
0:05:35 And I took the gig for a couple of reasons.
0:05:38 Number one, I was excited about the adventure and the opportunity to “be a grown-up and
0:05:43 get a place of my own and check out another part of the country.”
0:05:46 And number two, I didn’t have any other offers.
0:05:50 I’d applied to a bunch of other jobs in Seattle, but hey, nobody hired me.
0:05:54 Your dad’s credit at that time, he questioned the move.
0:05:58 He’s like, “You don’t really care about cars.
0:06:00 Why don’t you want to go work at a car company?
0:06:01 You’re going to spend a big chunk of your waking hours at work, so doesn’t it make sense
0:06:06 to do work you’re excited about that you care about?
0:06:09 That has stuck with me.”
0:06:11 And in all the side projects that have found success, especially compared to the ones that
0:06:16 have flopped, there was some level of interest or excitement that kept me going.
0:06:20 And of course, I became more interested in the car business as I was in it day in and
0:06:25 day out, because as I’ve also learned, passion tends to follow doing the work rather than
0:06:30 the other way around.
0:06:32 But this is an important one.
0:06:34 And if you’re not excited about your day job, a lot of people aren’t.
0:06:38 Let me task you with this.
0:06:39 Find a way to be excited about your other 16 hours a day.
0:06:43 Lesson number five is if you’re not falling, you’re not getting any better.
0:06:47 This lesson comes from the often foggy and often soggy ski slopes of Snoqualmie Pass.
0:06:54 After each spectacular yard sale, wipe out, dad would encourage us say, “You know what
0:07:00 they say, if you’re not falling, you’re not getting any better.
0:07:03 This is the call to do the work that challenges you knowing you might fail.”
0:07:08 And yes, you could probably stay on the green circle runs, the bunny slope, and never crash.
0:07:12 But look, there’s this whole rest of the mountain to explore.
0:07:16 The other thing dad likes to say as it relates to personal injuries is, “It’ll grow back.”
0:07:21 And that’s his way of saying, “Time heals all wounds.”
0:07:24 With each crash on the mountain or with each failure comes a learning moment, like, “Well,
0:07:29 that didn’t work.
0:07:30 I’ll try a different approach next time.”
0:07:32 And I know I will continue to fall because the challenge of trying new things is part
0:07:36 of what makes business fun.
0:07:38 Now, I’ve got five more fatherly nuggets that I want to share.
0:07:41 But before we do that, I thought I’d ask the man himself.
0:07:45 What kind of advice his dad passed on to him.
0:07:48 So it was the summer after graduating high school, and I had made a fair amount of money
0:07:52 that summer mowing lawns.
0:07:54 So my dad says, “I want you to buy 100 shares of British Petroleum, now BP.
0:08:00 It’s a great opportunity to grow your hard-earned money.”
0:08:02 “Okay,” I say.
0:08:03 So he helped me make the purchase at $6 a share.
0:08:06 Less than a year goes by, and I’m at the UW trying to succeed in school and meet a girl
0:08:12 while living in a fraternity house.
0:08:14 All the cool guys had really awesome stereos, which seemed to correlate with having girlfriends.
0:08:20 So I’ve been religiously watching the price of my BP shares climb to $12 a share.
0:08:26 And I really wanted a stereo to impress the girls.
0:08:29 So I sold this dock and spent $619.75 on a new stereo.
0:08:37 When my dad found out about it, he was really pissed and told me it was the dumbest thing
0:08:41 he’d ever seen me do.
0:08:43 Gosh, and he was so right.
0:08:46 By 1980, BP was selling for $22 a share.
0:08:50 The stereo, I don’t even know where that is today.
0:08:53 A few years later, when he told me to buy some Texaco, I followed his advice again.
0:08:58 And before I sold it to provide a down payment on a house, I called and made sure he was
0:09:03 okay with it.
0:09:04 “Absolutely,” he said, “perfect, perfect use of the money.”
0:09:08 So my dad was not too big on fatherly advice, but his favorite was probably, “If you don’t
0:09:12 have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it over again?”
0:09:16 That’s been very tough advice to follow and a lifelong learning process for me.
0:09:21 I’m more of a ready shoot aim kind of guy and have had to do many, many things over
0:09:26 again in my life.
0:09:27 I love that.
0:09:28 If you don’t have time to do it right, well, when are you going to have time to do it over
0:09:31 again?
0:09:32 And apparently grandpa was big into the oil stocks.
0:09:35 Now, as for that stereo, maybe it was a better investment than dad’s given himself credit
0:09:40 for.
0:09:41 Well, he and mom have been married for over 40 years now.
0:09:45 Lesson number six is you’re really only racing against yourself.
0:09:48 So I was on the swim team for several years growing up and early on, it was discouraging
0:09:54 to be getting like these random pink and green ribbons for a fifth or sixth place finish in
0:10:01 a six lane pool.
0:10:02 But dad’s advice was ignore the other races.
0:10:06 You’re really only racing against yourself.
0:10:08 If you can beat your time from before, from the last time you swam that race, you’re getting
0:10:13 better.
0:10:14 That is a win, no matter what happens in the other lanes.
0:10:17 And since I was not an Olympic hopeful by any means, that was really helpful for me and
0:10:22 something that I applied in the pool and in lots of other areas.
0:10:26 We’ve talked about this on the show before, the concept of the 1% infinity, the slight
0:10:31 edge or the compound effect, this idea of getting a little bit better every day and how
0:10:37 developing that habit over time really leads to exponential improvement, exponential gains
0:10:43 as they start to stack up.
0:10:45 But to race against yourself, you do need to have a baseline, a starting point, which
0:10:49 goes back to the piano thing and not letting perfection stand in the way of getting started.
0:10:55 Lesson number seven is until you try and sell it, you’ll never know.
0:10:59 I remember getting all excited, my friends and I, about certain baseball cards that we
0:11:04 collected and we would look up the prices in the Beckett magazine price guide and some
0:11:09 of them would say they’re worth $10, $20, sometimes even more.
0:11:13 And I remember dad kind of bringing us down a peg, like, guys, their piece is a cardboard.
0:11:18 Look, if you find a buyer willing to pay that much, that’s when you know it’s actually
0:11:22 worth that much, which we didn’t love hearing at the time, but it was a good dose of truth,
0:11:26 a little truth bomb from dad.
0:11:28 Now, in terms of your side hustle, this is the one about validating your idea with real
0:11:34 customers.
0:11:35 Ask someone to buy.
0:11:36 That’s the only real validation.
0:11:39 Is this paint job worth $2,000?
0:11:41 Is this photography gig worth $2,000?
0:11:44 Is this online course worth $2,000?
0:11:46 Until you find a buyer, all you got is an idea.
0:11:50 Let’s take a break here to pay the bills.
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0:14:06 Lesson number eight is your eyes will adjust.
0:14:09 Again, another very literal piece of advice from when we’re camping at night.
0:14:14 “Hey, I’m going to run and get the flashlight.”
0:14:16 And dad would always say, “Ah, you don’t need the flashlight.
0:14:19 Your eyes will adjust.
0:14:21 Come on.
0:14:22 You know, let’s have some fun.”
0:14:23 After playing with fire and pocket knives, flashlights were pretty high on the list of
0:14:27 cool stuff about camping, but now it was always, “Your eyes will adjust.”
0:14:32 And he was right.
0:14:33 If you give it time, you can actually see pretty well in the dark.
0:14:36 And this was one that I definitely carried with me because the first time I went camping
0:14:40 with my wife, I pulled the exact same line on her, “Hey, you don’t need a flashlight.
0:14:44 Your eyes will adjust.”
0:14:45 And she looked at me like I was crazy.
0:14:48 But to vastly overanalyze this one, I interpreted as a call to be happy with what you got and
0:14:54 make do with what you have.
0:14:56 You probably don’t need the next shiny thing.
0:14:59 Give it time.
0:15:00 Your eyes will adjust.
0:15:01 And not adjusting or, on the other hand, always grabbing from the flashlight.
0:15:06 That can be dangerous.
0:15:07 That can be expensive.
0:15:08 It can be taking the easy way out.
0:15:10 Maybe you’ve heard the theory of hedonic adaptation, which, to summarize, is a luxury once experienced
0:15:17 becomes a necessity.
0:15:19 We become accustomed to certain things and it’s hard to go back the other way.
0:15:24 And what was once a luxury is now your new normal.
0:15:27 And that leads to chasing the next level, the bigger house, the fancier car.
0:15:32 Maybe your eyes will adjust is a call to avoid lifestyle creep, a call to avoid buying stuff
0:15:38 because you can afford it, like $600 stereos.
0:15:43 It sounds like the wrath of grandpa really put a scar on this guy.
0:15:46 He’s been very frugal with my entire life growing up.
0:15:49 So maybe the stereo episode saved him a lot of money down the road.
0:15:53 But a call to avoid buying the stuff just because you can afford it without questioning
0:15:57 whether or not you really need it or really want it.
0:16:01 Lesson number nine is rip off that bandaid or more accurately rip out that tooth.
0:16:06 The story behind this one is Dad is sick of me constantly playing with a loose tooth,
0:16:11 the wiggly tooth.
0:16:12 So he takes me out on the deck, grabs his needle nose pliers and proceeds to extract
0:16:17 the tooth by force.
0:16:19 And in his defense, it must have been just hanging on by a thread because I did not feel
0:16:23 a thing.
0:16:24 But this is the take action lesson.
0:16:27 This is the call to do the thing you’ve been putting off.
0:16:30 The obstacle is the way, right?
0:16:32 It’s probably not as scary as you’re making it out to be.
0:16:35 So you might as well get it over with.
0:16:38 I’ve had to rip out that proverbial tooth several times over the years from knocking
0:16:42 on my first door, cold calling, posting help wanted ads for positions in my business to
0:16:48 hitting record on that first podcast.
0:16:50 If there’s a wiggly tooth in your life that’s driving you and driving everyone else around
0:16:54 you crazy, maybe it’s time to grab those pliers.
0:16:58 And lesson number 10 is it’s only money.
0:17:01 I remember another time when we were camping and pulling out of the campground in Oregon,
0:17:05 and backs our minivan into another car that’s parked behind us.
0:17:10 And he is frustrated with this mistake, this obviously being in the days before backup
0:17:15 sensors, and the repair is going to cost him a few hundred dollars.
0:17:20 Still, instead of letting this episode ruin the day, ruin the camping trip, he took the
0:17:25 attitude, deep breath, it’s only money, he can’t take it with you.
0:17:30 And that stuck with me.
0:17:31 Money isn’t a finite resource like time.
0:17:34 You can always make more.
0:17:35 And that was a good perspective to see because I was always very money-motivated as a kid
0:17:40 and I’m a teenager at this time, and it still seemed like this scarce, hard to get thing.
0:17:46 And in some ways, it still feels that way.
0:17:48 But this was a good illustration of money not being the end goal.
0:17:53 It’s only money was a dismissal of something that is obviously still a really important
0:17:58 thing, but at the same time, not the most important thing.
0:18:02 Does that make sense?
0:18:03 Now I didn’t grow up alone, and it’s interesting how two people exposed to the same environment
0:18:09 can have different reactions, different memories.
0:18:11 So when I ran these lessons past my brother, he remembered several of them too, which is
0:18:16 awesome.
0:18:17 And then he added these as well.
0:18:19 Hey, this is Nick’s brother, Chris.
0:18:21 I write at nwtutoring.com and becomingbetter.org.
0:18:25 When Nick asked me if there were any bits of fatherly advice from our dad that stood out
0:18:29 to me, a couple things came to mind.
0:18:32 One is, you shouldn’t have to wait to be told what to do, anticipate what others need.
0:18:38 Dad said this to me when I was helping him rebuild the deck at our house.
0:18:43 Dad was doing all the complicated work and I was his inept assistant.
0:18:46 I did what I was told, but I wasn’t being observant enough to predict what dad needed,
0:18:51 and I wasn’t taking initiative.
0:18:53 Being a 15 year old, it had never occurred to me to do more than I was asked to do.
0:18:58 This advice wound up helping me a great deal in every job I’ve ever had, whether I was
0:19:02 a server in a restaurant or doing marketing and web design for a tutoring company.
0:19:07 And this also applies to side hustling.
0:19:10 Entrepreneurs don’t wait for customers to tell them what they want, they anticipate
0:19:13 the needs that people have and identify pain points and create solutions.
0:19:18 However, the most important things dad has ever taught me weren’t expressed with words
0:19:23 at all, he leads by example, which is the single most powerful thing parents can do to
0:19:28 influence their children.
0:19:29 For instance, if we went to someone’s house for dinner, dad would always do the dishes.
0:19:35 He never told me this was the right thing to do, he just did it.
0:19:38 And then I was at a dinner party in college, and I found myself automatically getting up
0:19:42 to do the dishes, and I realized I was becoming my father.
0:19:46 The power of leading by example extends far beyond parenting.
0:19:49 It’s essential for influencers and leaders of all kinds.
0:19:52 In sales, they teach you to buy your own product.
0:19:55 And if you’re in the business of giving advice, you’d better be following your own advice.
0:20:00 As Oliver Goldsmith said, “You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your
0:20:04 lips.”
0:20:05 That anticipation point is a really powerful one.
0:20:09 And when I will readily admit I’ve got plenty of room for improvement on, and Chris’ second
0:20:13 point about leading by example, well, that brings me back to where we started the show,
0:20:18 with your life is your lecture.
0:20:21 And I’m incredibly grateful to have had such amazing teachers, both mom and dad, in this
0:20:26 journey.
0:20:27 And I know our little guys are paying attention, so it’s something I’m reminded of every time
0:20:31 they repeat something that we say.
0:20:33 If you liked this episode, please go tell a friend, go call your dad.
0:20:37 If you have any dad-isms from your own household you want to share, you can do that in the
0:20:41 comments for this episode at SideHustleNation.com/dad.
0:20:45 Or hit me up @annloper on Twitter or Instagram.
0:20:48 That is it for me.
0:20:49 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:20:51 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen, and I’ll catch you in the
0:20:54 next edition of the SideHustle Show.
0:20:57 Hustle on.
0:20:58 Do you know what kind of stuff, what kind of stuff do you know?
0:21:18 I know like, 45.
0:21:19 What else?
0:21:20 68.
0:21:21 Just numbers?
0:21:22 Uh huh.
0:21:23 Um, I know numbers and math.
0:21:24 I don’t know what math, but I do know a lot of numbers.
0:21:26 Yeah.
0:21:27 And letters.
0:21:28 What’s the biggest number that you know?
0:21:32 7.
0:21:33 I mean 10.
0:21:34 That’s the biggest number I know.
0:21:40 Did you just say like, 68?
0:21:42 Oh yeah.
0:21:43 And 25.
0:21:44 And 25.
0:21:45 Uh, what else do you know?
0:21:49 I know 6 plus 8.
0:21:53 Sure.
0:21:54 I know something not number related, like riding your bike, or being nice to brother.
0:22:00 Don’t know much of that, but I can do tricks on my bike, lots of stunts on my bike.
0:22:06 Yeah.
0:22:07 What happens when you get hurt?
0:22:08 I just get up back up, get back up and keep riding.
0:22:15 That’s what I usually do.
0:22:16 Try for a moment, somebody comes and help me, and then I get back up and keep riding.
0:22:21 Yeah.
0:22:22 That’s what I usually do.
0:22:24 What’s the best stuff to read about?
0:22:27 Kind of sure.
0:22:29 Who’s the smartest person that you know?
0:22:31 I don’t know anybody that’s smart.
0:22:35 Nobody?
0:22:36 Mm-hmm.
0:22:37 Are you super smart?
0:22:38 I’m not super smart, but I am medium, just medium.
0:22:43 Well, you’re learning more all the time, right?
0:22:46 I know.
0:22:47 What’s the best way to make a new friend?
0:22:49 I used to be like, come up to them and ask them if they want to play with me.
0:22:54 Okay.
0:22:55 See if they want to or not?
0:22:57 Yeah.
0:22:58 If they don’t want to, I don’t make a new friend with them.
0:23:01 What does daddy do for work?
0:23:04 Recording call, type.
0:23:08 Recording calls and typing?
0:23:09 That’s pretty accurate, actually.
0:23:10 Do you want to be done with this?
0:23:13 I’m out.
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