A Good Budget?

Good day Steve,

I am building a budget for the business. I would value your opinion and experience. In the beginning as a one man band, I am estimating $100 per month for supplies and $500 per month for advertising. I expect to follow your strategy of hitting an area on Saturdays or nights to minimize mailing costs and blanketing everything with a piece of glass. How’s that for a gung ho attitude. Both of these amounts assume that I have your reccomended advanced supply list from ABC, incuding the setups in 1/4" increments. I also am assuming a well stocked supply of postcards, business cards and flyers that would already be on hand.

Doug

My Reply:

Hi Doug,

Good morning and it’s good to hear from you.

Actually I think $100 a month for supplies is too much.  I mean after your initial purchase, there really is no supplies that are needed on an ongoing basis. Towels get rewashed/dried, the glisten lasts a long, long time, etc.  The only supplies you’ll need is probably new blades for your scraper in about 4 to 5 months.  And if you hire someone else, then you’ll have to buy ‘em another bucket on a belt, another scraper, etc.  But that’s really about it.  So again, there’s no ongoing supply expense.

$500 a month advertising is perfect.  But don’t limit this to just yellow page advertising or community newsletter advertising.  Take a proactive approach and spend the bulk of this $500 on hiring a couple of guys/gals to distribute flyers for you regularly.  Purchasing flyers is inexpensive as you know, so you’ll be able to literally get out thousands of flyers for a good amount of money.  This’ll generate immediate calls since you’re taking your message directly to the homeowner. 

I love the gung ho attitude.  )  That’s the way to do it.  During your first active 90 days in the business, really hit it hard.  It’ll provide you a real healthy customer base that you’ll benefit from throughout your entire business.

I’m not sure what your financial position is now, but keep in mind that the ABC Basic package is more than enough to get anyone started.  I’d rather see someone put their money into flyers and go with the ABC Basic package, and then reinvest into more squeegees (for additional sizes) and towels with the profits made from doing jobs generated from the flyer distributions.  But if you have the finances now for the ABC Advanced package, great.  It has everything you need.   

And having yourself 1000 business cards on hand would be great.  We can talk more about postcards later when you’re ready to apply ‘em.  But I’d go back through chapter 7 to read about how I distributed postcards.  Postcards work great, but for the best bang for your buck, it’s important to hit prospects over the head multiple times with postcards just like with flyers.  Postcards though are a tad more expensive, so it might be a bit tough to do both postcards and flyers and meet that $500 monthly goal. I personally would crank it up with flyers and then branch out into postcards after a few months once the profits are coming in regularly.  Just a thought.  But initially the goal is to go after as many numbers as possible for the lowest amount of money.  And flyers allow you to do that. 

I hope this helps. Have a great day today and I’ll talk to you soon.

Regards,

Steve

Doug’s Reply:

Steve 

I have been reading your success tips. You are a huge help for a new  small business starter. You get me thinking and focus me on the goal and help me avoid getting wrapped up in the process. The process is a  means to an end and I see it sometimes as quick sand. You need to get  through it but if you spend all your resources on tweeking the process  you will sink. You help me    with your stategies and tips. I read and  reread them.

I will keep you posted on my progress. I will give it  everything I got…..period. No shortcuts or excuses. When I get going  it’s like playing poker on tv  i am all in.  I am working ok my start  date which is coming slower than I hoped but It is tied to a family  move. Excuse my spelling and grammar. I am typing on a small handheld.  Thanks for listening. I believe you understand.

Doug

My Reply:

Hi Doug,

Good morning.  And I’m glad you like the tips.  Right…the process can sometimes drag people down if they let it.  Sure…some time initially needs to be spent on the process, but I’ve seen people spend way too much time on the "process" and "getting ready".  It’s kind of like "ready, aim", "ready, aim", "ready, aim", but there’s no "fire" in there.  So they end up on this hamster wheel going round and round.  This could be for a number of reasons with "fear" being probably the biggest.  I think that’s the number 1 reason why people will hold back and not go petal to the metal and gung ho in their business. 

Other folks just want to make sure the time is right.  Well…there is no perfect time.  No such thing.  Still other folks want to become a master window cleaner before they do their first house for a customer.  To these individuals I say that it’s necessary to allow for some learning on the job.  Because as you do house after house after house for your customers, there will be adjustments that you’ll make along the way.  So "Just Do It" as the nike commercial says. 

Anyway….if you do the initial work and go through the process (getting your supplies in order, practicing on a few homes, etc.), you’re ready go.  Just hit it at that point and understand that you’ll be fine tuning your own technique that suits you and your business.  You’ll make a few mistakes, but we all did.  This is all part of the learning on the job process we all have to go through.  Learn from ‘em and move on.  Just keep on moving.  I can’t stress that enough. 

Don’t be one of these window cleaners who stays home waiting for the phone to ring from a yellow page advertisement.  Always be proactive in your approach.  If you do, and you do it consistently, you’ll create a snowball that couldn’t stop if you wanted it to.  And there is no better feeling my friend than looking at your schedule seeing that your next few weeks on your schedule are filled with jobs.  That’s one mighty fine position to be in.  )

Take care for now and please keep me posted.  Have a great day.

Regards,

Steve