The Blueprint to Starting a Blue-Collar Business While Working Full-Time

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;15;10
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;00;15;13 – 00;00;29;21
Speaker 2
All right. Welcome, everyone, to Blue Collar start up the podcast for hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the frontlines of life and the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

00;00;29;23 – 00;00;38;29
Speaker 1
And I’m your other host, Derek Foster of Depot Cleaning Systems. How are we doing, Mike? Or should I call you, the new, the new host.

00;00;39;01 – 00;00;39;28
Speaker 2
The new host.

00;00;40;00 – 00;00;41;08
Speaker 1
The hostess of the Mostess.

00;00;41;08 – 00;00;42;07
Speaker 2
The hostess of the new year.

00;00;42;07 – 00;00;45;08
Speaker 1
Do it. I’m sorry. Not host. I mean, MC MC.

00;00;45;09 – 00;00;55;11
Speaker 2
That’s my new career path as a as a, MC for functions. No, I’m good man, I listen, just for you guys listening to. So you can get the context of Derek’s, ribbing.

00;00;55;16 – 00;00;56;20
Speaker 1
Not funny.

00;00;56;23 – 00;01;23;23
Speaker 2
Somewhat joke that we, last night, which was November 19th. We’re recording this on November 20th. We had the annual mixer for the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition, and, I was the MC for the event originally. As I said last night, Derek and I were both supposed to be doing it. But for you listeners of the show, you know that, Derek’s got a fight to get, to get a word in because I never shut up.

00;01;23;23 – 00;01;24;25
Speaker 2
So, we.

00;01;24;25 – 00;01;33;01
Speaker 1
End up not the. That’s not the real reason, but, I, I appreciate you deflecting from, Yeah, from my hockey injury here.

00;01;33;01 – 00;02;05;19
Speaker 2
Your hockey injury? So I great event, you know. Yeah. What a great time. Sponsors the attend. I mean, there’s 360 people in there that were there to support the coalition. And understand the, the problem that the workforce initiatives have in the trades right now. You know, I like I, I got a quote, those stats that we said last night that I said last night, you know, when I was doing the research for it, what I found out was that every year we’re losing 2.2 million people from the skilled trades, 2.2 million.

00;02;05;21 – 00;02;06;15
Speaker 1
It’s crazy.

00;02;06;17 – 00;02;47;19
Speaker 2
And for every five that we lose, we’re only getting two people back in. So the replacement ratio is we lose five. We get back to. That is a huge issue. But and you know, to kind of with what we’re going to talk about today, what that really means for everybody listening, for people that are considering the trades, there is huge opportunity to make a lot of money, have a really successful business in the trades because, you know, when you look at supply and demand, if there is small supply that increases demand, even if it’s the same amount of people that are demanding that product or service, if there’s fewer people to do it,

00;02;47;19 – 00;02;58;16
Speaker 2
that just means that the people that are able to do it are going to be booked solid and can kind of name their price on what they want to charge. So it’s, I know, man.

00;02;58;19 – 00;03;18;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, not only that. I mean, even even for folks who are unsure if they want to own a business just to get your foot in the door with a trade and learn an invaluable skill that nobody can take away from you. And I mean, the cost comparative to a for your, for your school, you know, to go to Hudson Valley or go to another trade school.

00;03;18;15 – 00;03;36;29
Speaker 1
I mean, you save a lot of dollars in your pocket and you’re out to work a lot earlier, and nobody can take that away from you. And frankly, there’s a lot of skills that you can deploy as an employee. That would translate over to being a business owner. So, you know that there’s a lot of similarities and parallels.

00;03;36;29 – 00;03;48;22
Speaker 1
And I think we’re going to talk about some of that today. And it’s exciting. It’s a it’s an exciting time. You know, wherever there’s a problem, there’s always a solution and there’s an opportunity for somebody.

00;03;48;24 – 00;04;04;10
Speaker 2
Absolutely. I don’t know if there’s ever been a better time to be considering the trades. And right now, in the current environment. So. Yeah. But first let’s, let’s give a quick shout out to our sponsors. You know, we got to see a few of them last night at the event, which is, you know, always great to see everybody.

00;04;04;13 – 00;04;24;13
Speaker 2
You know, Nick from people. He’s was there. Well, see, we had, Olivia from, Martin Electric. Was there, MLB construction. They had a whole crew of people, I think, there, I know I saw Chloe, she was with a big group. I assume they’re all from, from MLB. But not a construction. I didn’t personally run into anybody from Wenatchee, but I think there was a couple of people there.

00;04;24;15 – 00;04;47;05
Speaker 2
Michael’s group, of course, one of our. You know, as I said last night, one of our first sponsors, to come on board with us a few years ago and continues to support us and really grateful, for Luke and, his team over at Michael’s group, Catamount Construction. Scott and Stacy and Jason were at the event last night, and, causing trouble and, being fun and always great to see those guys.

00;04;47;08 – 00;05;09;12
Speaker 2
And then, of course, you know, the support that Derek gets from his team at Daigle Cleaning Systems to, you know, give him the space and time to be able to work on this show. To be on the show, to all the behind the scenes stuff that Derek does. And then, of course, our team over at Five Towers Media for the production and the website and all the stuff that they do and also give me the ability to be on the show, can’t thank everybody enough.

00;05;09;12 – 00;05;31;02
Speaker 2
So, thanks to our sponsors and, if you didn’t know our sponsors, you know, we use part of the money that they give us or we use half the money to be specific about it to, we donate back to local Boces programs, the HVC to help kids, that are going to their programs with tools and tuition and just help support them and do what we can to help support the trades.

00;05;31;02 – 00;05;39;14
Speaker 2
So all right, that’s enough about our sponsors. Let’s get to work. D what we’re talking about today, I’m excited about this conversation.

00;05;39;17 – 00;06;04;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, it sounds good. And when we had this conversation a couple weeks ago, we were kicking around a bunch of different ideas. And, you know, I think a good a good starting point is, you know, for those who are considering the trades or just starting with a new business or a new company, or just exploring the trades and kind of figuring out what their, trajectory is, and where they see themselves in five, ten years.

00;06;04;08 – 00;06;30;09
Speaker 1
Because things can change so, so quickly with all the opportunity that’s out there. You know, but there’s a lot of things as an employee that, you know, or if you’re, you’re just coming in with a company, you know, regardless of what your plans are, there’s a lot of opportunity as an employee to really set yourself apart from, you know, your, your team members and others that are working around you and be a leader as an employee.

00;06;30;12 – 00;06;40;00
Speaker 1
You know, we had Mac backstory on the show not too long ago. Mike and I just finished, both of his books, or two of his books. I think he’s got 20 or 30 out.

00;06;40;03 – 00;06;41;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, he’s got a bunch.

00;06;41;09 – 00;07;09;08
Speaker 1
So, you know, it’s, they’re easy reads. Great. Great information. We’re talking about a lot of the the points that he brings up and talks about, you know, in our, in our organization now, but specifically he talks about a lot of the things that people can do as an employee and what he did as an employee in a manufacturing setting, to really distinguish himself and be able to grow his own business.

00;07;09;08 – 00;07;31;13
Speaker 1
Right. He looks at it as, you know, his own company and his own business and his own brand. And I think that’s really important, for people to understand that regardless of what you do, regardless of where you go, people are taking note. And everything you do either adds to the trust that you build with people or takes away.

00;07;31;15 – 00;07;42;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. There’s no in between. You know, so I think that’s a really good starting point. And then obviously, I’m sure we’ll have subsequent conversations as we, as we move through from there. Yeah.

00;07;42;26 – 00;07;57;07
Speaker 2
And just to tie into with, with some of the, subject matter that we’re going to cover today, you know what originally kicked off our conversation about this, Derek and I were talking about you guys are familiar with. I got the book, and I’ll see if I get the thing to see it. Here. There you go. There we go.

00;07;57;07 – 00;08;19;15
Speaker 2
He’s okay. Yeah, he is actually this guy. If you’re not familiar with Robert Kiyosaki, he’s got a bunch of books. Rich dad, Poor Dad is one of them. Cashflow quadrant, which we’re going to talk about today, is another one. And what he talks about. And again, if you can see this little grid right here, although it’s probably backwards for you guys, it’s, it’s an E a b.

00;08;19;18 – 00;08;39;23
Speaker 2
Sorry an e an s a b and an I, it’s a cash flow quadrant. And what he talks about in this book and what we’re going to be over the next, over a couple of episodes here. D And I’ll kind of get into this is talking about what it takes to go from being an employee to self-employed and then business owner and then investor.

00;08;39;25 – 00;09;04;10
Speaker 2
Okay. And so, you know, with what Derek is saying, talking about being a great employee, it really is the first step in order to becoming a leader and gaining skills that you’re going to need later on as you move through that cash flow quadrant, when you move from employee to self-employed and now you’re doing your you know, a lot of people say a business, but we’ll talk about why it’s not actually a business quite yet.

00;09;04;13 – 00;09;23;15
Speaker 2
And you’re really self-employed. So moving from employees unemployed and then how you go from self-employed to being a business owner, and then once you really, kick the crap out of being a business owner and how you move that turned into being investor. So it’s going to be a few, conversations that we’ll have around this over the next couple of months here.

00;09;23;15 – 00;09;26;05
Speaker 2
But today we’re talking about what’s ahead.

00;09;26;06 – 00;09;43;13
Speaker 1
The process never ends. It’s always constant self-employment. You know, it’s the name of the game. And fun fact, rich dad, poor dad was actually the first one of the first health like improvement books that I read. At the end of high school, and into college. And it really did have a tremendous impact on the way that you.

00;09;43;19 – 00;10;02;00
Speaker 1
I started looking at things, you know, me personally, growing up, I was always I had a vision of what I wanted to, to do, and that was to, you know, eventually be a be in business. For myself, I saw others that were, around me family, family, friends who, you know, built in on their own own businesses.

00;10;02;00 – 00;10;19;23
Speaker 1
And I thought that was really cool. I had no idea what what went into it. Now I have a greater appreciation for, you know, what what they were going through and some of the problems that they dealt with on a daily basis and made it look easy. But I always knew but didn’t know quite where to start.

00;10;19;23 – 00;10;37;18
Speaker 1
The only thing I knew was that I could work. I had a really good work ethic, and I put that to play, you know, early on in construction and I got into the trades simply, you know, number one for a job. So I could I always like to have my own things and be able to make my own things.

00;10;37;18 – 00;10;57;24
Speaker 1
And at 16 years old, you know, frankly, my family wasn’t in a position to, to do that. So if I wanted to exercise that, I had to work for it. And, I was okay with that. And I’m very grateful for that. So, you know, I went to work on a construction site and was a, ball of piss and vinegar, as some would say.

00;10;57;27 – 00;11;17;12
Speaker 1
I was very quiet, you know, I kind of walked into it not knowing what to expect, but there are some guys, you know, that would would bust balls and bust chops and tell me to go get the board stretcher out of the van. Yeah, all that good stuff, you know, I almost fell for it. Yeah. You know, going through that, you really have to.

00;11;17;13 – 00;11;40;00
Speaker 1
You know, I had to prove myself in in the way that I was able to do that was just through working hard and showing up every day and tell you, you know, there’s something to be said for working an eight hour day on a, asphalt shingle roof in the summer teaches you a lot, you know, number one, how to persevere, how to overcome, you know, things you can’t control.

00;11;40;02 – 00;11;58;14
Speaker 1
The weather, for example. Right? You can suck it up and deal with it. It’s the same thing of, you know, being in business. You don’t know what’s going to hit you from day to day. You don’t know what’s going to what’s going to come. Your way. But as long as you have a positive attitude and, a solution oriented attitude, you can figure out just about anything.

00;11;58;19 – 00;12;16;02
Speaker 1
And, you know, if you kid yourself and you ask and your teammates or the people around you and you’ll be able to find the answer so, you know, I knowing that I wanted to move towards that goal of owning my own business, some of the things that, you know, stood out to me or were important to me, it wasn’t.

00;12;16;04 – 00;12;41;03
Speaker 1
It was more so about what I was able to learn and the things I would be able to take away from that. And obviously, you know, I was I was making a paycheck, as everybody does as an employee. And what you do with that can really have an impact on, you know, your future and the growth and what your ability is to be able to scale your own brand or be able to build your own business.

00;12;41;06 – 00;13;19;23
Speaker 1
And I can remember I had luckily just coming out of college, I had been introduced to a couple good folks who, you know, we’re financial advisors and taught me the value of investing over time and taking whether it’s $25, $50 a week, whatever, whatever I could spare, and putting that in an active investment account that would buy securities on a weekly basis, you know, over a period of time, you take advantage of the ups and downs of the market, dollar cost averaging.

00;13;19;23 – 00;13;39;19
Speaker 1
So when it’s when the market drops, you buy at a discount. When it’s up, you know, you’re you’re making some money on your investment down. And I did that for a while. You know, and I did that for about a year. Saved up, you know, enough money to where I was able to think about, okay, now what do I do?

00;13;39;19 – 00;14;02;19
Speaker 1
You know, I have a couple thousand dollars that that saved and set aside. How do I deploy that? And what’s the best way to do it? And frankly, you know, as you’re starting out or trying to figure it out, the less money that you can spend, the better. And there’s so much that you can learn now that I didn’t have back then just from using AI and copilot.

00;14;02;22 – 00;14;35;08
Speaker 1
ChatGPT some of the other tools and resources that are out there where you can figure things out, you know, and as long as you have the time and commit the time, you can really get things off the ground in a hurry with little expense out of pocket. You know, and I started looking at different industries and, and, you know, what I found was, you know, that the trades or supporting, or support businesses are very, and they can be recession proof to a certain extent.

00;14;35;11 – 00;14;54;10
Speaker 1
So, you know, I started looking across the the horizon as to what was out there and settled on, you know, the cleaning industry. And I’m very grateful that I did. It’s been very rewarding. It has its challenges, like everything else does. But yeah, you know, looking back, I was able to take, you know, a couple thousand dollars.

00;14;54;10 – 00;15;12;07
Speaker 1
And frankly, I don’t even think I spent the money out of my own pocket. I took out a credit card, that I could pay off in six months. And I put some tools and equipment and things that I needed to get going. On that credit card, lined up a customer and was able to to get the ball rolling.

00;15;12;09 – 00;15;19;02
Speaker 1
So instantly I was essentially cash flow positive after 1 or 2, 1 or 2 jobs.

00;15;19;04 – 00;15;35;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do you let me, because I know, you know, you sent me over the, the outline for today’s show, and I, I, you know, you’re touching on all the points, but I want to kind of just bring bring that out because it’s a great outline. I think it’s really helpful if, if people can hear this kind of step by step, right.

00;15;35;28 – 00;16;11;26
Speaker 2
Because you’re talking about some a couple of the first steps here. So, guys, for our listeners, you know, decent over an outline for our discussion today, any entitled it, this is your blueprint for starting a blue collar business while working full time. Right. So essentially what we’re going to what D is talking about right now and what we’re going to go through are six steps that he sent over, that are that blueprint that if you follow these six steps and we’re going to get through most of them on the main part of the show, and then we’ll, we’ll jump over, to the, the Patreon, membership for the last couple steps.

00;16;11;29 – 00;16;30;03
Speaker 2
You know, and so the first step that D sent over was step one, validate your idea, which I it sounds like that’s what you’re kind of we’re just talking a little bit about. Right. Like researching your market and competitors. And then, and then you went into, you know, offering services part time or to friends and family.

00;16;30;03 – 00;16;31;22
Speaker 2
Do you want to you want to build on that a little bit?

00;16;31;22 – 00;17;00;09
Speaker 1
D yeah, 100%. You know, it’s it’s about leveraging what you have. It’s not about the resources that you start with. Unless and there’s every excuse that’s out there to not, you know, work towards a goal. It’s easier to, to make an excuse and not get it done. But if you know, for anybody that’s been following the show, every single person, whether they were an employee, a business owner, it doesn’t matter.

00;17;00;11 – 00;17;29;23
Speaker 1
You know, all of them were able to put the excuses aside and figure it out. And I think that’s the most important thing. Look at what you have around you. Look at what your network is and who you know. And you know, computers are a dime a dozen, and the internet is relatively it’s everywhere. You know, everybody’s got Netflix on their TV, everybody’s got, you know, everybody can make sure that they have what they need to watch a TV show.

00;17;29;23 – 00;17;53;04
Speaker 1
Right? But, you know, why don’t you plug your computer in and figure out, you know, what the market looks like and you know where the opportunities are? It’s very simple to do, but it’s easier to make the excuses than sit down and do it. And I was always very passionate about wanting to learn, and regardless of whether I failed or not, it didn’t really matter.

00;17;53;06 – 00;18;15;04
Speaker 1
And you know, it. It’s just making a commitment to to figure it out. Nothing is perfect. There’s mistakes. There’s things that I anticipated that were completely wrong. Yeah. And we’ve heard that story so many times, you know, I mean, it was on a couple of weeks ago and, you know, same thing. You know, everything went wrong, I think is what he said.

00;18;15;06 – 00;18;24;27
Speaker 1
And it’s true, I mean, it, but you work through the problems and you figure out the solutions and you use what you have. But you.

00;18;24;29 – 00;18;49;01
Speaker 2
Go ahead. Yeah. Let me let me jump in. So. So step one was validate your idea. So you talked about researching and marketing competitors, which is what you did. And and I should say also guys this this whole outline with all the steps will be in the member portal. So if you’re if you want to be able to read what we’re talking about and see these steps and maybe even use it as a checklist as you’re getting ready to move from employee to self-employed, it’ll be there for you.

00;18;49;09 – 00;19;07;05
Speaker 2
So you validated your idea as far as your cleaning company goes, right? You researched market, you reached, you know, you took a look at who the competitors were out there. You start looking to offer services part time or friends and family just to kind of dip your toe in it, I think is what you’re saying right, to.

00;19;07;05 – 00;19;08;04
Speaker 1
Kind of absolutely no.

00;19;08;04 – 00;19;34;00
Speaker 2
Doubt. Obviously, like you said, you know, we’ve got tools now in today’s market that we didn’t have ten years ago or 15 years ago. And, you know, using social media to gauge gauge interest for a product or service, which, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but, what I’m taking away from that is that you could literally just put a post on so on your Facebook account and say like, hey, I’m thinking about starting a handyman service.

00;19;34;02 – 00;19;41;05
Speaker 2
If any of you would be interested in hiring me to help you with your handyman projects, right? Is that what you’re saying? As far as use social media to gauge? And yeah.

00;19;41;08 – 00;19;57;11
Speaker 1
100% social media wasn’t very prevalent when I was starting out, you know, it was it was there. But you know, it’s not to the scale that it is today. And it’s very easy to just ask, you know, you can give feedback on an idea, you know, go to trusted people. I mean, you can email us and we’re happy to take a look at.

00;19;57;12 – 00;20;15;09
Speaker 1
And I mean, if this show isn’t enough validation for, you know, what opportunities are out there and in, you know, the trades and the blue collar space, I don’t know what is. So, yeah, I mean, you got to do your homework and do your research and make sure that you’re going down a viable path, a path that has opportunity.

00;20;15;11 – 00;20;19;15
Speaker 1
If there’s no opportunity, there’s no no point in pursuing it.

00;20;19;18 – 00;20;39;15
Speaker 2
So step two is build a financial safety net, which you talked about this a little bit, but I want to kind of pull it into the outline to the first thing that you have on this outline is keep your full time job for steady income. Right. And and I think we have many guests that we have had on the show where we talked to them and they said this very thing.

00;20;39;15 – 00;21;03;07
Speaker 2
Right. Like they didn’t just decide to open up a business one day, quit their job and then open up their business and instantly became successful. For a lot of them, there was a transition from, you know, like I’m thinking about, oh my God. While that I’m blanking on his name right now, my old man brain is getting me, he bought a pig from me.

00;21;03;10 – 00;21;29;20
Speaker 2
Devon. Devon Campbell. Yeah. So, like, Devon was talking about, you know, he was actually had a very successful career in the education system. He was an administrator. Like, what was doing? Well, right. Didn’t need to leave his career by any means. And, but he talked about it where, you know, he was doing his, construction business on the side and then slowly started to say like, hey, I want to make this transition out.

00;21;29;20 – 00;21;47;21
Speaker 2
But before he did that, like he was doing it for a while, and then was able to take one big job that he knew was going to keep him busy for a while and use that as the stepping stone, knowing that he had to also start back in jobs up behind it if he was going to completely cut that cord.

00;21;47;23 – 00;22;05;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then you also touched on saving up some money, right. Like getting some resources. So in the outline you’ve got here, you know, saved 3 to 6 months of living expenses and you want to just touch a little bit more on that and why you want to have that 3 to 6 months of living expenses.

00;22;05;18 – 00;22;24;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well I mean first of all, everybody has a different situation. So you have to do what what works best, you know, for your own situation. But there’s always a way and, you know, you might have to work a little bit longer and in a full time job and pull double duty for longer, you know, depending on what the startup expenses look like for what you want to do.

00;22;24;24 – 00;22;58;24
Speaker 1
With, you know, with the industry that I chose, it was, a lower barrier to entry. So the startup expenses aren’t as significant. But, you know, there’s there’s other things that you have to consider and that’s, you know, if you hire help, you need payroll, so on and so forth. But if you can work a full time job and, and start a business, on the side, whether that’s nights, weekends you start building your brand, you start building your reputation, you’re able to make extra money that you can save and reinvest into the business.

00;22;58;24 – 00;23;22;08
Speaker 1
And when you want to launch, but you should have a safety net. It’s not a good idea, at least in my opinion, to say, okay, I’m going to go start a business with no plan, no, no, back up right there. Because, again, things can go wrong. And part of taking a calculated risk is looking at all the things that could potentially go wrong.

00;23;22;08 – 00;23;40;09
Speaker 1
And how do you mitigate that. Yeah. But for me I was young I was 22, 21, 22. So I had I was at the point where I didn’t have a family yet. I didn’t have other things to consider. So, you know, that was, more of an advantage. And frankly, if I did that, that might have changed my my thought process.

00;23;40;09 – 00;24;07;26
Speaker 1
There. So everybody has to to take a look at it from their own situation. But there’s plenty of opportunity in businesses that can be started, nights and weekends while you learn and earn during the day, you know, you can you can learn a trade, earn doing it, and then work side jobs in the evening, you know, or over the weekend, I mean, there’s there’s so much of that that can be done.

00;24;07;28 – 00;24;34;04
Speaker 1
And I think a lot of people get the fact stuck in their mind that I can’t do both it you can it it takes more effort. Right. But it’s not always the easy path that’s going to get you where you want to go. The obstacles, the way we’ve talked about that, you know, a number of times, and I think, you know, really if the people who are willing to take that, that plunge and put the extra effort in, you get that reward.

00;24;34;06 – 00;24;43;09
Speaker 1
It might not take it might not happen overnight. It might take a year, it might take two years. But down the road, if you stick with it, it will work out.

00;24;43;12 – 00;24;59;26
Speaker 2
I you know, I want to add to, why having that 3 to 6 months of living expenses is so important. And I’m going to speak from personal experience, because at one point in my career, I quit a job making 100 at 100 grand a year so I could go out on my own and do my own thing.

00;24;59;26 – 00;25;18;06
Speaker 2
And I didn’t transition. I just decided one day I’m quitting this job, I’m starting this business tomorrow, and I’m going to figure it out. And what I can tell you is that when you don’t have and I did not have a cushion, I was living paycheck to paycheck. And I had, you know, three kids and all the things in the house and the boat and the car and all this stuff.

00;25;18;06 – 00;25;38;04
Speaker 2
And so a lot of expenses. And what I can tell you is because I wasn’t smart enough about making sure that I had an easier transition into that business. It, it what it did is it created pressure, put pressure on me to have to earn faster, make more money quicker, to be able to cover my living expenses and more.

00;25;38;04 – 00;25;59;23
Speaker 2
In turn, that did is it made my decision making poor. Like I made some bad decisions because I was panicking about my revenue. Yeah. And so like and you and I said yes to some of the wrong clients. I said yes to some of the wrong work. And what it ended up doing is, well, it, it fixed my short term cash flow issues.

00;26;00;02 – 00;26;27;09
Speaker 2
It harmed the ability for me to grow my business in a sustainable manner. And it was really it was just kicking the can down the road. Right. And so like, stressing the importance of making sure that when you are looking at going from employee to self-employed, that you have a nice transition plan that you are not going to be worried about, how are you going to pay rent this month or how you’re going to keep the lights on, or any of those things like that?

00;26;27;09 – 00;26;48;25
Speaker 2
Is unnecessary pressure that you don’t put on yourself and I and it puts it’s going to force you to make poor decisions or it’s going to just make you to it’s going to force you to make decisions that you may not be able to think through. And they it increases the likelihood of it being a poor decision. So huge, huge thing to talk about.

00;26;48;25 – 00;26;49;09
Speaker 2
So yeah.

00;26;49;09 – 00;27;11;03
Speaker 1
And the other thing, you know, and my uncle said it to me when I was younger and it always stuck with me. But if you ever had to go to a bank and take out a loan, what collateral? They’re going to look for collateral. They’re going to look at what your gross income is, and you’re less likely to get that loan if you are like, you need to build business credit, right?

00;27;11;03 – 00;27;32;04
Speaker 1
You have to. There’s certain things you have to do to be able to go and and take out, take on that debt in order to, to get to the next level or to actually start a business, depending on what it is. So, you know, there’s a number of reasons and, you know, my, my business partner, one of them, Ben Reath, who’s been on the show, and he doesn’t mind me talking about them.

00;27;32;07 – 00;27;52;19
Speaker 1
He’s actually doing this right now. And I’ve encouraged him not to leave his full time job. You know, he he works hard. He does a really good job. He’s, he’s a project manager. He he has to travel occasionally, but he is engaged every day. He is taking calls on his lunch break. He’s working in the evening.

00;27;52;19 – 00;28;07;11
Speaker 1
You know, we’re having phone calls at eight, 9:00 at night talking through different things. And, you know, he gets it. And, it’s cool to see because you, you know, I’m encouraging this and, you know, he’s he’s doing this as we’re, as we’re talking about it.

00;28;07;14 – 00;28;28;13
Speaker 2
It’s awesome. The next thing you talked about on here is tracking business revenue and expenses from day one. And I got to say. It’s so important. I like this is the one area for me that has always been a weak spot. I’ve always been a, Hey, I’m just going to sell the shit out of it.

00;28;28;13 – 00;28;50;07
Speaker 2
And so long as I’m making more money, as long as, like, my gross revenue coming in is worse than my gross revenue going out and making money. And I’ve definitely, again, it’s created problems and it’s it’s an aspect of the business we’re working a lot on right now. Because, you know, as your business grows, that problem only gets worse if you don’t know what’s coming in exactly.

00;28;50;07 – 00;29;16;00
Speaker 2
If you don’t know what’s going out exactly. And I, I’ve seen so many business owners over the years that are highly, highly focused on these numbers, revenue and expenses and being very, very detailed about it. And I watch how successful they are because of it. It’s, it’s it’s so important you want to, touch on that because I know you’re pretty good with with tracking your, your revenue and expenses less.

00;29;16;02 – 00;29;41;08
Speaker 1
And that’s the part that I hate the bookkeeping aspect of it. Really? I’m not a fan. I enjoy the numbers. I enjoy numbers, I enjoy digging into it. But when it comes to actually punching them in and tracking all that. Yeah. That’s not my that’s not my jam, you know? But, you know, you have to be good at it to know what’s going on.

00;29;41;08 – 00;30;12;20
Speaker 1
And the numbers tell a story. The reason that I put that on there mainly is because, you know, you don’t want to overextend yourself too early. And what I mean by that is, if you can get away with taking care of or doing your first couple of jobs with the equipment that you have, that that money, instead of going and buying additional equipment that fancy new, you know, table saw or chop box, right.

00;30;12;22 – 00;30;34;09
Speaker 1
Or, or in some instances, excavator or whatever. If you can get away with what you have available to you, that money now goes to your bottom line rather than out the front door in terms of a monthly payment. And you don’t have that note hanging over your head or that additional expense to say, now I got to pay for this right?

00;30;34;11 – 00;30;54;29
Speaker 1
And that’s really why I put that on there. So it doesn’t have to be very sophisticated when you start. But as long as you have some sort of system, whether it’s, you know, give QuickBooks a shout out, there’s a number of, different programs out there that are tailored to specific industries. You got to have something in place to know.

00;30;55;01 – 00;31;13;19
Speaker 1
You know what what you have coming in and what’s going out, and then figure out what that threshold is to say, okay, I got all of this work lined up. Now I can go and look at buying this tool that’s going to help me do that better. Yeah. Right. So you got to have the work first, figure out how to get a couple jobs done.

00;31;13;19 – 00;31;25;01
Speaker 1
So you have that positive cash flow and then consider, you know, how do I make that better. How do I give the customer a better experience. How can I do that faster. You know. And then you build from there.

00;31;25;03 – 00;31;44;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that’s really what should should be leading. How you’re spending money right is not what new toy do I want to buy. But how is what I’m about to spend money on whether that’s a new employee or a new truck or whatever new tools? How is money I’m spending right now going to give me a return on investment in my business?

00;31;44;05 – 00;31;48;05
Speaker 2
How is it going to make me be better, bigger, faster, stronger, whatever it is?

00;31;48;08 – 00;32;15;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. And if those customers decide not to move forward with the project or, you know, I’ve had it happen where, you know, we we go down the road and, you know, it’s one of those things where circumstances dictate to a customer that they can’t continue on. And guess what? You still have to pay for all of that equipment that you bought, the service, the the service, the project, the account, you know, so being smart with that and, not overextending yourself is important.

00;32;15;29 – 00;32;33;17
Speaker 2
And it’s, you know, actually before we roll, I was going to roll because it does roll into step number three about starting lean. But before we get there, I do have a question for you. As as you’ve grown your business over the last 13 years, you know, in personal finance, there is, philosophy that’s talked about a lot.

00;32;33;18 – 00;32;51;27
Speaker 2
They give it different names. You know, there’s, the pay, your pay yourself first, I think, is what it’s called. I think there’s a book about it. There’s the richest man in Babylon that talks about it. A great book, too, by the way, if you’ve never read Richest Man in Babylon, definitely suggest that you read it, even if just from a personal finance level.

00;32;51;27 – 00;33;11;13
Speaker 2
But, you know, one of the things they talk about is that when money comes in the door, the and this again, this is based on personal finance. I’m wondering if you also take this approach to your business finance. But one of the things they talk about is taking 10% minimum of any revenue coming in for you and putting it aside.

00;33;11;19 – 00;33;32;27
Speaker 2
And so and not not earmarking it for a purchase, not your it’s literally just going to go into savings to later be used as an investment vehicle of some sort, whether it’s reinvesting that back into the business. But first, it’s about building that, that nest egg. Do you apply that philosophy at all to your business as you’ve been growing through the years?

00;33;32;29 – 00;33;36;19
Speaker 1
That’s a good question. There’s a lot to unpack. We’ll probably do a whole episode on.

00;33;36;19 – 00;33;39;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, we can, we can, we can table that for a separate episode.

00;33;39;29 – 00;34;03;17
Speaker 1
No, but it’s good. And it’s important. And, so to answer your question, there’s a multitude of different strategies and it’s all about what you’re comfortable with and in the long run and what your circumstances. But I as I mentioned earlier, I do think it behooves everybody to have conversations with people who can steer them in the right direction from a finance standpoint.

00;34;03;19 – 00;34;24;22
Speaker 1
And I’m a big believer that, you know, saving, you know, I was I was always, raised to, you know, save and, you know, you can put your money to work for you in so many different ways. And a simple way is what I mentioned earlier, putting $25 a week into, into a growth fund or account.

00;34;24;22 – 00;34;51;08
Speaker 1
Right. Your hands off. You’re taking advantage of the ups and downs of the market. You’re not overextending yourself and putting too much in there. But at the same time, we it it’s it’s there, you know, and sure, there’s a little bit of risk, right, that the market could go down and you, but you, you offset that with, you know, different vehicles that are available.

00;34;51;11 – 00;35;19;29
Speaker 1
I’m not a financial advisor. Right. But you know, we’ve had Tom and Ryan on the show. They’re great over Northwestern Mutual. You know, there’s a number, of others that are out there. Talk to them and see what, see what’s going to work best. Other people, you know, they instead of buying, you know, fancy things, they look to buy real estate, you know, other vehicles that generate income on a monthly basis.

00;35;19;29 – 00;35;35;02
Speaker 1
Not everybody’s comfortable with managing rental properties. And, you know, or has the means to, to do that right away. But a simple way is just to talk some money aside and, yeah, okay, that would be my, my best advice.

00;35;35;05 – 00;35;54;03
Speaker 2
Short answer. Well, well we’ll we’ll revisit it in the longer podcast format because I know, like you said, I use I know some people use trade lines and, and use banks to help with that whole deal of having those, you know, that backup fund for when you, you know, your accounts for schools, not cutting it for payroll that month, and or we can, but, yeah.

00;35;54;04 – 00;36;11;24
Speaker 1
So there’s a there’s a number of different tools to like, you know, if there’s, you know, rather than having money sitting in a savings account, a lot of banks offer, you know, CDs and, you know, cash management funds and stuff like that where, you know, you’re, you’re earning more interest than you would if it were just sitting in a savings account.

00;36;11;28 – 00;36;33;12
Speaker 2
A 1% savings. Yeah. Okay. So let’s move on to step three. Start lean and I, you know, it’s it’s interesting. We were just talking about this a little bit in step two, but I know, you know, the first bullet point you’ve got here. Avoid big equipment purchases until you have paying clients kind of bootstrap your, your, your growth and it’s.

00;36;33;12 – 00;37;05;13
Speaker 2
I can’t remember what podcast it was, but I remember one of our guests, and it might have been Devin, for that matter. Just keep quoting Devin and Gay. But I remember him talking or whoever it was talking about how they see a lot of guys, they start a business, whether it’s a masonry company or a construction company or roofing company in the first thing they do is they go out and they buy that F-150 Dooley’s, you know, big fancy truck, and they get it all lettered up and wrapped, and they probably spend tens of thousands of dollars getting this just the truck.

00;37;05;13 – 00;37;19;27
Speaker 2
Right. And they justify it by being a driving billboard or however they justify it. But, but talk to us a little bit about avoiding, you know, is that necessary? How do they start lean. Like, what do you really need to get started?

00;37;20;00 – 00;37;56;14
Speaker 1
Oh, it’s what I alluded to earlier. You know, we take the the bare essentials that you need to generate revenue and work with what you have, what you know, I’ve, I’ve always kind of just based some of the, the like the vehicles that, you know, we’ve had to add to to our fleet and you know, over time on the simple fact of necessity where, you know, unless my team is coming to me and saying, hey, we are short on vehicles every single day, and, you know, then it’s like, okay, let’s let’s take a look at this.

00;37;56;16 – 00;38;16;08
Speaker 1
But do you really need that? You know, it depends what business you’re into or what business you’re looking to get into. You know, everyone has a different requirement. Like if you’re towing, a dump trailer, it’s going to take a different vehicle. Then, you know, if you’re running around to and from job sites.

00;38;16;11 – 00;38;31;01
Speaker 2
Will it even do you need the trailer? Right? Like you’re going to go out and spend ten grand on a dump trailer that’s going to get used maybe a couple times a month when you could really rent one or borrow one. That’s right. In the beginning, right. You don’t need to go out and buy it in order to have it.

00;38;31;01 – 00;38;45;00
Speaker 2
You just rent it when you need it and then if you find that you’re going to save money by actually purchasing it, now, you can start putting that money to work by purchasing it because you’re using it so much. But you got to get there right? Like you can’t get an.

00;38;45;02 – 00;39;07;20
Speaker 1
Asset versus liability. Right? And I know I’ve always looked at vehicles as a liability. The only good thing with, you know, with buying a vehicle, you know, and I have, I have some family in the car business. So, you know, I, I’ve learned a lot from them over the years, but, you know, your vehicle and and look at ones that are going to hold their value the most.

00;39;07;23 – 00;39;24;03
Speaker 1
Right. Because once you get to a certain point, you know, you might run into some maintenance issues, you might run into a warranty that’s running out. And then what do you do? Right? Because now you’re stuck putting all this money into a vehicle that already has 100,000 miles on it. So it’s just important that you maintain it. Right?

00;39;24;05 – 00;39;39;09
Speaker 1
You look to, you know, if it is in good shape, what is the value on it versus what you owe on it? Can you trade it in for something new? There’s a number of different things that could be a whole nother episode as well. But, yeah, you know, the good thing with a vehicle is you can wrap it, right?

00;39;39;09 – 00;40;16;25
Speaker 1
And then now that the way that I’ve looked at it is that liability becomes more of an asset, because just like renting a billboard space that’s stationary in one place. So only the people traveling that road are going to see it. Now, everybody that you come in contact with, whether it’s, you know, at a gas station, you know, on a job site, I always tell our guys, hey, if we’re up on route nine or, you know, or we’re somewhere at a high traffic area, park it out by the road right now, you’re turning that into an asset to where, if you can leverage it to earn 1 or 2 jobs from people seeing your

00;40;16;25 – 00;40;25;20
Speaker 1
vehicle, well guess what? It’s a different, different story now. Yeah. But yeah, it’s all relative to to what you can do.

00;40;25;22 – 00;40;39;27
Speaker 2
And not getting ahead of yourself. I know it’s it’s interesting because in farming, as I’ve been slowly growing the farm and what we do out here and, and you know, one of the my instinct in the beginning was like, I’m like, oh, well, you know, I got to go spend money on infrastructure. I got to build all this stuff.

00;40;39;27 – 00;41;06;02
Speaker 2
And to be fair, I probably could have spent 100 grand just putting in the stuff that I needed to put in. And but instead of doing that, what I’ve been doing is adding infrastructure based on what the livestock sales are allowing me to add, right? So they pay for themselves, and then they got to pay for the upgrades, and then the upgrades have to allow me to increase my capacity in order to increase my, my sales revenue from it.

00;41;06;03 – 00;41;11;06
Speaker 2
But but I’m not allowed to expand unless they are paying for it. Yeah.

00;41;11;08 – 00;41;14;29
Speaker 1
They’re assets that, you know, they’re, they’re going to pay off. It’s an investment for you.

00;41;15;03 – 00;41;16;27
Speaker 2
Absolutely, absolutely.

00;41;17;00 – 00;41;30;01
Speaker 1
And again, you know, you’re just like with with your farm. I mean, you’re selling what those animals are producing or, or what you’re getting out of it. So the the next bullet point that I had on here is sell, sell, sell without spending on, on marketing.

00;41;30;07 – 00;41;31;27
Speaker 2
Wow. Well.

00;41;31;29 – 00;41;34;15
Speaker 1
And I know that’s going to be a sore spot.

00;41;34;18 – 00;41;35;12
Speaker 2
Hurts.

00;41;35;15 – 00;41;50;25
Speaker 1
No, actually, you know, it’s interesting because you’ve said it many times and it’s on the show. You sent them away because it’s like you don’t really need a marketing company to do what you need to do. So, you know, it’s, not, but it’s the right advice.

00;41;50;25 – 00;42;12;29
Speaker 2
And it is and, and and let me just speak to that from a marketing standpoint. It’s, I mean, first of all, for our listeners, Derek and I are both we both love sales. The selling aspect of what we do is probably the favorite part of the business. We’ve had so many conversations on this, and I do own a marketing company, and I do all the time with especially with new businesses.

00;42;13;00 – 00;42;46;09
Speaker 2
They’re just getting launched and they’re like, well, I need clients, so I need marketing. And I’m always like, no, you don’t need marketing. You need to use your own time and energy and resources to get out there, talk to people, tell them who you are, tell them what you do and get clients in marketing is such a it’s a play for when you are no longer scalable as a salesperson, and you need a method to be able to get who you are and what you do out there to more people and you don’t have the time to do it.

00;42;46;11 – 00;43;11;23
Speaker 2
That’s when marketing comes into play. But before that, God, aside from having a website, do not spend money on marketing. Like wait until you have extra income and you’re going. Now it’s like we talked about before, you’re going to use that extra income to be able to get a return on your investment by investing in marketing with the idea that for every marketing dollar you spend, you’re getting ten back, right?

00;43;11;23 – 00;43;14;18
Speaker 2
Like that’s until that’s the case. Don’t do.

00;43;14;18 – 00;43;44;22
Speaker 1
It. Yeah. No, I mean, that’s what we look at. You know, we look at that metric and where we are compared to to what we do spending. But you, you know, we we got away from doing some of the community based stuff and, you know, the relationship building things and going to events and getting involved. And, you know, this, this community and the podcast has been a big part of us, you know, getting back, you know, involved and, and just giving back and putting good out into the world.

00;43;44;25 – 00;44;07;11
Speaker 1
But, you know, I think all, all people have to do is go out and have a conversation, you know, and go to events, you know, go to networking events, whether it’s with the chamber or whether it’s with, you know, your local business review or, you know, get in front of the people that you know, you want to you want to talk to and have conversations with and actually learn about them and add something of value for them.

00;44;07;14 – 00;44;31;00
Speaker 1
You know, I, I say it all the time to, to our team, you know, here and, and I’m fortunate to have a couple young young business development guys who are learning and you know, the the first thing I said to them today was, you know, what value are we adding for our customers? Because at the end of the day, it’s a relationship building process.

00;44;31;00 – 00;44;57;05
Speaker 1
It’s not a transactional in our business. It’s not transactional. It’s building the relationship over time. And if that customer knows that they can come to you with any problem and you might not be able to solve every problem, but you can certainly help them out and point them in the right direction. Now that takes it from a transactional relationship to, okay, I have your best interest in mind, and when you’re starting out, that’s the best thing that you can do and have those conversations.

00;44;57;05 – 00;45;05;11
Speaker 1
Meet those people, learn about them, see how you can help them, you know, and offer something of value so they’ll give you an opportunity.

00;45;05;14 – 00;45;13;02
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And those are the people I know. You have them. I know I have them people that you work, they they’re still working with you years and years and years later.

00;45;13;09 – 00;45;13;16
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;45;13;23 – 00;45;35;09
Speaker 2
And and not because during that time you didn’t make mistakes or because you didn’t mess up because everybody does, but because you focus so heavily on the relationship that when a mistake happened, when something went the wrong way, you had a good enough relationship to be able to have the conversation with them, make good on it. You know, practice good customer service with them and make it right.

00;45;35;09 – 00;45;39;21
Speaker 2
And because of the relationship, they give you that opportunity. So it’s it’s huge.

00;45;39;23 – 00;45;55;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. And you don’t have to you don’t have to spend on, you know, digital ads and you don’t have to pay Google money to, to do that. Yeah. You can very easily get out there. It’s uncomfortable. Go out and have conversations and, and ask people how you can help them.

00;45;55;06 – 00;46;13;15
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So I know we’re getting short on time. We’ve got, three more steps to go through. We’re going to, do the number four, which is manage your time. And then, for our, our Patreon members, we’re going to jump over and do step by step six, which is knowing when to go full time and then avoiding common mistakes.

00;46;13;15 – 00;46;37;26
Speaker 2
Those will be the two that we cover over on the Patreon side. For you guys that are not familiar with Patreon, Patreon is a membership portal that we’ve used to, release additional content, whether it’s written blogs, other videos that are not on the podcast. I’ve got a marketing, a few marketing videos I’m going to have coming up, built specifically around small business, whether it’s self-employed or, business owners.

00;46;37;28 – 00;46;57;17
Speaker 2
So please check us out. It’s five bucks a month. It’s not a lot of money, but it helps us, pay for the resources we need for the show. So please check it out. Before we go there, though, step number four is manage your time. The. I know we’re going to kind of cover this in a broad spectrum, but let me just list out the three, bullet points that you sent over here.

00;46;57;19 – 00;47;23;17
Speaker 2
One is dedicating evenings and weekends to business tasks to is automate and outsource where possible. And then three set boundaries to prevent burnout. So let’s talk about managing your time yet, you know, I know you and I, over the years we’ve laughed a lot about, you know, the time from 5 p.m. until midnight or 1 a.m. or whatever it is that were on the couch with the laptop.

00;47;23;20 – 00;47;29;02
Speaker 2
Talk about dedicating evenings and weekends to business tasks. What do you mean by that?

00;47;29;04 – 00;47;56;12
Speaker 1
Well, you know, when I say dedicate, it’s you have to prioritize what you need to get done. You know, and, you know, I use, Andy Fasulo talks about this on his podcast. But the the power list rate your top five things that you need to get done. Every day. And I use that. I have a planner, you know, and I have my set tasks that I need to get done for the week.

00;47;56;12 – 00;48;18;09
Speaker 1
And then every day, those are broken down into specific things to accomplish those. So throughout the course of the week, I look back and I say, okay, well, what did I get done? What didn’t I get done? And then at night, you know, that’s the time to, you know, because things happen during the day, right? Especially if you’re working a full time job during the day and, and doing both and the time management piece becomes even more crucial.

00;48;18;09 – 00;48;50;15
Speaker 1
But, you know, just tracking what you’re accomplishing and what you’re doing, and then using that additional time where you’d be watching TV or, you know, picking out a guitar or whatever hobby that you were doing. Right. I, I threw all my hobbies out, like a long time ago, and people really don’t I don’t, a lot of people don’t understand the sacrifice that goes into it where, like, you can’t always get to the gym as much as you had had done in the past.

00;48;50;15 – 00;49;08;09
Speaker 1
You can’t always go to this party or hang out with, you know, these people on the weekend and, you know, go out and party and do all the stuff that’s going to take you away from what you need to focus on. So, you know, there’s a lot of there’s again, this could be a whole nother episode. Yeah.

00;49;08;14 – 00;49;24;29
Speaker 1
Talking about some of that because as you start to grow and progress, some people are going to look at you and say, well, what’s wrong with him? Why aren’t you hanging out with this anymore? Why aren’t you know, we don’t see and you got to be okay with that. So there’s a level of uncomfortability. And that’s what I mean by set boundaries to prevent burnout.

00;49;25;02 – 00;49;44;10
Speaker 1
You only have so many resources. You know, of your time and energy to go around. And people, some people are probably going to be irritated with that. It is what it is. You know, if you got a goal that you want to accomplish and something you want to do, you got to make the necessary adjustments to your schedule to make it happen.

00;49;44;12 – 00;50;06;01
Speaker 1
You know, again, people would I was fortunate when I was younger. I didn’t have a family at the time. But, you know, anybody that does and is in their 30s and 40s and thinking about going down that path and branching out on their own, it becomes even more crucial, right? Because family is most important. So, you know, you got to figure out, okay, what am I going to fit my family time in and what does that look like.

00;50;06;01 – 00;50;33;24
Speaker 1
And and what do I need to do on my end to still get my get my shit done at the end of the day? You know, for me, and the nice part about being able to work from anywhere now is all of that is kind of intertwined. So, you know, from a personal standpoint, you know, I work a regular day from 8:00 in the morning until, you know, five at night and then have my family time for a couple hours, and then I’m back on my computer at night getting done whatever.

00;50;33;24 – 00;50;55;28
Speaker 1
I didn’t get done during the data. So, you know, it just depends. Some nights I’m, I might be on the computer until, you know, midnight, 1:00, other nights I might be done by nine. It just it depends. But as long as you have the discipline to sit there and make sure and hold yourself accountable for the things that you need to get done to get where you want to go, you won’t have an issue.

00;50;56;00 – 00;51;15;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, I know, well, two things I’ll add to that. One is I used to have a boss when I was at Sandler, and they used to talk about pay time versus non-paid time, and what they meant by that was pay time is any time of the day where you need to be doing something that’s going to get you paid.

00;51;15;20 – 00;51;36;03
Speaker 2
Like from a sales standpoint, I can only do cold calls and get in front of clients during a certain time frame. So if it’s in that time frame, that’s what I need to be doing. And it Non-pay time would be something like entering my activity into the CRM for the day. You know, I can do that at night that doesn’t have any kind of pay allocation to it, right?

00;51;36;03 – 00;52;01;25
Speaker 2
That’s just a data and tracking thing. Or like from a business owner standpoint, back when it was just me, you know, I would spend the day, selling websites and then at nighttime I would be building those websites. Right. And or from a contractor standpoint, you might be on a job site working for a customer all day, and then at night you are when it’s, you know, daytime, you’re doing the job that’s paid time.

00;52;01;27 – 00;52;22;03
Speaker 2
Nighttime, on the laptop, on your couch. That’s non-paid time. And you’re doing invoicing and you’re checking receipts and you’re looking at your books and doing those things, because those can happen at any point in time. And it it all ties back with, you know, from a time management standpoint, everybody is not everybody, but most people have heard of the 8020 rule, right?

00;52;22;06 – 00;52;42;21
Speaker 2
And it’s like 80% of the results you’re getting are coming from 20% of the activities you’re doing. And that is based out of something called the Parado principle. Parado was, I think it was an Italian economist way back in the day. And he had noticed with his pea plants in his garden that 80% of his yield came from 20% of his plants.

00;52;42;23 – 00;52;59;19
Speaker 2
Well, Parado is also got a bunch of other things because he was an economist, and one of his other things that most people haven’t heard of. And it relates directly to time management. It’s called the Pareto efficiency. And what that talks about is if you were to look at your day, you’ve got 24 hours in the day, right?

00;52;59;19 – 00;53;14;17
Speaker 2
And there’s some things in those 24 hours that you just can’t get rid of, like you got to sleep for, let’s say six hours. We won’t even go to eight hours sleep. Right? We’ll go six hours. You got to sleep now. You got 18 hours left. An hour of that time is going to be used on eating, right.

00;53;14;17 – 00;53;33;05
Speaker 2
So now you’ve got 15 or 8, 17 hours left to combat a math, you know, and then you’ve got an hour of personal hygiene activities like showering and using the bathroom and brushing your teeth. Right now you just lost another hour. And then you do this, and all of a sudden you’re left with not as much time in the day as you think that you have.

00;53;33;08 – 00;53;48;27
Speaker 2
And you have to make sure you’re going to assign the time you have left. After you do all those things, you can’t avoid how much time you have left and what needs to be allocated, where and when to make sure that it gets done right. And so it’s, you know, I encourage anyone, check out the, parado efficiency.

00;53;48;27 – 00;53;55;28
Speaker 2
Check out check out Parado in general. But, a lot of good stuff from a time management standpoint. So.

00;53;56;00 – 00;53;58;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with all that.

00;53;58;22 – 00;54;01;28
Speaker 2
Got to get it done a lot of late nights on the couch. That’s the cost.

00;54;01;29 – 00;54;18;06
Speaker 1
The listen, you know, there’s so many tools out there now to yeah speed up efficiency. So if you’re not using those tools you should get familiar with them. You know there’s a lot of AI tools and different there’s so much out there. And, you know, there’s a number of things, but take a look at some of those.

00;54;18;06 – 00;54;21;18
Speaker 1
And, and that can really help boost that efficiency as well.

00;54;21;21 – 00;54;37;11
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So listen everybody, we’re going to jump over to the Patreon section here. Cover these last two bullets just in case you missed them the first time I said them. Those last two bullets or steps, I’m sorry that we’re going to cover is it’s going to be knowing when to go full time. And then it’s also going to be avoiding common mistakes.

00;54;37;11 – 00;54;57;27
Speaker 2
So we’re we’re going to spend about 15 minutes talking about that stuff. Jump on over to our Patreon, subscribe to that account please. And of course, you know, if you’re listening to us this your first time, make sure you hit that subscribe that like button. Leave us a review for five stars. And, of course you can always find all of our episodes on our website, Blue Collar Startup audio.

00;54;58;00 – 00;55;10;01
Speaker 2
And then, of course you can listen to us on Rumble YouTube, Apple and Spotify. Thanks, everybody, for listening. And, you’ll hear from us a minute over on the Patreon side.

00;55;10;01 – 00;55;38;07
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;55;38;07 – 00;55;50;17
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;55;50;17 – 00;56;05;29
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;58;50;00 – 00;59;05;12
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;59;05;12 – 00;59;11;27
Speaker 2
all right, everybody, welcome back. We’re still talking about your blueprint for starting a blue collar business while working full time.

00;59;12;03 – 00;59;30;28
Speaker 2
This is steps five and six. The original four steps are going to be over in the main episode that anybody can get for free on Spotify. Rumble, Apple and YouTube. So let’s get right into a D. Step number five is knowing when to go full time. And that means that you are an employee. You’re working for someone.

00;59;30;28 – 00;59;52;22
Speaker 2
You’ve been working on your business nights, weekends, whenever you got time off and you’ve gotten to a point of you are considering like you’d really like to make that jump and go full time with your business. It’s interesting because I actually did last night, and I won’t say who it was, but I had a conversation last night at the, the coalition mixer with someone that I knew had, side hustle.

00;59;52;22 – 01;00;06;12
Speaker 2
And, she was saying she’s like, I was asking her how it’s going. She’s like, it’s going great. She’s like, but honestly, she’s like, I’ve hit the point where I really can’t do any more with my side hustle because I got a full time job and I got, you know, I think I got to keep that full time job.

01;00;06;12 – 01;00;18;09
Speaker 2
I’m not ready to go completely over to owning my own business. So it’s interesting that we’re talking about this today, knowing when to go full time. What does that look like for people?

01;00;18;11 – 01;00;37;27
Speaker 1
I can’t speak for all people. I can, I can, I can share my, you know, my experience and kind of how I, I look at things. But again, if you do some of the, the things that we talked about, you know, in the main episode, steps one through four, you know, it’s going to help with this.

01;00;37;27 – 01;01;05;24
Speaker 1
And, you know, you’ll kind of have a gut feeling when the time is right. And, you know, if you if you have some reserves, you have customers, you have customers who are demanding more from you. Right? And you know that you have work outlined for, I don’t know, a period of six months a year, you know, you know, it’s always nerve wracking.

01;01;05;24 – 01;01;30;02
Speaker 1
And I can tell from my experience, it was, a scary time. And I don’t think that anybody could say or anybody that has made the leap over, can say that it hasn’t been somewhat scary because you go from being comfortable to now relying on yourself and getting out of that comfort zone. And change is always uncomfortable.

01;01;30;05 – 01;01;57;09
Speaker 1
But it’s the looking back. For me, it’s the biggest introduction to being on your own and being in business because everything about business has changed. You know, whether you’re changing systems that you’re using, whether you’re changing and adding new customers, whether you’re changing, you know, there’s so many different things that go on day to day getting that out of the way.

01;01;57;11 – 01;02;27;07
Speaker 1
And then, you know, it starts to make be that change, feel more comfortable. You know, there’s usually and, you know, there may be an event or something that kind of pushes you and says, okay, now is the right time. You know, for me, there, there wasn’t like that big moment, but it was okay, you know, I got to do this now because I have, you know, a number of customers who need more attention.

01;02;27;10 – 01;02;50;16
Speaker 1
And if I don’t do that, they’re going to suffer and I may lose the business. Right. So you got it. You want to get to that point to where the demands are there and in your time, needs to be focused on those key customers to keep delivering. You know, that’s that’s what I did. And luckily, you know, the, the saving part, I was able to do enough of that.

01;02;50;18 – 01;03;08;21
Speaker 1
Before I got started to where, you know, if the bottom did fell out, I would be okay for a month or so. You know, I didn’t. I was fortunate I didn’t have a ton of bills, coming out of out of school, other than, you know, my student loans and you know, everybody situation is different, right?

01;03;08;21 – 01;03;32;08
Speaker 1
You know, you get somebody that does go to trade school, they might not have any. So it all varies. But, you know, the best thing that I think everybody can do is just take a hard look at your situation and weigh what’s out in front of you versus where you’re at now and what the potential could be if you had 100% of your potential, 100% of your attention on your business.

01;03;32;11 – 01;03;49;19
Speaker 2
Do you do you think it’s like you’re kind of given, given a choice and only one choice where it’s like you, you know, it’s time to go full time because in order to continue, you either have to decide if I’m going to keep moving forward or if I’m just going to keep it as a side hustle. Right.

01;03;49;19 – 01;04;05;10
Speaker 2
And that’s kind of like where it’s like, well, if I’m going to keep growing this business, then I have to go full time with it. Like it’s that’s not even a choice or I have to decide that. Just keep it as a side hustle and limit the amount of people I’m working with. Is that a fair statement or what do you think about that.

01;04;05;10 – 01;04;37;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And again, that, you know, it’s a change. So some people may be comfortable making it, others may not be, you know, the it might be something that is a nice side hustle and somebody is comfortable with that and there’s nothing wrong with it. But to be able to devote 100% of your time and attention to, you know, your, your main business and, well, what would now be your, your main business, will help you accelerate and grow.

01;04;37;26 – 01;05;00;02
Speaker 1
As long as you go in with the attitude that I’m not, I’m not quitting and I’m not going to turn back, you know, there’s that mentality of, you know, just I’m going for it and I’m not going to stop and nobody’s going to get my way. And there’s a there’s a lot of psychology that goes along with it.

01;05;00;05 – 01;05;11;08
Speaker 1
And you really have to be in a very positive space, an environment, in order to, to make that transition feel more comfortable. Yeah, that makes sense.

01;05;11;10 – 01;05;12;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

01;05;12;12 – 01;05;31;26
Speaker 1
It’s like you got to you got to put some, some personal thing, like some personal things. And this was part of what I was talking about in the main episode with, you know, as you move along, some, some people are going to be frustrated with what you’re doing and wonder why you’re you’re devoting all your time to work and not enjoying life and having balance.

01;05;31;29 – 01;06;06;00
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. And you have to you’ve got to be comfortable with it and the negativity will bring you down very quickly. You want to surround yourself with positive people you know, not at work, at home, who you can bounce things off of and say, hey, you know, what do you think about this? And here’s where I’m at. You know, a lot of people get caught up in the fact that, you know, they’re still hanging around with some of the same people that, you know, have brought them down for, for a period of time.

01;06;06;00 – 01;06;39;17
Speaker 1
Right? And, you know, that’s not always the case, but, you know, generally, I’ve always been a pretty positive person. So I’ve always kind of gravitated toward people who, you know, have a similar, thought process. And I think that’s really important. So easy to get sucked into what could go wrong. You know, what could happen? Maybe I’m not spending enough time with, you know, this person or that person when at the end of the day, you know, you have to have your best interest in mind.

01;06;39;17 – 01;06;51;14
Speaker 1
And if making that change or, you know, stepping away from, you know, that individual or relationship or whatever the case may be, to be able to make positive change happen, you have to be comfortable doing it.

01;06;51;17 – 01;06;56;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. What’s that saying? You’re the, you’re the some of the five people that you spend the most time with.

01;06;56;11 – 01;06;59;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’m 100% man, right? Yep.

01;06;59;19 – 01;07;21;06
Speaker 2
Now, you know something else that you had put on here. You know, that kind of all segue into step six, right? Of avoiding common mistakes and one of the things that you talked about, just a couple of minutes ago was, was quitting too early. Right. And, you know, the three bullets that we have on here for avoiding common mistakes, don’t quit too early.

01;07;21;06 – 01;07;37;17
Speaker 2
Don’t overspend before validating demand. And don’t ignore marketing. Visibility matters, right? Which we talked a little bit about in the ninth episode. But yeah. So let’s talk about common mistakes. You know, you touched on it when you say don’t quit too early. What does that mean?

01;07;37;20 – 01;08;02;23
Speaker 1
You well, goes back to the marketing piece, right. And you’re starting lean. You’re going to hear know a lot. So if you’re going out having conversations, you may in engage with some people and you know, they might not need your services. Well that’s okay. Right. You’re going to hear no, a lot doesn’t matter in six months, a year that might change, right?

01;08;02;23 – 01;08;34;28
Speaker 1
So just because you hear some, some of the things that you don’t want to right now, don’t quit and keep moving because those no’s could change over the course of time. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened. But it can be frustrating when you’re starting out. You’re signing up customers and, you know, our businesses, contract service based, we have a job to do and a job to fulfill, and our customers depend on that.

01;08;35;00 – 01;09;03;01
Speaker 1
If we don’t deliver, right, they’re they’re not going to continue working with us. You know, and again, every opportunity and that’s happened, you know, to us, you know, it still does occasionally. You know, we have some younger leaders and people who are learning and we make mistakes. Right? But we can either pout in the corner or take a look at, okay, where do we where do we go wrong here?

01;09;03;01 – 01;09;27;26
Speaker 1
What didn’t we do so well and use that as a learning tool for everybody else? So, you know, when you’re floating a customer for 30 days and paying payroll and you haven’t got paid yet? Add that on to hearing. Know a lot and all of the potential head trash of, what if this doesn’t work out or negativity that’s going on, it can get to people.

01;09;27;26 – 01;09;31;16
Speaker 1
And I think that’s the reason why some folks quit too early.

01;09;31;19 – 01;09;52;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, perseverance. I mean, you and I definitely talked about this and, you know, I there is I don’t care what size your businesses are, there are always moments in time. And sometimes it’s weeks. Sometimes it’s months where everything’s going wrong. And it is you are just getting shelled, right. Everything that can break is breaking.

01;09;52;27 – 01;10;15;18
Speaker 2
Everyone that can get pissed is pissed. And you know, a lot of people quit when that happens and they just give up and they throw in the towel. But I have found that typically when those things are happening, I end up being right on the verge of a breakthrough in my business, and that if I persevere through those things on the other side of them is some some good, right and usually some great efforts.

01;10;15;20 – 01;10;27;14
Speaker 2
You know, it forces you obstacles away. It forces you to overcome challenges in your business that make you better as a business. It forces you to level up skills, whatever it is. But you you just you got to persevere. You can’t quit.

01;10;27;16 – 01;10;46;01
Speaker 1
Things are most chaotic before a breakthrough. Yep. Just the way it is. But, Yeah, I, you know, that’s a big, a big thing. And again, back to the, you know, having an emergency fund or whatever in place just to make sure that you can survive those, you know, periods of time. It all ties back into what we talked about earlier.

01;10;46;04 – 01;10;55;03
Speaker 1
And the same thing, a strong pipeline, a strong pipeline of book work. So having the confidence of knowing that, you know, you have stuff out in front of you as well, helps to offset that.

01;10;55;05 – 01;11;02;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. What about, you got on here? Don’t overspend before validating demand.

01;11;02;23 – 01;11;42;07
Speaker 1
You know, again, it’s it’s a constant weighing of what makes sense for your, your business and do I really need that piece of equipment or do I really need that vehicle? It could be anything. Right? Do I need to put this new, operational software system in. Right. There’s so many different variables out there that, you know, you want to make sure that you evaluate what your return is going to be on that in terms of save labor, save materials, customer satisfaction.

01;11;42;07 – 01;12;05;26
Speaker 1
Right. There’s a number of things that you can look at, but you don’t want to take a plunge that you know, okay, now you’re in, an agreement to pay for a piece of equipment over the course of three years, or whatever the case may be, 3 or 4 years or five years. And now you you’re putting yourself in a position where you’re overextended.

01;12;06;27 – 01;12;13;29
Speaker 2
That’s like I, you know, it makes me think about here on the farm. I could really use skid steer, and there’s.

01;12;14;01 – 01;12;15;09
Speaker 1
Know, it’d be fun to drive around.

01;12;15;09 – 01;12;34;14
Speaker 2
I’m sure it would. It would. I could also really use a mini ax, but, you know, just like in the skid steer, like, yeah, I could buy the skid steer. It’s going to cost. Let’s just say I buy a used one and I’m able to find it for 60 grand, you know, and then, I buy an attachment, let’s say one of the I’m going to use it for digging post holes for all the fencing I got to do.

01;12;34;14 – 01;12;49;15
Speaker 2
And I’m going to use it for, you know, splitting wood for all the wood that I, I, chop every year for the farm and now but when I cost just those two things, that’s really only the use that I have for it. Other than the fun shit, I’m going to come up with to do with it. But it’s like that.

01;12;49;18 – 01;13;04;20
Speaker 2
Okay, well, if I were to buy that $60,000 machine. Right. And so I’m overspending, before I’m validating demand because I don’t really have the demand for that machine. Most of the time it’s going to sit empty. So why am I spending that money? I just go rent one when I need one and then bring it back when I’m done.

01;13;04;20 – 01;13;22;00
Speaker 2
And now I can work to turn that into an asset rather than a liability. Right. But it it’d be great to have. But yeah, but the current use case I have for that machine, it would take me 50 years to get a return on investment on it, and then it would not even be a good return on investment because it’s going to break down.

01;13;22;00 – 01;13;38;14
Speaker 2
It’s going to get old, you know. So it’s, I just think it’s really important that, you know, not overspending before validating demand, like, don’t buy shit based on what you think demand is going to be. Validate that demand first and then spend appropriately. Right. Like.

01;13;38;16 – 01;13;42;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. What’s nice to have or you know what you need to have.

01;13;42;24 – 01;13;44;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. What’s going to help move your business forward.

01;13;45;00 – 01;13;45;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely.

01;13;46;02 – 01;14;03;21
Speaker 2
I heard, you know, one last thing on that I it, it’s because I use this all the time and I should mention it is that when making business decisions or when making a hiring decision or purchasing or software, whatever it is I always think about is this going to be a propeller for my business or is it going to be an anchor?

01;14;03;23 – 01;14;20;28
Speaker 2
Right? Is this person a propeller for my business, or are they going to be an anchor? And looking at it that way, whether it’s a financial propeller or a workforce propeller or whatever it is like, I need things that are going to help propel my business forward, not be big, heavy anchors that are we’re dragging along and we’ve got to work extra hard to keep dragging them.

01;14;21;01 – 01;14;21;25
Speaker 1
So exact.

01;14;21;25 – 01;14;34;00
Speaker 2
But all right, last bullet point under avoiding common mistakes. And then, we’ll get out of here. Don’t ignore marketing visibility matters. And I know in the free up.

01;14;34;02 – 01;14;35;25
Speaker 1
That I put that on the list for you, Mike.

01;14;35;29 – 01;14;59;20
Speaker 2
You to to help me, I appreciate that. It’s, it’s I think it is an important mistake not to ignore. Yeah. You know, like we said earlier, don’t spend money on marketing when you’re first launching your business. But marketing in and of itself isn’t necessarily just paying a company like mine to do advertising for you or do all these sophisticated marketing schemes.

01;14;59;23 – 01;15;26;12
Speaker 2
Marketing is anything you do that generates interest in your product or service, and that includes networking. That includes being out in public, community service, you know, donating your time. I think about like, Matt Witt back at the, with the coalition, and you know, I said it during the thing last night, but every time I hear Matt’s name, it is not attached to his construction company necessarily.

01;15;26;12 – 01;15;47;18
Speaker 2
It’s I mean, it is because it’s web based construction, but what it is, is that people are talking about him and all the great work he’s doing in the community that really has no benefit to him financially, right? Like he is doing all these good works and that is great marketing. Yeah, I think we call it goodwill marketing and we do a ton of it as well.

01;15;47;21 – 01;16;05;00
Speaker 2
Any goodwill we can put out there when somewhere in the background, our company name, and we don’t even draw a lot of visibility to it. But you know that any goodwill we can put out in the community is great marketing. And it other than your time, it doesn’t cost you anything, right? But it makes you visible. It puts you out there.

01;16;05;00 – 01;16;13;29
Speaker 2
People get to know you, who you are, and then they start to learn about your company and it’s, you know, you don’t have to spend money to do great marketing.

01;16;14;01 – 01;16;50;28
Speaker 1
No, you know, building and to, to tie into that when somebody is first, you know, starting out, you don’t have to overthink. Yep. You don’t have to overthink, but you want to plan for a brand that you can expand on, and you want to have a logo that you know is going to be recognizable, visible. You know, there’s a number of things just, you know, and it’s taken, you know, years for us to develop, you know, hours into what it is now.

01;16;51;01 – 01;17;20;08
Speaker 1
But you start with something that’s there. So some of the basic things, you know, having, a logo, something that’s recognizable, your, your contact information is there so people can get Ahold of you easily. You know, you’re going to. You want to look professional from the beginning is what I’m getting at. And that professionalism should carry through to what the end customer receives.

01;17;20;10 – 01;17;47;27
Speaker 1
So, you know, if you’re marketing yourself in a way that’s consistent with the results that you’re producing, you know, you will gradually, you know, without spending, you know, dollars on Google ads and everything else. You will organically drive traffic, to your website or you’ll you’ll drive it to your cell phone directly from referrals. You know, people will get to know you based off of the work that you do.

01;17;47;29 – 01;17;51;23
Speaker 2
Absolutely. That’s probably a great spot to end the day.

01;17;51;25 – 01;17;53;10
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01;17;53;13 – 01;18;12;04
Speaker 2
Appreciate everyone for listening. I appreciate you for being a, Patreon member here with us at the Blue Collar start up. You know, again, if you are listening, we’re going to when this comes out inside the portal, we will make sure that the outline the put together for the show is there. So you can kind of see the bullet points, you know, use them as a checklist, use them as a guide.

01;18;12;11 – 01;18;35;11
Speaker 2
I think they’re very well suited, for moving from that employee to that self-employed part of the Cashflow Quadrant, in a very closely in the future episode, we’ll talk about moving from self-employed to business owner, because that’s a whole nother ball of wax. What it takes from going from self-employed to having an actual business. You any closing thoughts?

01;18;35;12 – 01;18;36;25
Speaker 2
Any last words?

01;18;36;28 – 01;18;54;20
Speaker 1
No. Just anybody that they have. Any questions? Comments? Anything else that they would want to hear us talk about? Feel free to reach out. You know, reach out through the website, or email, you know, try it on the site. So feel free to reach out, drop any questions in there or happy to help out.

01;18;54;23 – 01;19;17;07
Speaker 1
You know, and there’s always things that you can do to, to, to grow your own personal brand, whether you’re, you’re an employee who, you know, has a desire to grow within a company or somebody who’s looking to transition and operate their own business, you know, there’s nothing wrong with either path. But, you know, all of these tools are applicable, you know, on on both, both ends of the spectrum.

01;19;17;10 – 01;19;23;21
Speaker 2
I love it. Thanks. D thanks for listening. You’ll hear from us next week, everybody.

01;19;23;21 – 01;19;51;27
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

01;19;51;27 – 01;20;04;07
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

01;20;04;07 – 01;20;19;17
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.