When I was 12, we moved into a one industry town with a booming population of 5,000. Jobs for moody teenagers were in short supply, the pickings for preteens even worse. My five siblings and I decided that if we were going to make money, we had to start up our own business.
We looked around at what we had and our shiny red lawnmower caught our attention. We had a lawn. It needed cutting. The neighbors had a lawn. It needed cutting too.
So our yard care business was born. During the summer, we’d cut lawns. During the spring and autumn, we’d rake leaves. The winter meant snow shoveling.
My learning:
Customers have to be sold to. There was no one knocking on our door asking to be signed up for our yard care service. Nope. We had to knock on their doors. We snagged those first customers because we asked them to be customers. If someone else had asked, they would have received the business.
The cheapie customers are just as high maintenance as the high paying clients. We had a flexible charge out rate, charging based on the size of the lawn and how much we figured the customer could afford. What we noticed was that it didn’t matter what we were charging, the expected service was the same.
Self employment brings more control. I saw friends get jobs and then lose jobs based on the amount of work the business brought in. They didn’t directly influence the business’ success. They were at the mercy of the owner. In the yard care business, we knew how to make more money. Make more sales calls. Money came after completing the work which came after landing the sale which came after approaching prospects.