Category: Uncategorized

How I went from $0/month – $80,000/month in 90 days with my Service-based business.

I strongly believe that right now is the best time in history to start a service-based business over something like an e-commerce business.

There are so many obstacles for e-commerce brands right now that include things such as:

  • Huge increases in full shipping container prices $2,000 -> $25,000.
  • Large increase in cost of ads on google, facebook, and instagram.
  • Long shipping delays from overseas.

Right now there is so much pent up demand for services in every industry you can think of, whether it be pool cleaning, plumbers, power washing, pest control, movers, etc.

This is especially true in cities where many individuals have moved to recently such as parts of Florida, Texas, and Tennesse.

It is shocking to hear some of the lead times for many of there service based businesses when you call them for a quote and an estimated time of arrival.

Many of these businesses have so much demand that they are able to charge whatever they want and still have back logs of up to weeks until someone can get to you.

I saw big opportunity in the Residential Firewood Delivery Space in my hometown. Most firewood guys were not raising any of their prices based on the what the market could comfortably handle.

Starting from Zero.

So how did I grow so fast in the first 90 days? I made sure I had the systems, software, and the supply in place.

$80,000 in residential deliveries is a decent amount of firewood. I made sure that I have the entire system down from the time someone clicked on one of our ads to the minute we showed up at their house for delivery.

Below is what the flow chart looks like:

Google Ads -> Phone call/order online -> Monday.com CRM -> Designated delivery time and money collected -> Driver assigned -> order completed and marked fulfilled.

How we did it: Ads + Referrals + word of mouth = $80,000 month (by the way we only spent $3,000 in ads that month).

We also were diligent to collect every bit of data from our customers that we could. By the end of the winter season. we had over 800 customers information that we can readily market to month after month.

This business is somewhat seasonal in nature, but we realized it doesn’t have to be. By getting peoples email addresses we are able to now incentivize purchases throughout the year during the off season at a better price, so that we can alleviate some of the fulfillment during peak season.

This will allow us to capture more customers who call in during peak season and provide them with a faster service time as well.

All in all, the secret is in getting the customer data. The data allows you to communicate with your customers and get order after order. You can also use your list to ask for reviews, referrals, and spreading the word.

We were able to get 75, 5-star reviews and dozens of referrals within the span of 3 months. This propelled us naturally on google in terms of our ranking. We now do better than firewood companies that have been around for over a decade.

Please feel free to leave me any questions or comments on this article.

How to start a business from scratch online.

I have recently launched my second legitimate business this year.  Starting a new business with $0 revenue is no joke.  I once heard a great analogy that starting a business is like trying to push a train at rest by yourself.

In the beginning it seems almost impossible…  everything is hard, you don’t seem to see any immediate signs of improvement, and you may even doubt yourself or your initial plan.

I have heard from several different sources that if your business is not generating a decent amount of profit around year 2 or 3, you should take it out back and “kill it”.  To me this sounds very realistic, as I have found you can easily prove proof of concept these days with the ease of technology and the leveraging of various platforms.

In my opinion, the most important part of starting and keeping a business afloat is cashflow, marketing, and sales. 

At this point in time, there are certainly platforms that are less expensive and much more effective for conversions.

From everything I have read and from friends of mine who run online businesses, instagram, google and twitter are the platforms that you want to be spending your time and money on.

I currently run a successful advertisements on google for my business. Our average sale price is $349. Right now we spend about $100/day on google and generate anywhere from $500-$3,000 per day in revenue depending on the weather (hint).

Another great resource is to use instagram influencers to drive sales and promotions to your page.  I have buddies that either pay flat rates or percentages to instagram influencers in exchange for a certain amount of promotions on their pages.

If you are selling an info product or physical product, your best course of action will certainly being reading books to get started and watching youtube videos of people who have done what you want to start.

This book by Russell Brunson called Expert Secrets. is great for people wanting to start their own personal brand or sell digital products. For physical products I recommend Ryan Moran’s book 12 months to 1 million.

These types of books, coupled with online marketing + good ads to a landing page are certainly a formula for success, with either a new product or a proven product.

Whatever you are getting into, make sure you are prepared mentally and financially so that you are able to “weather the storm”.  Don’t become another statistic.  Most important of all, be PATIENT and believe in the process!

The best part about starting an online business and selling something like a digital product is that you can get feedback immediately in the form of interest or no interest.

That period of testing your product can be done quickly and very inexpensively.

It quickly validates your product(s) for you so you don’t have to sit there and waste any time. For most of you, your first business is not going to be a home run.

The more chances you have at bat, the better the opportunity that you will eventually hit a home run. It’s a numbers game.

So much of success is luck and timing. People that make it do not give enough credit to those two. If you think about it, they under emphasize those because it takes away credit from the individual themselves.

Stay the course and realize that this journey can take you anywhere. The path is never clear cut for most entrepreneurs. Don’t be resist to change and don’t let you ego stop you from making the right decisions!

You can find either of these Books below:

12 months to 1 million – Ryan Daniel Moran

Expert Secrets – Russel Brunson

Happy Hunting!

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5 Steps to a Great Direct Mail Campaign.

Everywhere you look, people are all running loads of digital ads whether a company is large or in the start-up phase. It is clearly the popular thing to do in order to acquire customers these days.

I agree that digital marketing is a must, BUT there is HUGE opportunity in direct mail depending on what market you are in. This is especially true if you own a service-based business.

According to Go Inspire Group, direct mail campaigns generate five times more purchases than email campaigns. THATS CRAZY. It makes you wonder why that is the case?

I would argue that is comes down to laziness. It’s much harder to set up a direct mail campaign (especially one that is effective). However, wouldn’t you invest the time to set up a mailer if you could get 5x the results?

That answer for me was a clear YES. I like making more money, don’t you?

Let me share the exact steps I took to set up our mailer campaign, it could be worth thousands of dollars to you. It was to us.

Step #1: You need to target your ideal customer’s zip code(s). For my business, we market to higher income earners that have plenty of disposable income. There are SEVERAL zip codes in our area that would fit the mold for an ideal mailing. To start, we just picked one. It had 4,200 addresses in within the zip code.

Step #2: Figure out how to make your customers open these mailings. Once you figure out WHO needs to get these mailings, you now need to get them to OPEN the mailer. I know this sounds simple and ridiculous to mention, but there is a reason almost no “junk” mail gets opened these days.

So how do you get them to open the mailer? We have found this to be the most effective way to get people to open up your offer. This is clearly due to the curiosity that these create for the mail recipient. For example, It’s not likely you would throw away a bubble mailer if you feel some kind of item is inside of it. It makes you want to open it and find out what it is! For our offer, we chose to use a physical pair of dice to put inside the mailer.

Step #3: Once the mailer is sent, you need to GRAB their attention Immediately. You spent the money to get the mail to them and now their eyeballs are on your letter. How do you get them to read it?

You need to make sure that your Headline is HUGE and in bold and “pops”. It needs to be totally relevant to the item you chose to send to your customer. As I mentioned before, we chose the pair of dice.

Why the dice? Last year, we had one of the worst winters on record in terms of unexpected snow fall. It drove sales in our industry through the roof. There were hundreds of thousands of people that probably has wished they had had firewood during that time.

So our messaging around this is very clear to all our new customers we are trying to acquire:

Remember, the headline is the attention-getter and is going to be relevant to the item in the mailer. Now that you have their attention and they are engaged, you can now present your offer. Make sure to make it compelling!

IMPORTANT – If you are a seasonal business, all of this needs to be timed perfectly when you are on your customers mind. Since we do commercial and residential firewood, a mailing during the first cold snap or right before, is ideal for us. Make sure you take that into consideration for your product/market.

Step #4: Present the Offer with Urgency & Make it a No-Brainer.

Below is our offer to our customers from that same mailer. With this offer, we have the best price in the city, and we are offering additional incentives such as free delivery and stacking on top of it all.

Make sure to put a deadline in here for your customers to benefit from this offering or else they will either not act on it, or wait until its too late.

We want our customers to order ASAP. We know that we are going to be going like gang-busters starting in October, so we want to have them order now. This will hopefully do three things for us: Increase our cash-flow, take demand off of us during the height of the season, and finally get their order early so that we can benefit from word of mouth and referrals from these customers!

Recap of benefits on our mailer.

When presenting your offer, make it clear, concise, and right to the point. I like using bullet points so that the customer can quickly identify the offering.

Step #5: Make sure that you have tracking in place for the offer. If you are doing larger mailings, this can get very expensive. You need to make sure you are profitable from these mailings. Make sure to add a coupon code that your customer can enter at checkout so that you know how many took advantage of your offer.

For us, we took the zip codes name, and then added the dollar amount off to make the coupon code, so we know exactly how that zip code performs.

Here is the example – “Steiner25”.

Final note on this: By putting the name of the community as the code, it gives the customer a feeling of personalization, and it will be easier for them to remember. When it comes to word of mouth, this will also help spread the word to others and lead to a more accurate account of how well the campaign did since you can track it all.

Best of luck to you all out there. Please share with us if you were able to implement this in the comments section!

Email for Marketing Example.

Everywhere you look, people are all running loads of digital ads whether a company is large or in the start-up phase. It is clearly the popular thing to do in order to acquire customers these days.

I agree that digital marketing is a must, BUT there is HUGE opportunity in direct mail depending on what market you are in. This is especially true if you own a service-based business.

According to Go Inspire Group, direct mail campaigns generate five times more purchases than email campaigns. THATS CRAZY. It makes you wonder why that is the case?

I would argue that is comes down to laziness. It’s much harder to set up a direct mail campaign (especially one that is effective). However, wouldn’t you invest the time to set up a mailer if you could get 5x the results?

That answer for me was a clear YES. I like making more money, don’t you?

Let me share the exact steps I took to set up our mailer campaign, it could be worth thousands of dollars to you. It was to us.

Step #1: You need to target your ideal customer’s zip code(s). For my business, we market to higher income earners that have plenty of disposable income. There are SEVERAL zip codes in our area that would fit the mold for an ideal mailing. To start, we just picked one. It had 4,200 addresses in within the zip code.

Step #2: Figure out how to make your customers open these mailings. Once you figure out WHO needs to get these mailings, you now need to get them to OPEN the mailer. I know this sounds simple and ridiculous to mention, but there is a reason almost no “junk” mail gets opened these days.

So how do you get them to open the mailer? We have found this to be the most effective way to get people to open up your offer. This is clearly due to the curiosity that these create for the mail recipient. For example, It’s not likely you would throw away a bubble mailer if you feel some kind of item is inside of it. It makes you want to open it and find out what it is! For our offer, we chose to use a physical pair of dice to put inside the mailer.

Step #3: Once the mailer is sent, you need to GRAB their attention Immediately. You spent the money to get the mail to them and now their eyeballs are on your letter. How do you get them to read it?

You need to make sure that your Headline is HUGE and in bold and “pops”. It needs to be totally relevant to the item you chose to send to your customer. As I mentioned before, we chose the pair of dice.

Why the dice? Last year, we had one of the worst winters on record in terms of unexpected snow fall. It drove sales in our industry through the roof. There were hundreds of thousands of people that probably has wished they had had firewood during that time.

So our messaging around this is very clear to all our new customers we are trying to acquire:

Remember, the headline is the attention-getter and is going to be relevant to the item in the mailer. Now that you have their attention and they are engaged, you can now present your offer. Make sure to make it compelling!

IMPORTANT – If you are a seasonal business, all of this needs to be timed perfectly when you are on your customers mind. Since we do commercial and residential firewood, a mailing during the first cold snap or right before, is ideal for us. Make sure you take that into consideration for your product/market.

Step #4: Present the Offer with Urgency & Make it a No-Brainer.

Below is our offer to our customers from that same mailer. With this offer, we have the best price in the city, and we are offering additional incentives such as free delivery and stacking on top of it all.

Make sure to put a deadline in here for your customers to benefit from this offering or else they will either not act on it, or wait until its too late.

We want our customers to order ASAP. We know that we are going to be going like gang-busters starting in October, so we want to have them order now. This will hopefully do three things for us: Increase our cash-flow, take demand off of us during the height of the season, and finally get their order early so that we can benefit from word of mouth and referrals from these customers!

Recap of benefits on our mailer.

When presenting your offer, make it clear, concise, and right to the point. I like using bullet points so that the customer can quickly identify the offering.

Step #5: Make sure that you have tracking in place for the offer. If you are doing larger mailings, this can get very expensive. You need to make sure you are profitable from these mailings. Make sure to add a coupon code that your customer can enter at checkout so that you know how many took advantage of your offer.

For us, we took the zip codes name, and then added the dollar amount off to make the coupon code, so we know exactly how that zip code performs.

Here is the example – “Steiner25”.

Final note on this: By putting the name of the community as the code, it gives the customer a feeling of personalization, and it will be easier for them to remember. When it comes to word of mouth, this will also help spread the word to others and lead to a more accurate account of how well the campaign did since you can track it all.

Best of luck to you all out there. Please share with us if you were able to implement this in the comments section!

Want more in-depth tips to scale your business fast and profitably? Smash that subscribe button below!