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Living the dream/ Phase 1 - The first crossroads

Wnyhg said:
That’s awesome. I’m happy to hear its working out. What does your T-shirt say, btw? Just curious.

It’s not my business that I’m looking to promote; I read your previous post. It’s a young man that I’ve known since pretty much the day he was born who’s moved back into the area and recently married.

He opened a rustproofing shop for cars and prior to that was a mechanic for Harley Davidson. He quit after they didn’t promote him and he set his own shop up. He’s an awesome mechanic who’s self taught and I wish the best for him. A
Unfortunately, , he may not be efficient with his time and is learning the ropes with Google ads and FB etc. His business cards stink to high heaven. My dad’s presbyopic( read as very old), and couldn’t even read his cards.

So yeah, just helping out a friend.

Make sure you knock on the doors of the three houses on each side of the ones you’ll work on. You’ll know when you’ve reached your limit of cold knocking. Let’s go!!!!

One more thing: Fuck heights.
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Thanks!

I don't have a branded t-shirt but use a smart navy blue jacket, matching hat and jeans plus my safety boots

That sounds like an awesome business. I'll keep updating to see how the advertising experiment goes. I've released a new ad with a lot more copy and will run it for a week to see how it does.

Nothing wrong with heights, only with descending too quickly!
 
I've had a very dull week at work running some very repetitive tests which have taken up all of my time there. The management are obviously getting stressed out about their end of year deadlines and I found them to be quite snappy with their damands. Needless to say I did not like this one bit. I could step it up another gear or two at work but honestly it's just a means to an end so I've been coasting doing an adequate amount of work, but nothing exceptional like I did at my last place. There is also quite a bad atmosphere there and the managers have bad reputations with the staff and I'm beginning to see why.

This brings me to my escape plan and the weekends work - going back to the first place to finish this tomorrow morning then straight off to another one after. I've taken photos and videos with my dslr camera which I'll cut I to a promotional video for more ads.
I also upsold a garage and conservatory clean and bit off way more than I can chew haha. The owner was really pleased with today's progress however.

Also talked about cleaning the roof for the gutter cleaning customer and gave him a quote.

Everything is coming together but I'm playing on hard mode right now.
I'm paying off the coaching and living in an expensive place in the city centre. If I quit my job today I would have two months of cash before I ran out, ideally I'd like three and to have worked out the demand for different services depending on the season. It also means that upgrading my equipment is a lot slower as my expenses aren't all covered by my day-job, I actually need to have work on the side to survive.

I moved to this location to prioritise getting laid, went on a fun run, then found someone amazing and haven't been using the location so now it's a bit of a burden.
The positive of staying here is now that my contract is done I can rent monthly with a month's notice if I leave.
I like this because if things go to shit at work and I can't get another job in time/ make enough through my business, it gives me the option of moving back with my parents, which will be a gut punch but I can also scale my business and build up a lot of money quickly if I'm living back there for 6 months or so.

The only downside to this is that I won't be able to see M anymore, I really enjoy my time with her and we are building something good together. I might tell her what I'm working through and see what she sais.
The last thing I want to do is hurt someone who I'm really happy to have in my life.

Anyway, I had a blast on these jobs today and my ADD brain is so calm and focused while doing this kind of work.
My customers also brought me a lot of food today so I need to be careful and bring healthy stuff out with me in future.
 
Really good stuff, man, and the future is bright for you.

We can dig into a lot, and get you geared up to be an absolute killer.

When I get my car back, I'll come say hi, I'll be here for about 1-2 months before going to NYC

-Ravi
 
The weekend turned out to be both my busiest in terms of working hours and my highest paying by a big margin.

I've also found a way to make this type of work way more efficient if I can get more booked.

I upsold another job: cleaning window sills and really want to take a crack at cleaning the driveway and patio if they are interested.

I went into work feeling quite drawn out today as its been three weeks straight working now.
I've found some interesting things:
- My short-term memory and retention decreases
- I become more irritable and want to do basic tasks with a lot of speed to get them done but get frustrated at complex things
- Most interesting to me is that I get a feeling of paranoia and start viewing people as my enemies in subtle ways.
I regards for my work situation I was actually able to voice to management that I have concerns with the workload and schedule. Which they understood and were very sympathetic towards. This is good as its a great example of me building up a conflict in my head from some loose data points, building a false narrative around the work dynamics and then finding out I was pleasantly wrong.
I must remind myself of this and my brains ability to subtly colour my experiences one way or another, especially when pushing myself - which I want to continue to do.

Because of this I'm having a chilled out evening of doing absolutely nothing.

New leads:
I'll post my latest Facebook ad. I've upped the spending amount. So far booked one job from it which is less than I thought and maybe a sign I need to move towards other services like pressure washing now that spring is here. I won't know this for sure until I get a good 6 hours or so of door-knocking done.
 
MakingAComeback said:
Really good stuff, man, and the future is bright for you.

We can dig into a lot, and get you geared up to be an absolute killer.

When I get my car back, I'll come say hi, I'll be here for about 1-2 months before going to NYC

-Ravi
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Hell yeah! Appreciate it. Its been so much fun figuring this business stuff out.
Definitely man, let me know when your about 😁
 
Work is going pretty bad, it was just a stop-gap anyway but I'm anticipating having a meeting with management fairly soon where I have to say I'm not up for the job. Doesn't help either that the guy who is training me is telling me how much he doesn't like it here.

I have the cash for two months if I made £0 during this time and a monthly basis to my rent with one month's notice if I want to move.
I spoke to M and she actually didn't think my plan was too bad surprisingly. I will speak to my parents incase shit goes south and I have to move back in for a bit to rebuild my funds.

Otherwise what if I knocked doors for 8hrs straight each day, ran adverts and offered a range of services?
I didnt move here to get stuck in traffic driving to a job I dont like every day. Surely its quicker to just go for what I want which right now is my business?
Then if it goes wrong quickly build cash back up living a home for a few months then get back out there and try again but way better prepared and with all the equipment purchased already.

I thinking of saying fuck it and running the gauntlet.

If anyone thinks this is a shit idea or has any thoughts I'd appreciate any other perspectives.
 
Sewerdog said:
Then if it goes wrong quickly build cash back up living a home for a few months then get back out there and try again but way better prepared and with all the equipment purchased already.
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I think it was MILFandCookies who said in a podcast with MakingAComeback, when you are an entrepreneur you have no ceiling, but also no floor.

You seem to have your floor/worst case scenario set out, 2 months of expenses saved up if you earned absolutely £0 (I find this hard to believe that it would be the case based on how you've been doing up until now), and you mention can just move back in with your parents and build up cash again. You will not be homeless out on the streets.

I'm not sure what your main job is right now, hopefully it's something that's in demand and you can get another role at another company easily if you need to. Would kind of lessen the risk that way?

But yeah, of course I don't know the finer details of your life exactly but as far as I am aware you don't have any dependants or anything, you seem pretty risk tolerable right now.

See what others here maybe think too and really have a think about it before you decide, but I don't anticipate answers from this place being like "no you should stay at the job you say you hate and not go for it", y'know?
 
Ryval said:
Sewerdog said:
Then if it goes wrong quickly build cash back up living a home for a few months then get back out there and try again but way better prepared and with all the equipment purchased already.
Click to expand...

I think it was @MILFandCookies who said in a podcast with @MakingAComeback, when you are an entrepreneur you have no ceiling, but also no floor.

You seem to have your floor/worst case scenario set out, 2 months of expenses saved up if you earned absolutely £0 (I find this hard to believe that it would be the case based on how you've been doing up until now), and you mention can just move back in with your parents and build up cash again. You will not be homeless out on the streets.

I'm not sure what your main job is right now, hopefully it's something that's in demand and you can get another role at another company easily if you need to. Would kind of lessen the risk that way?

But yeah, of course I don't know the finer details of your life exactly but as far as I am aware you don't have any dependants or anything, you seem pretty risk tolerable right now.

See what others here maybe think too and really have a think about it before you decide, but I don't anticipate answers from this place being like "no you should stay at the job you say you hate and not go for it", y'know?
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For sure, this was very insightful. And the upside is I have been able to out-earn my job while working fewer hours.
 
My gutter cleaning ad has just about paid for itself with leads which is interesting. There is some work still out there but maybe less.

Setting up my pressure washing equipment and gonna clean m's driveway and use it for a jet washing ad set.

Other avenues:
Google ads - still to set up
Join and message local groups
Nextdoor
Emailing businesses (b2b copywriting)
Sell roof cleaning/driveway cleaning from door-knocking
Roof and driveway/patio cleaning ads

Work: (Lab analyst)
Is actually a disaster and I feel bad for the people training me when my hearts not in it. For the wage it offers I thought I could coast but the people working here are getting paid poorly to do a shit ton of work and often working overtime unpaid!
I usually pick up lab work very quickly but this time it feels like I have ADD and get distracted within seconds and don't retain any information. Probably because I don't want to be there.

Ideally I'd like a three month cash buffer as it gives me way more time to maneuver and find out where the money is. I know I can door knock all day if needed but I want to know what services to target.

Re-affirms making money as my no.1 goal.
 
Did three jobs today.
Two from facebook ads and one from doorknocking.
I'm gonna take tomorrow off from work and see how many I can do in a day of door to door from 9-5.

I think as long as there's a lot of rain there will always be a gutter season. But I must really smash out the numbers to confirm this for myself.

I spoke to both customers from the ads and they told me that there's loads of gutter cleaning adverts. The first guy actually told me he tried to contact the cleaner who usually does it but he didn't respond which is why he went with me.
Maybe the sheer competition online is why door to door has been better than running ads and most people don't really enjoy door to door sales because you can go hours getting nothing one day or get back to back houses on another.

I've also hatched a crazy life plan that's got me very excited: what if I lived out of a van and kept my equipment in a storage locker?
Shits got me very excited and would be incredibly economical. I could basically do whatever I want and make loads of cash with my business but also have basically zero overheads if I wasn't making any money 🤔

I'm going to shelve the ad I'm currently running and work on my pressure washing and roof cleaning ad set next.
 
Landed two gutter jobs today.
I booked a roof cleaning job on Saturday which I'm very excited about!

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

I actually really enjoy this type of selling and probably knocked 100 or so. Every one was very polite aside from one old man who waved me away without opening the door but he was clearly in pain.
I'm really focused on finding the people who want the service doing so it feels almost like sifting and the no's mean nothing.

Gave a quote for driveway cleaning to the first gutter customer.

Handed out a lot of flyers too.

If this roof cleaning job comes through I'll have made as much as my job in about three days.

I was out for 7 hrs today, 4 door knocking and three doing the jobs themselves. Went back early because I'd run out of water and needed to call my property manager as the landlord has proposed a new contract but I want a release clause before I commit.
 
Sewerdog said:
spoke to both customers from the ads and they told me that there's loads of gutter cleaning adverts
Click to expand...

You can find your competing gutter companies on Facebook and you can see (in ads library) all the ads they’re running/have run in the past, and who they’re targeting. Then you use their best engaging ones for improving your ads. Steal their best ideas and use them. If they’ve run an ad for a while it’s probably because roas is good.
 
A tough day door to door. Lots of people didn't seem interested at all even on properties that visibly needed it. The good weather may mean people aren't interested in having it done and I wonder if the season is drawing to a close.
Gave a few quotes and a lot of flyers and ended up unblocking a single downspout for a tiny bit of cash.
Very much hoping the roof clean goes well.

I've been thinking about window cleaning again for getting repeat customers on a monthly or bi-monthly basis as it will allow me to upsell a whole range of other jobs that may need doing.
This way my time door knocking actually builds a business up instead of being good for just cash flow.
I need to do yet more research but I've built up the funds to get more equipment.

Antonio44 said:
Sewerdog said:
spoke to both customers from the ads and they told me that there's loads of gutter cleaning adverts
Click to expand...

You can find your competing gutter companies on Facebook and you can see (in ads library) all the ads they’re running/have run in the past, and who they’re targeting. Then you use their best engaging ones for improving your ads. Steal their best ideas and use them. If they’ve run an ad for a while it’s probably because roas is good.
Click to expand...

Dude, this is genius! Thanks for sharing, never would have thought to do that. I'm going to do this for all of my adverts from now on.

I'm happy with my new ability to knock doors for hours and I have gathered more data so pleased with the last couple days.
Will be back to work for the rest of the week but spending a couple hours each evening to figure out lead generation.
 
I checked out my competition on Facebook and my page is actually pretty solid compared to what's out there.

I found another good way of advertising which is to find community groups based on area and make posts in there, the ones I saw were all from personal accounts - not business ones. I also found a gardener who sais he gets a lot of business from doing this.

Here's my plan to expand and advertise my services:
Friday: get window cleaning supplies
Saturday: Roof clean, photos: launch ad
Sunday: chase lead for window sills cleaning and offer window cleaning. Get photos and learn how to clean windows more efficiently.
----
Easter weekend:
Jetwash parents patio, clean windows and conservatory.
Jetwash M's driveway, clean windows.
Get photos - video jetwashing: launch window cleaning and jetwashing adverts.

----

Add new photos to website: Build out seperate services pages.
Ask all leads for Google reviews.
Run Google ads to website.

Door to door ad nauseum selling window cleaning.
Run refferal offer on ads - something like: free window clean when you refer a friend.

This way I'll have all bases covered and all major services on offer then it's just a matter of pushing content and getting better at running ads, playing the numbers game and pushing until.

I also had a good think at my business direction and I've really enjoyed building working relationships where I can offer more services to customers from previous jobs and become their go to guy to get shit done.
 
I'm a quarter of the way through my roof cleaning job.

Turned into an absolute monster of a job.
I'm using a scraper tool to remove moss as pressure washing roof tile invalidated the warranty and may damage them.

Started off by using a telescopic pole but this was insanely hard on the arms and I couldnt get the right angle to pull the moss down effectively.
Though fuck this and went to buy some Ridge ladder hooks. Picked up the big ladder from M's and got onto the roof.

Even then it was hard work to lift this moss and I'm basically hand scrubbing an area the size of a small field.

Explained to the customer I'm out-of my depth and they were cool about it. They're also on Ramadan but kept bringing me food which was really nice of them.

I'll try to get 3/4 of the way done so I can go back on good Friday to finish the job off and softwash it.

Massive property and a lot of learning on the job. Hardest I've physically worked in a long time too. I feel very comfortable at height and confident on my ridge ladder. If I can do this roof I'll be able to do any domestic roof.
 
From half 8 till about 12 I finished off the front side of the house but it wasn't coming up how I wanted it to. By scrubbing really hard I could get about 85% of the moss off.

The customer brought more food out and I talked it through with him. He said when he bought the property it was surrounded by trees hence all the moss. He also said he's had it oressure washed before and the tiles are an old concrete type so very durable.
We've decided to oressure wash it after all and I just need to get the extendable lance attachment for my pressure washer.
The I'll soft wash it after and the job will be done.
He also said the driveway needs doing and resending so I'll give him a quote for that too once this job is finished.

Loads of people pressure wash roofs in the UK so I'll do some more digging into it.

This has delayed my service expansion but I'm learning so much on this job. The neighbourghs have also been keeping an eye on the progress so I'll be sure to pitch a similar clean to them once I have mastered this one.

Spent some time talking, he's from Pakistan and very community oriented which I thought was cool. Said he extended the property so he could move his parent in as his dad was ill. Also talked about how rewarding it is being a parent.

Otherwise I'm shattered my back and arms are completely toasted from all the scrubbing. It might be a viable method more very delicate roofs on smaller properties but hand scraping roofs doesn't align with my business strategy: get equipment that makes the job easy to save time and money.

A very fun weekend nonetheless
 
Had a very reflective week following MAC's post and I got to thinking about a lot of my own behavioural patterns and the idea of trauma resolution.

I've identified some areas that I would like to see improvements in that I think are a result of learning negative patterns/ things about the world from a young age and have come up with the following:

1. My predictive ability when taking into account human behaviour has been and continues to be proven wrong on an almost weekly basis. I basically always opt for the worst possible scenario which can verge on paranoia and begin contingency planning for things that never happen.
A great example came up this week with my job that has been challenging and after noticing a bit of behaviour in my boss that I didn't like I began to form a narrative. I had a meeting to discuss some deadlines and was preparing to to into a conflict and was predicting aggressive and irrational behaviour on her part as a default behaviour.
To put this in perspective during the meeting I sat with on the chair by the exit and when she was making small talk with a colleague instead of getting straight on to the meeting I thought: "Is she fucking with me?" why not get on with the meeting.
Fortunately I was completely wrong on this occasion, got extra support to meet the deadlines and also got a good bonus for this tax year.
The main problem with this thought pattern is the sheer amount of mental energy I waste on gearing up for conflicts where there really is nothing there.
I actually have very high energy levels but a lot is wasted on neurosis.

2. Similar levels of pessimism in terms of how abundant the world is - this has improved a lot already

3. I fall into 'enemy traps' such as getting too caught up in the red pill or the idea that wicked cabals run the world. I then get worked up about these hypothetical people instead of spending time improving my immediate surroundings.
A good example being angry with first girl for wanting a relationship when I would drive around listening to drake lyrics and listen to redpill shorts and tell myself that she was a hoe but also wishing she would change into a fictional person who I wanted her to be.
This was completely unproductive and I still kick myself for letting this scarcity mindset poison what could have been a very enjoyable fling.

4. Probably the deepest one. A lot of expecting the worst in people lead me to gear myself up for extreme violence and phycological attacks- which would be met with violence. I succeeded in getting to a level where I can protect myself but cant deal with conflicts in a sensible way and get really skittish when women get angry or even pretend to. I think this was part of my ED issues where it felt like my body wanted to protect intself from female touch.
I'm a grown man now but as a kid would lash out with extreme violence when I felt my boundaries crossed and would be horrified with the damage I would do indiscriminately, sometimes to those closest to me.
I want to integrate that part of me that all humans have but be able to control it instead of just suppress it and avoid conflict at all costs.

These are the four areas for inner work that I have identified I would like to improve so next I'll delve into the root causes with the aim to see tangible benefits.

Work:
On this note I was very pleasantly surprised with the bonus I'm going to get and it makes the challenges I've been facing with the work demands seem more like fun goals to achieve.

Business:
Running behind schedule on the roof clean as I'm waiting for more parts, the customer sais he want to reschedule mid April. I have let him down a bit here but juggling everything meant I didn't do the proper research needed to tackle the job today.
First driveway and window clean will be done tomorrow.
Got a gutter clean Sunday morning and will head to my parents later that day to do windows, patio and conservatory cleans.
All these will then be added to my ads with before and after pics as well as giving actual experience doing the jobs efficiently.

Then I will have all the equipment and experience and my services locked down and ready to go. I can then reach my escape velocity - quicker now with my bonus from work.

Women:
Saw M twice this week: went to the cinema one night and stayed over both nights. I also bought her some flowers and she lit up and sent me a few messages saying thank you. She's been supporting my business adventures from day 1 and sends me good luck messages when I'm out door-knocking or on a big job. She's also let me store my giant ladder at hers and got me a present when she was on holiday last week.
Felt really good to do this, I genuinely felt that flowers were a good representation of my appreciation and 'got' why people do it. This was the highlight of my week.

Fitness:
I've been slacking off but also loosing weight so I might look a bit better but I like being strong and healthy. I've talked with my accountability partner who is crushing it in the gym and told him I want to add a structured diet and meal prep to the accountability chat which is mostly just us hyping each other up for workouts right now.

Took some time to walk around a park and chill out as I haven had a whole day just to relax in about a month and it has been amplifying my negative thought patterns. I realised since I've started posting here my life has been pretty awesome so i'm grateful.
 
I've got my window cleaning and pressure washing in this weekend and have some good before and after shots for my ads.
Very pleased with how it went and really enjoy these two cleaning methods.
Files too large to upload here but the before and afters came out amazing.
I might do some free pressure washing just to get footage and more pictures or offer a really good price just because I enjoy it so much.

Was great to see my parents too. That part of England still feels like my home and I feel refreshed just from visiting for a day and a half.

I've also decided to get a big van when I have the money, live out of half of it and store my tools in the other half and live off grid.
 
Sewerdog said:
I've got my window cleaning and pressure washing in this weekend and have some good before and after shots for my ads.
Very pleased with how it went and really enjoy these two cleaning methods.
Files too large to upload here but the before and afters came out amazing.
I might do some free pressure washing just to get footage and more pictures or offer a really good price just because I enjoy it so much.

Was great to see my parents too. That part of England still feels like my home and I feel refreshed just from visiting for a day and a half.

I've also decided to get a big van when I have the money, live out of half of it and store my tools in the other half and live off grid.
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