How are you doing? Below one of my videos in the comments, someone asked the question, I’m going to read it to you like I always do, “If you start a business with no capital, but grow a bunch of accounts,” meaning you take on a lot of accounts, “and you get the phone to start ringing, how can you afford to get out of the field?”
I’m going to tell you, there is no easy answer to this one. This is a really difficult phase of the business. That’s the reason why so few get past this phase or they get out of the business, they throw in the towel. There’s a ton of individuals coming into the business, and there’s a ton that leave the business, and this is an example of something that takes most of them out.
Second, keep this in mind, let’s use a mowing example. If you can hire someone for $12 an hour to mow with you, so maybe you’re the driver, you’re doing the line trimming, you’re doing some of that detail work, but you’ve got an individual that’s walking behind the self-propelled mower, and let’s say you could pay them 12 bucks, maybe in your market, it’s $14.00, whatever that number is, when you’re doing that work, when you’re mowing the lawn yourself and you could go out and hire someone for $12 to do that, you are only making the equivalent of $12. That is a major bottleneck in your company that’s slowing you down because you’re only producing $12.00 an hour work.
And so one of the first ways to get yourself to a place where you can afford someone so that you can get out of the field, is start delegating hiring someone to do that work, that $12.00 an hour work in my example. Even if that means you don’t have enough work yet that if it’s just you and you hire someone, now you only have to work 25 hours a week, fine do that, because what’s happened is you’ve freed yourself up for another 20, 30 or 40 hours a week to work on growing the business.
So that’s it, that’s part of it. The other thing I would look at is are you charging enough? If you have no ability to get out of the field, is it because one contributing factor is you’re not charging enough? That’s very common. So I’d look at that. Are you pricing right, are you estimating right, are you bidding the jobs right? When you bid the job and then you actually perform it, is it taking the amount of time you thought it would take or are you underbidding in that sense? Or are you underbidding because you’re not charging enough per hour? I’d look at that.
I’m looking at my notes here. The next two answers I’ve got for you are just not fun. Work more. Do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, just get past this phase. If that means you’ve got to work 70 hours a week and you were working 40 before, who cares, you’re only going to have to do it for a little while and then you’re done, you’re past that phase of your business and your life. Just do it. Do the hard work. There’s no easy answer, and for many, they’re already doing all that. They’re already busting their butt, they’re already putting in unbelievable time, I get that. And so, you probably are too.
Another one would be, can you lower your living wages? You may already be skimping in every possible way and not spending much money, but if there’s any money to give, if you could just cut back on anything, do it, so that you can go hire in my example, that $12.00 an hour person, that will take some work off your plate, so that you’re now freed up to go market, and sell, answer the phone and all those other things.
I wish there was a magic answer, there’s not. Everybody that’s made it through this phase, they’ve sacrificed in some way, they’ve worked even harder, they’ve figured out to price up the work so that they have enough leftover money, they’ve just sacrificed. And that’s pretty much what you’ve got to do. I wish there was an easy answer, but I’d go think about all those things, give it 150 percent, go all in, because as soon as you get out of the field, you’re done with that phase. And that will be behind you and you’ve accomplished it and you’ll be ahead of the majority of people.
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