Sewerdog's log

[Wnyhg]

I’ve been following along. Primarily because I’d like to understand Facebook ads a little better and how to grow a business using them.

Noah Kagan is an YT personality who showed up on my watch list last year or two years ago. He interviewed a guy who runs a 120k/yr window washing business. This maybe completely redundant and I apologize for it. I’d like for you to succeed and for some reason this vid stuck with me by the hustle the guy showed. If you don’t mind I’m going to post the video I’m referring to:



The grind. It always comes back to the grind. I thought would people be more interested in meeting me with a vista print business card or is it more time efficient for them to jump on FB and get a quote?

Keep posting.

[Sewerdog]

I’ve been following along. Primarily because I’d like to understand Facebook ads a little better and how to grow a business using them.

Noah Kagan is an YT personality who showed up on my watch list last year or two years ago. He interviewed a guy who runs a 120k/yr window washing business. This maybe completely redundant and I apologize for it. I’d like for you to succeed and for some reason this vid stuck with me by the hustle the guy showed. If you don’t mind I’m going to post the video I’m referring to:



The grind. It always comes back to the grind. I thought would people be more interested in meeting me with a vista print business card or is it more time efficient for them to jump on FB and get a quote?

Keep posting.

Thanks for sharing, love these types of video, I watched a similar one on pressure washing that got me started doing this stuff.

My Facebook ads are a work in progress but so far I'm trying to track all the variables to get as much info as possible and a-b testing different advertising principles as I understand them.

I'd try both cards and fb ads and stick with what works best (they might both work) the one thing with cards and flyers is its always going to come down to numbers and handing them out in the hundreds or even thousands takes ages, I go door knocking with my leaflets rather than post them because I prefer to talk face to face so I can get more substantive interactions and a firm 'no.'

Similar to dating if you diversify your lead sources it makes getting work/dates more stable and each network has its pros and cons

Yeah the grind is part of everything. I try to think of it as a natural part of life, like a salmon swimming upstream haha. It's the source of abundance though so im grateful for the opportunity to grind and by having to work for what I want it becomes more important to me.

Awesome your starting a business, if you post some of what you're doing we can build a body of knowledge on here and share what we've found to be effective

[Sewerdog]

I did my fascia and soffit cleaning job today, me and the customer were very happy with the results but fucking hell was it difficult.
I used a water fed pole and a backpack to apply the cleaning agent and to rinse it off afterwards.
The whole job took 6 hours lmao and I ended up climbing the roof.
I'm going to refine my technique and try to get this down to about 4 hours, at which point I'll be happy with the price I'm charging.
I think it's possible.
I also offered roof cleaning but like many other people it's out of his budget.
I'm doing his neighbourgh's house next saturday so I'll get more practice with this setup. I also might ditch it and just use a pressure washer in future.

[Sewerdog]

Booked up what will be my highest paying weekend so far due to two referrals.
One form a gutter job last weekend and another gutter and exterior clean for a friend of sundays customer. Add in the clean in doing on Saturday- which is from a door I knocked on back in January and it will be my biggest weekend so far and the most I've ever made in 2 days.

These jobs all came about from knocking on one door which is pretty wild. And means a lot of the new kit will have paid for itself already!

[Wnyhg]

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.

[Sewerdog]

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.

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!

[Sewerdog]

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.

[MakingAComeback]

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

[Sewerdog]

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]

Good fucking work dude!

[Sewerdog]

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

Hell yeah! Appreciate it. Its been so much fun figuring this business stuff out.
Definitely man, let me know when your about

[Sewerdog]

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.

[Ryval]

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 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?

[Sewerdog]

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 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?

For sure, this was very insightful. And the upside is I have been able to out-earn my job while working fewer hours.

[Sewerdog]

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.