The presume is, I believe as other great speakers and writers all say, if I can do it, so can you. There genuinely isn't a private to all this success or just getting there, it is having the right attitude, and following a schedule (step by step). As I say "there", what genuinely does that mean; it could mean you have no more prestige debt and you can save or spend money for your future, you work for yourself or own a firm and do not punch a clock anymore, you are a successful investor or real estate investor, or you are just happy doing what you love to do and do not care what others think.
Newly Married we needed a place to live. Within a few hours in the local newspaper, I found an owner carry with 00 down. We were not the first to call and we took off to the address right away.
Laptop Graphics Card
When we got to the house it was exquisite and we wanted it. David the owner told us that he needed the money that night and a ageement to seal the deal and then go to title the next day. I of policy talked his ear off and even chatted up firm ideas that came and went out of my head over the past years. David was fascinated at my story telling and told me I should read this book by Robert Kiyosaki "Rich Dad, Poor Dad".
I started to listen to the am radio talk shows while work more after David telling me that I had a knack for a firm sense. I started to buy a few books of the talk show hosts that focused on firm and money, but found them to be a bit confusing. I guessed this confusion was due to the lack of any financial study that I had from my many parents and or collective schooling.
My wife bought the book for me 3 months later for Christmas, because she says she couldn't frame what to give me. I read the book and I started to think hard, being a truck driver, what idea of many that I plan of would spark this mission to move from being an employee, and only keep about half of my paycheck by year's end, to owning a firm and not have to work all the time.
Well, why this was going on, I met a safety guard at our firm gate that logs trucks and trailers in and out of the yard, gave me a Mini Cd Rom and said it was his business. I went home that next day to find out what was on this disk and what did his website look like. The schedule that was on the disk was awesome, with all these special effects and graphics, and links to his website. His website was great until it crashed my computer a few times. So when I went back to work that night and let him know what was happening he said he would get back to me in a few days. I was soon thinking about all the businesses that could advantage from this cool technology. Over the next few weeks to a month, we became partners, I helped pay for upgrades in his principles to make the website great and work without crashing. I was on a roll, working all night as a truck driver, then arrival home to work for another 4 or 5 hours on the phone and doing study on how and who to sell this great idea to. I quit watching beloved Tv shows and even renting fewer videos. Heck, once we plan we were their with a great demo, we dressed all up and went to Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills to show off to every shop. We must have looked like goofs, but we did it! On this journey, we did meet some nice habitancy to boot. Nothing came of this adventure though, so tried calling up companies and getting straight through to the marketing director and then sending them a box on what we did and could offer, since their was only a handful of others trying to do this at the same time we were. After a few weeks and nothing happening except one ageement from my Father in laws business, we started to get discouraged.
Then one night listening to the am radio driving back and forth from La or Orange County, they were discussing the Danielle Van Dam missing child case that happened in San Diego in 2002, and they genuinely didn't have that great of identification at the time. Boom, it hit me, I couldn't wait to get back and talk to Frank about if we could write this Identification schedule for Kids. He said we could do it and right away went to work on construction a schedule for just this.
Over the next few weeks, it is attractive how things and habitancy just meet to make things happen. My wife had a few demo Cd's sitting on her desk at her Curves location, because she was showing the detective lady what we created and gave her a sample. That detective took it back to work, and when she called the next day, we were being invited to a safety fair for the city and that we could fee for our goods when everything else was free.
A lady walked in that same day and was request for money or anyone for a fundraiser she was heading up. She saw the Cd Id and went nuts and asked how to get involved. She was our first computer schedule principles we put together and sold. Then, a water delivery man walked in the next day and also saw this goods and went nuts, being a salesman and thinking he could sell this goods all day long.
Remember, at the time, we had the best schedule and gumption to make it all happen. We couldn't afford fancy questionnaires, so we had a three page word document that was stapled. We could only afford one fancy laptop system, so at the mall we drug in this big home computer principles with monster monitor and all. The mall wasn't too bad, we broke even with the fees to be there and the safety fair we made about 0 for the day.
Then it hit, Bob was in Pennsylvania with again a crowd of habitancy that wanted this system, but again they were request questions like, do you have a ageement and what is a territory. So when it was slow a few times, Bob asked colse to to some of the other opportunities that he met in Oregon and they started to mention about the Federal Trade Commission and biz ops and franchise agreements. So Bob went to the show owner and asked about this and was given a phone whole to a palpate that writes contracts and such. In the meantime, we had four groups of habitancy that wanted the principles genuinely bad, and we just had to let them know that we were now just there to see the response and that our contracts were being accomplished up. Also a concentrate from Oregon called and wanted a system, but had to tell them we were getting a ageement together since going to that show too.
Back on the home front, I am frantically trying to study all these new terms, calling lawyers about biz opps and franchising contracts that we now needed desperately to sell to these groups. We obviously fell into the franchise group, since we had a trade name and offered support. The qoute is they all wanted ,000 and up to furnish this and to register in California, which is where we were operating out of.
While researching all this and then my new salesman arrival home after a busy weekend, he gave me this whole to call. I am thinking can this lady fee less than the lawyers that I called the old week. Amazingly she was super nice and loved my mission and product, but she was still colse to ,000. I had about half of her fee at hand, and then found that I needed an audit, set up a corporation to register in California, and of which all of this could take 3 months or longer. I was shocked and wondered how many of the four would want to wait that long. We sent out letters and phoned them right away about what was to come. I figured being up front they would be willing to wait.
Off we went, beginning a Wyoming Corporation, getting an accountant to due an audit on a singular deposit on a new account, and getting details of the firm off to our lady writing up our documents. We decided to throw a license agreement together, which didn't safe me all that much, but made it legal to sell to them. I needed a few sales to desist paying for all this cause my wife and I were maxed out in prestige and needed to start paying off those debts. In the end, we gave a huge piece of the farm (territory) to a group of ladies in Pennsylvania and they agreed to sign a franchise agreement when we accomplished getting registered. The others hemmed and hawed on the rules of the ageement and moderately they all went other ways.
While the road to getting registered was happening we were busy getting jobs, designing territories, firm plans, and finalizing a firm system. My salesman beginning booking daycares and schools to make our principles a bit more believable when asked "what have you done". We were still going to daycares lugging our huge home computer set-up since we couldn't afford another laptop principles yet and loving it. My wife's friend was going to schools and talking to habitancy with the transportable principles we let her have on payments.
I was able to get a local driving route again and working about 5 extra hours a day on Safe Kids Card, but tired like heck. When I started to get burned out, I had to make the decision to just quit and go for it, or just slack off a bit. We put a one by two inch ad in the Usa Today and with over 2 million readers; we assumed at least one percent would palpate us. We had a whopping 90 contacts of which no sales occurred and a loss of one thousand dollars.
The La county fair was arrival up, but I didn't have any money left when it was time to register. My father in law found out what I was thinking of doing and we went down at the last minute to see if it was too late to book it. We missed it by 4 hours, but I went ahead and signed up for the Arizona State fair the next week and quit my job for good. I figured with the whole of traffic in the fair brochure, that we could sell a ton of Identification Cd's. Justin decided to go for it too and quit his job as a safety guard to never look back.
We planned all week for the event and off we went to Arizona. We had a great location by the entrance and the foot traffic was worse than a weekend swap meet and they weren't buying anyone from anyone. The oriental massage tables were the only ones getting any action, and they were still not all that busy. I had other vendors tell me they made more in one day at the La County fair than the 8 days we were into the 17 day Arizona Fair. The whole fair sort of had a bad taste in the air and to top that off, they had police patrols just to control the gangs. This was not the fair that I remember from 4 years earlier when I went on a weekend.
My computer guy Justin and I started to fight about going home, and I even threatened to put him on a bus. I was not giving up and was going to stick it out, even though we only sold a few Id's each day to help buy our food and pay for the hotel. The next day we went home never to go to a fair again, at least that one. So now home, broke and no job, we had to get busy. We ultimately got our contracts done and registered and we ended up only selling to the group of ladies in Pennsylvania. They did though buy some extra territory that helped desist the bill for our franchise documents and such. Now six months from plan and beginning the process, we were working daycares and small schools to get some cash flow going again from our losses.
Working send on our firm revelation, having a firm plan, and sort of knowing how this is to be sold now, we needed to raise some capitol money to go to the International Franchise Show in Washington Dc. This was going to be the show we made it, and with the brochure saying that over 25,000 habitancy finding for a firm to start, we could at least hook a handful. I printed that firm plan and gave it to all of my family and friends and we sold about ,000 in stock certificates in our company. This paid for the show, voyage expenses, our booth display of which I build with Pvc pipe and sewed the backdrop and table skirts myself. I guess having all those jobs growing up; I was able to tackle anything. We also joined the International Franchise connection on a two year contract, so that we could get added discounts for this event. another assosication we joined was the Vet Frans group that advertises all the participating franchises on their internet site that give a allowance if they buy your franchised business.
Justin had more time to work and just accomplished the Adults and Pet Cd Rom Id programs for this event. We also had over the last few months acquired a few newspaper articles and a letter from a California Senator saying she loved our product. We planned everything, having a special room for a mini-presentation after the show for persons that wanted more information, to over 10,000 flyers to hand out. The first day was packed, and we had cottonmouth badly, but the response was great. I met so many habitancy there selling their franchises and learned more about the firm and how it all works.
Thinking we did it right, handing out a ton of invitations for our nightly presentation, we had only one man show up. That poor man; we just about beat him down to buy our business. We must have looked so desperate, we scared him off. That not being a good start, the next day our competition that sells plastic Id's, was bad mouthing us and the show assosication had to warn them from bad firm practice. I learned long ago that trying to get back doesn't work, and can only make it worse for all parties, so we left the show to deal with them. The rest of the show seemed to go plane but we were by all means; of course tired from standing 8 hours a day.
We accomplished the show finding over our palpate list and request a few others what they plan and collectively, we all felt there weren't 25,000 habitancy that showed up. We asked colse to and ultimately found out that only 6,000 habitancy showed up. The show producers' plan that was an awesome turnout, but gave the excuse that the elevated threat on airlines and voyage in the Us was the cause of low traffic. request colse to to the other franchisors, they were saying that was a good turn out. I was a bit confused as this was our first big show that cost over ,000 to go to.
We went home and called leads, over and over again. My salesman Bob was getting discouraged, and then we sold two franchises out of over 300 leads. So we took the profit and went to more shows, which sold about 2 franchises per show and sometimes none. There genuinely wasn't any rhyme or reason; you just had to find the right person(s) that wanted to get into this industry. The show circuit is costly and you are competing with quite a few biz ops (business that you put your own name to and get minute or no preserve after purchase), and they are quite a bit less expensive.
So over the next two years we industrialized and worked on selling franchises the way industry experts were showing us straight through mini weekend presentations and meetings. These events were not exactly reasonable either, but one in singular after one year of business, we went to San Francisco with about 30 other franchisors in the group. I showed up for this half day event and met with some pretty big franchises that have been colse to for some time. I was asked by one Co-Founder Brian how many franchises I had, since he knew I was sort of new to the industry in general. I then told him I had nine and a few more to close soon and that I plan I wasn't growing fast enough. He struck me by request how long back I can remember when I heard of Post Net, and I said about 5 years prior. He then went on to let me know that he in actuality has been colse to for over 14 years and that he was shocked that I had that many in my first year. He also told me it took roughly 10 of those years to get a real good feel and make good money. After this conversation, I felt way great of how we were growing as a firm and focused more on the dynamics of what we could offer and build on, and less on adding more franchisees. That next year we added over 20 more franchises and more the next year with International devotee Licenses to boot.
We were constantly finding ways to stay ahead or convert what the primary shop was doing and going in our own direction with goods development. We found out within about 6 months of this that our competitors were following our lead. That is said to be a compliment, but I found it to be irritating. I was feeling that we were spending so much time and power on a new process, web design, or goods to find our competitors just trying to copy us within months of this. I was advertising with them at a very costly rate and not genuinely going faster. I vowed to not go to another trade show, as they weren't doing anyone for us other than breaking even to do another show.
Our marketing skills improved quite a bit, since we circulate about half of our earnings into that spectrum of the business. We tried one ad here and another here in separate publications and we were constantly told that you have to put it in at least 13 times to get a response. You would have to have at least twelve thousand dollars per year per publication to get that accomplished and that would be for a 3 by 4 inch ad, and black and white to boot. Each time we did though try a publication the end corollary was always the same, one to two calls or leads. This was not exactly a good Roi (return on investment). Once you start and place ads in a publication, they all start to call you, even radio. So, we tried radio, and that was also a bomb. You can learn quite a bit when you are spending hard earned money that didn't grow on a money tree, but also you get more creative.
I found out that there are free postings on some big name websites attached to national magazines. You do have to do a minute legwork and once you're in, you're in. All of a sudden after doing one of these free placements, getting our online info put up, they were running a section of the magazine with a handful of franchises in each industry. We were one of 4 in our section and we received about a 100 exquisite leads and accomplished on three of them. This didn't cost us much, just about 1 to 2 hours of making ready and about 4 bucks in postage. I also started to watch what my competition was advertising in and found that with crusade machine placement, the website was getting traffic based on our competitors advertising. For example, man would be reading the Small firm Magazine magazine, see their ad, and then go to the internet to do study on child identification as a whole. We also started to interview possible franchisees with where did they hear about us and where did they learn about this industry in general.
Just as I was getting the hang of more internet response straight through keywords and crusade engines, they sent out invitations for an event in Los Angeles, being the first show in the area in over 5 years. I had a ton of area to fabricate in and colse to La and not listening to past experience, I signed up for the event. This was still a 10,000 dollar event, but I felt that I might sell at least 4 or 5 franchises, since I was now in my third year, my backyard, beating the odds of a new firm concept. Your thinking, I forgot about never ever going to another show and studying from my mistakes in all this. Well, it was a very busy show and again over rated as how many genuinely came. The show had more visitors requesting information from their website than at the show. I was any way disappointed in production the decision of having gone, but we did end up selling 4 franchises out of it, which wasn't bad.
This was it, the final straw, I said no more shows, only internet and referrals was were I was going. Well, while staying in a hotel near the convention, with most of the other show people; I met with a Pr firm owner that has been trying to get me to use a Pr firm to do me some good. She said that the general fee was 3500 dollars and that because she liked me and my goods that she would only fee me 3000 dollars. I was like ok, let's do it since we vowed not to go to any more shows and any print advertising was off, except the free ones.
So, the show ended, we collected leads, and a week later I get an invoice via email. Oh my, it was for 3000 dollars a month. I wrote back to her in the fact I was embarrassed and could not afford that kind of monthly fee. She promptly called me and assured that this was the best thing that would happen to our firm and that if I got a few months behind would be ok. So, I bit the bullet and agreed and three months later, I had been published in a small magazine for accountants, a examine write back in another small magazine, and one radio show that the speaker couldn't get the name of my firm exact and forgot to let the listening audience even where to find or call me. I was feeling used, broke, and all the above. I called the Pr firm and told her I just couldn't hang anymore with that kind of bill and no responses. I was getting good though on the crusade engines and internet collecting great leads for a fraction of the cost.
Then it hit, the senior writer for the Wall road Journal called me for an interview in an narrative on you have a great idea, now what. I plan this was the most awesome thing that they picked us out of who knows how many story ideas they get every day. The story was a full page and a half and was pretty cool to have happened. They even put my personal cell phone whole in the narrative by accident, so my ear was hurting after a few weeks of phone calls. We didn't get all that many leads from habitancy that wanted to open a home-based franchise. Most of their readers are lawyers, doctors, influential, and we were marketing to the middle and lower class of people. I still had to cancel my ageement with the Pr firm, since I genuinely didn't sell many franchises to cover the high costs of this endeavor. I then received a corollary up narrative in the Small firm occasion Magazine, and that was my target audience, and again the personal phone whole was published and my ears hurt. We went to 62 franchises total that year (2005) with 4 International devotee Licenses and then it just went sort of flat.
I went back to reading more books on successful firm practice and came over a novel idea (common sense) to find other companies or organizations that could band together with us and feed off each other. I was on a mission and in a short six months acquired relations with the top safety video, internet amber alert, and a handful of non-profit groups that promote safety. Some of these businesses were struggling and or just production it, so this was good for all of us and a year later of doing this; it is genuinely production sense in the task of helping each other to make it a great place.
We had a major photography studio plan on contribution a genuinely cheap add on to their photo services and this hurt not just us, but I am sure all identification companies over the board. convert was in dire need of how we needed to do firm and how we were going to corollary in the long run. This was a critical point in time for us and the industry as a whole. We had quite a few more companies trying to get into this field of child safety, and the shop for free was getting a bit bigger, with this cheep replacement.
The road to stay in existence is to stay ahead, by finding ahead; shop trends, statistics, competition, marketing, and economics. We had to restructure and turn our aid into a product, so my programmer Justin went to work on it. We were so close but couldn't crack the code to make it a Do-it-Yourself kit until I went off to South Africa to train a franchise and I was playing with the program, and something happened and I had to email Justin to find out what had happened. He was so excited, because by me screwing up the schedule he unlocked a process to make it all happen. Three months later, we stopped selling franchises and started to build a network for selling distributor channels. It has been 6 months now, all the programs are accomplished and we are on a role getting this goods designed with multi-uses, and the only one in the marketplace doing this.
I have found that the talent of many willing habitancy is what makes it all happen. I have signed off with some of my best franchises to profit share on all the hard work they have contributed, rather than just take their ideas that have made them more successful. I have gone close to broke by taking this road and to most a challenge with no light at the end. We have put the new products out their with roughly a non-existent failure rate and are now structuring a fundraiser box that includes our products with our safety partners that we have industrialized over the past year.
I don't know what the future holds for us as a company, but I have faith in God that he will do as he sees fit. He will not give us something that we do not deserve and occasion we cannot handle.
None of this could have happened without having a fantastic and loving wife that has not only put up with me and my long hours at times working, but the faith it could be accomplished. We are a great team and feel we are very successful to be able to work for ourselves and raise our kids.
2006 to 2008 we went downhill pretty fast with this new industry to compete with (Free)
2009: New Beginning
Starting a new partnership with Chris Srigley "Safe Warriors" and my firm Safe Kids Card, and together putting together the next generation schedule for safety study and abduction arresting for kids. Talk to you soon. If you need help with an idea palpate me.
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