How long did it take you? What were your biggest struggles? What were your biggest wins? What’s your margin?
EDIT: 10k per month
My business is more part time fun as a FFL. I found that going against small ownership business reputation of high prices because lower volume was key. I decided for high volume with less profit along with customer service in making them feel like my only customer was key.
I figured if I had to sell 2-3 items to make the same profit the other guys made on one it gave me 3 times more opportunity to show them why they should buy from me and what kind of person I am.
I think it took about 3 months. It’s in a service industry that I’d worked in for a 5 years so it knew what I needed to do from day one.
Two pieces of advice.
Only start a business in an industry that you know really well, most people don’t have enough capital to be able to afford to “ learn as you go”.
Be prepared to spend money on marketing. Even 7 years in I still invest at least 1/3 of my gross profits back into advertising.
“The business of a bakery is selling bread not making it” if you don’t know how to sell your product or service it doesn’t matter how great it is.
Be prepared to spend money on marketing. Even 7 years in I still invest at least 1/3 of my gross profits back into advertising.
I’d just add that I viewed paying for marketing as “priming the pump” while I also worked on my SEO. I operate in a very small niche so I don’t pay for marketing anymore and all of my leads come from organic search and other online platforms.
Great points. Thanks for sharing! How do you spend your marketing budget?
We would make that in several days when we were selling tons of personal training. (We used to own a couple of gyms)
I bought a company that was “turn-key” however; despite a staff, clients and recurring revenue, a number of our clients sucked and our margins were even worse.
It took about 13 months to win our biggest job totalling; $14k.
Expected margin was 80%, actual margin was 55%.I started my business (junk removal, small moves) January 2022, and June of 2023 I grossed $15k. After expenses (roughly) I kept ~$11k.
I wouldn’t say these are struggles, but winter months are fairly slow for me. I don’t mind it. I got into owning my own business because I didn’t want to work 40 hour weeks.
Biggest wins, two >$10k months this year, and every month is up (some considerably) over it’s counterpart last year. My March was a 10x increase over last year.
My months vary, and aside from Jan and Feb this year, I didn’t have a month that grossed below $7k.It took me about 6 years prolly to hit 10k MMR, webdev/design field. From starting as like a part time side cash hobby to a full agency. I think time in any niche, where you can become known, offer quality and become an authority, helps drive revenue and referrals. But then simultaneously slowly and competitively increasing your pricing, exploring add ons and value ads, securing partnerships and structuring your biz around retainers and subscriptions.
Though the downside with a service is hours have a cap. I wish I sold a product instead. Ive started exploring SASS ideas or product ideas. Just all risky starting from ground zero.
We’re you doing the same thing in your full-time job?
Doing a job versus running a business is a big difference, here’s how:
When you work a job, someone else brings you the work, you do it, someone else takes care of billing. Someone else takes care of everything that isn’t doing the actual job.
When you run a business, all that becomes your job too.
And that means, regardless of which business you’re in, suddenly you’ve got a new job, one we can all relate to (those of us who run a business), and that’s running a business. Which is mainly marketing and selling.
I was not