I use a standard reply template that I created that pretty much states that we’ve built our company to run without employees. If we change that policy I’ll keep you information in mind.

The missing component is not money.

Your missing component is your values, skill sets, and bringing value to the marketplace.

If you have the character values in the skill sets you will identify value that can be brought to the marketplace whether in the form of a service or a product.

Then you sell and buy. If you have money you can buy and sell.

Buying and selling are skill sets that need to be well-developed.

I started my company with very well developed skill sets and values. I identified value to bring to the marketplace. Then I went out and sold, collected the money, manufactured and bought, and then delivered.

During that process I padded everything so that I could build up a small inventory that progressively grew over time. That allowed me to go out and target small customers that would be reoccurring purchases. Overtime I gained more and more individual small customers and at times I had to greatly increase my manufacturing capabilities as well as my inventory on hand so I would find another large customer and I would sell and then buy.

Over the years I’ve switched now to just buying and selling.

I didn’t have a phone, computer, money, or even a car when I started my business. I had six children that quickly grew to 10 when I met my now wife, and I lived in a borrowed 28-ft camper while going through a nasty divorce. I had a job that made about 50 grand a year, but I was paying over 50% of my income before taxes to child support.

I borrowed $150 and bummed a ride from my now wife who is then my girlfriend on my lunch break to go into Dallas and set up a general partnership and open a Chase business checking account with the balance of the money. Went online and got a free EIN number and applied for a tax resale certificate. I used Canva to build flyers for my products utilizing pictures of my competitor’s products. I built my pricing in terms based off of my efforts with identifying and establishing manufacturing facilities overseas.

Then I spent years and years and years and years cold calling tens of thousands of individual shops and dealerships in OEMs around the country and the world and building my customer base. Still to this day I’m doing cold calling. I’m proud to say that we control the majority market share for niche of commercial truck parts in America and a strong double digit percentage of the global market and it’s growing faster and faster.

At some point soon we’re going to hit the cap of total market so last year I diversified into a second niche of products that took capital to get started and is much more competitive globally but also has a multi-billion dollar market cap versus maybe 150 to 200 million dollar market cap in my primary niche of commercial truck parts.

Our primary niche is in the strong eight figures with eight figure net profits. Our secondary niche is in the five-figure range about to break into the six figure range finally.

Once you get moving you have to master the mundane and daily do the tasks that are repetitive yet critical to growth and scaling. Downsize your life and try not to take anything out of your business until you absolutely have to or told to by your CPA.

Find ways to keep your personal overhead sustained while doing all of this.

Realize that only seven or eight percent of Americans are entrepreneurs and only 1% at most of that 8% succeed. It is the hardest path that you can choose to make money in most will fail due to lack of values, skill sets, and the ability to identify a value to bring to the marketplace.

It’s totally worth it though.

Well said

Skills pay the bills

I have seen a therapist for 4+ years now, every Monday that I can make it.

I did not want to get to fuck you money with all the baggage I had from being orphaned at 12 and all the poor life choices I make since then messing things up after a lot of years of sacrifice to get there.

It’s help me find bliss or happiness in the simplest things, taught me how to be better at being present, and helped with my marriage balance.

Looking at it in a few months or session by session point of view it’s nearly worthless, but the cumulative outcome over time has been worth it.

My counselor thought I was just an arrogant product of society striving to have things that wealth brought. Our business has grown into the solid 8 figures from nothing, but we stick to our plan and goals without frivolous distractions or toys so far. It coming though. I’m happy with the basics being well covered and having an unlimited amount of options if I so chose. He now sees that I really wanted to be happy in the present.

I still go and will for years to come. I’m hoping to continuously improve myself in any and every way that I can.

I always held a full-time job and raised my family while I was building and failing. On the third attempt it was a debt management company right before the wild West debt management boom. We lost everything, even our home and a lot of our belongings. We spent almost a month in the Dallas Life foundation homeless shelter with three young kids and a pregnant wife. Eventually we lived in a friend from church’s garage for about a month and a half until we were able to get a little house for rent. Then we got a nicer house for rent. Then on attempt for made some money but called it quits after about 2 years. Then I just worked full time for years on end looking for the next thing and then was hit with a divorce.

That’s when I started number 5 which is my current successful company. We’ve already broke 50 million dollars top line revenue this year with very high net profits manufacturing and selling commercial truck parts globally.

I’ve got a new wife in the divorce lasted almost 6 and 1/2 years and we ended up with 50/50 custody and all the normal shit but it cost us over a hundred grand in the process.

I built this company because I was at Rock bottom at that moment and I had six children to take care of in a 28 ft camper. I had no car because my wife had totaled both of our cars our truck and our minivan. She had bounced her bank account five or $6,000. Didn’t pay any the bills for a month or two. I didn’t have a phone or a computer or a car but I had a shitty job making 50 grand a year. I decide to kick off bottom.

My new wife is 99% of the reason for my success because she stood by me through all of the horror of those years. We lived in her camper actually because her divorce was just finishing and she had three children two of them grown one still at home. So all together with the baby that we had we have 10 kids five of them still at home.

We’re doing very well now though. Success is the best revenge.

I sell a sub niche of a sub niche of a niche of commercial truck parts that are required on all commercial trucks and are pretty universal. I stumbled upon the product line almost by accident 7 years ago while auditing parts at a commercial truck repair shop I worked at. These parts I started with sell for like 50 cents a piece all the way up to $42. Shops buy them in the hundreds. I couldn’t believe that I’d found something that had not been sourced to death or ever imported only made in America.

7 years in we control the market now for North America. The first four or five years I was scared to death that the two major global manufacturers would just give the parts away for free and kill us but they never saw us because we never advertised. I simply cold called every shop that we have.

I enjoy business I don’t really care about what I’m selling as long as it’s moral legal and ethical. I tend to search out and focus on blue collar or industrial parts or widgets that keep things running and are consumable. Every few years I find another niche and I research the hell out of it. If it meets the qualifications that I look for then I pursue it.