Can't believe I was the last person to post here.
Since my last post, I've totally smashed that £900 day with a profit after labour and materials of £2k for one days work with three men and a machine. Then two days later I did another job (of a type I don't particularly enjoy) with one guy and a machine and made another £900 profit after materials and labour.
The one ovveriding thing that I would say has changed over the last few months is my attitude. I now put 40% profit onto jobs when quoting automatically, and my attitude is 'if they can't afford it I don't want that customer'. This is genuine, and what's behind it is the realisation that I can do one job like I did earlier ths week and make the same money as if I was grafting all week.
A few choice titbits I've picked up recently. Can't remember where this was from but- 'you're either the hater or the hated'. Simply put, people hate upon those who are sucessfull. I'm guilty of it myself. Rather than try to cultivate feelings of admiration for more successful rivals (I find this happy clappy stuff tiresome and not really congruent with my personality), I've just become somewhat bitter, not to them, but to anyone who gets in my way. This includes- customers who are timewasters, customers with low budgets, people whom you only see when they want something and people who come to see you during work time but don't offer anything of value. The end result is that these people wind up hating on me. Good. You're either the hater or the hated. Only one of those types makes money. My main local rival is almost universally hated- except by customers, who praise him for delivering what he promises! Every month he has a new machine, and rumour has it without finance also.
I was so enthused by my recent change in attitude that I paid a visit to my mentor last night. This is the guy who sold me my first machine on tick, even though I was scared of borrowing money age 18, because he wanted me to see what was possible. I've been a long time coming round to embracing his entire philosophy, but I'm getting there. A favourite question of his is this:
If I gave you a tenner, could you double it within a month?
Of course I could.
If I gave you ten thousand, could you double it within a month?
Well, probably. If I bought and sold a few machines I guess.
If I gave you a million, could you double it within a month??
It's faultless logic. I think the key to it is removing mental barriers (without going into full blown buzzword packed buisiness seminar mode, which I hate). He's offered to finance me any machines I want (and has the spare capital to do it.) He's also offered to finance and advise me buying a building plot and developing it, then splitting the profit. There is no ulterior motive to his offers- I've known him long enough to know that he is a true mentor, who wants to help from his heart, because he sees potential in me. I'm working really hard on changing my attitudes and removing mental barriers. It's fucking difficult, but if you look at it from a logical point of view it's hard to see why.
I need to start running more jobs at less profit, and scale up. £900 a day profit might sound great to many of you, but it's taken me ten years to get to this stage, it's not every day (more like £300 average every day) and I don't want to have to be on site. I hate it half the time. My job needs to be to find the work, and find the right people to do this work for me- I already have the tools. My newfound bitterness can only help. In my trade you're often dealing with rough sorts, chancers and idiots when searching for staff. I can turn on the charm (without being smarmy) and present as knowledgeable, professional and reliable to my target affluent customers without any problems. The bitterness is needed to deal with the other side of my sort of business.
I'm not the best at putting my thoughts to paper, but I hope this makes some kind of sense and helps my RVF brothers.
RooshV.com