The Butler Project

Money. It’s everywhere. For good or for bad, it’s all over; and everybody needs it just about everyday.

I didn’t think we’d be talking money last week when I went to The Police concert, but it showed up again. Just before performing “Don’t stand so Close to Me,” Sting turned to the audience and told us, “I used to be a school teacher. I had a mortgage, a pension plan . . . .” Then he looked around and asked, “What happened to me?!” The crowd went wild; it was a fantastic concert.

So what did happen to Sting? Before he was Sting, Gordon Mathew Thomas Sumner was just a school teacher who loved making music. He played anywhere and everywhere he could. Eventually he joined up with Stuwart Copeland and Andy Summers to form The Police. The rest is rock and roll history.

But the history of The Police is not the important thing here, rather, it’s the fact that these three guys who love making music are still doing it 30 years later, and still, from the looks of it, loving their “jobs.” Judging from the cost of our tickets, they’re making pretty good money too.

Do you wonder how it would feel to make money doing something you love? Are you stuck trying to figure out how to do it? Check out this article from Steve Pavlina, he calls it “love money,” and he has some great ideas on how to bring it into your life.

Jim started his first pest control company 16 years ago. It’s worth many millions of dollars today. But what looks like a well oiled money machine now wasn’t always that way.

Mark: So, can you tell me a little bit about what have been some of the major setbacks that you’ve experienced?

Jim: That is a pretty broad question … Biggest setbacks are usually the ones that you don’t foresee … I had a still born son that was born the summer I started my first pest control company

Mark: Wow

Jim: That was a tough thing. All of our pregnancies with my wife and I have been very, very, very, very tough… And so in this particular instance, we were a new company. It was a new pest control company, so we were doing primarily ALL of the billing, MOST of the technician work, ALL of the selling. We hadn’t even really brought on employees yet. And so, to be able to handle the grief load that my wife and I were experiencing … and then to plan for a funeral, to be there for my kids…

The morning of the funeral, I was servicing homes; the day before the funeral, the day after … the afternoon when my son died, I was servicing homes. And I didn’t WANT to do that and my wife didn’t WANT me to do that; it wasn’t fun. And there were definitely some feelings of guilt associated with it, but that’s what had to be done.

That same summer, there was a week where my [partner's] father became deathly ill in the hospital, and my brother became deathly ill in the hospital; it looked like both of them would die. And so we had to say, “Ok, well, which one of us gets to take a week to go be with our dying loved ones?” We literally called their doctors and said, “What’s the likelihood of death?” And the one who had the highest likelihood of death from the doctor, and it was close, got to go be with their loved one. And it ended up being a good choice. My partner went to be with his father who died within the next 5 or 6 days.

That wasn’t fun. I mean, I certainly wanted to go be with family, but over time, [I've discovered] if you go ask people who’ve started businesses that failed, and you say, “What happened that made your business fail?” Well generally they’re going to always tell you things that they didn’t forsee from the beginning. Things like my my story: I had a still born son. Some terrible disease happened to my wife or, you know, my partner and I, on the same day, had family members close to death, and this was at the inception of our business, and so you know, we had to take care of our family. And people would say, That’s an honorable thing; it’s honorable that you were there to be with your family.

And that is honorable, but if you [ask people who have successfully started businesses] “What was the hardest part about making that business successful?” … Well, the answer is the fact that life continues to go on, the bad and the good and all of it happens while you’re starting a business; you don’t do it in a vacuum.

And so, generally the people whose businesses are successful found ways to overcome and found solutions and the strength of will to overcome the problems that the other people couldn’t. And really … as far as I’m concerned, that’s where the rubber meets the road when it comes to being successful in entrepreneurialism. I’m not saying that you ignore your family when there’s hardships, but you find a way to balance and to persevere. if you think you’re going to go start a business and you’re gonna go a three year stretch of your life while you’re trying to get it going without having major family catastrophes or major things happen in the world like war or a recession, then if you haven’t planned and can’t account for that in the beginning, then you’ve already planned to fail before you’ve even started.

Ever wished you were “creative?” Or “a natural?” Longed for the word “genius” to be used to describe your actions? Well, the realization of your dreams may be just around the corner if your mind is set the right way. This is according to Stanford Psychologist Carole Dweck who conducts her research in personal, social, and developmental psychology.

In her new book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ms. Dweck suggests a “growth mindset,” one that welcomes challenge, change, and accepts mistakes as part of the learning process is the path to success in many areas of our lives including relationships, parenting, and work.

If you’re reading this blog, you are probably already geared for growth, but encouragingly, Ms. Dweck has found you can nurture and increase your tendencies towards growth, learning from your mistakes, and embracing change.

I encourage you to read more about the growth mindset.

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

Here’s a snippet of Mark’s conversation with Jim, multi-millionaire business owner, and super charged entrepreneur.

Mark: A friend of mine who is himself already a millionaire said if he could ask a lot of financially successful people one question it would be, “What single attribute do you possess that has contributed most to your success?”

Jim: Are you asking me that question?

Mark: I am.

Jim: Ok, what single attribute do I possess that I think’s most contributed to my success? … I’m going to focus on two.

[Emily: But I'm only going to cover one of those in this post today.]

Mark: Great.

Jim: I’ve kind of said this before, but one of them is that I think that I look at the world for the way it is, not the way I wish it was. But I have the vision to be able to see how I want it to be and what I would like it to be. When we look at ourselves and analyze our behavior, and say, “You know what, I’m a millionaire in embryo, with the behavior of a garbage collector.”

[Editors' note: we don't believe Jim was referring here to employed, hard working, and very necessary garbage collectors. Based on the context of his whole interview, we believe he was referring to the stereotypical lazy person and threw in garbage as a negative emphasis. We love and appreciate our garbage collectors!]

I think it’s important that every job that you have or everywhere you go, [maybe] it’s school, you’re able to be honest with yourself, about your behavior and about the circumstances and where you are. I think when you’re interviewing or meeting with people, as you look as business plans, just as you interact in the world, (even in family relationships,) be honest enough to look at your relationships and look at the world around you and try to see it through objective goggles, and accept things for the way they are.

I mean, imagine where we would be if the world and the banking [industry] would have been able to look at what should have been very clear and [see] all the sub prime loans that we were making, [and] what would happen when those interest rates reset… They were loaning money to people that they knew in the future wouldn’t be able to pay those loans back. So you have these large hedge funds and other people funding those loans and buying them, and why are they buying them? Because they refuse to look at the reality of what the world really is. They get caught up in the hype!

And I’m saying this can happen in relationships where we don’t understand what our children are doing or what they’re up to or we don’t understand our own behaviors just in general, in anything we do. Objectively look at the world for what it is in an honest way. That’s a good place to start. And I won’t be specific how I finally did that in my own industry, but I think that I made a lot of my strategic business decisions, even starting with the sales training that I had at the beginning, saying, what we’re doing doesn’t work, so why [do] the same things that don’t work? Here’s the objective honest look; we need to find another way.

The Butler Story

Back when we Butlers (there are 4 of us siblings) first decided to go into business together, we started out with a model that was basically gaming the system. We were smart enough to figure out where the money was online and how to get to it without providing any real value. We made a lot of money in a very short time (all legally, mind you) and without a whole lot of work. It was exciting. It was exilherating, and we made big plans for quitting our jobs and taking exotic trips in the near future.

That first business model was really a flash in the pan and when the cash flow dried up, we agreed we wanted a more sustainable and fulfilling business model. That’s when we turned to ecommerce and started selling trailer hitch covers.

We set some pretty lofty goals for ourselves, most of them leading directly to the aforementioned quitting our jobs and taking extended vacations. One of our brothers did in fact quit his job, and made the family business his sole income.

Well, that was all fine and good except that none of us had looked objectively at the situation nor had we developed the habits necessary to be full time entrepreneurs. We had meetings, we set goals, we accepted tasks with deadlines. And then we watched TV, went surfing, played golf, went to the movies, stayed up late, read novels, spent hours on digg, took the kids swimming, watched some more TV, and basically did everything but work on our business with commitment and discipline. We were “millionaires in embryo with garbage collector habits.”

How has that worked out, you wonder? Well, our brother Peter, who quit his job, had to go back to work. The income goals we planned to reach after 4 months weren’t realized until 19 months into the business. We also had to face the sad fact that our site wouldn’t be supporting the family any time soon.

But, after looking how things really were, making changes, and putting in a lot of hard work, things are looking up. In fact, we’re about to hire our first employee. More importantly we’ve learned A LOT on our entrepreneurial journey. Mark quit his job a few months ago and is supported by another business he started. Peter is quitting his job today and will live on the income he now makes freelancing. And bonus: we’re taking a fabulous vacation in a few weeks, all expenses paid by Trailer Hitch Universe (our ecommerce site).

Are we still “millionaires in embryo?” Yes. Do we still have “garbage collector habits?” Yes; sometimes more than others. But we’re improving our productivity every week and looking at things objectively and honestly. As we evaluate future plans and goals, we do so with an awareness of our individual strengths and weaknessess and real life circumstances.

Last week I was pretty jacked up about a new business idea I was working on. I need to make some more money and this seemed perfect for me: an internet based business in a field I have been involved in (off line) for the last 12 years that would probably cost less than $500 to start.

Not wanting another experience like that I had with vending machines, I checked and rechecked myself, did I really have the three things every entrepreneur needs?

• Money? Check. I can handle $500.
• Mentor? Check. Like I said, I’ve been in the business off line, and I have my brothers to turn to when I need help with the internet stuff.
• People? Check. This will be a solo operation for a while, and if it takes off, I’m confident I can hire good help. Plus I have family who will take a very active role as supporters and consultants.

Knowing I had the three essentials tied up, I started to do some more research to see if I could really make a go of this idea. Besides determining whether you have the commitment and discipline to take on the task of starting a business, it’s also important to ask yourself these questions:

Is there a market for this service?

Since I’m considering an online business, I checked online. There are a couple of services already running in my proposed field. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, I would have been really disappointed if there had been no competition; that’s a pretty good sign there’s no market either. Both of the top services I found have been around since the late 90s; another good sign–they must be making money.

Can I deliver to my customers?

To me, this question is two fold– first, can I get my customers to use my site, and second, can I give them the service I’m promising? I’m not worried about getting people to my site; there is adequate search traffic for the keywords I would target, and I know how to get listed with search engines. (Our family’s ecommerce site is ranked in the top three on Google for all of our main keywords; it can take a while, but I feel pretty confident in our system.) Additionally, since my service targets parents of school age kids, I know I could write articles for on and off line parenting publications. This would be great, positive exposure, and I know I can drive the traffic to my site.

Can I give the service I’m promising? I think there are enough people on both sides of the service looking for a way to connect, so while I’m not as confident about the answer to this question, I think I can do it.

Do I have enough money?

I know, money is one of the three essentials I already covered, but it’s important enough to look at again. Because I have experience starting a business on the web and experience in the field I’m getting into, I won’t have to hire much help. Buying a domain name and hosting for the site will cost less than $150 the first year, and I’ll do all of the content creation myself. I plan on relying on search engine rankings for the bulk of my advertising (which is free except for the work involved, which I will largely do myself). So, I don’t anticipate start up costs being over $500. In fact, I think I could do it for $250 depending on how much my brother’s technical expertise costs me.

Can I Offer Something New?

Here’s where I look again at the two sites already offering my proposed service, I’ll call them “Site A” and “Site B.” Site A is ugly. The colors are terrible; it’s poorly designed and inconvenient for the user. Additionally the fees they are charging are higher than I anticipate charging for the same services. I know I can do better on all those points. I’ve also checked into their SEO (search engine optimization–how they get noticed and ranked by Google and other search engines), and I feel confident I can match their efforts quickly, even surpass them given some time.

Site B is another story. Site B looks good. It’s well designed, easy to use, and they offer a free service in addition to two levels of paid services. Site B has a lot of users. That’s good for me; that means people have sought out this service.

Can I offer something new? I know I can improve on site A’s model. If they were the top competition, no question, I’d jump in with both feet. Site B has me thinking twice though. I’m not sure I can improve on their service. I know I can get first page rankings with the search engines pretty quickly, but with site B’s longevity, I’m not sure I could ever surpass it (rank higher in search results). If people are going there first, I don’t think they have any reason to then come to me.

I have thought of a few things I could offer my users that Site B does not. Are they strong enough to be my selling point? I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so.

So, Where Does This Leave Me?

I admit, was a little discouraged when I realized I had nothing significant to offer over Site B. I really thought this was the perfect way for me to make more money, but I’m not confident I can command the market, nor do I don’t think the market is big enough that I could share it with Site A and be profitable.

All is not lost though. In planning my business strategy, I came up with some good ideas of perks to offer my users. I still may start a smaller site, a blog perhaps, to test the demand for those items. I have signed up as a free user of Site B myself. By using their site, I may find a way into the market after all.

Finally, I am considering taking my model off line and concentrating on a smaller geographic area using more conventional advertising. I lack a mentor for that kind of business, and it may cost more money, so I’ll research it, get a better idea of what’s involved, and decide from there.