The Butler Project

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.

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