avatarDayton Parks

Summary

The web content narrates the personal journey of an entrepreneur who started a carpet cleaning business with no money or customers and succeeded through determination, innovation, and faith in their ability to achieve their goals.

Abstract

The article is a motivational first-hand account of the author's entrepreneurial journey. After leaving the Air Force and deciding to attend college, the author, with the support of his wife, invested all their savings into starting a carpet cleaning business. Faced with numerous challenges, including a lack of funds, customers, and experience, they persevered by securing their first job at a restaurant and employing creative advertising strategies. The author's innovative approach to pricing and advertising, such as using door hangers with pricing information, allowed them to bypass traditional estimating methods and attract customers efficiently. The business not only sustained the author through college but also expanded to other ventures, collectively generating over $10 million in sales. The narrative emphasizes the power of determination, the importance of taking the first step, and the belief that doing all one can is sufficient for success.

Opinions

  • The author believes that taking the first step towards a goal is the most challenging part of any endeavor.
  • They hold the view that self-employment and entrepreneurship are preferable to working for someone else, offering freedom and the potential for success.
  • The author values trust and partnership, particularly highlighting the role of their spouse's support and faith in their ventures.
  • They suggest that innovation in business practices, such as their unique advertising and pricing strategies, can lead to success.
  • The author emphasizes that while not all ventures will succeed, the willingness to take risks and follow dreams is crucial and often leads to positive outcomes.
  • They advocate for the idea that personal commitment and effort, even if not guaranteed to succeed, are enough to start the journey towards achieving one's goals.

Daily Motivation

All You Can Do Is Enough If You Do It

The hardest part of any endeavor is that first step of faith

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A.L. Williams said, “All you can do is all you can do but all you can do is enough”.

And he was right.

I started my first business right out of the Air Force. I decided to go to college on the G.I. Bill but it didn’t pay enough to live on. The choice I had was to work for someone else or start my own business. Working for someone else wasn’t appealing, so I decided to go to college and start a carpet cleaning company at the same time.

Starting A business without money or customers

So, I talked my wife into taking all of our savings to buy the equipment we would need to clean carpets. She has always been open to adventure and she trusts me (read on and you decide if she should trust me). So we took all of our money and bought the equipment. Sounds easy enough but here are the obstacles we faced:

  • Our savings was gone so we had no money
  • We had no carpet cleaning jobs so we had no income
  • The college was in another city so we had to move to a city we knew nothing about
  • There was no money for tuition, books, food, rent, or anything else but I was going to get some money from the G.I. Bill eventually. At the least, we did have that coming in.

Our families thought we were crazy but they didn’t try talking us out of it.

A leap of faith into the unknown

So we filled our small car with our clothes and carpet cleaning equipment and headed to our rented duplex in what felt like a foreign land. To give you an idea of how little we had, everything we owned fit into the car. On the way to our duplex, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. While we were waiting for our food, I noticed that the carpets were dirty. Being the proud owner of a carpet cleaning company, I asked to talk to the manager who gave us our first job.

We finished our meal then unloaded the car, and cleaned the restaurant’s carpet that night.

I forgot to mention that we had never cleaned a carpet before. That was our first job, our first self employed payment, and our first experience at doing something we didn’t really know how to do.

Looking back, we were crazy.

Being innovative with creative advertising

At the time, carpet cleaning companies would go out to homes and give estimates before doing the work. I thought there had to be a better way. Someone had left an advertisement on our porch, and I thought it would be better if the flyer was printed on card stock and had a hole in it that was large enough so it could be hung over a doorknob. That way the flyer wouldn’t blow away, and I’d be guaranteed the homeowner would at list get the flyer in his or her hand.

We didn’t have money to advertise or pay for printing, but my dad worked for a printing company. I asked for his help. I told him about my idea, and he said it wouldn’t be a problem to make. So he talked to his company who agreed to give us door hangers printed on the salvage edge of larger jobs that were using card stock.

The way carpet cleaning companies were getting jobs back then seemed like a waste of time. They would advertise a carpet cleaning service, but before the work could be scheduled, someone had to go to a home or business to give an estimate.

A better way to do business

I thought it would be better to just give people a price for cleaning a living room and hall then add an additional price for each bedroom. That way we didn’t have to make a trip to just give an estimate. Big or small, the size of the job didn’t matter to me. We need income fast. And we threw in moving the furniture to sweeten things.

It was a killer deal for the customer, and we made money. It was a win-win.

By then we had thousands of a simple cardboard stock door hanger with our business name (We-Do Carpet Cleaning), phone number, and prices printed on it.

Finding customers

We were in business. Except we had no customers.

So we hung our flying on 100 residential doors and waited for the phone to ring.

And the calls started coming in.

We-Do Carpet Cleaning put me through college. We didn’t get rich, but that wasn’t the goal. At the time, it allowed me to set my own work schedule and make enough money to live. So for the next few years, we hung 100 flyers a day on homes 5 days a week, except for finals when I took the time off to study. We eventually sold the business when I graduated.

Conclusion

The beginning of this story started with the name of A.L. Williams's book “All you can do is all you can do but all you can do is enough”. It’s a great title. In the book, he tells his story and gives the reader insight into his thinking.

I read his book several times. His message resonated with me. If you are interested in the book, it's still in print. I recommend it. I don’t make any money from recommending it to you, but it’s a book that helped me and it might help you, too.

Since our first business, we’ve started 6 other businesses. Some were successful, and a couple failed. But in the process, we’ve sold over $10 million in products and services. Our businesses have included a beauty skincare salon, a web design company, a network marking company, and brick-and-mortar motorcycle parts and accessory store that we operated for over 15 years.

Follow your dream

If you’ve been debating about following a dream, if you want to achieve something even if only you believe in it, you can. I am 100% convinced that anything is possible. It starts with putting your heart and mind into it. Once you’re committed to the idea, things will begin falling into place. I don’t know how it happens, but it happened to us. And it’s happened to many people we’ve known.

There is no guarantee of success. And not everything we’ve done has worked. But more things have worked than have failed.

As you follow your dreams and things get tough (and they will, I promise) keep in mind these simple words:

All you can do is all you can do but all you can do is enough.

Life Lessons
Life
Startup
Entrepreneurship
Self Improvement
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