@Ruby - Yeah, you have to have the time to start a business. It really kind of is all consuming, especially at first. It would be really difficult to start a business and go to school full time. I'm glad you found your way to education that made an impact on your life though.
dubstepped
JoinedPosts by dubstepped
-
33
Let's talk business ...
by dubstepped ini am thinking that this could be an interesting topic.
most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us.
so i thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.
-
-
-
33
Let's talk business ...
by dubstepped ini am thinking that this could be an interesting topic.
most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us.
so i thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.
-
-
dubstepped
First Scratch, congrats on the big upcoming anniversary!
I like your story. Sounds like you got a leg up technically from the jump and through hard work, natural intellect, and foresight resulting in good timing, you've made quite a life out of it all.
All paths seem to have that yin and yang to them. It sounds like your lack of roots has also got a lot of variety on the other side of things. It sounds like you've accomplished some cool things.
I wish I ever felt ahead of the game or on the cutting edge of something. As a poor JW kid we never had much. We had a black and white tv while others had nice color sets. We had a big console tv while everyone else had sleeker sets with remotes. When everyone had Nintendo and Sega I was just getting an old school Atari. I could go on and on, but I'm just realizing while writing this hoe I've always been behind in so many ways. The gifts I was blessed with were never developed while I was behind on everything else.
In some areas of life I've caught up and gotten ahead, but it's exhausting to keep fighting from behind.
Oh, and what's your current line of work that you're getting a Master's to help advance?
-
33
Let's talk business ...
by dubstepped ini am thinking that this could be an interesting topic.
most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us.
so i thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.
-
-
dubstepped
Hey SIAR, what kind of business have you been in for the last 15 years?
And I feel you on settling for things that pay the bills. I do have to say though that I realized that instead of doing something I love I would need to find what I loved in what I already did. I hated cleaning for a long time, it was just a necessary evil. But I did eventually find the things I loved in it. The people, helping others, an outlet for my perfectionism, their pets, making things look new again, working with my wife, a measure of autonomy, listening to books and podcasts all day, etc.
-
33
Let's talk business ...
by dubstepped ini am thinking that this could be an interesting topic.
most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us.
so i thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.
-
-
dubstepped
I am thinking that this could be an interesting topic. Most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us. So I thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.
I'll start. I passed up scholarships to engineering school so that I could pioneer. I was also into electronics in high school and while I fixed tv's and vcr's and microwave ovens and such on my own I was offered the chance to go to school to learn the repair mobile electronics (pagers back then, cell phones were just coming in) and my own storefront, of course I turned that down as well.
I stopped pioneering before year one was up though I had my time. Ran out of money. Bounced around doing telemarketing, managed a marketing department for a construction company, read meters for the gas and electric company, and lots of random things (worked in a laptop repair facility, did basic inspections on commercial and residential properties as a contractor, and more). Cleaning was that thing I always went back to though. I could make more money washing windows or pressure washing parking lots or cleaning common areas in apartment communities.
Eventually I got married and we cleaned banks and car dealerships at night as a subcontractor from some other Witnesses who ripped us off. They lost their contracts and my wife and I took our last few hundred dollars and decided to go out on our own cleaning. We started in the apartment rental industry because we wanted to work during the day and picking up communities meant that we would get a bulk of work at once. Much easier and faster than building a house cleaning business one house at a time. We did this for 4-5 years. My dad and brother worked for us. Then one day the largest property management company in town sold their properties, our business was cut in half or more, and we had to let my dad and brother go.
So I started a mobile auto detailing business out of thin air. I had the idea and although I was clueless we got started. I offered cheap group rates through employers locally and realtor agencies and they spread the word for us. We started fast and cleaned lots of cars, especially for realtors as it's part of their livelihood.
While doing this we were building a residential cleaning clientele and keeping up with the few rentals we had left. Eventually we transitioned to houses full time, cross promoting what we did with our detailing clients and we ended up cleaning for many of them.
Now we clean houses full time, just my wife and I. We make decent money, have money in the bank, and we have a full schedule with probably a 10-20 family wait list. People wait for years to get on our schedule. If we lose a client due to them moving or having a financial reversal, we can just call our list and pick up a new client easily. We pick and choose who we work for and are not afraid to fire a bad client. We love our clients and are friends with them. Our first holidays have been spent with some of them and it is great. We have a lot of control over things but we do work very hard physically every day and we have a ton of things to keep up with.
My fear is that eventually there will be a point of diminishing returns physically. I'm 40 now, not getting younger, and definitely feel the exhaustion of constant physical work, cleaning 2-4 houses most days, and a few offices as well. So at some point I feel like I need to find something else for us to do. Maybe it is expanding our cleaning business somehow and hiring, though hiring house cleaners is scary as every house is different and it's hard to standardize, and often these are fairly low wage employees that require lots of babysitting that I don't want to do.
I love marketing and study it. I'd love to get involved with it someday. If nothing else, I love to grow as a person and don't think I want to clean forever, but I do enjoy it and would have a hard time going back to a traditional j-o-b where I punched a clock. So we're in a good place, but that may not last. I'm wondering if others have transitioned from cleaning into something else and what that was, or maybe you built a cleaning empire.
So what's your business? How did you get there? What are the pros and cons, where are you heading, what do you want?
-
14
WT rules about forgiving a cheating spouse
by Addison0998 indoes anyone else think it’s weird and controlling the organization says if your mate commits adultry, and then you have sex with them, you are not free to remarry again, since this means you forgave them.
the bible never mentions anything about this.
it’s so weird they have a say about what goes on behind closed doors of two people who are still legally married.
-
-
dubstepped
I expected a better answer. Way to avoid my questions.
-
14
WT rules about forgiving a cheating spouse
by Addison0998 indoes anyone else think it’s weird and controlling the organization says if your mate commits adultry, and then you have sex with them, you are not free to remarry again, since this means you forgave them.
the bible never mentions anything about this.
it’s so weird they have a say about what goes on behind closed doors of two people who are still legally married.
-
-
dubstepped
I don't get the hate toward this poster. Am I missing something? Why can't this person be female, even if seen as predatory? Wasn't she talking about predatory brothers in other threads? Now she's not even female? Something took a turn and maybe I missed it.
-
23
Dating as a Jehovahs witness has made me PIMO
by Addison0998 inhey, i would like to share my experience, it is kind of long but i really appreciate whoever reads.
last year i was a devout pioneer sister.
well, i am naturally an imperfect 20 year old women.
-
-
dubstepped
Sounds like the congregation I grew up in, only with a beach. Jehovah's Witnesses are sex crazed paranoid maniacs that need a hobby. Their style of dating results in horrible relationships and ruined lives. Chaperones, the foremost consideration of a person's meeting attendance as evidence of a suitable lifelong partner, etc. It's all so stupid and only serves the cult.
Congrats on becoming MO!
-
34
JWs on campus
by Sarabethy init's my first time on this site though i am no stranger in the ex-jw community.
i come to you now asking for your assistance in what to present to the dean of students at my university.. why am i meeting with dean of students, you may ask?
because today, while innocently finishing an assignment in the school library, i happened to look out the window and see the jws with their stupid little cart.
-
-
dubstepped
Just stand out there and preach TTATT and they'll probably leave on their own. Record them. Ask questions. They're cowards.
Pisses me off every time I see a cart. The shaking while approaching is probably some result of the ptsd many leave with. I get it too sometimes. Just so many feelings that it's overwhelming internally even though I'm totally rational. The mind and body can have two different experiences at the same time.
-
31
We are giving too much power to the watchtower
by sinboi ini am just 17. many of you here are much older than me.. i do feel that offering advice here is like teaching my father how to fuck.
but seriously, i do see the problem here.
we are focusing more on the problem than the solution.. i have been reading mind power books for quite some time.
-
-
dubstepped
Sinboi - Is it really true that we will be the loser in this fight???
Look, according to delusional cult members if life goes well it's because Satan and if life goes poorly it's because Satan. You can't win a fight against delusional people. If that alone doesn't show them that they're just making this up as they go along to fit a narrative that supports what they already feel, not much you or I can do.
Our fight isn't with them. Our fight is our own, our own life, figuring that out without them, living for ourselves. They are playing their game, and we play ours. Different games altogether. I don't care what individual members do, including my family members. I do care that the organization itself be exposed so that it doesn't hurt more people.
-
31
We are giving too much power to the watchtower
by sinboi ini am just 17. many of you here are much older than me.. i do feel that offering advice here is like teaching my father how to fuck.
but seriously, i do see the problem here.
we are focusing more on the problem than the solution.. i have been reading mind power books for quite some time.
-
-
dubstepped
Hey man, I don't think anyone is offended, and although naive (which we all were), you're so far ahead of where most of us were at 17. You have a good outlook and you're not wrong about the need to work on ourselves and to be positive and find happiness. Keep it up and you'll have a great life!