How many almost went broke?

[deeker]

My business is slow right now, and it will recover.

Changes in my tactics and with my ways of promoting it. What have you guys done to stay afloat when you first started?

Starting a small business, or within the first two years is tough.

When were you able to pull it out and make an evil profit?

I had to start the two I now own, from scratch. And almost completely broke to begin with. Unable to get loans to buy equipment, had to borrow from family and friends.

Just curious of others stories and successes/failures.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

 

[deeker]

I've been self employed for 28 years and debt free for the past 12. It's been good.


Hang in there Deeker. I'm sure your charming personality will pull you through. That Obama dude is going to tax you back into the poor house so you'd be wise to keep your focus on his birth certificate!

I was asking the people who actually started their own buisinesses, the usual way. Not with an "I do".

 

[ShoerFast]

I've been self employed for 28 years and debt free for the past 12. It's been good.


Hang in there Deeker. I'm sure your charming personality will pull you through. That Obama dude is going to tax you back into the poor house so you'd be wise to keep your focus on his birth certificate!

Was that necessary?

That's right, you don't do questions.

 

[deeker]

LOL!

Your crystal ball must need polishing. I've never married into a business.

One would be led to believe otherwise. Looking at the site.

 

[deeker]

How so?

Post a link to your web site....lets vote on it.

 

[deeker]

We, bought a log splitter in June. The "we" being my dad (91yrs old) and I.

The reason? I have a lot of waste wood that we have been selling as firewood to customers. Dad was basically bored and wanted something to do around the mill.

He wanted to feel like he was working, besides in his garden and yard.
It is good for him to run the splitter and then I bundle the wood for sale.
He feels better about working, he says he does not want to "retire" just yet.

We paid for the $1400 splitter the first month. Selling bundles to camp grounds.

One other advantage of having my dad around is his knowledge in life.
Customers love to talk with him, and he always makes them feel good about buying the firewood.

He and I have frequently said we should have bought the mill in the early '80's when we first started talking about it.

Then we cut cedar fence posts and clear cut for homes and cabins.
Paid a lot of extra bills off that way.

Much more to learn.

 

[ShoerFast]

It was looking grim the last few days Continental airways were operating out of old Stapelton airport. Also shod horses on my weekends.

Given 6 cities with technical promotions and a moving allowance, or take the riff and except $2500.00 training allowance and find something to do for a few years, as Continental had plans to return to the opening DIA airport. It was my desision to stick around and shoe more horses.

I got the $2500.00 approved to go to Pikes Peak Outfitter Guide School (now Colorado Outdoor Adventure School) , did well in Guide school, started my first Guiding job the fallowing Monday after graduation, with about $14 dollars in my pocket.

Stacked a few dimes guiding, the last day was just before Christmas and the stack of dimes would not last till spring when shoeing would really take off. I decided to set up a wall tent in the National Forest to save renting a place till my feet hit the ground, and just made it.

At first, made a couple mistakes, started shoeing in the Mountains west of Denver, it would have been better to stick around the airport where by client base was located. The second mistake was under-bidding my work.

Nothing sounds sadder then the sound of of a butter knife scraping the walls of a peanut-butter jar, trying to scrap up enough peanut-butter for your last cracker. Nothing sounds better then your phone ringing and a good customer braking the peanut-butter scavenging sound with the need to have a couple horses done as soon as I can get there.

Nothing can make a business decision feel better then having a customer asking if I will take half in cash, and half in check, when they lived on the other side of a grocery store and bank from my Forest camp!

Things been up and down since then, mostly up.
Started another businessmen since, Crow Valley Forge LLC . Making Knives, Just last year at about this time we had a knife premiered on page #54 of the September issue of BLADE magazine, have not made a knife that was not already sold since then!

Pictured on page #55 are Rex Walter and Ed Fowler , my Metallurgist and Bladesmith Mentor, without who I would still be making knives just good enough to scavenge peanut-butter from jars with!

 

[deeker]

Good posts, shoe. And your work has been written about in a publicized format. Great job!!!!!!!

The school of hard knocks is familiar to most of us.

When I bought the Norwood mill, I was able to cover payments with other work. Barely.

Clear cutting for building/construction. With the bonus of the logs from the cutting.

Then, I broke my leg in a 4 wheeler accident. I was able to run the mill, with the help of my oldest son Mike and my dad. My youngest son was in the military at the time. Just had to change the way I did a few things around the mill.

A local art and frame maker kept me afloat for the first winter, he made fancy "rustic" frames. I will have to find some pics and post them.

My wife has been working full time, mostly to keep herself busy. She has talked about starting a business of her own. But with the economy right now....

 

[outofmytree]

www.TreeCo.biz

Nice looking webbie Treeco.

You seem to cover all the bases. Type was easy to read too.

You got my vote.

 

[woodbooga]

There's no replacement for customer service and good frequent communication with your clients/customer base. To a degree at least (I'm assuming you're not in direct competition with WalMart).

Taking TreeCo's web site as a point of departure: On his firewood page, there was some good information about the qualities of different wood for smoking meat. That would make a great e-mail blast around Memorial Day as everyone is gearing up for bbq season. The principle is give your potential customer some good free advice - and simultaneously position your business as the first place to turn for the goods and services needed to follow the advice.

Around here, there's a greenhouse that specializes in daylillies of every kind imaginable. They have an informative eNews that updates folks on new cultivars and provides gardening tips so you're successful in nurturing your garden. The principle there is if I buy one and it's successful, I might buy more. If I improperly plant and care for it and it dies, I'm as likely to blame the greenhouse as I am my own incompetence.

But you need to be proactive in gathering those e-mails.

Also, past issues of your eNews can be archived on your web site as additional content. (One of my mantras is "Do what is accretive, not ephemeral." Learned that saying from a Harvard MBA. Works good.)

 

[woodbooga]

Thanks for the kind comments!

My wife does the web site and I gather the information. We should have much more info at the site and it's all my fault and I'm not being sarcastic!

Your welcome. A good practice is to make your electronic presence as active as possible.

For example, I remember when the web was relatively new and businesses would get their site up - and then be pissed that customers weren't beating a path through the doors.

Search is much more powerful now, but still the fact remains creating a site is still relatively passive, following the 'build it and they will come model.'

Anytime we're doing something special or can offer something of value to our constituents, I build a special page in html and send it out as an e-mail with links to relevant pages I want visited. (If you can use the AS software tools, with a little practice, it should be easy fof most.)

For me, every month seems to work well. Frequent enough to maintain the relationship. But not so often we're considered pesty. (There's also a lot of wisdom in the 1st rule of show biz that applies to many things - always leave them wanting more.

 

[outofmytree]

Your welcome. A good practice is to make your electronic presence as active as possible.

For example, I remember when the web was relatively new and businesses would get their site up - and then be pissed that customers weren't beating a path through the doors.

Search is much more powerful now, but still the fact remains creating a site is still relatively passive, following the 'build it and they will come model.'

Anytime we're doing something special or can offer something of value to our constituents, I build a special page in html and send it out as an e-mail with links to relevant pages I want visited. (If you can use the AS software tools, with a little practice, it should be easy fof most.)

For me, every month seems to work well. Frequent enough to maintain the relationship. But not so often we're considered pesty. (There's also a lot of wisdom in the 1st rule of show biz that applies to many things - always leave them wanting more.

Sound advice.

I know very little about website construction but my leading hand is a 20 year IT refugee. He is going to help me (ok, I am going to watch him) build our new website. I have heard a number of IT guns-for-hire say similar things about frequently updating information to increase the profile of a website in search engines. Many other projects to complete before the webbie gets attention.

 

[splittah]

www.TreeCo.biz

Nice looking site Dan, alot of good information there on the cordwood and wood species for BBQ smoking also...

And the plants you have, that list is amazing..

yes, you got my vote too..

 

[cord arrow]

Not with an "I do".

Damn, deeker....how cheap can one man actually get...this could be a new low, even for the likes of yourself...

 

[deeker]

Damn, deeker....how cheap can one man actually get...this could be a new low, even for the likes of yourself...

Well, from the likes of me. Thanks.

My point was made to the one it concerned.

 

[deeker]

The only point you made is that you are lower than whale ####, Bubba.

Still waiting..........why the little "creatures" on "your" site.

Explain or run.

 

[deeker]

My wife has a collection of over 250 fairies. She's got books, statues, photos, calendars, etc.



If you've got a problem with my wife's hobby.......I have a suggestion for you.


Go pack sand up your ass!

About the Gumby running thing.......

 

[deeker]

My wife has a collection of over 250 fairies. She's got books, statues, photos, calendars, etc.



If you've got a problem with my wife's hobby.......I have a suggestion for you.


Go pack sand up your ass![/SIZE]

Not interested, but hey thanks.

Now, shall we return to the topic????

 

[yooper]

I started my tree service 4 years ago. thing where great for the first 3 years. with the economy as it is this summer things are very bleak, Hell I made about as much money last July as I have made so far this year. I have no employees just me and my wife work together so at least no one else has been put out on the line to dry. lucky everything I have is bought and paid for so my small busness has no bills. I always paid for every thing up front. I do have a mortgage on my house and about 90 acres of hunting land but only owe about 24 grand on that. think I am going to have to remortgage that to have money to make it through the winter unless a good tornado comes plowing through the area, but unlikely there hasn't been one of them here for 50 years. but I am frugal, have a couple big gardens and hunt allot of wild game so be it as life goes on.............if all else fails i will become a liberal and go on the dole:greenchainsaw:

 

[woodbooga]

I remember when the band guns and roses was brand new. Read an interview with them about a month before their 1st album came out.

They used to earn cash to buy cheap wine by cruising LA for cheap women - to harvest the crabbies that they harboured. Seems the local clinic used to pay cash money for the crabbies.

On a tangent, one of the band members said, "Cool thing is, if you put two of them in a jar together, they'll fight to the death."

Don't know what it is about this thread that made me think of that.

I'm also left wondering if some of the folks posting in this thread were born under the Zodiac sign of Cancer.