First time I have responded to your continuous 1 line questions, after reading most of your posts. You did ask the forum for help writing a business plan, not much help in the actual writing. However, tons in the research and idea formats You need to do your own research a business plan is unique to you and your plans. A business plan is just that a plan, who, what, when, where, why and the last is HOW, it is ever changing. It is that sapling tree you plant in the spring, water it, nuture it, shape it and watch it grow into the tree you plan it to become.
It is not about someone elses' idea of how it should be, how can I just change a few lines and put it in my plan. You ask these questions constantly on the forum, many are not blind to the pointed questions. Go to SCORE, or your colleges business department get an outline of a BP, or online from the SBA.
To answer your question about demographics bottom line: Whoever writes the check!
I wrote my business plan all 40 pages of it, even had it critiqued. Was asked, by my Bank, how much money did I need to start, $0.00, I did not ask for money. I am using my plan, and before you ask, no it is not for sale. It is a flexible document, it changes daily and with the economy, it is a continuing work in progress. It is what is called life.
Many of the Professionals on this forum, give freely and without strings more than enough information to start your business, without asking for anything in return, other than give something constuctive that we all can use. This is the beauty of this forum. I haven't checked, however, I would venture to say many of the professionals on this site started roof cleaning as an extra to their current businesses, many started from scratch with just the idea, read, read and then read some more.
Instead of asking the members of this forum to give you the core of their business trade secrets so you can write your BP. Go to the web, use Google, Bing, Yahoo or any of the number of business only search engines, find a marketing company, ask your question(s), give them what you are looking for, pay your money and download the info for your BP. Now it's done.
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Fred Winters Home Maintenance Services 941.628.9558
You shouldn't target "whoever writes the check!!" that's ridiculous. You can't target those people and just by saying that leads me to believe you DONT have a solid business plan.
Our target is Simple. $350,000 + homes with an income above $150k. Age, ethnicity, gender and profession don't factor into our equation.
Are those the only ones who "write the check"? No, of course not, but it give me a TARGET audience that I can focus my dollars on. I do market to others by default just because of the way we market, and we clean homes from 100k-10million.
I must start with saying that I do agree with Fred and you also must know that he wrote that in the kindest of ways (as I read it). You are lucky that not only do you have the information here but people are willing to help. You WILL NOT find that in many professions.
I started my first business at the ripe old age of 21. I had just enough knowledge to get in big trouble. Business plan? Hell, I, nor did anyone else around know what that was. We took off and learned with a lot of OJT. In those days you couldn't find remodeling in the phone book. We made it up as we tore something apart. Also, we had no Internet, just the help of
There is a gold mine here and I don't mean what you or I can make but the wealth of information and the networking, but we must first do our part and learn this somewhat confusing site (at times) and then, come to the big boys with questions.
As far as your question... I have a really simple way of doing things if I'm out walking or driving a neighborhood. I don't care what someone looks like, what they drive and how much they make. I look at the house and see dirty shingles. The next important question is, do they take care of their home? This home could be in a neighborhood most would never go after because the homes don't have the value they are after. If they pass the test of taking care of their home, I will take my time to talk to them. Case in point, putting out fliers one day, man cutting grass in his back yard, probably the medium to low on this street. He got off his mower, was glad I knew what to do about his roof! It was cleaned the next afternoon and he paid me in cash! A dirty roof? A well taken care of home? That's is my target!
-- Edited by Classicrider on Sunday 5th of December 2010 08:45:29 AM
I did need to rephrase the quote of "whoever writes the check", I wrote it this morning in haste before going to a job on a very expensive home "very expensive", don't get on me about the young man always wanting info that is freely available and is to lame to do his own research. I will send my responses to you everytime before I post and get them cleared if I am politically correct next time. Fair Enough? My target home in the area that I live is $250,000 plus is that okay?
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Fred Winters Home Maintenance Services 941.628.9558
You shouldn't target "whoever writes the check!!" that's ridiculous. You can't target those people and just by saying that leads me to believe you DONT have a solid business plan.
Our target is Simple. $350,000 + homes with an income above $150k. Age, ethnicity, gender and profession don't factor into our equation.
Are those the only ones who "write the check"? No, of course not, but it give me a TARGET audience that I can focus my dollars on. I do market to others by default just because of the way we market, and we clean homes from 100k-10million.
Good luck Travis.
business plan might not be solid but it is 40 pages. lol
Fred- Thank you for your service. I am looking forward to your input because you seem to have your Chit together. I haven't read all your posts but I've read enough of them to know where you're coming from.
Some of you missed the point at which I was trying to get at but anyways the reason 85% of business fail is bad planing sorry I'm am just trying to plan it correctly and by finding out where majority of your roof sales come from it helps in knowing who to target and not...Thanks Scott
Some of you missed the point at which I was trying to get at but anyways the reason 85% of business fail is bad planing sorry I'm am just trying to plan it correctly and by finding out where majority of your roof sales come from it helps in knowing who to target and not...Thanks Scott
Trevis.
the first thing you gotta do is change your avitar picture you just look like a young teen ager having a beer at a foot ball game! no body is gona take u seriusly like that and that's why you get mean answers from other members!
hey here is my advise "stop the talk and do the walk" wanna see you cleanen roofs dude, so far none from you!
Travis, Like Ivan Said, You need to get out and just do it. I know you want to start out the right way, but sometimes you just need to jump in. I'm not saying don't have a road map of what you want to accomplish, but you do need to jump in and make some mistakes. With the knowledge you gained from the RCIA members you will avoid most of the major mistakes. A business plan is great, but not always necessary. There are many successful businesses out there, and some of those owners don't even know what a business plan is, yet their business still does well. At some point in the growth of a business it will be time to step up and require a good business plan. You can get paralysis by analysis and not accomplish anything because you try to research, and get everything right and never do anything. Sometimes you NEED to jump in, with a basic plan of action and evolve your simple plan into a great business plan as your business grows, and you get to know your business/Trade.
I wish you luck on the new start up, and remember ACTION will get you much farther than perfect planning.
That's so funny My Meeting with the SCORE Consular they laughed when I told them guys are wanting me to just jump right in a start cleaning roofs...They said don't ever do that They think I'm taken it the right way by getting information and looking for somewhere to train instead of just jumping into things..A business requires a lot more than just a trailer and a truck guys.
I agree with the others, you should go ahead and spray a roof. I read and learned from everyone on this forum for 2 months, went out bought a pump, 55 gal barrel, some garden hose and went and sprayed my first roof for free. Nothing like getting out there and learning by doing. I have my second roof lined up I will be doing for free as soon as it warms up.
-- Edited by SHBONC on Monday 6th of December 2010 03:56:39 PM