How do you discover skills you possess to provide the world? I am close to your age, I’m 20 but how did you desire to do lawn care service? Or did you do it because it was something you simply knew how to do at the time and if so, what would you say that you could provide for the world aside from that?
The answer to how you should make your money is usually based on your younger days and in your childhood. I was always a businessman but I was distracted with baseball. Nobody was like me on any of my teams. I’d pay more attention to the little businesses I was starting and would try to grow during the extra couple of hours I had after baseball practices. I would always be fascinated with money and it was my real focus, even if I spent a lot of time playing baseball.
I don’t like authority. I would always get in trouble. I was not a bad or stupid kid, but I would always say how I felt and even when I was in elementary school, having a teacher tell me what to do felt worse than eating garbage. I always thought for myself and would create things other people didn’t create, or say things nobody else would say. I once told my mom that I was either going to be homeless or rich but not in between and I’m surprised how well I must’ve known myself at that age to say that. I still think that way.
For some time I built websites for businesses and got good at it and learned about content marketing too. I got a job selling cars and learned about sales.
I picked lawn care because I saw opportunity. I saw some guys show up for 1 hour each week and I found out they got paid 400 a month to take care of that guys place. My eyes lit up. 100 an hour? I need to get in on that...especially since it’s such a basic service.
In my business the “value” is I solve the problem of needing lawn care and I give a high value pitch combined with effective marketing and sales that allows me to give that pitch to many people. Because I maximize the overall value from the customers that sign up, I get paid well from it and can afford to have an employee and grow the business while supporting myself even if I do 0% of the work. As it sits currently I could do nothing but maintain the number of customers I have now (ridiculously easy, I got them all in a couple months), keep an employee hired, and spend my days sitting on my dock overlooking the lake, and take a month long vacation in the winter when I’m getting paid the same but have no employees or costs. I could do that all because I have some efficient systems and “offer value” to my customers while delivering it to them efficiently.
I personally don’t feel that the lawn care business will do much for the world besides get big. The value I provide will eventually be going to my pocket anyways so it has a neutral effect on the world.
After it goes into my pocket though, is where things change. I’ve got big plans for what comes next after the business grows but that’s irrelevant to the conversation.
The real question is, what made you different as a kid? What would you do naturally when you were younger? Did you use to be like little Kanye west when he would watch the clock until it was time to leave school so he could run home and make some beats? Were you like Gary vaunerchuck running 7 lemonade stands when he was in elementary school?