Where I have been this time... and why I'm famous at Wells Fargo

[Trud09]

@brokebum

I agree that the fear is holding you back... Question is why would you willingly choose to learn this skill selling something less valuable or with less potential?

Have you read MJ's book yet?

I am curious why you are saying sales is a lower value skill. Compared to a web designer? Why would you say that? Not saying you are wrong, just different than where my thoughts are.

 

[inttrade123]

I'll have to report back on that. I haven't done it yet.

The plan has always been to provide enough demand for a particular byproduct that no one supplier could handle it. In advance of some potential suppliers beginning production we have them commit all of their production to us. Otherwise we won't comitt to buying any of it and it becomes too risky for them.

We find every supplier in the country capable of making semi large amounts of this product and lock them all down. (That would be like 15).

I read about your sourcing raw materials business. I do this at my day job and we do this on a slightly larger scale.

I tried to PM you, but for some reason it won't let me (probably because this account is new, for anonymity). Shoot me a PM if you'd like to chat, I might be able to help you.

 

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[inttrade123]

No thanks. We are doing just fine.

Ok cool.

Lol. For anonymity?

I had another account on here that I made ages ago but I stopped using it because my username is part of my name and it's pretty easy to find me. Ok for talking to people but not for a public forum.

 

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[inttrade123]

Why not share something of value publicly, just like @Kak has, you don't have to give away your identity or trade secrets, but add something to the conversation based on your position...

I wouldn't recommend just jumping into something like this. If you do, you have a very long road ahead of you and a lot of trial and error.

The owner of my firm had 15 years in the industry before starting to do this.

It can be done, but you better know how to sell to big companies effectively and deal with suppliers.

 

[inttrade123]

Pretty sure @Kak didn't wait for his 15 years of experience

So what can you share from your experience that can help anyone on the forum with this?

There are a lot of people on here that deal with suppliers and b2b customers-- you can add your perspective as an employee of a large firm dealing with this every day.

Yeah I can, just not on my lunch break. This really falls into higher level sales/enterprise sales which I can touch on later.

The experience isn't necessary.

However, it helps a lot to know what is going on. When moving from a large company to doing it on your own, it is more akin to riding a bike for the first time, after riding one with training wheels. Compared to running around like a maniac trying to see what works.

 

[inttrade123]

KAK had exactly ZERO experience. Hell... I remember his first deal. He literally didn't even know what the exact commodity was (in scientific terms). All he knew is that he had a buyer/client with cash, and a seller that had the commodity.

I had a boss once (VP/Best Buy) that told me it mattered zero what the industry --- that buying and selling transactions were all the same minus the particular paperwork. The deals flow similarly. Real estate, consumer electronics, energy. You buy at a price, and sell at a price.

It is. However, try starting an oil company then come back to me telling how easy it was .

I'm trying to figure out why everyone on this forum is so proud of dead end jobs when you can get a job as a sales rep at a software company or the like, be in on the deals as an employee, and then go from there.

Compared to trying to code something or run aff offers while trying to survive somehow.

 

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[Ronak]

I'm not above flying somewhere with a laptop and transferring in person as I take delivery on the spot and bring in my own transportation on the first few deals.

Was just reading through this again...by bringing your own transportation, you mean using your own forwarder instead of having the supplier use theirs?
I've always done this for the cost savings and to have more control over the process, but hadn't considered the anti-fraud benefit. This would presumably make it more difficult to obtain fake BOLs?

What if you had combined a preshipment inspection AND a container loading inspection as a condition on the LOC, would that have prevented it from going through?

 

[Jake Studebaker]

You missed the entire story. Read it again.

Call me stupid, but I still don't see what I missed. The last line says that the supplier became unreachable.

 

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[Striver]

I am far more "get it done" than "make it perfect".

And I am quite sure your bank account reflects that!

 

[StrikingViper69]

I have no idea what I am going to do for education with my children when the time comes. But I do want to gather a group of like minded individuals, who have children roughly the same age, and figure something out together. The current system is shit. "Business as usual" pisses me off more than almost anything else in the world. The education is one of the best examples of "business as usual" that you could possibly find. Time to change it up. That change HAS to start with us because the government sure as hell isn't going to take that challenge on.

Google "Van Damme Academy" and Montesori education - they might be more up your street.

I've had similar thoughts to you. I think I would have been better off with a pile of textbooks and being left alone than going to school. I saw a thread with some studies (I can't remember the thread) that back this up too.

 

[Ocean Man]

Hi Kak, thanks for sharing all your knowledge.

Relationships are really important, and what stuck out to me right in the beginning was when you mentioned this, "So to those of you who think you can't have a successful business and a wife or family are wrong, you just have to be deliberate and make sure you create systems that allow you to spend time away from the business."

Could you elaborate/clarify what types of systems to develop? Reading the Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted , obviously, Time is one of the commandments and being able to earn money while sleeping or taking a 똥, is what we should watch out for. Is this the type of systems you're referring to? A business that follows the commandments?

 

[Ocean Man]

Are you OK with that? Generally we look more for a business with some kind of leverage or scalability.

I would also recommend the E-Myth to you it is a good book.

This is why I've decided not to start a web development company. I feel like I would end up being an owner-operator or where I'm at currently, in a contractor/free-lancing position. Reading The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted , I've been trying to think of the needs of people I can fulfill and provide value to... While also following the commandments.

Currently have a SAAS idea in mind or some products in mind. If I decide to go the product route, I'd like to branch out into a brand itself and conquer the industry. But haven't yet found a way to improve the product 10X. Haven't found that Purple Cow yet.

 

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[Ocean Man]

My apologies for not kicking this off sooner... It turned out to be a much busier trip for me than anticipated.

I am home now and I have unpacked some of my thoughts.

Some of you may know that I am in the process of getting my pilot's license and this may be cheesy to some, but I am noticing a lot of parallels and analogies between the business world, as my limited experience can describe, and flight. The size of an airplane is like the size of our businesses.

Knowledge- There is a tremendous difference in the amount of knowledge and experience required to be built up before you can fly a big jet... Some might say "I don't have the experience or knowledge required to start a business like that", but just like flight, you can learn. All the studying in the world, all the flying of Cessnas, is never going to prepare you to sit behind the controls of a jet. Pilots have to FLY a jet to learn a jet.

No one was born with the ability to fly a jet. Likewise no one was born with the ability to fly a Cessna either... The same goes for business. Folks will bitch about thinking big. "Oh, I'll just "do" ecommerce for now until I build up some capital or experience" It is a bullshit excuse. So you don't have the ability to set out to solve a legitimate problem, but you somehow have the ability to "revoloutionize" the cell phone case market with new color? No. Once again it comes back to becoming the expert. You must DO. You must ACT. There is NO ONE that will hold your hand and teach you how to start a seriously impactful business. Guess what... Thats OK! In fact it is real entrepreneurship. Following a step by step guide isn't. You'll F*cking crash.

Take off- Quite simply put, the larger the plane, the more runway it normally needs to take off. While a tiny lightweight backcountry airplane can take off with almost no rollout, the large jets need thousands of feet to safely take off. This parallels with business because the larger the problem you are solving, the bigger the company it is anticipated to be, the longer it is going to take before it can transfer it's weight from the wheels to the wings.

Barrier to entry? Yes. A jet needs a bigger runway... You can look at that runway as the blood, sweat and tears needed to be put in before your business can take off. Difficult is good for the people who have done it and bad for bozo wannabe competitors. This is the part where you LEARN! This is the part that builds you as a businessperson. This is the part that makes you EXPERIENCED. Have you ever wondered why some people get to the point where they don't feel the need to prove anything? Have you wondered why some people remain calm in the worst of times? They have been down a hell of a runway. The entrepreneur and the business is stronger for this.

This part goes along with my thread about what I would do if I started all over again. In that thread I basically make the case for a well capitalized business in order to ride out the run up first, and then climb faster. Need a bigger runway? OK... Build one.

Climb out- Larger jets, once they are finished rolling out climb like crazy to altitudes you cant touch in a small piston airplane.

This is the day you realize you quite literally could disrupt an entire market. There are growing pains that are bigger than if you were a small business, but so what? Your idea paid off and you are filling the organizational holes with resources on your way up as you leave the small business concerns like getting the cheapest phone system, using your office depot coupons or renting the cheapest shit heap office space you can find in your dust. You have cashflow and cash balence to work out most of the pressing problems.

Carrying capacity- I view this like a business' ability to carry resources. While a jet can carry hundreds of passengers, small airplanes have massive weight restrictions and fuel capacity considerations. With a smaller plane you need to make sacrifices in range to carry more weight and vice versa. Sound familiar?

How much inventory can you invest in at once? What kind of resources can your business carry? Can you afford a professional web designer or are you stuck trying your own hand? Can you afford to advertise to the extent you desire? Could your business accept a massive order without cashflow issues? How many ecommerce businesses could hire just one new person today and maintain a comfortable income for the proprietor? Some airplanes simply can't carry more than two or three people at a time, they are just too small and light. Everything in a small business is a trade off. Resources grow businesses.

Rough weather- It is inevitable that you will run into bad weather, the cool part is that jets fly over most of the bullshit. A small airplane can easily be murdered by the same storm a jet can simply fly over. Not only that, but a jet can intentionally fly through most shit that a small plane has to concern itself with. Small planes are constantly trying to avoid bad weather and adjust for changing conditions.

What happens when marketplace policies change? What happens when advertising gets more expensive? What happens when taxes go up? What happens when you have a legal problem? The list goes on and on. Things that might simply shake a jet can rip the wings off a cessna.

Ease of operation- I don't think anyone would argue that with modern autopilots and avionics, a jet isn't a more pleasant aircraft to fly. They are, and they're less work. This is self explanatory. Look at a CEO of a company that employs just 20 people vs a onepreneur... The CEO looks at his business from 35 thousand feet and the onepreneur is probably at 5 getting hands dirty and worrying about navigating around the next dark cloud.

What is my point?

All of this is not to say that you can't take a small company and turn it into a large company, but more often than not, the companies that become household names, the companies that employ 50, 1000, or even 100 thousand people are ones that were planned bigger from the start.

I personally only give a damn about jets. Any Cessna stuff is a means to an end for me. You will see that my main businesses, as I progress and discuss them further, fit the criteria of the jet. Not because they grew into it, but because that is where I started them; despite some of the mistakes I've made and will discuss like trying to fly a "jet" off of a "cessna" runway.

Sorry if it's cheesy or elementary for some, but this is the kind of stuff that rolls through my head.

Almost up-to-speed starting from page 1. When you said, "Not because they grew into it, but because that is where I started them" reminds me of when @vigalante mentioned Starting with the end in mind. Habit 2: Begin With End In Mind. Kak, I believe you and reading through everything right now... I wanted to say thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. You'll definitely get the jet and when you do... be sure take a photo in it!