wal-mart Ad campaign

[Big Lebowski]

Well just as any business it has it's ups and downs. I would say that the video business has been pretty good to me over the last 5 years. My income needs have outgrown the limits of this business. It is well established and I have my wife and 3 other part time employees - as can be expected of a smaller semi rural area. We are not blockbuster and we are not in the lions den as I call it. No big video chain or independent would want to open up shop where I am because the area population pull is too small for them to profit. Whereas a small independent could survive very easily. I would say the biggest downside to running your own business (something younger entrepreneurs wouldn't necessarily appreciate) is the lack of benefits in terms of health care etc. The positive benefits are obvious to most, flexible schedules & money potential etc. My business doesn't allow me the luxury of affording health insurance for me and my wife. I would be working for the insurance providers. I am pretty uncomfortable with not having any. Paying as you go can quickly turn into - going and really paying for it. Such as losing your business and more if something terrible and expensive happened. I currently have my "foot in the door" with a job that is only fill-in occasional work. However since this company does state work, they are required to offer certain wages and benefits. Which is full company paid medical and more. It's got to be the most crazy awesome benefits I have ever seen. Well anyway I guess I'm just saying that being your own boss is great if everything goes your way and you have some safety net. Without it, you could be in big trouble. Starting the lawn care business will allow me to get in at my own pace and jump out if needed without having leases, deposits and other obligations to worry about - like you would have in a store front location. These people want to get paid regardless and they will not think twice about shutting you off, locking you out, ruining your credit or taking legal action. You wouldn't necessarily have this issue with lawn care. You could sell or give away accounts if need be. This is a real nice luxury to have. This even goes for a situation where you get a job offer where you can make the same money or more and with great benefits. You could literately walk-away from this business without hurting yourself just by taking minor steps upon exiting. So enough about that. I JUST built the web site like last week. After seeing the food cart guy down the street had a website and after an employee mentioned that we should have one, I put one together in a day. So it's not big flash and it's not completely done but it is there. Yes I felt the need for a disclaimer. But I have some photos of the store on the website. Here's the link. www.fp-eb.com

[Big Lebowski]

Lawn care business tips

Oh I forgot to address the pizza thing. Yes I have thought about it. We would kill it here. But unfortunately I live in an area that has stupid amounts of pizza places. I even have one in my plaza just 3 doors down. There are 3 pizza places in less than a mile and several more just 15 minutes away. Not to mention the convenience stores have pizza too. A popular add on for video is take and bake. I would definitely give this a try first and then if it worked out try delivery if we weren't so saturated enough already. My only option would be try it after a one or two places close. BTW, most of these pizza owners are video members, they would not like me very much if I rolled something like this out. It would however be pretty close to a no-risk venue for us. What's the worst that could happen, I eat a lot of pizza over the course of a year or so?

[Big Lebowski]

I forgot another thing. I did try a combination deal with the former owners of the pizza place in my plaza. It was like pulling teeth to get my money since we set it up for him to collect the cash, and then he would give me the money afterwards. This ticked off the other pizza owners and they stopped coming in - this went on for some time even after I stopped the cross promoting. They are back now.

Once the new guy took over and I met him. I knew I definitely did not want to be attached to him in any way. I won't even patronize his business. Even when I forget to bring lunch, I have it delivered from another place if I need something. Mostly I bring my lunch. A much wiser, healthier and cheaper route. Bringing healthy food to work forces you to eat healthy. A problem I would have if I bought my lunch everyday.

[Steve]

I wanted to bring this post back up because it had some good marketing ideas.

[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Steve, I am glad you brought this post to the top again. It's fun reading back on old material we may have forgotten.

Personally, I think putting fliers on cars in parking lots is a bad idea. In addition to it being against many ordinances and in violation wal-mart's 'no solicitation' rules, it gives the potential of negative advertising. I'm more often annoyed when I have a solicitation under my windshield wiper than I am happy to see it.

What are your thoughts?

Keith

[Steve]

Yea I think it has the potential to cause problems and there are a lot of other marketing ideas you could experiment with.