Module 6 - Profit First - How did you balance a business that had an income of ~75K/year while in school? What did your work/school/life schedule look like during this time? I ran the business primarily in the summary full-time and schooled full-time while working part-time.


It was an external painting business and what I believe allowed it to earn $150k in those two years was that I focused on 3 specific things. 

  1. Focused my expertise in learning how to paint houses, then training others to do the work.
    1. I hired a total of 40 painters over the course of the 2 years. (So I didn’t do all the work alone). It was definitely hard work to manage 4 teams at different houses, with people in their 20s while I was in 16 but it served me better than trying to do it all myself.
  2. Focused my expertise in learning marketing (back then it was completely cold call marketing - door knocking and making phone calls, then using my networks) 
  3. Focused my expertise in learning how to have sales conversations and win a client - I would give a free estimate and then have a conversation to help them make a decision on what they wanted to do with it.