From 2006 to 2010 I managed a music performance service while studying music in university, working nights cleaning my office contracts, teaching, and cleaning windows. I started playing concerts and gigs (jazz, funk, and classical) when I moved to Montreal in 2005 and things eventually opened up to move out of the musician position and take on a managing role. I put together jazz groups and classical ensembles for large weddings and corporate events. It was a ton of fun at first. It was something I was deeply passionate about so it seemed so easy at first. I was spreading myself too thin though.
Dealing with businesses, brides (the worst), wedding planners, piano movers, piano tuners, opera singers, jazz singers, instrument rentals, music rentals, bands, string quartets, industry attitudes, etc…
My biggest downfall was my lack of understanding of what was involved in managing people which led to a lot of bad communication and losing friends in the industry. It became too time consuming and because it was such a passion I was blinded by the fact that I was not making that much money for my work. The operation eventually fractured and I gave my contacts and contracts to other musicians in the industry.
Window cleaning is such a breath of fresh air! Because I love window cleaning so much I vowed not to repeat my mistakes.
be passionate but not allow it to take over
keep it in its place - not growing too big
try as much as possible to have a part-time work schedule which forces me to…
keep it simple stupid
charge for what I think I’m worth and be ready to back that up
Well I’m sure glad I didn’t go down the BNI route, I was on a job one day and the carpet cleaner started to tell me how I should join this networking business group. I said i would look into it, he emailed and then followed up a week later explaining how they all met at FIVE THIRTY AM and for just $1000 I could become a member, I was um I’ll let you know…
Thanks, was tempted (not knowing cost) as there are 2 fave country stations where I am. Biz cards ( Bubble Guy), flyers, and some EDDM I can do…spring’s coming.
My biggest business failure has been employees. They never work out. All they do is loose equipment, wreck company vehicles, have an attitude, and waste my time and money. I know that one day I MIGHT find someone worth it all.
On the window cleaning side it is not charging enough when I first started. When I started out in window cleaning the Internet wasn’t what it is today and I had no idea what to charge so I based my pricing against the hourly rate I was making at the time as the manager of a men’s clothing store. As long as I made more than that I thought I was doing good. Obviously that was a mistake because I wasn’t factoring in expenses, taxes, and everything else needed to run a business.
Over the years I had to continually raise my prices on those early customers, which is a bunch of them, and many of them just got sick of higher prices every year and started telling people that I was always raising my prices. I still have some grossly under priced jobs that I do because I am stupid I guess, but I have been doing them now for so long that I just keep doing them. One is a 93 old retired doctor and it takes me and a helper all day to do his house and he pays $325 and he thinks I’m robbing him, lol
If I could do it over again I would have started out with a better understanding of what my prices should have been.
This is the most common reason businesses will fail.
Some say it’s better money than they were making but working as an employee is not same as self employed expenses.
We easily can under estimate what the value to others is. Instead we may charge based on our value. Easy to say our value is usually not the same as a person who is not hands on like us. A hands on person values things differently than those who are not.
I still have one of my original clients just like that , $350 that takes me about 10 hours . And he thinks im making bank , but he’s super cool and not picky. I first charged him 280 ( when I first started I never thought someone would pay more than 300) , then 300 and this last 2 times was 350( he’s a yearly client). Maybe next year I’ll try and get him to 400.
I had another one $120 that would take me 4 hours , but I dumped them fast .
My big mistake was I was bidding by the sqft when I first stated and when a home would have French windows . I would always loss money.
In retrospect, I can say that my single business mistake I made with my window cleaning company was spending the first 5 years trying to keep everyone happy, all the time.
I wouldn’t walk away from a lead. Probably took years off my life trying to fix the unfixable.
I was solo for a while and I was busy enough with all the new calls. I tried to give a great service at a great price that would make it easy for people to call me back. That did happen quite a bit too. Mainly, I guess I don’t like feeling pushy but it gets easier once I establish a good relationship and we communicate about getting in touch in x amount of months.
Failure can only exist if you let it. There are things that get in the way at times. Often times will be harder then expected. Minor setbacks are helpful to gain experience.
