I've told you in the past that my wife is always very supportive of my business ideas even though the past has a record of nothing accomplished. She was always willing to help a little and offer some advice, but she was never into it as much as I was. That has changed with a conversation that we had today. I put our success in such simple terms that the dream of starting a successful business feels like it is within our grasp. I thought I would share this simple insight with you. After I explain what she was so excited about, maybe you can use it as a bit of motivation too.
My target market is pregnant women. There are around 4,000,000 birth per year. I'm sure some of those are multiple children in one birth, but the majority is one child to one woman. So my market is a close to 4,000,000 per year. I'm renting equipment to these women on a monthly basis for up to around 9 months as a potential. Let's say the women don't find my product until their fifth month of pregnancy when their backs really start to hurt. I know that it is just an assumption and not based on any facts but stay with me. So, I have four months of a $40 per month rental for each women. Let's dream a little now. What if I can get 50 new customers a month? That doesn't sound like a lot. That means eventually I will have 200 customers renting each month. If you didn't understand that math, 50 customers from month one are still renting in month two, three, and four. 50 customers from month two are still renting in month three and four. 50 new customers in month 3 are still renting in month four, and there are 50 customers in month four. (50 from months one, two, three, and four are renting in month four.) 200 customers multiplied by $40 is $8,000 per month.
If we paid off our student loans (about $24,000) off, sell the truck, and rent or sell the house, we definitely have enough money to travel all we want with no worries about other bills. Heck, we could even afford the monthly payments without paying off the loans or selling the truck, but I'm a very debt adverse person. No mortgage, no utilities, no internet bill, no truck payment, no daycare costs, and etc. This is exciting. Let us say that we don't want to leave Wisconsin
Because I told my wife the scenario of only 50 new customers per month, she can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels as if it isn't that hard. The reality is that it is not as easy as sitting on the couch and watching TV, but I'm not asking her to climb Mount Everest either. Now she is excited and putting in time helping to improve the business. My extracurricular activity of starting this business has now turned into bonding time with my wife. This is so great.
If you can break your dream down to simple goals and simple ideas, you will see how much easier it can be. Don't just think of the big end goal. Break it down to manageable daily goals and each day you will see progress towards your dreams.
Back to work on making my dreams a reality.
I couldn't help myself but to write some more. I'm super duper crazy excited. I just received approval today to become a distributor of my product. I was getting worried. I kept saying to myself, "Self, if I don't hear back from them on Monday, I am going to call on Tuesday." Nothing happened Monday. BUMMER! It is now 1:38 pm on Tuesday. I was finally done doing everything I had to do at work. This was unusual because normally I'm done with doing my work requirements by 11:00am. (I'll have to explain that a little more in the next article) I was just about to pick up the phone when I realized that I had not checked my email. (Wow, I hadn't checked my email yet?) LO AND BEHOLD. It was there. My confirmation to become a distributor and all the great pricing discounts had appeared. One small step for man, one gigantic step for me.
I was excited and told three people at work. No one really shared my huge amount of enthusiasm. That's alright. Hopefully in a few weeks I will be sending them updates from my lifestyle blog about how cool my life is.
Back to reality. What needs to be done?
1. I need to get credit card and shopping cart integration on my website.
2. I need to set up a FedEx Ground account for shipping.
3. Set up a business bank account.
4. Get rates for Magazine advertising
5. Online Advertising
6. Find all the online forums that pertain to sleeping on your stomach when pregnant.
BOOM DONE! Well, not everything. I immediately called a credit card processing company (Chase Payment). I just needed information at this point. I signed up for FedEx Ground online in a few minutes. I did apply for an American Express Open credit card because it offered shipping discounts, but I was denied. HOGWASH! I'm already a frickin American Express cardmember. My credit is good, and I've never missed a payment. Stupid American Express.
My wife (who works for an advertising agency) called FitPregnancy for their rate cards. I wasn't expecting that a full page ad was $38,000 and the cheapest black and white ad of a business card size was $3900. I know everything is negotiable, but I don't know about that negotiable. Well, their online advertising was more reasonable. I might try that. I then did google searches for phrases like "sleeping on your stomach when pregnant" and then followed all the related search phrases at the bottom of the page. I found all the forums that women had asked these questions. My plan is to go to every forum and post about Mommy Tummy Time.
I just can't believe that it has been less than two weeks since reading about the sixmonthexperiment site from JL (the creator). So much has progressed and at this rate, I might have a fully functional website, advertising, and orders in a few more weeks. That would be accomplishing a six month goal in less than two months.
I leave you with this a couple of quotes.
"Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun." -Christina Rossetti
SO GET FRICKIN STARTED ALREADY! -ME
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