His Pregnant Wife Had NO IDEA That They're Broke

And the debt is about $216K, and that's personal and business. She doesn't really know much. She's the type where we just talk where she just wants to know if everything's good or not good.

Does she think it's good right now?

I tell her that we need to watch our finances. She— I don't want to stress her too much, especially when she has a baby. Bought a house also on top of this, $280K. I mean, there's just been— the wedding cost itself was like $30,000, $40,000 grand. So it just kind of picked up on some debt.

She gives you a little bit of grace in the evenings, on the weekends, to go get more leads because we could grow this business to the moon and make more profit. But if we personally don't have a budget in place, we're just going to constantly keep losing money out the bottom of the leaky bucket. I'm just afraid that your personal lifestyle costs are slowly increasing to the point where no matter how much you make in this business, we're going to be struggling.

I'm 1 year in business or 1 year and a half. I run an excavation kind of septic company in the South. I am just struggling with all the debt that I have and just all this like constantly hustling, hustling to make this money. And at the end, I'm almost like reaching zero and I'm just kind of getting tired and I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong or where I'm not correctly doing some stuff. Uh, I have one employee and roughly I have about $10,000 a month that I need to keep up with. Been, uh, and the personal and the debt is about $216K, and that's personal and business mixed.

Okay, and how much of that $216,000 is equipment?

Roughly, probably like $160,000 to $180,000, pretty much most of it, I would say.

Okay, and so outside of that, let's just call it $180,000, there's another, let's just call it $35,000 to $40,000 in personal, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, so that's mostly credit cards or what is that debt?

Personal is a bit of credit cards, I do have just some loan to personal family. Um, pretty much that's it. Uh, I just recently— why I'm just— I'm getting really serious and really tracking because I recently got married, just learned that I'm having a kid, uh, 9 months. It's— and I just— I need to get stuff serious. I need to lock it down. Um, I'm always struggling with leads. Sometimes I'm Either overwhelmed or I don't have enough. Right now I'm kind of on the low end.

Why did you start this business?

I've been watching your videos and I'm— to be straight up, I just want to make a lot of money. I just, I guess, get rich in a way. Okay. And freedom.

Yeah. What could you make if you went and got a job? I'm not saying you should get a job. I'm asking if you went and got a job tomorrow, what would you get paid? In excavation or construction, whatever you could do and get a job for doing, whether project management or actually just in an excavator. How much could you make in a year?

I mean, I'm not, I'm not even sure, to be honest. Probably $25 an hour, which I don't know how much that correlates to. Okay.

And okay, in revenue this year, what do you think you're going to do for the business?

Last year I did $200,000-$300,000 in revenue. This year I am— I mean, there was a lot of hectic with the marriage and everything. I bought a house also on top of this. If I really hustle, I think $500,000, $400,000-$500,000.

Okay, so if you're going to—

I kind of think my prices are too low, potentially.

Okay, so you're gonna do $400,000 to $500,000 in annual revenue. You have $10,000 a month in expenses. Is that your personal expenses that you're saying, or is $10,000 a month kind of like inclusive of like your debt payments, etc.?

$10,000, that's in just business side. That's nothing with personal.

So if I take $400,000 to $500,000, I take, let's call it, $100,000 in business expenses, I take out loan payments on the equipment and even the personal side. Where's the rest of the money going?

Probably to my personal, and maybe I'm— I mean, I just bought a house for $280K. I mean, um, there's just been, uh, the wedding cost itself was like $30,000, $40,000, so they just kind of picked up on some debt.

Okay. Um, is your wife stressed out by this?

Um, she doesn't really know much. She, she's the type where we just talk, where she just wants to know if everything's good or not good.

Does she think it's good right now or not?

Um, I tell her that we need to watch our finances. She, she— I don't want to stress her too much, especially when she has a baby, so Yeah, pregnant.

So when you play this out, if you don't have that conversation, a lot more stress ensues. And that is like when payments don't go through, she goes to the store and the credit card doesn't go through. And so I understand not wanting to give her stress. I also think she would feel a whole lot worse if you get to that late stage without first addressing it. Because here's the thing, you had marriage, you had a house, now you have a kid. There's gonna just constantly be new and different versions of expenses that are gonna pop up in your personal life that if we don't manage it, we'll continue to spiral. So the $30,000 or $40,000 wedding and the down payment on the house, now the kid's gonna be expensive too, like, right? Like, it's gonna be another $20,000 by the time you get clothes and a new room and you get all the crib and the stroller and everything else and gotta upgrade the car. And so all of these things will not stop happening. They will only continue to ramp up. And so I personally— this is my personal opinion, this is my opinion— you gotta have her on the same page as you, because otherwise this is gonna continue to happen, which is your personal expenses. Like, on $400,000 to $500,000 in annual revenue, if you have $100,000 expenses, then let's just say we have another $100,000 when it comes to wages and other expenses for the employee, and then you have debt payments. Let's just call it $5,000 a month, even if it was that high. Which it probably isn't, but $5,000 a month even, like, you should be okay. I believe that your personal, your personal expenses are starting to get bloated. And to no fault of your own, you have got a lot going on the past couple years. You started a business, you went and bought a bunch of equipment, you got married, you bought a house, now you're about to have a kid, and I'm just afraid that your personal lifestyle costs are slowly increasing to the point where no matter how much you make in this business, we're going to be struggling. All right, so I was just watching the video and I realized that this is, this is the reason why inside of Home Service Boardroom we talk so much about health, marriage, communication, and becoming the leader that is required to build a $10 million business. Like, how, how does it have to do with anything? Because like, what you eat affects the way you show up at work, your relationships, the way you have money and your budget with your spouse affects your business. And so that's why in the first couple months of Home Service Boardroom, in the challenges that we do on a 30-day basis, we actually attack these things first. Before we start talking about hiring systems, compensation models, general managers, we talk about these things. So if you're trying to build a $10 million business, if you've already built a million dollar business and this is starting to become the constraint, is leadership, figuring out these aspects of becoming the leader that is required to build a $10 million business Check out the link in the description and see if you can join Home Service Boardroom. Love to see you there.

Now, is there a way to increase prices on my jobs if I'm—

how far?

Actually, too low.

How far are you booked out right now?

Probably a month right now.

And are leads pretty inconsistent?

Yes, right now it's very gradual, I would say.

And do you have— how do you get your leads right now?

I just signed— I, about a month or two ago, I have your home design team, uh, did my website. Um, right now leads are just word of mouth, a little bit of Facebook. Um, I'm trying to get my Google reviews up and, uh, trying to put a location on my Google My Business, really activated.

Uh, but leads are coming— are they coming from contractors? Who actually gives you the jobs?

Uh, builders per se, more builders than homeowners. Um, a lot of construction is going around in the South, South Carolina area, and, um, just who I know pretty much. But sometimes they, they haggle on price. It's more about price than really just doing the septic, or so I don't really know where I should kind of just increase my prices, but I'm scared to not have enough work. Yeah. Uh, and keep my worker busy.

Yeah, I would agree to not raise your prices first. Right. So here, I'll, I'll kind of switch to the steps here I would take. Um, this is my personal opinion, take it with a grain of salt. I think price is the last thing we change. It is the thing that we need to do to solve the, solve the business, and that is make more money. However, it's not the first thing. The first thing we gotta do is plug the leaky bucket, and that is the personal expenses that are creeping higher and higher. And so, I would do, if I was you, is I would talk to your wife about where you're at financially, personally, and not make her feel guilty. There is no guilt in anything that's been done. Everything you have done has likely been because you want to provide for them, you wanted to have a great wedding, you wanted to be able to provide a house for them, now you have a kid, that's awesome. But you gotta get on the same page, otherwise you're gonna constantly have this bloat of personal expenses, And I have seen this time and time again, regardless of how much money you make, because we could fix the price problem, and if you just make more money and you spend it all, we'll be in the same spot. And so the first thing we got to do is have a talk. This is, again, me personally. What I would do is have a talk with my spouse, get on the same page, create a personal budget, use EveryDollar. It's a free app. Both of you are on it. Both of you are tracking how much you're spending to ensure that as we fix the business and make more money, we so we don't just have more personal expenses, 'cause there will always be a good reason to spend money when you're growing a family. There just will be. The next thing will be is, like, another kid, or we'll need to get a bigger house, or a bigger car, then we'll need to get them in school, then there's college, like, it'll just always keep going. So we've gotta create a budget, and then, once we've done these things, which I do believe you can do this in about 1 week, have the talk, create a budget, stick to it, And then we can go fix the leads problem. The leads problem is going to look like going to contractors and talking to them. And this is going to need to probably be done in evenings and weekends because right now you're busy doing the work, making the money. And so this is why we need to have the talk with your wife is because she's going to need to allow you a little bit of grace for a few months to go get more leads. And that time is going to be spent going after B2B, business to business, going to contractors. And now that your website's going to look good, when they go check you out, you'll look awesome. But you're going to show up at job sites, you're going to go to builders associations, you're going to go to local meetups of contractors, you're going to be going out and trying to get more leads. And you're going to have to— the reason we got to have this talk with her is to get her buy-in. So even though you're about to have a kid, she gives you a little bit of grace in the evenings, on the weekends to go get more leads. Because once you get the leads and you're confidently booked out several months, that's when you'll raise your prices. And I understand this is the fix we want to get to, but we've got to get enough leads in order to make that happen and have the backlog of work in the pipeline. In order to do that, we've got to make sure that we get buy-in from our spouse so we don't cause personal issues by going out and spending discretionary time in the evenings and the weekends finding those leads. And I don't want to do any of those things without having a budget in place because we could grow this business to the moon and make more profit, but if we personally don't have a budget in place, we're just going to constantly keep losing money out the bottom of the leaky bucket.

Yeah, I agree. So she always wants to spend time with me. There's— why are you always busy? And sometimes she spends on something that I kind of secretly kind of not really happy about. And, um, I agree that there needs to be a talk, pretty much.

And I appreciate the vulnerability in saying that, and I know exactly where you're coming from. And here's the thing, you're a blessed man that that your spouse, the only thing she wants from you is to spend time with you. Like, what are you gonna complain about, right? And so, yeah, also she deserves open communication and information about where you're personally at financially so that when she does make a buying decision, she doesn't secretly make you mad. You're not saying anything because you're a good husband and you want to support her. I understand that. But what will feel a whole lot worse is if you don't tell anything to her and one day it does catch up with you. And so having that conversation is important so that when she wants to spend time with you, she sacrifices that because she knows now why you're doing it. That's why I need that stuff done first before you go out and get the leads. Because if you start disappearing instead of getting back at 5 or 6 PM, you're getting back at 7:30 or 8 PM. She's not going to like it. I need her to understand why that is necessary. And so if you don't mind me asking, how many more months till we have the child, the baby?

He's only 6 weeks in, so probably, well, like 8 months.

Okay. So I would give a defined time. I would be saying, hey, I need till the end of this year. I need a little extra time. Carve it out. Ask for an extra hour a day, or is it on Saturday for 4 hours? I need to be able to go to associations. I need to go to builders. I need to be able to walk in on job sites. I need to go make connections and network. But I've got to do that outside of what I'm currently doing to pay the bills. But I need to do that so I can get a 4-week backlog. And once I get a 4-week backlog, I can raise my prices. But I'm going to need this extra time. And here's why I need to get these leads and I need this extra time is because right now we are not in a good place financially. And here's everything. Here's all the numbers. Great call, and I appreciate you being so vulnerable.