Nobody Knows You. No Clients. No Ads. Now What?

My big kind of worry is I am young.

The thing is you're going to be different than everybody else in the market. Your story is why people are going to buy. Congratulations. Sounds like you're going to be starting a window cleaning gutter business.

Yeah, it's going pretty well so far.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit about, like, what you've started so far. I know we're building the site for you, but like, kind of walk me through a little bit of how it's been going.

Yeah. So I'm currently in Arizona and I've been helping my friends and family with their windows and gutters and then I've been referred to other people as well. I've also done some cars. I've put on doors after jobs and I've gotten jobs from that as well.

My only thing is I'm going to be moving and I don't have any people that know me that I could get referrals from. So basically just no clientele.

I do have a real estate agent that's gonna be giving me leads, but I'm just worried and I don't know how to get my business to keep going.

So what you've been doing so far is most been friends and family. Right?

Friends and family. And then they've been very kind and gotten me other referrals.

Cool. Awesome. And have you just kind of done the weekends and evenings after school?

I'm out of school right now, so.

Okay, awesome. So you've had plenty of time. Okay, awesome. And like last month, for example, how approximately how much in revenue is the business doing now?

Yeah, I'm doing. Since this is a new business, I'm doing things completely for free for people. Since my business is not here in Arizona, it's going to be in Georgia. So I'm just trying to build more reputation.

Until then, lean into it, get it off the ground. Fill your schedule up by leaning into, hey, I'm Kim. I'm knocking on your door. I'm 17 year old. Here's the mission of my business. I'm employing girls, like here. I'm going to show them how to do trades. Like that's a super appealing, you know, messaging that I think you can use.

I feel like what I'll run into in the future with hiring is finding women that do want to work. And I kind of need to avoid being sexist, I guess, like no men, you know.

Yeah, I think you kind of like your brand will kind of push people out like that. Right. Honestly. And I think if you tell, like I Would lean into your story. I'm Kim. I'm building this business because I want to employ ladies and for XYZ reasons. There is other people like you out there. There are other girls that think just like you that don't want to go to school. They also don't want to be behind a keyboard or going to being an espresso. Like they want to go out and get, you know, do window clean. Like that's a cool thing for them. And so I would not. What's cool is they don't have other options. Like they don't have a lot of other people marketing to them in that way. As employees that are like, are you a young girl? Do you not want to go to college? Do you want to get your hands dirty? This is the place for you. There's people out there just like you. And so I would, I would lean into it. That's my, my main, my main message to you would be like, lean into this. I'm super happy you called it. Use the gals in the name of the business. That's awesome. And I would. Are you in pink? Like what's your color scheme is purple and white.

I'm planning on wrapping my car. I have one car and I'm going to wrap that and just basically be a walking advertisement everywhere I go.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I think, I think you'll self select when it comes to employees. Like when your mission is very clear, you tell your story and people see that on your website, you're going to attract people more of that nature. They're probably a younger demographic. If I was running ads, for example, against you know who you're going to market to? You're going to do 25 and under girls, right? That's who you're going to advertise for employees and then for customers. You know, whoever it is, I think 90% of people are okay with it. There's going to be the 10% and we don't care about them because that 90% that we're going to market to has nothing to compare you to. So you can be less price sensitive. People are going to be less about like getting you down 10 in price. So it's not a bad thing at all.

So I, I was watching your, I do consume your free content, your courses. I have gotten to the advertising section of your MBA course. I don't know what I should do for advertising since I'm just completely brand new.

So I think that. What's your marketing budget, Kim, like to.

Get started Honestly, as much as I possibly can, I guess the most reasonable marketing budget is $1,000 a month.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like, I think, I think this is where your story and what you've talked about so far is so important. Having a great website and then I would just go guerrilla marketing, which is we don't need to spend money on Facebook ads, We don't need to spend money in Google Ads. We're gonna. Yeah, I don't think so. Because what I think you're gonna be able to do is tell your story and get a lot of people to share your message. Because I do believe there's a lot of people that support this. They support young entrepreneurs and they support ladies in the workforce like that are doing what you're doing. And so you being bold about that is what's going to attract your icp, your ideal customer profile. And so if I was you, I would really start to think about how do I tell my story to people on Facebook. So for example, I would join every Facebook group in that local area. There's probably 10 to 20 of them. They have 500 to 5,000 people in them. It's all local community members. They share stuff about local businesses, restaurants, et cetera. You're going to introduce yourself in a very organic fashion, differently on each one, by the way, because a lot of them are in different, you don't want the same message showing up. You're going to do some of them, some of them are going to be text, some are going to be video. You're doing different spots of the video, but you're going to make 10 to 15 different posts across the different Facebook Facebook groups. And I guarantee you, guarantee you this will get shared a lot. You'll get shared between members. You'll get, you'll get a lot of free press. And that's the advantage of leaning into something that makes you so different is because it's, it's noteworthy, it's story worthy and it's shareable. And so I believe if I was you and I had a thousand dollar budget, like yes, you could go spending money on Facebook ads. But the problem is this. The only person you're able to get in front of when you do Facebook ads or Google Ads is a person that needs window cleaning. I'm not going after that person. That's a, that's a small segment of the population. I'm going after people who support young women entrepreneurs. That's a very much larger audience and less price sensitive.

That does make sense. I was always thinking I should go for people who actually needed or thought about the service. But with the niche, I guess, niche that I'm in, I don't really think that that's something that is possible. If somebody is looking for gutter cleaning, I don't think they will look at gutter dials and go, oh, shoot, I should get some gutter cleaning right now.

Yeah.

I just genuinely believe, especially the first 24 months, you're really going to lean into this. I believe that because it's in the name. That's still a huge opportunity. Like, if you were. If you were 30 right now talking to me, I would still be saying the same thing, which is like, tell the mission. Like, hey, I didn't go to college. There's. I want to create a workplace that people like me can make money doing what we love, and we don't feel the pressure to go be something else in society. There are so many people that support that now. There's an added layer of differentiation that you have, and that is your age. So. So I would lean into that, too. Like your front website. I would be like, hi, my name's Kim. I'm the owner of, like, that would be my text. And then your face right there with, like, a squeegee, and you're cleaning a gutter. Like, I would be very much into your story.

And I know it's like, to be 16, 17, 18, and be trying to, like, lean away from that and try to act different in terms of the business, but I'm super happy you named it what you did, because it actually tells the mission of the business somewhat, at least. Differentiation. Right. Because there's 10 other companies in your area that are gonna be like, ABC Gutters. There's gonna be, you know, responsive window cleaning. Like, all these other random stuff. No one cares. Like, lean into the story. And then they. You can't. They can't compare apples to oranges. And I genuinely believe people will hire you because they support you, not because they need their windows cleaned. They just are supportive of someone else that's doing exactly what you're doing.

Okay. That does make a lot of sense. I want to get my business in a spot where I can have two locations and have. I'm going to be in the Sono area, so that's kind of south of Atlanta. So that's where I'm starting. And then we want to go to the metro Atlanta. So up north, I want to get my business to the point where I can have those two locations. I guess it just kind of depends on how the market responds to go to gals. But what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, like, I think you're gonna have a really good uptake in it. Like, how far a drive is between these two areas?

One, it just depends on which side of Metro. It's just one to two hours.

Okay.

It's not too far.

Like, there's two things. One, you might get started doing in the first area. And if you're only gonna be there for six or seven months, just take it more of as learning experience in.

Terms of like, stay in both areas.

Okay. It really comes down to scale though, right? Like, so in if can't, the question becomes if in six can in six and seven months, you build a business that's big enough to live without you, and that would probably mean at least 25, 30,000amonth in revenue. So if we built that, I'd be a huge fan. We don't have the marketing budget to force that kind of lead flow. It's going to come down to, can you tell your story, can you interact with people on a free basis on forums and Facebook groups, et cetera? Like, I would be thrilled if in six months you're like, hey, I have three employees. Then we can have a discussion of how do we think about multiple locations. But like, right now, let's think of, like, best case scenario. You're right. We have three employees in six to eight months because they're just people beating down the door to our. The website's pumping out leads and we're going to have to take one of our employees and make them a general manager. Very different conversation in six to eight months. I would say this. Let's approach it though, as I am going to test in this first market because I'm not going to be there very long. I'm going to test my Facebook posts. I'm going to make. I'm going to see how people respond to certain pictures or videos or posts that I make in these groups. I'm going to see what my pricing is like and what my acceptance rate is. I'm going to test if I can increase price a little more since people are buying into the story. I'm going to use a testing ground so that when I go to the Metro, which is like the big leagues, I'll have a very good roadmap of what works, what doesn't work, and what my pricing should be. So then you'll go into the metro area with a ton of confidence. Now, if everything goes right in the first one and just literally we Crush it. Then we have a conversation in six to eight months of, okay, how do we get a general manager in place? How do I run this remotely? Do I 1099 employees, how does this work? But I think first and foremost, we've got to test that this model works. And if it works good, like, it fills your schedule, great. The question then becomes, okay, well, do I hire someone else? They do the jobs and they just want employee that would potentially work. Like, if you can just fill your schedule the next six to eight weeks or so, six to eight months, and then you hire someone and they're managing the work. You're just managing all the admin, the back end, the marketing, etc. That, that's a very interesting model. I think that could work. But for now, we don't have that. So let's just focus on, like, proving the model. Let's go get leads, figure out what works in these Facebook groups. Because I genuinely believe that's the way to do it. With $1,000 budget. If you said, hey, I have $50,000 budget, okay, great, let's tell your story and use Facebook ads. Let's use Google Ads. It's like, broadcast this more. With $1,000, we want to, we got to go an organic strategy. Like, we, we don't have the money to really break into the market using ads. And so I would just be like, we've got a nail where the text, paint pictures and videos that convey the story and the mission of gutter gals the best.

That's what really surprised me about starting this. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. The amount of ad sense people spend on getting their name even out. It's crazy. It's crazy. But definitely I'm not really focused on money. I want to grow it as much as possible. So I definitely am going to put every single dollar I make back in just so it can grow faster and be more sustainable. I also don't mind at all driving back down to, I guess the rural area from the metro area, if that is the case. And I do get to have both those locations, which would be awesome. I guess my next question would be, when should I start hiring? Or should I start hiring immediately even if I don't have leads, just so I could have that, I guess, safety net for employees and not have to hire when I'm desperate?

Like, as soon as you have your website up, I would. Even if you haven't moved to Georgia yet, I would be posting in those areas. Like, hey, I'm moving to this Community on this date. Here's my website. Here's a picture of me. This is my mission behind my business. Thank you all for supporting me. I look forward to seeing you soon. Like, I'd be doing that as soon as possible to kind of gauge what the lead response is in terms of hiring someone before you have the leads. I would not do that because we don't have the budget for it and we don't have work for them to do. So what I would do is say, okay, when I hit two weeks being booked out, I'm hiring someone immediately. And then then just. Because if you're two weeks booked out with your jobs, what you're going to do is in two weeks, you're going to start planning as if you have an employee. But you're going to have to find them now, right? You're going to go find someone, hire them. They're going to have to give their two weeks notice, and you're going to start them in two weeks from now and then start putting on the schedule as if they've already joined you.

Okay. Okay.

So, you know, two weeks being booked out with window cleaning is potentially 15 to 20 customers. So you could do that very quickly. And it just simply comes down to how's the market going to respond to your messaging. And that's why I think it's so important. Like right now, before you even do that, when we were waiting for the site to be built, you can create the text, the pictures in the video. They're going to tell the story of gutter gals. And I think that's so important. Like, what do you want to actually say? What's the statement you want to make? And I would lean into the things that make you different, which we've talked about.

Okay. I do. I do have a Facebook and an Instagram page.

I don't know.

So I would, I would join those Facebook groups as your personal. Because they usually won't allow businesses into those groups and your pitch to them. It's not going to pitch like, call me today or go to my website. It's not like that. It's like, I just want to introduce myself. I'm moving to the area in June or whenever it is, and I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone. I own this business. I employ young girls and we do gutters and we do windows. You're going to get tons of people in the comments and people going to the site. So I would say, like, first stage, create those messages, what they're going to look like. Second Stage site gets done. And if that's before you move to Georgia, that's fine. You're going to then make the posts and you're gonna have your gutter Gals website done. You can do a screenshot of it, of one of the pictures, for example, and you're just not gonna pitch. Just don't pitch. Don't be like, hey, call me today. Or if you want a quote, let me know. Don't do that. People will find your website, they will message you below, but just tell your story. Like lean into. We hire women and we're all about female entrepreneurship and we do gutters and we do windows. People will get behind that.

That's awesome. That, that's. That definitely made me feel a lot better about my, I guess my kind of take on gutter cleaning and window cleaning. Because it's definitely not something that's common. You would look up window and gutter cleaning and you just see like men, raw hands, muscles. And it's like, oh, shoot, I should not be in this.

Yeah. And your website is going to put at ease the professional aspect. Like your site being looking really good is the best thing you've done. Because second to the name of the business, because by your website looking really, really solid, it'll be like, okay, I know those are going to do a great job because like anyone could be throwing out like you know, business cards to their friends and family or local community being like, hey, I want to do your windows and they'll support them. But if you also have a really professional service, that's what, why this can take off. Right. And so yeah, I would just really emphasize those messages in the Facebook group. Not be salesy. They just be introducing who you are.

Okay. I guess the next thing would be pricing since I do want to target the bigger houses and I'm, I'm going to live in the area where there are a lot of big houses. The real estate agent I'm moving in with has sells huge homes, like $700,000 plus homes. So that's my target market. How should I justify my pricing if I need to at all or how should I tackle pricing?