Obtenez 3 mois à 0,99 $/mois

OFFRE D'UNE DURÉE LIMITÉE
Page de couverture de #190: Care & Repair – A True Empire Building Story

#190: Care & Repair – A True Empire Building Story

#190: Care & Repair – A True Empire Building Story

Écouter gratuitement

Voir les détails du balado

À propos de cet audio

 Sergei Kaminskiy started his empire by taking jobs that he didn’t know how to do and then hiring a professional to learn from. Wow. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us. But we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients so here’s one of those. [Tapper’s Jewelry Ad] Stephen Semple: Hey, it’s Stephen Semple here, and yes, it’s unusual, I’m opening the episode. We’ve given Dave Young the week off because he’s been working really hard lately. And I managed to meet Sergei Kaminskiy. We had a bit of a brief conversation and I was immediately, “Dude, I got to get you onto the podcast.” There were so many things we talked about that were just really, really great lessons and he’s in the home services business. We’re going to be talking about handyman, but this is applicable to all sorts of different businesses. But the first thing that fascinated me was really how you got started in the handyman business before creating the franchise model. Tell me about the start, that was just a cool story. Sergei Kaminskiy: Yeah, I got married. I was really young, I was just 19 years old. Stephen Semple: Right there tells us you’re a little nuts, but… Sergei Kaminskiy: I look at 19 year olds now and I’m like, “You’re not ready to get married.” But anyhow, we got married and then about three months into it, we look at the bank account, there’s about $70 in the bank account. And here I am, I’m working as a framing contractor, I mean as a framer for a framing contractor and making $17 an hour. I went to the owner of the business and I said, “Hey, Jim, can I get a raise? I bought a truck, I bought the tools.” And he goes, “Sergei, you are already making pretty much at the top of what framers make.” And he was right, they were already compensating me fairly, but yet, it was not enough for us to make ends meet. My wife brought in a nice BMW into the marriage that we had to make payments on, and by the time we did all the things we had to do, we were running out of money. So I told my wife, I said, “Listen, what I do know is that I can do a business on a small scale. I can do some handyman work, I can take on some side jobs.” Going to my parents and asking them for money was not an option. I said, “I have to figure out a way to make this thing work.” And so literally it was raining outside that day, and we went to the club room of our apartment complex. There was a little room with a computer and a printer. We didn’t even have a computer or a printer in our apartment, so we started our business with no computer, no printer, nothing. Literally went to the complex and printed out 25 flyers. I designed them on Microsoft Word and I had little palm trees around the piece of paper, and it says San Diego County. Stephen Semple: I bet you wish now that you had some old copies of those. Sergei Kaminskiy: I have a photo actually. Stephen Semple: Do you really? Sergei Kaminskiy: Yes. Stephen Semple: Oh my God, you’ve got to send that to me. You have to send that to me. Sergei Kaminskiy: It’s amazing, so literally printed out these flyers. It’s raining outside, we wrapped them real nice with the bow. And I’m running door to door as Elena’s driving in the rain, and she’s kind of following me as I’m running door to door. I pass out about 25 flyers and I’m like, “Oh, great, we passed out some flyers. Let’s wait for the phone to ring.” And sure enough, one guy called me. One guy called me and he said, “I need some service done on one of the rental units that I own.” And so I went and I finished my framing job, and then after that I went and did this project. What was so amazing about that experience, I remember at $17 an hour after I paid the taxes and everything else, I had to work 40 hours to clear $500, so my paycheck was $500. And here I was after work, I went and I did this job in about three hours and I made about $200, $300. It was $250, $300. And it was just one of those light bulb moments where I’m like, “I want to do more of this. I want to do more of this.” And so we started waking up 3:00, 4:00 in the morning on the weekends and just going and passing out flyers. She would take one side of the street, I would take the other side of the street, and we would just go and pass out flyers door to door. We would do that for three, four hours every weekend and then we would just sit and wait for the phone to ring. And then I would go estimate, and then I started hiring people to do the work for me so that was the start. That was the ...
Pas encore de commentaire