Free Information About Health and Wellness! Boyd Makes It Big By: Timothy L Drobnick Sr. I needed a mop. I needed a large mop. But I had no money. I mean, no money. Sheridan, Wyoming left few options for employment. I had returned to Sheridan after spending 2 years attending college in North Dakota, and 8 months of training in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I purchased a trailer house with a loan from the bank, and resumed running my cleaning business I had started the previous summer break. My grandfather had operated the very small business while I was away. Sheridan’s population was, and still is, 13,000 people. It is very beautiful country, but as children grow up, most are forced to look elsewhere for jobs. Since I had been raised here, and wanted to be near my family, I decided to give Sheridan a chance. I remember the day was rainy, and I had just lost my only cleaning contract the previous week, leaving me with no income. Determined to stay self-employed, I started calling all the businesses asking if they were in need of a janitor, and landed a $108.00 per month contract with the Diamond Lumber Company. This was hardly a replacement for the $1000.00 per month contract I had just lost, but it was a start. The contract required a mop and bucket. I had found enough pop bottles under my trailer house to purchase a $17.00 mop bucket with a foot operated squeegee, but I did not have enough money left for a mop. I stopped in to Boyd’s grocery to say hi to my dad. On the way out the back door I noticed a familiar object sticking out of the dumpster. It was the mop I had used to clean Boyd’s, (my former contract). Ironically, the contract I had been fired from provided me with the tool I needed for the next. I picked the mop out of the dumpster, and continued with my chosen career. Winter was coming, and I could feel the chill in the air. I would listen to the radio in my car as I drove around town in the wet cold, presenting estimates to businesses for janitorial work. Even though I felt the fear of being without income to pay my bills and buy food, I still was excited about building a business of my own. The music on the radio helped me to focus on my goals, and the rain on the windows seemed to bathe me with comfort. One of my favorite songs I listened to was Eddie Rabbit’s song about windshield wipers keeping perfect rhythm with the song on the radio. I had tried being an employee for 2 1/2 years at Boyd’s grocery from age 16-19, and even though I enjoyed it, and was told by Boyd that I was one of his best employees, I knew that I would rather be Boyd. Ironically, after refusing to pay me $6.00 per hour instead of $4.00, I had quit and obtained a cleaning contract with Boyd’s that netted me $12.00 per hour. Boyd often told the story of how he was fired from a grocery store in Sheridan as a young man, and in retaliation opened his own grocery across the street. He built it into a small chain of 4 supermarkets across northern Wyoming. He seemed so proud and happy to be in control of his destiny, and I also wanted to be in control of my destiny. Boyd Rader was a great man in my eyes. Even though he was tough as nails to work for, he genuinely cared about his employees, trying to provide good health insurance and working conditions. He treated everyone as family, and insisted everyone call him Boyd, not Mr. Rader. At the height of his success, he built a home in his own development, and named the street his house was on, "Easy Street" because he said he always wanted to live on easy street. He also purchased a very large self contained motor home to take his family out on Sundays. He wanted to share it with his employees, and in the middle of the workday brought it to the store and gave us all rides, letting the 16 year old bag boys drive it on the highway. He seemed pretty happy. But as time went on, I noticed Boyd became unhappy after his retirement. He started to stay in his home, more and more becoming a recluse until he finally died. It seemed that he had a nice ride for a while, but it was a sad way to end a life. Boyd’s dream was not taken up by anyone except himself. He was alone in his success. His son’s did not share the dream either, and after having the business left to them, upon Boyd’s death, they started selling off all the stores so that they could become a part of Sheridan’s retired social elite. But in fairness, none of the boys were really given a choice. They were all high pressured by their father to join the business, Boyd tried to force his dream onto his children. The boys never caught the dream their father had, and as soon as his influence had left, they abandoned the dream all together. It seemed such a waste. My father never provided fancy vacations or motor homes, but he did insist I follow my own dream, and to choose my own life. Of the two fathers, I think I got the better deal. I thought often of how Boyd’s life was spent. I admired his independence and dream to build a business, but pitied him that all he built through life was gone very soon after he was. I pitied him that the last part of his life was so empty and hopeless. As time went by, I applied these memories to my life, determined that I would not only control my own destiny, and try to build a nice income, but create a life that would be meaningful until my death, and hopefully after. I continued to pick up small contracts around Sheridan, eventually replacing the income I lost. My philosophy started to develop that 10 small contracts are better than 1 large contract, because if you lose a contract you only lose 1/10th of your income. My main office was the local Perkins restaurant. I had a booth the waitresses knew I liked to sit at, and anyone looking for me would look there first. Sitting there one night, I observed the manager washing all the windows with a spray bottle and newspapers. When I left after 1/2 hour, she was still washing. Driving by 2 hours later, I saw her outside finishing up the windows. I calculated that if the restaurant was paying her $7.00 per hour, it was costing them at least $20.00 each time for her labor, plus she was being taken away from managing the restaurant, which was sure to lose more money. On top of all that, the windows still did not look that clean. It seemed to me that it would be worth the restaurants money to pay me $15.00 to do those windows. I approached the manager with my proposal, and she was more than happy to give up those windows, and got my contract approved by her boss. I had a professional set of window squeegees, and using my ice cold water secret I was able to clean the windows without any streaks in 45 minutes. I waited until 2 AM when the restaurant was empty and I could travel booth to booth very quickly. The manager quickly saw that I had a pretty good deal there, earning $20.00 per hour, but was more than happy with the arrangement. Learning that I could do windows so quickly and streakless, I knew there were other people in town that would rather not clean their own windows. Looking at Main Street lined with businesses, I could see that many of the windows would only take a couple minutes, and most no more than 10 minutes to clean. But it took a lot more time to drive there, get the equipment out of the truck , and then pack up. If I could clean them all at the same time, I would only have to unload and pack up one time. This would save more than half the time. I made out form estimates and filled one out for each business and presented it. The larger store fronts I bid $5.00 per cleaning, estimating 10 minutes worth of work. The smaller windows, I bid $1.00 per cleaning, estimating 2 minutes worth of work. I picked up enough work the first day to add $300.00 per month to my income. It only took me about 10-12 hours to do the actual work. This was at a time when jobs available to me were only $4.00 per hour. And there were lines of people waiting for those jobs. I was earning $20.00 to $50.00 per hour cleaning windows, floors, and toilets. I started to understand a formula. You need to give a service that is worth more than you are charging, but you have to have a system to make it profitable. Most of the stores that I charged $5.00 for window cleaning, would have to spend at least one hour labor on an employee to do it, and still have a messy window. $5.00 without the hassles was a good deal for them. And it was a good deal for me also. It was a win-win situation. I liked the win-win situation. And I continued to seek that relationship with all my customers. My father loaned me his life savings of $3000.00 to purchase some carpet cleaning equipment, and I started to build a clientele for carpet and upholstery cleaning. I borrowed money from the bank to purchase a brand new white truck, had a logo designed for my business which I called Miracle Maintenance and Cleaning, put signs on my truck and purchased white uniforms and white jackets with the logo on them. After one year of returning to Sheridan, I had built a struggling income. Although I really enjoyed being my own boss, it was scary at times trying to pay all the bills and get the work done. I was sitting in my 12 foot square second floor office, that over looked main street, when the phone rang. The person on the other end had shocking news for me....I was to change the name of my business to his, and become a franchisee, or he was moving into town anyway to put me out of business. I quickly arranged a meeting and drove to Billings, Montana to meet this man. The spectacular events that happened in Billings that day forever changed my life. You can read all the chapters of "Tims Home Town Stories" by going to http://timshometownstories.com">. Other stories written by Tim are at http://salessuccessmagazine.com These stories are copyrighted by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. 1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000. Any person using this article must publish it without modification and include authors bio and links. About the Author Timothy L Drobnick Sr has helped many people make money on the internet. Websites to visit for income opportunity are yobisc.com, http://virusfreespamfree.com, and http://myshoppingplace.net.