Scott Stone
New member
I was thinking about it, and Scrappy actually got me thinking about it. He has a particular definition of success. I have my own definition of what success is, and I am certain that everyone else has their own definition of success. I am a 40 something that is far, far too close to a 50 something. I started this little hokey business of mine as a 20 something, with a wife of a year and a half and a 6 month old. I started it part time. I had no choice of part time, vs. full time. I had a wife and kid that I was responsible for, so I continued going to my union job at the public utility, working in the salvage yard, and started detailing on the side. It was a nice little additional income for quite a long time. After my wife quit her full time job in Marketing, with responsibility for a $70 million annual budget, and I continued in the scrap yard, for another 6 months. Quite honestly, it sucked working there. I was the guy that was on the outside of the established little group. I had no desire to go out drinking with them, or to even associate with them after hours, because their definition of life was totally different from mine.
You will notice I said another 6 months. That is when I got laid off, with a wife that had just quit her job, and a brand new house. It was scary, but I left with a nice severance package, that was equal to about a years salary, because all of my 401 savings was fully vested as part of the deal, and I had been putting a full 10% in, before I got married.
I was off work for a year, trying to establish a business. Remember that the internet, at that time, consisted of prodigy. AOL was non-existent, and I did not think that there was anyone else doing what I wanted to do. Boy was I wrong.
I found out everything the hard way, meaning I had to try it and see what would work. Sometimes I looked like a genius, sometimes I looked silly. Fortunately, the genius part happened more than the silly part.
After a year, my wife came to me and said we have enough in the bank to last one more week. What are you going to do? I went and got a part time job. That lasted three days. They came to me and offered me a full time gig after seeing me work three days. It was nice, I worked nights. I delivered milk, and worked the business during the day, and on weekends. In the course of five years, I was promoted to management, and had 150 delivery drivers working for me, as well as being responsible for their customers. It was great, until I came home one day, figured out I had worked 120 hours that week, on salary, and my baby boy, (number 3) who was almost a year old, started crying when I picked him up. As an added bonus, those 120 hour weeks had about destroyed my little business. Considering the circumstances, and that a friend had called me the day before wanting one of our driver rejects, I called my friend, and asked about the job. When he found I wanted it, I got it without an interview. As I was walking back from handing in my resignation letter, I got a call from my wife, on my cell. I had just landed an account that would net almost exactly the difference between the job I left, and the job I took. I was also asked to build their trucking business of the new employer, with the goal of having 10 trucks on the road in a year. That changed the day I started for them, because they decided to concentrate on their core business.
I had promised that I would stay a minimum of one year. I did, exactly. In the meantime, whenever I had down time, I was allowed to work on my business. Imagine, having a job where, when you were not driving, you could do absolutely anything you wanted. Perfect for building a business, and build it I did. I was flying, I was up to about $120k a year in sales, from nearly nothing in a few short months, and felt comfortable enough to quit my full time job. That was about 12 years ago. I have been doing this full time ever since.
Currently, nearly every one of my customers is a government entity. I like governments, and they like me. I am now to the point where I do not necessarily have to be low bid to get the contract, because my reputation locally is outstanding, judging from the letters I receive from my contract administrators.
So the question is, since I operate my business out of my home, have 5 full time employees, and am adding a 4th truck tomorrow, my bills are paid, I have no debt, would you consider me successful? Keep in mind, my dad was basically a glorified janitor until the day he retired, and made less the year he retired than I do in a month. I did go to bed hungry growing up. Let alone not getting a lot of the other little things that many get growing up.
That being said, I am thinking that there are so many different definitions of success that it would be nearly impossible to quantify it. I have a friend that owns 30 subways, over 200 gas stations, and multiple other small businesses, and those are his side businesses. He has a private airplane, a 40 foot sail boat that he flies to San Diego every week to take out, and a condo in La Jolla that, quite frankly, I am envious of. It is on the beach, and about 10,000 sq. ft. He also has a ranch of about 10,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Yet, comparing him to his brothers-in-law, he is not successful, because he has the lowest net worth of the bunch. I don't think that he feels particularly deprived, just not as successful. By the way, even though he is far richer than me, he comes to me from time to time to bounce ideas off of me, for his businesses, and I do the same with him.
So, for you, what is you definition of a successful business, or businessperson?
You will notice I said another 6 months. That is when I got laid off, with a wife that had just quit her job, and a brand new house. It was scary, but I left with a nice severance package, that was equal to about a years salary, because all of my 401 savings was fully vested as part of the deal, and I had been putting a full 10% in, before I got married.
I was off work for a year, trying to establish a business. Remember that the internet, at that time, consisted of prodigy. AOL was non-existent, and I did not think that there was anyone else doing what I wanted to do. Boy was I wrong.
I found out everything the hard way, meaning I had to try it and see what would work. Sometimes I looked like a genius, sometimes I looked silly. Fortunately, the genius part happened more than the silly part.
After a year, my wife came to me and said we have enough in the bank to last one more week. What are you going to do? I went and got a part time job. That lasted three days. They came to me and offered me a full time gig after seeing me work three days. It was nice, I worked nights. I delivered milk, and worked the business during the day, and on weekends. In the course of five years, I was promoted to management, and had 150 delivery drivers working for me, as well as being responsible for their customers. It was great, until I came home one day, figured out I had worked 120 hours that week, on salary, and my baby boy, (number 3) who was almost a year old, started crying when I picked him up. As an added bonus, those 120 hour weeks had about destroyed my little business. Considering the circumstances, and that a friend had called me the day before wanting one of our driver rejects, I called my friend, and asked about the job. When he found I wanted it, I got it without an interview. As I was walking back from handing in my resignation letter, I got a call from my wife, on my cell. I had just landed an account that would net almost exactly the difference between the job I left, and the job I took. I was also asked to build their trucking business of the new employer, with the goal of having 10 trucks on the road in a year. That changed the day I started for them, because they decided to concentrate on their core business.
I had promised that I would stay a minimum of one year. I did, exactly. In the meantime, whenever I had down time, I was allowed to work on my business. Imagine, having a job where, when you were not driving, you could do absolutely anything you wanted. Perfect for building a business, and build it I did. I was flying, I was up to about $120k a year in sales, from nearly nothing in a few short months, and felt comfortable enough to quit my full time job. That was about 12 years ago. I have been doing this full time ever since.
Currently, nearly every one of my customers is a government entity. I like governments, and they like me. I am now to the point where I do not necessarily have to be low bid to get the contract, because my reputation locally is outstanding, judging from the letters I receive from my contract administrators.
So the question is, since I operate my business out of my home, have 5 full time employees, and am adding a 4th truck tomorrow, my bills are paid, I have no debt, would you consider me successful? Keep in mind, my dad was basically a glorified janitor until the day he retired, and made less the year he retired than I do in a month. I did go to bed hungry growing up. Let alone not getting a lot of the other little things that many get growing up.
That being said, I am thinking that there are so many different definitions of success that it would be nearly impossible to quantify it. I have a friend that owns 30 subways, over 200 gas stations, and multiple other small businesses, and those are his side businesses. He has a private airplane, a 40 foot sail boat that he flies to San Diego every week to take out, and a condo in La Jolla that, quite frankly, I am envious of. It is on the beach, and about 10,000 sq. ft. He also has a ranch of about 10,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Yet, comparing him to his brothers-in-law, he is not successful, because he has the lowest net worth of the bunch. I don't think that he feels particularly deprived, just not as successful. By the way, even though he is far richer than me, he comes to me from time to time to bounce ideas off of me, for his businesses, and I do the same with him.
So, for you, what is you definition of a successful business, or businessperson?
