“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government is responsible for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax… my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” -Mitt Romney
You mean ObamaCare isn’t a lawn care company after all?!?!
Hi everybody, Andrew here. Welcome back. Thanks for watching. As you know, with Lawn Care Marketing Expert, I always try and keep the focus of these videos on marketing topics, on helping you grow your business and, you know, answering any questions that you might have. But it is election seasons. Politics is all over the airwaves. Turn on CNN or Fox or whatever channel you prefer, and you can’t escape the politics and the rhetoric that you hear from both sides of the aisle. Something happened last week that got me thinking, and that was Romney’s hidden camera speech that he gave to his wealthy donors. I’m sure you’ve probably heard about it. It’s been all over the news, and it might very well cost Romney’s chances at becoming the President of the United States.
Just to, I’m not going to quote the entire thing here, but if you want to check out the website I’ll put an excerpt there. Essentially what Romney said in his speech that was recorded without his knowledge during a dinner with some of his wealthy donors is he basically said that 47% of Americans don’t take personal responsibility for their lives and they depend on the government to be successful and that got me thinking. This isn’t a political post. I have nothing to say about Obama or Romney, but I just wanted to mention that quote, because it got me thinking about what it means to be an entrepreneur. What it means to be successful, and what your average person thinks it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, to grow a business over $1 million.
You know, we’re in an industry where less than 10% of lawn care entrepreneurs like yourselves, less than 10% ever gross more than a million dollars. You know, a million dollars, maybe that’s not a significant number to you, but that’s kind of the sign for a lot of small business owners that they’ve made it. OK, you’ve hit the million dollar mark, you’ve achieved some sort of success, you should have a profitable company, you should be living comfortably, that’s the idea of hitting that million dollar mark. I think the idea that most Americans, or most people in general or most, even small business owners have is that there’s this myth that entrepreneurs have it easy, that they lucked out, and they got successful by accident, got wealthy by accident. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.
There are circumstances where entrepreneurs are at the right place at the right time, you know, with they’re exposed to technologies or changing industries that other people aren’t; that give them an advantage or an opportunity that other people might not have, but I really dislike the sort of myth about the entrepreneur. The fact is, entrepreneurs dream about a life of freedom, they dream about a life where they don’t work much and they get paid well. That’s the common idea and that’s what most people think of when they think about entrepreneurs or millionaires and, you know, the reality is much different. You know, all the wealthy individuals that I know, all the entrepreneur friends that I have, they are some of the hardest working people that I’ve ever met. and it’s really the minority of the wealthy people that I’ve ever come across that have inherited it or had something handed to them or basically lucked out, won the lottery, whatever, they’re wealthy, whatever.
The majority of people that I know who are really successful, they’re really successful because they work harder and longer and smarter than any of their competitors. They really have a passion about what they do, and something that my father taught me when I was really young, and its one of the things that stuck around with me and I’m sure your parents have probably said this to you as well. You know, when I was figuring out what my career was going to be, what I was going to major in in college the advice that my father gave me was “Do what you would do for free”, so what is it that you’re doing or what is it that you would do even if you’re not getting paid. Even back in high school, before you even went off to college, I was building websites, I was programming, I was involved in online marketing, getting people to sign up to your email list or your newsletter, all that stuff through your website, I was doing that stuff for free. In fact, I was, you know, one of the very first websites that I set up when I was in high school was, you know, for my father. That’s really when I realized what my goal should be, what my career focus should be. I have a passion about it. I love it, I live it, I breathe it. I’m going to do it whether or not I’m wealthy from it or a success at it or a failure at it. It’s something that I’m passionate about. I love it. I’m going to do it. I think that’s a common trait through most entrepreneurs who have been successful, and I think it’s probably a common trait through lawn care owners and landscapers.
That’s not to say that we don’t have tough days. That’s not to say that there’s not days where I’m just flabbergasted, exhausted, I’m tired, I just want to break, everybody has those days. There’s no dream job where you love what you do every single day, but damn it, I am pretty close. I’m really lucky, and I think that a lot of you guys out there, if you’re watching these videos, I think you probably have a similar mindset to how I am. You’re passionate about your industry. You’re passionate about delivering value to your clients. You’re passionate about making them thrilled with the work that you do; and that’s really at the core of what I think makes a successful entrepreneur.
So I just want to challenge you. If your dream is to become a millionaire lawn care entrepreneur, how bad do you want it? How bad do you really, truly want it? Are you willing to turn off the TV? Are you willing to read a book? Are you willing to teach yourself new skills to educate yourself above and beyond what you have to do? Are you willing to work later, work harder, work smarter than your competitors? Are you willing to spend more? Are you willing to invest more in your marketing than your competitors are? Can you overcome the number one killer of being an entrepreneur in the first place, which is procrastination? Can you execute? Can you implement? Can you just do it, when you really don’t feel like it and you really just want to postpone it and you want to get on Facebook and screw around? Can you overcome procrastination?
How bad do you really want it? Are you going to hit a wall when it gets hard and just stay at $250 k a year, and give up and be comfortable there and settle for what you’ve got? Is your dream just a dream that will always be a dream? Are you willing to do what your competitors are not willing to do? Are you Romney’s 47%?
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