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welcome to the real world. That million will
turn into 3 million soon, and your schedule will turn into 4 weeks behind, and
word of mouth will start spreading that you're not
responsive.... get out and install on your
own.
This, coming from a guy that subbed out intalls at $100
each until today. By reading these posts, I'm now convinced that
it's all coming back in-house.
Because I have not left the "office" my living room, in 3 days
because things keep coming my way. Computers, paperwork, a million
calls. No customer support issues, just a million things I can't seem to
catch up. And now I'm a few weeks behind on installs. I don't like
being behind.
Brian
JohnnyO wrote:
Brian - why pay out that $95.00 when YOU can go do the install in 2
hours time ? Heck 3 installs = 1 new install paid for .... Sorry - guess Im
just cheap and work too much - I suppose we all grow our business differently.
I worked 2 full time jobs for the 1st 8 months we were in the WISP game on top
of building the WISP......
JohnnyO
Let me clarify. By
sales guy, I meant someone who will knock on doors and say "here, this is
available in the area, call for details" hand them a door hanger and
leave. I pay my subs a free month for refferals. I'd give the
"door hanger guy" the same, $35 per "sale" unless they were too good at
it :) Then they would call, and I'd make the "sale". The
"install guy" is a company who I trust. They will do installs for $95
a head. I have some more details (4 line paragraph) on my ROI if
anyone wants to comment, hit me off list and I'll forward my ROI sheet to
you for comment.
Thanks,
Brian
Tom DeReggi wrote:
No. You must do the sales. Trust that to
someone else, and you will fail. It means that you may not be able
to do the fun stuff like you thought you'd be doing, but its the reality
of a successful business. UNtil you set the stage of how the sales process
will go, and set the example of success in selling, it'll be hard to find
a sales guy willing to work on commission or that will be worth a
darn. I found that you can't run a WISP with only three people,
although many have proven me wrong. It takes one to sell. It takes
one to install. It takes one tech in the office to assist the installer
with testing and router provisioning. ( a tech can't get to APs and
routers, when the link isn't up yet. A lot of things will come
up, like which sector do you connect to when its near both of them? You
don't always know how to configure it until you are onsite. Then
what happens whem the installer needs help, such as someone to hold
the ladder for a steep pitched roof? Then whose gonna answer
the phone when the insude tech goes onsite to help the installer?
You need that 4th person! Then whose gonna do you book keeping? You
learn that why should you be doing it, when you time is best spent
selling? You surely aren't going to have the techs do your book keeping?
When you start to go after the bigger clients, if there isn't someone to
answer the phone for every sales request and tech support issue, they get
scared and go with the higher staffed more professional competitor.
At first you start by using your cell phone. But then you learn that you
can never get a darn thing done when you are answering your cell phone the
whole day. So you stop answering it while on sales meetings. Then the
callers have outages, amnd have already signed up with the competitor by
the time tyou call them back hours later because they thought you went out
of business. So before you know it you need 6 people minimum. Then
you look at your payroll that just jumped to $20,000 a month. Then it
takes you a few months to get things togeather like marketing material.
Then everyone is waiting on you. Then you have a burn rate. You learn that
the $20,000 capitol that you had wasn't going to last the first
month. Then you start getting subscribers, but theirs no money left
to buy radios. By the time you get the radios three weeks later, the
customers got tired of waiting and went with the competitor, so your
staff has nothing to do, and you just burn through another $20,000 the
next month. Etc. Thats the point most businesses fail.
So my advise is... Start out with two people.
And use your cell phone for all correspondance. Avoid every technical
detail that the tech mentality is enticing you to get involved with,
that will just kill your time, no matter how much its tempting you.
Go sell today. Go like that as long as you can, until you have no other
choice but to hire. Then hire ALL the people you need and
play to win. IF you under hire, you will just spin your wheel's never
getting anything done but managing everyone, and sales stop, but salaries
don't, and you go out of business.
Outsource every technical detail upfront,
EXPECIALLY MAIL. Your only job can be sales and management. What will
determine wether you will succeed is wether you can keep your time
allocated more towards sales than management. Management duties will tend
to monopolize your time, because they have to be done, and you will
continue to loose money until you go out of business. You will learn there
are four things you can't outsource in your early years, sales,
management,managing your finances (accounting), and lending you
money. Take every opportunity t oearn an extra couple buck on
an install like hourly wages to set upo there PCs, and don't get suckered
into giving that away for free, you will need every one of thosse
dollars to carry you on. Ifyou leave management to someone
else, they will turn your employees against you, and they will make
the wrong decissions, and you will have to pick up the peices later,
hopefully before its not to late. If you don't do your finances, you
won't know you are in trouble financially until its to late, you need to
be one with your budget and daily cash intake goals, and there is no way
you can do it unless you are intimate with your accounting on a daily
basis. You must do the sales because it the #1 most important thing
in your business, and at all costs, it is the one thing that MUST be done
for you t osurvice, you just can't take a change that it wont be done
right. You must make it your business to make sure its done. and
lastly finances, no one will lend you money but your self and your mother.
So earn your money to fund your business, its the only way you are going
to get it. And its going to cost you money. The small dollar
business only last for a little while, the time that you have a few
customers and you can do everything your self, without a pay roll, when
you are willing to make sacrifices, and its fun to do so. But employees
don't work for free, nor do they or there wives share that vison of
unconditional loyalty without the montey coming in for long hours worked,
they don't have the same high standard as you, because its not their
business its yours. When you get to the stage of employing all the rules
change. And thats when businesses start to realize the difficulties in
running a business. Staying a one man shop no longer is an option
because support of your client base is already more than one person can
handle. But because ou undersold your services, there isn;t enough money
to pay the salaries to hire the people to support the clients. and
you go out of business.
The most important stage of your business is
the business plan and that starts way before yuor first hire. And then
once you start growing you learn that everything in your business plan was
hog wash. The model of 100 new subs a month ends up being 2 new subs a
month because there were sales barriers you weren't aware of. You learn
the huge flock of customers you got on the first month, was because they
were the few needy customers that were easy to access. But then you learn
that you need to market to get custeomrs, you learn that the marketing
ends up costing more than your equipment. And once again you go out of
business.
Your mission when you start out, before you
make all your hires, is to prove every detail of your business plan
valid. Design a formula that guarantees you can make a certain
number of sales within a time period. You need constants in your model. If
you can only consistently sell 5 subs a month, that s OK, its a constant,
you can make guaranteed business plans with constants.
Sorry for the rant, but the biggest mistake I
see in this business is when the operator doesn't realize the importance
of sales. If your name is not on the job description, its a
problem.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Thursday, August 25, 2005 9:14 PM
Subject:
Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
I am looking into getting two people to help. One
"install guy" and one "sales guy", both on commission. Then I can
be the guy who grows the network to keep up, do site surveys, tower
work/deals, and paper work. Ok plan or no??
Charles Wu
wrote:
Just a general word of advice...the biggest pitfall/doom of most startups is
not opportunity, but rather TOO MUCH opportunity...
Watch cash flow closely, and don't bite off more than you can chew
-Charles
-------------------------------------------
WISPNOG Park City, UT
http://www.wispnog.com
August 15-17, 2005
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On
Behalf Of Tom DeReggi
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 7:53 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
Thats a great way to start. Congradulations.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Rohrbacher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
I just have to find someone to do installs. I have as many waiting to
be
hooked up as I have hooked up. It's there for the taking, but I can't take
it! The search for help has started.
Tom DeReggi wrote:
Most ISPs shared that plan. But it rarely works that way, when you
want
to grow your business.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Rohrbacher"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
I plan to be debt free in a year, so I hope to be ok. Everyone all
paid
off and ready to roll.
Matt Liotta wrote:
I wouldn't worry about it since the way you did it put the
investors at
risk more so than you. There is a better way to do it and before your
company gets too successful you may want to visit a lawyer and get
things cleaned up.
-Matt
Brian Rohrbacher wrote:
Just typed up something on the laptop that said, "I owe you "this"
much", and we both signed it. Not fancy, but a little better than an
oral agreement. I won't miss a payment and will pay them back if it
takes closing the WISP and working 3 jobs. Missing payments is not an
option. Only if I'm laid up in the hospital. Personal guaranteed?
Well, I told them I will pay it back... I know the agreement leaves a
lot open, but I trust these 4 people. Anyway, so they are not
investors. Lastly, lets just leave me be about this :) I'd rather
not try to defend a million questions about what if this and what if
that. It is what I did and it is done.
Charles Wu wrote:
that would be a loan
what type of collateral do they have? or what happens if you miss
a
payment?
have you personally guaranteed the money?
-Charles
-------------------------------------------
WISPNOG Park City, UT
http://www.wispnog.com <http://www.wispnog.com/>
August 15-17, 2005
-----Original Message-----
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of *Brian
Rohrbacher
*Sent:* Monday, August 22, 2005 10:20 PM
*To:* WISPA General List
*Subject:* Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
Well, I guess we would call them loans as I have all control.
Correct me if I am wrong. They gave me money at a fixed rate. Loans
or investments?
Charles Wu wrote:
well...in determing their "dumbness" (assuming you're willing to
divulge this information) - what sort of investment / equity
share / control do your investors have?
I mean...assuming it's you and the other 4, does
everyone
have
an equal share? (which is a different story all together) or
does 1 single person have a majority share and the other 4 are
minority partners
-Charles
-------------------------------------------
WISPNOG Park City, UT
http://www.wispnog.com <http://www.wispnog.com/>
August 15-17, 2005
-----Original Message-----
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of *Brian
Rohrbacher
*Sent:* Monday, August 22, 2005 8:05 PM
*To:* WISPA General List
*Subject:* Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
Well, I guess I found four "dumb" people that got me
started. All my start up funds came from 4 people. All
four were subs from a previous WISP I owned, (before my
partner took everything over and left me out in the
cold)
they all said, "I want you providing service, not the "other
guy". So here I am. 7 months in and going strong. Oh,
almost forgot, like my lawyer has me say......all that is
just my opinion. ;-) I think "dumb" investors
are great!
Charles Wu wrote:
sure
a passive minority equity position stake in a
privately
held company is worthless, as legally, the person with the
majority stake can make 100% of the decisions (in terms of
purchasing, spending, cash distribution, etc)
think about it, if it was your money, would you be
willing
to just "invest it" into a company when the majority
partner can do whatever he/she wants to and you have no
recourse?
-Charles
-------------------------------------------
WISPNOG Park City, UT
http://www.wispnog.com <http://www.wispnog.com/>
August 15-17, 2005
-----Original Message-----
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of
*Dylan Oliver
*Sent:* Monday, August 22, 2005 4:10 PM
*To:* WISPA General List
*Subject:* Re: [WISPA] Taking on an investor?
Charles,
would you expand on that?
On 8/22/05, *Charles Wu* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
FWIW...no invester (other than friends and family)
worth their salt will be
willing to invest capital into the company for a
minority position, as that
is basically a sure way to guarantee the loss of
their money
That said, there is a fool born every day
-Charles
-- Dylan Oliver
Primaverity, LLC
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