Learning along the way

I have been a business man for over 20 years, and think that I have seen it all. However, I know nothing could be further from the truth. Heck, I think I’ve made up a few things and ideas myself, along the way. 

About 20 years ago, back in 2006, I had just separated from the Military. I had no idea what I was going to do, college wasn’t on my mind, and I was going to be a billionaire. So what did I decide to do, I started a business hauling recreational vehicles, which were abandoned, from RV parks pack to their home. It was a fairly successful venture, but not knowing much about business, I wasn’t making much money. In a little bit, I’ll go through the list of errors made in this venture. 

More importantly, what gave me the idea? As I was managing multiple RV parks with my father, I noticed that there were always a couple of abandoned RVs on every couple of RV parks which I visited. See, one of my jobs, was to travel to RV parks and determine if they would be eligible properties for my father and investors to secure. They would identify these properties in distress, procure them, clean them up, upscale the clientele and then sell the RV Parks as a business to entrepreneurs wishing to be in business for themselves. I can’t think of one person who was not successful in their procurement of these businesses sold to them. Back to how I got into my first business… After doing some research of my own, which simply involved asking the front desk manager, discovered that these RVs belonged to retirees who could no longer manage the travel involved with their RV. So, the next logical conclusion was for me to obtain their registration information from the desk clerk, call them and ask if they want their RV to be returned to them. 

With this little bit of effort, I had my first three clients inside of two days. I was well on my way to becoming the billionaire I knew I was destined to be. Just one problem, I knew nothing about business. I had never taken the time to pay attention to my father and his business associates, whom I hung around plenty. I guess you could say, shame on me. To boot, I was not going to ask anyone for help. This business was going to be 100% mine, and I wasn’t going to share any of my current, future or potential profits with any one.

After about three months of pulling RVs across the United States with my trusted canine Partner Chance, I was starting to notice that I was not making very much money. As a matter of fact, my travel costs weren’t being covered, and I was losing money. You see, I had this brilliant idea that I would make money by charging the Federal mileage rate plus $100 as my fee to get their RV to them. After all, isn’t that rate comprised of what’s necessary to cover wear and tear, gas and mileage on the vehicle. Looking back now, no wonder I got so many YES replies when I made those calls to the RV owners. Yes, I know, there are many things which the casual reader of this could say, such as You dummy, don’t you know that there is a profit to make in every business? Or Why didn’t you calculate the cost of making these trips and provide quotes ensuring that you had a certain margin of profit?

Well after realizing this, a few changes were made. With these changes, came fewer clients, but more profit. First, realizing that I was borrowing money from my credit card to always pay for the current, and sometimes the previous, job; I started a new process of quoting clients. I would determine where I had to travel to, calculate the costs of feed, hotel, gas and mileage; then I would issue a quote with a 30% markup. It’s amazing how much more the job was worth that previously recognized. Second, I decided that I needed to actually become a business. See, this whole time I had been running RVs around the U.S., collecting money and had not even created a DBA (Doing Business AS) entity. Smart, right? Third, I actually marked my truck as a commercial vehicle designating it as a work vehicle. See, someone whispered in my ear that your work assets can be written off on your business taxes. Finally, I opened a business checking account and started accepting checks.

I thought I had done everything right, but there was so much more neglected. I didn’t know it, but my business was doomed to fail from day one. You see, since running this business, I learned the single most important lesson in business. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Let’s repeat that. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Got it? Good, because I sure didn’t. No one could tell me otherwise. I was finally making money, could do what I wanted and was sticking my thumb up to everyone who told me to go to school and learn something. College was for chumps who wanted to become corporate sticks in the mud. I was a young entrepreneur, and was going to make my own way like those before me. Well, to make this long story short, I eventually failed at this business with some hard lessons learned along the way.

What did I learn in this venture? I learned that those who make their own way, don’t really. They have help and knowledge from others. They learn to lean on others and accept the kind suggestions and advice of their peers and elders in the business world. When you fail in business, it’s not a failure unless you allow it to be. There is always something positive to take with you unto your next venture. I have often heard experienced and successful business men state that failure breeds success. If being in a successful business was easy, everyone would work for themselves. The reality is, having and growing your own business is difficult. It often requires that four letter word we all dread from time to time, “work”.

The next business I went into, was a partnership with my father. We decided that we were going to start buying RV parks, revitalizing them and then sell them as businesses to new owners. Yes, I realize this was a business already working earlier, but this time, I was a full partner. This was an awesome opportunity for me to show my father and his business pals everything that I learned. After all, in my mind, they were a little outdated in their thinking. I was going to change the way they did this business.

After about two to three months traveling throughout Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and a few other states scoping out properties to buy; I decided it was time to start making some new bold decisions. You see, the existing business was all about purchasing existing RV parks, cleaning them up, managing them for 6 months to a year and then selling them as an owner financed business to people desiring to own their own business. At the time, I couldn’t see how they could be happy having such a long wait for profit from the sale of the business. What I failed to realize, is that there was profit in the running of the businesses. Maybe not a lot with each one, but with multiple RV parks bringing in profit, there was a decent return. What I failed to realize, is that this was actually a profitable model, and was actually sustainable and scalable over the long run. 

I decided that it would be best, for us to start building new RV parks for the upper end Class A RVs, and market to a new level of clientele. After all, I had been working in and out of the RV business for a while now. I’ve travelled and visited more RV parks than most, so I definitely knew what I was talking about.

My partners being older and wiser, kept telling me that I needed to plan the idea out and determine a proof of concept. Obviously, I had no clue as to what they meant. I spent most of my time trying to convince them that I knew what I was talking about, and that they needed to catch up with me on this one.  Well, after a while, a couple of deals finally came through, and I got my first couple of payouts. Wow, I had more money than I ever had before. You would think that this would have taught me a lesson? No, it was just a means for me to finance my own idea. (laughing at myself right now)

I broke away from my trusted and valued partners just to prove them wrong, with visions of them coming to me, and wanting to be part of my Grand business. I went up the mountain in Salida Colorado and purchased five acres of land with my profit. I was going to build a Class A RV park with all the amenities to include satellite TV connections, with water, electricity, and sewer at every site. Once again, I was destined to fail before I began. No, it wasn’t failing to plan again. I planned this one like no other. So I thought….

Well, after creating my business plan, which was a series of drawings and diagrams with rough notes on what I wanted to accomplish, I purchased to land. What I didn’t plan for, was that the State of Colorado wasn’t going to allow me to have a septic or access to the water until I had completed a series of requirements which would have taken at least four to seven years to complete. So to start this business off, I had to have huge tanks above ground for septic, grey and potable water. There goes my budget and three acres of property. Now, the business plan just isn’t viable. On this one, I failed before I opened for business. (once again, laughing at myself). The lesson here, is to educate yourself. Not every great idea is feasible. Sometimes there is a reason no one else is doing it. Yes, I chose Salida because, at the time, there were no RV parks nearby, and RVs were all over that little mountain. 

After crawling back to my Father and his business partners, they so graciously found a way to sell the property at a slight loss in profit. Yes, lesson learned.

The next business I went into was setting up Process Logic Controllers (PLCs) and designing technical solutions for clients. Yes, I know… You’re asking, “How does this guy go from the Military, to pulling RVs and then setting up and configuring PLCs?” The short answer is, “Easy, no one back then had much of a clue in computers and technology anyway.” The more realistic answer is, while in the Military, I did go to college for Computer Science, but after a couple of years I decided that programming wasn’t my cup of tea.

This was going to be done right this time, so I thought. I filled for a business, Chaparral computer logics, named after the speedy little bird also known as the Roadrunner. Clever, right? I contacted close friends I knew who were into sales of PLCs and calibration equipment, and set up arrangements for them to assist getting clients. This time, all was going to be different. I was learning to lean on others, and was actually taking some advice from those who had been in the business for a while. This was going to be my new billion-dollar idea. Sure enough, through the efforts of my contacts, I was able to land my first few clients. One, which was very exciting, was a Tyson Chicken plant in Arkansas. All I had to do, was to go in and design a technical solution for implementing process controllers with sensors throughout their manufacturing process. The parent company that hired me, would take care of the install and all the hardware requirements. Wow, I’m in the big league now. This is what I’ve been waiting on. So, I get the solution completed and delivered ahead of schedule, I get paid and then I never hear from them again. What went wrong? I know the solution was used, and I also know they had other work which Tyson desired completed. I just couldn’t figure it out for the longest time. Finally, after multiple calls to Tyson, I realized that the solution was not presented as mine.  It was presented as the parent company’s solution, and they had used it multiple times by now. Well, there’s my first lesson in protecting your work and presenting it yourself. Although it’s important to learn to accept the help of others, you still need to ensure that you are accountable for the work you do. 

At the time, I was absolutely steaming from this event, but as time goes by, I realize it was 100% my doing. By not educating myself in business and understanding the implications of working with others, I freely allowed this to happen. Well, to make another long story short, I eventually failed at this business as well. You see, even though there were many other things I did right, I still did one thing massively wrong. I failed to plan. So once again, failure to plan is planning to fail.

There were more businesses between then and now, and there will be even more. Hopefully, they won’t be added to the list of failures. But if they are, then there will be lessons learned along the way.