Tuesday, November 16, 2004
REALLY, Scott, $500 Per Day Recycling?
I received a letter from a customer last week. He was dissatisfied with some aspects of my manuals because he was not making the kind of money I claim is possible - nor did he know anyone else who is doing so.
When people tell me this I'm not exactly shocked. He made some generally disparaging comments about me and made some comments which showed he had neither read any of these newsletters nor carefully read the manuals either. He'd neither visited the discussion forum and did not even follow some of the basic rules I lay down as absolutely essential to success in this business.
This gentleman also, however, went into great detail as to why he didn't feel he'd benefited from the info. Unfortunately, everything he said was just a rationalization for his refusal to do the necessary work to succeed. He had 'contacted' a 'number' of muffler shops and from a limited amount of feedback he determined that this was an "old established business niche which makes it very difficult to penetrate".
Really??? The EPA, as well as Johnson-Matthey, has stated as recently as two years ago that less than 60% of the available converters in the market are actually being recycled. Does this sound like a mature business which operates efficiently?
Let's see, people have been recycling old gold, photographic scrap silver, and various scrap metals and alloys for a hundred years and more. Catalytic converters have been actively recycled for about 25 years. And EVERY one of these recycling businesses has got be considered a niche.
There are new opportunities developing almost daily to recycle myriad other items (cell phones, silver batteries, single-use cameras, etc.) ...Not to mention that there are methods for selling many items for top dollar that weren't being dreamed of ten years ago - ebay and all the other online auction sites available at essentially no cost to everyone!
However, let's put this into perspective. If one were to make $500 per day, working a typical year at five days a week with two weeks of vacation time, you would gross $125,000. Could you live on that? How many people do you know who make that much money from their job? A person with this level of income would be in the top 4% of wage-earners.
And when you realize that the smart self-employed recycler could potentially shelter a huge percentage of his income through smart tax planning (see below) and converting normally non-deductible expenses into deductions, the wage earner would probably have to earn $175,000 to $200,000 to match the effective earning power you'd have if you work wisely.
OK, Scott, you're probably asking, what would I need to do to earn this amount?Let's not kid ourselves - you'll have to work your butt off for a considerable period before you have your business(es) built to the point you're turning this kind of profit. And this is the very reason that, in all likelihood, you probably won't reach this income level.
Why? NOT because the opportunity doesn'texist, but because your mind is telling you that it is not possible for you to do it! I'll tell you how to overcome that problem momentarily.
Let's assume you've learned how to get your mind to cooperate and you're determined to make $125,000 a year. You've learned that you can get scrap single-use cameras for 10 cents apiece.
If you live in an area with a half-million population within a 20 mile radius, you'll find enough photo developers to keep you busy buying and picking up scrap cameras. Ok, at this price you've got about a 25 cent profit margin per camera. If an average developer processes a hundred disposable cameras daily, each shop you pick up from is generating $25 daily profit. If you set up this service with 20 such shops in your area, BINGO! $500 a day in your pocket. What if some of these shops do MORE per day - less work for you! If they do fewer in your area, stretch your geographical area a bit and work a bit harder.Live in an area with rural or small population? Get creative with your marketing.
Send out some news releases to papers in your area stating you buy old cell phones, and refer potential sellers to our company which buys them, taking a minimum of a dollar commission per phone you refer. Just use the techniques in the manual. Or contact the charities in your area that accept the phones as contributions and offer to pay them cash for the phones they've gotten which have scrap value. With the tens of millions of new cell phones sold each year, you KNOW that lots of folks have these things sitting around gathering dust.
Want to deal in converters? Keep marketing until you've developed an ongoing supply - these days you should be netting $10 minimum profit per 'cat' - and some of the larger ones could give you $20-30 profit each. It'll take a lot longer (and a lot more 'working capital') to succeed in this business today, BUTyou can do it if you persist.
Dental gold and silver? Fifty dollars an ounce profit (for the gold) is easy if you know what you're doing. Or read the newsletters and learn how to get eBay to certify and market you as a specialist in this area - then sell this stuff online FOR the dentist. Take a percentage or flat amount per lot - this should be about the easiest 'selling' you'll ever do!
Again, it'll take time and effort to establish your local reputation - after that all you have to do is maintain it. And how many pounds of scrap tungsten carbide, satellite, tantalum, or high speed steels would you need to average a day to earn $500? It depends on the type of alloy you're gathering, but the material IS out there!
My friend, 'all' it takes is a burning desire and determination to succeed. If you don't believe that you'll ever be one of the top 4% money earners - you won't. This is what you need to work on BEFORE you start your business.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if I were given two days to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first day and a half sharpening my axe. To start "sharpening your axe" go here: http://success.scottrecommends.com/Once you've conquered your inner emotions and motivations, you will find that it really isn't difficult to be better than the competition.
My 25 years experience has shown me over and over that simply showing up is 90% of this game. As Wayne Gretzky has stated, "100% of the shots you DON'T take DON'T go in". Being there, being persistent, and being better than your fellow recycler will serve you infinitely better than rationalizing why you're not succeeding.
Blogged by: Scott D. Andrews
http://recyclebiz.com
(c)2004 - All Rights Reserved
