The wind broke the monotony a bit though. Instead of inch upon inch of new snow, today we got blizzard winds. They create some pretty neat snow dunes, though. You almost don’t mind the flesh-hardening shock of it when the wind slams into you.

Here’s a pic from a couple of days ago:

That’s back when it was just snow. Almost pleasant, isn’t it?

Normally I’d be thrilled with a few days off from work, but this is killing my bottom line. I’m going to be digging out of this hole for weeks. It’s amazing what a week off will do when you run the show. Amazing to me, anyway — I’m still a newbie at this game.

“T.!” I said.

“Sweetie!” she  replied.

It was the same woman who got us into our last apartment building. She’s some kind of rep for the parent company. Very cool chick, very nice. It was good seeing her again, even if she chided me for not networking with her. Hey, I’ve been swamped for nine months…

On the second job of the day, I ended up moving the couple into an apartment I’d moved someone else into. Kind of a sad situation, though — the previous tenants broke up and I was supposed to move him to a new place. We couldn’t get our schedules to sync up, though, so he kind of drifted away.

This is beginning to happen a lot now. Not only can I tell you what the loading docks are like for 99 percent of the city’s buildings, I know who lives in half of them. Is this success? Maybe. The U.S. Census Bureau ought to talk to me.

The problem is b.s., initially. I put the word out that I’m looking for some labor help, and I get 50-60 responses over about a week. Seventy-five percent of those will be from pre-literate guys, and while I’m not looking for Shakespeares here, it’d be nice to have guys at least attempt a coherent request for work from a new employer. Of those guys, about half of them will promise–swear, actually–that they’re the hardest-working men I’ve ever seen. One guy, usually a younger guy, inevitably sends his resume. Oy.

The remaining 25 percent will sound interesting, and I’ll respond to them. Of those, maybe ten or so guys will get back to me. Maybe three of the final guys will make the cut, and two of them will disappear after their first day on the job.

But, every now and then, I get lucky and find someone who’s eager to work, has good instincts, and cares for my customers’ belongings. That’s when the real training begins.

Unfortunately, I can’t just tell them how to do the bare-bones, boots-on-the-ground work. I’m writing the manual for the business right now, and that’s one of the hardest things I’ve done so far. The real training begins when they pick up their first dresser out on the job. Actually, the real training begins when we show up and I tell them to put their “jazz hands” on.

At least half of the job is grace and charm in the customer’s presence. At least half. If a guy is strong and careful, he has nothing to worry about. But a bad or even just aloof attitude can mean the difference between a big tip and a good review, or no tip and no review. Look at reviews for movers at Yelp.com sometime. It’s shocking how often people are put off by movers’ complaining. I’ve had a few of my guys cost me some money because they bitched about stairs.

Anyway, my June deadline for a fully automated business with multiple streams of income and several independently operating crews is looming, and I need to find some dudes. It’s tough work but someone (oh way–it’s me!) has to do it. Oy.

I spent a good chunk of the day flow-charting on this gigantic white board someone gave me during an office move. It’s bigger than most walls in my house, but I thought (rightly) that it would be a good tool to flesh out my random thoughts.

In the last two years I’ve re-worked the moving biz plan several times, usually going in a circular motion. There are several significant regulatory hurdles to overcome or comply with (at a not insignificant cost), but as I’m now grossing a decent amount every month, and, the relatively arbitrary Rubicon of the New Year has been crossed, it’s go-time. The hurdles are about to get jumped.

And I’m scared shitless. Pardon the French, but as I told my wife today, my body is going through what feels like a seared conscience. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t done anything that would merit a seared conscience, but the phsyiological feelings (sorry, it’s late) are about the same. I’m so nervous that my hands are shaking, my thoughts are jumping all the fences, and I’m waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong. I think of this as a “light” blog — no particularly deep thoughts involved — but I have to confess this not-so-particularly-light sentiment: I feel like I’m about to die.

Crazy, isn’t it? I hope so. But that’s what it feels like. Remember that Seinfeld episode where George says he doesn’t think God would ever let him be successful? Jerry says “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” George replies that he does, but only for the bad stuff.

I’m about to push this business into a very serious, very potentially profitable place, and if all goes according to plan, it will probably get a lot more attention. Working as it has been “behind the scenes,” that scares the hell out of me.

Call it stage fright. Call it opening night jitters. Call it buck fever. Call it whatever you want, but I got it.

This is where I would normally throw in the towel and say I made a good effort. But I have a family, and if not for them, that’s exactly what I would do. However, since I’m responsible for the well-being of two, and soon to be three people, I have no choice but to take this little business to wherever it’s going to go.

I ran the numbers today. (About time, right?) By replicating what I do with four or so moving crews and taking a small percentage of their income as a referral fee, I’ll make…well, that wouldn’t be very polite of me, would it? Suffice it to say it’ll be comfortable. In the beginning, it’ll be hell, of course. I’ll be dealing with logistical complications that have made all my prior work seem like stacking my son’s blocks, but the potential payoff is well worth the effort.

I have until June. That’s when I need to be available for my wife and the kids. It’s not as though I’m totally unavailable right now, but unless things are well along by June, there’s no way I can maintain my current work schedule AND help out around here. I just can’t do it.

So, pressure’s on. It scares the hell out of me, but man, life has never been more exciting.

2010 is going to be IT. The year. A whole bunch of things are going to happen, and I’m not being carelessly idealistic about them. Like the Cylons, I have a Plan.

I also have the motivation — if I don’t have the moving business up and running by June, it’s going to be a little hectic around here. That’s when Baby #2 arrives.

So, stay tuned. One of my few resolutions is to blog more. I’ll be keeping track of everything that happens. No, really. Quit laughing.

Let me explain…

Toward the end of summer, I got a call from the Internet marketing (and/or lead generation) company. Someone in their office had used my service, told someone who told someone, yadda yadda. D. called at the perfect time — I was getting nowhere with my own SEO efforts. (SEO, for anyone reading this blog who hasn’t heard of it, stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process by which you get your website found by search engines.) I read a few books, checked out a dozen blogs, and did it myself. In the end, it MAY have increased traffic to my site by a factor of 1%. D. called me just when I was about to take it out on the dog.

Just kidding — we don’t have a dog. But since I won’t beat my children, a dog might not be a bad idea.

Anyway, we had a couple of meetings, spoke the same language, their tech guys liked the fact that I was the most tech-savvy client they had, and I signed a contract. The cost: $100 per month plus $15 per lead. Expensive? Yeah, but I was heading into the slow season, and I figured that while it would hurt, at least they’d be driving business to me.

That was about two months ago. Since then, they’ve sent four leads my way. The first: someone already on my calendar. The second: someone rescheduling their move. The third: someone whose friend mentioned MTB and then she did a search, finding the M.C.’s adword ad, and linking to my site. The fourth — I’m getting to that.

Let me see if I can shorten this up a bit.

The contract I signed was for certain services, but what I didn’t know is that they need me to migrate my website to a WordPress platform. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but my whole business is totally dependent on GoodBarry/Business Catalyst, a “business in a box” type of thing with a billion features that nearly automate the whole process from lead acquisition to invoicing. I don’t use all of it, but that’s only because I don’t have the time right now.

As it happens, everything that the marketing company does is based on some nifty WordPress template.

Last weekend I wrote to my contact their and asked if he could send me a list of things their doing to promote MTB. NO leads in two months? Give me an effing break. I’m actually glad they’re not sending any work my way right now because I can’t handle it. I HAVE TOO MUCH WORK! My contact, D., wrote back with all these excuses about how they really can’t do anything because I won’t relinquish control of the way I do things.

Lol. Me, a micromanager. Go fig.

I hadn’t responded yet because I was thinking — just considering, really — that it might be time to part ways. If they can’t do what they promised without me overturning two years of hard and profitable work, then this relationship, amicable as it is, has to come to an end.

And yet! And yet, I thought maybe they could still work out. MAYBE I could consider doing things their way.

As I was pondering this, I got a lead notification tonight while out on a job. Not five seconds after I got the e-mail, one of their top guys called and asked if I’d had time to review it. I hadn’t, and I’d call him later. But, when I looked at the lead, I noticed one absolutely critical field was missing — the “How did you hear about MTB?” field. This, obviously, is important for me to see so I know where my marketing dollars are working.

They removed that field. It floored me. I’m truly sorry for them, but that little field had thwarted their previous efforts to capitalize on my leads. So far, all the leads they generated came from MY hard work, not theirs. So, they just removed it.

That made up my mind. I need to get out of the contract.

So, I’m kind of back to square one. Anyone know a good (cheap) SEO/SEM company?

Man, my life sucks.

Wait–what? This is a good thing? You’re right–this is awesome!

I could still use some time off though.

And now they’re advertising for Christmas crap.

I do enjoy living in a place where there’s different and distinct seasons. The trick is to slow down enough to notice them.

I guess it’s natural to muse broadly at the end of the year (or the end of life). But it’s more than just idle musing for me — I’m astounded at how fast this year has gone by. To be sure, there have been some really, really slow grinding days, but I’ve always known that  we would reach the end of the day eventually. It really does seem to me that I’ve tunneled through a wormhole and stepped into November 2009. My body says that something happened in that allegedly instantaneous leap, though: I have a crushed fingernail on my left hand, I’ve lost a ton of weight (not literally, of course), my pickup truck is beat to hell, and I have all these guys asking me for work every day? How the hell did that happen? The last time I really paid attention, I was an overpaid, balding, overweight drone stuck in an office wondering when they’d finally do the right thing and fire my butt.

Meh.

So, here’s an MTB status report:

May have had a record month in October. I couldn’t have predicted that. If you’d asked, I would have said we’d be starving in October. I said the same thing about November, and we’re holding steady. A little slow, but steady.

I’m training about seven guys with their own trucks and crews to be Truck Buddies. Scheduling these guys adds a whole new dimension of complexity to the game, but it’s absolutely essential that I get some backup. I WILL take a vacation with the family in 2010.

I hired a marketing company to drive leads to my site. We’re having some technical issues, but I’m still optimistic that we’ll be able to work together. Basically, they want to move my site, which is more than just a flat page on the Internet, to some kind of WordPress platform. I thought that might be okay for a little while, but then realized that it would be fatally stupid to ditch all the systems and processes that make MTB work just so some Internet marketing guys can better track which leads they send my way.

On the home front:

Grace, my wife, is pregnant. She’s been fighting the puke fairy for several weeks now.

Joe, our son, is learning new words all the time. This morning he had what we think was an actual conversation with Grace. I kind of wish he’d stay this age forever, though. He’s heart-breakingly beautiful.

Obviously, there’s more. I really want to take some time out and write about it. This has been a trip, maaaaan. “This” being building MTB, of course. Maybe I’ll just have to talk about it in the book, which, you might have guessed, I’m also NOT writing.

But I plan to…oh yes…I plan to…