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JoeMcVoy

Joe McVoy

How To Start a Million Dollar Business With No Money

Posted by Joe McVoy on May 1st, 2015

I have started and built four million dollar businesses either with no money at all or from a small amount of money Ihad available from a previous company.

This post will tell you how I did it the first time . . .

with NO money of my own at all.

Before I tell you the story and the details, please understand that I hope you can grasp the principle here and notworry about the specific tactics.

In doing marketing consulting I find that people in say, the plumbing business, cannot understand something I did fora handyman or roofing business because it is not their exact same business . . .

It applies absolutely identically to both industries but most people totally do not get that – so please don’t let that beyou . . .

. . . because you will miss out on the absolute best way to grow your business.

Successful entrepreneurs are those who learn to take examples they learn from one industry and apply it to another– and in the case I just mentioned, those are two very closely related businesses.

Taking something from one situation and applying it to another is exactly what I’ve done and have been doing for myentire business career . . .

I took one idea from one business and created three separate million dollar businesses from that one idea.

But, back to the task at hand – how did I do it the first time with absolutely no money at all . . .

Here’s the story . . .

While working as a general manager for a plastics molding company, I had started a home business making woodenadvertising magnets and badges.

The company I was working for knew and had no problem with my home business, so I was not doing anythingunethical or competitive with them in any way . . .

but I needed to find a better way to manufacture my products and I found a local screen printer who could make myproducts for me much more efficiently than I was making them myself . . .

in fact, I was using strips of wood veneer, printing on a film that could be adhered to the wood – which was thenadhesively attached to the magnet material and then cut into individual 1” x 2” pieces with hedge clippers on ourdinning room table.

My wife was the production department so, at the time, I was not overly concerned with production efficiencies justwith making sales . . .

She was OK with it when I got orders for 25 or 50 magnets at a time because the extra cash was always a goodthing,

but, she got totally pissed when we got an order for 10,000 magnets that all had to be made in less than one week . ..

So, in order to save my skin (literally), I joined her in the production department and began an urgent search to find acompany who could make them for us and stop the rapid blister formation on our hands . . .

I found a local screen printer who had the equipment to take over our production and all was good – for a while . . .

It turned out my products were harder to sell than I first thought . . .

but he had a product line of decals printed on prismatic vinyl that he was selling.

His company was small – just he, his wife and 3 or 4 others, but they had found a customer in NYC (we were inIowa, so it was the other side of the world. . . )

That customer wanted decals printed on prismatic vinyl to be sold in Mexico and South America. Many had Spanishlanguage on them – which none of us could read.

He also had a souvenir decal business making decals that were put on the backs of campers with the names ofdifferent states or attractions around the US.

He was telling these decals at 10 – 12 cents each in lots of 1,000 or more to a master distributor who would sell toothers who would sell to others, etc, etc until the decals ended up being bought by consumers for $1.00 each.

I suggested to him that selling to retailers directly for 50 cents each might be a better plan than selling to thisdistributor for 12 cents and he agreed . . .

so, he told me to go do it and then we could talk further.

So I did.

This is lesson # 1

When you propose a new idea to someone, be prepared to prove it works at your own risk . . .

I knew more about distribution channels that he did – having come from Kimberly-Clark – the Kleenex company, sothought I was “God” in retail distribution . . .

Reality adjustment to follow . . .

it’s a lot easier to sell stuff to stores when they know your company and absolutely need your products, than it iswhen you are nobody with products they think nobody wants . . .

As Kimberly-Clark, I could walk into any retail store and see the store manager in a minute or two. They saw me asthe guy from Kleenex, Huggies and many other national TV promoted brands.

As Joe, from “Decal Specialties”, I went from being “God” to being at a level slightly less than pond scum . . .

that said, I designed retail merchandising and packaging and did in fact make some sales.

We agreed that the approach had merit and we should start a company doing that. He wanted it to be separate fromthe company he already had since I had nothing to do with it.

So, we agreed to form a new company with $40,000 of capitalization.

Since I was broke and just had a job, he agreed to put in his $20,000 in cash and loan me my $20,000 on a note so Icould pay my half.

At that point, I became the 50% owner of our new company, “Decal Specialties”.

We grew that company from nothing to over $1 Million/MONTH of sales in less than 4 years.

I paid him back his $20,000 in less than 6 months . . .

So, lesson # 2,

as long as you know how to do what you propose to your future partner, and you are able to deliver, that can makeyou rich!

Don’t expect anyone to give you anything.

Look for situations where you know how to do something that your future partner doesn’t, and then implement, andyou’re good!

Cheers,

Joe720-890-78760joemcvoy@gmail.com

PS Get in touch if you’d like my help in implementing these ideas for yourself – I can help you or maybeeven partner with you in your venture . . .

PPS I need to get comments and social interaction going with my posts, so , although I’m glad to help youfor free, please start by posting a comment on this blog!

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