If you take a job “hoping” to get paid, several things happen.

Just like a dog can smell fear, people can “smell” that attitude in the contractor.

It communicates that:

1. You don’t have much confidence in yourself or your ability.
2. You are not a real business.
3. You come off as a low status contractor or business.
4. When you give away your expertise and/or your knowledge for free, that is the poor contractor mentality. It is also why so many contractors are poor. They don’t really think much of themselves or the service they provide.

But that is not the only problem. The real problem is what happens in your mind.

Think about how you feel each time you take a job or look at a job “hoping” to get paid. At the least, it is demeaning. You feel terrible on the inside and at the mercy of the person.

I sent a text to another contractor today that stated: “They are hiring you or buying your services to see if the unit can be saved. Whether the repair of the unit looks acceptable or not, they have still hired you. Don’t do anything for free hoping to make a little money. That damages your psyche.”

Some people, knowing how you feel, or see yourself, will use that against you. “Well, that is not quite what I expected. I was expecting something a little better.” Now you feel guilty for asking to be paid. Many times things cannot be made perfect.

There are much better ways of dealing with these situations.

You have to have enough respect for yourself to believe and know that you deserve to be paid. That attitude has quite a different “smell,” and most people can tell that one, too.

I had a builder call today and ask me to look at a certain problem he had and let him know if it could be repaired. I told him he might as well let me repair it while I was there because the cost was the same for a trip charge to “look” as it was to repair. Once it was repaired, then he could decide if it would be acceptable or if not, replace the unit. He agreed to that idea. I will get paid even if he replaces the unit.

By handling the situation this way he knows he will have to pay for my services either way. It feels much better for me also. It is fair to him and also to me and my family. Rather than doing this inspection for free, I could be doing another job that paid.

People should expect to pay you. They are paying for your expertise and knowledge. Folks should expect to pay for that. We have many calls where they just want us to “come take a look” at their problem, whatever it is. We are upfront and tell them it is $XX.XX for us to “look”. Knowing that we have a service fee for looking at a problem, many are glad to pay it.

So I recommend they send us pictures, and we can go from there. Since we do charge for inspections, we try to solve problems over the phone from pictures and give those recommendations for free.  Once I explain why we need the pictures, that we are trying to save them the cost of an inspection, they are usually grateful.

If people in your area learn you are willing to come “take a look” for free, you will not have time to make a living.  They will bury you in calls.

When you tell clients up front what you charge for your services, generally, they are willing to pay that — especially if you come recommended.

If you don’t bring up the cost of an inspection until you tell them it cannot be repaired, they many times will balk at paying you. They will say you did not do anything.

It is not fair or honest for people to expect you to give away your recommendations for free if you have to visit their job site. It is also not fair or honest to have you attempt to do a job they know may not be perfect and then expect not to pay if it is unrepairable. With inspections sometimes that is unavoidable, especially if it is for a large client. But even with them, you can be frank and let them know what your fee is for inspections, recommendations or advice.  Remember, they are hiring you to attempt to repair or to recommend.

It is also not fair to your family to give away for free what has taken you years to acquire in knowledge and expertise. Your family deserves better than “free.”

You will also be able to hold your head a little higher, people will have much more respect for you and they will have more respect for your recommendations and attempts to make a bad unit acceptable. This feels far better than “hoping” to get paid.  It is a completely different attitude.

This is not done with any arrogance or haughty pride but just with an expectation of being paid for your service whether it is an inspection or an actual job.

These things are worth thinking about both for your psyche and your pocketbook.

This is all part of The Prosperous Life.

When I first went into business for myself, my first client said, “I already have a service provider, but they won’t answer the phone, and they won’t call me back.” So that became my first rule: Always call them back; always be available. One thing I’ve learned, people will accept a lower standard of quality if you are easily available. Not returning phone calls is very frustrating to people no matter how great your quality of books, services or products are. If they are in a hurry, if they need it done right now, and they know they can get a hold of you, they will call you even if your quality is not as good as the other guys. This is not an excuse for poor quality, but just to show how important good marketing is. Being available by phone is part of marketing.

You don’t have to be the best in your field to be successful, but you do have to know about marketing. Marketing can include many different things:

• the way you dress,
• phone call etiquette,
• business cards,
• websites, etc.,
• AND knowing who holds the key in your market.

One of my accounts told me that they used our quick responses to phone calls and service calls to sell their products because the other service provider at times took months to get the jobs done. So we use our fast response to phone calls as part of our marketing. We put on our business cards, “We return telephone calls promptly.” That wholesaler used us to market their products.

Marketing does not have to cost a lot of money. I like the principles of Guerilla Marketing which is low cost or no cost marketing. It is very effective even though it might be free. One of the best authors on the subject is J. Abrams. He is great at Guerilla Marketing and has written several books on the topic.  Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition is one of his well known books.

Sometimes all it takes is one or two good ideas to make a huge difference in your marketing.

I remember reading in one of Robert Kyosaki’s books a conversation he had with a young female writer. He said, “I have read your work and you are very good.” “Yes,” she responded, “but I don’t sell very many books.” Robert said, “You need to look into marketing.” She responded, “I am a college grad, and that would be ‘sales’!” (Sales are a little beneath the class of a college grad). Robert told her he was not nearly as good a writer as she was, but he sold a lot of books. He said that marketing is the key. You don’t have to be the best at your craft, but if you can market well, that will put you right up at the top.

If you have days or a week or two when you are not busy, (as we all do if we run a small business or are self-employed). One thing to know is that you will get busy again. So, in those off times, that’s when you can concentrate on marketing. You work on:

• your website or websites,
• work on your twitter accounts,
• clean out your truck,
• organize your materials,
• post to Facebook,
• post to Instagram,
• work on expediting your processes,
• or talk to your mentors.
• talk to the key pins in your marketing process such as wholesalers, manufacturers, or large clients.
• read books on marketing.
• strategize.

In order for people to beat a path to your door, they have to know about you. Every field requires a different marketing strategy. Marketing can also include branding, a logo, and/or twitter accounts. If you are marketing a book, Michael Hyatt’s book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World is helpful.

Another book is Jeff Walkers book: Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams.

Probably the biggest key is to pray a lot. God’s hand is with you because you are one of His children, and you should expect to see His hand at work to open doors for your business and to protect your business.

The Bible says that wisdom is worth more than rubies. Marketing is a type of wisdom. Once you learn the importance of it and the rudiments of how to do it, it can make you a lot of money. Without marketing, you could have the greatest service, product or book in the world and be very short on sales.

I have asked many people what they do to market their business. Many times their response is, “My work speaks for itself, and I get most of my work or business through referrals.” I believe this is a lazy man’s way of saying he is content with what he gets even if it is not much.

Marketing works. If all that was required was word of mouth, why do so many businesses advertise?

Walmart, Kohl’s, Stihl, movies, drug companies, Ford Motor Company, and the list goes on forever. It is because marketing works.

Many people are very good at what they do, like the female writer above, but they never really reach their full monetary potential because of a lack of understanding of marketing. We want to not only be good in our craft, business or books but good at marketing too. That gives us a full package for a prosperous venture in our living The Prosperous Life.

I meet many people every day, and many times I ask them what they do for work and/or how they got into the business they are in. Sometimes the stories are very interesting. I asked a young builder the other day how he came to build houses.

He said he was working as a foreman for another builder making about $50,000 per year. He told me that it is very easy to become complacent with that kind of income. He said you can pay your bills and live fairly comfortably.

Together he and his wife had read many financial books and had some understanding of how money worked. He said he did not want to become complacent at that level of income, so after he learned what he felt he needed to know after about a year with this job, he quit.

He found a money man that agreed to build seven houses and split the profits 50/50 with him, and that venture was successful. A year later they parted company, and he now had enough to go the bank. They loaned him the money to start a couple of houses, and he was in the building business.

Many times we become complacent with our income because we are comfortable there.

• We know what it takes to earn that amount.
• We know the people,
• We know the routines, and
• We know that we can pay our bills at that level.
• Our friends all make about the same
• We are part of the group.

If we strive to move up a level or two, that would put us in uncomfortable territory. Weird as it sounds, most people would be uncomfortable if their income doubled or tripled.

• Their lifestyle might change,
• Their friends might change,
• What they talk about might change.
• And most are afraid of the unknown.

You see many people have bought into the idea that to really be successful you have to get a college education and go to work for some major company. That can be very comfortable – someone or a company taking care of you, and then complacency can easily set in. You could fight complacency, and climb out of your comfort zone.

Starting your own side business may be uncomfortable and may be a little different than your friends, but it may change your life in ways you never imagined.

For example: I have met people that buy and sell golf courses or others that buy companies from the IRS that were taken because of non-payment of taxes. They got the companies profitable and then sold them. I have also talked to people that buy mobile home parks after the park had been through bankruptcy two or three times. Then they made a deal with a company that repossessed mobile homes to put them in their park and split the rent.

Some 150 years ago most of the people in this country were self-employed as we were an agricultural economy. But as the industrial age set in, people moved from the farms into the cities. Then they acquired some debt and had to stay in those jobs in order to pay “the man.” But is was comfortable.  A paycheck each week. Eventually compliancy can set in.

This reminds one of the song Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford. One of the lines reads: “Saint Peter don’t you call ‘cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store.”

This lack of funds and debt keeps us showing up on the job to get the money to pay the debt. We have been trained to be good workers for industry and good consumers for the global economy. Someone sold us on the wrong plan.

A billboard I see every day says: “A job for every Oklahoman, a workforce for every company.” Learn to think outside the box.

Learn to embrace the uncomfortable, and beware of complacency. God wants us to be God-sufficient.  For God to be our sufficiency a college education is not required.  God’s hand is with us in everything we do as we are his children. So break out of your comfort zone, and kiss complacency goodbye. God has laid out the Fundamental Principles of Prosperity in His Word. These fundamental principles are also laid out in our new book Poverty vs Wealth. Try it. It could be your key to The Prosperous Life.