Confidence

Zee and I decided to expand our business and offer more services.  We started telling people that we would resod, mulch, pull out hedges, pretty much anything that people needed done we would do.  This opened up a lot of doors for us and we started getting jobs for all sorts of things.  

A few days ago we got a job to put rocks all around the front of a huge house.  I charged the guy $350 for the work and thought that we were getting a steal.  Let me tell you, shoveling and wheeling rocks in the 95 degree South Florida heat is not fun.  Far from it, it was hell.  The job took us literally all day long to do.  We started at 8:30 in the morning and didn't finish until 5 p.m.  It was absolutely awful.  

This tree trimming business/ landscaping has given me so much experience and insight into running my own enterprise, but that job in particular taught me a very important lesson.  Never under charge for your work.   There are some jobs that just aren't worth it.  If some one isn't willing to pay you what the job deserves, then you just have to walk away. 

The rock job was  good experience though.  It gave me a lot of material to talk about when negotiating future jobs.  I now have a better idea of all the work involved in doing something like that and can be able to say a price that a future job deserves with confidence.  I've found that confidence is key in any sort of business.  If you act confidently, you can pretty much get anything you want.