Goals For 2013

Looking for ways to make this coming year more productive and more profitable than the previous year.

My father once told me that if you don’t work hard now, you ‘will’ work hard the rest of your life and in all my years of work and school I’ve never heard better advice. I want to share some goals I have for this coming year. Maybe if you have time you can add to the list.

1) From 5 Gallon Buckets To Gaylord’s

I have purchased 1,000 postcards for my e-waste business. I plan on delivering them to every business in my town and posting them at every community bulletin board. I also plan on running a few local newspaper spreads. I think I’ve budgeted enough for these full spreads although I might do numerous smaller ads instead.

2) Vowing To Never Scrap Before Checking Resell

I have thrown so much money away this past year by letting the scrap-urge take over. It’s amazing how we will spend 30 minutes checking per pound prices but not 1 minute checking resell prices.

3) Moving From Scrapping To Resell

I’ve been wiping and testing hard drives for some time now but have never gotten around to listing them. My goal this year is to start selling hard drives, power supplies and other disk drives as these are the easiest items to test.

4) Increase Contacts

I’ve been lazy on this front. My goal is to start really shaking hands with individuals who could benefit from my services. I want to construct a contact book for anyone who may be interested in the products I get in and I want to know what items they are looking for.

5) Stop Dealing With Steel

My goal is to free up my space by outsourcing all my steel to another company. In return, they promise to haul some of my plastic as well. This should free up my time to engage in more profitable undertakings. Especially since I only get $0.07 per # for steel and I have to pay $0.03 per # to get rid of plastic.

6) Separate Working From Being Busy.

Too often I walk into my shop and spend ½ a day accomplishing very little. Thus, I was busy for ½ a day, but did very little work. My goal is to not walk into my shop until I create a to-do list.

7) Start Charging For My Services

My goal for 2013 is to not touch a CRT monitor or CRT TV with being paid for it. My goal is to not touch a large floor-model copier without being paid to haul it. Neither one of these units are worth the time to haul in comparison to the recovery.

8) Organization

I believe that lack of organization can be a real hindrance on productivity. I spend too much time per week trying to locate a tool or other items.

9) Sticking To The 80/20 Rule

Like anything, 80% of our profit/productivity comes from the first 20% of the work. For example, you could sell your Universal Power Supply for $.09 per pound or you could break down and sell the parts. By doing so you would more than likely triple your money with very little investment of work. However, you could also squeeze another 10-15% by breaking down the power supply or stripping the wire, but this would triple the time with little payoff. Thus, I want to eliminate all activity that doesn’t fit in the 80/20 rule. By doing so I can likely cut my work time significantly without sacrificing much profit.



To another year of hustle!

Great plan Jeremiah! Don't forget about networking with other scrappers in your area to buy their escrap from them. Just another avenue for growing your business.

All of your goals would be beneficial to everyone, including this scrappers community. Thanks for making me think.

ive been working on my own list myself, good luck to you

One of the best business tips I ever got was about marketing and advertising,

1. attend every Free social function you have time for, this means Gallery Artist openings, Business after hours functions, Heart association/breast cancer awaness/aids awareness functions, local greenway/conservation functions. many of these are free and are hosted by public relations people from major corporations, banks, and medium to small local businesses. these are the very people in your community that need to dispose of ewaste! Make friends with them and get them on your side. It's also a great cheap date that will impress a spouse or new "friend"

2. master your business "mission statement" and have your "elevator pitch" mastered as well. when you meet people, you have 10 to 20 seconds to capture their imagination and have them understand what you do and have faith that you have integrity and follow through. This is an absolute must.

3. learn to use excell spread sheets and keep a daily log.

4. learn to think like a business rather than a one man show.

goal 1. though 10.

make it to 1214 :)

Id like to set some reasonable goals i know i can meet.
1. process more scrap
2. drink more beer
3. get more sleep

4. learn to think like a business rather than a one man show.
How's that work when you are a one man show ?

New goals for 2013 is same as last year :
1. Haul more scrap
2. Make more money
3. Don't be dumb

Quote:

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Originally Posted by taterjuice

4. learn to think like a business rather than a one man show.
How's that work when you are a one man show ?

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You bring in help when you need to.

One of my goals is to create a scrapping guide for my shop. Since I have employees, and an employee will never do things exactly the way you would, they need instructions. So I will have a number of laminated sheets detailing how to deal with specific items. For instance:

Vacuum Cleaners:
Test functionality. If working put in sell area.
If not working, cut cord to go into #2 insulated and put the rest into shred.

Cuts down on the mistakes.

Jeremiah-

I love your list! I'm going to steal some things from it and suggest some modifications. The changes are just my $.02 and are worth exactly what you paid for them. I hope they are of some value to you, If not feel free to ignore them! :-)

First regarding the postcards, I would use the post office's new service, called every door direct mail, or EDDM for short. Basically you can cover WAY more ground this way and the cost of delivery is about 15 cents each. You can't deliver them by hand that cheaply. I know you lose the personal touch, but you WILL get calls in a concentrated area, and they will pay for more postcards to be printed and sent. And then while you're out making your pickups you can network with the neighbors. Don't forget the most valuable question to ask your customers..."Who else do you know that could benefit from my services?". You'll get a lot of unexpected business that way!

Love your thought on increasing contacts, or networking. Find all the chamber and other events in your area and attend them religiously. I would not pay for a chamber membership, because there are so many of them to join, and you could literally spend thousands annually doing this, but most chambers will allow you to attend a few events every so often for free.

While you're doing eddm, consider posting professionally printed "bandit" signs. I bought a batch of 100 for $3.00 each online and posted them locally. My phone immediately started to ring.

Stop dealing with steel. Really? I'd hate to give up that $1000 or more per month that I am getting. If it is a storage issue buy yourself a trailer to keep it in that you can close and lock, or secure in a fenced in yard. I know that we all are operating on different scales. I rented a warehouse when I really couldn't afford it, and now I don't know where I'd be without it. Organized storage is key.

Separating working from being busy. I know this may be anathema to some on here, but I don't work in the shop unless at least one employee is with me. Having a time card chunking away focuses me greatly, it makes you focus on whether certain tasks are worth the work for the return, we accomplish what I set out to do for the day and then I send him/them home. Besides, handling that large awkward item is always easier with a second set of hands.

Also, if it isn't worth it to me to pay an employee to perform a task, then it isn't worth MY time to do. THAT was a hard lesson!

Start charging for your services. To me this goes without saying. I don't pick up free appliances unless they are on the way to something else. Since my business is junk removal, people expect to pay for those services. I usually have a minimum of $125, although if it is a single appliance I will often do it for $75.00. If you look at 800-SNOT-PUNK's website, THEIR minimum charge was $265.00 last I checked. Yes, even for a single sofa.

Organization: you are speaking my language here. Used to be everything got thrown into my warehouse with just a few buckets for different materials copper alum etc. but I could never find anything. It was a big ****hole. With our winter slowdown we spent some time organizing. There is now an area for sellable items, an area for items to break down, an area for testing items, tool storage, power tool and workbench areas, and EMPTY FLOOR SPACE. (The usefulness of the teacup is in its emptiness. Master Po.). If you don't have room to work you are killing yourself!

I hope some of that is of some value to you and others on here. I am excited for 2013 and can't wait to see what the new year holds. Happy New Year to all my brothers and sisters on here and happy scrapping!

Wow, I thought this would be a really popular thread with twenty thirteen right around the corner. Doesn't anybody else have any goals for the new year they'd like to share?

An additional goal/desire for me is to process stuff immediately, rather than sitting on it.

I still have the three go karts I talked about several months ago, because I need to check into
whether they've been reported stolen from anywhere. Just don't like any of the turns that could take,
so I am PROcrastinating. (I never AMATEURcrastinate, I am FAR too good at it!

Thanks for this input Burly!

I might try the postcard route for businesses who handle fewer tech-products. Even though it wouldn’t have the personal feel it would be so much faster.

I thought about the chamber of commerce route but I never wanted to pay. However, that’s great news that they have open conventions. One of my computer shop clients told me about a new chamber of commerce for technology-only opening sometime next year. I think he said it was $650 a year to join. That one might be worth it.

“While you're doing eddm, consider posting professionally printed "bandit"” You’ll have to run this by me again.

As for steel, it’s a very minimal amount for me since I only do e-waste and I only get .06-.07 per #. The guy I outsourced comes once every 10days and takes all my steel and most of my plastic (I have to pay .03 per # to get rid of plastic and the dump site is 25 miles away from home). Although it’s a loss. It’s a major saver of time and this is what is most important to me since I teach and run a lawn care company as well.

To another year!

(Clinking glasses) To another year!

The signs sold on this site are what are called bandit signs. Not necessarily recommending this vendor, just the first site I found. Can't remember the site I bought from right now but I paid only 3 bucks each for a hundred of them, so shop around.

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