You Should Start an Unsexy Business
The Amplified Impact Podcast
January 19th, 2023
Today’s nugget: the most lucrative businesses aren’t always party talk material.
Forget the sexy, aim for the practical.
My first success? Window washing.
It might not be cocktail party brag material, but it funded my journey. Unsexy businesses are learning grounds…low competition, high chance to refine skills.
Don’t fear the uncool. Most people don’t care what you do, and that’s okay.
Fall in love with the process, not just the outcome.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Listen, the business that’s going to make you the most money is probably not the business that’s going to impress anybody at the cocktail party.”
– Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. I am psyched to be here. It’s nice and toasty in my office, which is a stark contrast to being outside at the moment, where it is balls cold. That’s why I have my candle going. It’s very lovely. If you’re watching this on YouTube, on the amplified impact YouTube channel, you can see my beautiful candles in the background, which has nothing to do with today’s topic. Well, maybe it does, actually. Listen, the business that’s going to make you the most money is probably not the business that’s going to impress anybody at the cocktail party.
And I share this because a lot of people, I think new entrepreneurs in particular, are looking for that million dollar, billion dollar, sexy business idea that will make them a ton of money. And it’s going to be so cool and everybody’s going to think they’re awesome when the reality is my first business was a window washing company. And a lot of the guys that I know who are most successful, they started with just some pretty unsexy, lame businesses that you talk about at the cocktail party when you’re going around the table and everybody’s introducing themselves and it’s not the type of thing that you tell people and they go, oh my God, that’s so cool. You must be a badass. They kind of look at you weird. Imagine for a second we’re at a party we’ve never met, and I stand up, everybody’s gone around the room and they’re like, oh, I’m a lawyer at this top ten firm and I’m a CPA doing this and that and the other thing. And then I stand up, this ragtag ragamuffin, and I’m like, yeah, I have a window washing business. Oh, cool, that sounds neat, right? It’s not going to impress anybody, but that’s not really the point of starting a business, right? If you’re starting a business, you want to get into entrepreneurship, it’s not to impress people.
But I’m sharing this with you because, one, maybe it’ll help you recalibrate your expectations about what might be a viable business option for you, is that there is a lot of money to be made in unsexy products, unsexy services, and I don’t want you overlooking those. Those can be good six and low seven figure opportunities, thinking like, oh, I need to go for that 910 figure opportunity. Especially if you’re first starting out, you don’t have the skills or the experience or the resources yet to really run an eight or nine figure operation successfully. And so even if you went for that fantastic once in a lifetime opportunity, you’re probably going to screw it up. The ods are so against you. However, if you built a cash flowing business off of the back of service, like a lawn mowing service, or a trash can cleaning service, or hanging holiday light service, there’s so many different options here, guys. There’s so many. If you built that business first and you’ll learn the ropes of how to get customers, how to make a compelling offer, how to convert those sales, and then how to fulfill on the product, by the time you’ve built that thing to be a nice, sustainable lifestyle business, you’ll have the skills to be able to go after that sexy business opportunity and maybe succeed.
Like your chances of success are better now. But I think you should start with the unsexy business that there is already a ton of competition for, that, you know, people are paying for because there are so many people in that space. And what I’ve found is that these unsexy businesses are the easiest ones to compete in because the people that are in that space are typically very unsophisticated and they don’t need to be very sophisticated. To be frank with you, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing when I started my window washing business. I just went around knocking on doors, asking if I could wash their windows, and that worked out. But if I had to go back and compete with past Anthony now, I would crush him. I would destroy him. He would have no chance.
He couldn’t compete with me because I just know so much more and I know how to do it better. And so don’t be afraid to start, though, because even if I go and I crushed past Anthony, I’m not going to dominate the market so badly that he’s not going to be able to eke out a good existence on his own and build those skills and the resources. And you know what? You’re going to have to be okay with the fact that people probably aren’t going to look at you at the cocktail party and think that you’re all that neat. It is just what it is. Here’s something that I found really interesting is actually nobody really cares. There’s really almost no business that you could start or nothing that you could really do with your life that other people are going to find truly interesting and compelling at the cocktail party. And I’ll tell you what, when I was 28 and my fiance and I were going through that period of time where I was like, I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to be a science fiction author.
And then it’s all going to work out. I’m going to make tons of money, and we’ll be the next Stephen King. It’s going to be awesome. Right? When I was going through that period, I’m going to be a writer, I was convinced that when I finally hit it big and I finally published my books and everybody knew who I was and I was making good money, I was convinced people were going to be generally impressed. When I go, I am an author. However, I never got to Stephen King level, but I had a fair amount of success in that domain. And I will tell you what, I don’t think I ever met a single human who was genuinely impressed when I was like, I’m a writer, I’m an author. They usually just kind of look at you go, oh, that’s cool.
They don’t care. And so this thing that I thought was really cool and awesome, that I thought others would think was really cool and awesome, I was completely wrong. Nobody else cared. However, I still thought it was awesome. It was still the coolest thing in the world to me. So at the end of the day, don’t put any stock into what other people are going to think about your business or what you’re doing with your life, because the truth is, they probably don’t care anyway. So the only thing that really matters is, do you care? Do you like what you do? And in the case of the window washing, I didn’t love it. But I love the freedom that it enabled.
I loved the ability to add value to people’s life, the ability to think creatively and be in control of my own existence. I loved all that stuff. Washing windows. Take it or leave it, right? But I love the other side of things. And if you want to be successful in life at whatever you do, you need to fall in love with the process. If you can’t do that, then I tell you what, you’re going to have a really hard time competing with the person who does. They’re just going to beat you. That’s how it is.
So that’s going to do it for me. Guys and gals, I appreciate you as always. Thank you for being here. We’ll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
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