The Most Overlooked $10K/month Business You Can Start This Weekend - Ep. #336

0:00 Discovering a $10K/Month Shop Class Business I just signed a $30,000 contract for this fall spring break. We cleared 12,000 in one week, 9 to noon. So you're done in the afternoon, right? 0:09 Speaker 2 That's like 3 hours of work. 0:11 Speaker 1 Keep it simple, stupid. If you want to go all in, you can make a ton of money pretty simply. For those who wanted to make 3 grand a month, this is easy. So in March to July 50,600, wow. It was basically like 88 and then then we hit a 12, then we hit a 16. 0:26 It just kept scaling up and up and up. 0:28 Speaker 2 I need to have a gong in here because every time I just discover a business that you really could start with no money. I just want to be like Bing. We found one, you know, it is a business you could start with with nothing. 0:37 Speaker 1 Facebook post. That was it. No pictures, no nothing. 0:43 Speaker 2 Meet Mike. He's 50, got laid off after 20 years, and one night at 3:30 in the morning, he wrote a Facebook post from his garage. No photos, no website, no price. And that post became a $50,000 business in five months flat. Moms pay him 75 bucks an hour per kid. 0:59 The state of Florida pays him within 24 hours, and he just signed a $30,000 contract for two hours every Friday. His startup costs were under $450. And really, he collects money upfront, so he could have started this with no money, and you can too. And by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly how to copy him. 1:17 This weekend, I'm going to show you the exact post in a few minutes. And halfway through this episode, he's going to give you the one sentence that got a tool company to send him $5000 of free gear. And at the end, I'm going to give you the one word that turned a side Nestle into real contracts. 1:33 And also this whole thing, this whole business exists because Mike watches the channel and he was inspired by it. So please enjoy. 1:40 How a Simple Facebook Post Launched a Business Why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do? 1:42 Speaker 1 Mike Carrot here. I'm at the owner of Voskil. I'm we're a trade school and also we teach shock classes to 7 to 18 year olds based in West Palm Beach, FL. I saw all of these like bounce houses and a friend of ours sells girl teepees for birthday parties. I'm like, there's nothing for the boys. 1:59 Like nothing. So yeah, Thanksgiving week I was like, we need money and Facebook post woodworking birthday parties. Yeah, that was it. No. No pictures. No. 2:09 Speaker 2 Nothing. OK, so you had the idea on what, November 20th? 2:13 Speaker 1 Something like that, Yeah, I posted like that day. And then we had parties, events, classes, I think at the time we called them woodworking events booked that following week. 2:22 Speaker 2 All right, so you post about it and you just posted on your personal Facebook profile I. 2:28 Speaker 1 Did and I don't hardly use Facebook just because. 2:31 Speaker 2 You don't have a ton of followers, you're not an influencer. You just your personal Facebook. Yeah, OK. And what happened? What were the comments like? 2:40 Speaker 1 How old do you have to be? Yeah. How old do you have to be? How much and when and where basically kind of things. And we're a homeschool family, even though my kids are 18 and 23. But I think we put homeschool on it. And yeah, we did in the first couple ones were in people's backyards. 2:57 We took a folding table. Whatever tolls I had, we pulled the table out. And I've got little 6 year olds using hand saws, right? And 14 to 15 year olds using jigsaws and power saws and all kinds of stuff. 3:09 Speaker 2 OK, so are you just, like, thinking up the answers to these questions as you're typing them? You're like, how old do you have to be? Like, I don't know, 5 to 15? Yeah. Like, how much is it? Oh, shoot. Yeah. How much is it? Is that kind of how it went? 3:22 Speaker 1 Exactly because I had nowhere to pull from. Yeah, You know, first we did 6/6 plus like 6 to, you know, 18 and then and then I realized quickly, you can't have a six year old and a 12 year old in the same class. They're just two different. 3:38 They're too advanced. Yeah. 3:39 Speaker 2 So what today? What are your age groups? What are? 3:43 Speaker 1 Your SO now we split them into 7 to 9 because it kind of seems a sweet spot. And then 1010 plus. OK, so just two. It's just two. I really want to lop off the little ones just because I'm not doing the kind of mentoring I want to do with the little ones. 3:58 They're fun. They have a blast. Right. But I'd rather, you know, teach the older ones. Yeah, but the meant the little ones, man, it's like shooting ducks in apparel. Like these moms call all the time. 4:06 Speaker 2 Yep. OK, Yep. So you think there could be a business of someone only doing the little ones? 4:12 Speaker 1 Oh yeah, completely. 4:13 Speaker 2 More demand there. 4:15 Speaker 1 When when we started doing shot classes here in our trade school in the back office before we got open, we did spring break and summer camps. We cleared 30,000. 4:23 Speaker 2 Holy cow. OK, all right, so let's go back to day one. 4:27 Leveraging Free Classes for Paid Opportunities So you answer a ton of comments and questions and then what day was your first class and who all was there and what did you charge? 4:35 Speaker 1 I think the first one I stole from you, we did it for free. So yeah, that first, that first couple of weeks at between Thanksgiving and Christmas was he had two free ones and then we got a lot more inquiries and my wife like, no, there's something here they can pay. And then from that we only, we only do paying ones. 4:51 Speaker 2 In that original post, did you say that it would be free or you didn't and you just decided to make the first couple free? 4:57 Speaker 1 I think we did do it free. I think I yeah, I think I did do it free. 5:00 Speaker 2 OK. 5:01 Speaker 1 I think I put it right out of your playbook, yeah. 5:03 Speaker 2 Looking back, that was an important part of it. 5:05 Speaker 1 I think so too. Yeah, because I had no social proof. I didn't have pictures, I didn't have videos. Now I had 10,000 pictures. Yeah, videos. It's and Google reviews and yadda yadda. 5:14 Speaker 2 Was was the inspiration for that partly from the guy I interviewed who has the line striping business? 5:18 Speaker 1 No, actually, it kind of it woke me up in the middle of the night that week before Thanksgiving. Like I remember sitting in my garage at like 3:30 in the morning brainstorming this out. I think you had just done a video of the RC guy. The RC did, yeah. 5:30 Speaker 2 Oh, and he did his first for free, OK. 5:32 Speaker 1 Yep, yeah, and I was like, man, I still I'm tempted by that. Yeah, shiny squirrels in it. But December we did a father son build right for 38 pairs so little kids and their and their and their dads so 38 and it was 150 * 38 kids, however much that was. 5:51 Speaker 2 5 grand. 5:51 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Geez. Yeah, OK. 5:54 Speaker 2 And it was your first month or? 5:56 Speaker 1 That was in December. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a father son. Through Facebook, she heard about the the the free ones. Hey, can you do a father son event? I said sure. And what really kind of got my brain running of all the dads, so plus 30, only two of them had touched a power tool in their life. 6:15 And these are. 6:15 Speaker 2 Guys 38. 6:17 Speaker 1 And a 38. 6:18 Speaker 2 Not even like a drill. 6:19 Speaker 1 Not even like a drill, like they hadn't touched anything. And I'm like, OK, I've heard the trade problems bad, but to never touch a drill in your life and and we're not talking a big drills, we're talking a little 12 volts. 6:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, and these guys are like thirty 40s. 6:32 Speaker 1 Ages, young kids, young boys, young boys. Yeah, that one, we did a three hour event and we did, which is why it was $1.50 a piece. It was 3 hours. And then they built these little robots. They built these little dudes here. 6:46 Speaker 2 Oh, that's cool. 6:47 Speaker 1 Right, I bet, I bet, I bet. I build 500 of these so far. 6:52 Speaker 2 Where did you come up with that? Like why? Why are you going to build a robot? Where? 6:55 Speaker 1 That I don't know. I think I was poking around on Etsy one day and this goofy little wooden robot, and then I kept modifying it. Modifying. So basically I prepped the bodies and then the kids cut the feet and the hands and they they screwed screw the eyes in. 7:08 Speaker 2 OK. 7:09 Speaker 1 And that's for the little ones like they, they eat that and moms pay 75 bucks to build one of these. 7:13 Speaker 2 All day long. And you don't get that job unless you, like, get mass exposure by doing a free event, because that's where that lead came from, right? 7:19 Securing a $30,000 Contract with Homeschool Groups Yeah, it must. And we're not. I mean, the the free events were like one with like 6 kids and one with like 5. We're not talking thousands. Yeah, like those these random small. But you know, the homeschool community is so niche. So I tell people all the time I'm like this, this business and homeschooling. 7:35 Once you get in, you're set. You're in as they talk. Yep, they all talk. Half of our students are repeat students. 7:41 Speaker 2 How many, how many events did you have that first November, December. So the Father son event. 7:47 Speaker 1 Two free ones, the Father Son event and then the two over here at the small group between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 7:54 Speaker 2 OK. So November revenue was 800 ish, December was like 6 grand. 7:59 Speaker 1 6 grand because of the father son plus the two little ones. 8:03 Speaker 2 OK. 8:05 Speaker 1 And then a little bit in January, a couple shows or classes in January and then another and then another big one. We did. We did one with the foster community. They brought their foster, the, the local foster kids in and we did a 2 hour class just teaching them how to again, they made, they made, I don't have them here. 8:24 These little brain teasers, 550 cord, a nut and a washer and A and a A1 by four piece of block. Like we're not building pianos. I tell the kids all the time we're not building robots or pianos or, you know, satellites. So yeah, that was that was what we did. 22. And I kind of paused it in March because we're looking at doing the spring breaks. 8:41 People kept asking, can you do spring breaks? So then we did the spring break camps here in our site and then then paused it a little bit, a little bit, and then did summer camps. And then I just signed a $30,000 contract for this fall. We already started it. 8:55 Speaker 2 Whoa, What kind? What kind of contract? 8:57 Speaker 1 So 14 weeks for 40 students, every Friday for two hours. 9:01 Speaker 2 Homeschool students. And it's like a it's like a Co-op. 9:04 Speaker 1 It's a big Co. 9:05 Speaker 2 OP OK $30,000 for 14 weeks How many day? Like one day per week or? 9:10 Speaker 1 One every Friday for two hours. 9:13 Speaker 2 OK, so. 9:13 Speaker 1 It comes to that one's about $55 a head per week. 9:17 Speaker 2 I mean, that's over 1000 bucks an hour. Oh yeah, not not including like prep time, but. 9:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, it's about 50. I think we cleared 19A. Revenue is 1900 per week. I play, I pay me and my wife and my my youngest son, Christian, he's 18 and I pay him and our youth pastor and a buddy of mine that that work, you know, 150 bucks cash and they go help us. 9:37 We load up 7 tables, six kids per table, folding tables with plywood tops on them. They spend 2 hours making a mess. Yeah, they built cornhole. They just finished the cornhole boards. And then this week we're getting ready to start PVC. 9:55 PVC built because it's not just woodworking, it's basically kind of shop skills. 10:00 Maximizing Profit and Ensuring Safety with Tools What will you make in profit on that 30,000? 10:02 Speaker 1 So that great question. So by the time I pay, because I can do 10 students no problem, like we've slowly built the toolkit up and I can talk about tools later if you want to. But with that one, we're going to clear by the time we bought the extra tools and paid headcount and materials, we'll clear 10 on our end. 10:21 Speaker 2 Wow, we'll. 10:22 Speaker 1 Make real money when we do the one in January. 10:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. And what, so let's say 33% on this $30,000 contract. What are your net margins on and like your average one off class? 10:34 Speaker 1 So, so like a class with the young ones to say it's 1010 kids, they're 7 to 9, right? I charge more for the 7 to 9 year olds because it takes more oversight. So the per hours, like my little ones, I turned $75.00 an hour. My older ones I charged $50.00 an hour. 10:49 So for example, if we did a one hour class for 10 little ones, so it's you know what, $750, I'm about $150.00 in clocks. 10:59 Speaker 2 Wow, the cost of goods sold. So 600 profit on a $750 class. 11:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Because the only thing that's out the door is little bit of lumber, glue, screws, paint, that kind of stuff. The tools and stuff, once you buy them, you recycle them every every. 11:13 Speaker 2 Let's talk about tools. What? What tools did you have in the beginning and what tools do you have now? 11:17 Speaker 1 So at the beginning I had again, the basic, basic wood stuff, jigsaw, miter, saws, all that kind of stuff. I over engineered it the first time. Like I bought ridiculously too much stuff because I just, I didn't know what I didn't know. Now basically because I got a buddy that's thinking about doing the same thing right here. 11:35 Basically the spin off, a pretty decent program is about $425 and that'll that'll get you enough equipment for six kits. 11:43 Speaker 2 This is like a six foot plastic folding table from Costco. The lifetime tables. 11:47 Speaker 1 With 1/2 inch piece of plywood, I used to do 3/4 two Ding heavy. So then I did half inch plywood on top of it and then put a little track so doesn't wiggle. And then two miter boxes from Harbor Freight. They're 25 bucks, 6 tape measures. 12:02 These are expensive because when I found the first time I'd buy Harbor Freight ones, they don't have the fractions on them. These kids don't know how to roll. So when you get the Milwaukee's, they have the one 8th 1/4. So it's a lot of use 6 feet square from Harbor Freight 55 screwdrivers sanding these they it's so cool. 12:19 Like you go to Amazon, these little yellow sanding mines, it looks like a a mouse for your computer and the sand and the sand that sits on the bottom. Yeah, it's super cool. The kids eat up a couple clamps. So all in your 425 for just hand tools. 12:31 Speaker 2 And you make that back on your first class. 12:33 Speaker 1 Oh easily. And then for the older ones, this is where it kind of gets expensive. And This is why for the fall project, if we do another one as we will really make some, some good money is it's about $4100 in power tools. Wow. For six. Well, it's because this is 2 things. 12:49 Number one, I started with Milwaukee because that's what we had for the trade school, right? And they're in their sponsor. I cold called them. They said yes. I couldn't believe it, right? So what did you ask them? I said, hey, I'm starting a trade school. Would you sponsor trades or tools? Because I I kind of figured. 13:05 Speaker 2 Out so as in given to me for free. 13:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah. Like I think about like $5000 so far. 13:10 Speaker 2 And who did you call? 13:11 Speaker 1 I just cold called a guy on LinkedIn. 13:13 Speaker 2 Who worked at Milwaukee? 13:14 Speaker 1 Who worked in Milwaukee? Yep. 13:16 Speaker 2 And he's like, sure. 13:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, I emailed him in and he called me. I remember I was sitting at the Home Depot aisle and he's like, because, well, I've been to corporate America. So I kind of figured out what what the total lifetime value of a Milwaukee customer is. And I put that in the pitch. I'm like, I know these guys spend between 30 to $45,000 throughout their career. 13:33 You want to get them at 18? Let's talk. So they did so. 13:36 Speaker 2 Brilliant. 13:37 Speaker 1 That's why to. 13:38 Speaker 2 Do that. 13:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, I just want to bottom. You don't know what you don't know. I mean, I just, I figured the worst I can get as I know when I looked at the other brands like the Harbor Freight branch, they're too heavy for the kids because they're full, big, full size. Milwaukee makes these little twelves, right? Little tiny guys which work perfect for the kids. 13:54 They're small enough they can and they have tons of power and they they're under that buy one, cry once. Without a doubt. Yeah. Yeah, you know, but you get them on sale, you know, you get them on Father's Day sales or Black Friday sales. I do 2 students per set of power tools. You could probably do 3 and stretch it more, right? 14:09 So like 3 drills and three drivers. It's a combo for 1500 bucks. Then 3 jigsaws and then three nailers. Like little pin nails. 18 gauge nailers is $4100. But again, most of these guys had like when I first started, I grabbed whatever tools I had a couple of rigids, I had some, some a couple of Milwaukee's. 14:30 I borrowed some from my son. My youngest son grabbed some of his tools. So the very first ones we just took whatever we could, you know, now I know the only only my 13 and plus touch the power school tools extensively. I've done whole classes where they don't touch a power tool. They're so happy doing the hand saws, which blew my mind. 14:46 They love they love taking a 12 inch board and cut it down to 5 inches and then they cut it down to three inches and two inches. And then the last couple times I started bringing a scrap box just because I have all this scrap lumber and last Friday, like, Hey, Mr. Mike, we're done. 15:03 Can we, you know, what do you want me to do? I'm like, so if you want to go grab something on the scrap bent, Oh my gosh, you thought it was Christmas. Like these kids dove in in this big bucket full of scrap pieces that was throw aways. They're hammering them together, they're screwing them together, they're gluing them, clamping up, cutting, and they're coming out these crazy ideas and I just sit back and make sure they don't cut their fingers off. 15:21 Speaker 2 You know, is that not the most gratifying thing in the world to. 15:23 Speaker 1 See, I'm telling you dude, it fills my. 15:24 Speaker 2 That curiosity for the first time. 15:26 Speaker 1 I've seen it many times. One example, this, this student, he's probably 12, maybe 10 or 12. You built the little squirrel house feeder looks like a, looks like a picnic table that's made out of feeder. And it's, it wasn't hard, but it was pretty, pretty difficult for him. And he spent about 3 minutes when he's finally done just holding it and turning it around, flipping it. 15:45 He just kept flipping it. And you could just see like his pride growing. These kids have never touched anything and they're afraid to break everything. So we have these big posters we set up that, you know, mistakes aren't the end quitting this like, I want you to make mistakes. Then let's figure it out. 16:00 You know, we have safety posters, safety glasses, you know, we don't play that. 16:06 Speaker 2 Have you had any accidents? 16:07 Speaker 1 Nope. Wow. Praise God, nothing. 16:11 Speaker 2 What about insurance? I know, I already know. 16:13 Speaker 1 That was easy. I thought that'd be hard. It's just our regular business insurance. I pay like $95 a month. 16:18 Speaker 2 Wow, if someone were to start this and initially only start it for the 6 to 9 year olds, what is the total startup cost required? 16:25 The Zero-Cost Startup and College Alternative Four, 5500. 16:27 Speaker 1 450 and that's assuming you don't have anything like that's assuming you don't even have a miter saw or a square, you know, so if you start at 0 and I think even you borrow somebody's folding table, so it goes from three 425 to 325, you borrow somebody's table, right? 16:44 And then everybody's got screwdrivers, like who doesn't have a screwdriver? So you don't need those. So maybe you need to clamp some tape measures the miter boxes. You can easily do a A class for less than 300. 16:55 Speaker 2 Well, let's bring it down even more. How about people paying upfront like deposits? 16:59 Speaker 1 I don't go to they pay up front, they pay up front. 17:02 Speaker 2 So theoretically, could you collect money for this class, use that money to go spend the three? 17:06 Speaker 1 105 hundred, yeah, you could book them. Yeah, yeah, you could. You could do a simple square thing and some of URL they pay full out and then and use that three to five $700.00 to front load your first set of tools and then from there you're just repeating. 17:22 Speaker 2 I need to have a gong in here because every time I discover a business that you really could start with no money, I just want to be like, Bing. We found one, you know, because it's like, it's not even an asterisk. Like you post to your Facebook friends, you send a Stripe link, you get them to pay as they should. You should collect deposits upfront no matter what, whether you're brand new or not, you use the money to go buy the tools. 17:41 Of course you're going to need some expertise. Hopefully you already have that. Just some around the house garage expertise. Maybe you watch some YouTube videos. But it is a business you could start with with nothing. 17:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, and, and the, the amount of times I'm like the moms, the moms like my wife's like all you talk to is women on Facebook. I'm like they're, they're the customers. 18:01 Speaker 2 Sorry babe, they pay the bills. 18:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, like there was a thing. But I hear every single class you built that, you built that. Like, they're just amazed and they're like caddies. I mean, again, it's just fun woodworking stuff. Now we're getting the attention of private schools. Hey, can you help us spin up a woodworking class? 18:20 You know more more the the, the foster community? I think it really, really, I think what really kind of game changed. It was here in Florida, we have step up, which is a like a scholarship program. So if you pull your kids out of public school, the state will split the cost with you or something like that. 18:38 We became a vendor. So the parents don't pay us if they're in that, that homeschool private school scholarship program from the state. Beautiful. They register on our line for the class, right? Or book it. And then they put a code in that zeroes out the cart. And then they go to their step up page, find us on step up, and the state pays us within 24 hours after I hit send. 18:56 Speaker 2 Last I checked, the government isn't too price sensitive either. They're not, Yeah. What do you think happened with shock class in the 1st place? That was my favorite class in high school and they surely they're not as common anymore, right? 19:10 Speaker 1 They're not, they're not they're they're they're like, you know, I'm 50. So when I was in high school in the late or in middle school in the 80s, yeah, everybody had it. We had all the way through high school. I think it's like everything else, and Mike Rowe talks about this at length is 90s. We started pushing everybody towards college. 19:25 Like he had to go to college. And I did too. I have two degrees. I had a ton of student debt. You know, I was talking to a public school this weekend about the trades. I'm like, you know, college isn't for everybody. There's a lot of pass in there. I think we just, we drank the kool-aid for college and thought it was for everyone. 19:40 And it's not. And I tell I have parents ask me all the time about their their kids going to college versus the trades and stuff. And I'm like, especially with AI, man, if you're not doing a STEM degree, don't even look at college. Yeah, like if you have medical or something that require engineering, medical, totally get it, you know, but a marketing or history or AMBA, you know what I can do with Clot? 20:01 I built my entire now we have an app. I built it all with Claude code. Listen to you and a couple other guys just figuring it out. I built my own experience. None. None, you know. It does all my marketing for me. It helps me figure out post. It helps me do the the messaging for the poster. 20:17 It helps me come up with the project ideas. And now you've got a whole almost generation 1/2. They've never touched a tool and they're so afraid it's going to hurt them and cut off their fingers. Yeah, like if you just do it simple, it's not. And safely you'll have fun. And they all do. 20:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, what a scam. Now that I think of it, like colleges and universities spent in the 90s and 2000s, like preaching. You got to go to college, you got to go to college. Meanwhile they're jacking tuition up 10% a year every year. They're like artificially creating this demand and then pumping their prices up and it's never been less relevant or needful than ever. 20:49 Yep, what a scam. 20:50 Exploring Mobile Shop Class and Side Hustle Potential Yeah, $180,000 of student loans and now I'm running the trade school and teach their shop classes. 20:56 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, OK. What about girls? Are any girls in your? 21:00 Speaker 1 Class half of them, it's almost half, not not full half. So probably I'd say 35 to 45% are girls. 21:06 Speaker 2 That's shocking to me. 21:07 Speaker 1 It is, and they crush it like my girls crush it. Yeah, they crush it. 21:12 Speaker 2 That way do they crush it like? 21:13 Speaker 1 Because I always tell the boys too, because I have a A class with, with mix, I'm like, all right, guys, who do you think's going to do better, the girls or the boys? Because the boys are all ego. They raise their hands and I'm like, Nope, the girls. And they all like their shoulders shrink, you know, And I'm like, all right, girls, why do you think you'll do better than the boys? 21:28 And they all like, we'll listen. I go, Yep, you'll listen, you know, and they're pretty and they're starting to get more girls in the trades. Very attention focused. We joke the house may not be built on time, but at least it'll be built perfect, right? So yeah, over half of them are girls. 21:44 And we've done skateboards. We built skateboards one time. That's cool. Laminated Maple together and built steak. That was a huge success. Wow. And that was a, that was a $500 class. 21:54 Speaker 2 Per student. Wow. And you got trucks and wheels and everything. 21:57 Speaker 1 Parents bought the trucks and wheels. I just supplied the Maple and the forms. Wow. So I was out $6070 per student in a class would run 4 or 500. 22:05 Speaker 2 All right, let's run through your your numbers to date. So it's been almost a year. 22:09 Speaker 1 But I was to do it again. This can't be done completely mobile. In March to July, I made 50 grand. But that's because we had the classes here in our commercial spot. Everything else is mobile. We take the shop to them, right? But, you know, somebody could do this completely remotely, like completely mobile. 22:25 Like you don't need to have a commercial space, right? There's a couple of other ones. They do it out of the garage. They do it at the parks. Like they'll go set up every Saturday at a park, you know, you know. So there's, there's a several different ways to, to to line it. You don't need to have the the commercial spot. 22:41 Speaker 2 And I imagine just a a pickup truck or a van is is. 22:44 Speaker 1 Everything we do, 40 students, everything fits in in a in AF250 Super Duty. 22:49 Speaker 2 Wow, OK yeah. How far are you travelling? Like what does your radius look like when you do the mobile stuff? 22:55 Speaker 1 The little ones, if it's less than if it's ten, like cap it at 10. Usually we won't go further than 30 minutes from the house. The big the big contracts will stretch it up to 45. That's about it. 23:08 Speaker 2 Your numbers are are it misleading in a good way because you say 0800 in January, 2200 in February. You're only that's only like one or two events, right? Yeah, that's like 3 hours of work, like very much inside hustle territory. I interrupted you What? What were your numbers? 23:23 And I know it's kind of murky, but just add them all together between March and. 23:27 Speaker 1 So in March to July, so spring through summer, they were all here 50,600. 23:34 Speaker 2 In all of those months combined? Wow. And was it like growing? Was it? 23:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was, it was basically like 88 and then then we hit a 12, then we hit a 16. It just kept scaling up and up and up. You know, we get a lot of lot of questions about winter breaks are huge. Like I think spring break we cleared 1212 thousand in one week only teaching morning classes. 23:54 We're not all day like we're teaching a three hour class in the morning. That's it. Like that's that we stop. Same with summer classes. We ran summer camps. We went three day and five day summer camps. They were from 9:00 to noon. So you're done in the afternoon, right? And they were 3 to $400. 24:12 It's $300.00 for a three day camp, $500.00 for a five day camp for three hours. 24:17 Speaker 2 What would you say the profit per year ceiling is for someone wanting to do this and not have any employees? 24:24 Speaker 1 If you if you did it with and purely mobile not not a commercial space, so basically nice and weekends, there's no reason why you couldn't with a decent hustle. Say you filled a whole Saturday and a Sunday afternoon, you could clear probably 1500 on a Saturday, maybe do another 600 on a Sunday, right? 24:41 So that's what, 2 grand? So maybe conservative say you did 2 weekends a month, so that's you're talking 4 grand a month. 24:48 Speaker 2 Part in in your spare time in your full time job. 24:51 Speaker 1 Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep. 24:53 Speaker 2 What about what happens when the Facebook posts run out? When you exhaust your immediate network or. 24:59 Speaker 1 That's what I thought too so. 25:02 Speaker 2 As if that ever happened. Because it just is it word of mouth. It just becomes a word of mouth. 25:06 Speaker 1 It is. It becomes word of mouth and like we're in three homeschool groups. One's got 9001's, got 5000. I forget what the other one is. And they're everywhere. Every community has homeschool groups like, and all these moms talk to each other. They all know each other. They all talk to each other. Very tight knit group. 25:23 We've done probably, I want to say, say on the low side, 500 students since Thanksgiving. It's been the low side. We haven't even scratched the surface of just one homeschool group of 9000 moms, right? And there's new kids obviously aging up and aging out consistently. So you're always getting new, new students, you know, And then what what's interesting is that then we started getting asked for, Hey, can you do an adult DIY class? 25:47 Can you teach me how to drywall? Can you teach me how to hang a microwave or fix a door? Like we get those all the time. We did a mother, mother daughter made it may may build. I think it makes 5 hundred $600.00 on the weekend. They melted those little a little flower pots. 26:02 Speaker 2 That's cool. 26:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, and then we did a father, son one for Father's Day. They made the American flag, the wooden American flag, and it's like $300 a head. So we sold eight or ten of those, you know. 26:13 Speaker 2 Geez, you're just throwing around these numbers like 03 grand there, 3 grand in an afternoon. You're building this with scale in mind and most people like they could do it mobile or they could they could get cheaper rent. You get a much smaller place for 500 a month. I've rented a place in Huntsville, AL for 500 a month. 26:28 It was 500 square feet and it would have been great for something like this. 26:32 Speaker 1 What I did learn, and I think that's true, True if they wanted to go all in, what I found out and talking to moms, as soon as they saw our space, it put us on another level. 26:40 Speaker 2 Yeah, OK. 26:41 Speaker 1 Because they're like, and it's interesting because I, I, I, my wife had explained to me, I'm like, I don't understand why This is why they like the space so much. She was honey, it feels safe when it's in somebody's garage or in their backyard on a folding table. It just doesn't quite feel as safe. 26:56 But if you have a commercial space, they know somebody's vetted you and you know, so on and so forth. But yeah, you're right. If I was to do it again, I'd rent. You know they do those math tutoring places and strip. We're in a strip mall. I'd rent a small 1000 square foot strip mall. Completely open it up, expose ceilings and beams. 27:13 Speaker 2 You could even do this in like a shared makerspace, like or a shared warehouse or those contractor garages where it's like 1500 square feet, you know, like a 30 by 60 foot space. 27:24 Speaker 1 They're a closed trailer. Like I, I, I think version 3 point O is we get a big 36 foot and close trailer, right? Wrap it. All the tools are in it and it's got bat wings that open up and you pull up to the park or corporate events or whatever because you can do corporate events too. I mean, people have asked about corporate events. 27:39 You know, you roll up and everybody has fun building stuff. 27:42 Effective Marketing, Pricing, and Building Confidence Well. 27:42 Speaker 2 It reminds me of those video game trailers. 27:44 Speaker 1 Yeah, and the basketball guy, the guy that does the. 27:46 Speaker 2 Basketball. The basketball guy? Yep. 27:48 Speaker 1 Same thing, just woodworking. 27:49 Speaker 2 What have all of your marketing methods been to date? 27:53 Speaker 1 Me figuring it out by mistakes. It's all been Facebook. But you know, listening to you and others posting consistently, like I have to post every single day. These moms are super busy, right? I just post. I just post pictures all the time. You know what the kind of more tactical stand is like really confidence, like giving the kids confidence they don't have. 28:13 And that confidence leads to responsibility and ultimately to servant leadership is kind of where I'm hoping they'll go as we go through the trade school. Yeah. But the confidence is, I'm telling you, it fills. It fills your tank. It fills my tank every time. That's exhausting. I mean, I have a new respect for teachers. 28:30 Speaker 2 I'm sure. Yeah. Tell me about pricing. So I imagine if you post organically and you get, you know, 8 moms together who have 12 kids combined, you're charging each of them per head. But if someone comes to you and says, hey, I'm in charge of this homeschool group, you're charging the homeschool group directly per. 28:46 Speaker 1 Head, I do, I do. And basically, I, I step down the, the pricing, it's not, you know, $50.00 an hour, you know, and basically tear it down basically, you know, like now our big ones is 30 kids minimum. That's, that's in the 40 kids maximum in our current system. 29:02 And basically like, OK, how long do you want? And then just figure out a pricing system from there. I know the one we, the one we're doing now, they did, they added a markup on top of it. So there was still wiggle room to the parents because nobody does this. Like there's these kids, these parents have no place to take their kids to teach them how to. 29:19 Speaker 2 Good work. Now you said 50 bucks an hour. Is that like let's say there's only 5 kids, Where do you start per hour per kid? And then what do you scale that down to as you go to 50 kids or 30? 29:30 Speaker 1 Honestly, I kind of keep the 50. Let's see, 50 and 75 for the little ones, right? Yeah, we've only got a couple of the bigger ones, the 25 plus. So I usually keep it at 5075 for the two age groups per hour up to and usually most homeschool events and most events are sub 10, like they're in that 8 to 12 range. 29:50 And then when you get the B2B model, which is very lucrative, that's where you're getting a $30,000 contracts and all that kind of stuff, then it's a different price structures. 29:57 Speaker 2 So call it 5050 bucks per hour per kid at the older ages, 75 per hour per kid at the younger ages. And as you scale up, you can bring it down. But you're saying you don't really need to most of the time because no, you're not competing. 30:10 Speaker 1 Yeah, you're not competing. Yeah, OK. Yeah. And that's that's why I was really, I was like, this could be something that a guy just like, I just want to make an extra $1000 on a weekend, take the tools I already got and make some smiles. Like it's that type of business. If you want to go all in the world, your your ocean, you can, you can make a ton of money pretty simply, you know. 30:28 But yeah, just for those who wanted to make two to three grand a month, this is easy. 30:33 Speaker 2 Do you have like a acronym or a framework or something that you use? 30:36 Speaker 1 It's learn, build, lead. So learn it, learn it, learn a skill, whatever it is, build with it and then lead others to it. That's kind of like the mantra, but not from like a business standpoint. I could, I don't really have, you know, I guess post cut cash. 30:53 Speaker 2 PC. PC Post Collect a host, right? Yeah. 30:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, something like that. I mean, really Chapter. Yeah, that would be cool though. I have a good acronym. That'd be kind of cool. 31:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I like that. Post collect, host. Like post to Facebook, collect the money or even just the first one might be free, right? Collect the reservations. Yep. And then host it. Yep. 31:14 Speaker 1 Cuz you do, you do need to do a couple of them just to kind of get your feet wet and to get some pictures. Yeah, yeah, once you get the pictures and then if you want to go all in, then do a Facebook page. We did a Facebook page and then then we did a Google profile 'cause we needed them for the trade school. But yeah, all of our reviews, if you look at all of our reviews for Facebook and Google are for the shop students. 31:35 Speaker 2 Yeah, and I. 31:36 Speaker 1 Ask them flat out. 31:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, once you get pictures and videos it just becomes easy mode like. 31:41 Speaker 1 Then what you do. So one thing I did learn is make sure to respect the, the parents that don't want their kids posted like, and that, that, that I'm like, OK, so we had to like at first we used to put name tags on their shirt so I could call them by their name. 31:56 Now I put them on the workstation because it's easier to go in and scratch them out, right? And then we have all the parents sign a waiver, obviously. And then within it says, hey, we can pose. And most, I mean, 99% of the time the parents don't care. I've had a few of them say, hey, I'm like, well, I could put emoji on their face, like, OK, that's fine. 32:11 So I just put emoji on their face. OK, post it. But there's so many pictures, you don't have to worry about it. I mean, there's just, you know. 32:19 Speaker 2 If someone were to start this like what is what are some non negotiables that they need do or what would step one be? Or what advice do you have for someone starting this from nothing? 32:29 Speaker 1 Draw the line in a sandwich safety and don't move an itch. Safety classes like don't don't even play with that because it takes one injury to wreck it. 32:38 Speaker 2 The whole business. 32:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, the whole business. Yeah. So like, you know #1 eye protection, like we have posters everywhere, a push of the site. They don't touch the table without eye protection, right. And then I kind of have a persona, Mr. Mike. I have a little shop apron that's got all like, my, my stuff in it, right? 32:56 And it's got eye protection. A big, big Velcro says eye protection. Yeah, definitely a hard line to, to safety. Keep it simple, stupid. Like, like you don't have to build these elaborate steps tools like they, they like making totes and flags and bird feeders and don't over. 33:19 And, and we another thing, we used to go cheap on the wood. We'd buy the, the cheaper lumber just because to save money. Now we're like, no, we buy the, we buy the really nice high grade pine. It's got no nods in it. It's, it's a, it costs more, but it's just a better experience for them and they don't have to paint or stain it. 33:36 They're happy going home with raw wood. Yeah. All day long. Yep. 33:40 Speaker 2 I like the idea of going to Etsy and just sorting by like most sold most popular both like physical things you could buy and then just copying that and then plans like I bought a chicken coop plans and shed plans from Etsy for like 15 bucks. You could use those forever. 33:55 Speaker 1 That, that's how I got my American flag plan, $9 off Etsy came with two, two file sizes. And then I went to Amazon and bought the, the star. What's it called? The stencil. The star stencil, right? And yeah, it's a metal and they, they rattle can it like you didn't need to be complex. 34:11 We're not talking routers or fancy joint. We're talking like we're putting butt joints and screws. And I don't do nails. That's another thing. Don't do nails. I do everything. 34:20 Speaker 2 With an injury city, right? 34:21 Speaker 1 It is injury city and then I just do the nails or the the screws, the sheetrock screws. Don't buy the expensive ones. I buy Sheetrock screws in the big buckets all day long, right, Home depots and Lowe's. They always have a scrap bin par all the time. Like go, go grab scrap out of there, right? 34:38 And what I what I failed early and I still struggle with this. I'm like, OK, I gotta keep coming up with new projects, right? Keep coming up with new projects. But really, I've got 10 projects, Chris, and that'll keep us busy for probably 5. 34:49 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. I mean, you need new projects if you're teaching the same kids over and over, but. 34:53 Speaker 1 And I just. 34:54 Speaker 2 Had a winning project. 34:56 Speaker 1 So what we do is basically for the recur, because now we do month, month programs. So basically every week for a month, like every Monday or every Tuesday. And basically I have a bunch of black totes folded with kits like a flag kit or being bad kit or whatever. And if it's a previous student like, hey, what do you want to build? 35:11 And I want to build a flag. OK, So I go grab the flag and they're building a flag and everybody else is building robots or bean bags or whatever. 35:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, what happens when the kid doesn't finish by the end of the class? 35:20 Speaker 1 So the first couple times, yeah, the first couple times we went long because we tried to add paint and glue. I've learned to simplify the project in Harbor Freight. Don't be too prideful with the tools. Go to Harbor Freight. If they're going to break them, they're going to break them, they're going to drop them. They're going to stain them, you know? 35:37 Yeah, that was that was. 35:39 Speaker 2 For sure. Do you have like a carpentry background or are you just like your average dad? I'm one myself. 35:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, just just, it's funny, the the only reason I kind of got into woodworking was we bought a house at Maryland and my wife wanted a new kitchen. I got priced like 3 or 400,000. I'm like, I'm not paying $300,000 for boxes for cabinets. So I hopped on YouTube and built her entire kitchen off YouTube and now I can hold my own. 36:03 But again, don't keep it simple. I we're talking 90° squares, screws and glue. It's it's it's not hard, but do not be, don't be surprised when you leave tired, but like on fire because the kids are so much fun to build with. 36:19 They are just an absolute blast, you know, and now I think I'm going to do full just scrap band with a whole scrap in it once they learn the safety. And I always start with safety. These are the five rules of the shop. Like we have a macho respect first safety always. That's the mantra every time I have a class, I start with that and eye protection and then teach them how to do this stuff, obviously. 36:37 And then I'm like, OK, here's a bin. Go have fun. And man, it's like wildfire, like you put a whole plate of cookies out you. 36:44 Speaker 2 Should you should up charge for that? I should, I mean you like say hey, show them like a quick 15 second clip of what they do and be like hey, for an extra 10 bucks per head I'll have the scrap pile. 36:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, it is. And it's fine too, because the scraps are from a previous class. Sure, it's free. Yeah, it's just I'm going to throw it away anyway. Yep. 37:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's amazing. Do you ever post to Facebook groups or to Facebook Marketplace? 37:07 Speaker 1 I think you could do marketplace, but there's so much gold in, in in the home. Oh, and, but and not just homeschool group moms groups like moms of Palm Beach County or moms of Austin, TX or whatever, right? Yeah, you could just post to those groups. 37:22 And you know, it's not videos. We're talking a static image, right? Woodworking or shop class. Kids build confidence. Message me for details. That's it. No price. Don't put anything in a price, right? And then all the price goes in your Facebook page or because they don't read that stuff. That's nothing. 37:37 I learned they don't read their website anyway. They don't read your Facebook page. They all want you to tell you they're, you know, right there over the phone. 37:43 Speaker 2 I feel like you're, you're underselling the genius of that post. Kids build confidence. Is that what you said? Like you're not, you're not selling the steak, you're selling the sizzle. You're selling the outcome, which is confidence. And as a dad of four kids, that is one thing I want them to have more than almost any other thing is confidence. 37:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, it took us a while to figure that out. It took me a while to figure my voice out. Yeah, you know, to figure out because it was skills. And then then I realized, like, we don't teach woodworking. We help kids gain confidence through tools and woodworking. Yeah, it's a blast. 38:11 Learn More About VoSKILL and Support the Podcast Man, man, it sounds fun. Mike, this has been incredible. Where can people find you or your business if they. 38:16 Speaker 1 Want voskill.com which is vocational skills used AI to help us come up with the name. 38:22 Speaker 2 Voskillsvoskills.com. 38:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, Voskill Singular VO skill.com. 38:28 Speaker 2 And then where can we find you? Or should we just go to the website? 38:32 Speaker 1 Go to the website or we're on Facebook, Instagram. I think it's Voskil training, VOSKILL training. OK, I'm a huge fan. I'm still thinking for what you do you. 38:41 Speaker 2 Know, thank you, Mike. I'm thankful for what you're doing. I mean, you're inspiring people here both locally and nationwide. Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your Airpods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. 39:03 It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.