“Your income equals the average income of your five best friends.”

I’m not buying it.

While those may not be his exact words, that’s the gist of what he said. His point — and he made it often — was that being rich is great and if you want to be rich too, like he is, then go find some millionaires to spend more time with and surround yourself with richer friends.

I think some of his speech was tongue-in-cheek, but for the most part I think he was serious and was proud of his bank statements and income. I don’t think being wealthy is anything to be ashamed of, and I applaud him for it.

Who doesn’t want richer friends?

But what threw me, and what wasn’t questioned at his talk to close the conference, was his advice to start finding and introducing yourself to richer people so that you can somehow glean the behaviors that help make them rich.

Really? Stop spending as much time with the top five people I know now and go look for five rich people to hang with? If dropping five friends for people with higher incomes is a path to financial success, count me out. And even if the speaker wasn’t saying that those original five should be dropped, then spending a lot less time with them while pursuing richer friends sounds like a poor life choice.

His cliche doesn’t ring true, which is kind of what makes a cliche a cliche — old advice that has been said over and over so much that it’s worthless.

The quote has largely been attributed to motivational speaker Jim Rohn (not the speaker I heard at FinCon), though often modified from what Rohn said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

Environment affects us more than we think. Surrounding yourself with good people who are happy, ambitious and have other traits you want to emulate is a good idea.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting go of friends who don’t support you or whose negativity get you down.

But dropping people from your life because they’re not rich and then seeking out richer friends doesn’t sound like a reasonable thing to do.

The FinCon keynote speaker, Noah Kagan, was also a bit sexist and proud of his sexual accomplishments. He’s also fond of other cliches:

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

— noah kagan (@noahkagan) September 24, 2016

And failing at a keynote is a bad plan.

Finding Richer Friends Isn’t the Key to Life is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Decide on Your Target Clientele

Do you want to clean for businesses, or would cleaning homes be more up your alley? If you aren’t sure, first clean the home of a friend or someone you trust to be honest with you about the end result. Then, ask them questions such as whether or not they were satisfied with the length of time it took, the cleanliness, etc. This could be a valuable way to discover if you are suited for this line of work before you start setting up clients.

Set up a Bookkeeping System

Even a simple cleaning business will need a bookkeeping system of some sort. If you are going to be a one person team, you will still need a spreadsheet or some other way to keep track of your income and expenses. Don’t order checks and business cards right away, however. These things cost money, and until you get rolling, you might be putting the cart before the horse.

Do get a calendar of some type so you can keep track of appointments and addresses. Then, you can add those other things once you build your clientele. But as with any type of business, you should have a separate checking account so it’s easy for you, your accountant, and the IRS to see what transactions are for your business and which are personal, and so you don’t have anyone digging through all of your own personal expenditures that you may wish to keep private.

Decide How to Charge

Remember your time is valuable and you need to pay yourself well.  Also, if you are the one providing the cleaning products, mops, buckets, vacuum, and any other items, then you are the one replacing them as well. Vacuums depreciate with use and will need to be replaced at some point. Cleaning products must also be replaced as they are used, so don’t forget to charge enough to be able to do so and still make a profit.

Determining if you are going to charge by the hour, by room, a flat rate, etc. can be tricky, so don’t make this decision lightly. Do not take a job without having the chance to view the home or business – ever! You don’t want the surprise of walking into a filthy environment and having to spend way more time than you budgeted for the job. This adds extra expense, because in a cleaning business, time is literally money!

Ask for Cleaning Business Referrals

When you are just starting out, you want to keep your expenses as low as possible. You are in this to make money, after all, so you don’t want to spend a bunch of money advertising your new cleaning business. Make sure you do a good job and ask your clients for referrals if they are happy with your services. If they are unhappy about anything, do your best to make it right. It will be worth it in the end for the free advertising you will get. Happy people tell others how great of an experience they received.

Hopefully the steps above will help you avoid the headaches of starting your own cleaning business, and allow you to make some good clean cash!

Have you ever thought about starting a cleaning business to make money?

Ways to Make Money: Start a Cleaning Business is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.