Business

I have owned two businesses.  The first business was a landscaping business that I ran from 2006-2010.  Most of the work I did myself.  There were a couple of clients that required additional help.  These projects were done on the weekend as it was easier to find somebody looking for a few bucks so they could blow it on booze that night.

I hated landscaping, but it was an easy enough business to start.  If I didn’t like the clients, I probably wouldn’t have lasted the first summer.  The first five summers were in North Carolina.  It was so hot and sticky in the summer.  Another drawback is the winters, when there wasn’t any work at all.

A college classmate runs a marketing firm in Raleigh.  He had a client in Greensboro whose busiest marketing season was in the winter months.  He didn’t like all of the trips to Greensboro in the winter.  The project was very similar to the group project we aced in “International Marketing” class our senior year.  I took this project because I lived close to Greensboro and it was the perfect supplement to the landscaping business.

The client moved to Jersey City, NJ in the spring of 2008.  After a week of 100-degree plus temperatures, I hired somebody to run the landscaping business and I moved to New Jersey.  I mowed a lawn here and there, but the grass growing season is much shorted in New Jersey than it is in North Carolina.  New Jersey also gets a lot more snow and it stays around a lot longer.

I started getting referrals from my first client and then referrals from the referrals and now I am making a modest living and I don’t have to sweat my balls off in the summer.  (Unless I want to.)

[This is part of the A-Z of Life series. Check out the other posts!]