The Restart Podcast

Day 6: How I'm building a business with zero dollars (ep. 53)

• Arthur Toole • Season 7 • Episode 6

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Welcome to Growing a Business with Zero Dollars! I'm Arthur Toole, and I’m here to share my raw, real-time experience of building a business from scratch—without any initial investment. This daily series is designed for aspiring entrepreneurs who might be struggling in silence, unsure where to start (or restart), or feeling overwhelmed.

Through my journey, I’ll show you that you’re not alone. From setting up your business legally to finding potential funding sources, overcoming everyday challenges, and learning key lessons along the way, this channel is all about giving you the knowledge, motivation, and resources you need to succeed.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, good morning. This is day six and you know I'm getting ready for church and getting ready for a couple other things. So last night was a good night Got to spend time with just family. But now it's time to really kick it in and really lock in, and that's something that you know, historically, has been a challenge for me. I'm trying to just stay focused and be proactive and not procrastinate. But I have 12 days until the pitch competition and I've only gone over the actual pitch itself one time. So I got to really kick it into gear, otherwise I'm going to get trampled. And I'll be trampled not because we shouldn't win, but because I hadn't put forth the effort. So what I'm going to do is, starting today, I I'm gonna put in at least three times a day, practicing the pitch and then tweaking that a bit and then going through the questions. The only challenge that I have is that I have a presentation that goes all the way to the president of the college where I work, so I gotta find a way to divide that time. So I have to get that draft done today and submit that by tomorrow, and then that's a 30 plus minute presentation on November 6th, literally the day before the pitch competition. Every year I try to do this. It seems like something comes up and it's frustrating, but both presentations are important. The pitch competition is important for my business, but the presentation to the president is important because it will impact the resources and funding that we may be able to have to support veterans in not just Prince George's County or the state of Maryland but the entire DMV area and beyond. So I just have to do both Right, and that's what we're going to do. God has gifted me to be good at speaking and I've never really put forth effort in that, so this time will be a change. So that's that.

Speaker 1:

Other good news. We were featured in a newsletter for a local massage therapy clinic, so that is awesome. So we officially made a partnership with our first massage therapy organization. So last month we got into our first physical therapy clinic. This time we got our first massage therapy parlor. So last month we got into our first physical therapy clinic. This time we got in our first massage therapy parlor. So we're making some progress, right. I got a new cell from somebody new that we don't know and I don't quite know how that happened yet.

Speaker 1:

So we got to figure that part out, and then a lot of the challenges that was having with the website, one that it was being so slow. Thanks to Olivia, who we've been working with she's been our web designer and more for for years now she was able to do that, and she was also able to fix the affiliate portal, because that thing it was broken. The other thing that was broken or just not working was the one question asking the person where they got the sales from. So now, where I always wanted it was you make the purchase, but before it says thank you, I wanted something to pop up there and say hey, where did you find this? Because if you did it before that the person made the purchase, I think it may distract them from making a purchase. If you did it after you got the thank you, they can just click out of it because they've already done everything. But if you put it right in the middle and make it one question, I think that it get us a bigger bang for our buck, right? So then everybody will answer and then we'll be able to track that.

Speaker 1:

The other thing we were able to do through Olivia was that our tracking sources like understanding where everything is coming from, and so she enabled the plug-in monster insights and she was able to get us truly connected to Google Analytics so it can track, and now I can see both. Now, the interesting thing is, most of our sales are coming from Pinterest and I didn't quite understand how to look that up, but then, thanks to our web designer, she was able to show us, and so she was able to show us which things things they were looking up, what they were commenting on and come to find out. People were asking us questions on pinterest that we never addressed, which is unfortunate, because some of them, like 11 months ago, literally asking us what is mega leaf and if mega leaf could help. So I dropped the ball on that one, but I'll, I'll fix that. And then, secondly, through google analytics, we were able to see, like, through both the monster insights plugin and google analytics, it tells you where people's attention were, and for one of them it was one article we wrote five worst foods for arthritis. It always got the most traffic right, but what we found was that with Google Analytics, it told us how long people were looking at that, so people were looking at that article like a minute and a half, and we had a couple other articles about the medicinal benefits and nutmeg, when people were looking at it for an average of two, two and a half minutes, and so then, with that insight, now we could probably you start creating ads based on that, or I haven't yet having to add that leads people to that article and then have a pop-up from that article to have them go to, like a landing page for a product, right.

Speaker 1:

So that's one of the problems that we have and I think this problem that a lot of people have one, you don't know where your traffic is coming from. One and two, you don't have any true lead generating activities. So what do I mean by that? We have a website, right, and we post, and I post pretty much daily, but that doesn't lead people anywhere and so we don't tell people to go anywhere. So literally the people who are clicking and going to the next phase are clicking because the information was so interesting to them, but 90% of the people they stumble across our thing and then there's no direction to tell them where to go, and yet we're hoping that they purchase.

Speaker 1:

So, once I get past this pitch competition and we win that and we get that 10,000, um for the next two months. Uh, I'm building only the lead generating tools, right, the ads to draw people there. Um, uh, the quiz that I want to use to have people take that more call to actions in different places to bring drink, to bring people to the site. So then that way we can say, okay, can we get people to come to the site right at will. Then, once we do that, can we get them to purchase. And if they are, if we get up more people purchasing and coming to the site but no increase in purchasing, then it's how the website is formed right, and so then we can work on that. We get that fixed, if it needs to be fixed, and so we got more people coming to the site, more people purchasing. Then now we can start trying to optimize some things.

Speaker 1:

So this is something that I know that I need to spend doing for a while, but it was just always something else, in a way, something that was high priority, and then this is just a monotonous part of the business that nobody really wants to do, right, so, but we have to. Now, what else? Why is this pitch competition important? Okay, this particular pitch competition is important because every month we've had to contribute to the business, like four or five hundred dollars to keep the business afloat, because we were focused on building the foundation. We weren't focused on generating leads and generating sales. So we had to, we had to support the business from that perspective. But it was always my goal that by year five that it would be self-sustaining. And so it'll be year five in a few months. So by winning this pitch competition, it would give us way more than what's necessary to sustain the business for a whole year a year plus actually. So that way we no longer have to personally invest into it. That's one and two.

Speaker 1:

We can focus all our energy on sales because now we know physical therapists like our products and their willingness uh, offer our products to other people. Massage therapists like our products. Now be willing to offer our products to other people. Um, track coaches like our products and they offer our products to other people. Um, who else you know? And just various different individuals like our products. So, like 90%, about 99% of our product sales this year were repeat businesses, so we know that people will like it and people will enjoy it and will buy it again. Now we just have to put it out there so people can see it okay.

Speaker 1:

So that's it. That's what we are today, that's the work we have to do. It's good times, but it's a lot of work ahead. So, again, starting today, I need to present at least three times a day and then, um, so I can be prepared for that, and I need to present at least two, three times a day on the other one for the college too, because I am wearing two hats employee on one and a business owner on the other. And until I'm, all the way, business owner, I have to give, uh, you know, a fair amount of attention to the businesses, to the company as well. But, as I tell everybody, when the season is over, I will be back into 100% entrepreneurship, god willing, all right. So that's it.

Speaker 1:

I'll say this God will bless the works of your hands. If you put in the work and you work as unto the Lord, right Not to get a promotion, not to get anything else, but just work to honor God, he will bless the works of your hands. Like that, that was to come together and, uh, it's time now that we start being, we start operating that way and being consistent in that. And I'm talking to myself um, you know, let's just be diligent and then trust god. So you know, and the crazy thing is, by working unto the lord, trusting him to bless the works of our hands, and that's being diligent. It frees me from worrying about how and when, because that's not my responsibility, that's God's responsibility. Mine is to commit all my ways to him, work unto him, trust his plan right.

Speaker 1:

Give you an example of the benefit of that there's one of my favorite clients, and she's not even really a client, she's more of a really good friend. She has a business and that I've been just adding my input, sharing my input, and she's taking that advice, amongst other advice, and put it together and her business has blown up as a result, like really has, like she's killing it. And this week she sent me a check for services rendered. There wasn't something I asked for. I don't even know if it was something that she planned, but it was just so on time, right, and and I wasn't helping her because, oh my God, maybe that I mean I would love to own equity in her company. But you know, honestly, you know, to me it was just the right thing to do, because I saw what she was doing and I saw what could help her, and so I gave with no intentions of any kind of reciprocity, and God bless that.

Speaker 1:

And so if you're feeling like your finances are tight or things like that are tight, just give where he guides you and just trust his plan. I'm in it so I can tell you that in due season you'll reap a reward if you don't faint. All right, all right, if you're good, send me a message. If you're not good, send me a message. If you're not good, send me a message and we'll get through this together. All right, see you tomorrow.