Harmony of Hustle
Jump into the World of Justin Shoemaker aka "The Waterboy" . From Business, to music, this is the inside look of the world of the hyper-driven and their Harmony of Hustle.
Harmony of Hustle
Episode #18: Moving The Needle
In this episode i talk about a massive moment in the company, as well as almost die driving 🤣
Connect with me!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/js_shoez_/
X: https://twitter.com/Shoeinvestor2
TikTok: tiktok.com/@thewater_boy_official
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@justinshoemaker9582?si=DSsbCeNl1kgH3EKK
LinkedIn: Justin Shoemaker
What is going on. Everybody I wanted to take some time to document this drive back home right now Been a busy, crazy day. I think a lot of good lessons finally came to fruition today and really the biggest, biggest leverage opportunity has finally been completed, and that was the uh home depots. I've been working since I started the company about a year ago on building home depot relationships and we got six stores that we are officially live in um. Having such a big box retail store as a partner now is massive, so they will basically be pushing our products and our water samples to all of their clients. It's going to be a massive, massive lead source for us moving forward and, to be honest, it wouldn't be possible without the relationships I have with another company that I used to work for. They've been in this industry much longer than I have that I used to work for. They've been in this industry much longer than I have. They already had these pre-existing relationships with the higher-ups at these stores and at the corporate level. Yeah, so, because I delivered for these individuals back when I was a salesperson, when I finally went off on my own to start my own company, they were gracious enough to give me the opportunity to execute down here and give me the intros and allow me to basically level up faster than I really would be able to at this point or any startup would at this point, given what I've done. So I think it's a really good lesson to give first before you try to do something big on your own.
Speaker 1:I know it's really hard to be patient, especially when you see everyone else winning online and you want your own success. You want your own cut of the pie. But the reality is you'll get a much bigger slice the longer you can delay that gratification. And you know, for anyone that's listening to this, that's under the age of 30, you are absolutely crushing it. I mean, I spent 10 and a half years of my life in the military, from right out of high school, and all that time I look back on I could have been spending as an entrepreneur, but the reality is, and as much as I might lament about it, I didn't have the character traits or the skill to that point to really probably build a business whatsoever or succeed in sales or anything else.
Speaker 1:I had to grow up as a human being and I think the military gave me a lot of character traits that have allowed me to now exponentially grow in the short time I've been out of the Navy I mean now I think it's going on four years that I've been out of the Navy and really stepped into the role of an entrepreneur and a salesperson. And then, immediately after that, when I got out of the Navy, I went to work for another water treatment company in the state of Maryland and that's where I got to meet Vinny, the guy who really has been helping me out, and I just, you know, took the lessons I learned in the military, worked super, super hard and did everything I could to deliver value and set myself apart from the competition. And I've just consistently done that in any anything I've done in life. That's what I did in the Navy. I just made sure I was always the top sailor everywhere I went and anywhere I go any market, any industry, any endeavor that's my goal is to be the fucking best. And I think if you just go into life with that frame that you want to be the best, you'll get more successful compared to if you compare yourself to other people or say I want to be like them or I want to do better than somebody else, or I want what somebody else has, um, you're always going to feel like you're at a loss. You're always going to feel like you're you're not where you want to be and unfortunately oh crap, I said I eat a ton. Oh, that is scary. Uh, car just ran out the road and know the podcast Big semi ran into all this trash. Whoops. Anyway, what was I talking about? I think If you're trying to compare yourself to somebody else and you're envious of what they have, that goalpost will always get met, because there's always going to be someone doing better than you. So if you can just focus on you, trying to be the best that you can be, and only trying to beat yourself and impress the inner circle around you, I think that is something that will pay really, really good dividends. There's also a good lesson that no matter what you want in life, you're going to have to sacrifice.
Speaker 1:I am now on a 46-minute drive back home and it is 10.20 at night. I started my morning today at 5 am, so it's been a long, freaking day. I had to go and do a B&I meeting this morning, which was great, and then I had to go to all these different stores to set them up, which was not a short endeavor. I mean, all these stores were at least 30, 45 minutes away from each other. They were two hours away from where I live, and then I had to drop off one of my, one of my partners, back, uh, back to his place cause his car broke. It was a whole thing. Um, so I'm just now. I mean, like I said, I'm driving home now, so I won't even get home until about 11 at night, which is great. I mean, these are actually the nights and the days that I love, um, because I get home. I'm exhausted but I feel like I accomplished a ton.
Speaker 1:Right, it feels like there's few moments in business and I'm sure, if you've been running a business to any capacity or you've been trying to achieve any sort of goal to any capacity, there's always these moments where you really feel like you've moved the needle and there feel really, really good, which is why I wanted to record this now, because I don't think it'd feel as good or as fresh in the moment, um, if I'd recorded this, you know, tomorrow morning. And I want to try to savor these moments as much as possible, because hedonic adoption is going to take over and in a month this is just going to be like another day in the office. I sure I'm gonna be complaining about something with home depot leads, right, that's just how this stuff works. Um, and you know you go back into that cycle of, you know, delayed gratification and getting punched in the face again. Um, success in business to me, I think, is just how many times can you get punched in the face and do boring, boring work with literally no payoff until you get these big moments. And I think the longer you can extend that before you get these little key moments in the business, the better off you'll be. And I gotta tell you like every time they happen, those little inflection points, it always feels amazing, and it's nice because sometimes I've had these inflection points. It always feels amazing and it's nice because sometimes I've had these inflection points where then nothing happens right, like I've had vendor partnerships that I thought were going to work out really well and they end up falling through. So then you get like that high and then like an immediate crash. So imagine the mentality to get through that, where you've been freaking, hustling for months and then you finally get what you think is a win and a massive needle move and it doesn't do shit. That's when it really sucks.
Speaker 1:The last four to five months have really been like that. It's been just a grind and it's been doing small interational improvements and training the team and, you know, just improving our processes and calling old leads and managing the pipeline and making sure that my guys are getting up to the level that I want them to be and, you know, managing payroll and equipment and all these other things that go into stuff with the business. It's just been, you know, draining and boring and I love it. In the same vein, which is an interesting dichotomy of like it's draining and boring, but I love it. And I love it because it's the investment vehicle that I've decided to put all my bets into that I am so confident is going to pay off in the future.
Speaker 1:And what's so cool about this podcast and for everyone that's been watching it and well, I guess not really watching it, but listening to it um is it's gonna feel fucking awesome when, in 10 years from now, this company is a fucking massive thing, when this thing is doing like 500 million and I am 20 levels removed from like the lowest level employee and uh, I'm calling my shot now, Like when I'm, if I'm on the news or I'm selling new products or I'm talking about water treatment at a large scale. It'll be so cool to have this documented and have it be something I can go back to and listen to, uh, especially whenever I get new, new, new challenges or new, new obstacles I need to overcome, um, as I grow as a person, as an entrepreneur, as a business person and as a business, it'll be cool to come back to these videos and hear how excited I was about just getting six Home Depot stores locked in compared to what I have probably a couple hundred. Or I'm doing massive amounts of deals and making really high-level partnerships and things like that. It'll be interesting. You know, making like really high level partnerships and things like that, it'll be interesting, um and uh, even if, like I said, even if the podcast doesn't become like a huge, massive success, it'll be something that at least I can have to document and show the journey that, hey, I gritted my teeth like everybody else and I hope, uh, for a future entrepreneur or, uh, someone coming up. They, they can find this, find this episode and this podcast, and have some sort of a roadmap or at least an insight to the mindset of what it feels like when you're in those early entrepreneurial days, when you're still getting it started.
Speaker 1:I try to document all my mistakes as much as I can throughout this too, because I think that's super important. We've made plenty. So many marketing companies we went out through that haven't worked. So many lead agencies or lead tactics that we've tried to do that haven't worked. I mean, just recently I saw some companies doing really well on Yelp and you know we gave it a shot for about you know two and a half weeks and it just didn't pan out. Unfortunately, because of the Home Depot relationship, my cash flow is freaking non-existent now because I had to spend pretty much all of the money that I had made in the business so far to fulfill the stores and all the requirements that go into that. It's almost like starting at ground zero again in a little bit. We had to cancel the Yelp ads ads and it didn't really work. But that was some money I wish I could have had back and I just bought ClickFunnels and I've been trying to learn that, trying to improve the sales dynamic for some D2C stuff that I have in the works. We'll see how that pans out, but really, business I just keep.
Speaker 1:You gotta keep making bets and you gotta keep hoping that the bets you make are are are going to work out and that you're making the right decisions. And, uh, that's really all you can do, um, and a lot of it is painful and stressful. A lot of it doesn't work out. Um just did taxes, uh, a couple of weeks ago and that was not a very fun experience. So if you're in business, get ready for that. I will say the one thing that I didn't like to pay for that I am now glad that we did was to get a fractional bookkeeper that went through all of the company's old books and categorized everything. It made the tax session infinitely easier. So if you're a business and you don't have someone doing your books right now, I'm telling you that is something you need to do. It'll make your life so much easier and in the short term it feels like such a waste of freaking money.
Speaker 1:I remember when I saw the price tag for this crap I think we had to spend like five grand for all the bookkeeping and I wanted to throw up because I saw literally no return from it. At least, I thought I didn't. I was like God, this is just a money waste. I could be using this for like lead gens or equipment buys and stuff, but in the end it really really did make sense and it really did help the business. So I do feel thankful for that. And, yeah, pretty good day guys. I want to try to enjoy this as much as I can, even though I know, if you can tell, I'm freaking, exhausted my thought process on what I want to say. I'm sure it doesn't sound super uh put together and of course, I'm recording this on my, my android phone, because I I'm not gonna have time to record this when I get home. I'm going straight to bed. What a cool day and what a cool accomplishment.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to get these six stores. I'll continue to document how that's going. This is going to be the full core press for my organization moving forward. I was a door knocking company. Of course I love door to door, but with limited staff, and I am going to be trying to recruit more people to work these stores. But the thing about when you get these kind of partnerships for anyone that doesn't know, if I can go above and beyond and crush it in these six stores, I can get 10 more by the end of the year and then that will put me at 16. If I can crush those 16, then by the next year I can probably get to 32 to 50. And then the year after that get to 100 plus, which then means I'm probably moving states, which kind of allows for a natural expansion path. So this really is going to be my main focus. Obviously I'll be putting more episodes out about different things, but really I'll just be working the stores, getting my guys in the stores, generating leads, communicating to Home Depot customers, training their sales personnel on how to promote this stuff, and that's going to be the biggest push for me. I still have a course coming out that I'm excited about, basically 150 video course for training and sales, especially dedicated for water treatment. It's going to be released internally from my company and then I will release it for sale for anyone that really wants it. So that will be kind of fun. Yeah, things are moving.
Speaker 1:I feel very relieved to finally have this relationship in stone. There was definitely a couple months there. I just didn't know this was even going to happen. It's a very competitive market. A lot of companies are bidding for this, but honestly I have to thank my buddy Vinny and him really greasing those wheels for me and continuing to put his trust in me and allowing me to be in rooms and walk through doors I otherwise wouldn't be able to walk through. So I'm very, very thankful for that.
Speaker 1:Guys, if you've ever seen anyone with a big business, I promise you I mean I would bet anything I have they didn't do it alone, it's. It's impossible. You know like you can get really far on your own. On your own, for sure, but the time horizon is going to take you, I feel like doesn't even make it worth it, because by the time you probably get successful you're gonna. You would have spent your best years just building the business and stressing yourself out and then, even when you get to like your max capacity, it's probably not as big as it could have been if you had mentors or people helping you or really good partnerships where they can help you shorten that learning curve and add exponential value into the company. So I can't stress enough how important it is to just go provide value to a different company if you're first starting out and build those relationships and those connections.
Speaker 1:Because I feel like the business world in general, when, when, when an entrepreneur sees someone that has that spark that can be someone special. I've only ever seen business owners and entrepreneurs rally to help that person rise up. I'm not even talking about myself. I've seen it with other people in my industries and just on social media. The business world is a bunch of winners who want to be around more winners. So when they see someone that's a freaking winner, they love bringing them in because it only helps them build. So go be a winner somewhere. If you're not, you know, if you don't have those connections yet, go be a winner somewhere else. Win for them, win for them for a long time and then, when you're ready to go, do your own thing, be very transparent to them about it and just say, hey, I'd love your mentorship and your guidance on this, especially if it's in the same industry, and I promise you they will help you. If you get the vibe, they wouldn't want to help you. And you should know that within the first six months I wouldn't even waste your time at that company. Go somewhere where you can add value and that person appreciates the value you're going to add. And I promise you, whatever goals you want in life, you'll get them, and you'll get them much faster than you would on your own, so a bit of a long one. I probably rambled a bit there, so, if you're still listening, I thank you so much. If you think this would be valuable to somebody else, please share it.
Speaker 1:My goal with this podcast is to inspire and touch and share as many entrepreneurs and business people as I possibly can, as well as anyone that's just hustling with any niche in their life. I want to document and show as much as I can about what, what kind of work really goes into this stuff and how stressful it can be, but also how amazing it can be when you finally hit these moments. Guys, these, these moments are definitely the moments that, uh man, make it make it worthwhile. Um, they only last a little bit. Um, I can promise you I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I go right back into the grind.
Speaker 1:I got morning meetings, I got phone calls.
Speaker 1:I got meetings.
Speaker 1:I to go right back into the grind.
Speaker 1:I got morning meetings, I got phone calls. I got meetings. I got clients I got to talk to. I got a ton of emails I wasn't able to get to today because I was just in the weeds, but these are the days that really, really do make it worth it, and I think it's these type of days, that kind of build that high that us entrepreneurs and business people literally, people, uh like, literally live and strive on. Um, it feels fricking, phenomenal. So, um, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty happy now. Um, I'm also happy I avoided that accident back there and all that trash on the road that was. That could have been a little bit scary. Um, so, yeah, all in all, a good day. Um, thank you guys all for for listening and, um, I will continue to document this and for stuff that you like that I talk about, and for stuff that you wish I talked about more. Please let me know. Like I said, I want this to be an enjoyable and educational experience for everybody. So, love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye.