What Could You Learn From This Firewood Rack?
Last weekend I bought a metal firewood rack for $225.00 off Amazon. It was really fancy and had a cool custom tarp to keep the wood dry. I put it together and filled it up with wood I had chopped.
Coming from an extremely frugal background where my Dad admonished my brothers and I for wasting anything like water, electricity, used nails, etc. it was irking me that the simple rack cost so much especially since I needed two more.
I thought, "I should be able to build this." So, I started looking for plans to build one out of pressure treated lumber. I ordered the plans for $4.95, downloaded them and went right to the parts list.
(6) 8 foot 2 x 4
(44) 3 inch outdoor screws
(16) 2.5 inch outdoor screws.
A quick trip to Home Depot got all the supplies for about $22.00 . . . more than ten times cheaper than the commercial rack that I still had to put together.
So what does this have to do with you and your business?
Without that set of plans I certainly could have built a firewood rack. I estimate it would have taken me ten times longer (just like the cost of the commercial rack was ten time more). I would have had to come up with a design, work out all the measurements for all the cuts and angles, and make up my own parts list.
Isn't that what we sometimes do in our businesses? Almost assuredly someone has already been through what you're trying to accomplish yet we try to figure everything out on our own and waste tons of time that would be better spent selling things to bring in revenue.
Even my mentor students do this. Now let me say I'm thrilled they want to explore and get themselves immersed in Internet Marketing, but when they have paid me dearly to be their plan, it just doesn't make sense to run down every rabbit hole that gets emailed to them. If you're a beginner, and you have a trusted advisor, then it simply makes the most sense to do what the trusted advisor tells you to do even though you may not understand it at the moment.
After you get more experience in whatever you are trying to accomplish you can start to venture out and test out new things on your own. So, the bottom line is if you want to have a firewood rack, get a plan or plan on spending ten times as much.