Daisy Braxton was a single mom with five children when she lost her job. To make ends meet she worked several minimum wage jobs that didn’t offer healthcare. Soon, medical bills for her kids overwhelmed her, and she was forced to apply for welfare. Rather than begin a lifelong dependency on the government, she took a course on janitorial work the welfare center offered.
After working for a janitorial contracting company for about two years to learn about the business, she decided to start her own cleaning company. The first year was rough and she made only $45k. However, each year was better than the previous one. She knew that quality sold, so she provided detailed procedures to each of her employees that they were required to follow to the letter. Before the job was done a supervisor had to check every detail.
Soon the word began to spread about her company’s quality work and the company that was hired by the welfare center to train her in janitorial work asked her to teach others. While training others she kept her eyes and ears open and learned about new contract opportunities for her company.
Being a trainer, she also had access to a steady workforce of new workers from her class and the welfare rolls. New workers were first assigned to clean empty buildings where they could not damage the brand if they didn’t work out before moving up to clean private homes.
With a scalable business and economic model, Daisy could focus on making new sales. Daisy took advantage of a training opportunity while on welfare and parlayed it into a very successful business by persevering and keeping her eyes open to new opportunities. She learned about the industry by working as an employee before taking the leap.
Daisy’s story is not that unique.
Are you able to spot opportunities when they are presented to you? Are you willing to take the appropriate actions to make them a reality?
