Learning To Say No
Coming you straight from the SERPWoo Studios, I'm your host Jason Brown. And thanks for joining me on this edition of the podcast. Today, I think we've got a really good topic; it's about saying no, and rejection. Mostly, it's about the overall theme of, if you want to increase your output, you've got to decrease your input. So, for our shout out today, I want to give a shout out to Citizen Zoo, that's his Twitter handle; again, that's Citizen Zoo. I know that a lot of you guys are out there helping us spread the message of SERPWoo, you listen to the podcast, you use our tool, you read our blogs, you get our newsletters, and you give us lots of great ideas through our help system and frequently asked questions. So, I definitely want to give a shout out to Citizen Zoo, and everybody else that helps us on Twitter, on Facebook, on Reddit; on all the forums. And I definitely want to wish happy holidays to everybody for 2016, and I hope that 2017 is awesome for you guys as well.
So, I've been reading the Blue Ocean Strategy, which was written in 2005 by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. And, Renee, if I said your name wrong, sorry. But, the idea behind Blue Ocean Strategy is to help companies, basically, make their competition irrelevant. We all know we jump into crowded markets, or we create a market, and other people come in and copy us, copy features, try to provide the same benefits, and then it's an overcrowded space. And what Blue Ocean Strategy really gets down to is how to make your competition irrelevant; not only for a product that you have today, but possibly a new product here in the next couples years that you come out with, where you can basically wipe out your competition.
And, really, what is behind the idea of making your competition irrelevant is that, instead of trying to outperform the competition in an existing industry, you try to create a new market space, but also lower the price enough to where a competitor would not be able to come in. So, if you think of it as the pursuit of both differentiation and low cost, that way, you're basically creating a new space because of your differentiation, and you're avoiding, or eliminating, competition because of the low cost. Even with the differentiation, you're kind of avoiding competition, but now, nobody can jump in because of your low cost.
And, of course, when I say "low cost" I don't mean something free, or something to the point to where you're losing money. You obviously have to know where your acquisition costs are, and you have to project future overhead, and you have to project where your break even is at. But, not having such a high cost just because a profit marking, or having such a high cost because you figure out a overhead incorrectly because you went with a certain technology that's just super expensive to be in in the first place; this is how we're talking about low cost when we look at a price difference to where a competitor could not jump in.
Now, there's a lot more to this book besides that idea that I just shared with you. There are a lot of frameworks, there are a lot of tools, and there are many examples to help clarify this. I won't be able to go in all of that in the podcast, and I'm definitely not going to share everything about the book, because that would be a disservice to the authors; this should be something that you would want to go out and buy, and research, and read yourself.
But, as far as the idea of the Blue Ocean Strategy, to give you a really good example, SERPWoo is definitely using a Blue Ocean Strategy. For years, there were lots of rank trackers; some that have come and gone, some that are old and established members in our space. Rank tracking was definitely something that was established at a very competitive market. We also had tools that provided insight, like MAWS, SEM Rush; plenty of other tools out there that provide keyword volume, and keyword estimations, just a lot of tools that can give you a lot more background.
But, really, where there was not a space was, "What is the area in between?" Something that can give you information that's very valuable, but something that's different than a rank tracker, or a research tool. And that's kind of where SERPWoo came into. There was not a space where you could, essentially, evaluate a SERP listing. There had been some tries at it, but the tools were just basically, "Let's just look at the top ten, and then give you maybe the MAWs metrics on them, and give you the page rank, maybe give you the description and the title." That's something that, truthfully, can easily be done with a virtual system, or a tool that can kind of be automated to go to those listings and pull that information.
But, there was nothing that really looked at an individual SERP, or an individual niche; a vertical, so to say. And, when we built SERPWoo, one of the questions that I wanted to ask myself was ... I don't care about all of these other keywords that a keyword tool gives me. I don't even really care about the volume that much. I don't care what the pay per click cost is ... Which is what a lot of tools use; it's just the pay per click price within PPC. I didn't really care how many MAWs metrics were there, as far as the DA, and the PA. I didn't care about page rank. What I cared about was what was going on within my particular vertical; something personalized to me. Maybe you're somebody who likes to rank for products that are in Amazon; like, maybe, paintball guns. But, I'm somebody who ... I'm a lead generation guy, and maybe I want to look at what's happening with the roofers in Detroit.
And I really wanted something to be able to watch, and something to personalize what I was involved in; because, really, that's the only thing that's going to help me. I could care less about what everybody else is doing. I don't really care what payday loan guys are doing, and black hat stuff; I want to know what's going on in my space. And that was the question that I wanted to answer. Nobody else was doing that. SERPWoo came into what seemed like a crowded field, SEL tools, SEL services; something that was like a rank tracker, but something that was also like a tool like MAWs, or SEM rush. And, really, we kind of fit right into the middle. We fit into a market space that nobody else was playing in, and nobody is still playing in. And we're able to differentiate ourselves that way.
A lot of online reputation management people love us because of the way that we can track a personalized SERP for them. A lot of SEL agencies love us because they're able to look at exactly what's happening in their client's vertical; not some generic rank tracker that's just ranking one domain, maybe three competitors' domains. We're really giving them a personalized service about what's going on in their vertical that nobody else provides. And that's kind of where our differentiation is.
And our price point is extremely cost efficient. It's available to the masses. I mean, at $49 ... If you can not afford $49 monthly, maybe you need to rethink the career that you're in, and how you're successful. Or, maybe if you're just stingy, you need to rethink about, "Well, if I pay $49 a month for a tool, this tool can make my job easier, or at least give me insight or leverage that other strategists or marketers do not have." And $49 is what we're at now. We actually used to be a lot cheaper. We had a $29 plan. We even had a $19 plan for beta users.
We've even got a free plan. The free plan restricts you to three keywords, but you get a lot of the original functionality. You're not going to get the same functionality that somebody on a silver plan has, of course; but, you still got a lot of full functionality. You've got three words to track for free. And then, we had a 19, and a 29, and now we're at $49. So, we've definitely been able to keep our costs low, and be able to provide this to everybody across the world. $49 si not a lot of money. IT's a little bit more than a dollar a day, and if you're not able to afford that, I think, at some point, maybe you have to ask yourself that maybe you need to change the way that you do things.
So, even though we're able to come in at a low cost, we still know where our break even point is. We still know what our minimum threshold is, as far as all of our overhead. And we're able to stay profitable while still being low cost. There's tools out there that try to do half of what we do, that are $199 a month. I've seen one that somebody left and came to SERPWoo, and they were paying $499 a month. So, we're definitely low cost, we're definitely different. And that's kind of how SERPWoo is in a Blue Ocean Strategy.
I'll give you one more example here, also. So, another example I have in the Nintendo Wii. I'm sure most of you all know of the Nintendo Wii, or have even owned one. My family does, actually. And the Nintendo Wii actually outsold Sony, and it outsold other game systems six to one when the Wii first came out. It was so popular, Nintendo could not keep the products on the shelves. They were always back ordered, a lot of times. And there was just this crazy demand for the Nintendo Wii. And part of the Blue Ocean Strategy is ... You're looking at four things. You're looking at what you can eliminate, what you can reduce, what you can raise, and what you can create.
And with the Nintendo Wii, there was the idea ... At least, when you look across all users, not just users who are 13 to 18, or 20 to 24. You're looking across all kinds of age groups, and all kinds of demographics. And for people who were outside the gaming demographic ... A lot of people thought that the PlayStation was complex. They thought that other game systems were complex. So, the Wii wanted to eliminate complexity, and they did that very well. They also wanted to reduce the price, the graphics, and online pay. When you get a Nintendo Wii, the graphics are very basic compared to a PlayStation. It's almost like taking a step backwards.
But, in order to reach more people across a wider demographic, the graphics were a concern. People who were older didn't want to deal with the complexity of higher resolution graphics; of not being able to see very well, or have it moving too fast, or maybe they've got an older television that doesn't have the hertz refresh rate. Nintendo came out and reduced the graphics. It looks very, almost, childish at some point on some of their Wii games. They also wanted to reduce the price. A lot of the PlayStations were expensive. I remember growing up, sometimes, when you bought an entertainment system, you got the system, but you didn't get the controller; you had to go out and get the controller.
So, Nintendo Wii really wanted to reduce the price, reduce the graphics, and eliminate the complexity. On the other side, though, they wanted to raise the game library. They also wanted to raise the ease of use. It's very easy to use a Nintendo Wii. When I got one, my kids were roughly ... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they were five or six. They played the Wii more than me. I think they actually set it up. And they played it for a long time without ever me having to come into the picture and teach them how to start it, how to put a game in, how to get to the next section, so that they can actually pick a character, or pick the options for it. The ease of use was just out of this world when my children played the Nintendo Wii.
Now, they wanted to create ... Because this is where you're looking at being different, here. They wanted to create interactive group fun. The Nintendo Wii is very group, very family friendly. There's lots of games out there that families can play. There are controllers that make it a lot easier for a family to play; especially when there's no cord attached, and you have this simple nunchuck type controller. And part of that, also, is they created the magic wand. This is kind of where Nintendo really differentiated themselves, by eliminating complexity, reducing the price, reducing the graphics, which seems like a step backwards, raising the game library, raising the ease of use, and creating group fun, and creating the magic wand. That really set them apart, and helped them create a Blue Ocean. There's not anything like the Nintendo Wii when the Nintendo Wii came out, and they outsold all of their competitors six to one.
We flashed forward to today, years and years later; I'm not sure if the Nintendo Wii is still popular, because I'm not playing game systems myself. My children have kind of outgrown it. But, this is an example that I'm sure a lot of you all can relate to, because you've either played a Nintendo Wii, or had one. You start looking at what your demographics want. Or, if you're wanting to expand outside the traditional, normal demographics, where all your competitors are at, and you're expanding into a Blue Ocean that goes past the current demographics, past the current market space; you start listening to what those people wanted.
And the Nintendo Wii really grabbed into older adults. And older adults did not want complexity, they didn't want to pay a lot of money, they wanted something simple, like the simple graphics, the simple, cartoonish graphics, they wanted something easy to use, and they wanted something that everybody could play; not just them, or not just their grandchild, but everybody. And the Nintendo Wii crossed all of those demographics, broke out of its competitive, traditional marketure space, and into a Blue Ocean that involved the whole family, including older adults. And that's why they were able to outsell their competitors six to one, and basically help revitalize Nintendo.
As a matter of fact, if I think back to it, the Game Boy did the exact same thing. Some of y'all might not remember the Game Boy. I know I had one. And, at that time, the Game Boy was definitely a Blue Ocean Strategy.
And now, for the topic of this podcast; learning to say no, saying no more often, and just plain, "No!" It really is true that if you want to increase the output, you need to decrease the input. And I'm not talking about gas mileage, or baking cakes, here; I'm talking about your productivity. You're not going to be able to be more productive if you're constantly putting in more and more and more task and distractions within your workflow. If I were to allow myself to have shiny object syndrome ... Which, for most entrepreneurs, is thinking about new ideas, and coding out new ideas, and running down another path when you've already got a successful business or two going. You're not going to be able to focus on what's working if you're constantly adding more, and more, and more into your to-do list, into your productivity, allowing people to distract you; you've really got to get grounded in saying no.
Learning to say no comes in many different sizes, shapes, and forms. Most of the time, it's going to be with people directly. Saying no to people, for me at least, was very hard, because I thought, "You know what? I don't want to hurt this guy's feelings." I want to be helpful. I truly do want to help people. And I know what it feels like to be rejected; what it feels like to be told no. And I didn't want people to go through that with me. But, as I've grown over the years, personally and with my business, I've started to realize that, there's no way that I can be Superman; I can not help everybody individuality.
So, when people reach out to me individually, and they need help with pay per click, or they need help with wanting to be an entrepreneur, or they have questions about how to earn your first thousand, 10,000, 100,000, million; whatever it is. I have to learn to say no.
Now, let's be real here; if Elon Musk were to come to me and say, "Hey, I want to have coffee with you, Jason, and teach me some PPC." I'm portably going to take that up. But, for the majority of the time, I'm not able to help people who are reaching out to me; especially people that I don't know. They find me, they email me, they reach out to me, and they want me to basically help them one-on-one personally. And they look at it as, it's just going to take me a couple minutes to write out a response. I look at it as, "You're the fifth person today that has asked me that, and if I really write out that response for you, I'm already wasting an hour of my time today responding to you, and reasoning to everybody else."
And, even though I think the word "waste", when I say I'm "wasting" my time, is a little bit harsh, that's an hour of time that I could have dictated to my family, to my kids, to helping my mother, to increasing the revenue in my business, or doing stuff within my business. And now, I'm going to stay up late tonight for possibly an hour, or an hour and a half, when my energy levels are low, and I'm not really productive at all, trying to make up that time.
Now, I very well could do that at night, and respond back to people at night. But, listen; when it's time for me to go to bed, I don't really want to be talking to people. I just want to jump in the bed, close my eyes, get a good rest, so that I can wake up early in the morning and be productive within my business. So, I've had to learn that saying no to people, as awkward as it feels, is actually something that's needed. Because, I could talk on Skype all day about useless chit chatter, trying to help people who possibly will not take the jump, or take the advice that I give them anyway. And, basically, in the end, nothing got happened, except I wasted my time, and I missed opportunities.
So, when it comes to people, sometimes, it's fine to say no to taking that coffee with somebody. It's fine to say no for a new business venture that somebody wants you to jump into. It's fine to say no for any of the distractions that you get with people who want to learn from you, or be connected to you, and somehow have you help them while you're taking away from your business.
So, saying no doesn't necessarily have to involve other people. It could just be within your own persona life, and the choices that you make. For an example, I used to have a television in every room in my house. Each of my three kids had their own television. I had a television in my own bedroom. I had a television in the kitchen. I had a television in the living room. I had a television in a little sunroom of my house. Eventually, I had to say no to that. Not only was that something that I did not want for my children, and my children sitting in front of that television, wasting time. But, it was something that I caught myself watching a lot, also, and that absorbed a lot of time away from my business and being productive, when I'm thinking that I can Netflix a marathon of the Walking Dead, or Breaking Bad, or any other show, like the Sopranos, or catching new, and interesting documentaries that might be on Amazon.
I was always finding myself getting stuck in front of that television, and somehow making up, or finding an excuse to watch the television instead of working. So, I got rid of all the television sets; an no that I put it my life. Another no is, I limited how many times I was leaving my house. I work from home. My office is at home. And I realized that there were many times when I would leave my house three, four five times a day; maybe it was an errand to go get groceries, followed up by an errand to go pick up one of my kid from school, followed by an errand to drop something off at the post office.
It was just a cycle where I was finding myself leaving the office, which is my home, up to five times a day. Sometimes, six or seven times a day. And it was just so unproductive. And I finally had to say no to that, and I finally had to tell myself that, if I wasn't disciplined to leave the house one time a day and do everything, I had no business leaving the house; I should just take care of all the things that I needed to do within my business, and within my office, and being more productive. So, if I left that for the day, it was one trip, and that trip was basically to pick up my child from school. And, when that happened, do the grocery in the same trip, do the post office in the same trip; do whatever other errands I had all in that same trip. And if I came home, and I forgot to do something; well, it just waited. I didn't leave again. I sat down, and focused, and concentrated on other business opportunities and business task.
Saying no could also be applied to your business. Now, if you've got a business that's just beginning, or business that's successful, but not performing at 110%, where you want it to be, you might see somebody else doing something, and maybe you are an ad sense site guy ... Like a made for an ad sense site type of person, where you make websites, and you rank them, and you monetize them with ad sense, and other channels. Maybe you're a software as a service person. No matter who you are, you might see somebody else in another field, like somebody that does drop ship eCommerce, or someone that does lead generation for a certain vertical. And you might see how successful they are, and think, "Man, I really need to get into that business." That's where you would want to say no.
And I'm guilty of this, myself. I talk to so many people every day. I come up with so many ideas. And I think, "Man, I really need to be in that business." And the problem is this; if your business is just starting out, or your business is kind of in a mid-life, and it's growing, you really need to focus on that business. Because, if you've got holes that need to be plugged up, and holes that need to be filled within your current business, you really need to focus on that, and grow that business, and give it all your attention to realize what the potential is.
Because, if you've got a business that's just starting, or maybe it's a young business, or a mid-life business, as far as its stage of growth, and it's got holes in it; what do you think's going to happen when you try to become a drop shipper? Or, a lead generation person? You haven't plugged up the holes in your other business, so what makes you think you're qualified to run a different business, and not have the same thing happen? And who's to say that you're even going to make money in this new business?
You really can not judge where you're at based on what somebody else is doing. That other person; they might have spent 10, 15 years to get to the point where they're at right now. And you're judging yourself where they're at right now. Basically, you're starting a race, and they've already finished it, almost. So, that's very unfair to you, and unfair to your business. So, you really need to pay attention to your business, plug up all the holes, focus attention to it. And, who knows, once you do that, you might make 10 times more than this other person, or this other business that you want to be like, and think about jumping into.
Especially for a solopreneur; you don't want to be juggling so many businesses and so many hats, you just need to say no. "Yes, that's a nice idea. Yes, that's something that I could put on my idea list, for later when I become successful, or I hire employees, or virtual assistants to take over. Maybe then, I'll get into that other business. Maybe when I'm successful with my first business, I'll just throw cash into the second business." But, the point is this; say no. Focus on your business right now. Don't try to jump into another business. Especially if it's young, or if it's mid-life, with your current business; you just need to say no. And, quit judging yourself against other peoples' highlight real.
Another area to say no in is how people treat you. And these are people who could be family members, they could be your spouse, they could be friends that you hang around, they could be coworkers, they could even be clients. Start saying no. You are the product of the people you surround yourself with. Whether that's five people, 10 people, or even two people; you end up becoming a product of those experiences, and those people.
So, if you've got somebody who is bringing you down, who is negative, who just isn't up to your level ... It sounds hard, it sounds cold, but you need to say no to those people. If you've got coworkers in your life who take advantage of you, and treat you bad; you need to say no to those people. If you've got an employer who micromanages you, who takes advantage of you, who denies you benefits, who makes you work late, who basically just doesn't care about you; you need to say no to them, possibly start your own business, or have something on the side. Say no to that employer. If you've got a spouse who doesn't support what you do, and they're a drain on you; I feel sorry for you if that's your case.
You need to say no to that as well. You basically need to make it to where the people that you're around ... Whether you're around your spouse all day. Whether you're around your coworkers half the day. Whether you're around your friends the other half of the day, or the weekend; you need to start saying no to those people. You really need to get it down to a core group of people that you look up to, that you admire, that you want to be like. And people who are not only at the level that you're on, but some of these people need to be above you, above your level. Maybe they are where you want to be in five years or 10 years, because now, you've got a mix of people who are on your level that you can talk to, share experiences with, and learn from; but, you've also got these people who are ahead of you, who could be your mentors, who you can learn from, who you could ask questions about when you get into situations. That's where you need to be.
You definitely don't need to be hanging around people who are lower than you, people who have a different viewpoint than you. As nice and politically correct as that sounds; somebody that has a different viewpoint than me, that's good in some areas, but if it's drastically different ... Let's say you've got a extreme Republican with an extreme Democrat. That's not going to end well. Maybe in business, and how you do business that's good, because you can actually learn from that. But, you don't need all the other drama where somebody doesn't share the same viewpoints as you, if it creates drama.
For my last tip on saying no, you really need to be able to analyze your decisions and look at what's influencing you, and make up your own mind, and say no to whatever doesn't suit you. Now, I know that sounds a little bit odd, I just told you to remove negative influence in your life by getting rid of people who might be causing drama, or bringing you down; like your spouse, or your coworkers. And then, replacing those people who are on your level, or even five or 10 years above that, to help influence you, to help guide you, and make you a better person. But, ultimately, at the end of the day, you need to be able to make your own decisions and really look at what's influencing that.
One of the decisions that I made, that I said no, is ... It's very popular, especially is modern culture, to contribute to a 401k, or to an IRA. And I feel that that is no for me. And, even though there's a lot of people influencing that type of choice, and that decision; very big brand names, very well-known money management people, I said no to that. I didn't want that to influence me. And, basically, that decision came down to this; with a 401k, or an IRA, I'm not going to get taxed on that money. I'm going to get taxed on that money later, when I have my retirement event. Or, if I have an emergency, and I need to withdraw it. But, essentially, you're deferring taxes until a later event. A later deferred time.
Now, if I'm 30 years old, and I don't retire until I'm 70, that's 40 years from now. I don't know what the tax code is going to look like 40 years from now. Taxes might be a lot higher. Granted, taxes might be a lot lower. But, have you really known a time in the modern age where taxes were really lower for the common person? Not really. Taxes are probably going to be higher. So, when I take that event in 40 years, I'm going to be paying more taxes on it. It's not like I'm paying the same tax rate that I'm paying now. Not unless something drastic happens with IRAs or 401ks. You're going to get taxed at whatever that tax rate is, at that later time. I don't know what that tax rate is going to be in 40 years. I don't know if they're going to add taxes to our IRAs and 401ks to bail this economy out when I'm 70. Maybe the economy is a lot worse when I'm 70, and they need to add taxes to stuff like retirement accounts, and I'm going to be paying more taxes at that event also.
So, there's a lot of control that I don't have. And, with companies who used to offer pensions, and people paid into these, and companies paid into these, and these companies were able to go back, and rob from the pension fund, and then not pay the pensioners, and then they get sued, and the pensioners don't have money. Maybe that same type of event happens with the government at that time; whoever is controlling the government at that time. And now, I can't even touch my money, and it's gone. Kind of like the fear of social security. It's money I paid into; it's gone for people who are my age, basically.
So, what I'm saying is this; later on, in time, maybe 40 years from now, maybe 30 years from now ... I don't know what the tax rate's going to be. I don't even know if the money's going to be there. I don't know if there's going to be additional taxes put on top of it when I finally take that out to help bail the economy out at some point. So, with that, there's a lot of control that is lost. And I don't like that feeling, I don't like that thought of not having that control. What I do have control of is, basically, what I can do with my money right now. I know right now what it gets taxed. I know right now there's no additional taxes. I know right now that I've got it in my hand, and I like investing my money right now, in a way that feels comfortable to be, that I have control of.
So, that's one of the areas where a lot of people get influenced, "Hey, do an IRA. Hey, do a 401k. Do this investment vehicle. Do that investment vehicle. They get influence heavily by bankers, big brand names, big celebrity names, wealthy people who give you this advice as an entrepreneur; even your tax attorney, or your CPA will tell you to do this. But, the whole point is, people are getting influenced, and it just doesn't have to be about 401ks or IRAs; it could be about anything that's socially the norm, and that everybody tells you is a good thing.
You need to be able to look at it, and really investigate it, and say, "Is this the right choice for me? Am I making this decision? Or, am I letting other people make this decision for me? And am I informed enough to recognize the difference?" And, for me, 401ks and IRAs definitely weren't that choice for me, because of that loss of control, that loss of not knowing what is expected 30 to 40 years from now. So, that's one of the ways that I said no, personally, and avoided that influence that other people were trying to put on me that didn't suit me.
So, with this episode, I encourage everybody to go out and say no. Just give it a try. You're a yes person, you're somebody that wants people to like you, and you want to be nice to people; just start saying no. Just say no randomly. Waiter offers you their opinion on what you should eat tonight; just say no. Somebody asks you at Mcdonalds if you want fries with that; just say no. Your mom asks you to come over for dinner on Saturday; just say no. Just practice saying no. Get used to saying no.
And then, look at what, in your circle of influence ... Whether it's your friends, whether it's coworkers, whether it's society telling you that this is a normal, and a good thing ... Maybe it's a business partner, maybe it's stuff that you are thinking, yourself, about your business. Start finding something to say no to. It might even be how many times you leave your house, or how you watch television, or the hobbies you have. Just learn to say no, be comfortable with saying no, and really get empowered with saying no, so that you can win back your time, and you can win back your freedom. I hope that you all, after listening to this podcast, start saying no more, and realize the enjoyment that you can really get out of it.
So, for the business idea at the end of this podcast, I'm going to share an idea with you that's actually not mine. I actually got this someplace else. I forget exactly who made this idea up. Sorry that I can not give out the proper credit, but I'm not going to take credit for it myself, of course. But, the idea is this; what about Uber for snow plows? Now, I know that this wouldn't work, particularly, in the south, or in very hot, humid locations. But, maybe something up in Canada. Maybe something up north, like New York, Chicago, Boston, even Idaho, Montana in the winter. Uber for snowplows.
I know that when it snows where I live, which is in Kentucky ... I don't get snow all the time, but, sometimes when it snows, it's four or five inches. And a lot of people up north would laugh at that, but the city where I live, the state where I live, we're just not prepared for that, because we don't normally get snow. So, four, five inches is actually a big deal for us. There's been times where we had 18 inches. And, as a homeowner, I'm not prepared for something like that. I don't have a tractor. I don't have a snow plow. I don't have an ATV that's got a plow on it. It's basically up to me to go out and shovel it. And, quite frankly, I don't want to do that.
So, snow plow with Uber mixed into it. Have an app that's on your phone. People have plows, I know people have plows on their trucks, especially people who do that on a freelance basis when it snows, and they take advantage of it. Even commercial companies; they could be near your area, maybe they're not near your area. I mean, I don't expect to look at my phone and see five plow trucks around my house, like I would maybe with Uber. But, definitely an app where I could just basically pick a snow plow company that's near me, or somebody who can do the snowplowing. I mean, maybe it's two or three kids that have shovels. Maybe it's a kid that has an ATV that's got a plow on it. I mean, basically, a lot of people could be involved in this. And I basically put my request in, and pay for it online, and then they come, and plow for me, and they do the work.
So, Uber for snow plowing; definitely think there's a big geography that could benefit from this, like up north, or in Canada. I definitely think it would be good seasonal for even Midwestern states, or states that are in the south, such as where I live, in Kentucky, who really get snow, but when we do get it, there's a lot of people who are not going to plow that. So, yeah. Snow plow, and Uber, and paying online, and getting that reservation in, and getting it automated. So, I think that somebody could come out with this, I think somebody could build up the network, and people get paid, and let's see how it goes.
If anybody takes that idea up, please let me know about it. I throw these ideas out; it'd be good to hear if you take one of these up. And, if you've got any questions or concern, leave them in the comments below. And I'll see you next week, thanks.