I don't think you answered my question, Richard.
When I went, I came away with the feeling that what I had just experienced was a great gain for me, but I was glad I went after several years at the helm of my own business. I see now, and I saw then, many people advising new business owners to beat a path to
SFS as soon as possible, implying that there was much to gain for a newby to put into place that would insure their successful operation into the future. While nothing I learned at
SFS would make a new business fail, there was limited material presented there that I felt would be of immediate benefit.
New businesses are most interested in what will get the phone to ring , how to manage production and properly manage their money. There's not much at
SFS that will get the phone ringing. Thus I would not suggest a new guy spend his money on
SFS for that purpose over calling Howard, or John Braun. There is a little bit at
SFS that helps with the production mgmt, I suppose, but most of my class was dedicated to building an operation manual with specific tasks spelled out. Most new guys will be well versed in the basics of how they will clean, and will have no problem managing their production with their part time or ever full time helper. It's when they get into that second helper and maybe a 2nd truck when they can have the time and the reason to start building systems into their business.
Managing the money is the one single thing (Chuck's portion) that would have immediate and beneficial impact on that single operator, just starting out, with one helper.
But that doesn't really help answer this guys question.
Does he call Howard to get the phone to ring, or does he go to
SFS and learn how to sell set up systems in his business first?