Monday, February 09, 2004
So this company converts garbage into usable energy sources. Specifically a hyrdogen fuel. Pretty cool. Why isn't our governement funding the R&D for viable projects like this?? Oh wait, that's right we're currently ruled by a president appointed by the courts who has so many ties to the oil industry that he stinks of petroleum 24-7. Our shortsightedness will catch up to us eventually. Unfortunately it will probably be too late to accomplish anything without draconian measures. The oil's gonna run out my friends. It may not be for 75 years but it may be in 25. But it won't last forever. No, it won't.
Here's the top 5 on the iPod right now:
1) Broken Social Scene
2) Silver Jews: American Water
3) songs: Ohia: The Magnolia Effect
4) The Rapture
5) Sun Kil Moon: Ghost of the Great Highway
Good Stuff all.
Jetset Related: I've been thinking lately how cool it would be to buy like 3 of those Scion XB's (you know the weird looking boxy one) pull out the back seats, slap Jetset Courier magnets on the doors and employ hourly drivers to drive them. This, of course, would involve firing the current drivers or offering them positions driving the XB's. Once again I can't imagine doing that to these guys. I figure we could pay drivers like $13 an hour to start and make good money. This is the problem with paying people a commission, especially a high commission. It's hard to figure fixed costs since payroll changes signifigantly month to month. The only way to really increase Jetset's revenues is to increase business signifigantly but that also means having to hire additional workers to cover an increased work load. Right now Jetset does like $50,000 a month in gross billing, it's a very manageable number. To increase monthly billing to $70,000 would take a phenomenal sales/marketing push. Something that the ownership isn't very good at. Also, during the tech boom Jetset was doing almost $100,000 a month in billing and the stress level was through the roof. Every single day of work was a challenge. Just getting all the work done was a daily challenge, much less dealing with hiring, firing, paperwork, and all the day to day. I don't want those times again, though the money was good the trade off was sleepless nights. Basically Jetset needs to change our business model at some point. We need to move away from commission pay to an hourly system. I can hear old messenger folks griping now, "yeah but no one works hard when they're on an hourly." That's always the question, isn't it.
It would also be wise to look at different business areas that would benefit from the infrastructure that's already in place, i.e. phones, dispatch system, 2 way radios. We could probably dispatch just about anything from our office. My brother suggested a business that he saw used in England. He needed to get his car to the mechanic and didn't have time to take it there himself. So he called this service that drove out to his house on a collapsible scooter, folded the thing up, put it in the trunk and drover the car to the mechanic for him. I imagine that the same fellow returned the car, reassembled the scooter and off the went to his next job. It's a good idea. You could target rental car services, garages, Service Centers. I looked into it a little bit and, of course, the largest expense was insurance. Workers Comp on guys riding scooters is predictably high and insuring them to drive other people's cars was also high. You can find these collapsible scooters for about $500 a pop. Not a bad idea. Could pay guys like $12 an hour and charge say $35(?) for each pick up or drop off. The mechanic or rental car agency could tack it onto the bill. It would be well worth it for some busy financial district people to have to deal with such tasks. Something to chew on.
Here's the top 5 on the iPod right now:
1) Broken Social Scene
2) Silver Jews: American Water
3) songs: Ohia: The Magnolia Effect
4) The Rapture
5) Sun Kil Moon: Ghost of the Great Highway
Good Stuff all.
Jetset Related: I've been thinking lately how cool it would be to buy like 3 of those Scion XB's (you know the weird looking boxy one) pull out the back seats, slap Jetset Courier magnets on the doors and employ hourly drivers to drive them. This, of course, would involve firing the current drivers or offering them positions driving the XB's. Once again I can't imagine doing that to these guys. I figure we could pay drivers like $13 an hour to start and make good money. This is the problem with paying people a commission, especially a high commission. It's hard to figure fixed costs since payroll changes signifigantly month to month. The only way to really increase Jetset's revenues is to increase business signifigantly but that also means having to hire additional workers to cover an increased work load. Right now Jetset does like $50,000 a month in gross billing, it's a very manageable number. To increase monthly billing to $70,000 would take a phenomenal sales/marketing push. Something that the ownership isn't very good at. Also, during the tech boom Jetset was doing almost $100,000 a month in billing and the stress level was through the roof. Every single day of work was a challenge. Just getting all the work done was a daily challenge, much less dealing with hiring, firing, paperwork, and all the day to day. I don't want those times again, though the money was good the trade off was sleepless nights. Basically Jetset needs to change our business model at some point. We need to move away from commission pay to an hourly system. I can hear old messenger folks griping now, "yeah but no one works hard when they're on an hourly." That's always the question, isn't it.
It would also be wise to look at different business areas that would benefit from the infrastructure that's already in place, i.e. phones, dispatch system, 2 way radios. We could probably dispatch just about anything from our office. My brother suggested a business that he saw used in England. He needed to get his car to the mechanic and didn't have time to take it there himself. So he called this service that drove out to his house on a collapsible scooter, folded the thing up, put it in the trunk and drover the car to the mechanic for him. I imagine that the same fellow returned the car, reassembled the scooter and off the went to his next job. It's a good idea. You could target rental car services, garages, Service Centers. I looked into it a little bit and, of course, the largest expense was insurance. Workers Comp on guys riding scooters is predictably high and insuring them to drive other people's cars was also high. You can find these collapsible scooters for about $500 a pop. Not a bad idea. Could pay guys like $12 an hour and charge say $35(?) for each pick up or drop off. The mechanic or rental car agency could tack it onto the bill. It would be well worth it for some busy financial district people to have to deal with such tasks. Something to chew on.
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