If the title of this article has you chuckling, that's okay. I pick up dog poop for a living and I'm willing to share some insider secrets about it.
Why did I choose this field of endeavor you ask? Why would any seemingly intelligent, older individual pick up dog poop for a living? The answer may surprise you, because it's about simplicity.
If there's a simpler business out there I'd like to know about it. Picking up dog poop is simple any way you look at it. The concept, the tools, the collection methodology, the routing of stops; it just doesn't get any more basic than this. And that's what appealed to me most.
Here's a typical stop. Unload a long-handled scoop and over-sized hotel lobby dust pan from your vehicle and line the bin with a small plastic garbage sack. Walk to the gate of your customer's yard, open and begin a deliberate back and forth walking path of the grounds about five feet in width. As you encounter a pile drop the bin behind it, sweep it into the bin with the scoop and move on. Keep up a systematic walk of the yard until you've covered it all. It's as complicated as that!
When done, take your tools and the product you picked up back to the vehicle. Gather the edges of the small bag in the bin and pull it out. Open a large garbage bag and deposit the small one into it. Put your scoop into a bucket containing about six inches of sanitizer (to clean it between stops), load it into the vehicle with the bin and you're off to the next stop.
You know how much time this usually takes? From arrival to leaving averages 15-20 minutes. Some take longer with larger yards, smaller yards require less time.
Maximizing your route comes from organizing stops to be as close to one another as possible. If done right you can manage up to 3 stops per hour without too much effort.
Like most people in the business, we charge by the dog. We now average $16 per stop per week. When we can manage those 3 stops per hour, we are making nearly $50 an hour. Are you starting to get the picture?
Our routes are not completely full yet, so we don't come anywhere close to these numbers. We're so spread out in some areas it drops our overall average down to about 1.6 dogs per hour, but that's more than $25 an hour even at that. As we improve our routes with more customers to fill in the blank spots it will only get better.
There are also many other good traits to this kind of work. You set your own hours, very little investment money is required, no special tools needed, you're not generally dealing with the public and most of our customers pay on time.
Pride would get in the way for a lot of people considering this kind of work. But does pride pay the bills? Not at our house. Our bills get paid after we pick up dog poop! - 29957
Why did I choose this field of endeavor you ask? Why would any seemingly intelligent, older individual pick up dog poop for a living? The answer may surprise you, because it's about simplicity.
If there's a simpler business out there I'd like to know about it. Picking up dog poop is simple any way you look at it. The concept, the tools, the collection methodology, the routing of stops; it just doesn't get any more basic than this. And that's what appealed to me most.
Here's a typical stop. Unload a long-handled scoop and over-sized hotel lobby dust pan from your vehicle and line the bin with a small plastic garbage sack. Walk to the gate of your customer's yard, open and begin a deliberate back and forth walking path of the grounds about five feet in width. As you encounter a pile drop the bin behind it, sweep it into the bin with the scoop and move on. Keep up a systematic walk of the yard until you've covered it all. It's as complicated as that!
When done, take your tools and the product you picked up back to the vehicle. Gather the edges of the small bag in the bin and pull it out. Open a large garbage bag and deposit the small one into it. Put your scoop into a bucket containing about six inches of sanitizer (to clean it between stops), load it into the vehicle with the bin and you're off to the next stop.
You know how much time this usually takes? From arrival to leaving averages 15-20 minutes. Some take longer with larger yards, smaller yards require less time.
Maximizing your route comes from organizing stops to be as close to one another as possible. If done right you can manage up to 3 stops per hour without too much effort.
Like most people in the business, we charge by the dog. We now average $16 per stop per week. When we can manage those 3 stops per hour, we are making nearly $50 an hour. Are you starting to get the picture?
Our routes are not completely full yet, so we don't come anywhere close to these numbers. We're so spread out in some areas it drops our overall average down to about 1.6 dogs per hour, but that's more than $25 an hour even at that. As we improve our routes with more customers to fill in the blank spots it will only get better.
There are also many other good traits to this kind of work. You set your own hours, very little investment money is required, no special tools needed, you're not generally dealing with the public and most of our customers pay on time.
Pride would get in the way for a lot of people considering this kind of work. But does pride pay the bills? Not at our house. Our bills get paid after we pick up dog poop! - 29957
About the Author:
If you reside in Northwest part Houston, Texas and want the best Pooper-Scooper extant to pick up dog poop, stop by her Yard Doody website at http://www.pick-up-dog-poop.com and take a look at her customer testimonials. You won't be sorry!
