It Only Takes One Opportunity: How Dale Meyer Built Everything From a Single Phone Call

Quitting your job is exciting.

Buying the truck is exciting.

Telling everyone you have started a business is exciting.

You know what is not exciting?

The first three weeks when nobody calls.

When I started my waste removal business I did everything you are supposed to do.

Flyer drops. Business cards in coffee shops. Facebook posts. Local community groups. Every single day I was doing the work. And every single afternoon I was staring at my phone.

No enquiries. No income. No guarantee it was about to turn around.

Just stress. Lying in bed at night obsessing over every detail of the service. How good it was going to be. How ready I was. How much I wanted someone to just give me a shot.

Twenty one days of silence.

Then the phone rang.

One customer. That was it. One person who needed something removed and decided to give the new guy a chance.

Everything Dale Meyer has built since, the businesses, the passive income, The Sequoia Project, helping over 1,000 small business owners across the world, all of it traces back to that one phone call on day twenty one.

Not one hundred chances. Not a viral post. Not a big marketing budget. One opportunity from someone willing to take a punt on someone who was ready.

Turns out Eminem was right.

You get one shot. One opportunity. The question is never really whether the opportunity will come. The question is whether you will be ready when it does.

Most people spend the quiet period doubting themselves, cutting corners, second guessing the idea and scaling back their preparation because nothing is happening yet. That is exactly the wrong response.

The quiet period is not a sign that it is not working. It is the test of whether you will be prepared when it does.

Obsess over the quality of what you are going to deliver. Know your service better than anyone. Be so ready that when that first person calls you have absolutely no doubt in your mind that you are going to make them glad they did.

Because if you do that, one customer becomes two. Two becomes ten. Ten becomes the foundation of everything.

Lesson 6: Fortune favours the prepared. You do not need one hundred chances. You need to be ready when the first one shows up.

Dale Meyer shares the real story of building from nothing every week on the TSP Podcast. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and come join The Sequoia Project community on Facebook.