My name is Karl Scheu and over the summer of 2010 I gained my first experience as a contractor.  This was by no means an easy task.  In the preseason balancing school with a business is no simple feat, not to mention a DM always on my back to be out there working to setup a successful summer. The preseason without a doubt was the hardest part of the year, or so I thought till production began.

In the beginning of May it was a gong show.  I had no clue about what was going on, what to do or how to fix the many, many problems that I encountered.  I tried to solve them on my own but most often that led to even more problems.  It wasn’t until late June that I began to actually call Cory, my DM, for advice and then things seemed to fall in place and get easier.  Don’t take me wrong in the assumption that you should always call your DM for advice, learning from your own mistakes often leads to extraordinary results one will almost never fail catastrophically in the same way twice.

I’m not saying that the summer was simple after that or that I didn’t consider quitting.  The notion of giving up crossed me a few times but as anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me can tell you, I am too stubborn to quit.  I just kept on working because I had to, I wanted to make money, and perhaps even more I wanted to experience an entire new category of problems, which was my initial reason for joining Student Works, not the money but the prospect of a multitude of new and interesting challenges that had to be met and surpassed.  To me beating a challenge, solving a problem and devising a solution are like drugs, it is the best feeling I can ever get, and at the end of the year I felt great.

There was one major surprise that I gained over the summer.  In the beginning I was abysmal at sales, the few people who booked with me probably did so because they neglected to gain other quotes, and I kept this assumption for a while.  However, nearing mid August a lady after the estimate took the time to compliment me on how great a marketer was and that some of the people she hired for her firm could learn from me, so over the period of one summer I gained a monumental amount of product knowledge and confidence that I lacked before this summer, which may have been my biggest reward, I now have complete belief in myself, I’m awesome.

I recommend Student Works Painting to any individuals that love challenges, If you think that everything should be easy then this is the wrong kind of work for you.  But if you like to plan things out, have new experiences, and really test yourself to see what you can accomplish, then I look forward to meeting you next year, as a fellow franchisee.

Sincerely,

Karlton I Scheu