{"id":299,"date":"2017-06-09T13:19:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T13:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/?p=299"},"modified":"2017-06-09T13:19:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T13:19:36","slug":"what-i-learned-as-a-paperboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/what-i-learned-as-a-paperboy\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Learned as a Paperboy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When I was 11 years old up until age 13 I was a paperboy. As far as I know they don\u2019t exist anymore in North Jersey, and I was one of the last paperboys to deliver The Record<\/em> until they replaced us all with adults. It wasn\u2019t until I owned my own CPA firm that I realized how many business lessons and good habits I learned during that time.<\/p>\n

Customer Relationships:<\/em> I had pretty good relationships with my customers even though most of them never met me before I delivered their newspapers. Most paperboys in my area delivered newspapers on the same two small streets where they lived. Mine was three and four blocks away, which seemed liked miles when you were a kid. Whether my customers liked their newspapers under their mat, on their mat, in their door, or in the railing \u2013 I delivered it according to their preference. I remember one customer that wanted their newspaper inside their front door and once I opened the door a cloud of cigarette smoke combined with warm air would come rushing towards me. Their house was so warm that there was condensation on their storm door.<\/p>\n

Getting Paid:<\/em> Most small business owners, and especially service-based businesses and professionals<\/a> know how painful it can be to ask customers for money, especially when their account is overdue. Every Friday night I would make my rounds to my customers and collect what they owed and would hopefully receive a tip. If my memory is correct, Sunday only delivery was $1 and every day customers were $2. If I received more than $.50 in tips from a customer, then that was a big deal. The best time was during Christmas when the tips were much bigger and I earned more than the $25 weekly average. For the first Christmas, my customers didn\u2019t know me too well, but I still made about $75 in extra tips, but during the next Christmas I made about $300!<\/p>\n

Connecting with People:<\/em> I really liked my customers and each was unique. I remember one family that was kind of quiet, but realized that they had lizards as pets. Once we started to talk more (I owned an iguana), the relationship changed. It\u2019s not all about the money, and connecting with people gives your business much more meaning.<\/p>\n

You Can\u2019t do it Alone:<\/em> The Sunday newspaper was a really large paper back then, almost like a large encyclopedia.\u00a0 Since my route was several blocks away, and I could only fit a few of the Sunday papers in my newspaper bag, which was hung on my bike, I had the help of my mom on Sunday mornings. We would load up the newspapers in the back of her old Buick station wagon and I would deliver them right from the car and walk or run to each house. I am sure that my mom\u2019s station wagon used up more gas than what I earned for the day. I think that I was half asleep, but my mom would encourage me to \u201cspeed it up.\u201d We all need people to help us out and to encourage us.<\/p>\n

Being a paperboy was such a rewarding experience, and I wonder how many of my old paper route customers are still living on those same streets. I\u2019m sure most aren\u2019t around anymore, but I will always remember them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was 11 years old up until age 13 I was a paperboy. As far as I know they don\u2019t exist anymore in North Jersey, and I was one of the last paperboys to deliver The Record until they replaced us all with adults. It wasn\u2019t until I owned my own CPA firm that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,7,8,13,17,138],"tags":[83,98,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-budgeting","7":"category-business","8":"category-career","9":"category-expenses","10":"category-financial","11":"category-marketing","12":"category-self-development","13":"category-time-management","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-customers","16":"tag-marketing","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}