Window Film • Sept/Oct 2016 • Dr. of Tintology

Running an independently owned window film dealership may sound like a fascinating occupation to most, complete with excitement and profitability (tongue firmly in cheek!). But seriously, where else can you have this much fun?

Making mistakes–or if you prefer, "a series of learning experiences"–is simply part of the deal. I've made more mistakes than I'd like to admit, but after nearly ten years of self-employment, it feels like a good time to share some.

There was that creative ad I had a local coupon magazine design when we got started. They ran our ad in 90,000 homes. The only problem was that the phone number we listed in the ad was the wrong number. This error was discovered the week after the ad ran, which, of course, explained the complete failure to get one single interested caller.

We were convinced back in 2007 that ads were the way to establish our presence in the marketplace. We spent a large amount of money on multiple listings in the Yellow Pages. Little did we realize that Google was about to transform the way people do their research.

We spent way too much money on these ads for way too long since we discovered you couldn't simply stop the ads after one year. There was a phase-out period … I should have read the fine print.

There was also the time we decided to do a home show at a retirement community. While we were setting up, we realized that there were five other window film companies there. Believe it or not, about 60 people attended the event, and I'm sure they were quite surprised to find six companies offering very similar solutions.

Then there was the time that one of our substitute installers did a fairly large home project and left with payment in hand. The very next day, the once-happy, now-astonished client called to say the film was falling off of the windows. To our surprise, we discovered that our former installer had forgotten to remove the liner from the film–oops.

I won't go into how many pieces of glass we've had to replace because of the old-film-removal, or how once a ladder hit the customer's lighting fixtures on the way out the door–yeah, we ate that one as well.

There is nothing quite like the look on the faces of my team when they start telling me about what just went wrong. It's somewhere between fear and regret.

My reaction to these unfortunate events has been the best lesson learned–I now just smile and move on. Nearly every problem can be fixed, and as someone wise once said, "This too shall pass."

Mike Feldman is the president of Advanced Film Solutions in New Port Richey, Fla.