+1

Great to have such a well paying hobby.

Usually just one or two job's a year and usually it's only a lutron homeworks system.

I did just pick up two 42u dell netshelters for the bar, getting ready to relocate the rack and add more equipment.

+1000

It is possible he may not have to let anyone go. If he goes from 4500 hours per year to a more standard 2000, he may not lose anyone. Less overtime for his guys also.

Whether one man or ten, the same issues apply, it is just a matter of scale. A good client calls and is ready to go and just wants to know when you can start. A new client okays a nice job and asks the same question. You are afraid of losing the job by saying 90 days from now so you sign up for 16 hour days. You have to either price yourself higher so you don't get every job, or be honest about the time frame. If you work 16 hour days it is a management problem and you are to blame.

I speak from experience. I also know we are slow to make significant changes unless we are faced with tragedy, health issues resulting from overwork, or a crumbling set of relationships.

A wise man will look and receive instruction, as someone once said.

That might be Proverbs 15:22. Two translations are

Or 24:32.

None of us will live long enough to learn enough if we will only learn from all of our own mistakes.

Followed by 24:33- "Hey, y'all! Watch this!"

That would be great but it is not an option.


This would take a bit better than 7 years. That's how far out our contracts go.


Production rates can be raised yearly with some background work showing cost of living increases and we do that already


I'm always the end guy and that will not change


I spend very little time on site as it is. I have these guys in place.
I'm losing my brother, (a key partner) who takes a ton off of my plate and from time to time I lose other guys who are very hard to replace.


As you can see from above, its bigger than that. Its wall street stress without wall street compensation. At this level I would love to be reaping the profits without growing to keep up with demands of current contracts. Its easy when you have a crew in 4 houses a week but that changes when production suddenly moves at a faster pace and you have to run 8 houses per week per crew and pay a ton of overtime.
Concentration becomes keeping up with the demand and the profitable installs get put on a back burner while paying mass overtime eating up profits. The only way to solve this problem is to grow. More guys, more trucks and then things slow for a bit so the problem reverses for a while. (Rinse and repeat)



Already do this in custom



Those were easier days and I long for them again.



This would be the plan moving forward as a hobbyist depending on what I decide to do. I will always be in this industry but at what capacity I don't know. That is yet to be decided.

It all comes down to my work load and stress level vs where I want to be in my life. I don't want to continue to grow and grow. It is aging me at an expedited rate.
At some point I have to decide to turn in my chips and move on. When I think about moving on I first consider my family, my happiness and my health.

Sounds like you already see many of the issues and have given it plenty of thought. You may need to decide between production work and custom work. Especially if the production work is what strangles you, and becomes less profitable as it ramps up. (Overtime, etc).

Perhaps you could spin off the production part of your company to another outfit. Anyway, the first step to solving a problem is to step back and look at it, and I'm glad you are doing that much.

I consider all viewpoints and immediately dismiss those that don't make sense.

The Waltons started with one guy and one store.

Teraforming Mars is an example of something that is difficult. Hiring someone is not. It happens every day all over the world.


The Waltons reference is a perfect response. It shows you how 1 guy and 1 store can turn into a billion dollar business where thousands of people were hired to do things that the one man with one store could not do.

Do you think as CEO that he was placing orders when he was 65? I bet he hired someone to do that for him and i bet it allowed him to focus on other things like Family.


You guys are saying EXACTLY that it is impossible and your basing that assumption on the fact that it's "hard". I gave you an example of something that is hard. Teraforming a planet. Hiring someone is easy. Place an ad online and answer the phone. Done. I didn't pull that process out of my ass. It's how people get hired every day.

Hiring someone is hard if you don't have the money to pay them, and competent people don't tend to come cheap. That's the position a LOT of small businesses are probably in. Working for equity generally only happens if there's a a chance of an IPO or sellout in the not too distant future. So you gotta pay them, sometimes at the cost of your own income, since you (the owner) are usually the only one the value of whose paycheck is negotiable on a week by week basis.

It's an extremely common problem that small businesses reach a dead man's curve point where there's too much work for the original one or two people who start it, but not enough to go up to the next step and start hiring people to take the load off.

The sad fact is that the vast majority of small businesses fail, generally somewhere in the range of 9 out of 10. It's not going to be hugely helpful to someone barely making enough money to pay the rent or car payment to say, well just hire some people.

Not saying that's the case here, but clearly it's an extremely common scenario. Particularly if you are in a service industry, it's easy to forget that all those other folks out there with product oriented small businesses are consuming money, not making it, for a considerable period of time.

You don't have the money to pay them because you can't scale up because you don't have enough people to handle the extra work.



If you are the boss and you handle the admin stuff then you need (bare minimum) a sales person and a lead technician and a programmer.

If you are the boss and you are installing then you need a sales person an office admin and a programmer.

If you are the boss and you are the programmer then you need a sales person, an office admin and a lead technician.

If you are the boss and you are handling sales then you need an office admin, a lead technician and a programmer.

If you are unwilling or unable to let go of the hats then you will find yourself painted into the corner. The only way out is to quit and close up shop, scale back to fewer projects or hire someone so you can continue growing the business without giving up more and more of your own time.

All three choices are going to take money out of your pocket but only one of them gives you the chance to put more money back in it.

Lots of good ideas out there.
Who is the competition in your area that you are friendly with?
I don't expect you to post here, but find someone who would value your company and maybe keep you as a part time employee.

Terraforming Mars is something that is currently not hard, but impossible. It's mere mention as a point of reference is beyond hyperbole.


Sam Walton bought his first store in 1947 which he ran himself (a Ben Franklin). Tripled his sales in a 3 year period. His landlord coveted the business so refused to renew his lease. In 1950 he opened his own store, a Walton five and dime. He had 15 stores by 1960 and the first Wal-Mart in 1962. By 1969 he had 18 Wal-Marts all leveraged out the ass. Not until 1970 when he did a public stock offering did he actually accumulate enough money to knock his debts off.

Even then, all the way until his 70's the guy knocked off 70-80 hour weeks. He had a well documented and renowned work ethic.

Did he hire people and pass off responsibility? Yes, as has every single business that has a non-owner employee. Did he pass it all off and cut back to a normal work week.... never. Could he have? Absolutely, but he didn't so it's not relevant to support your point.


No, you INFERRED "us guys" are saying it's impossible because it's "hard". The fact is, only WVL knows his numbers well enough to know the financial impact of offloading responsibility so saying because Sam Walton did it (which, if anything, he took on more and more responsibility) means any business can do it is more irrelevant hyperbole.


....

Now your chicken and egg post above I can totally agree with. But, letting some hats go may not be financially feasible within the constraints of a given business.

Mac,
Hiring employees these days sucks - the majority of new hires want to be paid as much as the owner, don't want to do any work, and don't want to learn Jack S. They feel entitled to be treated like royalty and get upset when they are not.
It is very hard to find good employees these days. Especially in this field which is extremely niche! All you can find is "Yeah man, I can hook all that crap up. No problem". Sure....

We are not running 'Dairy Queens' here. :)

Thats why i mentioned it. If you bother to read back to the beginning of the thread Fins LOL'd at the notion of hiring someone like it was impossible when in reality its just harder than not hiring someone.


I disagree about its relevance. I was responding to Fins hiring someone to get part of your life back is impossible "LOL" comment.


I wasn't inferring anything about "us" until you responded to the comment i made to Fins. Fins comment/s were what i was responding to, and the only thing i got from the trumpesque posts was that hiring someone was laughable and i should keep my mouth shut because i am not a business owner. The only reason i could come up with for his LOL response is that he thinks hiring someone is too hard or...impossible.

I don't need to own a business to understand simple common sense. You dont want to spend an hour cutting your lawn? You hire someone. Dont want to cook? Go out to eat. Want to work 40 hours instead of 80? Hire another person for 40 hours a week. Simple math.


He mentioned selling and taking a job as a rep as his next move. Logically hes going to be taking a pay cut so what difference does it make? I say logically because if his AV business paid so little that a rep job was a equal or better option he wouldn't be stressed out about the decision. If walmart called me and told me they were hiring greeters @ $85k i would quit my job and run strait to the nearest location.