Best Of

When I realized that my son was not interested in taking over the family business, I made a deal with one of my employees. I would pay him his regular wage. what he was worth based on his experience. I would pay him 1/2 again as much that would be deposited in a escrow account. No records of that money as his income. Just $$$ sitting there. As it turns out I would retire in 20 years and he would have enough in the escrow account to buy me out and I would use that $$$ towards my retirement. (if the money ever got to a point where the tax folks would want to know about it, I would get the tax accountant and trust lawyers involved, but that never happened.) After 5 years of loyal service there comes this woman in his life and he moved to Florida. He forfeited that money when he quit. Nothing in writing yet so no harm no fowl.

We are still friendly.

About 15 years later I got a drunk dial from him in Florida. We talked for a while and at the end of the conversation he said: "If I had stayed in New Jersey, I would own your company today". We both laughed about it.

My brother had trouble selling his business when he wanted to retire. If he made better plans he could have been compensated more.

I would still be in business if I didn't end up with this disability that put me in this wheelchair, but I got lucky, Twice. In 2017 I offered to buy out a competitor that has a large customer base in beach front condos in a wealthy barrier island rresort community. Lots of service contracts. Lots or customers that can afford to pay. Good income stream. I offered to pay him his 7 figure asking price which included $100,000 in inventory on the books.

When he thought he has a sucker on his hands, he didn't accept and said that he had $80,000 in inventory that he just purchase for the upcoming season, so the price would be higher. When I showed him the original offer included $100,000 for the inventory from the previous years "due diligence" company books inspection, I said that is $20,000 less so my offer would be 20,000 lower… so he bailed.

I was then diagnosed with the incurable disability that would result with me confined to a wheelchair in the future. So the following year he asked again of I was still interested…. too late, you snooze you lose.

The second stroke of luck was a fuel oil dealer/HVAC/Plumbing contractor decided to stop delivering fuel oil, and his son wanted to expand the HVAC business to the next county (where I was located). Since a majority of my customers were oil heated homes with several different fuel dealers that I was also friendly with, I could not sell to a company that also operated a fuel deliver truck. But all the other competitors sisn't want any oil heat customer. I knew these plumbers from different trade shows and training classes for over 20 years and thought highly of them. so when they stoped selling oil and wanted to expand, I was able to sell them my service contracts inventore and rolling stock for a nice retirement fund amount. The stars were all aligned for me. (Except for the wheelchair thing)

I guess I am relating this story to you Gary, so you can prepare for your retirement in the event you don't have someone already lined up to take over when you get old like me. LOL

It is good to have the small business folks like us, just to keep the big mega companies from monopolizing the trades and keep the pricing reasonable…. Big business = big overhead = big pricing. Small business = small overhead = reasonable pricing. But don't under cut yourself. You should be able to charge what you are worth and make a nice living.

@EdTheHeaterMan this very topic is what I enjoy most about being a small business person. It’s impossible for the average homeowner to understand all the nuance, jargon, technicality.

I have one fond memory I’ll never forget- this older woman, perhaps 20 years ago, was talking to talk as if she was a coworker.

once in a while, I’ll be talking with someone that’s desperately trying to sound like they know what they’re talking about, and they try too hard. Of course I roll with it, but it’s the exact opposite of the nice old lady from 20 years ago.

Just about everybody else is in the middle, just trying to understand and asking questions. Combine all that with the unique and bizarre technicalities of our state’s high-efficiency program: the conversations get pretty technical.

so, I enjoy the communication process, trying to transfer this HVC stuff to non-technical people

I’m in my late 50s, at some point I need to deal with Retirement funding and such (tax exposure etc) All that language makes my head hurt.

“the customer is always right”, I never fully agreed with that sentiment. If they’re wrong, I will carefully point that out