business downsize

mark_28

Just a thought but maybe you are going through a dark time right now and retreating to self reliance (the ultimate solution for guys like us)looks like the best solution. Your comments are making me wonder if those "wonderful people" in your company are really pulling their weight or are just depending on you to clean up after them. When you are comfortable with employees mainly because they are the beast you know, there's a lot of inertia preventing change. It's hard, but sometimes you have to lay down the law and set a company culture that ensures a reasonable life and profit for you. Some employees will measure up, many will not and the weeding out process can be heartless. However, confronting this process and carrying it through may turn out to be the best way to your goal. Best of luck.

Mark

bovide_4

Any business owners get burned out from running a small PHC business? I'm considering selling the shop, and working solo from my house.
Advantages:
-The jobs gets done to my standards every time.
-I can have a life instead of battling the constant battle with the bear of high overhead costs.
-The crew I have are wonderful people. However, I am just burned from: excessive trips to finish a job, to many truck fender benders, and lost and damaged tools.
Has anybody done anything like this?

hr

How much do you need to make?

arrive at this figure and work it backwards.

The issue with a small one man operation becomes the "billable hour" To cover all the operation expenses of a business these days and only have one "wrench" in the field bringing in the bucks is a real challange.

Suppose you decide on a 100K yearly salary, (before taxes) You plan on generating 30 billable hours every week for 50 weeks a year. So 100,000 divides by 1500 hours = $66.00 per hour to cover JUST your salary. add truck, insurance, phones taxes, all the other costs and watch that number swell. I'd be willing to be you are looking at 100 per hour PLUS to make that endevor work.

Go to http://www.numberscruncher.com/ and try some what ifs with the demo.

Don't get me wrong, I love working as a small one man with a part time partner. But even in a niche, higher dollar profession like radiant or hydronic speciality, making a profit takes some work.

You might consider selling but staying on, or taking a percentage for a while. I could put you in touch with a gal that has worked this out for a number of shops from both directions, as a seller or a buyer

hot rod

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bovide_4

Great points, HR. I read most of your articles. Between your installations, RPA pres., writer, when do you sleep?
Great advice. I plan to supplement my income by renting my shop or selling it and purchasing an apartment building, since I own/maintain two with friends.
I'm number crunching and getting a quote for one man shop insurance coverage.

hr

Real Estate

could be an excellent "other job" for you. Certainly you have the skills to maintain, fix and resell properties.

I feel much better about you having dual, or more, income streams. Takes a lot of pressure of the one man shop idea.

hot rod

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Matt_21

usually the next step

after downsizing is closing the doors. a typical cycle for the small business owner is:
tech working for a co. decides why work for someone else when they can do it just as well.
he opens a 1 man shop, puts alot of time in and gets busy.
he starts getting busier, selling, accounting, install, etc. spending more time at work. decides to hire a helper.
helper works good for while, gets busier, hires a couple of more people, but now the owner realized the new help doesn't do the work like they did, loses tools, etc.
finally the owner thinks he would be better going back to being a one man shop.
with everyone gone, owner is back in the same rut of selling, installing, accounting, etc.
eventually the owner is overwhelmed again and closes up.

i got this from a book i read a few years ago called the e-myth by michael gerber? great book. i suggest you read it before you decide anything. it will change the way you go about your business. the whole premise is working on your business instead of in your business. it's a pretty simple but eye opening concept.