Size of company

tim smith

1 helper, my partner and I who do some install/service and sales. Thats about it... I have a headache, Tim

J Heritage

Size

Just curious about the size of the companies that post here. Total employees including office, sales, install, service etc. Not sales dollars. I hang around the wall and read a lot of the opinions about how to handle different aspects of operating a company or handling customer issues and the opinions can very greatly.

We float around 18

Mark Custis

Size?

Two, with a few young backs.

Unknown

Hmmm, let me see,,,

There's the part time bookeeper and there's me. That makes about 1.25

I tried hiring a guy a couple years back and my final take was I might as well have hired Satan because I probably could have gotten a better job out of him. He might have at least shown up for work once in a while. After only 6 weeks of absolute misery and near financial ruin I fired his worthless you know what and then I had to cover his unemployment because I didn't follow proper procedures. Did you know a guy can not call and not show up for work twice and only after the THIRD incident can you let him go? That's PER YEAR too! Ridiculous if you ask me. At least in CT anyways, talk about coddling. Then would you believe two weeks later the state came looking to garnish his wages to cover a child support arrearage. So, given all that, hence forth I shall forever remain the lovable loner that I am.

J Heritage

Been there done that.

Charlie from wmass

There is book keeper, procurement, department, dispatcher, day labor, mechanic, tech support, estimating officer, bills recievable, bills payable, and collection agent. That totals 3.

mikea23

You forgot shrink must have one with every employee

Unknown

LOL,,,

I know I could use one.

Honestly, I give you guys with multiple employees a lot of credit, I just don't have the patience for it.

steveex

Used to have 5, went gray in 2 years, now me and part time firemen. Hair getting darker again.

Timco

Just one overweight, overworked, no golf play'in, tired, sore, burnt, grey, dirty, crusy, no vacation gettin' laborer / tech / installer / estimater / owner / president / supreme ruler...

Tim

MIke_Jonas

Help me out here, guys..

There's me, myself and I.


So, whats' that add up to? Like, 2, maybe three people, right? Dang, one want's a raise now!!

steveex

Stay small keep it all.

Darrell_4

Darrell's Heating Crisis Intervention Company...Just me, on purpose. My wife minds the check book...but I keep that end of the business real simple too...on purpose. Just one truck...my Rapid Deployment Heating Crisis Intervention Platform.

I just gave me the rest of the week off...with my book keeper...on purpose!

oil-2-4-6-gas

owner,secretary, 3 mechanics 1 junior mechanic 1 cleaner-runner some sub's --for "R" stamp welding ,above 4" piping,chimney sweep,large electrical jobs , riggers

J Heritage

R stamp

Is a R stamp required for welding pipe or for when you weld the boiler or both.

Big Will

Four guys and my wife in the office. Thinking about hiring another. Also thinking about sticking my head in a oven. My dream is three crews of two for installation and one good service tech and me for sales and service and help for my wife in the office. I think a lot about the what if I had stayed small. I just cant do the larger jobs by myself and the large custom homes and commercial work is what I really enjoy.

klaus

how many?

(2)minding the office/store, (7) mainly on new construction, (1) full time service tech w/ others helping occasionally, plus some part-time shop help, makes about 10.5 total. But wait my wife and me count too. We work more hours than any of them.

Rob Blair

One is the loneliest number...

That is what they say, isn't it?

Rob

joel_19

size

6 installers,2 full time service tech,1,two part time me,myself,and I,full time bookkeeper also doubling for service dispatch and my Dad(owner)

You guys who have just you and your wife doing it all,that's fine just make sure that you pay her and yourself accordingly because if she quits then what? You've gotta pay somebody else!!!!! so you had better be building it into your price nobody should be volunteering! that just keeps your price too low. bad for your familly and bad for everybody else. Let her volunteer at your church or school or something but not in your company.

Also how do you stay small? lets say your a 1 man band you put in say 2 boilers or A/C systems a week that's 100 per year in 5 years that's at least 500 systems just maintaining those systems would be a full time job for a service tech,how do you keep up with service? What happens when it's 20f out your changing a boiler and you get 10 no heat calls how do you take care of those folks? How can you ever go on vacation who takes care of your customers then?

Dan Foley

Co. Size

We have a total of 18 - 16 full time, one part time A/P, A/R and one part time payroll. Happy Thanksgiving All! - DF

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

J Heritage

Service vs Install

I am surprised that it looks as most have more installers than service. We usually have a larger service department than install. As said earlier to maintain past installs along with our normal customer base as well as new customers calling in. Most of our guys will float between service or install if we need additional help in one area or the other. But on the whole I think service is the larger of the 2 sides of the company. I know we could sell more for the install side if we were more competitive on price with the other companies in our area. It seem like our competitors are pricing there installations based on volume instead of the individual job. (Wal-Mart pricing) Not there is anything wrong with volume it just not for me.


Why do you guys thing your install departments are larger than service.

RonWHC

4 Technicians,

Office Manager/Dispatcher/Stock Room Guy, Bookkeeper/Admin ****'t, & the guy who does nothing. Farming out more & more installs, or parts thereof. Trying to cut back. It's not working. 99.8% multi-family. No tin bending.

JohnNY

19.
That's 15 in the field, 4 administrative.

Payroll's a killer.


To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Dave Stroman

4 of us. Myself, one journeyman, one helper, and the wife who does the accounting and is otherwise known at the War Dept.

Dave Stroman

Darrell_4

All I do is service...on purpose. If I get into a situation that requires more attention then I have a list of outfits to recommend that can get in and get out quicker and cheaper than I can and give MY customers better service at that point. I still get to keep the customer and my contractor friends get to eat...'tis a good deal for all concerned.

Unknown

I do it by,,,

servicing a small but loyal customer base who pay on time as my main criteria. If you're funny with the money good luck getting me back. I stick mainly to commercial so I don't get those midnight calls very often. My customers understand beforehand that I am only one man and it may take me a day to get to them and are ok with it. There is the occasion we're I have to refer them to others because I am just too busy. When I was doing a LOT more installs it was with the understanding that I did not want to service the system(s) afterwards, I was strictly install. I did offer warrantee service for one year but not reguklar maintenance. As far as vacation, I'll be taking my first solid week off in 10 years in a couple weeks and relying on some old friends who have their own company to cover for me. What I normally do is long weekends not too far away but this time we're goin' to Disneyworld. I'm not crazy about it but the neighbors have a time share there and have been bugging me to go for a while so I finally caved.

Paul Fredricks_9

We're a fairly large company. We have oil, service, alarm, petroleum and insurance divisions. All told about 250 employees during peak season.

In service, where I am the service supervisor, we have about 40 techs. We also have 6 or 7 subs that do service or installs. Privately owned company that's been around for about 80 years. And a great place to work!

joel_19

service and install

Just the opposite for us we install mostly hitech,green,efficent products not builder work we've managed to stay pretty busy with that.

Service i wish that would just go away most days.WAY to many people call up to complain what it cost and we are not the most exspensive by any means they just think it should be free,forever. " I just put this in you should fix it free!!!!!" "Sir,that system was installed in 1999" ARRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!

Rocky_3

We have

three full time office staff, one part time office staff, two full time warehousemen, eight installers/service techs (because our guys are trained in both), and then me, the bidder/fire-putter-outer/customer smoother-overer/trainer/paycheck writerer. Found that training, training, training makes all the difference.
Rocky