new company needs advice

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Rawls007

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I've been in business for myself for about eight months. When I first started out it was me, myself, and I for about the first 3 or 4 months. After that I hired a friend of mine (probably a slight mistake) as a laborer, and then a month or two later I ran an add in the paper and hired an electrician who although is still a little green, he catches on fairly quickly.

Neither one of my guys is experienced enough to run service calls by themselves, and bringing them with me to do small one man jobs seems counter productive. In the process, my business has evolved to about 90% new construction or remodel jobs big enough to allow room for me and two others. If I do a service call, it has to be a situation where I can line my guys out for a little while and break away. Usually when I come back to check on them I find that a few things weren't to my specifications and we wind up having to do a little re-work. Thus, whether subconciously or by choice, I've winded up all but totally alienating service call customer base.

85% of my work now comes from a short list of general contractors who trust me and are pleased with my service. I'm wondering if this is normal or if I should make more of an attempt to diversify instead of putting my eggs in one basket.
 
Sounds as if you know already that you are going to need anonther "electrician" as in a Journey or better yet someone who may even know more than you do. Maybe instead of another egg - you need another chicken.
 
You have a few choices.

1. Ride it out until your guys improve enough so you can leave them alone and have job done to your standards.

2. Dump th GC's and your guys and focus on service.

3. Dump the service work.

Personally I'd ride it out if I had confidence in the 2 guys working for you. I believe in hiring good people and training them to my ways.

Good luck. Let us know how you do.
 
Having a helper is not all it's cracked up to be IMO. Often times I spend half the day (slight exaggeration (sp?)) explaining how to do something when in fact by the time I am through explaining it I could have done it myself, twice! But then again it is nice to have someone else do the clean up work at the end of the day while I prepare a list of "things to do" on the return trip.

Rawls, I'm not in business for myself yet (but plan to soon), and what I have learned from others is to NOT alienate your business from the service work. If a call comes in to fix a broken receptacle in the master bathroom, you can bet that the customer will pay top dollar to have it fixed because of it's importance. Plus, the balance is paid in full THAT DAY. What general contractor does that? A few, but not many.

Good luck!
 
Anyone in business has been in your predicament. It seems to me you need to have a plan. What do you want your business to be? How big do you want your business to grow? For the last 10 years I?ve been ?me myself and I? and I?ve had up to 4 employees. I personally like the ?me myself and I? side of it better. I don?t really consider that I have a business, more like a pretty good electrician for hire (that can get his own permits).

Most people that don?t have business training/schooling don?t understand the importance of having a business plan. If you want to go to Nashville, you must have a road map.

So here is my suggestion to you:

1) Determine what you want to be and what you need to do to get there. (This is much harder than it sounds).

2) Determine how you will get there. How much business do you need, where will you get this business, what it will cost to get the business, what type and how many employees will you need, insurance needs, etc. etc.


3) Execute.


Best of luck to you.
 
Bigger doen`t mean better. The owners of my company when they took over from dad took a 5 man shop and turned into a 175 man 100 truck money eating monster.When I went there it had an open door policy in the office,now the only open door leads down the road.I got so bad they went ESOP so now the owner doesn`t own what dad built.My advice would be stay small with a few good people satisfy your service (that`s where the profit is made) and keep the limited amount of builders happy.I`ve been in small 2 to 6 man shops and corporations.I prefer the small shops and the owners saw a higher bottom line.
 
Large Small are dependent upon your skills. Myself I spent the 1st 12 years learning all I couid about electrrcity, a friend of mine spent his first years meeting people. We both started a business at the same time. I now have 20 people, he had 235 employees when he sold the business for 16.5 million dollars. He hasd a VERY GOOD shop, theat did 1st class work. My company also does first class work and I oversee everything I can. I enjoy what I do and will not retire for sometime. He's on a large fishing boat also enjoying hisself.....It's about what you want to do and can do.

BUT...finding quality employees, that don't wine, show up, complete the job, are neat and presentable, know the code have licenses...Well good luck
 
Large Small is dependent upon your skills. Myself I spent the 1st 12 years learning all I could about electricity, a friend of mine spent his first years meeting people. We both started a business at the same time. I now have 20 people; he had 235 employees when he sold the business for 16.5 million dollars. He has a VERY GOOD shop, that did 1st class work (and they still do). My company also does first class work and I oversee everything I can. I enjoy what I do and will not retire for sometime. He's on a large fishing boat also enjoying himself.....It's about what you want to do and can do.

BUT...finding quality employees, that don't wine, show up, complete the job, are neat and presentable, and know the code have licenses...Well good luck
 
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