I came to that point and opted to expand the business. I did and made a lot of money, too. Looking back, I think I missed out on some good stuff but no regrets. The point is valid, though. If you're good at what you do, demand will rise and eventually you may have to cut back on something to maintain the family life etc. (I realized this when I was taking my infant daughter to Calc III classes in a snuglie. Turns out she's really good at math so maybe it was a good thing..)Yes this something I think I will just have to play by ear. As I said, I'm not sure how much of my time school will demand. The forklift guy also brought it up. He said he thinks I will get a couple of years into school and then drop out in favor of expanding my business.
What I did was work for a few good clients and told them that I was making school a priority but I would 'be there for them'. Told my professors the inverse thing 'class is a priority but I have some other obligations. Missed a few classes but managed to keep most things rolling. For the clients, be honest and don't make promises you can't keep. For the professors, engage them in what your are doing. They'll probably be on board.. One of mine was so jaded with his students that he tagged along and helped me on a project. Cool!The idea is to give school priority and, if there is time, do this work on the side. This means I will probably have to tell my customers "sorry, I'm not available" a lot.
Its not a dealbreaker. If you are as good as the other guys.. charge what they do. Don't tell the clients you are going to school. Tell them what your availability is. Meet with your professors and tell them what you're class availability is and make a deal with them as well. Any prof worth his tenure will applaud and support you. Work around those who won't. (I leveled with my profs and got 8 hours of 'directed study'. Turns out they needed someone who actually knew how to get things done... They all have their pet projects.. ask me sometime about the SciFi novel on IBM baudot paper tape..)I realize this might be a dealbreaker for some, but I hope that I can keep custmers based on price. I am hoping they will call me first, and if I'm unavailable, they call someone else, but next time they call me first again because I charge 1/3 of what the other guys charge. "the other guys" in this business charge usually >1000$ just for a day (or a couple of hours) of work. They get away with this because they have a good reputation (they WILL fix it, no matter what) and they can have a technician onsite within the hour. I cannot. I am a one man operation, and I hope my customers understand that.
I realize I am doing a lot of hoping in this post, but that's all I have.
I've been googling similar things, among other things, including "Industrial Machine Repair, Houston TX", "Industrial Machine Maintenance, Houston TX", "Machine Service, Houston TX", "________ troubleshooting, Houston TX" (fill in the blank with random industrial machine) - nothing really to be found. A few lathe/mill repair, sewing machine, and vending machine companies but no dedicated companies doing what I propose to do. The only one I know of is the one my current employer used to call before I started here. I can't even find a single related business category in this supposedly all-inclusive list of all businesses in Houston.Google incorporate in Texas and that should provide you with lots of reading material.
First... Take a deeeeep breath... Better now.. This does not have to be done in one night.Did you just provide that link for reference? It looks like beyond that page is some sort of wizard for setting up a business if you click "get started." Would you recommend going through a website like this?
This all seems a little daunting and I would like some assistance in getting started but I don't feel comfortable doing it over a web page like that. Is there some sort of agency which helps people get started, that would hook me up with a CPA, lawyer, et. al. and make sure I'm doing everything right so I don't screw myself? I always get a little antsy dealing with the government - I feel like there's always something lurking in the shadows, waiting to bite me in the apples. Something I don't know about, and wouldn't even know to ask about.
EDIT: something like this, I guess is what I'm talking about. Is it worth the fees?
When you register a business you'll be asked to specify what it is from a list. This is drawn from that list..I can't even find a single related business category in this supposedly all-inclusive list of all businesses in Houston.
I think you already have a customer who values your services. Go for it.I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Could mean - The door is wide open for me and lots of potential business, There is NO demand for such a company, or I don't know how to google effectively. What do you think?
YES!!!!!!!!I think you already have a customer who values your services. Go for it.
This is fun, yes? Yes!
I'm current a sole prop for a few reasons. When I started it was ultra simple. Basically zero paperwork (in Colorado, you have to file a tradename registration if you use anything other than your name as your business name, but that's a one page form and cost about $10). You have no separate tax filing requirements for the business, but do have to do a Schedule C for the business that's part of your personal filing. When I started, I was only doing a single project for a start-up and didn't plan on doing anything beyond that and in many of the intervening twenty years I have had just side-line income from it (it's been primary income for perhaps five of the twenty-one years). So the Schedule C has usually been very simple (and I make decisions about what I do in part to keep it simple, which is a pretty sad state of affairs when you think about it -- business decisions being driven by tax policy instead of market and other business factors, but let's not go there). The work that I have done has extremely little risk in terms of getting hit with a lawsuit, so the liability protection of setting up an LLC wasn't really there, especially since I carried a $2 million umbrella policy.So, this being my first introduction to the types of businesses, from this chart I cannot see why anyone would choose a sole proprietorship. Wbahn, care to explain?
Also you were in a diying industry. Much like the maytag repair man most of those object you said you were repairing are throw away objects for most people. When my 5 year old $300 LCD tv goes out I pitch it and buy another. Same with washers and driers, microwaves, etc.. Our build quality had dropped so low and our abundance of new supply has made repairing things nearly worthless.When I was 20, I did house calls for Sears, repairing TV's, TV antennas, air conditioners, clothes washers and dryers, etc. When I got off work, I'd go do some calls on my time. $16 for a house call, $16 an hour. I kept my rates like that for 20 years as everybody else raised their rates. I figured I would acumulate loyal customers, year after year.
I was completely wrong. Right now, I have about 2 loyal customers, and that's because their husbands used to work with me, but they died. Low prices did absolutely nothing to build my business. I can see now that the right thing to do is get paid properly NOW! I don't know what the psychology is that would make a person decide to pay double, triple, or quadruple what I was charging, but they did. Pretty much every customer hired somebody else for a higher price than I charged.
I can't believe I pist off every customer I ever had. I can't believe that my average time to get to the job was less than 90 minutes and they didn't like that. I can't believe my work was sub-standard after 40 years with no complaints filed against me. I also can't explain why great service at low prices didn't create a customer base. I can only say, "I was wrong". I recommend you don't do what I did.
maybe it's the "you get what you pay for" mentality. They think if they pay you half what others charge, you're going to do a half ass job.I don't know what the psychology is that would make a person decide to pay double, triple, or quadruple what I was charging
Right. I was looking at perfumes with my wife at the mall. Some were 120$+ for a couple of ounces, carrying big designer names. Then we went to dollar tree and they have 6oz bottles of perfume for 1 dollar. The dollar perfume actually smelled good and not like prostifume. I figure the dollar tree perfume reflects how much it actually costs to manufacture perfume, and the designer perfumes are marked up 36000%. It couldn't possibly cost that much more to slap a designer label on it. But people have this notion that if they pay less than 120$, they are buying bottom shelf perfume. If, for example, Bvlgari lowered their price to something more reasonable, like 30$, it would threaten their image as a high end designer product.In the world of retail, this is mostly true.
Except for the groceries...
One thing they don't throw away so fast is central air conditioning at $2000 and up. I fix them almost exclusively now...probably for exactly what you said. Nobody pays for a repair on a dishwasher, microwave oven, or clothes dryer. They're just too cheap to repair.Also you were in a diying industry.
Your dealing in a bullet proof industry. Trust me I'm from FL. We learn at a young age if you wanna have a job 24/7/365 and never have a depression, get into AC work.One thing they don't throw away so fast is central air conditioning at $2000 and up. I fix them almost exclusively now...probably for exactly what you said. Nobody pays for a repair on a dishwasher, microwave oven, or clothes dryer. They're just too cheap to repair.
I do get the occasional, over a thousand dollars, side-by-side refrigerator-freezer to fix, but I haven had my nose in a TV or a microwave oven (except my own) for 20 years.
and I have a 9 year old, 31" Sony CRT TV, which I repaired a few weeks ago by re-soldering the vertical drive chip. Guess I'm just a cheapskateWhen my 5 year old $300 LCD tv goes out I pitch it and buy another.