MOVING FROM EMPLOYEE TO BUSINESS OWNER
SEE THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR BUSINESS
You start a business. You are employee number one. Over time you hire others and you have co-workers. If all goes as planned, you will someday move from being an employee IN your business, to a business owner who works ON growing your own business. This is a wonderful thing since you will be free to spend your time as you see fit. Feel like spending the afternoon outside and away from the office? Provided you have a team who is executing from the vision according to plan, you'll be free to take the time off.
Let's look at two electricians - one who worked for years in his own business and another who built a business that worked for him.
Meet John:
At age 23, John got his electrician's license. He decided to go out on his own right after school. He learned as he went. John got new business from word of mouth and some flyers he posted around his church. He eventually got enough business that he could make a decent income - although he did become a little tired since he was working over 50 hours a week. He wanted the income, so he kept up the pace. As he got older, it became increasingly difficult to manage some of the more back breaking assignments including climbing onto the roof to install attic fans.
John felt a little bad complaining since he pursued his dream... he owned his own small business. Problem was that he really didn't have any freedom of schedule since his customers demanded his time throughout the week and when he tried taking time off, they went elsewhere. John wondered what was wrong with his business. He worked very hard in his own business, yet he was not happy due to the stress of the workload. He looked forward to retirement and at age 67, finally stopped working. He wanted to sell his company. He approached other electrical companies and when they did a little research and discovered that without John, there wasn't much left, they offered a minimal amount for the client list. He learned the company had very little value without his day to day involvement. He lived off a small savings he managed to put aside over the years.
Meet Dave:
At age 23, Dave also got his electrician's license. Rather than start his own business, Dave decided to get a job with the largest electrical company in town, ABC Electric Inc. He learned a great deal about how the company got new business, how they managed their customers, and he learned a lot of things that didn't work well. He spent evenings learning about marketing and finance by taking a class at the local community college. After his third year with the company, Dave had saved up some extra money and he decided he could do a better job in his own company. He thought he could build a better business - he saw an opportunity to do additional services and provide a different level of service.
Dave hired an electrician to assist with the new jobs. Dave spent evenings and weekends planning a marketing campaign. He decided his company would focus on providing rapid response service and installation of designer lighting systems. He arranged to carry some unique lighting fixtures and promoted these and his rapid response service in advertising and direct mail. As the years went by, Dave spend less time in the field. For awhile, Dave handled estimates only while his staff did the day to day hard work. After a year of this, Dave hired an estimator.
Dave documented and trained his technicians on how they should interact with customers, including how they should mention (soft sell) additional services and maintenance programs he developed. He got to point where his time was focused on managing his operation and trying to develop new services. At age 50 Dave bought ABC Electric (the owner was retiring) and Dave spent more time on personal interests including travel, his grandkids, and gardening. He now had a revenue generating business that provided income without his involvement. He also had a worthwhile asset that he could someday sell to a future owner - who could hit the ground running since everything was organized around systems that Dave and his team of managers developed.
His dream was realized - he created a business that would work for him.
While either are valid and acceptable ways to start a business, you can see that have a business that can expand beyond the limitations of you individually performing the work can offer you a much better return on your investment. Some people have no desire to pursue the non core parts of their trade, and for these individuals, they may be happier working for a successful business where someone else can worry about marketing, finance, legal, human resources, etc.
This story applies to all types of businesses - plumber, graphic artist, dentist, construction, business services, you name it. Think of the businesses in each category that are working for their owners and you'll see what we mean. Can we help you become one of the businesses that will work for the owner?
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