[HLS]

I am going to share some of the things I have learned in the business. I have just started my 11th year in the business and I have learned a lot.

Well. The first thing I learn about this business is that you can’t go after every job. Some job will not be worth the time you will have to put into them. If you are a small business like you would be if you are starting out don’t go after the big jobs that are going to take a lot of time and money to complete. I always felt that working toward the bigger jobs is best so that you don’t sink more money into a job them you can.

Always know your customers well. /This comes into play because just last year we got into a deal with a customer and it took us going to court to get paid. Always know that your customer as the money to pay for the job to. If you have any feeling at all that a customer might not pay you don’t take the job, your best judges will always be your feelings if you have a gut feelings listen to it because it most likely right.

Always get everything in writing . Most people starting out in the business go on verbal deals alone and that risky because verbal deals are not enforceable in court. Always put everything in writing if the customer wants to make a change on anything put it in written. My company as a rule if is something that will cost us money or make us money put it in writing. I learn this the hard way lucky it was only a 90 dollar job but we still haven’t gotten paid and that was five years ago and that what made us see we needed everything in writing.

Always make sure you can legally do a job you are bidding on. In most if not all states you must carry some type of licence to do something. If you plan on during anything to do with chemicals or Fertilization you have to be licenced to do that .I know a guy locally that wasn’t licenced and he was sued by the homeowner for ruining their lawn and he was in a lot of trouble legally because he had no licence.

Build good relationships. This applies too many things in this business. Number one thing is applies to is your customers, always have great relationship with your customers it is the best way for them to want to do more business with you or to get good word of mouth business from them. I have great relationship with all my customers and my employees are the same way, my customers feel that can talk to anyone in my company and they will be treated the same as if they were talking to me personally. Build good relationship with your suppliers , I been working on this one a lot . Know your suppliers well, I can walk into any one of my supplier’s showrooms and talk to the person as if they where a friend because I know them that well. Know your dealers well and have a good relationship. I use three local dealers for equipment and I know them all well and it because of that if any equipment of are breaks down it get put at the top of the list to get repair some times they even drop what they are doing to work on are stuff.


Well this is only a start of the great information I know about this business. I learned a lot and I learn more daily. I think I will share more later as time goes on because I wish someone would have shared what they knew with me when I first started out.

well I hope this might help someone out . I love giving back to this site and this business we are in because I feel that the right thing to do give back to something that given me so much .

I have started writting more and I will post more of this later because I am helping 4 different people start off in this business and that how I give back the most helping local people start their business .

Josh

[Lawn Lad]

To your first point of going after big jobs - someone was told me as they were growing their business that they did not take on jobs that they could not personally write the check for. If the job went south and they ate it - at least they had the money in the bank to make sure they could pay the bills. Seems easy, but if you've only got $15,000 in the bank, don't go after a $50,000 job. Stick to the smaller jobs until you build the foundation to grow. Cash flow will get really tight on larger jobs and as you grow, unless you have the working captial you will likely sink since you can't pay your bills - regardless of your profit.

This is a very conservative way to grow by limiting the size of the work you take on, but it makes sense.

[BJR]

If you want to grow you eventually have to chase the bigger jobs. I have done jobs up to 250k. I don't have that type of money in the bank. And I've seen other contractors do jobs over the million.

If you want to grow you do as many have posted here, you invoice in amounts that you can handle. Lets say you get a 100k job, you should be invoicing in 10k amounts. If they don't pay you walk away from the job untill they do. Harsh, but a must if you want to survive. Also ask for payment on delivery of large items such as walling blocks.