Opening own business

i'm the CFO/office manager of a repair shop. my old boss retired in feb. and my new 27 yo boss took over. he's put me on to all the accounting and correspondence and marketing so that all he ever does is official log book stuff for the airplanes we work on or technical questions with customers; besides that all he does is actual work on planes.

to start out, i'd have a basic inventory, a decent computer, quickbooks on that computer for invoicing, a payroll program if you have multiple employees, a database to keep track of your parts, and a separate accountant for your quarterly payroll tax and yearly corporate tax. for everything you don't want to deal with, you could probably hire someone like me, part time to start until you're busy enough to offer someone a salary. you also want to have a website (maybe from someone like squarespace which is plug and play) and the appropriate marketing plan to grow your business and get the word out.

besides those things, you also want to have a 15k-30k dollar cushion in your account to weather the slow periods.


go ahead and ask me anything else you come across; i'm happy to help.

 

Ok, so I do run my own business. I didn't start it from scratch, but I did learn a shit-ton once I took over. I'll let you know what I figured out as I went.

First off, Ralphie... Running a business is fucking HARD. Until you can get to the point where you can take over the admin side of it, you will be the only guy doing all the work. Especially in the service industry. You have to really ask yourself, "Do I really want to gamble my entire savings/credit on doing this?" I talk to a lot of people that want to start their own business but have no idea how much work it is. There really is no 9-5 for a business owner; you pull the hours the business needs you to pull. Every hour you pull yourself is money you don't have to pay someone else to work it.

Speaking of money, you might be able to charge someone a retail rate (let's say $100 an hour). Does that mean you make $100 an hour? God no. Your BUSINESS makes $100 an hour. You make a wage that you can pay yourself, hopefully what you need to live off of. The bare minimum is best. You want to pump everything you can back into the business. If you think you can just take that $100 and put it in your pocket, then you are going to be out of business in the quickness.

Everything Highjinx says is true, you need all that shit. Plus, you need a place of business (your personal garage can be a start, but people like store fronts) and all the things that go with it. Utilities, tools, parts, signs, and all the things you see in your current store (or the store in your mind). Rent for commercial properties is fucking expensive. Here in my Podunk town, it’s like $2-$4 per square foot. Moving is a bitch (changing ads, marking merch, letting customers know you are here instead of there), so finding a place that can grown with your business without breaking the bank can be hard. Renting is easier, but owning is better. Owning means way more money, so it might be out of the question.

Labor. You will come to hate how much labor costs you. It will be your biggest expense and if you are a week off on it, you won’t have employees. Now, do you plan on doing this all by yourself? That means doing admin work (everything highlinx listed), doing front desk work (answering phones, checking customers in/out, handling money), AND the physical work of fixing shit? I’ll tell you this, if you try to do everything yourself, shit will fall through the cracks. Let’s say you get the bare minimum of people needed to run the place. Someone up front to be the person everyone talks to (phones, walkins, money taking) and an accountant to take care of the money matters. That leaves you to do the actual work and try to build your clients. You will pay out the nose for an accountant if he/she is good. You need to learn QuickBooks and get someone to set it up for you (check the local community colleges for courses on QB). You will learn to hate QB as you will live in it. All day to day accounting things will go through QB. Unless you feel like whipping up Excel sheets to handle everything (I did and it was a bitch). You will do the everyday grunt work and then spend after hours doing all the paperwork. Don’t get behind either or if will fuck you fast.

Clients. Building your client list is going to be the biggest hurdle in this. If you steal from your current business, you will burn more bridges than you know possible. Don’t do this. If customers come to your business without nudging from you, then it’s semi-ok but still not ethical. You need to build from scratch and that will take time. Ads and marketing is great, but is hit and miss. Word of mouth is your best friend and the only reliable way to get people. That means it will slow in the beginning and hopefully build over the years. Expect to not break even for awhile. If you do in the first few years, you are doing fucking AWESOME. Pats on the back for everyone. That’s why you need money to pay people/bills while you are still losing money. Even with steady business, money goes up and down. Expect to sit around and hope for business in the beginning.

Frankie, all this really comes down to money. You need a metric shit-ton of it to start a business. You need even more to keep it running. You need to go to work one day and really pay attention. Listen to how many times the phone rings, how many customers come in, how much paperwork is filled out, how much of that is processed, how much time the managers spend on a computer, how many parts you have in inventory and how much shit actually gets done while you rebuild shit. This is all stuff you have to handle or pay someone to handle (don’t get me started on trusting people). Do you like going home after work and not thinking about work? You will never stop thinking about your business and really never stop working. You are your own boss, but that also means you don’t get to pass the buck. You will deal with all the shit that gets passed off on managers. Don’t even get me started on asshole customers.

I’m forgetting a ton, but this is what I would think of before making the jump. I do love running my own business, but it’s fucking stressful. I got SUPERFUCKINGLUCKY by getting an established business with a client base but I had to put a ton of work into the place just to get it to where I’m at today. I have a 3/5/10 year plan that I’m working for and you will need too.

PM me on here for faceyspacy if you want to go into more details. I’ll let you know what I think and what you should be looking for. I’ll be more than glad to help.

 

When I opened my own place I was working at a loss for the first 2 years, barely braking even my third. That was the hardest part. I was lucky in that I had a part time job too which allowed me to keep paying my bills and paying my business, without it, I'd have never been able to stay open.

 

Is being responible for getting, in some casing having to be a hardnose, paid something you're ready to deal with? Some people have the personality to say "Mr. Smith, I explained to you why your truck required additional repairs. You agreed to the repairs. I need to be paid for my services." Others have a hard time being firm with customers/clients.

 

so true