small piece of advise from a guy who started his own business at an early age with limited bus. exp. at the time.

* No partners. It took owning two companies over the last ten years to figure that out. It also cost me some good friendships. & buku bucks.
* Avoid working with family
* Incorporate, or do a LLC, stay away from sole prop. This will take a lot of liability off of you personally. Talk to your accountant to figure out what is best for you.
* Get lots of ins. Always look out for you and your company and future employees.
* Find a good attorney. They are nice to have in youre pocket. I use mine mostly for advise. Hes just a call away. A 10 min. phone conversation has saved me thousands in the past. An attorney with a Bus. background is a good way to go.
* Most importantly, dont give up. Most Bus. usually take a few years to get off the ground. Have patience & determination and you will succeed.
* Most people who have not owned a Bus. think being your own Boss is where its at. Yes and no. It usually takes many years of long hours and hard work before you can really start to reap the benefits of ownership.

Good for you and Good luck.

Tom

 

Casmokin hit the nail on the head, great advice I am a SP at the moment but, iam going INC. at the begging of the year, When i started, i contacted clients befor i even bought my equipment just to see what the compitition was like. Just remember to work hard at building your clients and stick to your word. It does get easy to say sometimes ( ill just wait until tomarrow or ill do that latter) when you work for yourself.

Good luck

 

DD.. I'm going to be out of town for the week.. but I have a listing of the different types of business.. and what is required of each... its lots of reading... I'll try to get you a copy run off next weekend...
I went with the SP because of cost.. for now... And as everyone else has said.. partnership is out... If you have someone that wants to work, just hire them, or contract them out to work for you...
Bryan

 

D4X4, stay away from partners!!!

My brother and I thought we could make it work, you just lose good friends or family members....We have worked out our differences but had to let the company sacrifice to do it.

You absolutley need a good accountant; you went to school to major in AG. Your accountant majors in the laws of money. Do your job well and let them do theirs well.

LLC was the way to go for me, it is a lot less trouble to track then an SP or corparation.

JMHO, tom

 

Let me see. What is the biggest cause of new business failing? Not enough planning. Plan it all with a jaundiced eye.

I will give you what I consider to be the most impostant advice:

NO CREDIT

Take the hit for accepting Visa/Mastercard/whatever. 2%,3%,5% it will still be cheaper than employing collection agencies to get YOUR money. Pursue bad cheques aggressively.

Did I say NO CREDIT? Not even for your Mom. (Well, maybe mom, but think carefully). Unpaid accounts receivable will kill a business faster than anything else. Plus you'll be really bitter when you see someone who owes you money driving a new truck as you eat your macaroni and cheese dinner for the fifth time this week..

 

I run a skid loader business. I move dirt, load/unload semi trailers(pallets, round bales, etc), push snow, dig post holes, clean up horse paddocks, etc.
I bought the skidder used, along with a trailer. I wasn't planning on buying one, but it was a GREAT deal.

I got insurance on my equipment. Make sure it is fair market replacement cost. Also i got excavation insurance, in case I hit a car, house, person, etc while operating my skidder, as well as hit buried lines. Fire theft, flood, etc are covered in my equipment insurance. i pay approx 900 dollars per year for the insurance on the skid loader and excavation insurance. If you can pay cash for the machine, that is always best. you will need a trailer to go job to job, goosenecks are nice.

I charge a three hour minimum at $125 plus mileage. I get $200 for the day(8hrs on the meter). plus mileage. Many jobs take .5 to 1 hr and I spend more time traveling/loading.

Make sure you have lots of cash for repairs so you are not losing jobs because you are broke down. My latest repairs have been: new brakes all four wheels on trailer $290, two new trailer tires $160, wiring $25, fluids and filters $85, new DOT APPROVED transport chains $78, new binders $45, new fire extingisher $45, one new skidder tire $195, Leaky thermostat on skidder $55, Sounds like that credit card commercial. That is all I can remember in the last few months.

It get more complex when you have employes: workmans comp, taxes, payroll etc. My tax man said record everything: receipts, income, expenses, repairs, mileage, anything. It will be easier at tax time and if you get audited.
Its kind of a mess, but I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for all the great replies guys. I know I started this thread a while back, but thanks for the update.

As for now, I'm in the exact location where I want to start up my company. Hopefully later on this week, I will actually own a skid steer. All I'm waiting on is a phone call telling me its ready for me to pick up. Its a hella deal on a pretty new ac unit. Anyway, as for now, I've done all the things that one needs to do to get started...business cards, signs, advertising in local papers, and so on. So now the fun part, waiting for the phone to ring to actually make me some money. I've figured up all of my costs and I'm going to have to work the machine 28.8 hrs a month to break even, including all of my personal expensises and what not. Considering that there are 160 working hours in a month, I'm hoping to get that pretty easy. Anyway, thanks for all the great advice guys.

 

You got insurance, right?

 

i cant offer more than what allready has been said! but i do wish you good luck. and remember if you do need advice, ask here too. there does seem to be a bunch of small buisness owners here!

so good luck, lets see you in forbes magazine someday.

 

You got some really good tips but there's some statisics I recall that might help you down the road: something like 80+ % of new business failures are due to faulty paperwork, bookeeping and accounting. I can't do much there so for me it's a bookeeper or accountant. No matter what you do, keep a record of EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION OF ANY KIND. You'll soon find that even your young man's mind can suffer from CRS once you get good and busy! Hoping the best in your new venture!!!

JimmieD

 

Congrats on getting this far. Don't give up. I have had a few lean times where I wondered if I made the right choice to go out on my own. I did. I wish you the best with the business.

 

Along the lines of what Casmokin said:

1 - NO PARTNERS
2 - DON'T HIRE FAMILY OR FRIENDS
3 - SHOW UP WHEN YOU SAY YOU WILL BE THERE
4 - ALWAYS DO A GOOD JOB, EVN IF YOU UNDERBID
5 - CONSIDER CHARGING HOURLY UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO BID CORRECTLY
6 - AVOID CREDIT
7 - DID I MENTION... NO PARTNERS!!!

 

I've been self-employed now for 27 years. The single biggest source of grief is the employees. We are dealing with personalities, they can be fun or trouble.
Other than retirement, I wouldn't change a thing.
If you work for family or friends, plan on it being free, then IF you get paid it is a bonus!!!
Don't hire family or friends, they will bite you somehow.
When/if you start making some decent money, continue to live low key. Don't flash your profits around. The employees with say it is theirs. ( my wife is good at flashing)!!

I have the best job in the world.

 

Good advice here. Can't add too much more than what has already been said.

Congrats to you for starting your own business.

Learn as much as you can about book keeping, and never cheat Uncle Sam. It's not worth it.

 

Well as far as keeping things simple, you're talking to the cheapest guy out there, well except for maybe crobtex! As far as book keeping, I have an accountant, aka my uncle, so that makes life even easier. I just got screwed outta that hella deal on that machine I mentioned earlier, so I'm still keeping my eyes open for another good deal, and waiting for that phone to ring. Geez, paying for advertisement sucks!!