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Thread: back in the game

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
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    Davenport iowa
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    back in the game

    For year's I have owned and operated a part time floor cleaning company. My son and I operated this company until he left the state to accomplish some other things. We specialize in gym floors and hard surface floors. I have always kept the company going but only taking on long time accounts or very profitable one's. My son has recently moved back and is now working at a local company and is wanting to get back into wood flooring. Three weeks ago I was contacted by a guy that refinishes 12-13 gym floors and is looking to retire, he want's us to take that over starting next year. Yesterday we had a meeting with the facility director at our local university and gave him a bid for recoating Two gym floors. When it rains it pours. Unfortunetley for us most gym floors are resurfaced during the summer shut down month's giving us very limited time with full time jobs to get the work accomplished. We also found out yesterday that a resurfacing company out of the chicago area is also retiring. Gym floors are a huge market from product sales to doing the actual work. Hopefully down the road this could turn into something very profitable for my son and I. The market in our area is pretty much open, nobody close that does this type of work. Even residential wood floor resurfacing companies are few and in between where we are. My son's recent real estate agent has given his name out to 4 possible customers just this past month alone..
    90 nickolson Bored and Stroked "The Good"

    Big Bore 110 Pauter frame "The Bad"

    90 Bored and Stroked “vey’s frame” "The Ugly"

    110 JSC frame Bored and Stroked
    flat track build. “Shop trike”

    1974 original 90 X 2

    1974 Original 70.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Buffalo, NY
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    1,990
    It's finally happening, all the kids getting pushed to college are leaving a huge hole in the workforce. Congrats and good luck!
    Looking for a Bassani silencer for a 2nd gen tecate, the style with the movable mount. 1st gen will work

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    TTown, Alabama, United States
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    845
    I would love the opportunity to work for myself! Wishing y'all good luck!

    I do have a question that you might be able to answer, what exactly causes "dead spots" in a gym floor?
    Suicide Hill Survivor

    The rides:
    1981 ATC110
    1982 ATC185
    1983 ATC185s
    1984 ATC200es
    1985 ATC200x

    When the going gets tough, the tough get sideways

  4. #4
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    Nov 2015
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    Davenport iowa
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    Quote Originally Posted by 83ATC185 View Post
    I would love the opportunity to work for myself! Wishing y'all good luck!

    I do have a question that you might be able to answer, what exactly causes "dead spots" in a gym floor?
    Well beings we are not installers, I'll try to answer the best I can.. expansion and contraction of the floor generally due to moisture content. I do know that dead spots as you call it are said to move, that happened at the university I worked at. Bounce a ball on a court that has had flood damage and you will experience all kinds of dead spots.
    90 nickolson Bored and Stroked "The Good"

    Big Bore 110 Pauter frame "The Bad"

    90 Bored and Stroked “vey’s frame” "The Ugly"

    110 JSC frame Bored and Stroked
    flat track build. “Shop trike”

    1974 original 90 X 2

    1974 Original 70.

  5. #5
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    Nov 2015
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    Davenport iowa
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    Quote Originally Posted by 83ATC185 View Post
    I would love the opportunity to work for myself! Wishing y'all good luck!

    I do have a question that you might be able to answer, what exactly causes "dead spots" in a gym floor?
    As far as working for ones self here's my take on that. Either you do it when you're young or you do it later in life when you can afford to. When you are young you really have nothing to loose. I owned a insulation company in my early 20's but because of the market change it didn't succeed. That was due partly because of of my lack of fortitude to change with the market and venture out to other types of insulating. I've always besides that time held a job and ran a business on the side. With that being said one has to reckonize opportunity and be willing to act on such. Like the time I had a opportunity to take over a pizza parlor with pretty significant income from a friend but didn't act.
    The other time in one's life to start a business is later on when you have stock piled enough money to afford to quit your job and start a new. Life gets a hold of us all and we get used to earning a regular for sure paycheck working for others.
    I know that this business of floors I am in along with other profitable ideas I've had floating around my head would be a good business. I know my son could make a living doing this. At this time with what my son makes working his job he would need to earn 150.000 a year on top of his billable service and goods, meaning he would have to bill out 300.000 dollars a year to make that 150k. Not impossible by any means but that doesn't come over night more like 3-5 years. So you have to be prepared to go hungry for a while to get to that point.
    Then comes knowledge, between my son and I we have 40 years of experience in this field, this gives us one up on some that are out there. Knowledge in your line of work comes with years of experience. So a person needs to decide if they do go into business for themselves do they Starve when they are young and single or old and married.
    Like I said I know I could make maybe 75k my first year right now if I did this full time. I could double that income the second year. The reason I know that is because of my many years in this business. I know what I can do and am capable of doing and I'm one hell of a bull***Ter and salesman but I can also back it up because of that experience..
    Most are scared to start their own business and rightfully so. Many don't have a nitch ( something they know) that takes years to get. Working for others gives you comfort. You go home at the end of the day and collect a paycheck at the end of the week. It's a for sure thing. Self employment is a little iffy and honestly a lot of work you are never truly off the clock. But with that being said you will never be rich working for others unless you are one of the truly gifted ones, doctors, lawyer's, CEO and so on..

    Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
    90 nickolson Bored and Stroked "The Good"

    Big Bore 110 Pauter frame "The Bad"

    90 Bored and Stroked “vey’s frame” "The Ugly"

    110 JSC frame Bored and Stroked
    flat track build. “Shop trike”

    1974 original 90 X 2

    1974 Original 70.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    USA
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    That's a pretty good way to say it, I always describe working for another business as basically a hired slave. In that kind of situation, you always have a limit on how much you can make. Once you move to self employment the limits are removed and you basically make a profit directly to how much effort you put into the business.

    Not saying this for pitty or anything, but I'd love to have my business at $75k per year profit, making/modding atv parts is defo low profit (low sales, and markup has to be quite low). I've been hanging around $12k/year, but I'm full self employed and have a very cheap life style. The freedom alone is worth the much lower pay, I work whenever I feel like it, and there's no boss. The customers are you boss, but that's only for each individual job so you could always quit if you can't meet eye to eye and move onto the next job. I probably could out source the harnesses and such to Chinese workers, but I HATE their wiring over there and quality of work seems quite poor. I'd basically have to move there and light a fire under their butts and show how it's done lol.

    With your situation, maybe it would be best to work on getting someone hired in that has experience and move your role less as a working business owner and more of a business manager/ceo type of figure. Once you make that move and things are still good/stable you could take on other business ideas and such easier. One of the hardest things for a business own to do is to trust the work with someone they don't know.

    Anyway, personally I'd say to go all in on the business, you know it's profitable, sounds like you enjoy the work, and in time hopefully you can find suitable workers to make the business run and maybe you could adventure into other ideas.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
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    Davenport iowa
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    Quote Originally Posted by ps2fixer View Post
    That's a pretty good way to say it, I always describe working for another business as basically a hired slave. In that kind of situation, you always have a limit on how much you can make. Once you move to self employment the limits are removed and you basically make a profit directly to how much effort you put into the business.

    Not saying this for pitty or anything, but I'd love to have my business at $75k per year profit, making/modding atv parts is defo low profit (low sales, and markup has to be quite low). I've been hanging around $12k/year, but I'm full self employed and have a very cheap life style. The freedom alone is worth the much lower pay, I work whenever I feel like it, and there's no boss. The customers are you boss, but that's only for each individual job so you could always quit if you can't meet eye to eye and move onto the next job. I probably could out source the harnesses and such to Chinese workers, but I HATE their wiring over there and quality of work seems quite poor. I'd basically have to move there and light a fire under their butts and show how it's done lol.

    With your situation, maybe it would be best to work on getting someone hired in that has experience and move your role less as a working business owner and more of a business manager/ceo type of figure. Once you make that move and things are still good/stable you could take on other business ideas and such easier. One of the hardest things for a business own to do is to trust the work with someone they don't know.

    Anyway, personally I'd say to go all in on the business, you know it's profitable, sounds like you enjoy the work, and in time hopefully you can find suitable workers to make the business run and maybe you could adventure into other ideas.
    To late in life for me brother,but I would love to have my son make the commitment some day and work for him in selling accounts. I know with his business aptitude and my years of knowledge in the field we could make a going it.. so much to do in one's short life, you really do need to go Balls in when you are young. Everything to gain nothing to loose.
    90 nickolson Bored and Stroked "The Good"

    Big Bore 110 Pauter frame "The Bad"

    90 Bored and Stroked “vey’s frame” "The Ugly"

    110 JSC frame Bored and Stroked
    flat track build. “Shop trike”

    1974 original 90 X 2

    1974 Original 70.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    USA
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    Yea I get you there. I started the business stuff after I got my money situation pretty well. No debt, own all vehicles, and own my house. Might not be the newest or fanciest stuff but that's just the way I do things. In 10 years or whatever maybe I'll look into buying nicer stuff, just have to save up money between now and then.

    Ironically I can't stay super busy with my business since I run out of supplies pretty easy. I try to do a lot of R&D for new products. Hopefully some day I can get to the point of making my own regulator/rectifiers and CDI boxes for the 80's era and older machines. In theory if I got the old stuff working well, the same basic idea should apply to the newer models too like for the 300ex, 400ex, 450r and such.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    TTown, Alabama, United States
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    Thanks for your insights, guys!
    I've reached a point in my life (quarter life crisis? )where i had the thought of "Only 40 more years of this until i can finally do what i want in the 6 months before i croak"
    I have no debt, own my own home and cars, no children and i feel like if I'm ever going to make a move towards anything like that, its going to have to be soon.
    I really wish i had come up with this brilliant idea at 16 when i used to hang out under a bridge, along with all my friends who also had nothing else to do
    It's amazing to me how much i rely on the comfort of knowing i have a paycheck coming even if its from a job i despise...scary.
    Suicide Hill Survivor

    The rides:
    1981 ATC110
    1982 ATC185
    1983 ATC185s
    1984 ATC200es
    1985 ATC200x

    When the going gets tough, the tough get sideways

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    USA
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    Haha, sounds like you're getting the same thinking I've had since I was like 15. I started helping people out free online for fixing ps2's hence the very creative name ps2fixer. I was in like 9th or 10th grade, didn't even own a ps2, just read the site's posts, and once I understood things well enough, just started responding trying to help people. After a while I was pretty good at helping people, and I started having people ask how much I charge to fix their stuff. Started with money orders and in time got my dad to sign up with paypal for me to use (min 18 years old to have) so I could take payments there and buy stuff online easier. I got into mod chips and all of that, moved to xboxes because they were basically a computer (my dream job) and continued from there. If you do good work, people will talk about you to their friends, so no marketing really needed and such. Good prices helps, but if what you do is really worth it you can charge higher prices. Some people desire the cheapest deal possible, while others wants the best bank for their buck (cost vs quality), and the other group of people wants the best quality. I'm a cost vs quality buyer, people that always buys the most expensive generally are highest quality buyers, and the ones that always buys the cheapest possible is generally the cheapest deal people. I start with the cheapest products and move my way up checking reviews etc. There's some great stuff that's super cheap, but if you buy the wrong one it's completely garbage.

    I'm kind of one of those people that doesn't trust the gov, doesn't trust the banks, etc. I hate holding my money in paypal, but that's where I also spend most of it. I got bitcoin investments probably because of this and have done super well so far. When it was $19k, I had a good $30k profit vs what I had into it (was 10 or 20 times increase in price vs investment, so 1,000%-2,000% profit), but I didn't sell so I missed that peak.

    Anyway, some businesses are ran based on cash flow/debt where they can boom fast and such but are pretty risky if you're not sure of the idea etc. I personally went with the no debt route because I just personally hate having debt. Much much much slower to grow, but less losses on interest etc too, and if I stop getting sales for 6 months, the business doesn't have to go bankrupt, I could just get a job to pay my bills till I figure out what happened to the business. I with most businesses worked this way, and the government. There would be so much less wasted money I'm sure.

    You're from my generation, so you probably was told to do what you love. That's not fully true for what you really want. It should be more like, love what you do. I watched a talk with Mike Roe, from Dirty Jobs and he mentioned that the people with the crappiest jobs (literally) were some of the happiest people he's ever met. What they where doing wasn't their dream job by any means, but they take their job with pride and truly enjoy it. It's been a while since I watched the show, but I think most were business owners, farmers etc. The freedoms from own a business is such a crazy huge stress reliever, at least for me. Like when I do work for my business, I feel like a met a goal, like I actually did something worth while. When I went to work at my other jobs, I was just filling hours, one job I was just a body there unless there was a problem, bored out of my mind, and the other was such a high work flow and chaos I was on pins and needles for my stress.

    Here's that talk I mentioned, pretty interesting to watch. I've watched everything from "how to get rich" to investment vids, money management etc. Pretty much most of it I knew already and you can use your past experience as a BS filter. If I smell BS, I change video, like a get rich quick video, then they are trying to sell their product to you. Their books are kind of in that category for me too but I can see where someone legit would want to share what they know in multi forms (blogs, books etc).

    This reminds me of something I heard before. I can't recall where I heard it, but probably from one of those talks. Basically a person went though the phone book and called everyone in there and told them they would tell them how to make a million dollars, all they would have to do is mail them one dollar with a self addressed envelope prestamped. Since it was so cheap a lot of people took them up on the offer. When they got the $1, they would print off what they where doing, calling people from the phone book and getting paid $1 to share the info on how to make a million dollars. After a million people, you've made a million dollars. Oh by the way, you owe me a dollar for that info xD.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc

  11. #11
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    TTown, Alabama, United States
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    845
    Thanks for that! I've always been a fan of Mike Rowe.

    It really boils down to being willing to step out of my comfort zone and apply myself to something.
    Suicide Hill Survivor

    The rides:
    1981 ATC110
    1982 ATC185
    1983 ATC185s
    1984 ATC200es
    1985 ATC200x

    When the going gets tough, the tough get sideways

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    USA
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    4,114
    Thing is, you don't have to quit your job to start a business. Whatever you find that you could do you can do on the weekends, after work, or whenever. The guy I worked with before had a lawn care business and after his work he'd go mow lawns (midnight worker like I was). He ended up hiring a part timer to help him keep up. He was a bit of a strange one, he'd work him self to death doing everything under the sun, and not get any sleep so he's stressed and lack of sleep causing him to get sick like 3-4 times a winter. I worked next to him once every week, never got sick from him, but he always got sick when anyone in his house got sick.

    FYI, sleep is very critical, get enough of it but not too much, and stress seems to be the other sickness causer besides the temp swings. If you start feeling like crap, take an extra nap in the day, or sleep a longer sleep, it can do wonders.

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