An Interesting Opportunity

[ANedelka]

My father founded a company roughly fifteen years ago. He taught high school and had this as a side job. It usually grossed roughly 100k annually - enough to pay the bills and fund his hobbies. My father passed away a few months back and the business now has fallen to me. I was enthralled by the concepts in Tim's book and seek to implement them into my business. College will be here shortly and as such i will not have much time to deal with this in a managerial role. I was hoping that someone had gone through a similar situation (automating a service industry) and they would be able to provide some advice for those first tentative steps in the right direction. Thanks in advance.
-Andrew

[nghs22]

we might need some details buddy

[forgiven]

Great Opportunity.

Similar situation with my dad starting a business about 20 years ago - and I have recently automated to the point of a couple hours a week of my time is all it takes.

I would have to agree more info would be grand:
- Industry / Service
- Type of clients
- Time involvement of all personnel (weather it is you or not)
- How old are you? or better yet, how much experience with the biz?
- Any staff? - If not, anyone in the family that can help out?
- Are you the sole owner or is there other family involved?

One thing I would do sooner than later is delegate.

Let us know whatever else you can share.

[ANedelka]

Ok, let's see. Basically we sell and install advertising for commerical real estate properties.

Example: http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p270/Brinnishis/trinitysign.jpg

This sort of thing requires a guy or two going out to the sites to install the sign which means that i own a truck and some of my guys have their own as well.

It is still a part-time thing, but the niche we have is able to grow. Of the five biggest commercial firms i only work for two, so plenty of room to expand. The actual shop is located in the finished basement on my house which keeps the overhead down. Seeing as i intend to sell the house in the next year or so that will have to change. I have two full-time and two part-time employees but if i do expand those numbers will probably have to go up as well.

The clients i have are solely real estate brokerage firms. It keeps it easier to deal with.

The amount that i work with this business has decreased drastically over the past few months due to nearly having a breakdown after trying to balance to many things (80 hour weeks plus school was a bad decision).

My experience with the business is fair. I spent roughly four years on the installation end of it. However, i have no experience with the managerial end of it so i would either need training or someone to do that.

As i said, i have college looming on the horizon. Because of that i would aim to be more of a traffic cop than a cog in the machine. Able, but not required to poke my head in.

Hope this clears up some of the ambiguity.
-Andrew

PS: I'm seventeen, eighteen in august.

[ConquerLife]

One thing I'd like to note... you said your father did this as a "side job" while he was teaching. That means he most likely didn't spend more than 4-5 hours a week on it max. So, really, all you have to do is spend a little time growing the business, then just operate it the same way he did on a larger scale.

[ANedelka]

Haha, you would think that would be the case but it wasn't. Any free periods during school, he was on the phone. Most afternoons he was working, weekends as well. It was almost reversed - he part-timed school and did that as his job. That is what i wish to avoid.
-Andrew

[dking]

Interesting.

Your business is going to grow largely in the next two years, followed by a sharp decline that evens out and then repeats the current cycle at a lower volatility level.

Have you ever thought of Collage kids as a cheap source of 1099 labor?

[kamakiri]

Ever consider taking time off college to grow the business and get it on it's own 2 feet? You obviously had the trial by fire.

Oh the other hand, if you almost had a nervous break down at 17... then you might be better off working in banking.

[webgal]

I think college is a good idea here. The business classes and the process of bringing things together.

Interesting biz. Sorry I don't have more to add right now.

[Frank]

You can go to college at any age. The business needs tending to right now. An active business is a great asset - you can always sell it later if you decide you don't want to travel that road.

If you try to do both you'll end up doing poorly at both. If you take a year and devote it to the business you'll probably be able to answer your own question about automating it.

[kamakiri]

Right on Frank, I was trying to imply the same thing. The business classes that Web mentioned can all be taken as night classes if you are insistent on getting an education. The Japanese say that if you try to catch 2 rabbits at once you will never catch a single rabbit.

[TimW]

The Japanese say that if you try to catch 2 rabbits at once you will never catch a single rabbit.

Of course, being in America, we shoot rabbits, and it's very possible to shoot more than one at the same time. :)

Tim
Instagator....

[outofbandii]

I'm with the guys who say you can go to college next (month/year/decade) but you need to spend a bit of time on the business.

Why not take a year, see if you can grow the business, or sell it off if it's not for you, or hire a general manager (or promote the best guy) etc?

[webgal]

Frank made me grin. One things for sure, you can't let the business that your dad built die. There's something there.

You might be able to take some community college courses and pursue the business and simply enter a 4-year university as a transfer student. That way you can not lose that focus but not be in it a multitude of hours and have the opportunity to pursue this.

Do you think that might strike a balance? What do the rest of you think?

[dking]

You guys got it all wrong.

I was not telling him to go to collage, I was telling him to go to the collage and find poor collage kids willing to accept the task of installing these signs as IRS Tax form #1099 contractors when they get an email telling them to do so..

[ANedelka]

The nervous breakdown i had spoken of came after two months of 80-100hr weeks. bad idea on my part.

The plan is still to go to college, if i find i am doing poorly at both i would take the spring semester off and concentrate on the business.

Is 1099'ing better than taking on as a part-time employee? I'm not certain which the people would find better. More importantly which is easier for me.

I've already started looking around to see if anyone would be interested in working (asked people i went to high school with who are staying around for college). I hope to be able to take the summer to train them up and let it run.

As it is i am still a bottleneck of sorts. People all want to talk to me about problems. I've begun to get clients comfortable with dealing with other people in the office so i can concentrate on living my life.

Would the creation of a website help with the expansion you think?

One of my employees spent close to two decades managing restaurants and is qualified to manage the paperwork for my business as well. I'm hoping to have her start in her new role in the next month or so.

Thank you all for the advice so far, it has been greatly appreciated.
-Andrew

[badhank]

client needs you ->
clients call voip line that goes to india ->
some jerk in india follows prepared script then email/voips back your workers ->
your workers do the work needed ->
??? ->
profit!

bam, i want a 10% cut

[dking]

client needs you ->
clients call voip line that goes to india ->
some jerk in india follows prepared script then email/voips back your workers ->
your workers do the work needed ->
??? ->
profit!

bam, i want a 10% cut

Uh.. no, if anybody gets a cut, it was my idea. See above about workers accepting work from email while you guys go off about adding to your daily work load by taking extra night night classes so he can someday be successful. ;)

[badhank]

Uh.. no, if anybody gets a cut, it was my idea. See above about workers accepting work from email while you guys go off about adding to your daily work load by taking extra night night classes so he can someday be successful. ;)

sorry champ that wont work, if the worker here is accepting the emails, theres no reason for him to work for you since he now knows the business, you need to disconnect them from the administration. Now stop trying to wreck the business that i'm getting a 10% cut from. :P

[ANedelka]

So what you are saying would be have the calls that get routed to my business had off to india where the order can be placed. Have the indians then send off an order form to my americans who then do the work. Something like that?

[badhank]

So what you are saying would be have the calls that get routed to my business had off to india where the order can be placed. Have the indians then send off an order form to my americans who then do the work. Something like that?

exactly!
you first must determine EXACTLY what the worker on the other end will say and do, and what your EXACT specifications/standards are. Throw in a payment system somewhere into the loop (1/2 up front/full at time of work order/full after completion/etc). Get a copy sent to you of every work order as well so u can make sure nothing slips through the cracks, and you, sir, just payed your way through school without spending more then 3.99 hours per week on it. pm me if you need more info, or just want to offer me 10% for whatever reason ;)

[ANedelka]

Wow! Thanks for the help. Are any of the assistant companies found in the book (ymii, brickwork, etc) any better than the others? Also, any thoughts on whether a website would make it more streamlined?

[ANedelka]

Also, thoughts on a win-loose situation? Like 'completed after six business days or it's free'. something like that to draw in more clients. To hard to do?

[froldt]

On the paperwork-side of things... One place that I worked for had a part-time employee come in and do the paperwork, maybe 15 hours a week. The answering machine did most of the communicating (the owners were out working all day and in the afternoon when they got back to the shop/office they replied to messages, either scheduling the appointments or answering the questions). Just about all of the financials were handled by either the accountant (who was paid off with the service we provided) or by the part-time employee.
The owners themselves were able to spend an hour or two each day on "office stuff" and then 5-8 hours on labor.

Do you have common problems? If so, you could create a "Frequently Asked Questions" list. Then, even if you don't have a website, anyone in the office could answer the common questions, and you would only have to answer the hard/obscure ones.

On the win-lose offer: What is your common turn-around time? Is it normally 4 days or normally a week? If you're not pushing yourself too hard (and thus causing more stress) then I think that your suggestion is a great one.)

[badhank]

Wow! Thanks for the help. Are any of the assistant companies found in the book (ymii, brickwork, etc) any better than the others? Also, any thoughts on whether a website would make it more streamlined?

i know some things about indian outsourcing, pm me if interested

[camdengirl]

I reckon if your dad was able to do it part-time then you should be able to as well.

I'm in the UK and obviously we have different (and frankly, utterly nanny-state mentality) with part-time workers. But running my own service business and having had both part-time employees, subcontractors and associates, here's my tuppence worth:

- Get a manual - write it all down. If your dad didn't do this he was setting himself up to always be doing it. If he did, review the parts which seem to have labour intensive actions and revise them. Phones? Outsource. Marketing? Outsource. etc.
- Fire the employees. (I'm a nasty boss lady remember? :D ). The ones working for what they get paid will work harder, and if you reward them for taking more responsibility and getting new clients for you, they'll do a lot of the work for you.
- Plan. A lot of the day-to-day stuff can be outsourced but your overall vision has to be there for it to happen. I'd suggest holidays would be a good time to do this.
- Get everyone on side. A lot of people will be wondering what's going to happen with your dad gone - put in meetings, shake hands, say hello. This bit may take up a bit of time so it may be worth having a break whilst you get things sorted here. This goes for clients, suppliers and employees alike. Explain any new working practices upfront.