A question for managers and business owners

Do yourself a favor... go get the book called "the E myth revisted" by Michael Gerber. Someone on this board suggested it to me for the same thing and it's the best book I read.

That being said, I own a small business. Me, my father and 2 others (secretary and field help)

We don't stop to sell our business to clients. We are listed, have a website. Title companies will find you and add you to the list if that's the work you want.

If you have a secretary, the billing is easy if you have a good work flow system. That would be key.

The hardest part to me is the hiring/firing. Hiring is nearly impossible to find good help. I'm too nice that firing is even harder. They would need to get me so mad personally that I couldn't care less about them.

2nd hardest... employee management. It's tough with a small little place to keep the employee feeling like he's progressing and not just stagnating. When you need to do every part of the job, your so busy keeping up that you can't just stop and teach.

And then it's tough to expand bc when your so dependant in every aspect that it's hard to give up control of certain areas.

That's the toughest to me. I'm hoping to expand to a full time crew that doesn't include me or my father but it's not easy to train.

Biggest relief: My wife handles all of the paperwork and accounting, which means we don't have to worry about an employee dipping into the cash box.

Worst part, by far: Setting monuments with a total station by myself, walking back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.

There are no other drawbacks. This is the best of all possible worlds.

Daniel JD90, post: 403441, member: 9559 wrote: ... and until recently, I have long aspired to the eventual dream of owning my survey firm. My cause for skepticism is that I cannot stand the idea of having to stop production to go sell my business to clients, dealing with payroll, and hiring and firing help.....

Daniel, there is no way to candy-coat the nasty little details and sordid tasks that come with running a business. But let me say that happens with any business, not just surveying. And if you attain a position of responsible charge, you will deal with these things. You will either deal with them as an owner, or you will probably be forced to deal with a lot of it as someone's employee.

By far the largest unpleasant tasks I deal with are the non-surveying items. I would rather stick a sewing needle in my eye repeatedly than deal with taxes, insurance, bookkeeping and fiscal management. But it has to be done. And I will be honest it's a hassle and at times discouraging. But providing professional services to a community and the general public as a proprietor is far more rewarding than if I were someone's employee. I have stuck with it and am glad I did.

And there are a lot of us out here so it can't be that bad. Good luck with your journey.

I had my own business for sixteen years. As time progressed and the company grew, I found that I was doing less and less surveying and more and more managing. I love to survey but hate to manage and both areas suffered when I was spread thin. Employee management is the top of the list of unpleasant duties.

Bruce Small, post: 403455, member: 1201 wrote: Worst part, by far: Setting monuments with a total station by myself, walking back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.

Are you not using a robot? Setting monuments with a robot isn't much different than setting them with a 2-man crew.

Daniel JD90, post: 403441, member: 9559 wrote: My cause for skepticism is that I cannot stand the idea of having to stop production to go sell my business to clients, dealing with payroll, and hiring and firing help.

If you're more interested in surveying than running a business but want to be your own man than just do that: run a solo operation. You would have to do everything but it's much more streamlined. There are many field and office tools in today's world that make this much easier to do. That eliminates the last two items on your list that you don't want to do.

You will need to promote yourself in the beginning but your business should develop a life of it's own that doesn't require as much stroking to keep it vibrant.

Jim Frame, post: 403458, member: 10 wrote: Are you not using a robot? Setting monuments with a robot isn't much different than setting them with a 2-man crew.

Faster than a 2 man crew

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses! Rich, I will definitely add that to my reading list for the winter and pick it up as soon as possible. Mr. Cash, its funny that you mention the fact that managers could also face those responsibilities in a business; I addressed this to managers and simultaneously overlooked the possibility that I could face the business side of business as a project manager one day!

I've been pondering the question for a few weeks since someone said to me in conversation that hiring personnel was probably the easiest part of running a business. I imagined that would be harder than dealing with the normal office stuff. As for my own dreams, it would be at least another decade until I thought seriously about pursuing business ownership. In the meantime I knew this was a good site to find some good advice and good stories on.

Jim Frame, post: 403458, member: 10 wrote: Are you not using a robot? Setting monuments with a robot isn't much different than setting them with a 2-man crew.

Or even faster....but that's part of the problem, who wants to bring/train someone when it slows them down!

I work solo. My father uses a field guy. I'd love to stay solo bc the ease but I'm worried about if I got hurt. Repeat clients, builders etc don't want to hear that I can't survey for 8 weeks bc my foot is broken. Or bc I'm 33 years old. How long will my back and legs allow me to work solo at this pace? Hop fences etc.. I hope way long but I cannot be assured. So I feel solo is way easier but having a crew as well is insurance.

Rich., post: 403468, member: 10450 wrote: Or even faster....but that's part of the problem, who wants to bring/train someone when it slows them down!

I work solo. My father uses a field guy. I'd love to stay solo bc the ease but I'm worried about if I got hurt. Repeat clients, builders etc don't want to hear that I can't survey for 8 weeks bc my foot is broken. Or bc I'm 33 years old. How long will my back and legs allow me to work solo at this pace? Hop fences etc.. I hope way long but I cannot be assured. So I feel solo is way easier but having a crew as well is insurance.

I'm only 76 and I credit working solo for keeping me so healthy. On the other hand I made sure my phone was with me when I topoed that horrid steep ditch yesterday so I could call for help if I fell and broke my leg, but the worst thing that happened is my socks were so full of stickers we tossed them.

Bruce Small, post: 403474, member: 1201 wrote: I'm only 76 and I credit working solo for keeping me so healthy. On the other hand I made sure my phone was with me when I topoed that horrid steep ditch yesterday so I could call for help if I fell and broke my leg, but the worst thing that happened is my socks were so full of stickers we tossed them.

I have no intention to stop working solo. But like you carrying your phone, if that slip occurs and I break my foot at age 40, then I'm kinda in a bad place with clients...... we've actually picked up a few builder clients bc a solo guy in the area broke his leg a few years back.

My ideal setup would be a full time crew of 1 or 2 guys. 2 would be better for longevity reasons. If 1 quits then you have someone still up to speed. Otherwise I'm back to square one trying to train while working myself. So, one field crew and then me working solo with more flexibility about how much time I'm spending outside, inside, or what I'm working on or dealing with.

Rich., post: 403447, member: 10450 wrote: Do yourself a favor... go get the book called "the E myth revisted" by Michael Gerber. Someone on this board suggested it to me for the same thing and it's the best book I read.

That being said, I own a small business. Me, my father and 2 others (secretary and field help)

We don't stop to sell our business to clients. We are listed, have a website. Title companies will find you and add you to the list if that's the work you want.

If you have a secretary, the billing is easy if you have a good work flow system. That would be key.

The hardest part to me is the hiring/firing. Hiring is nearly impossible to find good help. I'm too nice that firing is even harder. They would need to get me so mad personally that I couldn't care less about them.

2nd hardest... employee management. It's tough with a small little place to keep the employee feeling like he's progressing and not just stagnating. When you need to do every part of the job, your so busy keeping up that you can't just stop and teach.

And then it's tough to expand bc when your so dependant in every aspect that it's hard to give up control of certain areas.

That's the toughest to me. I'm hoping to expand to a full time crew that doesn't include me or my father but it's not easy to train.

I picked up that book at the same time as you Rich, I also recommend it. Another book slightly related that may be of interest is The Richest Man in Babylon. See this thread <a href="" http://'http:/ /"Saving cash tricks'">Saving cash tricks

EVERYTHING is up to you. There are days you don't want to do any of the items on your list but there is no one else to dump any of it on. It's both a curse and a great joy at the same time. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. (Now, where did I hear that before?)

I fell a couple of days ago. On concrete. I bounced back up and kept going. Too many employees would use that as a convenient excuse to get paid to sit home and "recover" while secretly doing a long list of their personal business chores. You can't have an "employee" mindset.

For those who want to own a business as an individual, remember, there are no vacation days, sick days, bereavement days, personal days and holidays with pay. You work, you earn. You don't work, you don't earn. Continuing education classes and related travel expenses come directly out of your pocket, no one else's. Sure, you theoretically can raise your rate a bit on every job and label that for such use, but, in reality, it's still your money.

Collections are a pain. Insisting on payment in full in advance will shrink your job list tremendously in boundary surveying. Plus, you will discover too many occasions where you cheated yourself immensely. Too many clients believe the lowest estimate will produce an identical benefit to them as would going with a higher, but accurate, estimate of all functions that must happen to complete the job.

An old farmers' adage is that too many people are so busy working hard that they don't take time to make money. An employee mindset says more time working equals more dollars in your pocket. An owner mindset is that real income accrues from working as much time as possible at the highest possible rate of return and as little time as possible at grunt level wages. Quite a number of those who comment on this board started their survey experiences by working with a parent when they were youngsters receiving minimal or no direct pay. There are certain job functions that could be handled by a low-skilled worker for very little direct pay. So, that's your true wage level while doing those things. In the farming world the difference between a net gain and a net loss for a certain amount of production is highly dependent upon the skill at determining when to sell that product. Making the proper decision of selling a crop as it's coming out of the field versus paying some amount to store it for sale at a later time is far more important than most other factors combined. Performing a certain tillage task in approximately the same amount of field time with $15,000 invested in the equipment versus $150,000 invested in the equipment can make a huge difference in net annual income. But, if the $150,000 investment quadruples productivity over the $15,000 investment, that may be by far the more income-producing choice.

The other thing about operating any small business is that reality may force you to make poor decisions. If a certain client does not pay when expected and you have a certain expense due, you may be forced into finding the money in a way that costs you a ton in the long run. Employees know how much money they will have coming in by a certain date. Entrepreneurs don't have that luxury. A fairly common problem for survey firms is working for entities that have a strict payment process that results in payments only going out once per month. An internal glitch happens and your payment arrives a month later than expected. That's not too bad if it's a small sum but can be a disaster if it's a major fraction of your monthly billings.

[USER=9559]@Daniel JD90[/USER]

Don‰Ûªt mean to rain on your parade of thoughts but your statement ‰ÛÏI cannot stand the idea of having to stop production to go sell my business to clients, dealing with payroll, and hiring and firing help.‰Û Is not indicative of a proper recipe for a successful business.

Of course you can always hire personnel to deal with such nuisances.

Just sayin'. and good luck! 😎

Before I respond, a little history: I worked for several years in management of a surveying department before starting my own surveying business and running that for about 5 years. During both of those situations, I was moonlighting with web development work. By the third year of business, I was working about 50/50 between surveying and web development. In the last year, it was more like 20/80 in favor of web development. As you might imagine, web development won the race and is my primary source of income to this day, which is about 10 years since I started the web business.

With that out of the way, I can tell you from experience that the most important time for you to be marketing your business is when you are the busiest. If you run out of work and then start to market your business, it's too late for quick returns. You need to be planning and implementing marketing strategies while you are working so that you can minimize your down time.

Some people are lucky. Some people start a business and it "just works" with little to no marketing. It might be because they know all the right people, it might be word of mouth, or they just somehow hit some magical combination that pulls people in. There's definitely a phenomenon out there that some people just have a way of coincidentally hitting everything just right without even trying. Kind of like winning the lottery. Anyway, in my web development business, I work with all kinds of other businesses. Web development is a form of marketing, and a very important one these days. I can tell you from my vantage point that most businesses fail without a sincere effort to market their businesses. Many think they can hire me to put up a quick splash page and they've done all the need to do, despite my warnings to the contrary. I understand they may be on a shoestring budget, but they still need to be educated on what is truly needed to succeed. Mind you, I'm not a full-on marketing expert, but I do understand marketing in regards to websites, traffic, SEO, and technology trends. I've built many websites and I see what works and what doesn't work simply by being a part of the process.

All of the above was to solidify my point that 99% of businesses will need to spend some time and money for marketing, even if they don't like doing it. It's important. There was a time when I first started my web development work as a side business where I thought I might be able to just get people to call me simply because I had a badass website. Nope. I've been an introvert for most of my life, up until about 10 years ago. Once I decided to go out and market myself, I started to realize how important it was -- people saw me regularly and got used to me. I could walk around town and get waves from people. At first, it made me a bit uneasy because of my shyness. But I stuck with it and now it's coming to full fruition. I'm the "web guy" around town, despite the many competitors. People call me because other people they know will refer them to me even if those other people never hired me to do anything. They just know that I'm the guy they see around town and know well enough to feel comfortable telling their friends about me.

Just the other day, I got a call from the manager at our local Ace Hardware. She said she was asking her other business friends about having a website built and if they knew anyone. Her public relations person instantly told her to call Wendell. The manager of a local and popular fitness center also recommended me. So she called me and I got the job. This is only one example of many, but this is the fruits of my marketing labors.

I used to hate to go to chamber meetings and such because I felt so uncomfortable. I'm still a bit uneasy a lot of times, especially when I don't know anyone, but I go anyhow. Sometimes I volunteer to help with local organizations or causes -- I recently helped with a website for a bond measure to build a new police station here in town. It wasn't a lot of work, but I worked with the Mayor, the Mayor-elect, the police chief, the director of the Chamber, and some very prominent local people. Most of them had already heard about me, which was very encouraging! Most of the time, I have a good time and I want to attend more functions like that. My point is, give it a chance -- you might end up liking it more than you think. Plus, it's very important.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but I think marketing is a very important aspect of running a business and I hope this information will help anyone looking to start a business, whether it be surveying or anything else.

Wendell, post: 403516, member: 1 wrote:
Some people are lucky. Some people start a business and it "just works" with little to no marketing. It might be because they know all the right people, it might be word of mouth, or they just somehow hit some magical combination that pulls people in.

To me it's the area and what kind of work you want.

If it's construction work, then yes, marketing would be huge as most builders and companies already have their survey outfit or guy they use. I would assume it would be tougher to get clientele.

If it's boundary/title work, then it's a bit easier. Around me at least. Most people here just grab the phone book/Google surveyors in the area and make a few calls.

Title companies just send out their email here to the list of surveyors they have for a quote. If you were new here I would just call all the title companies and tell them your new and would love to give quotes, they would throw you on the list. Granted it's much easier to get their work if you already have many surveys in the area.

And the market in the area is everything. Here it's booming. It's been booming for years and in a few neighborhoods the economic recession did not slow down too much. Housing prices came down but houses still sold and builders still built.

So I definitely think the 'magic combination' is location.

It is obvious that I‰Ûªm outlier in how I run my business, how I do data collection, my lack of marketing per se, financial success, etc. I certainly have been blessed, but I don‰Ûªt know that luck is quite the word ‰ÛÒ more like good luck is what happens when careful planning meets opportunity.

I disagree about the ‰ÛÏwithout trying part.‰Û I laid the groundwork for years, teaching seminars for the title companies, my peers, attorneys, and anyone else who would listen. For years I went to college at night, taking classes in business, accounting, finance, law, astronomy, English, advanced math, computers, you name it. I took the Dale Carnegie class four times (a great way to learn people skills).

Then when the opportunity to go into business for myself came along, I was ready. Nothing magic about it, just lots and lots of preparation.

Bruce Small, post: 403546, member: 1201 wrote: ...Then when the opportunity to go into business for myself came along, I was ready. Nothing magic about it, just lots and lots of preparation.

Things do have a way of working out sometimes. I realized once that a good number of my clients consisted of students and EITs that had worked on my crews over the years then moved on to bigger and better things.

More than a few of them remarked at one time or another, "Are you still surveying?"

I felt good about them wanting me to consult on their projects, but it can also make you feel old sometimes...

I've worked for quite a few outfits over the years, some small, some moderately large. I really don't think any of them had a "marketing plan" that went much beyond networking. Company A is a client. Over time employees leave Company A for Company B, C, & D. When B,C & D need something, they call. If you did a good job for them when they were with Company A, that is. Or somebody at E asks for a reference from A, B, C, or D. Just stay in touch with your old contacts and clients. Or at least make it easy for them to find you. That last is what a website should do for you.