Retirement Options for Solo Surveyors

Great post. Looking forward to this discussion.

My plan:

First,

Then, SWMBO has an auction and gets next to nothing for a bunch of obsolete equpment that I paid a lot of dough for.

OR, if I could only find the RIGHT young

I might just be able to get a couple of years mostly to myself, and he'd be welcome to the shop.

Retirement options in general

http://bfy.tw/Chbt

I tell people my first day of retirement will be about three days prior to my funeral.

"ditto"

Holy Cow, post: 435659, member: 50 wrote: I tell people my first day of retirement will be about three days prior to my funeral.

Why would you want to waste those three days?

It's not up to me. It's up to those who have to arrange things for the funeral and round up the farflung relatives and the creditors who want to make absolutely certain that I am deceased.

I've read others say they plan on working till noon on the day of their funeral. Sounds about right.

To the OP, I think Sergeant Schultz is on to something, if you can hold out long enough, find a young guy to mentor who's got the right stuff and map out an agreeable transfer.

I'm solo but I have a few years before I hit retirement age. I do think surveyors sometimes think more highly of their assets when getting ready to sell out. Most valuable part of our business, in my opinion, is the phone number and a good reputation. Records, if easily retrieved are good. Equipment is pennies on the dollar and probably a liability instead of an asset in most cases because a guy getting ready to retire typically hasn't been out blowing capital on the nicest new equipment.

I have gone down the path for buying up two solo operations. One of them was in business since 1977 the other since 1984. Both had excellent reputations.

The first guy (1984) approached me asking if I was interested as he was looking to retire. Took a little while to figure our out the indexing system but that purchase paid for itself the first year. I was already running a solo operation, and as Shawn said it was worth it just for a phone number that had existed for 30+ years..

The second solo operator (1977) I had worked for in college and was more of a mentor. He passed away unexpectedly but I had always kept in touch with his widow. I purchased this for about a quarter of the first 2 years after his passing. No phone number though...

Over the course of the last three years I've probably had to invest $50K in equipment upgrades... both businesses had not reinvested back into their operation in a long time as they neared retirement. When clients call it can be a little difficult explaining that you were not the original surveyor and that I can't just go out and pound in the corners.

I now have a guy who works part time when I need help with a bigger boundary other then that I used the robot.

There are a few other solo operators around and I have no problem sharing info with them, there is also a 30+ age difference between us and I have made it clear that when they want to retire they should call me.

are you wanting to walk away with a clean break or are you willing to ease into it?

i ask as i'm in the middle of talking to a guy here about taking over his operation (which is not solo, btw), and agree with lots of what has been said re: where value lies. the way i see it, i'm mainly buying a phone number and a client list. based on the numbers of the business for the last 4-5 years, somewhere in the ballpark of 75% of his work is update work on previous jobs. that, to me, is where my money is being spent. that and the two party chiefs who i know personally and who've been with him for 20+ years. i can- without much effort- bring in a lot of new work that he has never had access to, due somewhat to personal connections and otherwise to a business model that didn't include too much of that kind of work.

that said, moving forward it is clear what the major expenses and hurdles will be. again like mentioned above, i will need to outlay for some technology and equipment, and also for the time spent bringing the small staff up to speed on how we will do things. but it's nothing major- and i can easily make do as-is in the short term while those updates are implemented incrementally.

all that said- here's the general terms of how we're doing it: i'm not giving him any cash. he thinks it's worth 10x what it is, but also understands it's worth virtually nothing in terms of physical assets. so, basically, he's going to get a pension. for the cost of one small/medium (commercial - thanks, [USER=703]@Tommy Young[/USER] ) land title survey a month, he will get a check every month until he dies. which... not to be too morose or anything- is likely not far enough off where it would ever render this a bad deal on my end. even if that is 10 years from now i'm getting the current assets somewhere in the ballpark of 50 cents on the dollar. in return, he's agreed to a reduced, safety-valve type role going forward. initially doing all the glad-handing and transitional personal stuff with clients, and moving in the long-term to the occasional cover job when i can manage to get a vacation.

i guess my only point here is to illustrate another option. obviously it's no good if you just want to walk away and not look back.

flyin solo, post: 435752, member: 8089 wrote: for the cost of one small/medium land title survey a month, he will get a check every month until he dies. .

[SARCASM]You're getting a business for $400 a month? Sweet deal![/SARCASM]

Tommy Young, post: 435755, member: 703 wrote: [SARCASM]You're getting a business for $400 a month? Sweet deal![/SARCASM]

i edited it for your benefit. 😉

flyin solo, post: 435752, member: 8089 wrote: , he will get a check every month until he dies.

I've seen this a hundred times on Dateline... the poor guy has some unexplained mishap that takes his life and the next thing you know - Keith Morrison is slowly saying... so Mr. Solo, if I were you I'd have every reason to want him dead - did you want to see him dead?

JKinAK, post: 435852, member: 7219 wrote: I've seen this a hundred times on Dateline... the poor guy has some unexplained mishap that takes his life and the next thing you know - Keith Morrison is slowly saying... so Mr. Solo, if I were you I'd have every reason to want him dead - did you want to see him dead?

I'll just say I've talked my way out of more plausible scenarios than this. 😉

Really, though- I think everyone will be happy in the end. It's an opportunity for me to (hopefully) do right by somebody who- indirectly- contributed to me being in the position to continue keeping his small tribe of good... land surveying business employees... busy after he has decided he's done.

When I retire, I am going into the logging business.
Cut one load a week of my own timber and haul it to a local sawmill on a gooseneck trailer.
James

I intend to work as long as I can and still enjoy it, then shut her down. Just walk away.

I know two surveyors who retired: 1 went into real estate then politics. the other walked away, bought a a hardware store, worked his butt off for 25 years, THEN retired.

I'll know its time to retire when they have to rip that pole out of my cold, stiff fingers!

c'mon, we all know that surveyors only TRY to retire - but never do. "I'm taking less work these days, just the easy stuff, blah blah blah".