For those of you who've started your own business, what advice do you have? What did you think was important but turned out not to be, and vice versa? What did or didn't you spend money on that you would have done differently? I'm in the early phases of deciding of planning and trying to figure out if it would be worth it. I'm currently licensed and plan on running solo until I can secure enough clientele to hire accordingly. End goal is to have a small "mom and pop" shop who treats their employees well.
Thanks.
About 20 years ago, I started a land surveying business in Oregon. Prior to that, I had been working as a land surveyor (since 1986) but also spent some evenings and weekends buying surplus government computers, refurbishing them, and reselling them. During that process, I had often stumbled upon surplus surveying instruments and was tempted to buy them. So, when I started my business, I went and found a Geodimeter 444 and all the goodies for a ridiculously cheap price. It was great because it was a pallet full of stuff -- prisms, poles, tribrachs, tripods, about 99% of what I needed. All it needed was to have the batteries recelled (Batteries Plus did a great job) and a tune-up.
I realize that may have been a lucky find, but it might be worth looking into in your local area. It's a good way to get the ball rolling. Once you have a few projects under your belt, you could upgrade (or not!). I never got the opportunity because I also started a web design business at the same time, and it took off like a rocket after a few months.
One thing that really helped me get the business off the ground was joining a couple local chambers of commerce. I attended weekly meetings where I could announce who I am and what I do. After a few weeks, I started getting inquiries, some of which turned into projects. They were small, but that's all I could handle at first with my old equipment. Gotta start somewhere!
I started my own business out of necessity when the market crashed in 2008. The biggest upfront demand that I faced was start up cash. I used what was left of my 401K money (not advisable to do) because I needed everything to equip a crew. The IRS spanked me hard for that!
Over the years of managing projects, I kept a personal list of client contacts and contact information for real estate, contractor and builders. The first thing that I did was reach out to them all to see if they would be interested in tossing some work my way and the feedback was positive. From there, I bought a new Leica TS 02, Carlson DC, prism kit, home high end desktop, a laptop, Carlson software and ACAD. I also bought a $1 million E & O policy through an insurance agent I knew and he got me great rates. My family room was my devoted office space and my supplies were kept in my garage.
I drew my staff from a pool of laid off surveyors that I had worked with in the past and subbed my drafting to freelance drafters that I had worked with. Everybody was 1099 and I paid them well enough to cover there own taxes and still be well paid.
In the beginning, cash flow is the biggest problem. I already had a Dodge Ram for the crew to work from but had to register it commercial and get commercial auto insurance, along with getting it lettered with my logo added.
In my younger years of management, the engineering company that I was working for was struggling and their bank brought in people to teach us different marketing skills. That became very useful to me down the road.
When I was not calculating stakeout or resolving boundaries, I spent my time marketing by attending networking group meetings, visiting clients and I sponsored some local sports teams. Do as much of that as you can and when you turn a profit, no matter how little, give back to local community groups, these things are crucial to growth, you need to get your name out there as brand recognition is the biggest part of marketing, equally important is networking and face to face interactions.
The first year was just OK, I made decent money and was able to pay myself better than I was paid before being laid off. After the first year, things got much better and I added another crew and drafter, while still doing all of the calc work and boundary resolutions. By the time the third year hit, I had to add a third crew because I ran into one of my former mentors who was working for a major land speculator and he ended up tossing me all of their title surveys and construction stake out work. I was making great money, everybody got paid well and I was able to hand out bonuses.
The success sounds like a rosy story, until I ended in front of the computer or on the phone at least 12 hours a day, processing payroll, writing proposals, calculating, keeping up on supplies and more. By the end of the fifth year, I was burned out and longing for a 9 to 5 job again so I sold the business and my records for a considerable profit to take a job running a survey department before the job I took 9 years ago creating a survey department that is now up to seven crews with full support from staff that takes most of the weight off of my back.
My point in writing this book is that you should prepare yourself, especially going solo, to face a lot of start up expenses and make sure that you have sufficient cash reserves for the slow times. Get out there and get involved in networking and shaking hands but manage your growth wisely, I did not do that and missed out on a lot of family life experiences and travel. Find somebody to keep your books and cut paychecks, and, when settlements and slow pays pop up, be ready to not pay yourself until your business gets paid.
First, I suggest that you read the book The EMyth Revisited. In a nutshell, it says that you shouldn't start a business unless you have a really burning desire to do so, because running a business is a lot more work than you may imagine -and if you can't get help to do things the way you want them done you can never take a break.
Second, my son, who is also a surveyor, runs his own business. He is frustrated with the near impossibility of hiring any help these days. This goes for businesses of all sizes but especially to a startup.
Start by yourself from nothing with no clients and eat pork and beans for 10 years.
Find a surveyor near retirement with established business, repeat clients, equipment etc. Eat pork and beans for three or four years till you buy him out.
I have started and been partners with a few different businesses over my career. None was directly a Land Surveying business. But 1st go buy a few notebooks and pen pencils highlighters. All the info suggestions you get here from others or read etc. start making list. Also equipment make list of what you want your dream equipment. Then make list of what your must have equipment is the necessities. As others have said. Build a nest egg. This is needed one for a fail safe for your personal life. Make sure that is taken care of. 2nd one for the business. Start a list of the type of work you want to perform. Make another of those clients that you think will give you work when you start those relationships. Match and prioritize all list. Start brainstorming on what you want the clients to know about you and or your business name. You have to know what you are before you can begin branding yourself and the business. a good short one liner. That you can begin leaving as a seeds with potential clients and employees. This takes some time and lots of notebook paper. This will evolve as you prep the finances accounts personally and business wise. Again like mentioned above. Eat pork n beans. Be frugal now. After a while could be a long weekend or months of late nights you will eventually have a pretty good idea as you mark through highlight and draft and redraft all these ideas and terms. Gather cost on all dream equipment and necessity equipment the bare minimum. Also things in between. Make a log beside these as you save up. Someone once said something like. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Like mentioned above about the pallet of equipment. You have some money set aside. Then maybe just maybe you get lucky and you being prepared meets an opportunity. Maybe a company gets bought out with your dream equipment and they use different equipment so bam that person calls and said hey you want this. I seen this happen a few times in my career. A small company had brand new gear less than a year old. A medium sized company used a totally different brand. Well a friend got one heck of a deal. I mean amazing deal. Prepare now. Once you have a name a branding idea . Start using it meet talk to friends strangers and try and always leave that tie bit with them. You might be surprised who is on the other side of a gas pump and you just say hello hope you have a good day. Small talk. That 1 out of a 100 might get you a phone call that could change everything. Getting involved in your community is always a good thing. Now I have seen people just go for broke and start and succeed and I have seen them go bust. The same for those who prepare. The odds are higher for those who prepared to be successful. Know your self. Are you self motivated self disciplined. Or do you need someone to kick you in the rump to get you going. Reach out to your old mentors. Both life and surveying. Find some mentors that you can trust that have ran successfull businesses that you can bend their ear. Not everything they did will match perfectly with what you will do. But you will find some basic principles basic foundations that can help you through the long nights and days ahead. Those things that they thought would drown them but they made it through. And don’t be afraid to fail. You can do it.
Make sure you understand the market in your area. If most of the available work is mom-and-pop lot surveys and the competition is doing those for peanuts, it may not be possible to launch and maintain a successful business. There has to be enough money flowing around the area to accommodate another entrant.
Know what kind of business model you want to end up with. As Chris pointed out, growth by itself doesn't guarantee success. I've known more than one surveyor who told me that they built a business that churned out tons of work, but most of the money went right back out the door in payroll and overhead. They were working long hours with lots of administrative headaches but only making so-so money.
I started my business for all the wrong reasons, but I knew one thing from the start: my personality isn't a good fit for heading up a large operation. I wanted to survey, not manage people. So I started small and stayed small, and in 2016 I went completely 1-man. Instead of growth I opted for steadily upgrading my clientele, gradually shifting away from taking any client to only taking those who recognize that quality is worth more than low cost. Most of my clients now are public agencies and insurance company attorneys. I still have a couple of small developer clients, but I only do their front-end work (boundary and topo), I leave the construction staking to others. And I still take on the one-off boundary jobs as long as the client is willing to pay my fee. While I keep my nominal hourly rates generally competitive, I don't deliberately compete on price, which means a lot of my proposals never become jobs. And that's fine with me.
#1 Being a good surveyor and operating a successful business are unrelated tasks. I've seen too many excellent engineering and/or surveying companies close their doors because they didn't know how to run a business. My first degree was in accounting and all those accounting/marketing/economics/finance classes made all the difference. So, ask yourself if you are qualified to run a company.
#2 I delayed for years starting my own business because I listened to the naysayers who think you will be dining on beans. I made more money in the first year than I had ever made working for someone else, and it was way up from there. I've never looked back.
#3 Don't assume solo is good and multiple survey crews are better. Multiple survey crews = inefficiency, far more headaches, and much higher expenses.
#4 Home office, home office, home office. Solo, solo, solo.
You may not agree with everything but important to see that puddling away on hourly rates may be a satisfactory existence but not necessarily a profitable business.
Another question I'd like to throw out there for the guys who have started a business is how old would you have to be to say it's too old to start a survey business?
I was 59 when I started my company.
I would advise getting a good accountant. It doesn't have to be expensive, but every penny needs to be tracked and "accounted" for.
It's time consuming if you don't have a good set-up, you can waste billable hours, or you may fill up your weekends doing nothing else.
I use a combination of Quick books and an invoicing program that you probably don't want; you might look into NetSuite. QuickBooks is mine from way back. Whatever you do make sure the accountant gets updates during the year, then year-end taxes are easy.
This is the end of the month, today we will run a program that reconciles everything and closes the books for the month, if it's off a penny we will have to find it. Normally, it works and it's a few minutes time.
we will run a program that reconciles everything and closes the books for the month, if it's off a penny we will have to find it.
Then there's me, who hasn't balanced the company checkbook in at least 10 years.
Here is a shortlist of advice I wrote for a presentation to the Young Surveyors Association a couple of years ago.
Don’t quit learning
Don’t be afraid to take on new challenges
Don’t be afraid to say no to work you are not ready for due to experience or lack of time and assistants
Protect your turf by being the best you can be, not by holding others back
Don’t fail to be a mentor to others
Support the profession by participation in PLSC/NSPS and other civic organizations
Establish relationships with fellow surveyors even though they may be your competitors
Stay abreast of technology
Carry insurance to protect your clients and your sleep
Take time occasionally to appreciate the beauty of the job site
Learn from your mistakes, they are powerful lessons
Better yet, learn from other’s mistakes!
Make your plat a record of not only what you did but why you did it
EVERY BOUNDARY LINE HAS TWO OWNERS
Only two owners?
Coming at this from a slightly different perspective, one piece of advice I've found invaluable is to get organized right from the start. While it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of owning a new business and acquiring new equipment, establishing a streamlined system early on can save you countless headaches later. If you've worked for other companies, take the time to analyze what worked—and what didn’t—in managing projects and business operations. Identify the workflows that made a difference and find software that aligns with those processes. Trust me, the time you invest now in setting up and refining your system will pay off when it comes time to grow and keep your business running smoothly.
Incorporate, find a good accountant, set up a good filing system and keep your equipment and software in the same toolbox.
A business card and your name on the side of your truck is some of the cheapest advertisement you can get.
Next month will be nine years in business for myself. The technology really makes it possible to be a profitable solo surveyor. I have used an accountant for our taxes as we itemize everything. I started with no debt, worked from home, drove our very used family SUV as my work vehicle. With no employees and no debt, I was able to keep our operating costs low. This really took the pressure off while the work was intermittent in those early days. As the business grew, I was able to get more insurance (required by the more lucrative work I was getting), and pay cash for new equipment that grew my capabilities. Initially I was brutally honest with myself on what actually made my business better and what was vanity (nice office, new vehicle, etc.)
It should be noted that I'm not entirely solo, my wife helps with invoicing, taxes (Texas requires us to collect sales tax), and some client interactions. It's nice to have a little bit of help, and of course I don't have to worry about embezzlement. I would be more concerned with checks and balances on the accounting side of things if I had to rely on hired help for these things.
A really capable RTK system made me really effective. There was a significant change in performance about 4-5 years ago when manufacturers really made a significant jump in multi-constellation signals. There is nothing wrong with getting used equipment, but I would try to keep it to less than 3 years old for RTK gear. I agree with those above regarding growth. I keep thinking I want to hire someone, start growing the company, but I have known people who had two or three crews and they quit surveying and seldom netted more money. The gross grew, but their personal take-home was not better with more stress to boot. I like surveying. My hands have touched every stake I've ever set, and I've done the research and made the calculations on every boundary I've ever determined. I'm the one digging and so I determine if the search was sufficiently diligent. It's not that I'm infallible, but I own the mistakes I've made and not the mistakes of others. I didn't get into surveying to become a business manager, I did it to survey.
Lastly, charge what you are worth, unapologetically.