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“If it terrifies you don’t do it.”
I took the exact opposite approach. Scared to death, sold half of what I had, depleted savings and jumped in head first. Absolutely petrified the first year. When you are worried 24/7/365 you have a tendency to learn business real quick like. It’s not easy at first, but with intense perseverance you will succeed. For me, things really turned around the second year and it has been a breeze ever since for 30 years. Only regret was that I didn’t start my own business 10 years earlier. ????
When was the last time you were in the field? Are you up to date on the latest equipment?
I’d be seriously looking into the replacement costs of all those great benefits you’ve earned over 25 years.
I’d also be studying the market information like a hawk. Did you know the FED has been pumping millions of dollars into the overnight lending every day for the last few weeks??
Andy
I’ve gone around and around with this question of whether to go solo. Both my two brothers are self employed and have done very well for themselves financially, but at the end of the day you have to ask yourself, “what do I want out of life?” I’ve tested the waters and found it is no picnic competing for the type of work you propose. Personally I value being able to leave it all at the office when I go home and to have time to pursue other things that interest me. The people I know personally that are self employed may do well financially, but I often find them to be preoccupied with their work around the clock and their business has become a very significant part of their identity. Some people thrive on that, others, not so much. So the question I think is, how badly do you want it and what are you willing to sacrifice? Going solo is a tight rope walk with no safety net. Get sick or injured and fall, who besides yourself will pay?
Live to work, or work to live.
Just my ramblings. Carry on and do as you see fit. Only you know the answers.
Cheers and good luck. Willy
WillyThose of us that have done well going solo are happy to brag about it.
Those of us that have not done so well are more likely to be silent.
My first attempt at going solo was not my ideal choice. I was not happy with a move I made across the state to work for an engineering firm as the survey manager. I was there for 6 months and had to get out. It was not what they promised and turned out to be hell to be there.
I already had a total station and other equipment, so I left that company and hung out a shingle. I did ok to start out, but the 2007-2008 recession hit hard in my area and I was scrambling for work. I had already purchased a new robot and an RTK setup in anticipation of a large project kicking off. The day I took delivery of the RTK setup was the day I got the call that the project was off.
Luckily I found another Survey Manager job at another firm across the state. I worked there for 8 years and was able to rent my equipment to them. It worked well for everybody. Now I’m back in my old ‘hood for the last 5 years working for the “man”. I still have the same 14 year old equipment and have worked weekends to build up a client base. Mind you, my fees are higher than others but I have been able to deliver a survey in days vs weeks from other surveyors with multiple crews. I am more personalized in my service and may make the final leap and go completely solo next spring. I have a new/used survey chariot and I am fully insured. I am about to purchase another new RTK setup because the other is obsolete. I don’t want to work 7 days a week any more. My part time gig is suffering from the full time gig. I have to turn down work to be able to still provide a good product to my clients and deliver when I say I can.
I will not do the next leap in debt. I will have operating capital for 1 year. The 1st of the year can’t come quick enough.
Solo has been the best decision I’ve made for business.
I tried to work with a larger outfit an engineering company and a 1 crew bunch and they all were dog eat dog places and had people that could get by with wrecking equipment, vehicles and swapping wifes with that they would never ever let go and others like me could not be a minute late on an iced-over morning while any of their keepers came and went as they wanted.
After going solo, I rarely missed out on any of my sons’ baseball or whatever they were a part of because I could work around most of it.
After I came to Cass County and ran a crew for a year, there were clients that started requesting me to survey their stuff when the company I worked at had 3 crews. They followed me to where I worked next and after that and when I went solo they kept with me and told others and I’ve never ever not had a place to go and survey.
I have not been able to do every job that I was given because of scheduling conflicts.
That is the one problem of solo, it is mostly just you and maybe a helper now and then and by not having an experienced person to send one way while you can go another causes me to lose a client every year and then I am always gaining more than I lose and still can not keep up.
good luck
Heath Insurance and the 2020 election are your biggest concerns.
Just want to thank everyone for the responses.
Much to consider on both sides of the spectrum.
Great Info from you folks.
A few mentioned personal health and how it can be an unforeseen factor in the sense that…nothing is guaranteed….things can happen and Owners do not always have time to take off for health issues and ??sick days? to handle things.
A recent health concern for a life threatening (acute) condition recently landing me in the ER and subsequently…admitted for 4 days. Safe at home now….but it sticks in my brain as a reminder of the differences of the worlds of being ??employed? as it relates to being a ??business owner?. This is would be a giant move and I do not take it lightly.
Will continue to weigh the options.
THANKS TO ALL
PEACE
I am usually mister positive on these threads. But, I have to admit feeling some stress, anxiety, and depression mainly over cash flow woes right now. My wife??s mother died suddenly at 73 yo; 5 months ago. This combined with a local friendly competitor retiring a month ago, coupled with an unusually busy year has my workload backlog at an all time high of about 3 months (feels like the bubble from 10 years ago). This is stressful, because I don??t like disappointing good clients and struggling to meet self imposed deadlines that I thought were safely in the under promise over deliver timeframe.
A/R is good and healthy. I get 50% retainer fees on nearly all new jobs. I am better than the average surveyor at cash flow management. But damn if I haven??t hit a hiccup. I know it won??t last. I know everything will be a okay soon enough. I have learned these things. I can??t believe that this is still due to the daily hospital trips from March to May, now five months later. But I have to admit, this is one of those stressful anxious and depressing moments. This too shall pass.
I have had this business 20 years, and been solo mostly for 10. Have had full time jobs here and there throughout. 2006-2009 were with a wonderful fast growing outfit. I also turned down an offer last week from an old friend to join his fast growing (warning) mid size (6 crews) surveying and engineering firm.
The worst day as a solo guy is still better than any day as an employee.
Bottom line, even in tough times I am still glad to be solo.
With a 3 month backlog, I’d say it’s time to raise your billing rates. Put some cash away for the inevitable recession. You can count on one happening sooner or later. Being self-employed, you’re not eligible for unemployment compensation insurance, so you must self-insure.
This happens from time to time for me as well. It has nothing to do with billing rate. It’s all about when good clients from the past need something again. And, they all seem to need it at the same time. I could raise my rate 50 percent and have the same load. Or, I could cut in half and still have the same work load. The catch with raising it is that sooner or later someone would realize I was that far out of line compared to their alternatives. The word would spread.
Nope, I’m quite content being a bit more expensive than anyone else around, just not extremely more expensive.
MY post ON REFLECTION was originally commenced to respond to your queries with the commencing line ????.Will be knocking on half a century from graduation having started my own surveying practise in 1978.
Well I would like to raise a few points for your consideration before leaping headlong out into the unknown with some pointers gleaned from my time as proprietor of a private surveying practise.
First thing I did was to chat to a friend who ran a popular Adelaide hills restaurant and said that I would be around looking to wash the dishes if the survey work dried up. I only ever made it to his restaurant to eat and dirty his dishes!
CLIENTS
To run a successful practice you require value adding clients who require ongoing surveying. Where fee dollars charged are counted by the savings due to servicing the client.
I shall never forget the Greek developer when the interest rates in OZ were around 20% who asked me to quote on the surveying to strata title a series of units in response to giving him a price and saying the job is mine now if I dropped my fee by $200 dollars. I quickly said What is 20% of million , divided by 50 He responded with a vacant look to which I rapidly suggested 4000. Before explaining that if I gave the job my undivided attention that for every working day I would save him $800 . Go and do the bloody job ! WAS HIS RESPONSE
Today the vast majority are looking for a Rolls Royce service and product for a Mini Minor fee. Also often their surveying required as an unanticipated un-budgeted expenditure required by a third party.
The spreading of the likes of Uber offering cut rate fee for service at below cost and therefore subsidised by their hair brain investors willing to invest in schemes designed to never make a profit is a genuine concern..
TECHNOLOGY EXPLOSION
Due to the major technology revolution in measuring and recording of vast quantities of data, also with ongoing advancements in computerisation today??s surveyors are able to provide additional value adding information. With the high cost of the technology and down time required to become proficient it is going to be not profitable to stay small and earn a good income as you you need far more gear at a higher cost than when I started and could be both a boundary and engineering surveyor with just the traditional 100 metre invar band and a theodolite .
Start up capital for measuring equipment and associated software is extremely expensive today and the need to be out in the field every day on your own in a small practice means that some equipment sits idle and not earning dollars. Thought must be also given to now having state of the art equipment that requires proficiency and reliability in producing and delivering the survey. This requires today’s survey firm to have a total station , a GPS, a scanner and or drone , plus the ancillary computer hardware and software, that must all have regular use by competent reliable staff to derive an income to service the capital outlay.
I see the future requiring existing survey firms to combine to be able to provide a service to the rapidly expanding corporate sector engaged in multi million dollar infrastructure and construction projects that are impossible for the small operator to manage.
While I was extremely fortunate to ride the technological boom I see no future for the small solo firm unless opting to squabble with the bottom feeders over ever deflating fees AND endeavouring to survive with the Mini minor clients.
RADU
There’s a lot of truth in what RADU writes, but even in a future marked by high capital costs and the attendant need to grow, there will always be room for small niche businesses. A niche can consist of a specialized practice, a general practice in a concentrated area in which personal relationships play a large role, or some combination of the two.
My firm is an example of the latter. I’m located in a small city, and I think I’m currently the only private-practice land surveyor actually based here. There are plenty of other firms — some quite large — within 20 miles, and they do a lot of work in the area, but my relationships with public agency staff and my general reputation in town seem to keep work coming in the door. I also do occasional large-scale geodetic control projects that the regional multi-disciplinary firms tend to avoid due to lack of knowledge and experience. It’s a formula that has worked for almost 27 years now, and I expect it can be replicated by the right individual in the right place.
I have been solo for 3 years now. I have had help in the field a little and help on the drafting side a little in the past. I don??t like drafting. I am slow at it therefore, it causes certain parts of my anatomy pain. I have struggled to find contract draftspersons. I am currently behind in drafting and I am not looking forward to having to do it myself to catch up. There are a couple of other aspects of being solo that I don??t care for either. My personal life has taken a major hit due to my solo career. My project car and trucks have been languishing away in storage and I used to go fishing several times a month. My boat has been on the lake three times this year. I hope to find a work flow that agrees with me one of these days or I might have to go back to working for the man so I can leave the job behind when the whistle blows at quitin time.
Much like Darryl, I am not a draftsman. Yes, I draft, but I do not enjoy it nor am I extremely proficient at it, despite over 40 years of practice. Updated (corporate ripoff) software makes the irritation greater each update. But, I am the guy who has to do it. There is no IT guy to turn to in the next room for assistance.
Lugging 50 pounds or more of gear all over creation gets less fun as the years go by. Especially as those little aches and pains that come with decades of use increase.
Being triply cautious about climbing gates and going through fences and descending/ascending steep slopes is essential but time consuming. The alternative might be reminiscent of those commercials that scream out “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” When would you get help if you really needed it and who would that help be? Working on a busy construction site is completely out of my thoughts at this stage of life if doing so without at least one helper to provide another set of eyes and ears for evermoving hazards.
Lucrative (well-paying) big jobs may not be workable because you are the only one to do everything that is required. Their time constraints may not match your time availability, especially if you want to go fishing more than three times per year. I can remember a possible job from 30 years ago that I lost out on because I needed roughly one week from the time they said to do it and the time when I would be able to complete all deliverables. A mega survey company said they could do it all in two days. They got the job. It still took six days, but, their lie won them the job.
@jim-frame. Your business practice model was established with a similar passionate desire to mine. To first see and then be able to succeed in the pursuit of a niche at the changing of of the the traditional survey firm guard of operations. Literally abandoning the long held traditional practice of theodolite and chain with the advent of technology changes that has now exploded, causing many to fall by the way side.
Now resulting in the phenomenal growth here in small operators due to both the economy and staff layoffs of personnel. Who are left with no other option of putting up a shingle and trying their luck as a small time survey business operator. That is now an expensive option doomed to fail, unless a group of like minded experienced surveyors in the emerging fields of surveying measurement combine to supply value adding information and profitably compete to gain large projects.
I also fear with the advent of push button menu technology that here in OS that the days of are numbered for the traditional Licensed Surveyor as our sacred Torrens title operation in the Lands title Office has now been now privately commercialised! ( A subtle difference in Licensing an OZ surveyor radically differs with the US system WHERE YOU NEED A SURVEYING LICENSE TO CARRY OUT A SURVEY THAT INVOLVES THE DETERMINATION AND RELATIVE ASSOCIATION TO A BOUNDARY. Where as here in OZ any one can produce for example a contour plan with out defining the boundaries,yet reproduce plan showing boundary data and survey pegs found with out checking their validity. Or with coordinate systems now in place establish from coordinated control set out works from electronics CAD design So am expecting the US title insurers to soon lobby our politicians that we now do not need a university degree to follow push button menus to gain and produce the measurement data for boundary surveys. Any emerging costly problems rectified and paid for by the insurance policy as the alternative practical economical solution, rather that the individual(s) being now financially responsible to rectify an erroneous boundary problem.
RADU
My late father-in-law had pastures with very steep slopes. He routinely fed large round bales that had the twine/netting removed before he released them from high spots so they would unroll into nice swaths of feed. From time to time he would get the bale reversed such that it did not unroll upon release. I witnessed several cattle experience something similar to Radar’s video. The bale would remain nearly intact when it finally came to a stop near the bottom of the hill. Those bales are much like a traditional cinnamon roll. They only unwind in one direction.
Those round bales have presented a problem for me many times. For some reason, ranchers tend to put their round bales at a corner of their property and leave little space to work between them and where their monuments either are or where they should be and it is very difficult to get the rancher to understand that a couple of bales in the back corner of many need to be moved to look or set their monuments or really the common corner between them and their neighbor. I have actually set temporary monuments (6ft long with half of it in the bale and flagged very well so the rancher will notice and remember) in the top of a bale of hay and have the rancher call me when he had moved that bale so I could return and set it properly.
They can be difficult to see over when they are at the crest of a hill or at a terrace at the break in the ground.
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