I am sure that many of you that are in small business or are looking to start a small business believe that there are the individuals out there that are already in business that are going to help you. Let me give you some examples of how this can blow up in your face. These individuals hold your future in there hands. I had two situations where this has happened to me. I worked at a local paper mill as i worked my way through college. I was paid peanuts and worked my ass off for these people. One summer another guy and me were given the job of clearing their power line. It took us the entire summer and the work was tough. I worked for 7.50 an hour. Now in business for myself (excavation) this same paper mill is looking to get another portion of their line cleared. It was going to consist of one mile. I gave a bid of 24,000 dollars for this portion of line. They came back with this is to expensive they were not going to have it done. I then submitted another bid at 10,700 dollars and said i could do it for this price if they would hold me to cutting it all at one time. (complete it when i have time) no response. These are the same guys that bring in another company that is in the are that is known to be run by one of the biggest drug heads around. He employs people with his same habits and yet this paper mill still brings him in to complete their dig work. It doesn't make sense to me.
The second instance i can give you is guy i know that has called me several times looking to buy ground. He claims he is a big developer and wants us to complete work for him. He seems nice enough (old man) and wants us to look at a few jobs. Every time i try to set up a meeting with the individual he has blown me off. He might just be big talker with big dreams like me but at least i am chasing them.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Family wants free
Why is it that everyone who is part of your family thinks you should provide your service for free. I can promise that most of you that have or are starting a new small business experience the same situations. Family feels that if they are looking to get something done that consists of the line of work that you are in they should have the right to use your services for nothing. This is all fine a dandy but i have bills that are coming in that are not going to get paid unless we are making a little bit of money. We hauls two loads of stone to my brother in laws house yesterday and my father came back and said he felt bad charging them so he just charged them for the loads of stone and that was it. That is great if you are a millionaire. He put seventy dollars in fuel to haul the stone.
We also spent some money we did not have to purchase a sign that will give us some advertisement. We had to set 6by6 post twenty foot long in the ground to support the post. It was a hell of a job. We work on it for about four hours and when we step back from the post we learn that they are not square to the road. There always seems to be those times when nothing is going your way.
We also spent some money we did not have to purchase a sign that will give us some advertisement. We had to set 6by6 post twenty foot long in the ground to support the post. It was a hell of a job. We work on it for about four hours and when we step back from the post we learn that they are not square to the road. There always seems to be those times when nothing is going your way.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Think it is so Easy
Why is it that people in the business forget how hard it is to get started. I just got done talking with a guy who has a construction company (Building Homes) and he just bought a 70,000 dollar excavator. His comment to me is you go out and just buy the the stuff you need. I think he forgets what it was like to no have money in the bank. Don't you love people like that. The ones that forget how hard it is to get going. The ones that have the money (or business) given to them and do not see the struggles that most of go through to get something started. I hate the ones that could help me out the most but chose not not.
Some of the things that i find most annoying are the people that we call friends that will tell you to your face they hope you make it but you know that they are hope more than anything that you fail so they can tell you i told you so. There are so many of these people. These are friends. The ones that tell you that it is not easy starting an excavation business or the ones that give you advise how others failed trying the same thing. I guess there are those days when i wish we landed that one job or was presented that one opportunity to put me in the category of "Just go out and Buy it" but then i would have the character i have now and the work ethic that it takes to get to the top.
Some of the things that i find most annoying are the people that we call friends that will tell you to your face they hope you make it but you know that they are hope more than anything that you fail so they can tell you i told you so. There are so many of these people. These are friends. The ones that tell you that it is not easy starting an excavation business or the ones that give you advise how others failed trying the same thing. I guess there are those days when i wish we landed that one job or was presented that one opportunity to put me in the category of "Just go out and Buy it" but then i would have the character i have now and the work ethic that it takes to get to the top.
Not easy
The construction season has begun in Central PA and Gillam Constructions phone is not ringing off the hook. We have had the opportunity to bid two jobs this spring and we were underbid on both of them.. The one job that we were underbid on the individual wanted a mountain moved and we said we could do it for 5,000 dollars. When i say a mountain i mean a mountain. He explained all he wanted and i thought for sure we would be the winning bidder. In the next couple of days i ran into this individual and he proceeds to tell me that he received a bid from another local excavator for 1,600 dollars. There is no way. How in the world can this guy move that amount of dirt for that price. He also said he was going to do it two days. Impossible!! If i have to face people like this there is no way i will be able to make this work. This guy might be giving the person a low initial price to seal the deal but then slap them with a higher bill at the end. Not good business in the long run but he will always sucker people in with the initial low bid. I tried to explain this to the property owner but he like that initial low number. What do you do. This year is shaping up to be a tough one.
So Hard to get Started Day One
Well, this is my first day becoming a new blogger and i thought i would start this blog for all you new business owners out there. I own an excavation company Gillam Construction. New last summer (2006). We are a family owned and operated excavation company. My grandfather was in the excavation business in the 70's and 80's and did very well. He was pushed out of business because he is dug the local reservoir and was never paid by our town. He ruined a great deal of his equipment and could not recover.
I initially started the business with my cousin. He is a smart person and has great knowledge of the engineering aspect of in this line of work. He knew first hand the money that was there for the taking in the sewer and water end of excavation (municipal). I am a school teacher and definitely do not make enough money to raise a family and provide all the things one wants to provide for their children and family. So the stage was set. My cousin and i were going to start Gillam Construction (mothers maiden name) and we were going to go big. In the weeks an months to follow we created a business plan and had it approved by the local business development center. Then my cousins boss (engineering firm) wanted in on the deal. This was great. Now we had a person that had loads of money and tons of connections. All he had to do is break it to the other owners of his engineering firm. This did not go well. He received a good tongue lashing and that was the end of that. He could not be part of Gillam Construction because the other owners thought his first responsibility is their firm. Now after my cousins boss was out as fast as he was in he was going to make life hard for my cousin. He turned around and made him sign a non compete agreement. This would not let us bid anything out of his office and this was a devastating blow. Their engineering firm had almost our entire county rapped up (municipalities). My cousin was out and that left me. I had to do something. I have spent so much time preparing for this to have it slip away because of someone elses misfortune or other commitments was not going to hold me down. I have a son and another child on the way i had to make this work. I approached my father and asked him if he was willing to become a partner with me in this venture. He was thrilled. (he initially was going to work for us) He hates his job and loves excavation. My brother is our other employee.
We scraped together 50,000 (line of credit) and went looking for some newer equipment. My family had old stuff but needed updated badly. We purchased backhoe and a truck in Ohio. This was a state away from us (Pennsylvania) but the deal was to good to pass up. Now we were ready to take on the world. My younger brother had gone to school for heavy equipment operation and he is good. He has had problems getting a job out of college because he is a diabetic and know one wants to hire him. They claim this is not suppose to be a factor but it clearly is.
So now it is time to let people know we are out there and can complete work for them. With money not being something that we had much of it was not going to be easy advertising our services. I ran a few ads in the local papers and in some bargain sheets. I then took it upon myself to contact other companies and business that were in the home building and excavation business that could give us work. So i started. I sent out letters after letters to these companies asking them to try our services. I received some positive feedback and wish full responses from some of the companies and builders saying they would give us a shot. I have yet to receive a call form any of these companies . I am talking hundreds of letters. I guaranteed our work along with beating everyone elses price. Still no response.
I said i was a teacher so i had some access to printers and copiers. So after hours i would take our business card and go tot he copy machine and blow it up and ran thousands of copies. I would place a flier in everyones mailbox i could find. Well i find out quickly that you are not allowed to open up peoples mailboxes. So now i would place a flier in everyones paper box i could find. My father and i took a day and drove all around our area and every newspaper box we found i placed a flyer in it. It worked! we received our first job this way. A guy called and said he wanted to put up a garage but had a lot of dirt that needed moved first. i looked at the job and came back with a price of 3,600 dollars. This was for the stone and pipe that was required to get him off the road. We made our first deal. We started digging and everything went pretty smooth. We completed the job in the allotted time that thought and finally had some money in the bank to start to pay the bills. After this job there was nothing. We did a few things around the neighborhood (moving sheds and hauling a few loads of stone but nothing major) Things were not looking good. I had a brother that was relying on me to put work in front of him and it was not happening. I was lucky enough to have a father in law that was in the construction business that struck a great deal in State College for an apartment management company and completed all their maintenance work. My brother was able to work with him when we did not have anything going.
At the end of the year we struck our first big deal. We landed a house. We had to complete all the excavation for the house. It was not going to be easy. The property owner needed a sand mound which we never completed before (not telling him this) and he was starting the house after Thanksgiving. This was not good because we were in a race with the weather. i am now back in school teaching and my father is still holding onto his full time job because we were not that busy so that left my brother. We managed to have everything ready for them by the time snow was flying and we would have to come back in the spring to finish it. This was a 22,000 dollar job and it was going to help out. He had a great deal rapped up in materials but we were going to make a little bit with this. Now we had two jobs all summer and i was wondering if this was going to be worth all the time and headache i had into this whole operation. I have all these bills and did not have that many jobs. We were sweating it.
That brings us to this year. We finished up that job that was started last winter and we managed to do everything correctly (sand mound) and were paid for all our services.
That brings us up to date on our first year (not a good one)
I initially started the business with my cousin. He is a smart person and has great knowledge of the engineering aspect of in this line of work. He knew first hand the money that was there for the taking in the sewer and water end of excavation (municipal). I am a school teacher and definitely do not make enough money to raise a family and provide all the things one wants to provide for their children and family. So the stage was set. My cousin and i were going to start Gillam Construction (mothers maiden name) and we were going to go big. In the weeks an months to follow we created a business plan and had it approved by the local business development center. Then my cousins boss (engineering firm) wanted in on the deal. This was great. Now we had a person that had loads of money and tons of connections. All he had to do is break it to the other owners of his engineering firm. This did not go well. He received a good tongue lashing and that was the end of that. He could not be part of Gillam Construction because the other owners thought his first responsibility is their firm. Now after my cousins boss was out as fast as he was in he was going to make life hard for my cousin. He turned around and made him sign a non compete agreement. This would not let us bid anything out of his office and this was a devastating blow. Their engineering firm had almost our entire county rapped up (municipalities). My cousin was out and that left me. I had to do something. I have spent so much time preparing for this to have it slip away because of someone elses misfortune or other commitments was not going to hold me down. I have a son and another child on the way i had to make this work. I approached my father and asked him if he was willing to become a partner with me in this venture. He was thrilled. (he initially was going to work for us) He hates his job and loves excavation. My brother is our other employee.
We scraped together 50,000 (line of credit) and went looking for some newer equipment. My family had old stuff but needed updated badly. We purchased backhoe and a truck in Ohio. This was a state away from us (Pennsylvania) but the deal was to good to pass up. Now we were ready to take on the world. My younger brother had gone to school for heavy equipment operation and he is good. He has had problems getting a job out of college because he is a diabetic and know one wants to hire him. They claim this is not suppose to be a factor but it clearly is.
So now it is time to let people know we are out there and can complete work for them. With money not being something that we had much of it was not going to be easy advertising our services. I ran a few ads in the local papers and in some bargain sheets. I then took it upon myself to contact other companies and business that were in the home building and excavation business that could give us work. So i started. I sent out letters after letters to these companies asking them to try our services. I received some positive feedback and wish full responses from some of the companies and builders saying they would give us a shot. I have yet to receive a call form any of these companies . I am talking hundreds of letters. I guaranteed our work along with beating everyone elses price. Still no response.
I said i was a teacher so i had some access to printers and copiers. So after hours i would take our business card and go tot he copy machine and blow it up and ran thousands of copies. I would place a flier in everyones mailbox i could find. Well i find out quickly that you are not allowed to open up peoples mailboxes. So now i would place a flier in everyones paper box i could find. My father and i took a day and drove all around our area and every newspaper box we found i placed a flyer in it. It worked! we received our first job this way. A guy called and said he wanted to put up a garage but had a lot of dirt that needed moved first. i looked at the job and came back with a price of 3,600 dollars. This was for the stone and pipe that was required to get him off the road. We made our first deal. We started digging and everything went pretty smooth. We completed the job in the allotted time that thought and finally had some money in the bank to start to pay the bills. After this job there was nothing. We did a few things around the neighborhood (moving sheds and hauling a few loads of stone but nothing major) Things were not looking good. I had a brother that was relying on me to put work in front of him and it was not happening. I was lucky enough to have a father in law that was in the construction business that struck a great deal in State College for an apartment management company and completed all their maintenance work. My brother was able to work with him when we did not have anything going.
At the end of the year we struck our first big deal. We landed a house. We had to complete all the excavation for the house. It was not going to be easy. The property owner needed a sand mound which we never completed before (not telling him this) and he was starting the house after Thanksgiving. This was not good because we were in a race with the weather. i am now back in school teaching and my father is still holding onto his full time job because we were not that busy so that left my brother. We managed to have everything ready for them by the time snow was flying and we would have to come back in the spring to finish it. This was a 22,000 dollar job and it was going to help out. He had a great deal rapped up in materials but we were going to make a little bit with this. Now we had two jobs all summer and i was wondering if this was going to be worth all the time and headache i had into this whole operation. I have all these bills and did not have that many jobs. We were sweating it.
That brings us to this year. We finished up that job that was started last winter and we managed to do everything correctly (sand mound) and were paid for all our services.
That brings us up to date on our first year (not a good one)
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