Hardest Thing In Business

woodmagman

Reading some of the post regarding customers and income, the shortages of work, payroll, finding good employees and all that goes with business. I think the thing that creates the most worry, "is how am I going to complete this job on time" and "when do I start turning down work?"
Everything else stems from these two things.
What do you think?

Tiger

My stresses are....

Getting paid (Receivables)
Getting calls (Marketing)
Getting materials (Suppliers)
Getting profit (Checking if the completed job was profitable)

Dave

silvertree

My short story about that. Lost the partner and lost a little confidence.
Started over from zip and I'm worried about getting enough good work.
Picked up a big trim job, then a kitchen, then a kitchen master bath and tomorrow I'm picking up a design check for an addition. Now I'm worried that I'll have too much on my plate, thats a serious worry. I can do the work, but my advertising says "Clear communication, Real start and finish dates" . If you can't back up what you say, what kind of contractor are you? My solution is do the jobs I have, make the addition people wait, raise my prices on any future bids and if things get a little thin get more competitive. Everything you stated concerns me also and it should. But you and I have been doing this for a while and one thing is certain, get too much going and it all suffers. Don't turn down work, raise your prices and ask people to wait for you.

Mike Finley

I've spent the last year systemizing everything, so I have the systems in place to get the work done.

Since I am continually in an expansion mode the hardest thing in business for me is getting more business, it's always the ongoing concern, as we take on more business we gear up to the next level to take on more so the system has to be fed more, then we step up another level and we need more buiness to feed that new level. It won't ever stop, there is always another level to step up to.