Contractor Begining Testimonies

saucedo80

Hello all, hopefully this thread will involve the veteran painting contractors in here.

Just wanted some info from you veteran guys on how you guys did at bidding jobs when you guys were starting out.

In other words, when you first started out did you bid your first few painting jobs well or did you come short.

And, if you lost money did it mean you made no money at all, or made less money than you planned?

did you have a painting vehicle with tools and all? or was it just your car with the bare essentials.

How much money did you have to start your buisness?

did you begin with big jobs or small residential jobs?

hopefully this makes sense. I am a new contractor. I have 11 years experience in the painting trade, but only about half a year experience in Paint Contracting. They are two totally different subjects, as i have come to find out. It is one thing to produce an excellent paint job, but its another thing to bid one.

Don't get me wrong, i enjoy doing it, just wanted to hear some bagining stories from the veterans to boost up my moral.

AAPaint

Well...now comes out the reason I hang around this place too. I'm great at painting...I know my products and always produce quality results, but I still come up short on just about every job! Of course, like you, I have only been doing the contracting side for about 8-9 mos. I seem to constantly want to kick myself when I "dig in" to a job and realize...."damnit, I didn't charge anything for ******x hassle" fill in the blank...It's always something. Over all I doubt it would ever run me out of business, but I sure want to learn to be as profitable as humanly possible!

Teetorbilt

I will tell you of a friend of mine who started as a painter and ended up a GC.
This guy had no knowledge of anything and started painting apartments when they turned over. He bought an airless sprayer, taped over a few things and painted everything white. He made some pretty good money in low income.
This led him to realtors and remodeling. 7 years ago he sold his business and retired to the Keys.
A building moron with business sense.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

Richie-C

"Saucedo80"

You are not alone. Just yesterday, I hit my first year anniversary mark as a painting contractor. Over the last year, I've found that it is tough to make a profit on each and every job. In my case, I've learned is that I am not accurately estimating the time it will take to complete a job--usually by a day or two. I understand estimating factors, etc., but I am only just now able to utilize my production rates. The good news is you may be ahead of the game--if you have lots of experience, you'll have a feel for how long a job will take. Search the board for estimating techniques--you'lll find lots of info here.

Keep the faith--if you do great work, and treat customers with respect, you'll do just fine. But be a "student" when it comes to the business end. These boards are a great resource.

Richie

Mike Finley

ummm,

Come on guys... if you are losing some money once in awhile, how about after you come up with the number your normal way and then padding every quote by X amount of dollars? Call it additional profit margin, or in your case the only profit margin. This solution ain't rocket science, LOL. But if you are consistantly losing $300-400 on every job it isn't too difficult to realize you need to add 300-400 to each quote to break even and every dollar above that to make a profit. At least doing that buys you some profit until you can get better at your estimating.

saucedo80

yeah i guess you are correct, however i haven't had that many jobs yet to be able to compare the outcomes of jobs, and i haven't lost that much money on jobs its definitly less than 300 dollars.