Plumbing & Hvac Service Owners, Please Help!!!!!!!!! Need Some Input From You Guys.

dee

if you decided to bring in an equal partner, to help take pressure off of yourself , how would you put a figure on company reputation, customer base & area where growth is tremendous?????????????????????? please give me you input. gross sales of about 600,000 to 750,000 annually. dee

Putty Truck

huh? Figure what to whom when? Are you trying to sell part of your company?

In the real world, outside of construction, partners are made, not bought. I always thought that I would promote from within to a partnership level, if I ever got that big.

In my small town mentality and my hatred of everything not plumbing, I doubt it will be needed, though.

Song Dog

The best advice on partnerships that I can give is, DON'T DO IT! I say that with experience. But you never know it may work out for you.
My partnership lasted 2 months and I disolved it. I should have taken other peoples advice. But I could only see $$$$$ and nothing we couldn't handle and I kinda was needing help too. Oh well I learned something there and thats for sure.

In Christ,

Song Dog

KillerToiletSpider

When all is said and done, a contractors business is worth what he has in real estate, and the value of the equipment and inventory. Sales are a non entity, as is customer base, because that is not a constant number, your customer base changes on a yearly basis.

__________________
A flush is better than a full house.

PARA1

THE ONLY SHIP THAT WONT FLOAT IS A PARTNERSHIP

__________________
YESTER DAY IS HISTORY, TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY http://paradiseplumbinganddrains.com...bers-dallas-tx

Plumber

I remember reading somewhere you are a widow. (right)? If so do, you have children that can help you run the buisness or you could hire another employee to help you with the office pressures. I have partners and they are my Wife and my 5-7 year old boys. I really don't like thinking of someone else playing with my money. I would think a little bit more about it.

just my .02

Michael

dee

just wait, when you grow and add emplyees, you would have to be a private investigator to track all the unscrupulous things that go on. i cant go into particulars at this point, but for now i am thinking into the future & really would like to know when a business is sold or a prtnership formed, a $$$$$ amt has to be given to customer base, reputation of a company, & many other factors, besides just inventory, trucks, tools. i thought someone might have a formula for this calculation. i probably will never retire, but a partner sounds good, but after reading posts, almost all says they dont work. i am sure they are probably right. i dont claim to know it all. that would be bad to get into a partnership & it not work, what a mess it would be to dissolve. i hop you business is going well & get those boys working in the field with you young, & you wont have to worry, they can take over whil you go on vacations to sunny fla. ha ha dee

POOLMANinCT

a partner for the sake of production?????? nah....
I'm thinking back to my first years , & the blood sweat & tears...... not a $$$$ can be pput on that.

ray

__________________
......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....

Grumpyplumber

Dee, without experience pricing, doing inventory, payrolls, or doing the actual work yourself, and such a tall order in learning the biz from the ground up, I'd tell you to sell the company and invest or buy into something you know more about before it becomes a loss.

dee

grumpy plumber,

to clarify the situation, i want you to understand, i have been running this for several years. i just know i need a partner, with a strong handle on employee performance, etc. i am sure i am going to get a lot of nasty replies from women liberals, if they read this, ( i myself considered myself to be one), but i am telling you, no matter how knowledgeable, a woman is, the first thing that pops into a new emplyee's mind, is how can i pull the wool over her eyes. i will state, that after working in a mans field for several years, it takes a man to be in the position of handling a lot of situations.women, i think are natural nurterers, and cannot be as rough and gruff, if that is what you want you want to call it. now i am not saying, that a woman cant do this, but after a point, it becomes too demanding. so the thing to make my decision, is to get advice from business owners, how they would put a $$ price on excellent name, customer base, besides the figures we would already know, which would be inventory, trucks, tools, office equipment, etc. i understand people post on this wanting to know what to charge for their services, and we cant give them a figure, because each case is unique, depending on a lot of variables, such as overhead, down time etc., but i hope you guys are willing to give me your opinions, on how to put a $$$ figure on cutomer base, reputation,etc. dee

Putty Truck

Dee,

Do you need the influx of cash? If yes, get a loan and hire a supervisor that is skilled in human resources.

If you don't need the cash, hire a supervisor that is skilled in human resources.

What Grumpy says is true. Like any business, people decide that it isn't for them for any number of reasons....there's no shame in moving on down the road to another business.

Gods know that every business owner thinks about it once in a while.

dee

i have tried the supervisor way, i have determined the only way a supervisor will really work for the companys true benefit, is if they have a monetery investment in the co. to make it successful. i am so sorry to say, no matter how high the pay, most people are greedy & want to make more, any wany they can, even if it is really bad for the business. dee

Grumpyplumber

This has absolutely nothing to do with politics or gender, I never said a thing about either.
I could buy something as simple as a hot dog stand from a retiring guy with 30 years in the business and justify it on the fact that he made a good living for 20 years doing it.
Then I could find out he had connections through the years with his vendors that enabled him to get better prices, I might get shut down by the health board for lack of knowledge on codes/law, I could lose my shirt for a dozen seemingly simple reasons because I don't have the hard learned lessons under my belt that the guy I bought it from did....he could be a Liberal hermaphrodite from the bronx, or a home grown republican from Idaho, I still don't have his experience.
If you're looking for a partner it tells me your losing money from these untrustworthy employee's.
Part of me wonders, amongst numerous other variables, whether you have perhaps underbid jobs, but come to the conclusion that your employee's just worked too slow and thats why their untrustworthy.
The bottom line here, in this line of work you can't run it unless you know it.
If I were to wake up tomorrow to discover my long lost uncle left me a multi million dollar chemical company in his will, I'd immediately sell it.
I'd be absolutely clueless as to what's lucrative, who to trust for opinions or how to run the business....regardless what political party or gender I belong to.
Ask yourself something honestly...are you intentionally defying this option to proove something?
If you're loosing a war, maybe taking a short-term loss and reinvesting in something more manageable is a good idea...

mdshunk

Many businesses are worth no more than their inventory, AR's and real estate are worth. The proper sale of a business, or selling out half to a partner, involves an appraisal by a third party who specializes in the appraisals of a business's worth. There's usually only a few such people in each state, but it's not a particularly expensive service for a small company. Your accountant or banker should be able to put you in contact with an appraiser that appraises business worth.

thom

Many years ago I had a "partner". He got a full cut of the profits but I owned the company. I treated him like a partner, paid him like a partner, but when it was time to go our own ways, there was no bitter divorce.

Noah

I vote NO to "legal" partners, hire a good supervisor and offer job completion incentives.

Holmstedt

When we started our business my husband's brother worked for us and was just like a partner. They each had a small crew 3 to 5 guys floating through. I did the bids, ran parts, paper work and small pick up stuff.

When he quit he did not give notice or anything. They still don't speak. We went through many "Plumbers" trying to find someone to replace him. We now have a supervisor we can trust and after 2 years of working 18hr days we have finally got a hold of our work load. ( I set finish and they do the ground work and everyone is together for rough)

We are very selective about our clients and have found it works well this way.

Don't take a partner! You can do this!

And just so you know the guys all slack off more for my husband than when I am working on the site.