Cad
scientia potentia est
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Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)
- Thread starter Shonuff
- Start date
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I don't believe he found anyone else, which is why he is now asking if we can pay cheaper if we do the job in the dead of Winter. I'm asking to see who else I'm bidding against if I'm going lower. I did take another 10% off, and 20% off if in the dead of Winter. Let's face it, Dec and Jan, I'm just trying to keep guys working.
The irony is that in the AM, we got a referral from his company where they wanted 70% off, but in the afternoon, he sent us a sweet referral that paid one crew double their going rate. It's an emergency job.
I've told him that I will not go lower without verifying the other company.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I'm weak, I know. But in eight years, the toughest thing I've had to do is layoff hard working guys. We have a backlog now, but it's always gotten dicey in Dec and Jan. It doesn't take three weeks to burn through a backlog.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Let's be real, he's been drinking it for years, but now he's trying to drink at a faster rate.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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You need to pump yourself up with some RHW prior to your next meeting with him, and be like, LOOK MOTHER FUCKER, NO DISCOUNT. GTFO
moontayle
Golden Squire
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Pull an Erlich and just lay your cock on the table. Then tell him 20% if he sucks you off.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Does this guy have dirt on you or something? Whats so hard about saying its simply not financially feasible to give the rate he wants?
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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We live in the Midwest, so this is not a big city with millions and millions. The community is still close knit, and he has a lot of pull in the area. He has the right of first refusal on who does work on thousands of homes that he's contracted with. He's blocked other companies that he doesn't like. If you are working on one of those homes in his POA, he has to sign off on who does the work. You can't have any landscaper come in. He can blackball who he wants.
Yesterday, we agreed that he wouldn't use us exclusively, but that he may come back to us again. He's switched before and always switched back, when people won't give him the service level he wants. I'm OK with that.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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No, and I'm OK with that. The last two weeks have been extremely busy, as we are getting big commercial jobs. Because of this, we are backlogged until 12-1. And they paid us full price. He's been asking us to re-send our updated certifications, and I'm going to tell him it's not worth the effort. He is adamant that we lower price, and I don't need to do that.
Last week, something happened that was different. A customer told me to tell "my people" to make sure we ring the back doorbell. Under no circumstances were we to use the front door again. The way she worded it (that it was a tradition passed down from generation to generation), it came off as racist as hell.
It was a $300 job, I gave her the senior discount, and I'm not going to bow and scrape for that little. I told her thanks and GTFO. We stay busy, my company is known, and the last job we did in her neighborhood was greater than 5K. I'm not bowing down before anyone.
Id like to hear that phonecall. I accidentally say racist stuff because i have these phrases I don't think much of because i didn't grow up around any black people.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Might be a silly question, but you do landscaping right? What are you guys doing in the house at all?
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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We don't mow lawns. We also don't enter the house 99% of the time.
Since the inception of this business, it's been the custom to ring the doorbell, and tell people we are there to do their work. I've had service companies just start doing the work at my house, and I've always thought it was rude for the man in charge to not introduce himself.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I don't plan on replacing the Manager. I don't do all of the work, I still have an Estimator and two Crew Leaders to help out. I've let the other business sit on the shelf. I don't know how I can replace me. Since I've taken over, it's been a record year, profitability-wise. I think I had 22 loans earlier this year, and I'm down to 6 now. Working capital has doubled. I'm paying myself 10k a month (until now, I've been paying myself 1k a week). Past due receivables are under control (they were getting out of hand). I don't want to blame it on one guy, but I've never really had someone really sharp in charge. Sales will actually end up flat from last year, but we aren't being wasteful, the routes are more efficient, and unit pricing is more in line with industry standard.
I know that ultimately, I'm limiting my overall potential in business by being so hands on. You can't own three businesses when you are working 60 hours in one.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Ones that don't screw off and abuse their power. My crews are fine, but it's always the people that work by themselves that screw off. 90% of my problems have come from Managers/Secretaries/Estimators. And a lot of it has been stealing (whether it's side jobs or by not working). They get hooked on drugs/alcohol, and have problems. My workers are where I want them to be. But when I have workers telling me that my Manager parked the company car on the job, and then had his old lady come pick him up, so he can have the day off, it's a problem. All of our equipment is tracked by satellite. When he did that, he was leading me to believe that the guys needed his help. You can't have your highest paid guy not working harder then everyone else.
He went to go manage another company this Summer, and didn't last the Summer there. The owner comes up to me, and says he couldn't afford to pay a guy $200 under the table, just to have him work half days. In the absence of satellite tracking, when your coverage area is probably 1,000 square miles, and everyone is in different areas, that can be rife for problems.