I am a landscape company owner, I am 19 years old. I have not even started on my college education yet, I planned to take (2) years off after high school until I start. I plan on taking all distant learning classes, probably only 9-12 credit hours per semester as I work about 50 hours a week on average.
Last year I had 5 full time employees – servicing over 100 accounts each week (mowing-which is your bread and butter, consistent–landscaping is your gamble)
Last year was the first time I had employees, the spring of 2008 I was still in high school so unfortunately yes I had to earn respect of some of my employees, some were 23 last year in college and they have a senior in high school telling them what to do, but I quickly overcame that when they realized I was not here to play around. The first impression I give anyone they believe I am in my mid-twenties… quite mature for my age.
Last year, I did have A LOT of low paying accounts, mainly from when I first started the business–all under the table and at 16 years old /hr is great money with no living expenses, as you get older and purchase a home and have real bills and your business is now an actual professional company, you can’t charge that half price like before. Therefore this year, I booted out 90% of all low/crappy accounts, booted out all employees and decided this year to take two steps backwards and start over with expansion but with the good accounts as when you have employees you see no income coming in from those low accounts because they take the whole service charge up in payroll and I just saw my time and effort being uncompensated.
I wanted to take this year with work and have trial and error, get a set system, study the year and changes I can make for when I have employees, the hardest thing to do as a new business is be experiencing severe trial and error on policies and trying to enforce them on employees you have let do the opposite. So I did not advertisement this year, no expansion planning just wanted to work, not try and be greedy by doing this but I need to keep my personal self out of debt so kind of take in the profits and build a good personal and business cushion financially.
Here’s the thing… next fall or maybe start early this spring, I plan on starting my college classes. with even 6-12 credit hours/semester I plan 2-4 hours a night of study time. I have a very professional business knowledge in my field, I have studied better professional practices of marketing clients, and I believe I can really get this thing going in a professional manner. As a (1) man crew right now, I now have the equipment and assets that can operate a 3-4 man crew easily, and I am paying those expenses off just me right now and I am still getting a check, so the more accounts I add, a couple more employees it will be more profit, as right now I have about a 35%-50% expense rate because I am paying for enough equipment to operate more men.
What I am really getting at here is right now with no expansion doing the work myself I am flexible, I can change my schedule really about anytime and everything still gets done to accomodate if I have something personally I have to do, run dog to groomers, weekday haircut etc. when you have employees you basically work the same operating hours as them, you have to be at work at 7, as being solo you have a 10 hour day, say 7-5 and I feel like sleeping in an extra hour so I work 9-7.
Ultimately I want advice on – - a) expand company take just 1 or 2 college classes online so I am getting some of it done even in grandpa turtle steps and expand the company
OR
B) Do not look for expansion with the company at this time, take on a little more school to have it done so when I am actually in my early to mid twenties I will have my bachelors and don’t have to worry about it anymore..
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