Your top 5 startup issues.

[Steve]

It seems a lot of new members on here tend to ask general questions like how do I get started. It is difficult to answer a question that is general so I thought what if everyone made a list of the top 5 issues or questions they had getting started and tell us how they dealt with them? Try not to read the other posts until you make yours so everyone can be different.

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[stevef1201]

Lawn care business tips

First was how to pay for the startup. mowers, edgers trimmer blower trailer truck. Wow what a list I worked three jobs to pay off the truck, then bought a trailer, then a cheap weed eater (mistake) blower and edger. Second was advertising, If you ask someone who prints door hangers-they are the best there is. The same for fliers, business cards, you name it. I put a ad in the newspaper and started getting work. Third figuring out how much to charge. I got my next door neighbor to call several companies in the area for estimates and then based mine on theirs. I know its cheating but what can I do. Fourth Was scheduling the work, I put a lot of time in between jobs, just in case. Fifth Hiring help-good luck I went through about 12 guys before I found a girl who worked harder, faster, and 'prettier' then all the rest. The saying goes 'finding help is hard, but finding good help takes a miracle.'

[dpld]

first: start out by working for a larger company and start from the bottom and work your way up the ladder and learn everything you can about the industry, working with and managing employees, pricing, judging how long something will take because you have done it a hundred times, learning the do's and don'ts of all the equipment and everything involved in running a business seamlessly.

there is no better way to get a education and getting paid to learn it.
the experience is priceless for many reasons. one, you are working at high volume and honing your skills and working under pressure. whereas with your own business starting out your skills and work ethic will get rusty because you are spending more time waiting and looking for work.
two, you are not saving any money.

second: all of the above as well as work your way up the company you are working for from a general laborer to a foreman to a operations manager or to sales.
once again what better way to get valuable high volume sales experience to hone your skills on someone else's time with someone else's name so when you make a complete @sshat of yourself, which we all do, it will be his reputation that gets soiled not yours.
oh, i almost forgot, save your money.


third: all of the above again, because i can not stress enough how valuable the experience is and as much as you think you don't need to or it will take too long it will pay dividends in the long run because you will bi-pass enormous amounts of time and energy and money learning all the things you already know.
plus it raises your odds of making better business decisions and having success because you already know what you are doing.
also, keep saving.

fourth: still all of the above but by now you worked so hard and learned so much that you climbed the ladder and you have been in a high foreman position to a sales or management and now you can feel confident that you know how to run a quality operation and be a leader.
if you can not run someone else's business you certainly won't fair much better on your own.
plus, if you plan on making it a life long career out of it then you need to equip yourself with all the tools to have success.
keep saving and start to plan your move. start working on the easy stuff like a name and registering it and filing all the needed forms applicable to your state.
get a business checking account and cards and stationary and software.
get insurance quotes and a wish list of a good basic setup to easily handle what can come your way without over buying things you don't need.

being you been working and saving these things will be easier to afford and obtain while you have positive cash flow while still maintaining low to no debt.

fifth: sit down and have a talk with your boss about what your long term goals are and that you are happy and thankful to have worked with him and will always be indebted with gratitude but feel you would like to strike out on your own.
if you have a good relationship with him it would be a good time to let him know that you would never go after his clients and back stab him and would like to have some kind of business to business relationship whereas maybe you can send him the big leads that you can not handle and he can throw you some of the little things he does not want.
you could let him know that you are not quite up and running and these are long term plans for your future and you figured you would out of respect share that with him.
if you still needed to work with him you could lay out some ground rules in order to keep working with him and the two jobs don't affect your responsibilities with him.

worse case scenario at this point is he turns on you and you out on your own.
being that you been planning this and preparing and saving you will be ready.
and now that the cat is out of the bag you can start heavy marketing and loading up on equipment.


finally, this would not be the plan for everyone. it would be more ideal to the individual that is still young and still at home and has all the time in the world.
anyone older and going in cold turkey would have to take the crash course in the lessons of hard knocks and learn to shoot from the hip.

plus in this day and age with the internet there is a wealth of information available and although there is plenty of crap out there if you look in the right places like state run agencies and extensions and reliable sources you can not go wrong.

that's my two cents.