Question for New business

[chamblee]

I am in the process of starting my lawn care business. I have 5 accounts right now, so I am barley getting my feet wet with this. I just talked to my stepdad, who is in the process of starting a pest control company, I think he has about 30 accounts. Anyway he said he is talking to the yellowpages salesperson in a few days and was asking if he listed lawn care in his ad if I would want to take the work as a subcontracted type thing. Is this something you guys think I should mess with. Does anyone have any experience doing subcontract work for other people. Or do you think I should talk to my stepdad about making our two companies just one general service company. Any suggestions.

[ritchiem]

Well there is nothing wrong with being a sub-contractor or subbing out work yourself. However being family what about if he just sent you the leads. If you are trying to get out for yourself I wouldn't combine companies. You may be asking for more headaches in the future.

[Steve]

I agree. It is so much easier to keep them separate. This way you both can experiment and see what works best for each of you. Later you could always merge the two companies if you wanted. But you may find you like being captain of your own ship.

Keep us posted on how this goes.

[chamblee]

Thanks. Steve that is probably what we will do. We have talked in the past about haveing a company like Service Master (Terminix, Trugreen, MerryMaids, just to name a few) But only on a smaller scale, I think when you get to big you begin to have customer service problems. But I know Service Master didn't start all there companies at one time

Anyway I think we will just refer each other, me do his lawn and landscape work and he do all my chemical work, for the time being.

I will let you guys know how it goes though.

[SuperiorPower]

I agree, keep them seperate.

Over the past several months we have on several occasions discussed partnerships and seems each time the fellow gophers agreed that partnerships tended to bring lots of problems. Now on the other hand, I believe that subbing work to each other should be a relatively safe venture. As a business owner, you have the responsibility to make sure you give your work to a honest and reputable contractor. I am guessing you trust your stepdad well enough that you feel comfortable with that and if that is the case, stick with him. When subbing to other contractors both of you have the responsility to make yourselves and each other look good. What you do reflects on yourself and his company and vice versa.

Hopefully he can help you along with business tips (if needed) and perhaps the day will come where you will buy him out or whatever you all choose.

Good luck and keep us posted,
Eli

[jasonw]

Keep it separate I recently sold a business and went through this same sort of thing. I had a family member approach me and wanted to invest 200K into a local company and wanted my recommendation. I didn't give one but eventually said family member said they wanted to invest it in me as my business was doing well and my ideas were money makers. I researched this in depth and after talking to make people and reading many resources decided to turn down the investment. Look at it this way. I am not saying you will do bad work but we all deal with nit picking people that want everything for nothing. Lets say you get some of these nit picking people subed to you from your father. They called him for a service and he tossed it to you but they call and complain to him if they have a problem. I hate it when I buy something and have a problem and the store tells me to contact the manufacturer "No I gave you my money so you fix it" Thats how I see it. Will it cause hard feels between your father and you if he gets his phone ringing day and night from a nit picking person? In the long run it may get you a little more work but its not worth the problems it can cause with family.

[chamblee]

--> as far as nitpicking people go I think I have the answer to them in my contracts, or the answer to some of the problems. I am thinking about graphing the properties and listing on the graph all things that needs to trimmed around including the house and make the graph part of the contract and say if anything changes price would be renegotiated and if they don't want that service would be canceled.

I have dealt with hard customers in the past and I hate to say it but I would rather lose two hard customers and gain one good one.

When I perform a service for someone I do it to the best of my ability and try to reach as close to perfection as I can and if that doesn't satisfy them then I say sorry I couldn't please you. That is why when I give someone a discount for a year contract I offer it after the first mow to make sure we are compatible.

As far as my stepdad goes he is pretty much the same way, he wouldn't send me some one that is hard to deal with and I wouldn't send him someone that would be hard for him to deal with.