Herman School of Business
Have you tried calling an electrician?
People ask me what business they should go into to make money. When they have little or nothing to invest in a business. And another issue is the fact that they don’t want to leave their current job due to the need for income before jumping off the bridge to own a company.
Even in my early days of business ownership I stuck with a full time job by switching my hours to the night shift so I could stay employed while I started my first enterprises. As a hint here, nothing got “bigger” until I finally cut the cord and spent all my time concentrating on my business, despite the loss of that bi-weekly check with benefits.
But, what can you do on a small budget?
Well, check in with our friend Joel Libava , the franchise king with great ideas for starting a business with less than ten thousand dollars. Keep in mind that this type of business is what I call “getting your feet wet” companies that teach you the basics of business ownership. Bigger income eventually will mean a much bigger business. More dollars coming out will mean putting more dollars in at some point. But any business is teaching you something that you will need to know when you get larger.
My response to people lately is to look at being a service provider business. I made millions selling companies that I didn’t have to own once my clientele believed in my services. Have you tried calling an electrician or carpenter or plumber lately? Starting a business where you are the “business” side of finding customers and sending repairman out in various fields and splitting fees in some ways with the actual service providers could make a great deal of money for the coordinator of that company. Surely getting qualified people to work for you would be hard, but the world has a need and the one who fills it best will be rewarded mightily. Plumbers, electricians and carpenters are not sales people and they don’t like that part of the job. Doing the work and being paid a great salary would make them happy and allow you to make the “spread” because you provide them with steady work.
This concept applies to all professional fields such as nursing, accounting, painting, and anything else where people will pay others to do what they can’t. With changing economic conditions where credit is going to be harder to get and more expensive, think twice about a business that requires high credit lines to be successful. Companies where large inventories must be manufactured or stored for future sales will be costly to operate in the coming credit environment. And as to those who want to jump on the first real estate bargain they see thinking about a quick buck…wait a few more months and that bargain you passed will even get better on new deals that will be coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
- Posted: 5 November 2007
- Comments: 2
- Category: Starting a business
Comments
Good in theory, difficult in practice. My husband works as an independent electrical service provider. Two clients of his were maintenance made simple franchises. One of those franchisees is a coworker of mine. Problem: Good electricians (and plumbers) get enough word-of-mouth referrals that they don’t need maintance providers to find work for them. That work was always at a lower rate than what my husband charged without a middle man, so there was no incentive for him to do it when busy. The MMS owners had a huge problem finding qualified contractors. Now, my coworker has returned to her full-time office job and would like to sell her franchise. The other franchisee did sell her franchise and went back to a full-time job. My husband is still going strong on his own.
Written by Ali on 8 November 2007
Very good idea. You are separating the marketing from the actual service provision. And I agree with you that some of this stuff is going to get really expensive as money becomes tight…and that itself might be a new long term trend.
Written by Richard on 6 November 2007