heyheyheynoname
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There’s a lot of you on here who reach out for guidance about leaving your full time job to start your own business. I want to outline a few things that I wish I had known prior to leaving my job that would’ve saved me a ton of headache.
If you don’t know how to cook, the chef owns the restaurant
For the record, I had no clue how to paint aside from working in the summer with my father when I was 12. At that time, all I did was light prep work. Like taping, prepping, and cleaning up trash and brushes at the end of the day.
I bought into the insane idea that I would be able to run my painting business without any real painting knowledge or having to do any painting whatsoever.
It didn’t take long for me to get knocked off my high horse of “collecting checks” when the sub I hired to perform the work decided not to show half way through one of the jobs… This left me in a very vulnerable position. One that no business owner should ever allow themselves to be in.
My advice is to NEVER get into business without knowing how to produce the end result yourself. I spent the next 6 months working along side my workers and building a team. I learned the ins and outs of painting and can now handle any task that would be required of us on any job myself.
If you don’t get the foundation right early, you probably never will
“I’ll set up payroll once we get things running…”
“I’ll set up workers’ comp after we get a few jobs under our belt…”
“I’ll get accountant at some point, just not yet…”
With this mentality, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Not taking care of these things early on will make it way more difficult to implement in the future. The reason many small businesses struggle with this is because at some point they get comfortable. They are making money, they are producing results, and to retract back to these foundational responsibilities scares them.
If you’re starting a business, don’t wait for growth to take place to validate your responsibility to take action on these requirements.
In other words, don’t build your skyscraper on a foundation made of sand.
Delegate & Duplicate, Don’t get attached
The reasons why small business owners are always over-worked is because they have a serious attachment issue. They can’t see themselves letting go of what they’re “good at” in fear that it won’t be done to standard of which it would be done if they were doing it or producing it themselves. This especially holds true in the trades.
Your time is your most valuable asset. You have to learn to let go of all of the day to day responsibilities. You have to learn how to delegate tasks to other people and be OK if they make a mistake or mess up. The sooner you let go of controlling every aspect of your business, the sooner you give it permission to grow. It’s kind of like a dating relationship. If you suffocate it by trying to control every aspect of the other person, that obviously won’t end up well.
The end goal is to duplicate yourself. When you start small, you’re obviously doing a ton of different tasks, but the goal is to delegate and train others to do those tasks the way you do them, this is called duplication and is very important for the success of your business
Hiring and dating are a lot alike
Hiring is by far the most important aspect of any business. I credit a majority of my company’s success due to a strong hiring process that is designed to filter out applicants and funnel in the best possible candidate for our job openings.
The issue for me was, I didn’t start developing a strong process for hiring until about a year in. I kind of did one of those “Hey, do you know anyone that would want to work with us?” Or, did a general post somewhere with no real end goal.
You get out what you put in. If you put out a crappy post with no strong requirements, you’ll get people that have low standards, just like your post.
If you put out a strong post that has strong requirements for the position you are looking for with a detailed plan for entry, a phone interview, an in person interview, a working interview and a background check…well, you’re probably going to get someone that has high standards.
You don’t have to be a major producer to implement this sort of hiring policy, you simply just have to be able to implement it and follow through with it.
Many small businesses especially when starting out hire out of desperation, another relationship analogy, if you date out of desperation, that’s never a good thing.
If you don’t actively convey your vision to your team for your company, they’ll create their own for themselves
Don’t assume that just because you’re paying someone they will be loyal to you. By nature, humans like progress.
What I’ve found in my business is that the more I convey my vision for the company to my team, the greater the morale.
This is not only a collective vision, but individual vision as well for the members of the team. I am always asking them what their life goals are such as purchasing a house, getting a car, etc. and trying my best to help them achieve it.
If I stay engaged with their goals, and encourage them to use the success of the business to help them achieve it, it’s a win win for everyone.
I hope you got something out of these tips! I post a lot about the painting business in r/paintingbusiness. You can also find me on Instagram.com/tradethrive
If you don’t know how to cook, the chef owns the restaurant
For the record, I had no clue how to paint aside from working in the summer with my father when I was 12. At that time, all I did was light prep work. Like taping, prepping, and cleaning up trash and brushes at the end of the day.
I bought into the insane idea that I would be able to run my painting business without any real painting knowledge or having to do any painting whatsoever.
It didn’t take long for me to get knocked off my high horse of “collecting checks” when the sub I hired to perform the work decided not to show half way through one of the jobs… This left me in a very vulnerable position. One that no business owner should ever allow themselves to be in.
My advice is to NEVER get into business without knowing how to produce the end result yourself. I spent the next 6 months working along side my workers and building a team. I learned the ins and outs of painting and can now handle any task that would be required of us on any job myself.
If you don’t get the foundation right early, you probably never will
“I’ll set up payroll once we get things running…”
“I’ll set up workers’ comp after we get a few jobs under our belt…”
“I’ll get accountant at some point, just not yet…”
With this mentality, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Not taking care of these things early on will make it way more difficult to implement in the future. The reason many small businesses struggle with this is because at some point they get comfortable. They are making money, they are producing results, and to retract back to these foundational responsibilities scares them.
If you’re starting a business, don’t wait for growth to take place to validate your responsibility to take action on these requirements.
In other words, don’t build your skyscraper on a foundation made of sand.
Delegate & Duplicate, Don’t get attached
The reasons why small business owners are always over-worked is because they have a serious attachment issue. They can’t see themselves letting go of what they’re “good at” in fear that it won’t be done to standard of which it would be done if they were doing it or producing it themselves. This especially holds true in the trades.
Your time is your most valuable asset. You have to learn to let go of all of the day to day responsibilities. You have to learn how to delegate tasks to other people and be OK if they make a mistake or mess up. The sooner you let go of controlling every aspect of your business, the sooner you give it permission to grow. It’s kind of like a dating relationship. If you suffocate it by trying to control every aspect of the other person, that obviously won’t end up well.
The end goal is to duplicate yourself. When you start small, you’re obviously doing a ton of different tasks, but the goal is to delegate and train others to do those tasks the way you do them, this is called duplication and is very important for the success of your business
Hiring and dating are a lot alike
Hiring is by far the most important aspect of any business. I credit a majority of my company’s success due to a strong hiring process that is designed to filter out applicants and funnel in the best possible candidate for our job openings.
The issue for me was, I didn’t start developing a strong process for hiring until about a year in. I kind of did one of those “Hey, do you know anyone that would want to work with us?” Or, did a general post somewhere with no real end goal.
You get out what you put in. If you put out a crappy post with no strong requirements, you’ll get people that have low standards, just like your post.
If you put out a strong post that has strong requirements for the position you are looking for with a detailed plan for entry, a phone interview, an in person interview, a working interview and a background check…well, you’re probably going to get someone that has high standards.
You don’t have to be a major producer to implement this sort of hiring policy, you simply just have to be able to implement it and follow through with it.
Many small businesses especially when starting out hire out of desperation, another relationship analogy, if you date out of desperation, that’s never a good thing.
If you don’t actively convey your vision to your team for your company, they’ll create their own for themselves
Don’t assume that just because you’re paying someone they will be loyal to you. By nature, humans like progress.
What I’ve found in my business is that the more I convey my vision for the company to my team, the greater the morale.
This is not only a collective vision, but individual vision as well for the members of the team. I am always asking them what their life goals are such as purchasing a house, getting a car, etc. and trying my best to help them achieve it.
If I stay engaged with their goals, and encourage them to use the success of the business to help them achieve it, it’s a win win for everyone.
I hope you got something out of these tips! I post a lot about the painting business in r/paintingbusiness. You can also find me on Instagram.com/tradethrive
