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Tripple C
??
Im trying to re-invent my business ive always been one of those guys who worked fulltime for large outfits doing maintnance work (inhouse refinary work, aerospace,automated plants, and currently one of the largest airlines)yet ive always contracted on the side but in the last few months ive been thinking about my bucketlist and I am determined to see my business grow and become something I can leave my children, im trying to stay off my tools and work througth others, I refuse to stop working at my Airport gig because i love the work and need the benifits (im a single fulltime dad of two small kids) and the free flights are nice. So agean my question Can a EC get the company to be self sustaining ?
The only way a company can be self sustaining is if you have employees and a business plan that can run the company without you.
You can create a job that you can pass on to your kids if that is what they want to do but I doubt that is what you are talking about.
First, what do you really wqant 'self sustaining' to be??

There is an old addage that a 'good electrician' does not mean necessarilly a 'good businessman'.

Most, if not all small businesses require an investment of time and funding. Cash flow is very important, key personal are important, as is a solid customer base.

Doing 'contracting' and maintaining a full time gig with bennies is a tough nut. BTW, are your children interested in the business & trade?
This economy is too brutal for anyone to scale up much.

The route to EC success that I've seen work time and again is via real estate income: the contractor made some RE bets that paid off.

These then generated enough rent to cover his nut during his early years -- and also provided him with enough of a credit line to get good trade terms.

That gambit is dead, and will stay that way for the next twenty years.

Rocketing insurance costs make hiring employees a real bet-your-company proposition.

Obamacare figures to lift above-the-line wage costs at least $ 5.00 per hour for every trooper.

So hiring apprentices should come to a complete halt until all of the j-men are back on the job.

Here in California the politicians instituted licensing electricians. As a part of the overall scheme ALL apprentices were required to receive the same benefits package as the IBEW locals. So, for California C-10s the economics of Obamacare are already in effect.

The prompt result is a collapse in the apprentice count -- and the flight of most electricians out of the state.

So if you hire talent stay away from apprentices -- they're too expensive.

You might consider hiring old semi-retired electricians. Guys in their sixties would have the skills if not the speed and strength. Assembling a crew of such part-timers might be a perfect fit for you.

If you run across grunt work -- like ditch digging -- farm it out.

Stay entirely up market in the high skills niche.
Thanks for the feed back, my kids do aspire to help with the family business someday but thats still a ways off, my step son however is already on the job he goes out with me everyday and from time to time I use him on a steady maint. contract I have with a company thet dose thermo scanning where he pulls dead fronts so the scan tech can take the pics and I also do a lil double dipping with that company because I get all the repair jobs when problems are found.
And Telsa im already using part time help on some jobs (mostly out of work are slow work Jmen) and thats been my businneses salvation but ive made it onto a couple of larger contractors bid lists and if and when I start getting awarded jobs is when I plan on stepping up my work force and offering permanent spots to some of the above average Jman who halp out on a part time basis now, I do have a business plan which changing demand over the last few years has caused me to modify continually.
Dose it sound to you guys like im on the right track to acheaving my goal of hands free contracting ? let me add that im also using an old IBEW retiree to go out and bid jobs for me with a 3% claim to all jobs sold and the option to project manage the said project at a predetermined salary, I was teaching a electrical class part time for a well known career college here in southern CA and utalize some of the graduates but its just so many jobs I can use apprintinces on and I have access to journeyman that need work but its hard to sell good guys on working for your company when you dont have enougth work to keep them buzy all the time (40 Hrs a week), I never have had a hard time finding a good paying job when I was a journeyman so I dont see why theay would, so I guess what im asking is how do I make that transtion from answering service calls, and doing everything myself, to managing and focusing only on navigating the business, and keeping work in the pipe lines?
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