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Knowing when it time to go full time


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Like many in this business I have started out doing side work. Luckily I had a boss at one time that explained a lot of the buisness side to me. Not at the point I am making as good of money or better in my home shop as I do at my full time job. Right now I am feeling the physical and mental pain of basically working 2plus full time jobs. At what point do you consider yourself successful enough to quit your day job and go fulltime?

 

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Actually, I am in the same position myself, working full time as an operations Manager. My salary is 50K, cost of living fairly low. With that being said, I have contemplated the timing as well. My conclusion is that it is almost impossible to save enough money to support your family for the 1st 3 months or so, and I say this knowing that we all have full intentions of having more work than we can handle. This is a tricky business, full of ups and downs. If you could find a way to squirrel back at least 5k to act as a safety net, then I say quit your job and go ahead.

 

GOOD LUCK!

 

Jamie

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Be prepared. We ate at the food bank when we started. We moved into the shop with our 3 month old in the beggining. Make sure your wife is ok with losing the house and moving into the garage. Or better yet. Go to your local score office and write a business plan. Then you can do it better then i did. Then it goes from your ready when you have 5k saved and quit before your fired to your ready when the bank hands you your start up money.

 

Not saying you cant do it like we did. Or maybe you can do it better and faster then we did. Just sying there is a better way then many of us may have done.

Edited by Handson
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  • 3 months later...

I took the advice, and read the book "Quitter" by Jon Acuff. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking of starting any kind of business. In addition, I also recommend reading the book "How rich people think" by Steve Seibold. It is also a game changer. Yesterday was my last day with my company. I worked as an Operations Manager for 9 years, and they decided to relocate the Branch to New Orleans. Thank God we were offered a severance package, or we would be screwed. So wish me luck, cause ready or not, here we go!

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Understand that being able to manage a business is more important than being able to fix cars. Read the Emyth before you start at least then you may have some understanding of the challenge.

I got The Emyth on audiobook so i could listen to it during my 35 minute rural road drive home. I made it a point to listen to the book 3 times through just to make sure I didn't miss something important. I could have never listened to the book and still not have missed anything important. I don't know everything and I don't know a lot of stuff I should know. But I do know this, my impression of the book is that it is way overblown. If you want to buy a franchise, then good, get the book. Because that's all it was about, build your business so you can franchise it. There were only vague references to concepts and simple platitudes in the book. Similar to "Selling the Invisible" except in selling he often contradicted himself. The Emyth certainly was NOT for a small operation, anywhere or in any industry.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

         5 comments
      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
      Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
      Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
      Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
      Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”
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