Hi guys. I'm excited to give this update! For those that dont know....I lost my corporate job 22 months ago and started a window cleaning company overnight in order to pay the bills. Fast forward to today we just closed out a 39k month in October and already have 43k on the books between now and the end of the year. My 400K goal for 2018 is not a done deal but I have a shot at achieving it. My concern at this point isnt selling enough but having the capacity to actually complete it all by the end of the year.
Here is a link to my very first post in this sub. You can find the rest of my posts in my post history. https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5q7xsq/just_found_out_that_i_am_losing_my_job_with/
Shout out to u/someguyfromnj for reaching out to me after my last post and meeting up with me here in Orlando for lunch. This guy is a very successful entrepreneur and has a desire to help others succeed. We need to do it again bro! https://imgur.com/a/rKQzlRS
Some ongoing issues....
We have FINALLY got the second truck on the road. It is only staffed with one (instead of two) techs at the moment but it is still making a big impact on production. I should have had the second tech on Oct 1st but with my less than perfect efforts I have yet to find the right guy and I'm not willing to bring on the wrong guy for a short term gain that will definitely become a long term loss.
The search for a warehouse is FINALLY coming to an end. I should be hearing from them with an approval (or denial) very soon. We have submitted a LOI and my commercial realtor thinks that all will be good. The only real concern is my personal credit that took a BIG hit when I first started the business. It appears that they will be satisfied with my business financials and wont be depending on my credit.....FINGERS CROSSED.
As those that have been following along from the beginning know my biggest weakness has been bookkeeping and accounting. I understand it but HATE DOING IT with a passion. I hired an accountant a while back and we now have all of our books in order with the company having a much healthier margin that I estimated. When people were asking what my net margins were I would estimate at 10% or less. With conservative Q4 projections we are looking at a 28% margin for 2018. To be clear on what I'm referring to on the net margin....Total sales - Fixed and variable expenses = Net Margin
THEN capital expenditures come out of that (like trucks and equipment...) Net margin will be going down significantly as we grow in 2019 seeing that I will be bringing on more staff and overhead. It's been so high because I am still in the owner/operator phase even though I have guys doing the cleaning for me. Based off of everything that I have read and the people in my industry that I have spoken to a healthy service company like mine will operate with a 20% net margin. Extremely successful ones can get as high as 25% and others that are still healthy will only be around 12-15%.
As 2019 is approaching I have had the number of $800,000 in my sights with us breaking $1,100,000 in 2020. I have spent the last two weeks working on next years sales and marketing projections along with expense budgets and necessary capital expenditures. I have found that if I lower my goal to $717,181 I can end the year with the same amount of money in the bank but will have one less vehicle to buy and two less technicians to hire (and a lot less stress along the way). Although I will still have to buy that truck and hire those techs in Q1 of 2020 this path will put me in a much healthier position with cash flow in 2019. The 800K goal has me in a VERY dangerous position in Q1(2019) with absolutely no room for error. I'm not willing to take on that risk for what is essentially a 'pride' issue. So, even though I still have a month to finalize my 2019 goal I'm thinking that $717k is where I'll end up.
On the more personal side of things....This unexpected and unplanned journey has been such a blessing for me in so many ways. It is forcing me to grow as a person making me a better husband and father. My wife and I just celebrated our 21st anniversary (high school sweethearts) yesterday. We are loving this adventure that we are on! Working with my oldest son every day brought some of my BIG ASSHOLE TENDENCIES to the surface which caused some bad times for the two of us early on. This forced me to make the Dr. Phil decision of "Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy". I chose the happy option and have changed the way that I interact with my children as a result. I'm not saying that we didnt have a good relationship before (because we did) but things are much better now and continue to get better. My own self limiting beliefs continue to fall off as each day goes by. Originally I just wanted to pay the bills, then I wanted to hire people to do the work for me, then I wanted to build a 1 million dollar business, then I wanted a 5 million dollar business, now I realize that my potential is just as great as any other persons potential and I am really dreaming big.
Once again I want to thank this sub for the support that I get from it. I cannot express how much the positive comments of encouragement early on helped me push through the fear. I also cannot express how much motivation the guys that always seem to have a problem with my story give me. Even though I am doing this for myself it always feels good to prove the doubters wrong!
I have been documenting my journey from day one on Youtube. You can follow along here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTS3WLs0t2stlWFaqTzP2mQ?view_as=subscriber
And to be proactive on the most common question that I get each time I post....Here is a video that I made giving advice to anyone that is wanting to start a similar business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfF6f_jALA&t=47s
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