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All you have to do is go to one of those meetings where those guys with cash buy homes cheap and remodel then sell for a profit. It's an organization there's an abbreviation for it. You'd find tons of work and your jobs would quadrupal. Make sure you go below market rate to grab their attention. You can do that when you get that much more business. Usually 30-50 people at these meetings. Every major city has one.That couldn't be further from the truth. No one has worked harder for my company than me and in the end, the owner doesn't give a shit about what I did in the past. What have I done for him lately is all he cares about. He's a user. In his eyes, he already paid me for that past hard work. Want a raise? Work even harder!
Oh, and it is his fault business is slow not mine. I'm not going to go into it all but he is so far out of the loop on what's going on here and when I tell him he says I'm just making excuses. So fuck him. I'll run his business but I won't go above and beyond anymore and while I do it I'll be looking for another job. Time to move on.
And then he hires a new guy who comes in all gun ho and drinking the coolaid just like I did when I first started. It is so funny to see him doing basically what I was doing when I first started here. The owner had me go to each location and evaluate what everyone was doing wrong. Now the new guy is basically going to go do everything I already did/tried. Am I going to tell him? Fuck no! It's not my business. The owner can pay him and he will find out. I'll just do what is required of me.
See? If he paid a little more I would care and go back to working "harder". And again, everyone says there is no way he's going to find anyone like me. If he does the person is going to ask for a lot more to start and he won't pay it. I took the job with a low starting pay expecting as the business grew so would my pay. That didn't happen. When I got the sales up, he raised the quotas. So I will perpetually never make any more even if I quadruple his business? Not going to happen.
Plus don't forget his business isn't growing anymore because of the high turnover.
I wonder how much the owner makes? I know he pays him and his wife a salary and they don't do anything. At least she doesn't do anything. Oh, and they have a "foundation" charity where we all know they don't do a god damn thing for the needy. The foundation is just a way for them to make more $. They pay themselves out of the foundation and whatever is left over (the scraps) goes to the needy.
No biggy. In 19 years I'll be retired. I'm not going to start my own business. I'll just find another job. Hopefully the next person I work for will be generous like you. LOL
I don't doubt your story one bit. I've seen it plenty. I'm not sure your're schooled on the details of the operation because there are usually LOTS of things going on behind the scenes. The part about the foundation piques my interest because I know it's very hard to get any sort of measurable income out of a foundation for the people that start/control one. Don't believe me? Start one yourself and see what it takes to get certified as a tax-exempt entity and then pay yourself for your time. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it can't be done honestly without some political connections and those connections have to be major (way more than being buddy-buddy with a Congressman).
If you have 19 years left, that's more than enough time for you to start your own business, secure your financial future, build a leadership team, and take your company non-profit (if you choose). If you think you're out of time, you're looking at it wrong or you know that it's something you can't do (like take the risk).
You have brought up some very valid points, and you don't have to start your own business to have credibility. But if you have all the answers for the business you work for and think you can do it better but don't, well then that means you aren't being honest with yourself.
It's okay, not everyone has the stomach to take the risk you don't want to take. But don't diminish the proper role that clueless owners play in doing something you aren't willing to do. The world is better off if they (and you) succeed, but the world is much worse off if nobody tries.
Well I did it. I quit and went into business for myself. Not in the same industry though. My former boss has that industry cornered. And the problem with the one location I was stuck running is that they are more expensive than the competition in the area and the product they produce really isn't as good as it is at the other 2 locations. I can tell you now I ran a music school. Long story short, the owner got me to do outside marketing for all 3 locations for 2 years and then stuck me at one location after he kept going through people because no one wanted to work for him. So all the sales that came in to the other two locations, I wasn't compensated on. Do you understand what bullshit that is? Get me to do work that's going to pay off for years to come at those other 2 locations but then only pay me for sales at the 1 failing location? I established a relationship with almost every music teacher at every school in Metro Detroit. They refer students to this school.
So he sticks me at his smallest/failing location and doesn't listen to me when I tell him it isn't that we aren't getting new students to sign up, the instructors aren't retaining students. Students sign up but then quit before becoming good musicians. These instructors are not producing musicians and they are not inspiring. Does the owner listen to me? Nope. So, as this one location is literally falling apart, I decided to abandon ship. His other two locations are his babies and so he has nothing but the best instructors at those locations. We didn't have a good piano instructor or violin instructor and we didn't have a voice instructor for the longest time. I kept asking them to find me someone and eventually I had to find the instructor(s), who never stuck around because he didn't pay good. I think he would promise them a raise if they were good and then probably didn't give them a good enough raise and the all bailed eventually for better opportunities.
Everyone says, "he's never going to find someone like you who will do everything you did for him.".
But I believe he will. At least he'll try. And if they don't do everything I do, he'll get rid of them and hire another person and they'll come on board drinking the coolaid and bust their ass for him for anywhere from a month to a couple years and then they'll realize this is a go no where job. You think its going to be a fun place to work because its a music school but it's not because the owner is always stressing everyone out.
Does he make a decent living? Sure. Could he make more? I bet he could. Would that require paying his employees more? Maybe. Maybe if I were in his shoes, I'd pay the same amount and maybe I'd make a bunch of promises and break them too. I don't know.
As for his "foundation". He gives very little to charity and he/they put a lot of effort into having that Foundation. I suspect it's a way to get tax write offs and also a way to make $. They paid this girl $10 hr to do "all the work" and they treated her like shit and she quit too. And they also got paychecks. Do they do a lot of work behind the scenes? Sure they do. But I bet just as much as I'm underestimating what they do, you're overestimating. They get people donating all the time and then they charge $20 for their fundraising concerts. 150 people x $20 is $3000 and I very rarely saw any students getting classes free because of this charity.
So anyways, I walking into a great new business. My friends do home remodeling/painting/home improvement and they are always busy but they don't know how to make their business grow. I'm in sales/marketing. I've already found them 4 new jobs and with people who are going to give us referral business. One guy does insurance inspection. One does HVAC. Two guys I talked to own properties and said they got burned by contractors who got paid and never finished the job. There is TONS of business out there to be had and very little investment needed. When we get busier we're going to hire younger guys to do the heavy lifting for us. Maybe we'll hire illegals just like all the other corporations do so they can avoid paying a fair wage or taxes.
That is a great idea!!!
And I'm finding if you meet someone and tell them what you do, if they know/trust you, you don't have to be the cheapest. In fact you should worry about the cheapest bid. Rumor on them is they get the job, get your money and either never show up, never finish or do a shitty job. We don't charge a dime until the job is done. Not only am I finding jobs, I'm finding young guys who will work for $10 hr. to do all the heavy lifting. I'm too old to be hauling dry wall. I have a friend he specializes in decks. He rips people off! They could get it done for thousands less. But they like him, know him, like the work he does and they don't want to take a chance going with someone they don't know. At least with him you know the job will get done and done right. But damn he charges a lot. He even ripped me off years ago. He pergo'ed half my place and when I got another bid years later to do the other half I realized he charged me maybe $3K more than he could have.
Notice I didn't say should have? I don't blame him. He should charge whatever he thinks he can get. Its my fault for paying it. LOL
I applaud you for going in a new direction and I applaud you for using the law of supply and demand instead of "living wage" constraints.
Yea, it doesn't make sense to go work for someone else if I'm going to have to start over again at the bottom anyways, I may as well build something that is mine, not someone else's.
Now I am still looking for a job while I try to build this business but I am only talking to companies that are willing to pay $50K plus salary plus commissions and benefits. If they don't they can fuck off and I'll keep working for myself. No more working for low salary and the promise of commissions that are probably never going to come. OR, when they do come the fucker raises the bar so next month I have to sell even more to make the same. Fuck that! That means if I grow his business from $20K a month to $100K a month, he'll just keep raising the bar so that I'm still making the same?
Even if I find a job there is no reason I can't sell home improvement on the side. I just have to keep track of who my customers are so when they need work they call me, not my partner. I gotta stay in the loop.
I'm definitely going to go to those home auctions. Did you give me that idea? If so thanks.