Well , it depends on how small the business is . I've been self employed in heavy civil since 84 and 15 yrs previous to that I was with my dad . Got close to 60 yrs punched . and still at it. when you are small business , you do the operating , you do the repairs , wife usually do the books . There were many weekends that wife and I want to get away for a few days but a basement needs to be dug , topsoil needs to be screened , repairs to be done and with profit margins in the toilet, if you don't work you don't eat . But there comes a time when (if you live long enough) ,that you shut it down Friday evenings and the hell with it till Monday morning . I jump on the Harley and go and now do what I want when I want and enjoy the fruits of the hard labour. take that Hemi car for a spin , go to the cabin etc etc . It will take a dedication like no other to be a small business person unless like said that you can hire people to do the work for you and even then , it's not a picnic . My feelings toward it now is "Never seen a Brinks Truck chasing a hearse yet"
I agree Cat_Man320, well said.
A little about my history. I started out building homes as that is what my father did and it was an easy (relatively speaking) path to start my own business, fresh out of college. I grew up in the home building business working on job sites from an early age but truth be known I hated building houses. However I made some good money for several years in that business but my heart was always in moving dirt and heavy equipment.
As time went on I wanted to get into dirt moving and developing so the obvious choice was to self perform developing our own lots and sell lots to other builders. It went well for a while.
Built that company to 15+ employees, nice office and $7-10M in revenues. Had a vertical side for multi-family and single family construction and a horizontal side for developing lots and land. Business was good but there was no time for life. I found myself bound by the organization that I had created. There were too many vacations, trips and social functions I should have taken but I had to feed the machine as there were many depending on it.
Then the crash of 08/09 hit and we all know how bad that was. I lost everything we had of monetary value. In the aftermath, I didn't dwell on bad business decisions or the woe is me sort of thing, I regretted not taking the time to enjoy life a little more.
Started over in 2012 but with a different approach. Now I have a small company with 4 employees in the field including me with a nice diversified client base of retail, restaurant, institutional and residential clients.
Several things the crash taught me -
1- Always take time for yourself and your family, first and foremost.
2- Be diversified in your client base, when one segment of the market is down another is not affected.
3- Be lean and mean. 10-15 year old paid for equipment maintained will earn just as much as new paint and a payment
4- Manage your cash flow like it's the last drop of water on the planet.
5- Vet your GC's and clients before even bidding a job.
6- Always take time for yourself and your family, first and foremost.
1 and 6 box in all the rest.
This business will run you to death if you let it as there is always a deadline and there are always projects behind, usually at no fault of your own but being the first one onsite and one of the last to leave we bear the brunt of the schedule.
I don't get stressed anymore about too much work and how we're going to handle it or not having enough. As you build your client base and gain a good reputation, when you're needing a project to fill in, the phone will ring or an email will be in the in box.
Tomorrow the wife and I are driving to Atlanta to board a plane for an 11 day trip out of the country. I have one project to bid by Friday and I have my crew set up for a short week of work. The sun is going to come up and the sun is going to go down, dirt will be moved. I will have internet service but no phone service, I could have phone service but I don't want my phone messing with my vacation, it'll wait.:cool2
When I leave this earth, I'll leave it how I came in, covered in blood and screaming but until then I'm going to build a another business but not let it run me. Dirt will be moved, concrete will be poured, steel will be erected regardless who is doing it, however your time is finite.
It's taken me 20 years in this business of ups and downs to come to the realization that no project is more important than your personal time. Now with that being said I had a sweet project come across the desk with 62K CY's of fill, 10 acres of clearing and several thousand tons of road base to build an access road - yes it's a sickness but one has to balance.
