- Joined
- Apr 14, 2021
- Messages
- 4
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Howdy,
New to the forum but not new to MJs books. I've read them both a couple of times over the past couple of years, and refer to them often . Quit my w-2 3 years ago and started an industrial welding and steel fabrication business. Never dreamed owning a business would be so much work or so damn hard. We serve the Oil and gas industry which is very face paced and very competitive. I hit the ground running in year one and had $75K in sales in the first 2 months, no employees and no shop to work in so I hired my cousin and me and him worked 12 hour days for 6 weeks in an open field on a piece of property I own outside of Houston. Hired a few employees and built a shop ourselves with the money from those first 2 orders soon after that. I ended up grossing about $500k that year, lived below the poverty line personally, and reinvested all of the money into our facility and better equipment. Year 2 (2020) was a busy year even with Covid 19, we never slowed down and grossed $1.2 Million, I never made a sales call either this was all repeat business and word of mouth (quality is your greatest salesman IMO). However, towards the end of the year I could tell 2021 was going to be a rough one and so far I've been right. The oil and gas industry is very volatile and unfortunately also affected by politics. New projects are just not happening right now, the big players aren't spending any money and seem to be in a wait and see mode. The projects that are happening , are going for to cheap and I'm not doing this shit for free as some of my competitors seem to be willing to do. So I'm at a crossroads with my business. I view it as an opportunity. I can finally slow down enough to transition into what I really want this business to be, which is more geared towards manufacturing steel products (which I have been working on designs the past few months and finally have the fabrication drawings).
I know the road ahead is going to be tough as I'm pretty much starting over. I'm usually the type to just be a lone ranger and handle everything on my own, but I've already learned that will wear you out. So I look forward to interacting with this community and I am thankful a place like this exists for us Unscripted folks. I Love small business and I love helping people. I look forward to positively contributing to this forum.
Cheers,
Kenny
New to the forum but not new to MJs books. I've read them both a couple of times over the past couple of years, and refer to them often . Quit my w-2 3 years ago and started an industrial welding and steel fabrication business. Never dreamed owning a business would be so much work or so damn hard. We serve the Oil and gas industry which is very face paced and very competitive. I hit the ground running in year one and had $75K in sales in the first 2 months, no employees and no shop to work in so I hired my cousin and me and him worked 12 hour days for 6 weeks in an open field on a piece of property I own outside of Houston. Hired a few employees and built a shop ourselves with the money from those first 2 orders soon after that. I ended up grossing about $500k that year, lived below the poverty line personally, and reinvested all of the money into our facility and better equipment. Year 2 (2020) was a busy year even with Covid 19, we never slowed down and grossed $1.2 Million, I never made a sales call either this was all repeat business and word of mouth (quality is your greatest salesman IMO). However, towards the end of the year I could tell 2021 was going to be a rough one and so far I've been right. The oil and gas industry is very volatile and unfortunately also affected by politics. New projects are just not happening right now, the big players aren't spending any money and seem to be in a wait and see mode. The projects that are happening , are going for to cheap and I'm not doing this shit for free as some of my competitors seem to be willing to do. So I'm at a crossroads with my business. I view it as an opportunity. I can finally slow down enough to transition into what I really want this business to be, which is more geared towards manufacturing steel products (which I have been working on designs the past few months and finally have the fabrication drawings).
I know the road ahead is going to be tough as I'm pretty much starting over. I'm usually the type to just be a lone ranger and handle everything on my own, but I've already learned that will wear you out. So I look forward to interacting with this community and I am thankful a place like this exists for us Unscripted folks. I Love small business and I love helping people. I look forward to positively contributing to this forum.
Cheers,
Kenny
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