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Welding business failure

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Fordfarmer123

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After my mother passed away from cancer two years ago. I became consumed with entrepreneurship after finding a business card she must of made for herself having some sort of desire to escape the rat race, a business never executed.... I read MJ's book and was very motivated although I admit I broke the commandment of time, scale and control. After the book I was constantly in search of opportunitys. I decided to follow my trade welding and fabrication . I purposely saved from my day job and got better equipment to grow. Without any knowledge of business I started a llc and business bank account and a awesome logo with a website. Looking back I should have waited to create the llc after I actually had a customer. The following months I finally accumulated all the equipment needed to perform steel work, many never enter this field because of the amount of work needed and capital. Finally my first customer came in (my old boss) had a overflow from his company of handrails and gave me the work. I was set up for mobile welding so I didn't have the overhead to have a shop at this time, my friend at the time had some extra sqft at his shop he said I could use to complete the project. So breaking the commandment of control I said yes to using his shop and told my old boss I would build these railings. The blueprints came in I called my friend to set up in his space and no answer.. Great I thought to myself , I have my a$$ on the line and all my hard earned money out in material and people depending on me. I later called my friend again no response (later to find out he was going through a break up with his girl). Left high and dry I cleaned out my 10x20 garage completely and built a 5x12 steel table for 700$ right in my driveway, wheeled it inside and added a unexpected extra 16 hours to the project... Behind on time I quickly fabricated in a tight space for these massive railings building them in smaller sections to be assembled outside to make the small space work. I got paid for the job and completed it on time after working after work until bed time and every weekend 15hrs a day.
That was my first failure was depending on someone else .

Later I started studying marketing and sales trying to leverage more high pay repeat customers into my business. I got many lead most home owners with small project like making a table or fixing a chair that should have been thrown away years ago. I took every lead seriously however and most of the time as soon as a gave a price which is poverty level for me after paying for materials the customers would almost be offended about the pricing. Very few would make a sale and pay the prices but the ones who did where great customers and understood value.

MY SECOND LESSON LEARNED
(family and friends love to take advantage of your hard work)
After friends and family knew I had a small shop in my garage they started asking for favors one by one
My friends wanted there rusty truck frames fixed for free, my distant family members crawled out of the wood work and wanted fabrication projects done for free that take days of time and labor. After rejecting them they bad mouthed me talking behind my back.


THIRD LESSON LEARNED
I continued to push through working longs weeks at a my very physical day job and the business.
I leaned how to do bids and purposals for bigger contractors . I soon learned the big contractors control the game and the pay. (This also was a violation of control)
I thought I already knew what burn out was I had no idea until this point.

FOURTH LESSON LEARNED
(got to look before you leap)
With a baby on the way I took a offer for a new job union wages $34hr fulltime and to go to school part time for a year
Union schooling is much harder than I thought its a also a conflict on interest of my business.
the job worked me into the ground holding my job over my head everyday demanding to perform faster work because there are 80 guys who would love to take my pay tomorrow.
all the union guys I work with drained and believe there lies. I am rare in the union because I focus on specialty fabrication.
I wish I kept my job that paid a little less as a Forman of a fab shop. I work 10x as hard now and was baptized by fire. The good news is all the money I made from my side business I saved and the extra money from the union wages I have saved. I think I cant grow my business anymore because I am tapped out on time. capital and I'm not ready to quit my job yet. I have about 6 months of living expenses saved.
Its been two years of lots of long nights and pain, I think I'm going to start on another business the risk of losing my job is to high with the side business in the same field
I'm hesitant of stopping now though because maybe I'm one step from the finish line of success and just cant see it yet. I defiantly feel alone and isolated in my journey. I'm in process of reading MJ's book again. I apologize for the grammar its been years since I was in school or had to type anything. I'm heavily leaning toward the idea of starting business in another field. I'm not giving up but perhaps a change in direction something needs to change.

Thank you for taking the time to read hopefully my failure can help someone else
 
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DMNinja

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I sincerely hope you find advice on the things that you are currently lacking in. The only thing that I can say is this:

FRIENDS (real ones) don't and won't accept your hard work being done for anything else other than your asking price. As for your "failure", you don't fail until you quit.

Listen to this video, if you want. There's a lot of good life experience by a professional in their field:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yFFBBFqe-E


(not sure if posting a non-promotional video is against the rules. If it is, please do remove it. It's not my intention to break the rules, even by accident)
 

Kung Fu Steve

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"Choose your hard"

Jobs are hard. Business is hard. Everything is hard. Choose your hard.

I have a success story with a business partner of mine. He went into the precision welding business. Company was doing approximately 200k/year for the last 4 years. In this first quarter he's already closed (and been paid on) close to $3mm in sales.

There's lots of companies looking for great welders.

If you want to be successful, you can't work IN the business, you have to work ON the business. My friend can weld but every hour he spends welding means he's not out selling.

The business is simple. Get an orange, replace an orange.

Meaning: get a job and don't leave that job without 3 referrals.

If this is still what you want to do.

As an employee -- you can still treat your job as a business and bring more into the company. Work your way into partnership or commissions.

Your income is only capped by your creativity.
 
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Johnny boy

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Some people have different talents than others.

It's okay to be a good fabricator and not a good business owner.

I have lots of employees that come work with us for a bit, see some 24 year old running a business and think they can do the same thing. They quit and run off and go mow some lawns for a bit and then give it up. I made it look easy to them. It's not easy for everyone. You need to be an EXCELLENT communicator, understand how to build systems for all parts of your business, be an absolute beast at marketing, advertising, sales and customer service, etc. You need to be deeply intuitive at understanding how to give people what they want, from employees to customers.

One of the biggest thing I see in common with all people who have business failures in blue-collar industries is that they don't have a logical long-term vision or ability to plan. They think doing some work for their boss is "a business". You ask them how they advertise or market themselves and they say something retarded like "just word of mouth". They answer all inbound calls on their personal cell phone line. That kind of business.

All of your "lessons learned" are not really lessons at all. People who continue to fail are stuck because of all of the wrong things they thought they "learned". I can't tell you how much garbage advice I hear from the people in my life. It sounds like decent advice but it's exactly why they aren't winning. Be careful about the stuff you think you've learned.

You should go all in on what you're good at. It sounds like you're saying you want to be a basketball player but you're a 5'3" jewish guy. Don't do the stuff you're not good at. If you don't care and your dream is to be a big shot with a large company, then you better be willing to put in 70 hour weeks for the next 5-10 years and spend most of it rewiring your head and beliefs, and learning about all the important stuff relevant to running a business. However, I'd suggest just trying to be the best welder around. This business owner shit isn't for everyone.
 

Ing

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Tough area of business.

One friend started the same. Someday he just as a contractor for other big businesses. He still makes a decent living of it.

Another friend (and brother in law) started one and after one year he had 30 k in debt. Some customers just didn’t pay. Some of them were his „friends“.

so, in my opinion you did that business very well. Youlearned your lessons and did save some money.
Well done. Steer your ship to the next destination!
 

Equilibrium

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MY SECOND LESSON LEARNED
(family and friends love to take advantage of your hard work)
Going to teach you the framework I use to prevent users.
When I started doing computer repair I can't believe how many people crawled out of the woodwork with devices as infested as themselves wishing for free repairs.

What I learned is these people are lazy
Sure they want a free easy fix on your time with your dime with your labor their only thanks being a half-assed ''thkya'' BUT they want this to be easy.

I disabled voicemail on my phone. One day I just realized there's no point in having voicemail a service created in 1898 as a notification system. I have make a call, type in a pin and listen to audio for ..what. To hear about a extended warranty? So I dialed my phone provider and instructed them to disable all voicemail.

Then I disabled any calls not known to go voicemail.
For IOS
o turn on Silence Unknown Callers, go to Settings > Phone, then scroll down, tap Silence Unknown Callers, and turn on the feature. Calls from unknown numbers are silenced and sent to your voicemail, and appear in your recent calls list.
.

For Android

  1. Tap the phone icon on your Android, which is usually at the bottom of the home screen.
  2. Tap the three dots at the top of the Phone app screen.
  3. Tap "Settings" in the dropdown menu.
  4. Tap "Block numbers" and then toggle the button beside "Block unknown callers" to green.
Family I don't want to call me is simply blocked.
This means that unknown callers go to voicemail, but voicemail is not set up.
If you want to reach me you have to in person.

Next I set up a master contact form.
it's just a Google Sheet linked to a bit.ly address

ANY time someone says they want me to X Y or Z (and this does include work I do)
I send them to said form. Now there's a trick here that form requires a pin to submit.
To do this just use Google forms, set a answer to require response validation=exact then set a code and set it as required. Presto, now no one can contact you unless you WANT them to.

The end result looks like this.
Susie Mcfarty Foos asks hey can you fix this problem..
I say sure, go to this site and enter this code.
Susie who wants something for nothing doesn't remember the code or I simply don't provide it.
If she begs me to help I say sorry everything is done through that form.
If she visits, and doesn't remember the code (which I give audibly) she can't submit the request.
If she begs me to help I send her to the form.
If she calls me she gets kicked to voicemail which doesn't exist.
If she complains that I won't help I send her to the form explaining the form is used for all (it really is)

And IF I give a rats bare behind about actually helping her then that form is viewed as a Google Sheet to review what needs to be done.

Now Susie Mcfarty Foos wants something for nothing.
When I tell her to visit a form she will probably give up at that state. If not feel free to submit the form.
Also be advised I charge for parts and fill out the form.

Ever since I've implemented this framework the choosing beggars had dropped so drastically I sometimes forget they exist. The few that do are still dialing a number that doesn't ring when they call, doesn't let you leave voicemail, and being informed I would be happy to take a look/help you for the cost of my time and labor with nothing in return! just fill out this form.
 
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DMNinja

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Going to teach you the framework I use to prevent users.
When I started doing computer repair I can't believe how many people crawled out of the woodwork with devices as infested as themselves wishing for free repairs.
...
Shortened to save some forum viewing space. It's just an observation, but it looks like you've essentially attached inconvenience to the process. Those whose issue outweighs the inconvenience will fill that form whereas the EZ-beggars won't.

Simple, yet effective!
 

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