We just finished up one of our worst months in ages. Not that surprising, really. We're at ground-zero of the current economic fiasco. At least we have the werewithall to ride the storm a little longer. We also got some work last week that should keep us busy for a while. All in all, things are not where I'd like them to be, but we should be able to limp along until our busy season hits. (Usually in the December time-frame.)
I am 2 months shy of renewing my franchise license. I opened my doors on the last day of January 2005, but I actually purchased my license in October 2004.
5 years of self-employment has been an adventure. I have only one regret about going into business for myself: I should have done it years earlier. I am better off in every conceivable way now that I am self-employed. (Granted, you might want to ask me my opinion a year from now if the busy season doesn't deliver.)
Even though things have been slow, I haven't laid anybody off, yet. We've had to fire people for reasons unrelated to the economy. (Both of them simply stopped showing up for work.) We went through a few weeks were there was, literally, no work for anybody to do.
I treated it as business as usual. I have expectations of my employees: that they'll show up on time and they will work once they're here. However, I feel I have obligations to them in return. For instance, that I won't send them home early (and thus cut their weekly pay for a few hours) just because we're slow.
We made work for them to do in the warehouse. We had them finish the upstairs offices that have been in-progress for more than a year, now. We had them organize the equipment and implement a few visual management systems I've wanted for a while, now.
We also sent people off for some much-needed out of town training and certifications. I'll probably send off a few more folks in the coming months.
Now, we're busy, thank goodness. I can't say that I will never lay off a worker. Who knows what the future brings. We went 2 weeks without any work, which is one thing. I can dip into my personal savings to keep the place afloat. However, there are limits to my resources. If the slowdown had lasted 3 months, I would have had little choice but to let people go.
That is a last resort for me, though. To me, that's a complete game-changer. From that point forward, how can I blame an employee who feels that my company has shown no loyalty to them? How can I take the moral high ground when an employee slacks?
I also feel that I have an obligation during this economic downturn. Even if I didn't make a penny, I want to employ people. The jobs I have may offer modest pay, but for the workers who take them, that pay is the difference between a dignified, modest standard of living, and poverty. These people worked for me when times were good for me. I want to do all I can to make sure they keep their jobs when times are bad for me.
Underneath it all, I'm optimistic. I'm doing all I can to expand our marketing reach. I'm ready to commit full-force to some initiatives my franchisor is launching that should allow us to continue to grow despite the economic conditions in our corner of the world.
We've grown every year during our 5 years in business. I don't see why this year can't be the same. We took a hard shot by crappy August results, but we still stand an outside shot at a million in sales this calendar year.
The biggest challenge facing us is that we're transitioning from being a smallish business to having to implement the same systems and controls that large businesses do.
In the past, we could get away with relying on the fact that either I, or my operations manager, Mike, knew what to do in a given situation. That works when you have 2 trucks and 4 employees.
Right now, we have 5 production trucks and enough people to staff all of them. I can't be 5 places at once, and neither can Mike. Which means adding some supervisory capacity, but also means training the people all the more thoroughly so they can operate with minimal supervision.
Training and the HR function are becoming more and more critical to our success. There's just no way you can run a $5 million dollar business with the same management structure that worked as a $500,000 business. So, our days without an HR and Training administrator of some sort are severely numbered.
The one thing that I wasn't ready for with small business is how much the business environment changes every year. The restoration industry has changed dramatically even since I first got in to it. We constantly have to change and improve our way of doing things in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Every company has the same thing to deal with: improve or die, but the pace of change in small business is staggerring. Entire markets disappear virtually overnight.
5 years ago, a printing business was a viable business opportunity. However, in the past 5 years, half the printers I used to know are out of business. Half of the remaining ones are trying to sell.
I try to remind myself whenever I get frustrated that we have to implement a new system or procedure or respond to a new market challenge, that the alternative is to have a business that essentially remains unchanged from year to year: like printing.
The keys to small business, or to business in general, never really change from year to year. Treat employees well. Treat customers well. Provide quality goods and services at prices customers are willing to pay. Respond to market changes. Look for opportunties to grow.
Most of all: when you're no longer up to the challenge of doing those things, it's time to get out.
I don't feel like it's time for me to get out, just yet. We're still growing, which means I'm still excited and engaged. The past 5 years were everything I had hoped they would be and more. I hope to make the next 5 years even better.
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