money owed

[byndbad914]

Originally Posted by ironworks

...It amazes me that well over 50% of building hot rods professionally has nothing to do with anything that is done in the shop. If you want to make money building hot rods, go get a real job. If you cannot see your self doing anything else, you must have the passion, but passion does not help you run a business, WELL.

Werd - you hit it right on the head. First thing any good business school will teach you is the reason why most businesses fail is because the person starts it thinking it is 100% technical and they are really good at what they do.

Reality is it is about 10-15% technical because 85-90% of the time you are so busy with all the other BS that you spend 10-15% of your time overseeing people you have hired to do the technical work to keep them on track. So you hope to hire people that are 100% technical so that 10-15% you spend in guidance doesn't kill you Hence, as I am sure you have found Roger, you have a bunch of hopefully good employees you HAVE to (not want to or hope to but HAVE to) be able to give a brief descript of what you want and then turn and walk away and not look back until they are done and need the next assignment. That is sooooooooo soooooooo sooooooo (I can do that fifty more times) hard to find. BTDT and then the good ones require too much hourly to make it worth while (and rightly so if they are good at what they do).

It's that whole I can charge $75/hr shop rate to get the job to begin with v. the $120 I really want to charge, attempt to convince the best employees $25/hr ($50K/yr which ain't sh!t to raise a family on in CA) is "killer" pay, have $30-$33/hr in him after taxes (don't even think about having bennies), have material costs for the build that average in, overhead costs and depreciation on equip to factor in, etc etc and pretty soon you are down to where he makes $25/hr and you make $10 So it gets a whole lot easier to just go get a job again and be really good at what you do technically for $25/hr while the poor bastardo cutting the check is going broke.

So you spend a few years eating Ramen noodles and working to get a reputation to get more biz to get more employee headaches to get more biz to get more employees until you have 7 employees making you $10/hr and it starts to make sense.

Hence why at the age of 27 I sold my hot rod, went back to school, got my BSME and I got a "real" job as you put. And I still dream about having my own biz now and again (bet you didn't know you were living the dream hahahaha when payroll shows up ev'ry Friday and nobody has shown up that week to pay a chunk of their labor bill) but then when I get up out of my chair and go home after 9 hours, have every other Friday off, and make more in 40 than I would in 60, I just don't miss it (most days).

But man, when you are doing what you love, 60 seems like 30 when 40 seems like 80 in the corporate world Everything has it's evils, it's just which evils you can stomach easier.

Geez, I really get going sometimes. You clearly are carving out a niche, and you guys do some really nice work for sure so I wish you all the best it realizing the "dream", but you are very right in saying it isn't for everyone. And most everyone wants their own biz including my history, and you can never understand the trials and tribs 'til you've been there. Careful what they wish for, right!