Signs it’s time to go into business for yourself

What does your financial situation look like? This is the real question. If your financials look good and you can afford to go without a potential pay check for awhile it may be time to shoot for it.

I always encourage people to take the leap because the world needs more business owners and working for myself is literally all I know and all i’ve ever done. Literally my passion but make sure you do it correctly and wisely.

Other people said it and I agree. Dollars. With this particular situation it almost always comes down to dollars.

You obviously know what you are doing. Almost eight years in the space at 60-70 hours per week with degrees and certifications. You are probably in the top 10% or higher of people in your industry. Not that self-taught is bad at all, but you have a clear leg up.

So should you go it alone? What does your war chest look like? What do you have for equipment? Money is very expensive right now so will you finance all of your new equipment/tools?

Don’t forget to add your compensation, taxes, cost of borrowing (big interest rates nowadays) marketing, loss, theft, gas, etc. All the expenses. I am not saying you do this, but many people will be working on a job in a particular trade and forget all the other expenses. “This guy/gal makes $2,000 on this job?!? All I got out of it was $200!!” Take time to really deep dive into every single cost. I am sure there are free resources online (and some good YouTubers) that can give you a good breakdown.

Personally, I would aim to have six months of cash on hand and expect not to make a penny for that entire time. If you earn a profit on day one, great! But plan for the absolute worst-case scenario and then plan an extra quarter beyond that.

Gotta go all in and landscaping is easy to find clients. Very hard to transition to landscaping. You need to go and quote people and work on designs and bookkeep and do the work. Entrepreneur means going all in, no half a pies.

I don’t know about other’s experiences, but we had to call six landscaping companies before we had one even reply show up and actually give a quote. Then the quote was by text message and he already missed his second week mowing for us after he did a spring cleanup and some plantings with his team.

So at least in my neck of the woods in the north east, there’s clearly more demand than there are service providers.

I have a few friends who own landscaping businesses, and they are extremely successful.

And because they were aggressive when they started or bought the business they now do some pretty big jobs. But they still do the half-day job from time to time to build a client relationship and keep their staff busy when the big jobs allow or slow.

I would question whether you need any more certifications or not unless you want to get into excavation, chemical applications, and if your state requires those certifications or licenses. Otherwise, if you’ve been thinking about this hard for eight years, I don’t think another certification is going to help you start your business.

If you’ve saved up enough money for some equipment insurance, working capital, and you can start mowing lawns or doing projects yourself with some hourly labor…sounds like a starting point.

I was in the same position in my industry (auto parts) and finally made the jump. If you’re frustrated by shitty owners and poor decisions you’re on the right track to doing it yourself. Start small and level up slowly. Landscaping is one of those industries where the owners make all the money

Hey, been running my own Landscaping business for the past 6 years in Ontario, Canada and I’d love to chime in.
I gross roughly $250,000 in sales a year give or take depending on the year, totalling $1.5 million since inception. I employ 4 hard working fellas and I have a business partner. We have 2 trucks, 1 more maintenance pulling a single axle enclosed and 1 heavy duty diesel pulling a 7 ton dump trailer.

If you truly love this industry and it sounds like you do, go for it! Here are a few things I’ve learnt:

1. Maintenance
We started out with maintenance as our main source of income. It will be slow at first but believe me, word of mouth along with a few years of a well SEO’d website will do you amazingly well. Our new client acquisitions are, I’d say, 60% WoM and 40% calls from Google look ups. This will be mostly 95/5 for you in your early days but as you become well known in your area your SEO will pick up as people search for you. We have about 30 clients contracted to weekly services which is a nice steady and reliable source of income. Of course, projects are the big bucks but in the early days when it was just me and my partner in 1 truck, we didn’t have too much time to take on extra projects.

2. Employees
Hell I’ve seen them all. I have a crew lead who has been with us for 3 years and is so loyal and a hard worker, but then I’ve had people I needed to let go within their 3 month probation period because of a variety of reasons like laziness, lack of motivation and punctuality, and bad habits like being on phone on properties. I only allow my crew lead to be on phone as I am constantly in communication with him. A company culture is important too – make them feel like a tight knit group. Afterall physical labor is different than an office job. You literally rely on each other to have each other’s backs. If one person is slacking it creates turmoil and feelings of tension between the boys. You have to keep them in line to make sure everyone’s pulling their weight.

3. Wage
Physical jobs are demanding and your putting you and your team’s physical health at risk with this industry. Be strict on job efficiency but don’t overwork them either. Give them a day off after a brutal 4 week project that destroyed them. If you made bank, give them a cash bonus. Be stringent on time. In this industry, the saying time is money is taken to a whole new level. Every minute on a task is a billable hour that is either absorbed by your clients payment if done well or cut into your profits if they are slacking. Measure your time on properties to ensure you have quoted correctly. Pay your guys fair. Research on indeed similar positions and pay for the average. Don’t overpay. Better and easier to give a raise then to realize your overpaying someone disproportionately to their actual efforts. You can’t reverse raises. Or at least don’t. That’s horrible and on you if you fucked up.

4. Insurance
Get property and liability insurance obviously. You’d be surprised how many fellow companies I’ve gotten to know who operate without any. Also get a bundle that covers your tools. I’ve had shit stolen and reimbursed.

5. Clients
In your early years, and depending on your age, snakes will take advantage of you. Know your worth. I started out at 22 and fuck i couldn’t count on two hands how many times people took advantage of us cause we were young guys starting out. Master filtering out true and fair clients that value your hard work from the assholes. You’ll get good at it.

6. Price
Learn accounting. Overhead, budgeting, quoting, (timing yourself comes in handy here). You don’t need to and shouldn’t do everything yourself but as the owner you do need a decent understanding of accounting because at the end of the day, your bookkeeper won’t be quoting your proposals for you. And you’ll need to know your own expenses and operating costs. When you get a pushback om a price, if you’re absolutely certain it’s fair for you, DO NOT LOWER PRICE. Lower SCOPE OF WORK. You dont work for free. Neither do your clients. Be firm.

7. Mistakes
Be honest. 1 bad review will fuck you. It’s not worth the shortcut or saving of x amount when your reputation is bombed. Cut wire? Irrigation? Tell them. Honesty goes a long way.

Fuck I could go on for hours but I’m in a rush. I’m here so comment or DM and AMA. Love to help

I don’t understand why you need “a few more certifications”, except that you’re just scared. And a fraidy cat isn’t gonna be a great entrepreneur.

What are you going to do that captures market share and differentiates you from the competition? You need to make sure you aren’t just being an employee and saying “I could run things so much better for the workers!” the improvements you make need to substantially increase your value to customers. Employees are paid in part to deal with the little inefficiencies.