Small business is hard!

Thank you for all these amazing replays its means more than you know just being able to hear some fresh ideas and different perspectives.

Also consider value delivery; would the customer pay for it? (LEAN thinking). And consider waste. (5S). Waiting waste, scrap waste, rework waste, motion/transportation waste, inventory waste. They all add cost without adding value.

Glad I’m not the only one. I started an HVAC/R business despite being burnt out on it and having to go back to a full time job. In the end I gave up even tho I had really loyal customers. The issue I faced was not enough income to justify leaving the day job, and because the day job, I couldn’t be available during prime service hours and that hurt my own business. It’s a big leap. You are way ahead of me on that and honestly inspire me to try again with maybe a different path. 🤘🏼💕

I charge per day and make sure i charge few extra days to guarantee worksmanship. If i want profit, finish it quickly. If i want good mental health, do it within quoted days. If it is crazy R&D project, stay away from it or do it on your own project first to measure your confidence.

Having a small business in 2020 is extremely stressful, but mate if you can make it through this period then your almost set once things pick up again. Keep at it.

What is your bread and butter (exhausts?) What can you churn through ## jobs / week for the cashflow? What is your break even point? How many of those type of jobs do you need to do per week to stay afloat. Target that sort of work specifically: videos, posts, word of mouth, advertising. Get your pricing on point vs. competitors. What terms do you ask for payment on? Shorter the better.

Custom work in any trade costs $ and like you said other places didn't want to touch it there's a reason some tradesmen are craftsmen and you pay $ for quality keep up the quality work and charge accordingly for you to make a living 👍

Past Tim was terrible 🤣 I'll see what other random crap I can bring you haha Love your work mate keep it up ❤️

If you’re taking on work that others might turn away, maybe you could charge more for it. A boily I use here in Qld charges me in two ways. 1. Just materials and hourly rate if I give him the design sketched up with all dimensions. Or 2 A slightly higher price for the overall job when they have to spend a few hours looking, measuring and designing. It 100% fair for your design time to be chargeable time if the quality of your work is your point of difference. You also need to find out if your clients are coming to you for price or for quality.

You are doing bespoke work so you may need to charge a little extra. Also, make sure that you add all your other social connections here on Youtube under each video you post and also in your about page. I have a couple of other Ideas we may be able to collaborate on will talk to you later.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to step forward. If someone wants something done that interests you. Do it at a good price but don’t make it a priority. Be honest. And work on those projects a couple of hours a week ( if the end result and quality is there then the customer is happy to wait ) $$$ is in the little fast jobs. Look at any workshop in Australia. Car dealers especially. They don’t make there money doing rebuilds. It’s the the quick oil and filter change. It’s finding that balance. If you can do say a manifold repair in an hour and charge $150 and do 3 jobs like that a day. Then the 2 or 3 hours you then spend doing the tricky long term jobs don’t hit as hard.

Do you have a website? There might be some things we could create on there. Do you have an email list?

Also, I heard and exhaust will give my Focus +50kW, is this true?