Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)

Tarrant_sl said:

I'd say in the grand scheme of things, is 1k really gonna kill you? You've spend 2k and made 6k...spending 3k more still leaves you a grand on top and you get to see what it will actually do for you without spending anything that would cause you to be in the negative. If it doesn't pay out then go back to what you were doing that you know works imo.

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That is logical, it's just my anus is puckered at spending more than 10k a month in advertising. Going 3k a month on the 6pm slot puts me over that.

Logically speaking, I'm playing with house money, so why not try?

Corndog_sl said:

What if you find out 6pm slot is the best slot to be advertising on?

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Probably 70% of the people we surveyed on the phone say they watch 6pm, and we have zero representation at that time.

I find it interesting that, for the most part, people calling off of TV have been affluent. We had one guy that was lower income, but he paid half of the job upfront before we even started. He wanted to go on a payment plan, and he said he'd pay half now, half later. I'm good with that.

Tarrant_sl said:

Do you guys normally extend lines of credit like that?

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We've always had the policy of extending lines of credit to anyone. The policy has been that way for decades. It gets nervewracking at times, especially when you meet new customers and they have large amounts of work. One time, we met a new customer who had pretty close to 25k in work. After we got done talking to them, we decided it would be best to not do their job. But to almost 100% of our customers, we give unlimited credit. I'm going to say that over the last five years, only .5% of sales is deemed uncollectable.

I'll start using credit cards one day, and a lot of this will go away.

On another note, I'll be interviewed tomorrow by the TV station we advertise on, as the city has changed some ordinances, and it affects almost every homeowner. It's easier to get freebie interviews when you advertise with them. I get lots more calls doing interviews, than with commercials, because the TV station is talking to me as the "expert."

Tarrant_sl said:

What's changed that they would want to talk to you about it? (That sounds snarky but it's not intended to be.)

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I've got to keep my anonymity, but the ordinance limits jobs to a certain size now. Anything else needs approval by the city, and the fines are high. Think $5-10k if you don't get permits (as a homeowner). It's an ordinance not many people know about.

Why ask me? Because I own the largest, most recognizable company in my industry (in the area). And I've called them to let it be known I'm available. I've cultivated those relationships. Also, it helps that since I've bumped my budget up, I'm now one of the largest local advertisers (versus corporate). I learned from a car dealer friend of mine, when you are in the TV station's pockets, you can pretty much write your own story.

None of my competitors are on billboard, radio or TV. That separates me when the media wants to know something industry related. They tend to call who is advertising with them first.

At first I got off on being on TV (and the calls it generates), but now I'm on every time there's any bit of emergency work or change in ordinance. But if I say no, they'll call a competitor. So I have to do it.

I went to 6 pm, at the heavier schedule, starting next week. I'm spending their money at this point, not mine.

Tarrant_sl said:

So when you say job sizes are limited now or you need a permit...do you mean like crew size or how much a job would cost? What factors are regulating the size? How much will permits be and will you take that into effect when quoting them?

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I'm going balls deep on 6pm.

Any more info (on what you asked), and it would be like posting a copy of my driver license on the Internet. Suffice it to say, for people with large acreage, they'll need to be careful. We had an Exec rent out a crew last year for one week. He paid $12k for a crew and equipment for five days' work. According to the ordinance, we'd only have been able to do one days' work.

The city wants to retain foliage, but it's infringed on people's property rights to do so. It will impact my business, because the wealthier clients with lots of land are limited. I talked to the City Manager yesterday, and pretty much, the customer is going to get a NO.

It's almost criminal that they are taking away customer's rights (and making my larger jobs smaller), but I can't go blasting with double barrels, as I do work for this city. I just bid a job today where I was going to be a subcontractor to a construction company on a job for this city (kind of ironic). I have to be careful, politically, or I could get blackballed from future bids to this city. So this is going to be more an information piece discussing the ordinance, and the exceptions that will be made. I get to come off as the good guy who is educating people and helping them avoid fines. Of course, it helps me, as every time I'm interviewed, my company gets calls off of them for a month afterwards.

I was going to come in with double barrels, but it's never smart to shoot your customers (unless they don't pay you, then it's OK).

Eomer_sl said:

The last ditch offer that he'd gotten from the previous owner after he told them he was taking another job was a 2% stake in the company, vested after 7 years or 1 day before any sale/buyout. He decided to take the job with Suncor anyways. Apparently he found out this morning that the company got bought out by some large publicly traded American company.He figures they were bought for at least 100m, if not 200m.

Needless to say, I think he's a bit despondent right now.

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Do you guys have him on around the clock suicide watch right now?

This is what I woke up to today. The guys were working on a job for a wealthy family. Their security gate shut on my truck, and the safety sensors didn't work.

And they are expecting me to pay for it, when the gate malfunctioned. We had the original company that installed the gate determine this. Ugh.