April 2025
I have been busy.
Evidence the lack of blog posts in the past year.
But things are well, I am still alive (for those of you who are following along). The busy season is just starting to pick up again, and jobs are rolling in. So unless you hire me personally, you may not hear from me again for a while, haha.
I have been asked by several people recently about starting a business. Someone wanted to know how to start a career as a general contractor. (I can help with that one a bit, since I am one) and someone else wanted to get started as a freelance barber. (Which may be a little tricky because I have never been a barber. I don’t cut hair, just Fir.)
So in this post, I’m outlining a few helpful tips for someone who wants to start their own business.
One of the things that often goes overlooked until too late in the game is advertising. You need people on your team, whether you are hiring them or they are hiring you for your services. Customers are also part of your team, believe it or not. A happy customer who has a lot of friends will earn you more jobs than an ad campaign. If you do social media, be who you are on camera just like you are in real life. Start a website or social media platform to display your work. You might try Wix or WordPress. People want to see the sort of work you do. Get some business cards, and give them to everyone. Try Vistaprint. Advertising doesn’t need to be fancy.
You’ll start advertising about the time you get serious about starting your business. While you’re working on that, there are a whole slough of other things that will demand your attention. For general contractors, that looks like this:
- Get your license. Look up the requirements for your state. You’ll need to study for a test, which is normally open-book, and if you pass with a high enough percentage, you’ll be able to get your license. At some point you will need to take the test again to refresh your license. In Oregon, this is every two years.
- Start an LLC (Limited Liability Company) or a Sole Proprietorship if you’re going at it on your own. This means filing the correct paperwork with any state, and paying a fee. I’d recommend reading Nolo’s guide to LLCs. Consider setting your LLC up in Wyoming, New Mexico, Nevada, or Delaware for the best privacy. There are other types of businesses as well, not just limited to the LLC. S-Corporation and C-Corporation are a few.
- You will need to get insurance for your company if you will ever run risk of doing damage to someone else’s property. For general contractors this is a must. For barbers … if you’re not confident in your skills you should look into it. People tend to like their hair. Ask other business owners which insurance company they recommend.
- Find someone to do your taxes. This will pay dividends in reduced stress if nothing else. Hiring a professional insures that it’s done right, the first time, and while it might be a little spendy, it is definitely worth it. Again, ask other business owners who they recommend. For this one, you might narrow it down to business owners who are in the same field as you, although I can’t say that dogmatically because I found my tax lady through a butcher.
- Once you have your business set up, it’s insured and bonded (Bonds are also something you can get through your insurance company), and you’re licensed, it’s time to get to work. For contractors, make sure you’ve got all the right paperwork for every job, whether that’s the contract, notice of right to a lien, W9, COI, etc. Do your research. A lot of this will be covered in the book you study for your test.
- Keep track of your numbers. Anally. Do not mess this up. Your tax person won’t do it for you, and neither will your girlfriend. Keep track of how much you’re spending and earning. Keep track of how much you spend on gas, how many miles you travel, how much you spend on equipment, (separate from materials like 2x4s and concrete). Every cent matters at the end of the year, because you can get a nice tax return if you have everything in order. Equipment is a write-off. You can even write off a certain percentage of a dollar for every mile you travel. That’s money back in your pocket. On the same note, that is why a lot of contractors and other business owners will invest in equipment at the end of the year, so they can spend their extra dough on tools instead of taxes.
- Quarterlies are not a thing most people have to deal with. As a business owner, you’ll need to pay taxes four times a year, instead of having something automatically deducted from your paycheck every two weeks. Make sure you have enough capital to pay your quarterlies.
- You will be paying yourself, which means having two separate bank accounts. Your customers will give you checks made out to your business, and you will write checks to yourself from your business account. Don’t buy groceries with your business account.
- Now that legal stuff is out of the way, here are a few tips on other things. You might consider working with people who have been in the business for a long time. Learn all the little tricks for the area you want to be expert in. If you want to be a drywaller, get on a drywall crew. You can do this before you ever start your business, or you can ask the owner if he’ll hire you as a sub contractor. Same thing with framing, concrete, carpet, and the list goes on.
- Final thing. There is a huge difference between the guy that shows up on time, does a nice job, doesn’t cuss, and leaves the area clean at the end of the day, and the guy who’s late, has to run into town multiple times during the day for things he forgot, get’s in a rush because he’s behind schedule and makes mistakes, bids too high, treats his clients disrespectfully, and doesn’t clean up after himself. Do everything you can to be the first guy. Add a little bit of padding to your bid, but don’t go overkill. The customer feels better hearing, “I can give you a little discount,” than “I bid this job wrong, it’s actually going to cost more than I thought” when you’re already in the middle of things. Don’t change your bid halfway through. Change-orders are one thing, and they can be handled well, but you’d rather get paid less than you wanted than have an upset customer. Happy customers at the end of the day is your lifeline.
For my barber friend, (or anyone who might be starting a small business providing any kind of service), get your business set up, keep track of your numbers, and do your very best to make people happy. Smile, ask them about themselves, keep them laughing. If your numbers don’t look right, change your rates at the end of the month, or just for new customers, or however you want to handle it. It is vitally important that people don’t feel like they’re getting ripped off.
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Thanks!
Until next time,
God bless
~Carter @ Pierce Innovation