A new chapter in my business journey

[Isetech]

It is pretty exciting, just a couple more days and I finally have an oportunity to move into a factory with an office and place to expand my skills.

My plan is to spend a few bucks and make it as simple as possible with the bare minimum, no more files and paper work on sheves etc, its just going to be a big curve monitor or 2, docking station, tablet for delivery notes and invoicing, flat screen TV, decent coffee machine and a modern table for meeting and stuff.

Once I have setup the factory office, then the plan is to strip the home office and do the same, burn or the old books and paper. the only book I will keep is my job book which I have used since I started the business. I might frame it with all the old certificates and the ECA member document (it looks like a pirates treasure map and all my other certificates which just rot away in the filling cabinet, I am going to need a entire wall.

The plan is to also spend some time figuring out how to run a real business, I know by now (33 years of it) I should know how to do it, when it comes to dealing with customers finding work and doing the electrical, I have a bit of experience, but the money side of it especially the spending part I suck at it. I know how to blow money and waste it, which is my weakness. I need to learn how to manage money.

I also need to learn to play nicely with the other kids on social media, I plan to employ someone to manage the content and make sure that the content is what people want to read and not what I think. I might keep one of my profiles open on this forum. You can be anyone on social media, its time to be the nice guy.

[Dylboy]

That is very exciting! So happy for you ! : ) Wish you all the best !

Talking of being a business owner and not just a job creater for yourself I have got all my expenses etc on a spread sheet and I know my minimum, then after that (took awhile ) I now charge for what I have to and what I need to instead of trying to be nice and fit myself into someone else's budget.

I have lost a bunch of quotes but the ones I get it's now a pleasure.

Look family and friends is different but still.

A thing a client said the one day is why can the client have a nice car but you can't, clearly they charge for what ever they do or are paid for what ever they do.

However with the inflation and lower loadshedding the phone is quite other than the odd small job or a stove is broken. But fortunately I don't have big overheads.

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[Isetech]

I still have 8 projects on the go, ranging from small CCTV installations to new machines for the factory arriving, to 12 kw inverter with a roof full of panels, to a double storey 3 phase rewire and a pile of other stuff going on.

Its a pity you not from our part of town, there is a lot of work around here.

[Isetech]

What a start it was, the day just went from bad to worse, starting with a few issue at home, then being late on my first day, thanks to load shedding, hectic traffic (you poor sucker who have to deal with traffic, then add robots out, man I feel your pain) running around like a chicken without a head, then something happened , which really just made me want to get back in my van, go home, get back into bed and roll out the other side and try again.

I didnt, I just put my head down, focused on what had to to be done and just went balls to the wall. We managed to get a lot done, even managed to get to the bank to sort out more issues with the bank (only one bank I know of which you still have to go to the bank to replace cards, cant make an appointment with a business banker (you have to sit in a que and wait your turn with everyone else until a banker is available, I dont even do this with my personal account with FNB).

The work load has got on top of me again, I was suppose to be on top of things by the end of August, now I doubt I will be finished with current projects by the end of December, even with the new staff.

Its time to put my big pants on again, grab ther bull by the balls and squeeze.

We managed to get the office"" setup, very basic, nothing fancy, a desk a plastic chair for now and a kettle. We will be upgrading, by the end of the day we had already moved everything around, so there is not rush to go out and buy office furniture yet. Yes we will be getitng a decent coffee machine, probably before we build our desks. We going to make the workshop/office a place like no other. Our wash basin at the entrance is already causing a topic of conversation .

We met with a few other business owners in the complex, you can identify the experience you going to have with them by the first meet, the ones who want to borrow stuff (I shyte you not, it has already happened) the ones who look like potential customer and others who are curious to see what we do.

[Isetech]

Time to get ready for work, I dont want to be late again

[Derlyn]

The most important thing is that you can have a cup of coffee when you get there. The rest is not too important.

[Dylboy]

Very exciting ! Wishing you all the luck, balls and stamina

Having an office is great !

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[Isetech]

What a week it has been, so many things have already changed, all the essential upgrades around the wrkshop are already complete, the plan was to do it over the next month or so, oh well its done, the new addtion to the team has certianly paid off.

If it carires on at this rate we will be on top of the project by the end of this month, I can let customers share my contact details again (finally, its been a long year and I didnt meet my end of August deadline, but hey we just shuffle to suit) We only work on word of mouth.

I have 2 new projects lined up, which will take me through to till the end of the year, we will fit in new projects as we expand.

The paperless idea is proving to be a lot more difficult than I expected, today I am in the office with the whiteboard trying to get some form of structure. When you do something for so long its hard to change, I wil get it right eventually.

Delegating work, something I am not very good at (if you want something done right... do it yourslef has always been my motto), however this week I made a point of delegating as much work as possible and just left people to do what was required of them, and I was pleasantly surprised.

[Isetech]

Field service management software, I think I got the wording correct.

Being a small operation, an A5 book and a diary is all you need for your daily projects and tasks, why change, because the system works but has many flaws.

What I have identified as the biggest losses in our small operation, is time and material management.

How can we improve, you first need to identify the problems.

Lost time due to poor timesheet management.

You go to site get stuck into the job and forget to fill out your time sheet, 2 days later you trying to remember what you did on that day and how long it took.

Lost revenue due to bad materials management.

You pop into the wholesaler, don’t give them an order number, come end of month you sitting with invoices, trying to figure out where you installed the stuff. You think that is difficult, try remember what you took from stock in the workshop or out the van and installed on site 3 weeks later.

If you are a small operation and you don’t experience these problem, I would love to know how you overcome these challenges.

As a highly skilled red stamp tradesmen with years of certified training and a red card with no restriction, my downfall is not my ability to design, install and commission electrical equipment to highest standard, its taking care of the part that I am sure many tradesmen will agree, the administration side of our job.

The reason many tradesmen fail in business, it’s not because they are not good at what they do, it's because they try do something they have no experience or training. IF you want to be become a thriving business, you need to change your focus from being a brilliant tradesman to being a brilliant businessman. From little time I have spent with Dave and people who have worked with him, I can see he has his priorities right, to run a successful business, not like many of us, who are trying to be good electricians, but clueless about business. and how it works.

[Isetech]

This is what I am looking for, a simple job sheet which can be easily modified or updated on site.

This by the way is a good example of time management, if you go down this rabbit hole you could end up wasting hours/days/weeks of your time which could be better use ddoing what you do better.

So how do you go about using this inforamtion to benifit you and your business, dont try do this at home, rathe rfind someone who has a bette runderstanding and let them createa template sutable for what you require, that is wher ethe challenge begins, find the right person.

Here we have a business forum which has no fees attached, just an open free space for like minded people to share stuff, so how do we find a person to create an app like this?

I would guess that many small electrical/service type businesses would pay for an app like this.

The best par tis that most of us already have the data in XL already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HwIjfUxrQM&ab_channel=AppSheet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnH3hPQ644I&list=PLZ81nepkT97JVlZMo39DksAjlx3UauH2q&index=1&ab_channel=AppSheet

[Isetech]

R260 per month, downloaded the 14 day trial version. Lets see if it does what I need it to do.

I see there is a link to Sage one, quickbooks and Xero, I would asume ther eare addtional charges to use them ?

Now I am payting a yearly fee for 365, if I sign up with servcraft, then that is an additional yearly fee. Would you nit be able to setup this format in 356?

https://servcraft.co.za/ids

[Isetech]

This people is why online service make me nervous, I looged into the 14 day trial, loaded a pile info, lef tthe office for break, when I tried to log in. "Your email address or password is incorrect. Please try again" and so you try again again and again, that that idea out the window.

After spending a ton of cash to speed up my laptops, invested in an ipad and a bunch of other stuff to make my office experience easier and quicker, I dont want to get back to the office and make a cup of coffee, then sit and wait for my office PC to boot or have to fight with websites to do a quick quote or invoice or battle on site in front of a customer trying to ge ta website to open or to sit and fight with a website which control all my information and data online.... eeeeesih.

[Isetech]

I figured the problem, it doesnt like gmail accounts, I change dthe email address and downloaded another 14 day trail, its worked.

Then starting setting up customers, used a gmail account and it pops up red with a notice, invalid email .

[Isetech]

What I have learnt today, if I want to use online apps etc, I need to replace my gmail account with a different account.

Today, tried all sorts of stuff, sunsynk login, tradify and servcraft all indicate that my gmail account is invalid, its seems its not the apps, it has to do with the gmail format. I have been using the same gmail address for many many many years, now suddenly all these apps are rejecting the gmail address. IT works but sometime it takes a number of attempts to access the websites.

[Justloadit]

A note, I know that my Iphone has this, not sure about Android phones, If you Say "Hey Siri", "make a note or remind me tonight", "18A contactor collected from stock for use on Alpha Factory". Then later you can recall the note, or the Iphone will remind you about the note. You can then update your work sheet.