Some insight needed.

'68 Coronet R/T

'68 Coronet R/T

Oldtimer
As most of you know, I am a work out of my garage type guy that picks up a job here and there. Recently word of mouth references have caused my work load to increase significantly. I am working a full time job and trying to do these side jobs when I have "extra time" which isn't very often of late.
Right now I have two projects in the garage, one in the driveway, another coming and two more asking for estimates. Thus I am considering taking the plunge and becoming a legitimate business. Not a fix all, insurance work body shop but rather a restoration shop.
I owned a construction/remodeling business in the past but its been twenty years ago now and I am wondering how much has changed since then.
If I keep the business small (1 man), only do a 2-3 completes a year, will I be able to stay away from the majority of the costly regulations and inspections?
I live in a rural area on 7 acres so neighbors aren't a problem. In fact, a couple of them have projects of their own.
Quarterly tax payments, insurance, bonding, Obamacare, etc. are some of my other concerns.
Will this all be more of a pain than its worth? Should I just keep things the way they are and try to free up more of my time?

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.
 
Running a business is not that glamorous. There are a lot of financial and emotional "what if's". I think that if you have a good work situation that is stable, stay there and do your resto stuff on the side. When you turn a fun hobby into a job, it loses its fun.
 
WOW, you described my situation to a "T". I'm already scheduled out a year now, was hoping to take a break but I don't see it coming. That said there's no way I'd go full time. It's all word of mouth, but who knows when it would dry up. There's no way I could physically do this work full time either, it would kill me (I sit at a desk all day at my regular job). Good luck you in what ever you do. Just remember sometimes you have to say no.
 
what you will find is that once you take on the overhead you will find your prices too low. then it gets real. you must charge the same as other shops or you will go under . you cant sell a 1k dollar bull for 500 and expect to keep the ranch . something i was told many years ago holds true today , the cheapest shop is always the busiest . doing it in your garage for extra cash is one thing but making a living at it is entirely different . on the side it's great money .
good luck in your endeavor but prepare yourself for some let downs.

AND NEVER TAKE CHECKS !!!!
 
[QUOTE='68 Coronet R/T;36759]As most of you know, I am a work out of my garage type guy that picks up a job here and there. Recently word of mouth references have caused my work load to increase significantly. I am working a full time job and trying to do these side jobs when I have "extra time" which isn't very often of late.
Right now I have two projects in the garage, one in the driveway, another coming and two more asking for estimates. Thus I am considering taking the plunge and becoming a legitimate business. Not a fix all, insurance work body shop but rather a restoration shop.
I owned a construction/remodeling business in the past but its been twenty years ago now and I am wondering how much has changed since then.
If I keep the business small (1 man), only do a 2-3 completes a year, will I be able to stay away from the majority of the costly regulations and inspections?
I live in a rural area on 7 acres so neighbors aren't a problem. In fact, a couple of them have projects of their own.
Quarterly tax payments, insurance, bonding, Obamacare, etc. are some of my other concerns.
Will this all be more of a pain than its worth? Should I just keep things the way they are and try to free up more of my time?

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.[/QUOTE]

Keep things the way they are and raise your price to adjust the amount of incoming work.
 
I thought about opening a shop a while back, not painting, but performance tuning and work. I thought about it quite a bit, but like Shine mentioned it was the overhead that kept me from doing it. Simply the cost of insurance, equipment, maintenance, accounting, regulations, etc, etc. Also do you have good health insurance through your job now? Cause I am pretty sure it's high $$$ for a small shop. Plus customer attitude seems to change when you go from a "side job" person to a "real" business.

Anyway, good luck with either way you go :)
 
Maybe you could rework your full-time schedule so that you are working less hours. Many employers are very reluctant to have their employees dictate their own schedule, however they are usually even more reluctant to lose a good person. Also you should raise your prices, and the less serious people will go away on their own. That way, you will be making real money for working so many extra hours. I think keeping the best of both worlds might be a winning strategy if you can pull it off, not the least of which is because it is a far more financially secure position than completely striking out on your own.
 
I think the biggest change in the past 20 years is the cost of health insurance. Twenty years ago I retired from IBM when I turned 50 and the company provided group health insurance (capped at $7,500 a year for my wife and I). For 3 years (through 1997) I paid nothing. From then until 2009, when I became eligible for Medicare, my contribution grew to almost $9,000 a year just for the insurance (not including co-pays). Turns out $16,500 a year was a bargain -- my successful self-employed friend was paying twice that for less coverage.

Also remember your new boss (you) doesn't pay you when you get sick or have an accident and the bank holding your mortgage doesn't care that your deadbeat customer isn't paying you on time. Other than that, it should be a relaxing and rewarding way to live.......
 
if your not charging north of 85 an hour your loosing. the success rate for this is very low .


" the #1 reason for new business is treating the money like it is yours "

you get paid last and that does not mean all of the leavings are yours. after all is said and done your profit margin can be around 5 to 10% .
 
[QUOTE='68 Coronet R/T;36759]As most of you know, I am a work out of my garage type guy that picks up a job here and there. Recently word of mouth references have caused my work load to increase significantly. I am working a full time job and trying to do these side jobs when I have "extra time" which isn't very often of late.
Right now I have two projects in the garage, one in the driveway, another coming and two more asking for estimates. Thus I am considering taking the plunge and becoming a legitimate business. Not a fix all, insurance work body shop but rather a restoration shop.
I owned a construction/remodeling business in the past but its been twenty years ago now and I am wondering how much has changed since then.
If I keep the business small (1 man), only do a 2-3 completes a year, will I be able to stay away from the majority of the costly regulations and inspections?
I live in a rural area on 7 acres so neighbors aren't a problem. In fact, a couple of them have projects of their own.
Quarterly tax payments, insurance, bonding, Obamacare, etc. are some of my other concerns.
Will this all be more of a pain than its worth? Should I just keep things the way they are and try to free up more of my time?

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.[/QUOTE]

How many hours are you putting in per week including your day job, travel time to and from work, and in the shop??? Being a one-man band and spending that total amount of time in the shop-what would the income be if you could stay busy?

- - - Updated - - -

Shine, your rates differ greatly from the way I see most shops charge-isn't materials included in your hourly rate?
 
labor rate is relative to location also. There isn't a shop around here at $85/hr. Closest one to that would be RK Motors up in Charlotte in the middle of NASCAR town........yea they can get that up there.

The high end here is around 50-60 an hour.
 
it took me over 40 years of struggle and lower rates to get here. if someone feels my rates are high they need to go elsewhere. never , ever do work for anyone feeling they are paying too much. they will never be happy and look for something to complain about.
 
I would stick with the side job part. As a friend found out when he was starting out in fab work that as word gets out you get more work because you are to cheap. Raise the price and you will still get work and it will pay more for your time. NEVER turn down a job, if you don't want to do it , just put a crazy price tag on it. If they say ok, you win. If they say no, you win. I was at my friends shop one day when a circle racer wanted a front hoop added to his plumbing pipe/arc welded roll bar. He didn't want to get near it so he told the guy $250. The guy didn't blink, just said how soon can you do it. Normally he would have charged around $100 for a front hoop.( this was 35 years ago).
If you turn this into a living the fun will be gone. If you take in more than you can handle in a relaxed manner the fun will be gone. Keep it fun, make more $$ per job and enjoy your hobby.

Old guy next door to me wanted me to paint his car. I told him it would be 2 years, he said that is ok, I am not in a hurry. I then told him that is I would have the car in the shop for the 2 years once I got to it. He passed, glad he did as I didn't want to get involved with neighbors as business.
 
Thanks guys, you have convinced me to leave things the way they are (my gut feeling) and just raise the hourly rate to control the flow.
The days of hanging a shingle out front and starting a business are long gone. Back then you survived on your reputation for quality work and customer service. Now you have a number of unwanted partners provided by the Government whose goal it seems is to keep you from succeeding.
 
I hope there is something you can do to make your day job schedule more conducive to your off-time endeavors. Otherwise all the hours will wear you out.
 
I would just check with a few ins companies and see if any offer personal type bond so if something does go wrong at least you have some kind of coverage.
 
While I agree with everything posted, it is a sad state of affairs that starting a business is such a huge and most likely losing endeavor.

Land of opportunity is being strangled.
 
The one thing I think about is that you have all this work lined up because you have very little time to work on it. What happens when you have 10 hours a day and crank it out? will the work flow continue? It sounds great and trust me i think about it all the time. I recently quit my job at a restoration shop and went back to my programming job and turned my painting back into what it was -- a hobby.
 
The more I thought about it, and after reading all the good insight posted here, the more it became clear to me that I should leave well enough alone.
 
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