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Is it possible?


grantc

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Hi folks.

 

It has always been in the back of my mind to eventually start up on my own.

 

My question is, is it possible to remain a small one man business in this line of work and get enough maintenance contracts to have a comfortable income and keep it that way? Or am I dreaming? 

 

Are any of you running a one man business?

 

Grant

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4 hours ago, grantc said:

Hi folks.

 

It has always been in the back of my mind to eventually start up on my own.

 

My question is, is it possible to remain a small one man business in this line of work and get enough maintenance contracts to have a comfortable income and keep it that way? Or am I dreaming? 

 

Are any of you running a one man business?

 

Grant

Dreaming

 

Make sure you get plenty  of work

 

CCTV

Access

Intruder

 

Bit of plumbing on the side? But I hear returns better money

 

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7 hours ago, al-yeti said:

Dreaming

 

Make sure you get plenty  of work

 

CCTV

Access

Intruder

 

Bit of plumbing on the side? But I hear returns better money

 

 

I'd be doing CCTV, intruder, fire and door access.

Why isn't it possible? Do you run you own company?

 

I'd start out with my van/tools all paid for and wife's wage would be able to get us by untill I built the company up a bit.

 

 

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33 minutes ago, grantc said:

 

I'd be doing CCTV, intruder, fire and door access.

Why isn't it possible? Do you run you own company?

 

I'd start out with my van/tools all paid for and wife's wage would be able to get us by untill I built the company up a bit.

 

 

How old are you?

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Nothing is impossible if you have the determination to do it. Every business has to start from somewhere.

Expecting to start from scratch is a huge ask, I assume you have in the pipeline enough regular work to keep you busy for the future?

I also expect you have enough experience being employed in the industry to understand it's workings from both an installer and administration side?

 

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I'm 33, been in the trade 11 years.

All my experience has been out in the field installing, commissioning and maintaining.

 

It's not something I'd be jumping into tomorrow, I'd do plenty research on the admin side before going ahead.

 

Where I stay there isn't a local security company, there are companies from surrounding areas that take care of things.

 

Why do you say it would be boring?

 

I'd take on an apprentice/labourer if needed and could afford to but have no desire for a large company with a team of employees - I've seen what goes on lol.

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I'd be happy with a few hundred contracts to cover my costs and a half decent wage.

 

Call shift would be a bit of a bummer but easier than where I am now if systems serviced properly.

Most of our calls are due to **** servicing or customer not properly trained on resetting their system.

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A long time.... years, I'm aware of that. I know it won't be easy to get established but I'm not scared of a bit of graft.

 

How have you all done it?

Did you buy an existing company or start out from scratch?

 

I'd target businesses I know locally to takeover their systems alongside installing new.

 

 

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I would think most started up. But people tend to do this on price, ie ill do it cheaper etc which just reduces margin. I knew of a firm that were charging £28 a year for monitoring digi. No longer around

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2 hours ago, grantc said:

I'd target businesses I know locally to takeover their systems alongside installing new.

Taking on other systems reduces your quality as a general rule, so get ready for those call outs.

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Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.


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5 hours ago, grantc said:

That's just plain stupid doing it that cheap

Unfortunately making a profit and surviving seems a bad idea to some. But its the clients that loose out. Sia have just saved a fair few as the installer hadn't paid the monitoring bill for a fair while. 

securitywarehouse Security Supplies from Security Warehouse

Trade Members please contact us for your TSI vetted trade discount.

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It sounds idillic couple of hundred contracts just pop around and do the service once a year collect fee. You could buy a small co and set yourself up, I nearly did just what you are thinking about. I ended up buying something much bigger, but I often wonder where I would be now if I had gone down the one man band route. I turn over about 20 contracts a month and gain about 2 a month, sometimes I lose much bigger contracts than the ones I gain though. On a smaller percentage I dont know if I would have been able to survive if I was losing contracts on the same scale and not been able to replace them with new installs. You could always consider a business partner that installs. But dont make the mistake of under cutting the competition, you will only be selling yourself short.

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10 hours ago, grantc said:

but have no desire for a large company with a team of employees - I've seen what goes on lol.

 

you can't really be a proper alarm co. without a team.

 

 

do you really want to deal with the day 2 day shit of being an alarm co. ?

 

My top tip is to trade under a name which does no define what you do-

 

so no to Grant Alarms or Grant Fire & Security

 

maybe to The Eddie Grant Group or Purple Pelican Ltd

 

Good luck

 

Mr? Veritas God

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2 hours ago, MrHappy said:

 

 

you can't really be a proper alarm co. without a team.

 

 

do you really want to deal with the day 2 day **** of being an alarm co. ?

 

My top tip is to trade under a name which does no define what you do-

 

so no to Grant Alarms or Grant Fire & Security

 

maybe to The Eddie Grant Group or Purple Pelican Ltd

 

Good luck

 

Then do a bathroom refurb on side

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Thanks for all the wisdom, definitely food for thought.

 

Reasons for not wanting a big team of guys is Ihacr worked for a few co's, some big some small.

Nobody seems to take on apprentices and train them properly hence the guys on offer are **** and inexperienced.

I've seen guys taking the piss with times on jobs and stealing stock, basically bleeding the company dry. I don't want that happening to me.

 

The guys who are good have all started up themselves, even some of the not so good.

 

Im certain I could run the company I work for better that the owners, but it's getting the customers in the first place.

 

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