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.

 

 

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

That's just plain stupid doing it that cheap

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.

Under cutting to get business only leaves you open to someone doing the same down the road.

Customers that want a good job by a skilled tradesmen are out there but you won't find many by under cutting and taking over other peoples tat.

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. 

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.

 

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

 

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

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.

 

I