Running your own business takes wisdom and intelligence.
It also takes good timing, and the ability to talk to people.
It also takes a lot of paperwork, a lot of math, and a lot of money. On top of all that it takes hard work and sacrifice. If I knew all this when I started I would never have opened my own shop. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, so when I opened my shop to the public I had a lot of unrealistic expectations. I had my HVAC certification, and a business license so I was ready, willing and able to start fielding calls. There were no calls, however, because I was a brand new HVAC company and no one had ever heard of me before. Simply being able to do the HVAC work didn’t mean that anyone would care. Before I could start repairing heating and cooling systems I had to find customers, so I turned to social media. After a few days of Facebook, Twitter, and setting up my own homepage, I started getting some phone calls asking about my HVAC business. I still had no customers but at least people were starting to hear about me. Most of the interest I got was from other HVAC contractors, one of whom wanted to subcontract me for another job he had. It’s all very complicated to explain, but I started picking up HVAC jobs from this other contractor. It was a way to make money, but it wasn’t helping me build my own client base for my HVAC company.