Last week after our car biz trip we went to a Plumbing biz peer group meeting. This is a get together of business people involved in an industry organization we belong to. We stop by one of the business locations and are treated to a day in the life of the business. We see all the departments, interview the main players, ask questions about the process and generally take away the good the bad & the ugly from that business. There were people in our group that were very small mom & pop shops with gross sales less than 200k and people in our group that had 34 employees and sold gross over 4mil. So what did we see and learn.
1. All the bench marks you learn don’t mean anything if you choose to do it a different way.
2. The economy of scale is a myth sometimes.
3. Would you rather have 10% of 4 mil or 20% of 1.5 mil?
4. What if the 10% of 4 mil required the headache of 32 employees and the 20% of 1.5 mil required the headache of 10 employees?
5. Do you need bells & whistles to make you feel good or to make your employees & clients feel good?
6. What makes your business sustainable?
7. What makes your business something someone would want to buy?
We have been interviewed by people claiming to want to buy our business several times. When it came right down to the nity-gritty, they tell us that our business model is too small and too simple. That they want more trucks, selling fewer goods per truck making less profit. This is what we saw when we went to the peer group meeting. They have a nice business model, it is what they are comfortable with but I wonder why 400k a year with 32 whining babies is better than 300k a year with only 10 whining babies? What do you think? If it was your business what would you prefer?
Janet
1. All the bench marks you learn don’t mean anything if you choose to do it a different way.
2. The economy of scale is a myth sometimes.
3. Would you rather have 10% of 4 mil or 20% of 1.5 mil?
4. What if the 10% of 4 mil required the headache of 32 employees and the 20% of 1.5 mil required the headache of 10 employees?
5. Do you need bells & whistles to make you feel good or to make your employees & clients feel good?
6. What makes your business sustainable?
7. What makes your business something someone would want to buy?
We have been interviewed by people claiming to want to buy our business several times. When it came right down to the nity-gritty, they tell us that our business model is too small and too simple. That they want more trucks, selling fewer goods per truck making less profit. This is what we saw when we went to the peer group meeting. They have a nice business model, it is what they are comfortable with but I wonder why 400k a year with 32 whining babies is better than 300k a year with only 10 whining babies? What do you think? If it was your business what would you prefer?
Janet
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