Hey folks, I haven’t been on here in a while, but I learned sooo much from this site back in the day.
Today I find myself in a conundrum, I’ve been in business for around a decade, always had employees. I recently lost a few large contracts so I’m down to my one washing van.
I used to provide a few other services but only had the one pressure washing van, I have an employee do the work and drive that van, he’s been with me for years. I also have my retired broken down old van.
SO now that I lost all my income, what the van brings in is not enough to sustain us all. I also have a foreign assistant who does calls, estimates, scheduling, etc. Basically I was partially retired.
Maybe I need to get a job, I’ve looked on Indeed and honestly I think I’m underqualified in a few areas, mainly with regards to IT and software, like even if i wanted to do project management I’m super unfamiliar with all the apps and software corporate people use nowadays.
We use a CRM and some Google, and Wave for expenses but man, I need to learn stuff asap if I’m gonna consider stepping back into the workforce.
I personally need to earn 7k-10k/mo, and with this one van that brings in around 9k thats impossible after employee, overhead and expenses.
I know it’s my fault, I should have been actually pushing more washing sales and gotten more vans but I was burnt out and needed a sabbatical. We’ve always had little YoY growth so I wasn’t worried about a little plateau we’ve been in.
So now the fork has hit the grits and I’m left starving without many options and I need results quick.
The fastest way for me to pay my bills is to fire my employee and do the work myself, I would hate to do that because he depends on this job and I’ve fired enough people these past few months. But even If i did that, it wouldn’t provide enough income. Also I don’t think I want to wash anymore or for the rest of my life.
Second fastest way for income is for me to get a job, my manager and wash guy can continue and sustain themselves with the current flow of clients. I would just continue to be the over-the-phone consultant I’ve been to them.
Third option is you tell me, what should I do? I don’t have any capital to throw at marketing.
Problem with fixing the old van and working is that I would take away jobs from my wash guy, and we book him out one or two weeks out, but lately it’s been one week or a few days. So sure I could do his jobs then we’d both sit on our hands for the second half of the week.
I know people hate d2d sales, but should I resort to that?
This week in particular isn’t good for the economy but maybe getting a stable job with benefits is the right move for the next four years?
I don’t want to close/sell the company because I have sentimental value and my wife says we shouldn’t, but I’ve thought about it. Not that I’d get much from it, but at least the headache of having to run it would be gone.
I’ve put in a few applications for jobs on indeed, we’ll see if anything bites, I hoping something does. I need to update my resume some more.
