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Post by Kevin on Jan 11, 2007 13:57:03 GMT -5
OH BOY! I got the job!, also known as oh sh*t!, now what?Had a nice phone conversation with a member today, who just received an 80,000 sq. ft. carpet cleaning contract. (If I might add, received the call from the IJCSA site) I have posted this before, lightning strikes in this business everyday. You just have to learn how, and be able to grab hold of that lightning bolt when it does arrive. Also better to be pro-active, instead of reactive, and plan ahead of time, for this type of work. Needless to say, it happens, you can get the job that changes your entire life and the size of your business. It may be overnight, it may be weeks, and for some of you that do not advertise or properly advertise... it may be never. So have any of you received a really large job, something you never expected. How did you handle it? 
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Post by rhapsodyvf on Jan 17, 2007 16:43:47 GMT -5
That call was from me  Thank you very much for your advice, i really appreciate it! It was actually origionally an 80,000 sq. ft. post construction clean up for a nursing home. They found us from our IJCSA listing. We did that job in 4 (!) days trying to get them ready for their state inspection. We started the Saturday after Thanksgiving and did most of it that weekend and finished up Monday and Tuesday. They had their inspection Wednesday. They passed with flying colors and we passed out. Wow, just wow. That was a heck of a lot of work. That job led directly into a 40,000 sq foot post construction clean up job for the same company, different area of the city. We are doing that job the end of this month (this time we have 5 days). Let me tell you from experience if you are a small company (we have 2 owners, 4 part time employees) you have to hustle to be ready for something like this. What we did: 1) Bid the job (friday after thanksgiving, they called about noon, met with them at 3:30pm, I'd been up all night for black friday), didn't expect to get it but had a really good raport with the executive director so hoped... 2) Got the call friday night at 6 pm that we had the job (we started saturday) 3) Called 2 of our employees to see if they could work (they could) 4) Asked them if they knew anyone that wanted work for the weekend (one of them brought one other person) 5) Recruited family members 6) Panic some more 7) Worked our butts off untill the job was done! It ended up being me, my business partner (my dad), my husband, my brother, 2 employees, and one of our employees fiancee for the weekend. Then for monday and tuesday it was just my dad and 2 employees, I had to be at the store. We put in 19+ hours over the weekend and got a suprising ammount done. It was crazy. For this second job we have more time to prepare so will be able to do things a little bit differently. Also i am going to be in vegas the 27th - 31st which is when we are scheduled to do this job. I made resurvations and paid for the hotel room and the plane ticket the day before she called about doing this job. such as business goes... |
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Post by logan5127 on Jan 17, 2007 17:58:23 GMT -5
Great Story. Congrats. Tip: After you have done a few of these jobs, you will find family and freinds shying away from you. They become afraid to come around because they think you will want them to work. I use to have lots of friends but after awhile they just seemed to disappear. It is hard in this business to keep a workforce available for these large jobs when they come in. I was not ready for my first really big contract. I remember going to unemployeement office and hiring 6 people there and three more people that those people new. I had to order equipment and have it overnighted to me. What was really wild is that the contract I got was for window cleaning and we never even done window cleaning at that time. So I also had to train myself and the employees . I had all the confidence in the world that I could do this and I did. To date that venture has made me about a quarter of a million dollars in revenue. Talk about lightning. I wouldn't mind if it struck a few more times.  |
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Post by rhapsodyvf on Jan 18, 2007 10:58:11 GMT -5
Great Story. Congrats. Tip: After you have done a few of these jobs, you will find family and freinds shying away from you. They become afraid to come around because they think you will want them to work. I use to have lots of friends but after awhile they just seemed to disappear. They already are!!! and only the one really big job....sigh....I think we worked them too hard! |
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Thank you very much for your advice, i really appreciate it! 
