Love this especially giving credit to your wife 🫡🔥‼️

Thanks for the Eye Opening Talk of going Solo Vs. Hiring Employees. WOW, who would have figured $ 70k cost per employee ? Thanks for explaining. 👍🙏

You sound like a very knowledgeable business owner.

Hi Curtis I watched this video early January 2023 and I adopted your mark up matrix to my own HVAC business over here in the UK Came back here over a year later to thank you for the advice as it has increased my turn over significantly! Keep on truckin!

Thanks for sharing your approach. You married well. Cheers.

Desperté pensando en ¿qué hacer con mi idea de negocio? O sigo de empleado o me lanzo por mi cuenta. Como soy tu fiel seguidor, te busqué y este mensaje de hace 2 años lo escucho hoy y me ayuda a decidir me. Gracias por todo lo que haces. Se que hablas español. Thanks for sharing your experience.

You are 100 percent correct with your content!!!

Great job !!

This couldn't have come at a better time! Thanks for all the information and your time brother. Have a great new year, from just up the road in Columbus.

What a great video Thank you

Thanks for sharing!!!

Thanks for taking my question Curtis. Means a lot. Happy new year to you and your family. Keep the channel rockin’, I love watching 👍

Good video, a lot of truth.

Happy New Years Curtis from North Ga! Keep these talks coming, they’re good for seasoned and newbies alike. Thank you

You’re an inspiration

Happy new year thank you for all of the videos I have learned a lot from you.

Thanks for all what you do for us your videos are very helpful I have learn a lot from them thanks and happy new year from Arizona

Great input Curtis

Thank you Curtis, i appreciate your honest and straight forward message, running a business is difficult in Australia also, it's so difficult here to employ people who want to work these days,to find a young person to work now has gone out the window, Why ? All the best for this new year and your family, and i know you will always have enough work. It was so nice to see your good friend there keeping a close eye on you, may be a extra bone tonight 😉 👍

I’m about to start my company this year. This helps a lot thanks 🙏

happy new year you are a grest mastro thanks a lot for your information and hvac video, i hope i will be a hvac tech as like you in the future !

Thank you for this discussion.

Thanks for all of the tips....I'm taking notes.....

Thanks for giving wealth of knowledge

Great content

never miss your videos, I'm long retired but I grunt and sweat when I see you in a crawl space or attic. Good luck in the new year your a great tech

Great vid

Happy New Year!!!!

Great Jobs.

Excellent video. Thanks for sharing your experience and your life with us!

Very good information!!! I’ve been in business for about 7years but keep learning from others

Happy New Year! Great advice for potential beginners. I prefer solo work also. All employees except one had serious issues...and that one left and took a big chunk of my business. Now it's just day help for extra muscle here and there.

Great small business advice from experience and from the heart. And I've gotta say, the last 5 minutes or so are probably the best things you could have spoken about. I'm glad you stopped and took the time to finish it up like that. It definitely takes a lot of sacrifice and desire even with help, but definitely doable if you're willing. Great content as always!

Happy new year. I wish you success, health and prosperity. I'm a new tech , been in the field for six months. Works for low blow company, but I'm holding to it. I'm learning from your videos a lot !!!. My plan is after four years, I will pass the exam and get my license. Appreciate the effort Sir

I can tell your a good guy, I see why your doing so well👍👍. Thanks for sharing!

Hello Curtis! Wishing you and your Family, a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Year. 🎈🎊🎆

I love Curtis.

very interesting

God Bless Curtis.

Some very valuable information! Especially concerning a point of contact. Much better than the law showing up and breaking your door down for something totally stupid

Good info. I'm 8 years in. I work by myself also. Im always trying to figure out more efficient ways to take care of installations and repairs.Very good advice

Enjoyed that talk. Im doing about the same thing. A one man band. I work with another company and let them do the installs. I've done a few installs, but mostly just service. Zero debt makes it easier..

good points, it's a struggle to balance everything sometimes

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on your business.

enjoyed your conversation didn't agree with everything but did pick up some ideas. I also am a 1 man show just completed my 9 months so far I've done about 160,000. hope I'll get up to 1 million. I am doing business in Florida. Keep up the good shows I enjoy your videos.

Your just a good old boy that worked hard and making it 👍👍

I wish you were in my area because I'd hire you to work on my HVAC. I've been a business owner for over 20 years, in a different field, but you understand what is needed to be successful and doing right for your customers.

Happy New Year! It is very rewarding to sacrifice for a few years to not have debt. Then it’s money in the bank, or a buffer if can’t work due to life circumstances.

Great advice from the heart of experience, Curtis! You touched on the difference between margin and markup, payroll costs, insurance, sub contracted labor, and I think you could do another half hour just on those. My suggestion to anyone thinking about starting a business is to work up a business plan. "Business Plans for Dummies" and "Cost Accounting for the Clueless" (names for illustration purposes) should be on the reading list. They won't turn someone into an experienced business owner immediately but then can help prospective owners identify places they lack information, experience, or background. Also the US Small Biz Administration has resources, and I think SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) may still exist. It is not necessary for individuals to reinvent the squirrel cage fan. 🙂

I love watching you work. I just dont understand some of the terms you use. I watch your videos in hopes I can learn enough to keep my own system running up to par. Im getting old and cant afford to have someone fix everything that breaks....especially nowadays with lower quality everything.. Keep rocking brother!! :)

I have been at it heating and electrical 20 years part time when I was a fultime firefighter and now it's full-time since I retired from there. Now I have pretty much been other same track as you. My biggest problem is working on Heat pumps since they are really taking off in the last few years.. not my strong suit but getting better at it.

Great video man, I really want that 2nd tech, I’m entering my 3rd year self employed and expecting my 3rd child in april. I could use the help and I need to be ok with the profit lose to get the help.

I am in the Military and retire in 3.5 years. I want to get into HVAC and eventually my own van/company. I did residential HVAC for right at 3 years so I already have some experience doing it. I always liked it.

👍👍😊😊

Thank you for all the advice you have provided I had to here this video I really did. You are very knowledgeable thank you again I have a question on subcontracting how to hire them and how to pay them ? Is there a other way to contact you?

6 thumbs up!

I often wondered if the solo guys could use a 3rd party billing service to handle the billing and going after the no pay events. Sure they would extract their fair share though.

👍

Most folks would be astounded by how much gross revenues must increase for each employee hired. Also laws regarding work comp insurance can change depending on what state one is in. In my state, as owner I'm not required to have worker's comp on myself or any member of my immediate household that I employ, but the moment I bring in a "stranger", I have to have it. Similar situation for unemployment compensation if a sole proprietorship, Sub S corporation, or LLC the principals are not eligible for UC (in my state, others will be different). Right now the "experience" rating is 5.2% of gross wages, down from 7% last year. That's a lot of money that most people don't think about. I would not include your wages / salary in the assessment of profits, Curtis. The money you earn as technician would be due any tech you hire, including yourself. Profit is what is left after all expenses - your wages are an expense, not a return on your investment in your company. One of my old bosses founded the company but paid himself very little as president and technician. When he was unable to work for several months and had to hire a worker to replace himself, suddenly the company was not profitable. The reality was that it hadn't been profitable for some time and the owner was subsidizing the losses by not paying himself what his work was worth.

A friend of mine used to have his own lawn care business. He did yearly service contracts and kept his employees year round. Another lawn care business owner sold him his lawn care equipment and was getting out of the business. That guy didn't do yearly contracts

Great Video Curtis, thank you for your knowledge. This was a honest Video on how you do business and it has inspired me to do better with mine, over the pond. A good way to start the new year. Happy New Year to you and God bless.

What about filing a mechanics lien against the house/property of the non-payers?

What age did you start in HVAC? Thanks for the video.

Hello from Sweden! Sad hear that there is very little integrity in people today to have in your business :( I pray to God that my plan works.

Tells it like it is.

Great talk. Very interesting story about your success and how you earned it. You are also a talented videographer. How do you keep the lens clean? I did have a question about your van. How do you keep the catalytic converter from getting stolen? You seem to leave your truck on the street often. Do you ever get broken into?

I’ve been in HVAC for 20 years and a service technician 15 of those years. The last 5 years I have been a estimator and sell 1.5-2 million a year making $180-$220 a year. No on call hours and a much better life with double the money.

Another option is to be married to a working spouse. Also invest into rental property to provide income during slow times. The afore mentioned ideas allow for more control of your schedule. And more control of your life period.

I'm 19 I'm really thinking about a trade school just not sure if I should go with hvac or welding I would like to know how much you put in to start your own ..

Curious, when going out on a Job and you diagnose the problem do you charge a service charge even if the customer if they don't go for it ?

Bigger corporate companies don’t care about customers just money.

Hey Curtis, great information. You pretty well addressed software/payments,etc. But do you take all payments or do you prefer card only or how do you personally want to get paid? I figure it gets hard to keep track of if say out of 6 calls 3 pay cash 2 pay with a check and 1 pays with a card. But with quickbooks i imagine it's pretty easy to plug in what customer paid you in what. One thing that my company does is we have like a small mobile printer so if a customer wants say a physical copy instead of a emailed one we can just shoot the invoice/estimate,etc over to the printer and it prints and worst case scenario if we're in a area with cell poor service we just print out the papers at the office and mail it to them.

We operate the same way lol

Great video I am on my own for about 1yr 3 months and it’s been vary interesting. I would like to ask you how many client do you have to sustain a one man company? Thanks

Hey curt,what is the penalty for getting caught not having a contractor license like say while doing a change out

😎👍🏻🥃🥃🍺🍺🍺

In some instances, it may take a little more time than expected to locate and address the problem. How do you justify that when you're a one-man crew? I plan on making the leap very soon, and that sometimes worries me. Also, do you provide your own health insurance?

I'll give some advice. See how swamped your market is with HVAC companies. There's usually way too many which makes it hard to complete and make a living.. I wish we were closer, we could help each other out..

Sounds a lot of what I have been through, that said insurance can be a double edge. Two claims to close together and you get tossed into the pool for a year or two and your rate triples. So I would not put in for a claim unless it truly was my fault. Stock is a love hate item, I am getting close to the retirement years, seen to many loaded trucks tossed into a dumpster at the end, so I am cutting back on what I carry. That said I am a 15 min drive from multiple supply houses in my area.

Trying to find good employees in todays world is not worth the hassle, you’re better off solo.

Do you offer financing to customers for installs? If so, what do you use?

Did you ever do commercial work for property management companies? They seem to have a lot of work from what I’ve seen. Also do you still follow that same mark up list or no?

Home Warranties that Real Estate Companies Force a Seller into Offering on a piece of Property are a Waste. They Rarely Pay Much or Any $’s at all. 🤪👎

Hey Curtis I came up with a question… You said you paid that guy 22/hr, so say 45K/yr and it cost you 70K/yr. Was he a tech in a truck or a helper? If I want to hire a 30/hr man, should I expect it to cost 90K/yr? I would need roughly 350K extra work to break even, is my line of thinking correct?

I Can say what home warranty suck big time 210 hbw

What percentage do you pay your installers?Thanks

I’m thinking about hiring sub contractors to help me also,were you just hiring other local Hvac companies to help?What percentage did you pay them?What paperwork do I need to hire a sub contractor?Thanks

Do you offer financing? If so who do you use am in Wisconsin.

nobody realizes what benefits cost per employee.....the employee doesn't even realize it......

Did you ever have a job where you could not find and fix the problem yourself? What did you do?

Just curious if you're doing HVACR calls?

The hard to collect from clients after asking a couple times, I would file a pulmonary lean that would get there attention payment followed, If that did not work the lean would be filed against the property that always worked, that would show up on the credit score. this cost less then court in money and time, you could ask for the cost of the lean if so desired, I did not, check in your area with city business. the key is to not get caught up in getting work from this kid of company they don't care about you or your family, cut them loose. peace out.

Sounds like Sears?! 😂

What type of lawyer for an Hvac company?Thanks

That part about an employee not being able to produce enough to pay their salary doesn't make sense to me. If just you can bill out $500k a year the employee should be able to do half of that with EASE if they are doing their job. Factor in the 35% profit margin at 250k and you are looking at $87,500. Something doesn't add up.

Would you recommend someone get their license and start doing side work. I’ve been doing this for 6 years

30,000!!!!!!!!???????

Worst customer experience?

Shit. I could make you 100k just in summer time with no OT I wanna run only 3-4 calls a day

10 employes 10 trucks 10 duplicates of all tools 10 peoole complaining 3 to 4 people call in sick