10 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 45, No. 6 IS IT TIME TO GO INTO THE SURVEYING BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF? A Checklist Before You Take the Plunge By Bill Leslie Featured Article You love surveying, and you’ve got some experience under your belt. You’d like to be your own boss, and you think you’re about ready to launch your new business. You’ve got a good business plan, you’ve done the research, and you’ve found the right home for your business. Think you’re ready to launch? Not so fast. Before you make the leap, work through this list of seven issues that are often overlooked by entrepreneurs, sometimes with tragic results. 1. A love of surveying doesn’t necessarily equate to being in business for yourself. As your business develops, you will find that you will be spending less and less time doing surveying in the field. A general rule is that a company owner’s “span of control” staff goes down by 20% with each employee that is hired. Planning on a team of four employees? 4 employees X 20% = 80%. That means that you may have just 20% of your time to be a surveyor. The rest of your time will be spent managing the business. This is just a general guideline, but by the time you have six or seven employees, chances are you will be spending all of your time directing your team. Make sure that your dreams of being on your own in business will mean doing what you most want to do. 2. Are you ready for long days? Entrepreneurs dream of being their own boss. They dream of riches and personal freedom. Dreams can come true, but wealth and freedom usually come after years, or even decades, of hard work. In the meantime, as a small business owner, you won’t be subject to a minimum wage, you won’t get paid time and a half after 40 hours, and your day won’t end at 5 pm. You’ll arrive before the doors open to customers, you will work through lunch, and you’ll still be at your desk long after the doors are locked and everyone else has gone home. If there is a plumbing leak at 2 am, guess who gets the call? Thinking about buying a country club membership? Keep thinking. You probably won’t have time to swing a club for a while. 3. Do you have what it takes? Not every entrepreneur has the skills to run a business. Are you great with sales, but weak on accounting? Maybe you love programming, but don’t like managing employees. You don’t have to do everything, but if you don’t, you’d better know who will do the things you don’t want to do. Make a list of the skills and aptitudes that will be required by your new business and do a frank assessment of your skills. Someone will need to do tasks like accounting, legal, computers, and human resources. You don’t have to have those people on your payroll, but identify who they are, and build the cost of their services into your budget. And don’t go into a new business thinking that you won’t mind doing something that you’ve always hated, or that you don’t have the skills to handle. If you hate accounting now, you’ll still hate it when you have to do it. A love of surveying doesn’t necessarily equate to being in business for yourself. Make sure that your dreams of being on your own in business will mean doing what you most want to do.
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