Why Running My Own Business is My Dream Job

Running my own appliance repair business is possibly the best job in the world.  I have a phone that rings, rates high enough to make plenty of money per call, and the ability to take time off when I choose.

Here’s how I dialed it in:

Charging top market rates means I don’t have to bust my butt doing call packed days in order to make my target income each week.

When I used to undercut the market average rate by 10%, I was converting 98% of my incoming calls and now that I’m 10% above market average, I only convert 95% of my incoming calls.  Hmmm…that math works out to a 20% raise with a 3% loss of market share.  No problem.

Being a one-man shop is part of the perfect appliance repair business for me.  I tried running a crew of contractors, but I found out I don’t really like being anyone else’s boss.  I’m just a technician who likes fixing things and making good money doing it.

All the extra work tracking other techs’ calls forced me to work in the office late every night, and early every morning.  In the end, I decided it was simpler just to do the calls myself.

Controlling my schedule is one of the main reasons I started my own business.  In order to do this, I had to learn to turn down work, which is the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

I had trouble resisting my instincts to run every possible call that came in but finally got good at telling people I was booked (which is a whole other blog post).

Now I work a 4 day week and stack all my calls on those days.  Those 3 day weekends come around fast, and I am really, really, enjoying my extra personal time.  Whenever I want to turn the volume up, all I have to do is book more calls.

I realize I am very fortunate to be running my own business, to have the freedom to decide how much money I want to make and how hard I want to work.  It’s some people’s idea of a dream job, and yes, I’m one of those people.