Help winding down

[Tim Cognito]

Not for me, unfortunately, but for a family member.

He's self employed in commercial refrigeration, cold rooms, restaurant freezers, pub cellar cooling, that sort of thing.

He's early 60s, worked bloody hard all his life (often too hard) and I'm worried for his health if he carries on.

The problem is the nature of his work - a lot of it is unscheduled breakdowns which is emergency/urgent. It's not like he can just book in 3 days worth of work per week and wind down like that.

Equally if a customer rings up and they're in the st with food thawing and he says sorry can't get there for 2 days they will likely go elsewhere next time.

I've suggested putting up his prices to cull a few customers which will be covered by the extra hourly rate from who is left, but I think he still has enough financial commitments that he doesn't want to take the risk in case he loses too many.

I assume there must be a few on here who have gone through a similar process? Any advice?

[Richard-D]

Is there an aspect of his business that he can separate out and specialise in? Ideally the bit that he enjoys doing the most.

edit: I'm doing something similar myself at the moment. I sort of retired about 4 years ago but as it was during 'lockdown' I got bored very quickly and started working again in a different industry (design/development and repair in agricultural engineering and industrial engineering). My plan is to separate out the bits of the job that I like (electrical diagnostics and product design) and ditch the bits I'm not fond of but have ended up doing (crawling around a ploughed field under a piece of equipment that's burst a hydraulic line being rained on by HV46).

Edited by Richard-D on Friday 29th March 22:19

[Tim Cognito]

Richard-D said:

Is there an aspect of his business that he can separate out and specialise in? Ideally the bit that he enjoys doing the most.

I think the main issue is the emergency breakdowns, ideally I guess he wouldn't have to deal with those and would just do routine servicing and installations but I don't think that would be possible.

[Richard-D]

Tim Cognito said:

I think the main issue is the emergency breakdowns, ideally I guess he wouldn't have to deal with those and would just do routine servicing and installations but I don't think that would be possible.

Still worth a thought. It might be that those are the bits he likes. Design and fault diagnosis are the most interesting parts of engineering jobs. It might be that routine servicing bores him to tears.

[Simpo Two]

Tim Cognito said:

Richard-D said:

Is there an aspect of his business that he can separate out and specialise in? Ideally the bit that he enjoys doing the most.

I think the main issue is the emergency breakdowns, ideally I guess he wouldn't have to deal with those and would just do routine servicing and installations but I don't think that would be possible.

Can he simply say 'Sorry we don't do emergency breakdowns'?

When my workload was starting to get a bit much I put my prices up about 20%. Fewer jobs but same income.

[Tim Cognito]

Richard-D said:

Still worth a thought. It might be that those are the bits he likes. Design and fault diagnosis are the most interesting parts of engineering jobs. It might be that routine servicing bores him to tears.

You are probably right ref the interesting part, unfortunately it's also the part which has him working until 10pm in the summer.

[Steve H]

It sounds like his biggest issue is that he still needs all the income but would like to reduce the hours.

Increasing prices significantly is still probably the way to do it (particularly on the callouts). It will always feel riskier than it really is but it will never be entirely risk-free.

[Tim Cognito]

Steve H said:

It sounds like his biggest issue is that he still needs all the income but would like to reduce the hours.

Increasing prices significantly is still probably the way to do it (particularly on the callouts). It will always feel riskier than it really is but it will never be entirely risk-free.

I don't like to pry too much on the financials but I can see why it would feel risky when it's your own customer base and income being tinkered with rather than just a supply and demand curve that you have no stake in.

[Simpo Two]

Tim Cognito said:

Steve H said:

It sounds like his biggest issue is that he still needs all the income but would like to reduce the hours.

Increasing prices significantly is still probably the way to do it (particularly on the callouts). It will always feel riskier than it really is but it will never be entirely risk-free.

I don't like to pry too much on the financials but I can see why it would feel risky when it's your own customer base and income being tinkered with rather than just a supply and demand curve that you have no stake in.

He can charge what he likes - the whole point of the exercise is to reduce workload = lose some customers...

I wouldn't be surprised if prices generally are 20% higher than they were pre-Ukraine, so there's justification if he needs some.

[classicaholic]

Could he sell the business and just work 3 days for the buyer?

[lizardbrain]

It doesn't sound like he has a business, more like an established job.

Recruiting and training staff doesn't sound realistic, unless there is a deeply repressed entrepurial itch.

So I agree with others, that he just needs to adjust price and avaibilty to suit . Good news is this can be done in 10 mins

[Chrisgr31]

Could he contract out the breakdowns to a competitor- taking a cut off the fee?

[Tim Cognito]

classicaholic said:

Could he sell the business and just work 3 days for the buyer?

There's not really anything to sell, all the value is in him and his experience. Obviously he has customers but I don't think there's much in the way of contracts which would be worth much.

[dudleybloke]

Could he employ someone to work alongside him for a while then when both happy he can pass the jobs he doesn't want onto the new hire.
Could lead to selling the business to the new guy in a few years if he does it right.