| Need Advise!
Hey Joe and everybody, I haven’t been on here in a while and I just wanted to run something by all of you and get some advice. I’m at the point where I really need to figure out what I am going to do. I will tell you my situation. First of all, I love the natural stone business. My uncle has a very big and very successful fabrication company in northern NJ, about 20 minutes from the GW bridge. For the past couple of years, I have been going there once in a while and messing around the shop and even going on some installations with some of the crews. I really wanted to get involved with his business but didn’t know how. I finally realized that they did not do any service calls or restoration at all. They always referred there work to an outside company or just turned the work away. So I talked to my uncle and he and I thought it would be a good idea and he was all for it. Now, I have a full time job that I am very happy with and can't leave but wanted to do this on the side and on weekends being that I can schedule the work. I can even break away from my job if I had some sort of emergency. So, this was not a problem. So now, he was going to refer all the calls to me, and even suggested going into his archive of past customers and sending them a letter about the new business. Plus, he has so many connections with other fabricators that he said we can even get their work. So there is really nothing more I can ask for and i'm sure you can all agree. But here is the problem, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know what I am doing. I have tried reading everything and watching dvd’s but who am I kidding. Joe Huligar who I cant say enough great things about helped me. I was able to meet up with him and he showed me some things and gave me some pointers. My confidence was soaring after that and I was ready to go. I started doing simple things like chip repair ad sealing but then it was like a storm came. People were calling with things I had no idea about or how to do and I was really uncomfortable. I never seen these things nor have I seen how to fix it. It got to the point where I didn’t even want anything to do with it, but not because I didn’t like it (I love doing it!) its just I don’t have the confidence and I am really uncomfortable going out in the field and I don’t know what I am doing. Now, I want to ask all of you, if you were in my shoes what and how should I deal with this. I don’t want to let it go down the drain and I would really like to do it and be successful. Believe me, the only problem in the whole situation is the learning and experience part of it. I have every other piece of the puzzle except that. Joe, I haven’t talked to you in a while so your knowing about this now too. What should I do? I thought about maybe for now, working with somebody in the area as an apprentice to learn but I don’t know if that’s fair for that person and if they would want me just on weekends and maybe during the week sometimes. I am willing to train and take a slow approach into the business but what would be the RIGHT way to learn. I really have a gift here and believe me, the customers can become overwhelming. So I hope I didn’t bore all of you with this post and I hope I hear something back that will lead me to the right thing. I appreciate all of your help and I hope all of you are doing good. Thanks again and Joe you’re the best!
Anthony |