Running A Profitable Business

Student Works Painting is an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. Facing many unforeseen challenges, and coping with culminating stressors can be rather unpleasant. However through hard work and dedication, I can truly say that this job has greatly enhanced my understanding of how to run a profitable business. Before my experience with student works, I had next to no management experience. With this in mind I successfully ran a business that had a gross margin of over 50%. This achievement was no exactly easy to accomplish. Considering my sale price is culminated by my royalty, materials, labor and paint. Finding room for profit is not always easy.

The first day of production, was not exactly a fun time. Only one of my painters showed up, and they he couldn’t speak English (very well). The first few weeks weren’t that great either; My painters were terrible, my clients were not very pleased, and I was losing my margin. Why would I pay people to do something, when I could do it better myself? Well that’s exactly what I did. However with this in mind, one person can only produce so much in a summer. I ended up hiring a couple high school graduates, who I worked alongside with and we continued to produce good work the rest of the summer. My region was especially tough, because all my materials were more expensive due to the fact that I did not have a paint store. So to cut costs, I would order my paint 2 weeks in advance from a Dulux store in Prince George, and make road trips to do my payroll and pick up paint. Considering that the store is a 3hr drive away, my DM didn’t understand my logic. But I also just liked to get out of town every once in a while.

So as things went on, business became easier and everything seemed more like clockwork. Work became easier to sell, workers got better at producing, and well everything was less stressful. So all in all it was a good experience, and I will be doing it again next year. With that in mind, I hope I will be seeing you at training in January.

Cheers!