Your Numbers, Your Next Step
Module: Keeping It Going Without Burning Out
We're at the end here, so let's do the thing I keep telling you to do and haven't made you do yet in one sitting: look at your actual numbers and decide what's next.
Not what you hope is next. What the numbers say.
This is the last lesson in the class, and I didn't want to end on a pep talk. I wanted to end with you at your own kitchen table doing math, because that's the whole class in miniature. Decide if it's real. Treat it like it's real if it is.
The math, one more time
Pull out whatever you've been tracking — a notebook, a spreadsheet, the backs of receipts, whatever's been working for you. I want you to add up three things for the last month or two of whatever you've been doing:
What came in. All of it, every job or sale.
What went out. Ingredients, materials, gas, that clearance-rack thing you bought and used twice, all of it.
Your hours. Not just the hours doing the thing. The hours getting ready, cleaning up, driving.
That last one is the one people skip, and it's the one that lies to you the most.
I priced a job once by gut feel, a graduation open house up in Draper. Felt good about the number when I quoted it. Did the job, got paid, came home, and it wasn't until I was updating my spreadsheet that I realized I'd never counted the drive. Two hours round trip, both ways, gas and time, just gone from the number before I even wrote it down. I hadn't lost money exactly, but I'd worked two extra hours for free and told myself I hadn't. Now I count the drive. Every time. If you don't, your "profit" is a number you made up to feel better, not a number that's true.
So: hours in, money in, money out. Do that math right now if you've got your stuff with you. If you don't, do it tonight.
What the number tells you
Once you've got a real number — money in minus money out, divided across your real hours — you're basically in one of three spots.
You're losing money or barely breaking even. That's not a failure, that's information. Something's priced wrong, or you're spending on things you don't need yet, or the thing itself just isn't worth what people will pay for it around here. Worth knowing before you're two years in.
You're making a little, enough to cover your costs and pay yourself something modest. That's a real business at a small size. Nothing wrong with small. I ran mine small for years and it worked out fine.
You're making enough that it's starting to compete with your actual job for your time and attention. That's the spot where the other lessons — the LLC, the license, the accountant — start to actually matter, because now there's something worth protecting.
Wherever you land, that's your next step. Not a feeling. A number.
One thing I still believe
I'll say the opinion I've probably said three times already in this class, because it's the one that matters most and it's the one people ignore the longest: charge for your time or you don't have a business, you have an expensive way to be nice.
If your number tonight tells you you're not charging for your time, that's not a personality flaw. It's just math you haven't done yet. Do it. Adjust your price. It'll feel terrible for about one quote and then it won't.
What I can't tell you
I can't tell you whether to keep going. That part's yours. I can tell you the math, and I can tell you that a small side thing that makes forty bucks an hour and makes you happy is worth more than a bigger one that makes ten bucks an hour and makes you tired. Beyond that, you know your own life better than I do.
I'll also say — and I mean this — some of you should stop. Not because you failed, but because you tested it honestly and the numbers said it's a hobby, and there is nothing wrong with a hobby. Garrett told me that about a ward party once, half joking, and he wasn't wrong that time either. Knowing the difference is the whole point of this class.
Before next time
There isn't a next time — this is the last one. So instead: do the math this week while it's fresh, write down one number and one decision, and let that be the thing you carry out of here instead of a good feeling.