Closing Business

I finally received the first and last cheque I’m going to get for my CAD Support business.

Starting this company was a result of my curiosity – to realize what it takes to set-up a small business.

Now it’s time for me to close because it is inactive.

Below are the lessons I learned from this experiment:

• Coming up with a business name is not as simple as coming up with a crafty or unique name. There are guidelines you need to follow. This task probably took me about a day to come up with a name.
• A portion of my business expenses came back (refunded). Most people know you can do that if you own a business. I knew that too going in. But I still don’t FULLY understand how it all works. There aren’t enough transactions for me to get a full understanding of “writing-off” your business expense.
• You need to put in more money into marketing your service. Word of mouth isn’t effective when you’re just starting out. Why? No one knows you exist – even friends and family don’t know exactly what kind of service you provide. I was reluctant to pay for ads or other marketing strategies because I know it wouldn’t help with acquiring more clients for the company. Besides the fact that I wasn’t in it for the long haul.
• I haven’t validated the actual need for CAD service. My plan at that time is to focus only on serving two clients – my previous bosses.
  • Serving my first client (old boss #1) flopped due to the structuring of their company. I wasn’t set up to suit the needs of their Engineering department. If I really wanted it to work out, then I would’ve set things up exactly how they do things – from software, file formats, drawing standards, etc. In other words, a sh*t load of work.
  • The other client (old boss #2) didn’t really need my help. I thought he would want me to provide support because he didn’t hire my replacement. Yes, I left. But he decided to take matters on his own hands – good for him. I still provide minimal support here and there to keep that good relationship I had with him.
• I thought about investing money in the CAD software. However, if there’s no demand – why spend more? Spending more money meant – I’m taking this very seriously.
• Running a business on the side takes time in your already full schedule. You meet with your client. Discuss exactly what their need is. And work on meeting the deadline. I wasn’t willing to put in that much time. Another thing I have to consider is – do I charge my client for that time too?
• I don’t know how much I should charge for my services. That is really, really bad. It goes to show I don’t know the industry I’m getting into.
• Writing an invoice is not as simple as writing text on a tissue paper. You need to be clear with the terms of payment – stuff I did not even consider. The feedback I got when the Project Manager saw my invoice was “You know, you need to change that. You’re basically giving us 90 days to pay for it. That’ll hurt your cash flow…”.

And after trying to start a business (actually doing the work instead of imagining things in my own head), I finally had a better understanding of it. I wanted to get more into my experience more but I will save that discussion for another post.

Something more interesting happened – my involvement in the world of…

Insurance

Back in Week 29, I talked about getting an insurance. I did. But I took it a step further – I agreed to spread the word and sell the same insurance I purchased. Hold your horses!

I’m not going to shove insurance offers to you or to anyone I know. I understand how annoying that could be. I’m fully aware you don’t want to be treated like a dollar sign. I get it. I was one of those people who hated these salespeople too. Now I’m going to be one of them. But what changed my mind? What caused me to turn?

I will explain that later on a different blog post but basically, it’s because of curiosity – similar reasons as to why I started a CAD support business.

80% of the people I talked to don’t fully understand the insurance they signed up for. I’m in the same boat – all I cared about is that I’m covered when something bad happens. Plain and simple.

But if I really cared about my future, then I should at least spend the time to understand exactly what I’m signing up for.

I dozed off listening to the insurance specialist because it took him more than 1-hour to explain things. There’s just too much info to take in. The same way happened when I bought my car. The financial expert I talked to spent a good amount of time explaining the terms and conditions of the purchase. However, all I heard was “blah blah blah, I need to pay this much to drive my car”.

The best way for me to understand the insurance is to fully immerse myself in it. How? By selling it. After all, you can’t sell anything you don’t fully understand.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m taking on too many things – this blog, my artwork, my career, my anti-social life and now this.

I enjoy learning new things, experiment with new approaches to achieve my long list of goals in life and take on a variety of ventures. However, it’s also exhausting.

But even if it’s exhausting, they also give my life a little more color. How? It gives me a lot of…

Stories

Stories of my adventures and failures in life.

f I don’t do anything, then I wouldn’t have anything to write…right?

I’m not sure if you realized this, but whenever you are required to provide or write an update on whatever you are working on, it forces you to take action.

No action = Nothing to report

We’ve been exposed to reporting or updating since we were in elementary school.

Back then we provide reports/updates either to our parents or teachers. Now we provide reports to our superiors at work.

And this weekly blog is what I use to provide an update to myself – a weekly check-up to see if I’m still following through my goals.

A lot of times we get caught up with whatever is happening around us. Always looking after “the neighbor’s garden” instead of taking care of ours. Our environment obviously has a strong influence in molding our identity. But we have full control over how we react to it – should you follow or deviate from it? 

Since humans are social animals – we tend to do what others do because that’s how we create a commonality between each other. This would then further develop into a relationship – not romantic but a “tribal” type of relationship. 

At work, I’m either “RJ” or “Ramon”. To create consistency, I finally sent an e-mail to IT to fix my…

Username

I went back to this company I used to work for. Everyone called me “RJ” even though my e-mail shows my first name (not my initials). Since it wasn’t an issue back then, I never bothered getting it updated. Now that I came back and also working in a different department – it became an issue.

People would address me as “RJ”. However, when they decide to send me an e-mail my name does not show up. It causes confusion. They didn’t know that “RJ” and “Ramon” are one person. So what’s the big deal with using my first name?

“RJ” is so much easier to pronounce. It was a name given by (probably) the first Filipino/Canadian I met in high-school. It bugs me when I see other people struggle to pronounce my name right. I get it, people wanted to be polite. They try, and I appreciate the effort. But why not make things easier for everyone?

Other names I was called:

• “Rey-e” – I have a feeling he wasn’t sure how to pronounce my first name so instead, he went for my last name.
• “Lipton” – that’s the name I gave this person (a very good friend of mine) because I thought he was asking for my address. I blame my English listening skills for hearing it differently.
• “Jep” – the “fob” equivalent of ‘Jeff’
• “Ramon” – my first name. But, I only allow people I grew up with in the Philippines to call me that. Why? Well simply because they can pronounce it right – with a Filipino accent.
• “Ramen” – that’s the name he wrote in his e-mail: Dear “Ramen”.
• “AJ” or “LJ” – they go interchangeably. It was by this welder I used to work with. I THINK the name preference depends on the amount of welding smoke he sniffs in a week. That company I used to work for did not have a good ventilation system in the shop.
• “RG” – when “J” becomes a little hard to pronounce 😉

I also remember a time when I had to introduce myself and paused for a few seconds – debating as to which name I should go with. Then one those people I was introduced to go “Haha did you forget your name or something?“. I explained to why. They understood.

That’s it for this week. What about you? What have you been up to other than work and kids?