New business feedback

[Lazy Sod]

How well does your current boss utilise you, are you one of several employees? Would it suit him if you went self employed, doing his spraying, doing other jobs for him when mutually convenient and spraying for others. Maybe, buy his sprayer from him. He might welcome the chance to reduce his labour costs. Somewhere to keep your sprayer as well.

 

[Sprayer driver's son]

Good suggestion,

 

[How much]

Its a tough one , you say you have a young sun who you want to make a better life for , I can pretty much garentee that being self employed doing anyting you will see less of him than you would being employed.

I know nothing of spraying , but you wont get anyone to sign a contract for your work , in pretty much all business contracts for anything are rare , unless you are either a PLC or a council and in any case to write a contract there would be so many loop holes about availibility, timing etc it would be worthless, assumiing it could be done but logically if a long established contactor does not get one a start up wont .

Add to that the financial uncertinty of getting enough work , then getting paid minus the time etc does it stack up !

As if that where not enough what is "making a better life for him" anyway , is it

1 providing him with more money
or
2 , providing him with more of your time ?

To do both is the ideal scenario but in any mature business of which agricultural contracting is one, the odds of working less and making more is i would suggest pretty much imposible.


However if after careful thought and consideration you think it's still the best way forward i would

Speak to your local agronomy guys and spray and liquid fert merchants see if there is a perceived demand locally , do they need contactors to apply the product they sell .

However , don't even attempt it unless you are well financed , im not talking about HP for a machine here im talking cash , for parts consumables , fuel, your wages etc .
You wont on the whole get paid on time some customers will be good , some bad and some ok but on the whole they will pay you slower then your suppliers want paying from you thats just a business fact , your cash flow will for 3 years at least be under constant pressure , you will spend more time then you would like chasing payment .
Are your parents able to loan you this money ? Banks will im afriad be hard work at best or impossible at worst to borrow this money from because they would like the a business plan backed up with contracts that you wont be able to get !!!!!!

Good luck

 

[Will Blackburn]

I know a lad who started with nothing and now has 3 sp sprayers and has bought a farm. Best contracting business to be in If you have to be in mainstream agriculture.

 

[suffolksmallholder]

Round here right this moment you cant travel the roads without bumping into a Bateman or the noisy red ones. i would imagine the market has reached saturation point in this part of the world. The only way then is to join the race to the bottom which is certainly not the way to operate a proper business! There's plenty round-about who do........
SS

 

[welger]

why would you want to buy one of them.
when you can buy a some sort of digger work 7 days a week every week.
you can even work them in wind and rain nice and steady.
not pulling ur hair out with a f**kin sprayer

 

[suffolksmallholder]

There's lots of digger operator jobs for skilled operatives (above & below ten ton type ticket) but I wouldn't want to be an owner operator at all. Another seven-day-a-week working millstone just to keep up with machinery & modern site requirements, a new machine every four years....
SS