First mistake. Not everyone with an inspect problem will be your customer
You need to define your market: are you going to be the cheapest prices provider it will result in you going into low income dumpy houses and those customers are not going to pay as much and complain the most. Take up a lot of your time for lower margins and no money for marketing
Or to you shoot for the top 30% of the market and charge higher prices with better guarantees and work with income earners with 100-200k per year jobs and can afford to have you out 3 times a year like clockwork to keep the spiders away?
Every technician goes through this as an employee
The boss is getting rich off my back
Means while he’s working 70 hours a week keeping the schedule full to provide you with a stable income. Takes all the risk
When you go out and spray aware winning petunias
You boss is the one to fork over the settlement
Great ambition to want to start our own business. But don’t do it because you think your boss is getting rich. Because you will be sadly mistaken.
And what appears easy for him now was years of blood sweat and tears
Source : 20 year hvac technician turned business owner 9 years ago with 2 employee 1000s of customers and problems that nobody seems to want
Shit I can’t even give the business away. And yes it’s profitable but everyone wants to go home at 5pm
Go read the emyth by Micheal gerber
And then come back and I would be happy to answer anymore of your questions
https://www.amazon.ca/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About-ebook/dp/B000RO9VJK
It would be helpful if your bookkeeper uses Xero or Quickbooks online so you can see the numbers at any given point.
I highly suggest you have your books done once a year by a CPA if you don't already.
Make sure both the CPA and bookkeeper have restaurant experience as they can pay for themselves if they know what they are doing. The opposite is true as well.
Have you read The E-myth Revisited? I highly suggest you follow the advice herein. tl;dr systematize everything like you were trying to sell a franchise.
Read this book.
Read this book
Join this group https://www.trumethods.com/
Get good processes and even better people.
Speaking about your business/niche specifically, you will learn more through experience than you ever will through reading or watching YouTube or taking online courses.
That said, there are a lot of skills you need as a business owner that don't have anything to do with the product or service you are selling. The one thing most new entrepreneurs don't realize is that you won't actually be spending all that much of your time doing the technical aspects of your business - or at least you shouldn't. As a business owner you also have to do the legal parts (setting up the business entity, getting insurance, navigating hiring/firing employees, etc), financial parts (setting up bank accounts, bookkeeping, reviewing financial reports, etc), advertising & marketing, customer service, even cleaning the toilets.
If you really want to change your mindset and start thinking more like an entrepreneur and less like an employee, read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. On the financial side of things, read Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs.
Without knowing more about what type of business you want to start, I really can't offer much more advice than just get started.
I always recommend the E-Myth Revisited. I think its critical to the proper mindset of being a business owner, but that's just me.
I’ve found the ebook on Amazon for those who would be also interested.
Thanks for your recommendation!