Ok a little rant here. A little advise from the veterans would be appreciated.
My story: I started a small mowing biz with my buddy last season. We have grown from 13 customers last season to 29 this season. I do all of the office work, billing, estimates, landed all of of our clients, scheduling etc.
He: Doesnt stroll out of his house until 8 or later, makes me wait when I want to be on the road by 7. Is picky about what jobs he wants to do. Is above working weekends (Saturday). He says hes worked enough Saturdays in his life and hes only 38 yrs old and lives with his wife at mom and dads house.
We had rain the last 2 days so we got a little backed up. I have customers that want their lawns cut Saturday (tomorrow). I said no problem I will go out on my own and do them. My partner gets pissed at me because i said I would service them. He wanted me to wait until Tuesday.He said that I am taking money out of his pocket by working Saturday. There is absolutely no reason why he cannot work Saturday other than he is lazy and doesnt want to work. To me he seems like an unreliable laborer I would have 6 pissed off customers if I did that. He does not have to handle the phone calls if someone gets pissed. And if i do get a call from someone unsatisfied and I tell him about it, he just shrugs his shoulders as if it is no big deal and says "Whatever dude".
So, how do I go about getting rid of him. I want to be solo next season. Then I wont have to deal with his BS. I have purchased most of the equipment with my own money. He doesnt contribute anything to the biz. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for readin and understanding.
I sat down with him yesterday when I was done servicing the 5 lawns that needed to be done. needless to say on my own, i was out and about by 7 am with my son and we were done by 11.
I voiced my displeasure with his lack of promptness and availability. Apparently he didnt like what I had to say. He actually had the grapes to tell me that doing all of the office duties, estimates, taking calls etc is NOT work!
I said to him that I may not know everything that there is to know and that I am still learning but I do know that customers/accounts cannot be put off just because he doesnt feel like getting up or not working Saturdays and that they should be done when we say that we are going to do it. And if it rains then we should do them on the next possible day that weather conditions are more favorable and if it happens to be a Saturday then so be it. I hate working saturdays too but if i have to then I will. He still disagreed with me. I told him that I cannot operate with him and his poor work ethic. Its not good for the buisness and I would like to keep as many of our clients as possible for next year and build on that. Again shrugs his shoulders as if no big deal to him.
So, in the end, I told him that I got some advise from seasoned pros (Thank you Lawn Site and its knowledgeable members), and that I will finish the season with him and that starting january 1, I am going to go out on my own as a solo op with a new company name. We have 2 main areas that we service. I offered to give him the one area and I will take the other. Surprisingly, he agreed to it. I also told him that if he wants to buy any more equipment for this year should it be needed that it was going to come out of his own pocket bc I will not invest in another piece of equipment to share. Any new stuff from this point forward I buy will be for myself. We dont have a written agreement as far as equipment/accounts and so on but he did agree to splitting and I will take everything that I bought outright. The stuff bought jointly which wasnt much, I will buy off of him (depeciated value).
We were storing everything at his house and I have another friend that i explained my dilema to and he said that I can store stuff at his place (no I dont have a place for storage and my budget at the moment doesnt cover a storage unit). I will be looking into that next season. I wont have to pay him rent bc we help each other with work. He gives me work in the winter when things are slow for me and I do the same for him during the warmer months when I need the help for mulch jobs or clean ups etc.
Now I can start running things the way I want them to be run!
I'd like to thank everyone that has given me advise on this matter and I appreciate it very much!
That was relatively painless. Partnerships can be painful and I now know it would take a strong operating agreement with seperation clauses to ever get me in another one.
It is nice having a partner to cover things for you but that is about it. Sounds like you did not even have that. Time to go grow
I feel a lot better stresswise. Dont get me wrong as a friend hes a great guy but as a co-owner/emplyee whatever you want to call him, he isnt too reliable.
I'd be very nervous leaving your own equipment in his garage. When he finds out that he can't afford to replace the stuff you own he's going to change his story and claim it was all jointly owned to the judge.
Trying to force you to buy out "his interest in the jointly owned equipment". We know that is not the truth. But you have nothing in paper to prove what you say to the judge.
Time to split the business is now. You take your stuff give him the cash for his half of joint owned stuff and store it in your garage, parent's garage, grandparent's garage.
This guy if given the time to bite you in the ass will not hesitate to do so as soon as he realizes that he is to broke to go and pay for whatever it is that you take away access from him.
Yeah its not easy but i agree with the others, Split from him. Hire another worker. Score more yards and hire another guy so all you have to focus on is billing and estimating bigger jobs.
I've been there. DONT HIRE YOUR BUDDIES. WORKERS ARE WORKERS.
I'd be very nervous leaving your own equipment in his garage. When he finds out that he can't afford to replace the stuff you own he's going to change his story and claim it was all jointly owned to the judge.
Trying to force you to buy out "his interest in the jointly owned equipment". We know that is not the truth. But you have nothing in paper to prove what you say to the judge.
Time to split the business is now. You take your stuff give him the cash for his half of joint owned stuff and store it in your garage, parent's garage, grandparent's garage.
This guy if given the time to bite you in the ass will not hesitate to do so as soon as he realizes that he is to broke to go and pay for whatever it is that you take away access from him.
You make a valid point there! I just bought a Red Max 8050BP Blower from a guy on CL today I havent taken it to where the other equipment is currently located. I will talk to my other friend tonight and have a chat with him.
This is something you need to be careful about. As long as you remain partners you cannot do anything that could harm your partner. You still have a fiduciary duty to one another.
Even though you have no documentation of the partnership up to this point, it would be a good idea to put together a memo to your partner outlining what the two of you agreed to regarding the dissolution of the partnership. In particular, cover the date the partnership dissolves, the disposition of the various pieces of equipment, and, perhaps most importantly, the division of the accounts. Give him a couple weeks to respond if he disagrees with your memo, if he does not dispute it you may infer that he accepts the terms.
Then, you can contact the accounts in the area that you are getting and let them know that you are forming the new company to handle them, and hope that you will have their business next year. (And speaking of the new company you will form, let me make a plug that you form an LLC unless you have a specific reason for a different form of business.) After the first of the year, after the partnership has been dissolved, there will be no reason you could not contact those accounts in your partner's area to let them know of your new company (unless the two of you have a specific agreement to keep your hands off one another's accounts, which agreement sounds unlikely from your description of your discussion). Since he still is a friend you probably do not want to be aggressive in poaching his accounts, but it sounds like he is likely to piss off his customers, and when his customers fire him, there is no reason you should not be the guy to get their business.
This is something you need to be careful about. As long as you remain partners you cannot do anything that could harm your partner. You still have a fiduciary duty to one another.
Even though you have no documentation of the partnership up to this point, it would be a good idea to put together a memo to your partner outlining what the two of you agreed to regarding the dissolution of the partnership. In particular, cover the date the partnership dissolves, the disposition of the various pieces of equipment, and, perhaps most importantly, the division of the accounts. Give him a couple weeks to respond if he disagrees with your memo, if he does not dispute it you may infer that he accepts the terms.
Then, you can contact the accounts in the area that you are getting and let them know that you are forming the new company to handle them, and hope that you will have their business next year. (And speaking of the new company you will form, let me make a plug that you form an LLC unless you have a specific reason for a different form of business.) After the first of the year, after the partnership has been dissolved, there will be no reason you could not contact those accounts in your partner's area to let them know of your new company (unless the two of you have a specific agreement to keep your hands off one another's accounts, which agreement sounds unlikely from your description of your discussion). Since he still is a friend you probably do not want to be aggressive in poaching his accounts, but it sounds like he is likely to piss off his customers, and when his customers fire him, there is no reason you should not be the guy to get their business.
Since we will be splitting the customer base, I dont want to get complaints from the area that he is getting (even though I am the one currently doing all of the admin work) if I am not servicing them. That would then become his responsibility to take care of that. That area is almost a half hour 45 minute drive to the first loc. I dont find it very profitable and more like a waste of time (he likes that area). I dont like the windshield time. Thats another issue that I had with him. To each his own I guess. The area that I will have is more like 2-4 miles at most from my home.
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