What to do for a logo?

[12348910]

Boy saying you have years of experience when you said you was only 14 yrs old is wrong; unless, you started out in your diapers.

Matter of fact I got a company in area that the original owner started 25 yrs that just recently purchased by a new owner that trying the same thing with new techs that can't even find a blown gasket. Instead they told the customer he needed a new $4000 when it was only $300 job. Now the customer is no longer using them but instead using my shop as I do good, standby my workmanship, and tell the truth when asked. Also there was another company that was recently that tried the same thing they made two years and when I was by their place last week everything was gone. Just a place up for sale.

Heck in general I have professionally work on equipment since '79. I was training since I was in the second grade but as lawn care equipment repair mechanic I have only been doing it professionally since 2009. And everyday I learn something new as I am getting something I have never worked on and must learn new things.

Years of experience is not a lie. I started out with my grandma when I was in 3rd or 4th grade cutting one lawn a week. We did that up until last year when that lady moved into a senior living home and this year I started out with 2 yards that where side by side and as the year went by I got another 3 yards because of them telling there friends and family about me. I was making over $150 a week on just some small yards in the city. They also had me do some other small jobs. One lady had me remove the gravel on her retaining wall and later on put mulch down. Her neighbor had me dig up bricks from his driveway since he was getting concrete poured. Another lady had me clean out her gutters. Now I have this ridding lawn mower I got from school and I want to use that to try bigger lawns to make more money. I will Still have those other yards from last summer that I would do later in the week and these new yards I would do earlier in the week Or the Other way around. in the past my parents and grandparents have let me cut there grass too. So if I started 6 or 7 years ago but skipped a year then I would still have 5 or 6 “years” of experience.

 

[Rivets]

According to industry standards you are still a toddler. Just like the rest of us you have lots to learn and like us we wake up every day saying “What’s going to hit me in the face that I haven’t seen before. The first thing you need to learn today is this. When you ask a question you must listen to the answer and then apply it to your situation. You have been given some very valuable advice, but have blown most of it off, because of your inexperience. No fancy logo, no shirts, no cards, just hard work are things you’ve been told more than once. Put your time and effort into two pieces of equipment you will be using everyday. You will loose everything you worked for when the only piece of equipment you have to do all “those” jobs will breakdown and no one gets the work done they’ve paid for. This is especially true with snow removal, as people can’t wait a day or two for the job to get down. What are you going to do on a school day when you wake up to 6” of Wisconsin’s wet snow and you have to be in school? Tell all those customers you’ll get to it later? I’ll tell you from experience, even older people hate it when they feel like they are locked into their homes because they can’t get out, due to snow and icy conditions. What are going to learn today?

 

[12348910]

According to industry standards you are still a toddler. Just like the rest of us you have lots to learn and like us we wake up every day saying “What’s going to hit me in the face that I haven’t seen before. The first thing you need to learn today is this. When you ask a question you must listen to the answer and then apply it to your situation. You have been given some very valuable advice, but have blown most of it off, because of your inexperience. No fancy logo, no shirts, no cards, just hard work are things you’ve been told more than once. Put your time and effort into two pieces of equipment you will be using everyday. You will loose everything you worked for when the only piece of equipment you have to do all “those” jobs will breakdown and no one gets the work done they’ve paid for. This is especially true with snow removal, as people can’t wait a day or two for the job to get down. What are you going to do on a school day when you wake up to 6” of Wisconsin’s wet snow and you have to be in school? Tell all those customers you’ll get to it later? I’ll tell you from experience, even older people hate it when they feel like they are locked into their homes because they can’t get out, due to snow and icy conditions. What are going to learn today?

my plan on the snow Removal is to tell them that I would have very limited availability since I may need to go to school or work and my parents are divorced so I would have them call me When it snows. I know it might not sound very professional but if I can prove my good work when I cut grass maybe they will think about the snow removal to

 

[StarTech]

Okay you wanting to do this professionally. Then you got to get a business license including sales tax license. Must keep accurate records; therefore, either you got the do all the accounting yourself (computer program help) or hire it done. Then at the end of pay you self employment taxes. Trying hide your cash sales will sooner or later be caught by the local sales tax office especially if you buy sales tax exempt items for resale. I pay my sales tax on a quarterly basis here as I have cross over the threshold for monthly payments yet. Here I have pay a yearly business tax too base on my annual gross sales.

Then of course you would need at least liability insurance in case one you customers gets hurt by your equipment operations.

Then of course if you have employees then there is the quarterly or monthly payroll taxes that you must to the government.

In the 14 years I had my shop I done had two personal visits for the local government tax office inspecting my records. One inspector was very sneaky too as he pretend to be a customer. Once I handed him the bill out came his badge and demanded to see my licenses and records. Some customer had gotten pissed because I charge them sales tax and reported me. They would tell me who but I figured it out anyways and that customer is no longer a customer.

And gone through one IRS audit. Boy they really didn't want go through the boxes of paper records and just looked through my computer accounting system. But i had carry in both just to be safe.

And as Rivets put it customers are not going wait for you to get out school just get the snow removed when they also got to get to work themselves. They will just someone else that can do it.

 

[Rivets]

After this post I’m going to get out of this thread, because I’ll have no more good advice to share. Young man you have very high goals, which I applaud, but also a lot to learn. I suggest you carefully reread the threads you have posted. Just about every time suggestions are posted you blow most of them off, because you don’t think it will work into “YOUR PLAN”. The people making those suggestions are old enough to be your grandpa and have more years of doing things wrong, than you think you have doing things your way. When they say; DON’T DO THIS, NO, SLOWDOWN, THINK AGAIN, ETC., they are basing it on the number of times we’ve made that mistake or seen someone else do it wrong. Each of us has learned that screwing up is a valuable and expensive teacher, but we hate to see others make the same mistake we did. In school you study history to learn from the mistakes made by those who came before us, so we don’t make the same mistakes. If you fail to listen and follow the valuable advice the people here are sharing with you, you will make the same mistakes they did and are doomed to fail. The choice is yours as to what to do next, I pulling for you, so I hope you don’t blow it. Good Luck

 

[bertsmobile1]

I came here when I was 58 to learn the stuff I did not know
I have been fixing mowers since I was 10
Your attitude will get you in a lot of grief.
As a minor you may get away with IRS irregularaties but the IRS can be right royal PIA and a young inexperienced person such as you is considered easy meat so at the end of the year they can report to congress that they prosecuted XYZ,000,000 tax cheats and you are easier than EXXon.
I have heard some where the childs income was added to the parents income and the parents then got done for tax fraud which ended up costing many times what the youngster earned.
Check carefully to see if there is a tax free threshold for minors in your area
If one of your parents is getting any sort of tax benefit for you they can also be prosecuted .
On a couple of motorcycle forums the members there are bitching about IRS considering the sales of motorcycles they have owned & ridder for 30+ year as taxable income particularly if sold on ebay, face book, auction or swap meet .
Trump , Musk & Bezos pay no tax so the IRS is trying to take it out of the hide of ordinary people like yourself.
Then there are business laws . Trading without the proper licenses & insurances can have you behind bars or in debt till you are 50 .
It is a bitter pill to swallow and dissincentervises people who want to work like yourself , but there are way too many tax cheats and even worse social security cheats to allow any leaway .
Like Rivets, I can add no more.
Good luck. I managed to go bankrupt 3 times for various reasons so I know just how tough it can be out there .

 

[StarTech]

And just think not paying into Social Security hurts not only those currently on SS but yourself when you retire as they base your payments on how much you have paid in. And yes they considering raising the retirement age to 70 from the current 67. And I am in the 66 yrs and 10 month group right now if I want full benefits. But I am starting at 65 as medicare is required to start; unless, I wait to full retirement and pay extra the rest of my life.

As Bert put it running a business is no joy ride; although, many workers think it is as simple as being employed. It was once told to that you work 8 hrs a day for someone else to become your own boss and then work 18 plus hour days. Here my shop is open 10hrs/day six days week and I am still up at 4 am and go to bed around 9-10pm after all the research and paperwork is done each day. Matter I got this morning at 3 am to get started on today's work.

About all you can do is start out slow and learn the business along with a very good accounting program and several backup computers. As computer will when you need them the most. Personally I back up my accounting business program daily and upload to an offsite Google storage site. And it has been needed a couple times in the last few year due a power supply and a couple hard drive failures.

And as Bert said the IRS is a royal pain to deal with. When you have a problem it is impossible to talk to them, even the tax advocacy group can't get them to straight things out especially when they owe you money but they still expect you to keep paying in. Last year I was on hold for 3 hrs, finally talked to real person for 5 minutes, and they hung up on me.

I got a problem with right now with the IRS that I been trying to straighten out for the last 4 years. The tax advocate gets it straighten out and a month later the IRS just changes it back to the incorrect info. The IRS has been such a pain my advocate will not even return my calls now so I am left alone to fight them to gets things corrected. At least I have manage to get half of the $4000 they owe me. The rest is just have sit there for them threaten me this coming year for not paying this year's taxes.

BTW when it comes to self employment taxes there is no minimum amount that is tax free. I had to pay taxes on less $100 of annual net income. At least when you work for someone else there is a no tax minimum income amount.

 

[michigan_Rapter sd]

to add to the above make sure you don't use someone elses artwork without permission - unless your name is hobrath than this image is not public domane and owned by them. was in the graphics business for over 12 years and you do not want to build a brand and have to change your logo because of copyright infringement, start out on the right foot.

 

[old yooper]

Business cards are nice so your can have your number available but your best advertising is word of mouth as if you do good work they will refer you to their friends.

Word of mouth is the most important advertisement there is. Especially in smaller towns / rural areas. (everybody knows or is related to everyone else ). Like bertsmobile 1 said, "under promise, over deliver".

 

[Tdj2591]

And just think not paying into Social Security hurts not only those currently on SS but yourself when you retire as they base your payments on how much you have paid in. And yes they considering raising the retirement age to 70 from the current 67. And I am in the 66 yrs and 10 month group right now if I want full benefits. But I am starting at 65 as medicare is required to start; unless, I wait to full retirement and pay extra the rest of my life.

As Bert put it running a business is no joy ride; although, many workers think it is as simple as being employed. It was once told to that you work 8 hrs a day for someone else to become your own boss and then work 18 plus hour days. Here my shop is open 10hrs/day six days week and I am still up at 4 am and go to bed around 9-10pm after all the research and paperwork is done each day. Matter I got this morning at 3 am to get started on today's work.

About all you can do is start out slow and learn the business along with a very good accounting program and several backup computers. As computer will when you need them the most. Personally I back up my accounting business program daily and upload to an offsite Google storage site. And it has been needed a couple times in the last few year due a power supply and a couple hard drive failures.

And as Bert said the IRS is a royal pain to deal with. When you have a problem it is impossible to talk to them, even the tax advocacy group can't get them to straight things out especially when they owe you money but they still expect you to keep paying in. Last year I was on hold for 3 hrs, finally talked to real person for 5 minutes, and they hung up on me.

I got a problem with right now with the IRS that I been trying to straighten out for the last 4 years. The tax advocate gets it straighten out and a month later the IRS just changes it back to the incorrect info. The IRS has been such a pain my advocate will not even return my calls now so I am left alone to fight them to gets things corrected. At least I have manage to get half of the $4000 they owe me. The rest is just have sit there for them threaten me this coming year for not paying this year's taxes.

BTW when it comes to self employment taxes there is no minimum amount that is tax free. I had to pay taxes on less $100 of annual net income. At least when you work for someone else there is a no tax minimum income amount.

Rivets, not to hijack this discussion but wanted to comment on your IRS problem. Mine was much smaller. I retired and dropped from a nice 6 figure taxable income in 2021 to income below the minimum taxable threshold in 2022. Six months after the IRS acknowledged in writing receiving my return and multiple letters and inquiries from me, no response. I wrote our US Senator and asked for help. Within a week I had my money. Interestingly the IRS sent me a check instead of direct deposit as I had requested when I filed. The senator’s office followed up with me several times to make sure I got my refund. I was very surprised at how his office jumped on this immediately for me and got a quick resolution.

If all else fails, it may be worth a shot.

And OP, please listen to all these older guys advice. Mistakes can be painful and costly. They’re sharing important lessons they learned the hard way and paid the price.