Four years ago Mitchell decided to start the process of owning his own contractor business. When he was growing up his parents owned some apartment complexes so he did a lot of the maintenance there. It was his desire to go to Home Depot everyday that finally got him to realize that contracting is what he wanted to do.A lot of prayer and thought came into play. What would we do if we went without work, how would we get work, no work equals no money so how would we pay our bills? So many questions to ponder and think about, but we knew that it would be the right thing for our family. Mitchell has always been an entrepreneur and we have owned a restaurant and a mortgage company. In the past we have learned a lot from these businesses so third times a charm.
Mitchell studied hard to get his license and passed the exam with flying colors, like I knew he would. Once he got his license and was bonded and insured with the State of Oregon he could finally go out and drum up some business. We named our company American Contracting Services for the first two years until Mitchell decided to change the name to Mitch Couch Maintenance.
Since owning the business we have not gone a single day without work. We have been so blessed in that aspect. Now, we have gone MANY days that we have prayed that a long awaited check would be in the mail and somehow there is either a check in the mail or a job that came along where the homeowner would pay him cash.
We have learned a lot with the business and quite frankly I have a love hate relationship with it. Invoices are the NUMBER ONE stress with this business. Mitchell would come home after a long days worth of work and not want to do the invoices so we would go weeks without sending them out to the customers. Because of this the money would be late coming in. How do we handle the invoices now? I am vowing to take it over. Everyday I will send out invoices because it is just getting to be too much for Mitchell to have to think about it everyday and with three employees, it makes it even more stressful.
Employees are the next stress. We have gone through quite a lot of them. We have made great friends with some, yet also wanted to ring some of their necks. Once an employee stole from us. Yet Mitchell is great to his employees. For the past four years he would provide lunch every day for them. It was great for the employees, but not too great for our pocketbook so we have limited it to paydays now.
I have taken over most of Mitchell's scheduling and phone calls which really helps him out. Some days he was getting up to 100 phone calls. Ask anyone who has worked with him and they would vouch for this. His phone rings constantly! Hopefully by me taking this over it will help with the stress level and will help Mitchell to be able to relax.
Every job that Mitchell has received is either by word of mouth or by an online service lead company. Some days I think that he is too nice and he will go to a job, takes him five minutes to fix the problem, and he will tell them that there is no charge.
One story in which I will never forget is he was working on an electrical problem in which he had to install an electric oven. As he was trying to put the wires together he had a feeling to recheck the breaker to make sure the electricity was off. He did and went back to trying to hook up the wiring. He said that he physically could not bring his hands together to do it. He then got out his electrical tester and tested the wires and they were HOT, meaning that they had electricity going to them somehow. The breakers were mislabled! If he would have made contact with the wires while they were hot it could have seriously hurt him. I know that it was by the power of our Heavenly Father he is able to come home safe.
I am so excited to see where the next four years take us. Right now we are a small company, but soon we hope to grow larger and one day open a hardware store (Mitchell's dream). Hopefully down the road it will happen for him because he truly deserves it and I will be right there by his side.
