Keeping a Positive Additude

Honestly, I think what you’re feeling is pretty normal for a lot of owners during the early stages. Especially when you go from being “an electrician working for someone else” to suddenly being:

• the technician
• the estimator
• the salesperson
• billing department
• scheduler
• customer service
• collections department

The actual trade work usually feels familiar. The mental load of running the business is what catches people off guard.

I remember feeling frustrated early on because I thought: “If I’m good at the work, the business part should naturally fall into place.”

That was not my experience. Pricing was stressful. Estimating felt uncertain. I second guessed quotes constantly. And some days it felt like I spent more time replying to people and organizing work than actually doing the work itself.

One thing that helped me mentally was realizing the business side is its own skill set. You’ve spent 10 years becoming skilled as an electrician. You’ve only spent 2 months being a business owner full time.

That perspective helped me be more patient with myself.

Something else that helped: I stopped expecting the business to feel stable emotionally all the time.

Some weeks you feel unstoppable. Some weeks you question everything. Sometimes both happen in the same day. Especially in the beginning.

As far as pricing and estimating bigger jobs, I think almost every owner goes through a period where they underbid simply because they are afraid to lose the work.

Then eventually you do enough jobs to realize:

• some jobs took longer than expected
• some customers consumed way more time
• some projects were not worth the stress
• and cheap pricing creates pressure everywhere else

A lot of pricing confidence just comes from repetitions and reviewing your numbers honestly afterward.