So. We're rocking along with the construction business going pretty well. The partner-for-the-potential national business thingie that I discussed (back in May, I think) had not recovered as well from his open-heart surgery as he had expected, so in my mind, that pretty much wiped out the potential for this new business. He had been doing better, but then took a turn for the worse, and the last thing I wanted to be was someone whose new business stressed him out and harmed him. Which is what we told him, and as far as we were concerned, that was that.
Well. He's called and it turns out that the company which had been doing all of the work -- the one we were hoping just to have the ability to compete with -- has been terminated by the national company they were doing all of the work for. They have been ticking off the customers, apparently, and being greedy from what we could see, trying to get a whole lot more in the way of "maintenance" contracts from the customers than the customers wanted. Among other problems. So the national company -- who knew about our interest earlier, and with whom our parnter has a lot of ties -- called our partner and told him about terminating the other company and asked him if we were still interested in doing this. He said yes. He's now gone into deep research mode (meaning, attorneys have been hired) and there is much looking and discussion about purchasing the other company outright (since they will no longer have the work, they will go under and lose everything or have to sell it off piecemeal, so this is a win-win situation... well, win-win in as much as it wasn't us who put them under.)
We've already talked about what it is that we would do differently than what they had been doing before in order to remedy the problems. I'm assuming none of this will happen super fast -- they have been given a 90 day termination notice, so it'll probably happen before that -- and then we'll have a business to run. A national business. 48 continugous states and some stuff in Canada and some in Mexico.
I am a little freaked out. I'm not afraid of the actual business -- I know that one. I understand it probably a lot better than the people running it, because I've been dealing with their customers (for other types of stuff) for at least twenty years now. But having that much responsibility? Whoa.
Of course, none of this has happened. It could all fall apart. It could all change tomorrow. So I'm just watching and waiting. And writing, because it might be a bit busy around here later.
Posted by toni at August 4, 2004 03:47 PM