Practice makes perfect...or something...

Well after thinking and talking about expectations yesterday, I have the opportunity to put my thoughts into practice today. We had a meeting today with a very good client, who has given us some work, but we've been marketing them for much more. The meeting went very well, and he gave us at least two projects in the next 60 days which will total about $20k in revenues. We can't retire on that, but it's certainly nothing to sneeze at either! Those two projects fit right in to our expectations with this particular client.

Once that was out of the way, he wanted to discuss a really big potential project. It seems that the client's company is looking into acquiring 14 facilities in Austin, but it's in the very preliminary stages right now. If they do proceed with the acquisition, they're going to have to do all the environmental due diligence on each facility and that's where we come in. We generally discussed each location and formulated a general scope of work for each one with him today at his office. I asked if he'd like us to put together the cost proposals for the work now, but he asked us to wait until they have a better idea if the acquisition is going to happen or not. If the acquisition is a go, then we'll probably have less than 60 days to complete the environmental investigations at all 14 locations. This means that we'll be working bunches of hours, but the revenues for our still very young company will be huge for 60 days worth of work! The revenues from this project could range from $100k to 150K depending on certain variables with half of that most likely being subcontractor costs. Nevertheless, it is a huge potential project for us, and we're thrilled that this client has the confidence in us.

So all three of us are trying to remain cautiously optimistic. We had a similar situation pop up last year and the deal fell through. But when the potential project popped up last year, our hopes and expectations were soaring only to be dashed at the last minute. Now that we're owners and not employees, it's funny how winning and losing projects has taken on a whole new meaning. Of course you know this rationally before starting a business that winning and losing projects will take on a whole new urgency, but the rational thought does not prepare you for the actual event as well as all the emotions that go with it. So we feel that last year's disappointment was a lesson learned.

We're excited about this potential project, but we have to make sure that we don't count on it mentally like we did for last year's lost project. We must continue marketing other clients as usual, and not let our expectations get carried away. I can't let my expectations get away from me on this one. Yep, this will be good expectations practice indeed.