Business owners - how was your year?

[cstreit]

What is it?

Revenue up or down?
Profit margins up or down?
Biggest struggle?


I'll start:

• Revenue flat
• Margins up
• Supply chain and product availability.

[Sooner or later]

I sold my wholesale business. The guy that bought it...

Revenue up over 50%.
Margin down slightly.
Lack of quality labor.

[look 171]

Rev. up only because we had to jack up pricing due to rise in goods and labor

Margin is about the same only slightly up a bit.

Supply chain is slow and it hit us pretty hard about 7-8 months ago. orders use to take 6 weeks, not 10-12 weeks if we are lucky.

Labor shortage. Not too many people are will to work. The ones that want to work wants a lot of money for middle of the road experience.

[jyl]

Revenue flat.
Margins down a little (expenses up).
Biggest struggle was holding revenues flat in a down market, and figuring out how to position. My decisions were mostly pretty good this year, but with the tide going out that left me basically holding ground, not advancing.
My only employee did a lot of traveling, was in France, Italy, Taiwan for almost four months of the year. Fortunately, I made him drag computer and screens on his trips and work US hours wherever he was. Told him him he was lucky to have the flexibilty so suck it up and work until 2 am, I don’t want to hear about it. Alas I’m a one man shop so couldn’t really fire him.

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by jyl

. Alas I’m a one man shop so couldn’t really fire him.

Sounds like the boss is a real hard-a$$.

Ive had to deal with 3 price increases this year alone (and several the year before) r. 6% in Jan, 5% in May, and 10% in october. Mid year we simply had to pass this along to the consumer to stay alive. Net is we're 30% more expensive than two years ago

On the up-side we've had record profit, but I wonder how sustainable it is.

[berettafan]

Rev up
Margin down
Finding efficiencies with currently available software

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Revenue up
Margin up
Working 80 to 100 hour weeks because I can't hire anyone

I will add greatest success: now have some of the very top Porsche and Ferrari restoration shops in the country as customers. Restored a 61 year old beat to hell fender deco for an Aston Martin DB4 that the shop said was nicer than brand new from Aston Martin direct.

[Nickshu]

Revenue up.
Staffing has greatly improved vs last year but pay them more than ever.
Best year ever this past year as far as gross revenue.
Keeping overhead down harder than ever.

[rusnak]

2022 way better than 2021, which was awful for retail.
Revenue way up because margins doubled vs. 3 years ago.
Operating profit comparable to 2019 benchmark.
Volume down by 25% but as I say, unit contribution is up by 250% +/_.

Real estate biz stomped on the brakes hard in 3rd qrtr 2022. Super glad to have gotten crucial deals done in 1rst q.

[GH85Carrera]

We are ending the year with more cash on hand than ever before. We are renewing expensive software and our hanger lease early to get them on this year's expenses to reduce the profits and shift taxes to next year. We still pay all the taxes, but in 2023 and who know what the looming recession will do to us in 2023.

[VINMAN]

This year wasn't the best. Had a lot of job cancellations due to skyrocketed material costs. People seemed to not want to spend the first half of this year. Lost a few big deck jobs that were put on hold. Picked up slightly after the summer. Fuel costs also killed me. Not always easy to pass the cost onto the customer.

It was slightly better than last year, but nowhere near like it was pre-covid.

.

[mb911]

Rev is up, lost a good chunk though of my product line to an unethical contractor, branched out to other services. Major delays in raw materials

[Rick Lee]

Everything was up - revenue, costs and profit. I just have to always write more business to offset the increase in costs, but somehow it happens.

[911 Rod]

Revenue down
Margins up, but because I raised some of my rates because I can't keep up with all of suppliers price increases.
Loosing about 5 grand a month.
Small print shop. Me and 1 employee.

[Brando]

This year wasn't too bad.

Revenue, up. Margins, same. We had a few clients that didn't last, they were very costly (time & money wise).

Next year we're aiming to be more selective with our clients, focus on long-term relationships instead of those who "want a quick fix".

[Racerbvd]

Crappy, for both and our expenses increased to.

[cstreit]

Seems like a mixed bag but that generally it wasn't horrible for most.

Lots of people raising prices. ...can't help but wonder though if we really have bad inflation - or is profit-taking just cascading all the way down.

[911 Rod]

Originally Posted by cstreit

Lots of people raising prices. ...can't help but wonder though if we really have bad inflation - or is profit-taking just cascading all the way down.

Greedflation

[GH85Carrera]

We had to raise the rate we charge per hour for running our airplane. Fuel prices whent nuts, and it is easy to suck up $800 in a day in gas alone. We hear that getting a factory fresh rebuild is two years behind, and the cost has shot up a lot. Our next engine may well be 50 grand for the entire process and there is no waiting, the FAA has rules. The engine can test out to be perfect in every way, but after the set number of hours, it is just a rebuildable core and can't be used to fly the airplane.

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by cstreit

Seems like a mixed bag but that generally it wasn't horrible for most.

Lots of people raising prices. ...can't help but wonder though if we really have bad inflation - or is profit-taking just cascading all the way down.

I talk with a buddy who has a slightly larger firm than me and often the conversation centers around not being afraid to raise rates. If you aren't careful you can go broke pretty quickly by just failing to keep up with inflation.