My
Story – Chris Mulligan
My name
is Chris Mulligan and this is my story of how I got into business for
myself. I was asked by my friend Bruce
Firestone to write this and he wanted me to start the story after I graduated
high school but really it goes back much farther than that.
Sometime
around grade 4 I begged my parents to give me an allowance. I had figured out that if I work for money I
could afford to buy the things I wanted.
At the time, what I really wanted was Lego and hockey and baseball cards,
like most kids in grade 4. I got about 1
dollar per week to make my bed, clean my room, and keep my stuff tidy. To me that was an easy dollar. I did that for about 2 years and kept saving
money until I had enough to buy something I wanted.
By the
time I was in sixth grade 1 dollar per week wasn’t cutting it. I was two years older, practically an adult
in my mind, and felt I needed to make more money. I had junk food and movie nights to pay for! So I started
mowing my parents’ lawn every week. The
people who lived across the road had a small accounting business and were too
busy to mow their lawn so they hired me to do it as well. Then I’d occasionally mow the lawn for a lady
down the road who was also a teacher at my school. I bought a book through one of the book fairs
at school and it outlined how a young guy like me made $2000 in one summer
mowing lawns and doing yard work. I read
it cover to cover, over and over, I practically had
the whole book memorized. The main thing
it taught me was to offer extra services while I was there anyway. So I did just that, I’d mow the lawn, pull
some weeds from the garden, take the garbage out, and anything else that needed
to be done.
Chris Doing What He Loves
Once
winter came along I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d shovel my parents’ driveway and the
people with an accounting business hired me to do the same. I wanted more! The people that lived two houses up went out
of town for a month because the wife fell ill.
They were a young family, really nice people, and she got diagnosed with
breast cancer. They went to
I was swamped every snowfall so I got my best friend,
who happened to live next door, to come help me. We got the laneways done and felt proud of
our work. When the people who were out
of town came back they heard from neighbours that we had been clearing their
driveway for them. They invited us over
and fed us junk food and gave us $100!
To us that was like winning the lottery.
We each took our $50 home and showed it off to our parents. We did some dumb stuff when we were young
(including getting poison ivy because we thought we were immune), but I think
at that moment, both our families were proud of us.
At the
end of 7th grade my family moved to Carp. I didn’t know anyone in the area so I just
cut my parents lawn and shoveled their driveway. I just stuck with that for most of high
school, I was a teenager and had lots of other things on my mind.
During
the summer of 11th grade, my neighbour started a small business
installing and servicing garage doors.
He needed some help once or twice a week so I went to work for him. He’d pay me at the end of each day, $10 per
hour in cash. It was fun working with him, he was a laid back guy and a bit of a rebel. Once school started again I still wanted to
make money. I worked for him on weekends
for most of the winter. Cold or warm, I
was up and down ladders, cranking bolts, and carrying door panels. That fall a guy named Dan had rented my aunt’s
cottage and I got to meet him. I showed
him all the good fishing spots on the lake and we caught tons of fish. He ran a tree service company and said he’d
call me in the spring if he needed any help.
True to his word, spring rolled around and he called me in. I helped out for a couple days here and there
on weekends. I’d also help with the garage
doors as well. I had a car by now and
wanted to keep gas in it so I needed big money for cruising around. Working with the tree service was great, I
got to be outside, play with chippers and chainsaws, and burn off some
energy.
I
graduated high school with an OSSD and enrolled in college to be a heating and
air conditioning technician. My parents
and guidance counselors had been pushing hard for me to find something I wanted
to do in college. I knew all along that
I wanted to be self employed, I just didn’t know what
I wanted to do. So I went to college and
actually hated every second of it. I
wasn’t happy with what I was doing so I dropped out after a semester. I went to work night shift at Loblaws from
While
working for the tree service I noticed a lot of wood getting taken to the
dump. I asked Dan, my boss, if I could
have some and he said take as much as you want.
So I started hauling loads of it home and by the time winter came and
work ran out, I had about 40 cords of wood in my parents’ back yard. Boy were they impressed, my mom just loved
looking out the back window and seeing a mountain of wood. Over the winter I worked at Zellers on days
off and in the evenings, I’d split firewood.
The next spring I put out some flyers for tree cutting and lawn maintenance. I cut trees, brought home more wood, and
maintained about 20 lawns. I was so
happy, I was self employed! That fall I
sold all my dry wood and started working on the next batch. I worked part time that winter in a warehouse
repairing vacuums. In my spare time I
processed wood. The next summer I did
the grass and trees again and got a few more customers.
That
summer I met a girl, we really hit it off and spent tons of time together. She’d even come work with me sometimes for
extra cash. What I didn’t know is that
she was bi-polar and would almost ruin me.
I won’t go into too much detail but over the next three years, because I
stuck with her, I alienated my family, friends, and lost most of my customers. She had no conscience and because I wanted to
be with her I put everything aside and just paid attention to her. Next thing I knew I was living in a dumpy
little place way out in Smiths Falls with no job or money. There was barely any work out there
either. Late that winter I had enough
and broke things off with her. It was an
ugly breakup but the best thing I could have done. She moved out and I took some time to really
figure things out. Over the three years
I was with her I had lost who I was. I
knew I loved cutting firewood so I found a local farmer and cut a bunch of wood
on his property. I gave him some as
payment. It felt great to be back at it
again. I moved back to Carp to my
parents’ house and went to work for the tree service again. In April I met another girl and we hit it
off. She was the opposite of my ex, she was everything I was looking for. She encouraged me to get my business up and
running again. So I put out some ads and
did some tree removals. I also worked on
a property cutting cedar posts. I really
enjoyed working in the forest so I set out to find more jobs like it. I worked at a few local properties cutting
wood, mostly firewood. Then I got a call
from a lady who got my flyer in her mailbox.
She told me that she was an investor in a property and wanted to know
more about what I do. I gave her all the
information and she passed my name on to the property owner. He called me back a few days later, his name
was Bruce Firestone. He told me he
wanted to develop the property and needed the forest thinned out. I met him at the property and he gave me the
grand tour and explained exactly what he wanted done. We made the deal and I went to work. I worked there for most of the winter cutting
firewood and saw logs. I teamed up with
a local guy in the same business and he had a tractor for skidding
the logs out. Spring rolled around and
we finished up work there and went on to another property just up the
road. We cut some really high quality
logs and made some good money.
Bruce recommended me to another local land owner. I made a deal with him and went to work
cutting on his property. We had a signed
contract outlining all the details of work and he decided he wanted to change
the rules as we went. I brushed it off
at first but it got worse and worse so we packed up all our equipment and
left. We had not anticipated this so we
scrambled to find another property to work on.
This was the first time I had ever had a land owner or even a customer
get so mad at me. It made me questions
whether being self employed was the right thing for me. Luckily I’m stubborn so I kept plugging
away.
That
fall I went to work for the tree service yet again. Dan also sub-contracted some jobs to me which
was nice. I also worked for a snow
removal company over the winter to help make ends meet. The next summer was spent working for the
tree service and doing some of my own jobs.
I got a call from a guy just outside Stittsville
who wanted some of his property cleared.
I went and looked at the job and got really excited because of the
quality of the timber and the dry ground.
He had told me that other contractors had bid on the job and would pay
up front for half then pay the other half when the job was done. I got too excited, outbid them and took out a
big bank loan. After about 1 month of
working on the property I realized I made a huge mistake and bid way too
high. Half the trees were hollow and not
worth a quarter of what I bid. Staying
true to my contract I finished the job and was out thousands of dollars. I had
been planning on starting a lawn maintenance business in the spring but due to
the large amount of money I owed to the bank I went to work for the tree
service instead.
It’s fall now and I’ve got all my loans paid off. I’m still working for the tree service part
time and delivering firewood part time.
I’ve been working on a couple of ideas I’ve had for a while. I’ve been processing “recycled firewood”. It’s wood that is obtained from local tree
service companies. Most of the trees are
dead, damaged, or posing a threat and need to be removed. Most of the time, they drop the wood off to
me free of charge because they normally have to pay to get rid of it. I cut and split the wood and sell it by the
truck load. It’s a mix of hardwood and
softwood and I sell it for a very reasonable price. The really good wood gets set aside because I
get almost twice as much for it. I
advertise this wood as environmentally
friendly firewood because the trees aren’t cut for profit,
they’re cut because they need to be cut.
People seem to really like the idea, I’m
getting calls from all over
I’m bad
for having big ideas and taking on too much and not being able to get them all
done. I tend to lose focus. I’ve teamed up with an older guy from the
area to start a property maintenance company.
We’ve already done some tree removals and will be doing lawn maintenance
next year. He is very focused and down
to earth while I am a little more outgoing and willing to try new things. I think we’ll balance each other out and make
a good living. I will also be cutting
more firewood on Bruce Firestone’s property.
I made another deal with him to work on his property. He has been very patient and understanding
and has offered me lots of excellent advice.
If it wasn’t for him I’d probably be stuck working some dead end job for
someone else.
I hope
you’ve enjoyed my story and maybe learned something from it……even if it’s “what
not to do”. My only advice is once you
know what you want; don’t stop until you get it. Thanks for reading!
-Chris Mulligan,
http://chris-firewood.tripod.com
http://cr-propertycare.tripod.com
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