Bought a new phone

I know, this is the most exciting update ever.

I was walking through Costco and remembered I needed to find a phone for the office, and spotted a Uniden cordless 2-phone system with answering machine for $40.

Did I bother doing some Amazon checks to see if it was crap? No. Is it? Probably. But does it really matter? My usage on this phone will drop to zero the second Google gives me access to Google Voice and I figure that even if it is crap it’ll last a couple of months.

Reception complaints? Don’t care as I’ll be sitting next to the base station.

I’m not even sure why I bothered posting this. It’s a land line phone. Who cares about these things anymore?

Never trust an insurance agent

One monthly cost to running an auto brokerage is insurance. You need insurance to cover the cars, to cover the people test driving cars, to cover your own backside in case things go askew, etc. This isn’t an optional cost as the state requires certain minimums, but by keeping the term “minimum” in mind you can reduce the cost quite a bit.

The bare minimum you can have is liability for $125,000. So how much does it cost to obtain this? Keeping in mind that there will be multiple drivers and people test driving constantly, I was expecting the rate to be pretty high. However, my guesstimate quote I obtained was reasonable at $2400/yr for 2 employees, $3200 for 3. So we’re talking roughly $100 a month per employee. Not bad at all really.

Remember this is liability only though, if a car is stolen or a tree falls on it, that’s not a covered expense. You’ll need to triple this quote if you really want to cover yourself.

For starting up, I suggest keeping it as cheap as possible, you can always add coverage after you’ve sold a few cars and gotten a feel for what the business is really like.

Budget all worked out, I pulled the trigger on the insurance and get the policy done… and a few days later, the actual price comes back. Now a change had happened on my end, no longer was I working with one or two other people, it’s now just me, so I was expecting the quote to go down a bit. From the guesstimates, I was thinking $1500 or so.

Nope. $2250. By the time you add in taxes and fees insurance will now be eating up $210 per month, close to double what I’d budget for.

Going by that number, I could easily be paying $500 per month if/when I bump my coverage up from the bare minimums. Yikes!

Even so, the monthly cost of running this business is still well below $1000, which is quite good. When you start calculating in some of the tax benefits it gets even better, but I’ll detail those numbers when I have a better understanding of everything involved. Right now I’d just be guessing based on previous businesses.

But the moral of this post is simple, never trust a guesstimate from an insurance agent, or anyone trying to sell you something I suppose. Unless it’s me of course, I’ll guesstimate things on the high end so I can surprise you with it being lower than you expected. It’s the Scotty engineering method, and I like it.

I’ve been fingerprinted

One of the more interesting things required to obtain a license is getting yourself fingerprinted.

I know some of you get all paranoid about this, but biometrics is becoming pretty common so I don’t really see the big deal. The first time I was fingerprinted was back in the 80′s when I got my concealed weapons permit. That was back when it was done using an black ink pad and a card, which was then (presumably) scanned into a computer and filed away.

In the 9o’s there was a period where they switched to a special ink that was clear on your finger, but when put on a special card it turned blackish. Again, to be scanned into a computer then filed away.

These days it’s put directly into the computer using a small flatbed scanner.

The process is pretty simple. First you go online and fill out a form with all your personal info on it. You pay your fee there ($32.50) then print the receipt out and take it with you to a local fingerprinting location. In my case the closest turned out to be a UPS Store.

I walked in, told the girl behind the counter that I needed my fingerprints done, handed her my receipt and drivers license and waited while she entered the ID# on the receipt into the computer. Then she asked me to come behind the counter where I proceeded to scan each finger twice while watching the feedback on the screen to make sure it was captured correctly.

Total time, about 5 minutes. I’m really digging how efficient some government processes have become lately.

So I’m almost done now, just waiting on insurance and a surety bond and then I can submit the paperwork to get my license.

Land line installed!

The actual install process went off without a hitch, I’m very pleased with Michelle from the AT&T install team.

She called about 10:15 this morning letting me know she was about 10 minutes away. I immediately got ready and drove to the office… and beat her by 5 minutes. I love living this close to work!

The office I’m leasing was part of a larger office at one point, and as such the wiring for the outlets are in the office next door. Fortunately, they were in and didn’t have a problem with Michelle poking around their wiring closet/storage room. It also gave me a chance to meet the neighbors (howdy neighbor!)

Michelle quickly figured out which two wires matched up to the two outlets in my office and began pulling them out of the patch panel and installing a new one. Meanwhile, I went to ask the landlord where the master patch panel was for the building. With that located, Michelle did her thing and in just a short while she was doing test calls from my office.

Total time from the call letting me know she was on the way and me thanking her for my dial tone… 75 minutes. Now that’s service!

I am going to need to find myself a new phone though. The old one I grabbed out of a box has an insanely loud and shrill ring that I’m certain would damage my hearing in that small office.

Shopping for an analog phone with an answering machine built into it. What is this, the 80′s?! I really need Google Voice to hurry up and let me into the beta, this is just nuts.

New all-in-one printer acquired

Every business needs a printer, and most could use a copier and a fax. For dealing with car sales, you need all three which makes all-in-one machines a logical choice.

Sure, you’re going to make compromises here as all-in-one’s are never as good as a stand along copier, or printer, or fax machine… but for a startup with a small office, it’s a great way to save space and money.

This turned out to be a great week to purchase a printer as Office Depot has a good one from Lexmark on sale for $119, and to celebrate Earth Day they are also giving an instant $50 credit if you trade in an old printer. This means you can get a $200 printer for only $70, a hell of a deal.

Unfortunately I didn’t have an old printer to trade in as my HP LaserJet is humming along nicely at home, but a friend of mine (you know who you are, thanks!!) offered her old inkjet to me for use as trade bait. Savings scored!

Can give any reviews of the printer itself yet as I’m not going to take it out of the box until I can move in the office, but it gets great reviews on Amazon.

The lease has been signed

Things are finally starting to roll along, yesterday I was able to sign the lease on the new office!

So now I’m on the hook for a years worth of payments regardless of what happens next. Nope… no stress at all.

The locks have been changed and I have keys. It’s been painted so it’s fresh looking inside, but the carpet still needs to be changed. I also noticed that while it was only 70 degrees in there, it felt very stuffy. I think I need to add a fan to my office supply list.

Still waiting on the signs as well, but that should be done by Friday from what I’m being told.

So much for actually reading my reply, thanks AT&T!

I asked one simple question, and made one simple request.

The question was to find out a time frame for Thursday’s install so I’d know when to be at the office to meet the installer.

The request was to make sure my cell phone number was on the work order so the installer could call me in case there was an issue.

The reply from the o-so-helpful AT&T rep? “Thank you”

Well, thank you too! Thank you for not actually reading my message, thank you for causing me to wait around in an empty office without furniture for an entire day. Yes, thank you indeed!

I know, I’ll just call them and get a reply that way. Oh, that’s right, this is the PHONE COMPANY that doesn’t give a phone number to contact them, only a web form.

Amazing.

WooHoo! I have a number!

Seems a bit silly to be excited about having a land line phone number, but now that I have it I can move on to the next items on my todo list.

Bank account, insurance, bond, more things I can’t remember at the moment…

The nice lady at AT&T asked one followup question regarding my location (apparently there’s a couple versions of my street address and I needed to clarify which one was me… Google Maps to the rescue) but the the install is set for Thursday.

Being the phone company, who apparently shares customer service skill training with the cable company, the Thursday install is as specific as that, just “Thursday”. I’m clarifying my address for her and asking for a little bit of a range on that install time so I don’t have to sit on the floor of the new office all day (no furniture yet.)

Wanna place odds on the size of the install window?

OK, so you wouldn’t want to cancel AT&T

Well, got the response back. If you cancel the contract early the penalty is $30 for each month left in the contract. So if after a year of trying this I decided it wasn’t for me and I didn’t renew the lease on the office, I’d owe AT&T $720. Ouch!

I’m not willing to make this gamble in order to save $12 per month, so my bill will now be $55 plus taxes.

I’m answering all their legal questions now, hopefully the rest of this process will go quickly so I can continue.

AT&T responded pretty quickly

A few hours later and I have my quote. About $43 a month plus taxes, if I’ll agree to a 3 year contract. Seems pretty reasonable to me, so there’s got to be a catch.

I’ve responded and asked what the penalty is if I need to end the contract early. After all, the lease on the office is only one year, and while I fully expect this project to work out it makes sense to plan things “just in case”.

Though after sending the message off I realized that I’m most likely going to end up waiting until tomorrow for a reply, so I just screwed myself out of a day as I need that phone number.