Companies joining

Hi, guys this is my first post on here even though I have been a member for a while. Ido hood cleaning in upstste New York,Illinois and Missouri and I received a call today from a company in the next town from me in Illinois that does fire suppression systems and fire extinguishers. It was the owner of the company that called and he told me that they have been running into problems with customers wanting everything done by one company ( hood cleaning, fire exinguishers, fire suppression, etc. ). I have also ran into this type of problem on some of my jobs. Their company doesn't do hood cleaning and I don't do the other stuff. The mans question was would I be interested in selling to them and coming to work work as a manager over the hood cleaning part of the business. We have both went back and forth for years giving each other leads on jobs and it has worked out great. He told me just to think about it and see what I think. I don't know what kind of deal can be worked out if I decide to because both of our businesses are growing every year. He doesn't get anything from my hoods in New York. Just looking for advice or coments and want to say thank you for all the informative things you post here every day.

Eric, It can be very benificial to align yourself with a GOOD fire suppression service company. You can both benifit from each others leads and recommendations. As far as selling your business to him or vice versa, that is a personal decision, that only you know the real answer to. In this world of overzealous litigation, If you do sell / merge / or in someway join the other company, keep them legally seperate and insure each of them seperately.

Thanks Grant for your reply. I do beleive that if we join together somehow we would both benefit from it alot. As a matter of fact I just got them another job today. A restaurant called me the other day and said their insurance company sent them a letter saying hood must be cleaned and fire extinguishers changed.We cleaned the hood this morning and I gave them the other companies phone# and they are going out to look at the fire extinguishers tommorrow.I have noticed that within the last year the insurance companies in my area have really been cracking down on these restaurants about keeping everything up to code. [whip]

i think it would depend on what you will be making. as the owner of your cleaning business, you shouldnt sell and work for him as a manager if you are going to start being paid hourly and not making what you would be as an owner raking in the profits. The company i work for does hood cleaning, fire supression system, and fire extinguisher tests, and supression system instalation. i cleaned hoods for about 2 months, and now i am finishing up the training to service the f/s systems and f/e's. ill be taking the test soon to be cetified in seattle.