The cabinet maker turned business owner problem
Why skilled tradespeople struggle when they become shop owners, and the fatal mistake most make with their pricing.
Most millwork and cabinet shops — somewhere between 80 and 90 percent — are run by tradespeople who never set out to be business owners. They were cabinet makers first. Skilled ones. But at some point they started their own shop, and suddenly they were responsible for overhead, pricing, margins, taxes, and cash flow without anyone ever teaching them how.
The mental shift that happens is subtle and dangerous. You were making $30 to $40 an hour working for someone else. You start your own shop and think: if I charge $30 an hour I'm at least breaking even, and anything above that is profit. That math feels right in your head. It works for a little while. You might even make more money than you did as an employee.
But then the cracks start showing. The callbacks. The slow months. The equipment that needs replacing. The insurance renewal. The job that ran over and wiped out three weeks of margin.
What went wrong is simple: you forgot to pay yourself as a business, not just as a worker.