My brother had been talking about owning an HVAC company for almost two years.
I didn’t know if I wanted to be an HVAC company owner, let alone owning one with my brother.
I knew how flighty my brother could be. He often started a project and halfway through, he would give up. I didn’t want to step into business with him and have him suddenly dropping out because he changed his mind. I tried to tell him how I felt, but he swore he had grown up and changed. He knew he could make a go of the HVAC company if I would help him open it. I talked to my wife, and she warned me about him, but said she was here for me. After six months, we finally had all the paperwork taken care of, and we were ready to go to the bank. My brother was out looking for a piece of property. I was getting ready to go to the bank when I got a call from my brother. He told me he changed his mind. I was ready to ream him out for doing this to me again. He told me to hold up. Instead of finding a place to start the business, he found an HVAC company that was going out of business. For less than we had planned, we could get the business and all the equipment. Some of the HVAC technicians were even willing to stay with the new owners. For the first time, my brother’s faltering on a decision was making sense.