3 Serious Problems You’ll Have to Deal With as a Licensed Contractor

Here at CSLS, we are always writing about the perks of becoming a licensed California contractor and starting your own business. And when potential students come to visit us, we let them know we think every construction professional should earn their certification and at least have the option of branching out on their own.

But maybe we’re overselling the upside too much. To even out the other side of the equation, we want to share a few of the downsides with you, too. Here are three serious problems you’ll likely have to deal with once you become a licensed contractor and start your own company:

1. How to spend the extra money you make. When you own your own business, you aren’t paid an hourly wage or putting the profits from your work in someone else’s pocket. Instead, you’re free to take as much work as you want, charge what your customers think is fair, and negotiate a better deal if you don’t like how things are going – even if you have to negotiate with yourself. That also means, however, that it’s up to you to figure out what you’re going to do with the extra dollars in your pocket every month.

2. What to do with all the extra time. When you’re self-employed, it’s up to you to decide when you want to work and what you want to work on. With no one around to tell you what you have to do, the freedom is all yours. That could mean spending more hours away from the job site and taking extra vacations or long weekends with your family. How will you manage to fill the calendar without so much overtime?

3. The burden of deciding on your own career path. If you aren’t licensed as a contractor now, you probably have someone else who tells you what to work on and decides your priorities on a daily or weekly basis. When you work on your own, though, those decisions are all up to you. That means you’ll have to figure out what you really like to work on, instead of just having someone else hand you a set of blueprints or instructions. Do you think you could handle that responsibility?

Now that we think about it, maybe there aren’t so many negatives about becoming a licensed contractor in California after all. This could be your chance to check out our online and classroom learning options.

More than 200,000 students have come to CSLS to further their construction careers, and we have a 99.9% first-time passing rate. What more could you ask for in a professional school or a career opportunity?