Last year, I had the misfortune of placing a 25-year-old family HVAC company into Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. If you have never experienced this, let me say that you never want to. It is a stressful, emotional, and embarrassing procedure that results in the knowledge that you not only let down your customers, employees, and suppliers, but, most importantly, you let down yourself.
Let me begin with a little background. I grew up in the HVAC business. My grandfather had a successful (yet often stressful) HVAC business. My uncle had his own HVAC business, which also went bankrupt. Another uncle has been employed in the industry for most of his life and is now considering self-employment in the HVAC industry. My father had his own HVAC business, which is where my story begins.