Paul Burns spent more than 15 years - 40 to 50 hours a week - "in the bucket."

Climbing out - going from brush jockey to full-time boss - wasn't easy, but the Virginia contractor has never looked back.

"I make a lot more money working 20 hours 'out of the bucket' than I could running up and down 40-foot ladders for 50 hours a week," said Burns. Six years after he took the plunge, Burns said he, his bottom line, and his ever-cranky 41-year-old back are all a lot better off.

Opting for growth and full-time ownership paid off in a big way for Burns, of Round Hill, VA. He had employed two or three painters, but he was so busy juggling buckets and brushes that he seldom felt (or acted) like the owner. That changed when a back injury sidelined him. Unable to climb a ladder, he was forced to look at his numbers and business practices. He was appalled at what he saw: Heaps of notes scribbled on scraps. No computers. Time frittered away. Rates that didn't cover his costs. A pay structure that actually encouraged his crew to work slowly.

Today, Burns employs seven painters and a new full-time salesman. His office is fully automated. Estimates, proposals, and letters are clean, professional, laser-sharp, and kick themselves out in the midnight hours. His rates are up 50 percent. He works about 20 hours a week, earns four times what he used to, plays a lot of golf (badly), and is "just basically enjoying life" with his wife, dog, and cat.

"It's quite a turnaround from climbing up and down ladders all day," he laughed.

In getting out of the bucket and into full-time ownership, Burns beat the odds. The going is not smooth. Business growth, like all growth, demands commitment, tenacity, care, and planning. And yes, homework.

But it's not rocket science. And lots of help is available, much of it free. Seize it, and you'll be parking the brushes and perking up the bottom line in no time. Here, from those who did it right and those who did it wrong, are the top three commandments.

1 Know thyself: Do you really want to be the boss? This is not as dumb a question as it may seem. Not everyone is cut out to be a chief; some folks find life a whole lot more pleasant as Indians. Risk-taking is stressful, growth requires long hours - well after those "in the bucket" call it a day - and managing other people means taking on their problems as well as your own (see sidebar).

"Taking the leap from working in a business to managing and leading one is a much longer leap than most people imagine," small business consultant Linda Leigh Francis writes in her new book, Run Your Business So It Doesn't Run You. "They rent an office, hang out their shingle, hire an employee or two, and they're off and running. And running. And running. And running. Until one day, they wake up exhausted, working for wages, and questioning their decision to start this #@*&!! business in the first place."

Launching and running a business demands "the passion to be successful," said consultant Richard Kaller, who heads a training and networking firm known as the Certified Contractors NetWork in Philadelphia.

It also requires the vision and wits to stay focused on the big picture - even when the day or week is going down in flames. When your crews are heading out for that cold one at the end of the day, you need to know what they're going to be doing tomorrow, next season, next year - and beyond.

The boss has "got to start thinking in years and not in days," said Henry Goudreau of Sarasota, FL, who has been leading business seminars for contractors for eight years.

David G. Rohlander, a prominent motivational speaker and management consultant, suggests that prospective business owners start by taking a hard look at themselves and what they have to offer the market. "Define how you are unique," Rohlander advised. "Make a long list of attributes, and then be critical and pare the list down to the few truly unique and strong qualities."

Francis assigns this homework to those considering the plunge:

1. Think about what you want out of life. Think in terms of your business, your personal life, your family, and your spirit. Write these things down in a notebook.

2. What do you want your tombstone to say? Write it down in your notebook.

3. Begin reading a book on leadership (see sidebar).

4. Rate yourself from one (low) to 10 (high) on these leadership traits: positive self-image; self-respect; self-discipline; integrity; consistency; responsibility/reliability; strong ethics; passion for life; highly motivated to act; positive attitude; radiant physical health.

One warning: The prospect of change can give even the most accomplished person cold feet. Success will demand pushing through the "discomfort zone" time and time again. 2 Thou shalt write on.and on...and on: Once you've decided to go for it, grab a pen and some paper. It's homework time. Before taking another step, you must begin to develop a business plan. And, yes, you must write it down.

"If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist," declared Goudreau.

Identify your "core competencies" - what you do best. As one successful contractor puts it: "Decide on your niche and stick to it." What do you have the skills, enthusiasm, and equipment for? High-end residential interiors? Blow-and-go commercial work? Industrial exteriors?

Barry K. Woods of Los Angeles, who has nurtured three successful businesses, said his biggest mistake over the years was "investing in another business outside my core competency, having it fail, costing me a couple million dollars, and having this business suffer during those years while I attempted to build up the other company."

Woods began as a janitorial maintenance company, then added landscape maintenance, pressure washing, and masonry restoration. When the janitorial and landscape end became inundated, he concentrated on the pressure washing and went after the then-exploding market for graffiti removal, becoming one of the largest graffiti abatement contractors in the country. He has since added maintenance-of-way services for railroads and mass transit. His leaps have been large but methodical, guided by expert advice and detailed planning at each step.

Crafting a business plan will help focus your efforts, resources, and thoughts, said management consultant Larry Welty of Bovey, MN. And once the company picks up steam, the plan will keep it on track.

"So many small businesses have no business plan; they grow by dumb luck," Welty said. "The owners need to sit down and actually write a business plan. Not one of those blah, blah jobs - I mean, really decide what they want from this business and their own lives.

"A lot may depend on their age. Are they hungry young twentysomethings who are willing to keep putting in those long hours, weekends, and no vacations? Or are they turning 50 and saying 'I want more time on the golf course; I want to be home for supper?' Once they know that, they have a basis to go on."

If you simply want to increase profits, there are ways to do so without expanding. (Also know that the labor shortage in today's boom economy is putting the brakes on lots of business plans.) If you want to start or expand a business, know why. Said Richard Kaller: "Is the growth 'ego driven' or 'business driven?'"

Added Francis: "There is a myriad of reasons to start a business - and the least important is that there is a lot of work out there."

If you decide to press on, help abounds. To learn how to write a business plan, talk to those who have done it. Better yet, join PDCA, and visit the library or bookstore, where advice on building a small business has become one of the biggest businesses around. Shop around for one of the many seminars available. Trade shows offer some of the best, with lots of take-home know-how targeted to various specialties. Local community colleges are a good place to brush up on your English, math, and business knowledge.

"Painting contractors don't fail for a lack of good painting skills," said consultant Goudreau. "Painting contractors fail for a lack of good business skills."

PDCA agrees. The organization sponsored its first "Contractors' College" in St. Louis in October of last year to fill the knowledge gap. The two-and-a-half-day seminar focused on the nuts and bolts of running a contracting business: planning, marketing, contracts, insurance, bidding, taxes, time management.

The college fulfilled a longtime dream of Ed Travis, who hatched the idea when he was PDCA president a couple years ago. Travis, a fourth-generation painting contractor in San Antonio, can still hear his father railing at the lack of information on business development for the industry. Travis said his fellow contractors are "hungry for information."

The Contractors' College revived and expanded the old "Autumn University" PDCA hosted years ago. Travis hopes the college will catch on, with specialized seminars available nationwide in the future.

Once you have a business plan in hand, you're all set to keep writing. You will need to develop job descriptions, standard operating procedures, an employee manual, and an organizational chart that delineates clear chains of command. All that information now rattling around in your head needs to go someplace where anyone in the company can find it on a moment's notice. Yes, even - especially, said Goudreau - if you can still count the company roster on one hand.

"It's a natural tendency for a business to grow," said Goudreau. "This is a great time to learn. You have only yourself, a bookkeeper, and maybe one other guy."

Welty agreed. "The people working for you cannot read your mind," he wrote last year in an article on becoming a manager. "Even if it is only a couple of pages, lay out those basic work rules.

"Writing standard operating procedures for chores like getting the trash into the Dumpster may seem like overkill, but look at how it can help you. Just because your new hire is responsible for keeping the shop clean doesn't mean they know what can and cannot go into a Dumpster these days. So save yourself an uncomfortable call from your waste hauler and a bill from the local landfill, and put this kind of information into standard operating procedures."

Developing written job descriptions and policies will help you with another chore: supervising employees who may have been co-workers only yesterday. Lay out performance expectations clearly, and that document, not you, becomes the "bad guy" if an old buddy is not pulling his or her weight on the crew. (See sidebar.)

All this writing should help you identify something else: where you will fit into your organization. Being the owner doesn't necessarily mean riding herd on crews in the field. Your strength may be sales, finance, or marketing. Kaller said his firm has profiled hundreds of owners and found that more than 60 percent should not be the general manager.

Plan on doing what you're best at (though you'll need to be familiar with all aspects of the company) and hire others - supervisors, accountants, craftspeople - to do the jobs you don't like or aren't good at.

Woods said he knew nothing about some of the markets he tackled, but succeeded anyway by hiring people who did, listening to their advice and, under their supervision, taking a turn at jobs he'd never done.

"Hire the best people you can who can do the work," advised Woods.

Crafting a business plan presumes you have done something else. But since most folks are so squeamish about this, we'll spell it out as Commandment No. 3.

3 Thou shalt do the math: "Even if you think you're the most efficient person going, your business is leaking money," said Goudreau. "But people don't see it. They say, 'I get up everyday and work real hard.' They don't realize there are smarter ways to work. They don't understand the numbers."

You don't need an accounting degree, the experts say, but you need to understand the basics: job costing, profit margins, balance sheets. If you don't know, learn: Take a class, attend a seminar, enlist your geeky accountant brother-in-law, read a book.

Then size up the market. In addition to general market projections - easily obtained from an Internet search and a host of trade associations - figure what Goudreau calls your "capture rate." That is, how many jobs you land versus how many you bid on. Review your bids for the last year in the market you aim to tap - say, interior painting of 2,000-square-foot new homes. Add up how many of your bids ended in actual jobs; say, six in 10. That gives you a 60 percent "capture rate" - and a rough estimation for what share of that market you can hope to land in the future.

As you crunch all these numbers, beware of the two most common contractor pitfalls: undercharging and over-indebtedness.

Contractors commonly set their prices by talking with other contractors, or by what they think their customers are willing to pay. That is probably the worst method they can choose, experts say, for two reasons: First, most contractors bid too low because they make the mistake of chasing volume, not profit. And second, the price other contractors charge may not even cover your costs, much less make you a profit. (See "The Price is Wrong" in the March/ April 2000 PWC.)

"You can't benchmark based on other businesses, because nobody else does business like you do," said Goudreau.

Time and again, the experts say, contractors large and small mistakenly base their charges on their impression of current market rates without having a clue as to what it actually costs them to do the job.

Whatever your size, make sure your business is running as lean as possible. Analyze how every single person in the organization is spending time. Are your supervisors spending their highly paid time running errands? Push down every task in the operation to the lowest-paid person who is capable of doing it. It challenges them and saves money. Frequently, profit is leaking out in easy-to-correct inefficiencies.

Many contractors have dramatically increased profits simply by raising their rates. Customers who value your quality and service won't flinch at a price hike; customers who merely want the job done on the cheap are probably not worth your time. Many businesses have come to realize the value of "firing" unprofitable customers.

"Some of the best jobs we've had are the ones we've never done," said one commercial painter.

When Paul Burns found himself too busy to take on new work, he ratcheted up his rates by 50 percent over six months. "I thought I'd throw these big prices at them and just chase them away," he said. "It didn't work."

Not only did he keep every customer - he actually gained some new ones. Burns calls it a case of "perceived value": If you work cheaply, people see your work as cheap. If you charge more, people think you must be worth more. It may sound silly, but it's usually true; especially if your service backs up your price.

Burns also changed the way he compensated his painters. Now he pays them by the job, rather than by the hour. It's a self-governing system, he said: Malingerers wash out quickly, because they make so little money, and hard workers can earn twice as much as they did at the hourly rate.

It also pays to fine-tune your estimating process, experts say. Base bids on square footage, not on the time you guess the job will take. Measure the space; don't eyeball it. And consider all facets of the job, from moving furniture to cleanup.

As Francis said, quoting the time-honored saying: "It's not what you sell; it's what you keep" that boosts the bottom line.

Finally, the experts say, resist the siren's call of debt. Pay as you go, and maintain a cash reserve. Cash is king, and many people - contractors included - are clueless about the astronomical cost of carrying debt.

If you must borrow, make sure you figure the cost of debt service into your calculations. Shoulder debt only for an investment - a new piece of equipment, for example - that will produce a profit in the long run. Savvy businesspeople can take on debt strategically, when needed for expansion or for capital investment, but it's no way to run the daily operation. Living on a line of credit can leave your business vulnerable in a pinch, and life is full of pinches.

Still, don't let fear keep you from taking the leap into ownership, if that is your dream. Yes, the path is littered with flops and false starts, but it is also the street where Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Paul Burns, and other success stories live. Weigh the risks and the rewards, commit to the homework and, if the plunge feels right, do it.

Burns, for one, does not think twice about his decision to break with the brush. "I do regret not doing it sooner," he said. "That was a big mistake.

"It's not about getting bigger for the sake of getting bigger. It's security. It's retirement. It's more time to enjoy life. It's peace of mind."