One of the most common issues I’m encountering now is that trades companies (i.e. roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc) can’t find good employees. Even the less technically demanding businesses like lawn care companies are struggling to get workers.
And that leads to a conundrum as turning away too many leads means you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
What should you do?
You may not like the answer but here it is: MONEY TALKS
A Short Story
Before you balk at my answer let me tell you a short story.
Many moons ago I was a corporate marketer at a software engineering company. A tiny company in a non-famous town. But somehow we attracted some VERY smart people to work there. (Money was good there.)
But guess what? We lost the best of those smart people to big companies you may know like Google and Amazon. Why? Well beyond being famous their offers included significantly larger checks than our small company could pay.
There are two takeaways from this story:
- You can’t beat the biggest companies in price (so it pays to be the biggest), BUT
- You can be the biggest company in YOUR CATEGORY
Number two needs a little more explanation. Did the company I work for lose employees to Google and Amazon? Yes. But on the other hand, we attracted employees that were good enough for Google and Amazon. It wasn’t like the employees were only there for two months. Many were there a year or more. And the company benefited from their presence.
This means that FOR YOUR SIZE you can be the “biggest company” in your area.
If you only have 4 trucks right now and you are going against a competitor that has 30. You can’t beat that person in price. But guess who you can beat? Everyone your size or smaller!
When to Build An Ark
Now let’s take a step back and consider something else. If you are “super-busy” right now. And “can’t find good help” which means you are running your team a full capacity.
Which means you should have excess capital right now.
Of course you may be hesitant to pay more money to get more employees because you know there will be downturns in the demand.
Here’s a fun question: “When do you build an ark?”.
Answer: BEFORE it rains.
That means that right now is the time to do four things:
- Outspend your competitors for good employees
- Set up marketing systems to get leads so you can “weather” the slow seasons
- Create new packages and services that you can sell
- Sock away some extra cash to pay your employees during the slower period
Most of this is common sense. But it is easy to lose sight of it in the day-to-day. If you need help sorting through all of it book a free consultation here.