For many years now we have experienced very healthy economic conditions that have resulted in strong growth and profit for remodelers and builders alike.
In these good times it was easy to provide niche services, ones that specialized in smaller areas of remodeling such as kitchens and baths, or just basement build-outs.
Now that things MAY have, or perhaps are beginning to slow down a bit, is this now the time to diversify your scope of product offered?
Or dig in and continue market to your current niche?
Whaddya say?
Eric
Replies
Eric,
We are doing everything someone might call us for (porches, commercial build outs, remodelings) aside from small handyman repairs as we're not set up for that.
Mike
That could be a missing link in your marketing.A good half of my big good jobs come from contacts originally made while doing handyman or repair service.
I try to keep things where the crew can do the main big job with me just stoppping in for an hour or two a day while I do office and run around making contacts and doing the small stuff alone. That is more efficient than dispatching a guy out to do it, explaining what I want, and wondering if he will do the same judgement calls I would.So my very presence is a sales call and they often ask questions after or while I am there working which leads to a new job or a referral to a friend or neighbor.
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Maybe Piffin but I don't have a crew. Its just me or subs.
If I'm doing handyman stuff on one job, I can't be at another. And I haven't found a way to sub out handyman stuff as between markup and such, the costs run too high. Well, I shouldn't say the run too high its just folks won't pay them.
Eric,
I remember my father ( who started being the sole support of a widowed Mother and 4 young siblings in 1930 the year he turned 18 ) telling his children to learn everything we can about the trades.
Didn't matter whether we became Masters at all of them , we would never starve when things got tough again.
He would often say that no matter what the economy people would always need roofs, plumbing, houses and building repaired.
I followed his advice and have never, no matter what the economy has done, lacked work enough that I was unable to pay all my bills on time.
Diversification is a safety net IMO.
"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
Got similar advice from my Grandfather who was a mechanic then. He pointed out that the salesmen sell new cars were going hungry while he fed his family well fixing the old ones and keeping them running.
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My father-in-law , a Mi Ki Nic Say i should learn his trade cause carpenter are slowing or freezin the winter Diversfy
Thats What I Would Do
I was thinking you should take up English teaching.
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
I was first thinking you were talking of the Indian tribe, then I realized it was automobile mee-kan-eeks you were referring to, LOL
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
an old black man that use to do my brickwork ... we'd sit & talk... told me he learned to lay brick from his pop... pop told him if he had a trade and took pride in his work he'd never go hungry.... I had to agree with him... then he told me...
"but then pop didn't know about mexicans" all the young blk kids he tried to give jobs to wouldn't work... his own kids wouldn't show up... anyone between 25-50 was on crack or would steal his tools...
I told him... I guess you just need to go to an all hispanic crew... I tuned him on to some big contractors who needed "minority subs" that was 10-12 yrs ago... now he drives new trucks... never touches a brick... and has several crews... he gets tons of work with large contractors being a "minority" he has become a businessman vs a bricklayer....
he still stops by for business advice and thanks me... he has to be pushing 70 now... and he told me he worked for wages for 50 years.... now i run a business... I'm pretty proud and happy for that old man...
p
Eric,
I guess I would say yes and no.
Yes I have diversified and taken on projects that in the past I would have avoided. But that diversification has been mostly within the realm of my existing client base.
I would say no to trying to diversify and establish a larger client base. Maybe it would work for your place, but for me it is not the right thing.
Bowz
I'm not turning anything down. Bidding a city job, airport restaurant remodel out of town - Melamine cabinets with stainless steel countertop, also a HUD project, steel square-tube handicap ramp on a residence, neither one is my usual stuff, at one time I wouldn't even have bothered. I have work for another month, maybe two at most, so I'm looking to get something else going, even some small projects would be OK.
Work is pretty dead here in the San Joaquin Valley - and most of So. Cal., I suspect, except for maybe a few isolated and wealthy niche areas. My wife and I went out to eat tonight, waiter said business at the restaurant has been dead for about 4 months now.
CaliforniaRemodelingContractor.com
Diversify? Absolutely.
If construction gets any worse I think I might open a funeral home with a bar next door to it.
I didn't start in the 30's. It was the 80's for me. Just about the same deal though. My first year carpentry teacher said to learn as much as you can, then think about specailizing.
Well 24 years later I have never specialized. Never since college have I collected UIC.
If it wasn’t for the Bank Payments,
Interest, Taxes, Wages, and Fuel Costs,
I wouldn’t have to charge you!!
Not necessarily diversify, but be flexible. It's like an organism faced with climate change -- they have a niche in the environment and it's apt to go away. They can move north, somehow adapt to a new niche, or die.
Diversification alone isn't the answer -- diversification is much less efficient than concentrating on one thing. But having the ABILITY to do diverse things makes it possible to pick a new niche, and often you have to experiment with many different possibilities before finding a new one that works for you.