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View Full Version : how is the economy in your area/ line of business



huggytree
12-08-2011, 08:01 AM
just thought id post to see where the economy is right now for all of you

it will be my 1st down year(ever)....the start of the year was awesome, the middle was almost non existent and the end is awesome....

i typically have 3 busy periods....end of spring, middle of summer, fall.....this year there was no busy mid summer or fall....it was dead...i had some 10 hour work weeks...i went 3 weeks without a phone call at one point...

it went crazy busy about 6 weeks ago...ive been working 6 days a week with 9-12 hour days to keep up....i have made 25% of my yearly income in 6 weeks....it appears ill be busy until Christmas and then slow down again (normal to die for 2-3 months in the middle of winter)


how was your year? how are your sales now?

greenoak
12-08-2011, 08:57 AM
this is going to be our 2nd best year ever, maybe best......go figure..... im hearing some good reports from all around my world...show people, other stores, reps, auctions going higher etc etc ....at the same time many stores have closed their doors in our area......
huggy, hasnt wisc. lost tons more jobs this year? maybe thats putting a damper on things...

huggytree
12-08-2011, 09:43 PM
if your having up years during this economy your doing something right..congratulations!

mid year was HORRIBLE here....worst ive ever seen in 5 years in business...going 3 weeks w/o ONE call says it all... started around Mid June....the stock market went to crap around that time too....i figured it had alot to do with it...

there has been a lot of guys going under this summer in the trades....and tons of new businesses being started too...a lot of shuffling around

WI has done TONS to get new businesses to move in WI...i think we went from being one of the worst States to do business to the middle of the pack in 1 year.....but i think we also have still lost a few thousand jobs a month anyways......were not bleeding too heavily....the middle class working guy isnt spending a dime.....he's repairing whatever has to be repaired...bare minimum....and its still the case right now.....i think they just delayed those repairs for 5-6 months and are now calling me to do them...im getting homeowner calls, but not more than a few a week and all are under $1,000 jobs...most are $200

my recent success is all about BIG projects....additions, 6 bath homes, a fitness center, a law office, fire damage restorations......its kinda like the perfect storm right now for me...in a good way though...yearly sales are in the $400,000-$450,000 range typically......by the middle of next week i will be owed $95,000....all that from 6 weeks of work....my supply house invoices are typically $8,000 a month...last month was $25,000

if this were Spring i think id finally be hiring my 1st employee and see if i take it to the next level....seeing its winter im just going to work myself to death and enjoy the $$ later....the wife is already planning a 8 day Disney trip for January now...

glenneena
12-08-2011, 10:14 PM
Probably about best ever in 10 years. With the oil field boom going on in Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota, we are busier than ever. One of the largest booms now going on. People moving in from all over the country.

vangogh
12-08-2011, 11:08 PM
It's been a pretty good year for me. I've had better and I've had worse. This year has been on the better side. I've also had the same peaks and valleys as usual. For me it's the summer where work tends to slow down and now I'm back to my busier times.

Patrysha
12-08-2011, 11:49 PM
The economy is doing awesome here on a local level...no vacancy at any of the hotel rooms, booked solid with oil & gas construction and extraction projects...

Business isn't going as well, personal issues have kept me from the focus I need to get over the steady but not growing stage that I've been at for the past year or so...I'm okay with that for now.

J from Michigan
12-09-2011, 09:15 PM
I'm in Detroit (suburbs,) so that should tell you how things are, locally.
- this city has had our ass kicked up and down for a while now.

Me? I'm up this year, no thanks to a unusually slow holiday period... but overall I'm doing "better" than last year.

January and February are pretty much dead stop, so I still have that to look forward to. :D

billbenson
12-10-2011, 01:48 AM
I've never figured out what people do for a living where I live. I'm in what was and kind of still is a Florida farm town. I'm about 5 minutes from the beach, but not one of the best beaches in Florida. I first moved here about 10 years ago. Even at that time, I couldn't figure out what people did for a living here. There are pockets of wealthy houses but most of the population I'm guessing have a household income of $40k. I lived in an apartment for the first period of time I was here. When I got up in the morning, if I went out to the apartment parking lot there were no professional looking people going to work. It was all people that work in a retail store or something. There is a good hospital here so some medical people.

When you drive down the street, there are no real complexes of office buildings where people were running a small business. Its just retail, insurance brokers etc. But there is no extreme poverty either. There are handymen, people that mow yards, but how this community survives is beyond me. It's not Florida retirees either. It just baffles me how a community that really produces nothing doesn't degrade into nothing. But that's not happening. Through the recession a fair number of restaurants and retail stores closed, but not disproportionate to the rest of America on average.

I guess it's probably just like a lot of america. People are getting by and making ends meet.

What I've been able to do since my first sales job in 1982 or so is live in Florida or elsewhere where the cost of living is very low but if you like the sun and the water the quality of living is very high. The key has been to live in an inexpensive place while working out of my house for, in my case, a California company during my employed career. Made California wages.

Sorry, I guess I got a bit off topic. I think things where I live in general haven't changed. I made some big errors this year that cost me a lot of money, but that's my fault. My market is always growing. It should have been a good year.

SC93
12-10-2011, 02:10 AM
In September 2007 I sold my business up north and moved south to Texas. Business was going great but I had a split and moved back to my home state so it had nothing to do with the economy. I started another business here and have never missed a beat. So basically, I started a service business during the times when the economy was at it's worst and due to hard work and not giving up... it went well. I actually hired my 1st employee a week after I was here. I've never had any type of slow or busy months. Even when I had 12-15 employees every month was what I made it be. The economy here is doing ok I guess. I've never been in debt so it's hard for me to know how my potential customers who are in debt see things. I'm pretty confident and I always know that when I need a new customer I can get one if I put effort in to it.

One night I got the bright idea to add on carpet cleaning to my other business up north. I bought the stuff 1 week and off I went cleaning carpet. All my friends in the associations I was in that cleaned carpet told me that January & February was the slowest months of the year. The guy I bought my supplies from had owned a carpet cleaning business for 25 years and said I would be dead those 2 months. Being the hard head that I am I set out to prove them wrong.... and prove them wrong I did. My 2 guys stayed busy all year long and never missed a beat. Not only that... I hadn't really did any research on carpet cleaning and I was charging .50cents sf for carpet cleaning. I had no idea the going rate was .27cents sf at the time. lol The moral of the story.... don't listen to what people say.... get out there and market your butt off and the work will come to you!

mailorder
12-11-2011, 03:47 AM
It's been a great year for the company I do flooring estimates for. I've doubled the amount of estimates from last year. Last year he had 3 flooring crews that had some down time and this year he's at 5 working 6 days a week. I know he has been turning down work most of the year. This year there have been 5 larger commercial jobs and it looks like we will have 1 more for the 26 to 31 this month.

huggytree
12-11-2011, 01:58 PM
it sounds like most of the country is doing much better than WI....ask most people and they'd say 2011 is a down year....my new home construction work was up somewhat, but homeowner calls are Waaaaay down and Remodels has been down somewhat.

im feeling positive going into 2012 right now as are some of my contractors i work for....while others are in their death rolls.

vangogh
12-13-2011, 10:56 AM
huggy I think your part of the country was hit a little harder than others. The economy was bad for everyone, though perhaps a little worse where you are. To add to that construction projects were hard hit, making it even harder on you.

A number of years ago when the dot com bubble burst we were hit harder than most here in Boulder. I remember it taking a year or so longer before the economy seemed back to normal here even while much of the country was reporting things being good elsewhere.

Good to have those positive feelings for 2012. Most reports seem to show the worst is over, though we're certainly not a healthy economy yet.

billbenson
12-13-2011, 02:57 PM
A number of years ago when the dot com bubble burst we were hit harder than most here in Boulder. I remember it taking a year or so longer before the economy seemed back to normal here even while much of the country was reporting things being good elsewhere.


The dot com crash actually ended my career of 22 years back in 1999.