I am curious where your work is coming from. When was the last time you did a"high ticket" type repair, build, renovation or sale for Joe consumer? Without violating your clients privacy, please list the occupations of say the last 5 jobs you've done. I merely want to compare your experience with what we've seen. I'll go first. Last 5 Jobs, not counting commercial work, clients occupation
( most recent first)
1. Retired surgeon/ professor
2. Stock broker
3. CEO, High Tech firm
4. Blackwater Contractor (really)
5. Lawyer/Author
Is this typical of your area?
In many ways I miss the past, the mom and pop jobs, though ever so gratefull for what work these so-called high-end clients spend with us. What say you?
ps : blast away at my premise if you think this a stupid thread.
Peace
Bill
Replies
Hi Monique,
As I often seem to do, I will start at the end and work backwards.
Entry-level and moderate sized jobs have all but disappeared for us. The few things we've bid on in this area have been so steeply discounted they would not work for me.
One of my favorite song lyrics was written by Stephen Stills. It says " I don't do business that don't make me smile".
I don't mean a greedy smile based on profit alone. It has to work for me on alot of levels. I really love building pools. It is still a huge rush for me to fire up a pump on a new pool and hear that magic sound as it catches prime and the nice muffled "wuff" when the heater lights and the funny smell of heaven knows what burning off the heat exchanger. Weird? Probably,but still a rush.
Anyway..... I don't think any amount discounting is going to bring this entry/mid level segment of the market back for a while.
The impact is obviously felt up and down the supply chain.
The enjoyment that people get from pools and water-centered activities is pretty universal, almost primal, fortunately for us.
As a consequence, I have seen an uptick in families wanting us to install above-ground pools. I, for a short time had bought into the notion of my own greatness. I have gone from a "pool builder" to a "water-shaper" (not my favorite term), and back to an above-ground pool installer and a variant of all three on any given week. So far it is a small part of our work, but most assuredly we will develop it as much as possible. It is where we started many years ago.
As Kevin Misley said above " You suck it up and keep going". I certainly do like the amazing cross-section of people we meet whether wealthy or of modest means.
Sorry for the scattered rambling post as I've been "multi-tasking" (poorly) for the last 2 hours. Anyway more on this later.
Bill
Bill,
I am not a builder, but I am definitely interested in this topic of conversation. I am curious about a few things though...
- you ask about "high ticket" jobs, but you seem concerned that these are only coming from "high ticket" purchasers. It seems to make sense to me that the higher paid clients would be requesting the higher end projects
- would "Mom & Pop" jobs be more frequent if the pool packages offered were more mid-ranged, to fit their needs?
I guess I am wondering if the market for lower level or mid-range pools has died off?
Bill
My client list is very similar to yours. We have done some "mom and pop" jobs in the past too.
Yes, they sometimes were more appreciative than some big ticket jobs. Unfortunately, the middle and upper middle class that were going for projects have dried up because of the economy.
My high end clients though are some of the most down to earth folks. You will have your share of difficult customers at any level. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and keep going. Besides, you have to follow where the money is coming from.