Has your business picked up this year?

[RDrancher]

A large percentage of my work involves gravel driveways, landscape grading and resolving drainage issues. We do a few concrete jobs as well. With such a mild winter, work began to pickup in December and I've just gotten busier with each week since. There's over a month's worth of jobs on the board and I get at least two contacts a day requesting estimates.

Have you folks noticed a difference this year?

 

[grsthegreat]

NOPE. work is scarce at this time. My work held up pretty good until about 2-1/2 years ago. has steadfastly dropped off. This year it looks truly bleak.

I have been offered work in North Dakota....as bunch of new houses being built, but im not that desperate.

 

[RDrancher]

NOPE. work is scarce at this time. My work held up pretty good until about 2-1/2 years ago. has steadfastly dropped off. This year it looks truly bleak.

I hate to hear that!

I had a concrete business in SoCal for over 25 years and have only been here in Texas for about seven. It's taken me that long to really get things going here.

I'll tell you what I know has recently made a change in my business. I started advertising differently. Threw out the yellow page ads and started advertising online on every free site I could find...especially the ones that let you post pics. Other free sites picked up my ads and ran them as well. I think they use them just to get folks to their site hoping for clicks on paid ads. I hate craigslist but I do get a couple of leads so I still use them. During all of last year I worked on my website and filled it full of a bunch of before and after photos. The search engines finally picked up the website in December and BOOM! My facebook page is starting to garner a few leads as well.

There's this guy at DarrenSlaughter.com that gives out tons of free info on building business and I read everything he writes. Disclaimer - I have no affiliation with him other than I know that his free stuff has helped me a lot.

 

[RJD2516]

Well, I am not in the construction business. But I am a small business owner (4 employees). About December, we started to notice an up-tick in sales. About 5% for the month. Then, January set a record for sales (I have been in business for 11 years). February, another record. With March I can already tell we are going to hit another one.

I did start advertising, a little. Very little. But that did bring in a little business. So, we are up 20% from this time last year. If it keeps going like this, I am going to have to buy something new, just to get my tax bill down for next year. Maybe it is time to upgrade the tractor.........

 

[raptor749]

No , things are still SLOW here, have businesses i do work for trading services for services , I am not able to do this . Dont need to be trading , need the income with the higher gas & fuel prices ..Things are just too slow now. But i have made trades with poeple before, (this drives the wife crazy) :confused2: till i explain the pros & cons !! Have a few small jobs, but the weather dosn't want to cooperate ..

 

[tractchores]

Not in the construction business, but my real estate business is showing some signs of life this year. Last year was very slow with rents down and vacancies up, so far this year has started with higher rents and still some vacancies, but not too many. My day job (high tech) was red hot last year and looks to continue that trend this year (which just means big companies are spending money, which is a good long term sign).

 

[pjbci]

Here in the deep south it is pretty busy with driveways, roads, house and mobile home pads, and clearing jobs. I probally have 3wks to a month of work lined up with phone steady ringing with new jobs.

 

[RDrancher]

Well, I am not in the construction business. But I am a small business owner (4 employees). About December, we started to notice an up-tick in sales. About 5% for the month. Then, January set a record for sales (I have been in business for 11 years). February, another record. With March I can already tell we are going to hit another one.

I did start advertising, a little. Very little. But that did bring in a little business. So, we are up 20% from this time last year. If it keeps going like this, I am going to have to buy something new, just to get my tax bill down for next year. Maybe it is time to upgrade the tractor.........

That's great to hear from ANY business in Ca. I have friends in the Santa Clarita area that are still having a hard time making it in the construction biz. I feel blessed to be here in Texas..although I do miss the consistent SoCal weather!

 

[JasG]

I'm not in construction at this time, but have many friends that are. A couple of my cousins the past couple of years have had just enough work to stay busy, but never have a backlog of work. They are in the home building end of it. All they have been doing is improvments for a few years now. NY is so screwed up, people seem to be leaving. Some areas the population is down 12-14% over the last 10-12 years. Other forms of construction are all down now also. With NY driving buisness out the constuction firms have become to depend on state work. Now the state is hurting for money and cutting back, not enough work to go around. I know some paving outfits that started about 1 month late last year and ended early.

Many small contractors have gone under. I have another cousin that closed shop 2 years ago. It was a buisness his father had started. He was too small to do highway work and too big to get by on ponds and drainage work. He was in excavation and just couldn't keep enough work to keep his machines going. Towards the end he had more work for his Bobcat miniex and skidsteer than he did for his larger dozers and trackhoes. That was a lot of money to be sitting idle.

No one sees things changing around here for a while.

 

[JasG]

My dad ran into my cousin yesterday who works for large paving company that does DOT work. This year they aren't going to start till May 1st which is later than normal, but earlier than last year. After that the seem to feel they have enough work to fill out the year.