Depending on your region, you might be looking at 2008 with pessimism. A housing glut and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are combining to carve away at home construction customers that might account for your biggest billings. Some PROs in places like Florida and the Southwest report that even gains in special events business don’t come close to making up for these construction losses.
Is it all doom and gloom looking forward to the summer season? I don’t think so.
In times like these, well-run companies will persevere, while others may fall by the wayside. Through the economic sifting and winnowing, companies that don’t panic will come out the winners, stronger when the economy perks up than they were before construction went into a tailspin.
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve already survived some lean times. Remember when the stock market nosedived in 2000? If you were like me, you watched your retirement account drop at an alarming rate. Or how about the recession a decade earlier? Or the oil crisis of the 1970s? These posed significant threats to the U.S. economy — in fact I’d argue they were all more serious situations than our current malaise. But we always recovered from the tough times.
Rather that simply dwell on the negative story of the day, it’s more productive to cultivate an optimism outlook.
If you have a basic faith in your business plan, your employees and the market you live in, what you really need is a plan to maintain profitability right now. Remember that even the most negative prognosticators say this construction downturn is temporary. Even if this situation is labeled a recession in the upcoming months, economists have faith in capitalism and American business.
So keep your chin up and your nose to the grindstone. Here are a few suggestions that might help you maintain profits, even if your restroom placement numbers decline:
Market to commercial customers
Reports are that while home construction is down in many areas, commercial building continues. Subscribe to a construction-monitoring service like the McGraw-Hill Construction-Dodge Report (www.construction.com) to find out in a timely fashion when major commercial building projects will begin. Continue to think municipal. Comb through Web sites of local municipalities, park and recreation departments, marinas and school districts for new and existing placement opportunities. Keep a close eye on minutes of municipal meetings at your city, county or town’s Web sites. Read the local newspaper business pages.
Concentrate on better units, not more units
Add standard options to your restroom inventory and phase out the barebones construction model. If you add a hand sanitizer, order roomier units, go slightly upscale, you will stand out from the competition and may be able to charge a few dollars a month more. Boosting the quality and price will help make up for lagging numbers. If you don’t offer the option of a tired, no-frills unit, customers who value your service may be willing to go along with a better unit. Any positive feedback from workers who use the restroom will reinforce their decision.
Consolidate routes
Shoring up time and fuel wasted on inefficient routes will not just help you build the bottom line during tough times. It will put you in a great position to improve profitability when the economy inevitably breaks the other way. Let’s say that through efficient planning you can add 3-4 restrooms to a driver’s route each day. Perhaps you can eventually work that driver from five days on the road to four. Then you can put the driver to work on other profit-building initiatives.
Don’t be fuelish
While the tide will turn on the flagging economy, one thing that is sure to stick around is dramatically higher fuel prices. In fact, you could make an argument that fuel and energy costs will be a bigger drag on your business over the long term than a cyclical drop in construction customers. Consider whether you can buy a more fuel-efficient service truck the next time you order a vehicle. Is biofuel a possibility in the future? How about more careful scheduling of tuneups and fleet maintenance to generate a few more mpgs?
Can your company cut other energy usage? Upgrade the lighting in your shop, insulate better in the walls and ceiling, do something as simple as buying a programmable thermostat to better monitor heating in the winter.
Employ inexpensive 21st century marketing techniques
I haven’t cracked the phone book to look for a contractor lately, preferring to search for service providers on the Internet. Can you ratchet back Yellow Pages and local newspaper advertising in favor of a better Web site and other online listings? Can you display your Web site address prominently on your trucks and the front of your shop? How about turning drivers into salesmen by offering bonuses for generating new business?
Bring more work in-house
If you’ve been outsourcing light truck maintenance, can you do oil changes or other jobs with your existing workforce? Could you bring a heavy-duty washer and dryer into the shop and clean uniforms yourself? Is there an opportunity to buy restrooms unassembled and train workers to put them together? Maybe you can appoint a driver to manage restroom supplies and save money by ordering common repair parts in bulk.
