How Bad is Your Business Hurting?

[Pineywoods]

Without making this political, I'm curious how many businesses are seriously feeling the effects of the supply chain issues, inflated costs, new fuel prices, etc? What kind of industry are you in and how are the current issues affecting you now or how do you anticipate it affecting your specific vocation?

We build custom pools and outdoor living areas and things have quickly become pretty serious within our industry. We provide a luxury item which is the first thing many trim from budgets or postpone with economic uncertainty. Last year was difficult fighting through supply shortages and rapidly rising costs but we still built about 60 pools. This year looks like it might be very bad. I have spoken to many of our subs and other business owners in our industry and we are all seeing some alarming things for this year.

[TexanTiger]

I sell stone for building, landscaping, pools ect. so I am in your industry. Everyday I get an email from a quarry or freight carrier going up on pricing. I almost cant keep up between notifying my customers and restructuring pricing. Some of my customers bid jobs months in advance and are really struggling because the new pricing. At the quarries they use visa workers and the feds mandated a 18% increase to visa labor wages. It hasnt "hurt" us yet but i know its coming.

[Low Fence]

My “job” in dairy and agriculture has been borderline suicidal for years. It’s dead now, it’s just convincing my dad to let it go.
… my side BUISNESS I’ve set in place for something to go into when this does go away has taken off to a point I’m at capacity without employees. I don’t want employees…. I don’t want to depend on anyone to provide the quality I offer.

But when the housing market does crash I will slow. There’s work out there

[TreyRo]

We bid projects a few years out on average and are one of the smallest ones in the overall scope of the project so we tend to get pushed around and neglected a bit since we aren't MEP.

Add that to willllld price increases and shortages it's been western for the last 18 months but we are busier than ever.

I can't keep up right now, can't hire anyone to save my life, and it gets tougher every day. But, I like a challenge. It would just be nice to have a little reprieve for a bit. We've been on a tear for the last 7+ years. More volume every year.

[Gerhard]

I am closing down my guiding business in South Africa.

Luckily found work as Distribution Centre Manager for a Company in Durban starting the 28th of March.

At this stage I dont think the people in the tourism industry in South Africa knows what is coming their way with the massive oil price increase and how the ripple effect will not only impact toursim but the average Joe that will have no spending money for luxuries going forward….


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[Gumbo Man]

Well Josh as you know I am in the food business. We have had to make many adjustments the last 2 years to fit todays atmosphere regarding rising food costs. I have only adjusted prices one time and some items have been taken off the menu as they became unprofitable. Unfortunately it looks like oysters will be next. This time last year I was paying 12 dollars a pound and now they will be over 18 dollars. Rising gas prices will definitely cut into the family budget equating to not being able to eat out as much. Flexibility and overhead will be the key to success in the next few years for sure. We are blessed to have our business paid for and debt free. Others that aren’t will have an uphill climb I’m afraid. Continue to pray for our nation. LETS GO BRANDON.

[goldtip5575]

I am in the computer industry and the last 2 years have been record sales due to all the work from home and schools kids learning remotely. Everyone needed computers. It is starting to slow now that the virus scare is lessening. We are feeling the impact on the repair side with supply chain issues, but not as bad as many other industries. This year could be very lean with all the rising costs and the lesser need for work from home computers. Freight and Tariff costs have been a negative impact for sure.

[Pineywoods]

I sell stone for building, landscaping, pools ect. so I am in your industry. Everyday I get an email from a quarry or freight carrier going up on pricing. I almost cant keep up between notifying my customers and restructuring pricing. Some of my customers bid jobs months in advance and are really struggling because the new pricing. At the quarries they use visa workers and the feds mandated a 18% increase to visa labor wages. It hasnt "hurt" us yet but i know its coming.

This has been a huge challenge for over a year. We were 3-6 months out on starting new projects once a contract was signed. I literally couldn't keep up with the increases. By the time I would get new pricing entered in to our bid templates, I'd get another notification of a material, equipment, or labor hike. I would get a contract signed for one price and I'm some cases by the next week it would cost thousands more for the same build. In four months time, the increases were so large at times, that it would wipe out the entire profit margin. I tried to stay ahead of it and anticipate how much more prices would go up but underestimated the rate of inflation. The language in our contracts continuously had to evolve throughout the year to protect us from this moving forward. Now we are getting news of new supply issues, other subs going up due to fuel prices, new equipment price hikes, etc... it just won't let up.

[CentralTXHunter]

I do energy consulting for commercial businesses. Needless to say, we forecasted some of this, but not all. As much as I have stressed to many of my customers that when the market is right to go long, many opted for short 2-3 year contracts and aren’t interested in considering a forward contract until they’re 2-3 months from renewal. I have 50 customers that are up between now and this summer. Their renewal rates are substantially higher than what they’d been paying. This is going to add additional overhead and burden to already rising costs and stresses on my customers.

My office is also an electrical contractor. We’ve been in business since 1948. We do everything from residential service calls to large new commercial and generators. Besides manpower, our biggest issues have been supply and rising costs. Seems it’s something different every month. Commercial bids that you bid very high 12-18 months ago because of rising, unknown costs are still running over. We had an apartment complex build we finished a couple of months ago that cost us an additional $200k because of material cost changes.


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[SaintBlaise]

Well Josh as you know I am in the food business. We have had to make many adjustments the last 2 years to fit todays atmosphere regarding rising food costs. I have only adjusted prices one time and some items have been taken off the menu as they became unprofitable. Unfortunately it looks like oysters will be next. This time last year I was paying 12 dollars a pound and now they will be over 18 dollars. Rising gas prices will definitely cut into the family budget equating to not being able to eat out as much. Flexibility and overhead will be the key to success in the next few years for sure. We are blessed to have our business paid for and debt free. Others that aren’t will have an uphill climb I’m afraid. Continue to pray for our nation. LETS GO BRANDON.

For what it's worth. I think people just roll with the higher costs and don't blame the restaurant.

[Throwin Darts]

I am a lender on large commercial real estate projects. Budget increases are through the roof but so are rents so the deals still work. The demand from investment capital for Texas deals is also through the roof. Industrial, multifamily and single family residential lot development in the major Texas metros is what is currently keeping me busy.

Single family residential build for rent homes is super hot right now but I'm sitting that one out. I don't want to learn that business at the same time the borrowers are learning it.

[muzzlebrake]

Talking to a friend of mine at coffee this morning that owns a concrete foundation company and he said the contracts he has that he is locked in to are making his business take a huge hit from rising fuel costs that he can't pass along. Also nobody is signing new contracts and construction is about to shut down by 75% in his area of operation. He is praying that his company can break even over the next 3 months IF he can even collect the monies owed to him and after that he thinks he will lay off 90% of his crews and just run the office with family members.

[gingib]

My side job business is not changed by this!

[JBJTX81]

I'm in Healthcare. Our biggest issues has been labor shortages. We cannot find folks to work. We are having to use contract staffing that is often times marked up 300% higher than the wage we pay. In our industry, labor is about 50% of expenses and about 45% of revenue. Our margins are thin to start with and to ever see any meaningful profit it turns into a volume play. How do you increase volumn if you dont have the satff to care for more folks? Also, a vast majority (90%+) of our revenue comes from the government and private insurance. They set the rates of reimbursement not me. So if I have a swift and dramatic rise in labor costs I cannot truly pass that cost onto the customer 9 out of 10 times. Talk about budget busting! Imagine 12% of my current labor force is contract staff and that is marked up 300%. From a $ perspective, It would be like me increasing my staffing by 36% under normal circumstances. I don't know any industry that will be viable long term with a 36% increase in labor cost and no way to offset it.

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[Gclyde28]

We build luxury custom homes. We are so busy we can hardly hire new project managers and supers fast enough. Albeit our market of qualified individuals is smaller than what the typical home builder would be willing to hire.

Getting materials has been a nightmare, but customers, not so much