Hello Everyone, I have not posted for a while but check in here daily.
As I had posted previously, I opened an auto restoration business 4 years ago just outside Fort Smith, Arkansas.
This business model is setup to run a manager, shop helper and 5-7 technicians.
I had a business similar to this one in Atlanta Georgia that I did very well with and was able to sell in 2004.
I had posted about the issues with finding qualified help as mine is a super niche industry and requires highly skilled techs.
The responses I got here were basically like: raise your prices to pay top wages for qualified employees. I am aware of this and that is exactly what I did when I had my business in Atlanta. That strategy DOES NOT WORK in a down market part of the country such as Fort Smith Arkansas!
As far as the local labor market there just is not a pool of qualified techs to hire. Basically our labor market is the working poor even though there is about 150k population in the area.
When I did as @ZCP suggested and put out there on the various Facebook groups in our niche offering serious money (like very top of industry) and the replies I got went along the lines of: why the hell would I want to move from somewhere like Dallas, Houston, OKC, etc to Fort Smith Arkansas?
I am now in the process of winding things down and am selling the shop.
My point of this post is not to whine or complain, it is to caution anyone opening a business to REALLY look at the availability of qualified labor available in your area.
This mistake I made by misreading the labor pool has cost me well over 1m in money and most importantly , the 4 years of time I should have been working on a business that WILL scale.
I am not talking about businesses that are more reliant on entry level or basically working poor jobs, I am referring to technical businesses that require experts. These guys are professionals and probably don’t want to live in a down market, stagnant part of the country.
Thanks, Steve
As I had posted previously, I opened an auto restoration business 4 years ago just outside Fort Smith, Arkansas.
This business model is setup to run a manager, shop helper and 5-7 technicians.
I had a business similar to this one in Atlanta Georgia that I did very well with and was able to sell in 2004.
I had posted about the issues with finding qualified help as mine is a super niche industry and requires highly skilled techs.
The responses I got here were basically like: raise your prices to pay top wages for qualified employees. I am aware of this and that is exactly what I did when I had my business in Atlanta. That strategy DOES NOT WORK in a down market part of the country such as Fort Smith Arkansas!
As far as the local labor market there just is not a pool of qualified techs to hire. Basically our labor market is the working poor even though there is about 150k population in the area.
When I did as @ZCP suggested and put out there on the various Facebook groups in our niche offering serious money (like very top of industry) and the replies I got went along the lines of: why the hell would I want to move from somewhere like Dallas, Houston, OKC, etc to Fort Smith Arkansas?
I am now in the process of winding things down and am selling the shop.
My point of this post is not to whine or complain, it is to caution anyone opening a business to REALLY look at the availability of qualified labor available in your area.
This mistake I made by misreading the labor pool has cost me well over 1m in money and most importantly , the 4 years of time I should have been working on a business that WILL scale.
I am not talking about businesses that are more reliant on entry level or basically working poor jobs, I am referring to technical businesses that require experts. These guys are professionals and probably don’t want to live in a down market, stagnant part of the country.
Thanks, Steve
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