I agree and that’s why I’m being Proactive to get ahead of the crowd when they react to everything next year or later. Talking with customers and giving them a heads up and explaining inflation for everything else and then they get it.
I’m in Florida (Tampa area) To retain good blue color help of any kind it takes 25-35$ an hour plus benefits or at least you have to be offering around 40 a week.
I have some friends and family running service businesses in Florida and they have said the same thing. Benefits for a small business, under 10 employees is nearly impossible to afford unless you raised prices around 20% just to pay for that, not including hourly raises, cost of living etc.
@@shipleypestsolutions I work mechanical construction. So many old high ups have one an a half feet into retirement. And they cannot get/keep young good help.
We’ve raised prices 10% a year the past couple years and it’s not keeping up. That’s why I feel like a 25-50% increase is needed to try to get ahead of the runaway inflation that’s happening right now.
Interesting to hear and appreciate your input. I’m thinking very similar to you and raising our prices so we can look to pay techs in the $25+ as our cost of living is fairly low, here in Indiana.
I think this is a huge part of it but there is more and possibly more important than this. From a business owner we are in a very weird time in terms of business and workforce. And it’s multi facided that I can’t explain. First. Employee are exposed to social media and non realistic fantasy where everyone should be making 100k on a laptop on Amazon drop ship. Seeing a “normal” wage of 20-25 is not appealing for the go getters. Second: small business owners can not compete with the big guys. Small business will pay you $20/h no benefits. No PTO. And not to mention you are grinding harder. Bigger company’s like Walmart etc is paying the same amount with benefits and pto etc. you have to remember and this is going to be a slap in the face to most x but people trying to get landscaping, pest control, junk removal general blue collar work etc. are not Harvard grads. Not to say they are not smart or handy it’s jsut the fact. You are not getting the highest end of the workforce so it already puts business owners at a disadvantage. And I third third, and this is going to be controversial: small business owners get a big head. And it hurts them. People think they own a business and they are entitled to new trucks, price increases, and acting like large corporations. This is a problem because jimmy opens a business and thinks he should be charging $120 an hour to pull weeds. In doing so he’s apart of the issue killing middle classes because people are slowly being expected to pay their landscaper the same as their lawyer and it creates blockages in financial freedom for most. It’s hard reality but it’s the truth.
I agree that there’s an entire lost generation that is completely uninspired to work, build and own. The businesses that buy the new HD2500 every year to look shiny in the driveway will get naturally aired out with the increasing interest rates and belt tightening of regular people. It’s also a double edged sword where people complain about the Mega-Corps but then don’t go work for a small business “because they don’t get benefits” but actually make more money for the small business and have to find healthcare on their own.
My buddy/neighbor/ our kids go to the same neighborhood grade school he has a landscaping company and I work for him on Fridays. He pays me 25$ an hr cash. I can do it cuz I have a paid off house and my wife runs our floral business out of a paid off building. So financially im straight but I like the work. He tried to raise prices on his 40 yards and some people cancelled the service off of a 10$ a month price increase.
My buddy/neighbor/ our kids go to the same neighborhood grade school he has a landscaping company and I work for him on Fridays. He pays me 25$ an hr cash. I can do it cuz I have a paid off house and my wife runs our floral business out of a paid off building. So financially im straight but I like the work. He tried to raise prices on his 40 yards and some people cancelled the service off of a 10$ a month price increase.
He’ll no. Austin does design will raise his price to, before he puts himself outa business. I think the real issue is that a lot of people don’t value service based industries. I think we are kinda wired as humans to want something tangible for our labor/energy exchange.
@@matthewsmith2362very good point. I think service businesses are about to flip that and become valued as much or more than attorneys, accountants and even doctors.
That’s great to hear! I would happily pay good employees $25-30/an hour as well. I would much rather make less and have happy employees and not grind 60 hour+ weeks.
They are not raising their prices because the people that actually do the work do not understand inflation or finances… unfortunately we were never taught
