What is the outlook for your business?

[raw]

With so much uncertainty at the moment, I'm interested to hear how peoples businesses are faring and what your outlooks are on your industry?

I'm involved in a small serviced based business to both residential and commercial clients.

- All staff have now returned to work, no-one on furlough.
- We've seen an influx of quoting post lockdown but deposits/commitments are wishy washy.
- Our order book/lead time is in line where it would usually be.

So all in all, as it stands, we are ticking over as we would normally, but looking further ahead we just have no idea.

[clockworks]

I'm just a sole trader, basically selling my time and experience to a mix of trade and retail customers. During lockdown I had no work coming in at all (which gave me time to clear the backlog), now back to pre-lockdown levels.

In some ways I'm fortunate that most of my customers are either retired or relatively wealthy, so immune to anything short of a prolonged and catastrophic economic downturn.
I'm also younger than most of my local "competitors", so my business grows as they retire.

I reckon I should be fine, for as long as I want to keep working. In fact, my two biggest fears are being too busy, and not being able to retire without letting customers down.

[Hoofy]

It's given my business a kick in a different direction and after some thought, hard work and planning, I'm in a better place for growth.

[VEX]

Nothing happened during lockdown, but gave me chance to realise how busy I actually was and time to step back and take stock.

Built a complete retail website (website in bio) as an initial sideline that I want to build to be mainline as well a launching a support contract service to try to even out my project based peaks and troughs.

Work still hasn’t picked up properly but I’m not sure I want it to either.

V.

[KevinCamaroSS]

Exceedingly grim. I work for the largest UK-based international bus and coach manufacturer. Personally I have been on furlough since the end of March. Had a call from my boss (Finance Director) this week saying that almost 1/3rd of the workforce is going to be made redundant spread across the whole business. There is little chance my job will exist in October.

[singlecoil]

I've got two utility rooms and a kitchen island booked, quoting on a kitchen on Sunday though that won't happen for a while even if I get it. So I would say ok at the moment, things will either go up or down from here. I've ordered an 8X4 cnc machine just in case though .

[HoHoHo]

I own a 23 year old successful exhibition design and build company and the outlook frankly couldn’t be any worse.

I started a logistics company 3 weeks after lockdown started and to be fair with an enormous amount of hard work I put in over the last 3 months I now have enough work for 4 guys, 5 days a week moving items around the UK. We are washing our faces as it were and that’s all I can ask.

I don’t think we will be building until spring next year and currently regardless of the fact I have enough cash in the bank To see us through and clients still confirming they are happy to work with us in 2021I’m not sure I have the energy to keep going and I might call it a day - enough is enough.

9 people will be made redundant, work for contractors will be lost and I’ll retire early.

If anyone would like to buy some 23 year old good will and enough equipment to build more stands than you know what to do with please contact me!

[DSLiverpool]

Mr Ho could you get some commitment from regular clients that they will restart with you - that’s something semi tangible that’s worth something.
Also I love stand builders, some of the most creative and reliable guys build stands, on time to spec with whinging clients asking for the moon on a stick with hours till opening! Couldn’t they fit kitchens, garden woodwork etc? Huge demand for home services right now.
Hope all goes well.

[HoHoHo]

DSLiverpool said:

Mr Ho could you get some commitment from regular clients that they will restart with you - that’s something semi tangible that’s worth something.
Also I love stand builders, some of the most creative and reliable guys build stands, on time to spec with whinging clients asking for the moon on a stick with hours till opening! Couldn’t they fit kitchens, garden woodwork etc? Huge demand for home services right now.
Hope all goes well.

My company builds modular stands not custom so whilst my guys are great, they’re not chippies etc. The plus side is my margin is over 60% so a hugely profitable business.

I’ve got commitment from a huge number of existing clients and they’re incredibly supportive however we currently lack a start date and now shows from early 2021 are already rescheduling to later in the year. So whilst we could start again I’m having second thoughts with regard to timescales and the uncertainty is destroying the market. The logistics business is going well, it’s tough but we’re good at what we do and we’re busy. The margins are terrible, time will tell if we can earn enough to pay the bills on a regular basis.

Thanks for the positive reply, I’m not giving up yet but it’s hard work and the so sad to see the hard work I and employees have made over the last 23 years disappear down the toilet because of a virus that isn’t as deadly as suggested.

[DSLiverpool]

Could you make modular pop up coffee shops, garden offices, etc ?

[HoHoHo]

DSLiverpool said:

Could you make modular pop up coffee shops, garden offices, etc ?

Not quite as simple as you may think and I happen to know someone closely who’s currently breaking into the garden office market and it’s not as easy as it could be.

The logistics business allows us to use our knowledge and existing equipment with a minimal amount of investment. We have four large vehicles and everything in place to create a viable business (which I’ve done). If work continues at its current rate we will turnover around £200,000 year one which is a good start.

One major benefit is the fact that whilst I’ve always enjoyed my money I’ve saved and also purchased our buildings and more creating a small industrial estate which has value and whilst it was intended to be my pension I may have to use that sooner than I thought.

To be honest I’m totally pissed off with the way this is being handled by the government. I hate JOB on LBC but he’s correct, there is no clarity or leadership and it’s destroying the economy. Silly knee jerk reactions based on weeks old science that the government themselves is now admitting may be flawed is frankly almost criminal.

Anyway, off my soapbox for the moment!

[singlecoil]

HoHoHo said:

If anyone would like to buy some 23 year old good will and enough equipment to build more stands than you know what to do with please contact me!

Presumably you will wait out the current crisis until things in the exhibition line pick up, in order to maximise the sale value of the business, whereupon you may decide to keep going (retirement is boring) .

[HoHoHo]

singlecoil said:

HoHoHo said:

If anyone would like to buy some 23 year old good will and enough equipment to build more stands than you know what to do with please contact me!

Presumably you will wait out the current crisis until things in the exhibition line pick up, in order to maximise the sale value of the business, whereupon you may decide to keep going (retirement is boring) .

That’s the plan.

I may even simply reduce the number of staff and pick and choose the shows and clients I build for. I could earn more than enough with 12 or so decent builds a year.

[dirky dirk]

Logistics
Very good weve even took people on,
Its down to our owner though and his mindset, and his commitment to staff,
His mindset is like nobody ive ever met

[jonamv8]

dirky dirk said:

Logistics
Very good weve even took people on,
Its down to our owner though and his mindset, and his commitment to staff,
His mindset is like nobody ive ever met

Can you elaborate on his mindset?

[lrdisco]

I now work in Hyper scale Data centre builds and ongoing modifications.
As you can imagine it’s a booming industry. Lots of jobs but mainly in Europe.
No furlough but we all had 6 weeks working from home.
Now back on site. Lucky to be in this industry. It’s relatively well paid and profitable for companies so not a lot of penny pinching.

[ntiz]

I manufacture safety clothing for the marine industry.

We have been flat out since January and all through the lockdown. I have no idea why though.

Things have quietened down though and starting to worry that the worldwide slow down is starting to affect us. Good news is I have new products coming out that should make a big splash making my competitors look expensive whilst increasing my margin 20%.

We are well equipped to ride this out but doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it though.

[dazmanultra]

We are very lucky being in IT (web hosting) that we're somewhat insulated from what is going on in the wider economy. We're probably a bit cheaper than a lot of our competitors which helps with growth when people are looking around to save a little bit of money, but as an industry we don't really have bad debtors because we're the last supplier people cancel with email and website being absolutely key to a lot of businesses.

[bazza white]

ntiz said:

I manufacture safety clothing for the marine industry.

We have been flat out since January and all through the lockdown. I have no idea why though.

Things have quietened down though and starting to worry that the worldwide slow down is starting to affect us. Good news is I have new products coming out that should make a big splash making my competitors look expensive whilst increasing my margin 20%.

We are well equipped to ride this out but doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it though.

You got a link to your products.

[dirky dirk]

jonamv8 said:

dirky dirk said:

Logistics
Very good weve even took people on,
Its down to our owner though and his mindset, and his commitment to staff,
His mindset is like nobody ive ever met

Can you elaborate on his mindset?

Very inspirational come from nothing, self made,
Not cut our charity budget, we get a day off paid to volunteer every year, pays for local junior school to go on a trip every year,
We have school trips come into work, and disabled adults we all get one towork with for the day,
He treats triumph and disaster the same.
Welcome back gifts after lockdown
We mentor some no hope kids, give them jobs,
Been loads, i could go on,
Officeis ran as an holocracy, been on fact finding tours to silicon valley,