This is a test as told about a conversation with the general entrepreneur Eduardo Barboza, 41, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Barboza has been in the construction industry for 22 years and has had a business for 10 years. He has experienced a significant disruption of his business since the Trump administration announced new prices plans in January. The conversation has been modified for duration and clarity.
The complete impacts of the prices have not yet developed, but we are already dealing with the uncertainty of the prices. He has created many unknowns, which makes business very difficult.
We had a fairly good system for estimates. Everything was based on our files.
Someone came to us with a bathroom project, and we knew that it would be about $ 5,000. Now we cannot say with certainty. The floor covering, the tile, everything could increase overnight.
Eduardo Barboza, on the right, runs one of his employees With the kind authorization of Eduardo Barboza
Now, each element of the project must be dissected. The turnaround for estimates has increased from 24 hours to 72 hours. I even had to assign an additional person just for prices. It is the money and the time that we waste as a business.
Some owners are angry with me right now. We were contracted in November to do the main electric service on a building of 84 units in Glendale. There were 15 banks of electric meters that we had to replace and each increased as a price. It was very difficult to go to the customer and said: “Hey, moreover, this $ 225,000 project will now cost you $ 278,000.”
The owner did not cancel this project, mainly because it was necessary for the interview. Any other type of project is serious.
Investors are moving away from renovations
Barboza says his team has lost nearly $ 500,000 in projects canceled this month. With the kind authorization of Eduardo Barboza
Instead of renovating the houses to return, investors only sell houses such as what, which affects our business. Just last week, we lost two major projects.
One was a $ 1.3 million house in Scottsdale. While we were making the price, the flooring increased by $ 1 per square foot, the tile increased by 36 cents per square foot, the cabinets increased by 10%, then 10% additional as a week later. So we had to increase the price to $ 143,000. The investor decided to keep the house as is.
We had the same scenario with a $ 1.5 million house in Scottsdale, which needed just over $ 326,000 in renovations. With the current market, renovation on this scale had no meaning for the investor.
These were jobs we had in the bag, we just waited to start. This represents nearly $ 470,000 and has just left our books in seven days.
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I pay my team to work at home to resist the slowdown
It costs a lot of money to build a good team, and I will do everything I can to keep them.
Finding new business is my work. So, if I have no job aligned for the week, my employees are always paid this week. It is not their fault. It’s me.
This week, I told them to come to my house. I’m going to pay them anyway, so I said, let’s finish the projects I postponed. I have a crew that lengthens concrete cobblestones around my swimming pool. It costs me about $ 3,800 for the week.
We have already gone through moments like this. It is a return to the state of mind that we had during the 2008 recession or the first days of the pandemic.
When times become hard like that, it is a mentality to “screw the benefits”, each decision is just a survival to stay afloat. Can we do enough to keep the guys paid? We can worry about benefits at another time.
As a leader of my business, I cannot scare my team.
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