Survey

Gary Puckett · Post by **Gary Puckett** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 7:26AM

Just wondering is anybody out there having a slow time, are is it just my area ?
I am starting to grow roots

Gary

Damon Nabors · Post by **Damon Nabors** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 1:23PM

Gary, What area are you from? We are turning down work simply because we can not get it out the door fast enough. But I hear other people in my area say they can not get enough work. So I do not know what the answer is, just keep turning over rocks untill you find gold.

Gary Puckett · Post by **Gary Puckett** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 1:32PM

Damon,

Saint Charles Missouri, don't know what the problem is but getting bad hope things pick up soon.

Gary

Gregory Hairston · Post by **Gregory Hairston** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 6:50PM

Damon,
Feel free to send some of that work my way. That way I can send some business your way.

Greg H

Perry Pravettone · Post by **Perry Pravettone** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 7:12PM

Yep things are bad here also. Only have 3 Guys working we should have 8. We build house also. The last one we sold was October of 2005. Lots of bidding but the big box stores seam to always win. I sell box cabinets also but still can't beat their prices.

Terry Davis · Post by **Terry Davis** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 7:27PM

Very busy here in SW PA. , can't get work done, need more people and larger building. Thermwood is running nearly 6 to 8 hours a day, then again we are nearly 95 percent commercial work which is booming in our area.

Damon Nabors · Post by **Damon Nabors** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 7:55PM

I feel like you have to find a niche that you can work your way into. For years I focused on doing jobs that no one else wanted to do for some reason or another. I would go into a home and look at the project and would get asked, "can you build this?" Since I had never worked in a cabinet shop before, I didn't have any concept of what to run from. I would tackle any job and I built a reputation for being a problem solver. Now people just call me. I will say that the normal remodel jobs have slowed down but I still have my steady contractors that seem to feed us at least 2 or 3 houses per month. That may not be a lot for the bigger shop but we are a small shop. It doesn't take as much to keep us busy. If I had a large overhead I would probably be in trouble right now. Fortunately the only excessive overhead I have on top of normal stuff like insurance, maintenance, payroll expense is the Router payment. My building is paid for and in 4 years, 5 months, and 3 days, my Router will be paid for. Hopefully sooner.

The biggest thing that has helped our business is Prayer. I remember back just before Christmas things slowed down a little. It was on a Wednesday and I told my Wife that "Well, come Friday if something doesn't come in, we are going to be caught up". It was a little depressing because we had just gotten the router the month before. I had been living a little more relaxed than usual and my wife reminded me that I needed to put the Lord First in my life and He would provide for us. We decided to start going back to Church that Wednesday night and we prayed about our business and it was really strange, the work just started pouring in. It was a little overwhelming because we could not keep up. Now I just pray that GOD will give me the strength to keep up with the work load. We joined a new Church right after Christmas and started living our life right and everything else has just fell right into place. That is the only thing I can come up with for an answer to our success, other people around us have been saying the same thing, that business is slow.

We just got a new contract from a company out of Florida to build cabinets and ship them all over the U.S. as knock down cabinets. They even purchased us a new HolzHer Edge Bander to do the work. Sound strange to me but I told the company I have all the right tools except for the bander and they said, "Damon, we want you to build our cabinets, we will buy the bander for you". The tech is supposed to be here in the morning to hook everything up and we already have deposits and blueprints waiting.

All I can suggest is, get things straight in your life or get refocused on what is important and things will turn around. Genuinely try it and see. GOD BLESS YOU

Damon

Joe Redburn · Post by **Joe Redburn** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 8:03PM

Gary,
SW Florida is about flat. Three out four cabinet shops have closed in the last 9 months and one or two drop out every month. Our lumber salesman that used to work Sat now works two days a week and may not have an order for two weeks. Our unemployment is at a 20 year high and there are that many again that have run out of their unemployment and are not reported. The Spanish have left the region by the bunches because there is no work. We used to see 3 or 4 kitchens a month and now we don't see a kitchen for months at a time. Commercial work that used to see one or two bidders now see 25 to 30 bidders. We have a year and a half supply of empty houses on the market and 7000 foreclosures on the books. If you have money this is a good time to buy good houses very cheap.
Regards.
Joe

Gary Puckett · Post by **Gary Puckett** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 9:21PM

Well It's just my wife and I and we do everything from remodeling to building custom cabinets /furniture.
We are very active with our church my wife teaches P.S.R.( Parish School Religion) on Wed. night, we manage donut sunday once a month, just about everything the church needs as for as woodworking we donate.

We have been doing this for 8 years now and I guess the problem now that I think about it is that most of our work has been with one family that ownes a sewer business. There are 4 brothers and their mother that all bought new houses about the same time
and they would keep bouncing us back and forth keeping us busy Kitchens, basement, smoking rooms, furniture,stairs,and the office. Now things are all caught up and it's like starting from scratch. They got me in the habit of doing high end jobs (my post on the mantel is one of there jobs) so when people look at our web site the first thought is we can't afford him so
I don,t get a call.
Would like to get with a contractor but 30-60 day pay is not feasible at this time. Need to change our image I think and try to get away from the Ekenboll image but it's hard really like the look but pricey.
Guess Sunday at church a prayer or two ,then Monday start putting out door hangers wish us luck.

Gary

Damon Nabors · Post by **Damon Nabors** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 9:49PM

Gary, you may be on to something with the Image thing. I too had that problem. Before I quite my day job to go full time into the cabinet business, I could pick and chose the jobs that best suited me. Most of the time they were high end jobs with lots of embellishments like corbels and carvings and such. I posted a lot of those trophies on my web site only to be told your work is beautiful but I could never afford you. I had to tone down the web site and put some simple everyday projects on there. I save the WOW stuff for one on one meetings with a personal portfolio. Keep your faith and don't give up. You will find what you are looking for. As for the builders, Most of mine pay as soon as I am finished. I turn my invoice in by 2:00PM on Thursday and I can pick up my check on the following Friday. It doesn't always work that way of course but if you get a good relationship with your builders, they will help you as well. I have to do some freebee stuff every now and then but they know that they can count on me to do good work and stand behind my product. One of the things I have done is to find a builder no one else will work for. He was slow to pay and would make all kinds of promises. He finally made the cycle to my shop and I had already heard all the stories. I tell him I can keep two houses going for him at a time but if he doesn't pay me as scheduled, I will place a lean on the property. We have a good understanding this way. I play hard ball with him and we have each others respect.

Good luck,

Damon

Gary Puckett · Post by **Gary Puckett** » Fri, Jun 27 2008, 10:47PM

Would anybody care to share their Rate, maybe I am way off base .

We charge 40.00 per hour with a 10-15% markup on material

Gary

Greg McCorkill · Post by **Greg McCorkill** » Sat, Jun 28 2008, 7:01AM

Gary My shop rate is 40-50 hr but price does vary by job or customer.A lot of the work I get is by referal or people who see my ad in american classified.The biggest problem Im seeing is the increase in gas prices.People dont think your price should reflect the increases but you still have to drive to the location to do the estimate/delivery/install

Gary Puckett · Post by **Gary Puckett** » Sat, Jun 28 2008, 7:52AM

Thanks Greg,

Where are you located ?

Gary

Greg McCorkill · Post by **Greg McCorkill** » Sun, Jun 29 2008, 6:16AM

Gary Im located in Visalia CA which is in the San Jaquin valley.Construction here has almost come to a complete stop but I dont do much work on new houses.Older houses and repair and or adding cabinets to these houses is a large part of my work.I also work for a couple of people who buy houses that are going to be or have been forclosed on.That is market you might look into

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