The Obstacle/Opportunity of 2021

Have you noticed that 2-day deliveries are taking 4 to 5 days to arrive?

Shipping companies can’t hire enough warehouse workers and delivery drivers.

Have you noticed how long it takes to get the food you ordered?

Restaurants can’t hire enough kitchen workers and wait-staff to serve their customers.

Service companies nationwide are seeing just 3 or 4 job applicants respond to online recruitment ads that used to generate 40 to 50 inquiries.

The limiting factor for business growth in 2021 won’t be a shortage of sales opportunities. It will be the shortage of employees.

The Wizard of Ads Partners are rapidly writing recruitment ads for hundreds of businesses across America. Phone lines are ringing and email inboxes are dinging with new requests for recruitment every hour.

If you are reliable, conscientious, have a good attitude and are willing to work with your hands, you can write your own ticket anywhere in America.

The construction trades can’t find enough people to pour foundations, erect frames, hang sheetrock, build cabinets, lay flooring, and install roofing.

Home service companies can’t find enough people to fix plumbing, run wiring, repair air conditioning, paint walls, clean gutters, trim trees, or power-wash driveways, decks and sidewalks.

The strongest employers are starting new employees at $80,000 a year and experienced tradespeople are spiraling upwards beyond $100,000 faster than the tornado that carried Dorothy and Toto to Oz.

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” indeed.

Twenty years ago, the internet was the Emerald City. Tech workers were needed everywhere.

But then we figured out how to do a lot of that work with software instead of people.

Follow a rainbow to where it touches the ground today and you will find a happy, hard-working, hands-on service worker. These men and women are the new pot of gold.

Companies that rise to the challenge of recruiting, training, and retaining good people will be the ones who leapfrog ahead of their competitors.

Do whatever it takes to become the company that everyone wants to work for “if they are lucky enough to get hired” by you. You’re going to have to pay your employees more than you planned, but you’re also going to be able to charge more than you planned.

The service company who can answer the phone and say, “Yes we can and we’re on our way,” is the company you want to be.

This is the mountain you must climb if you want to see the view from the top.

Roy H. Williams