I always thought that the sewer/septic business was pretty much a recession- proof business.  And up until the “non-recession” we had in 2008, it was a recession proof business.  But in the Fall of 2008, something began to happen that I had never seen before.  Yes, people were still calling me because they needed their sewers fixed, but my clients’ financial situations were completely different.

Homeowners want their sewers working correctly.  No one wants sewage running over their basement floor! Typically, people are also willing to pay for these problems to be fixed.  As a business owner, I needed to be paid for my services and that’s how I thought while bidding these jobs.  How wrong I was!

I would go to houses, bid the job, and ask for client’s go ahead.  And they would reply:

Client: “I can’t afford this.”
Me: “Can you put it on your credit card?”
Client: “No, my credit card is maxed out.”
Me: “Maybe you can get some help from a family member?”
Client: “No, they’re even more worse off than I am. Do you think you could finance me?”
Me: “Sorry, I don’t do private financing.”

The next prospect was exactly the same.   After about five of these, I finally had to ask why the homeowner had called me if they knew they couldn’t afford to get the work done.  Their only answer was, “I didn’t know what else to do.”  I saw potential customers using buckets as toilets and dumping them in their yards, rather than finding the money to repair their sewer or septic systems.

I won’t lie.  I didn’t have a sales solution when it started happening.  My seemingly recession-proof business was going out of business.  And it wasn’t because I was doing anything wrong.  I was running my business in a way that had made it successful for the past 20 years  – even through other “recessions”.  The problem obviously wasn’t how I did my work.  My experience and attitude towards high quality work had not disappeared overnight.  My sudden problem was my customer base.  I had an idea for fixing the problem in a way I didn’t really like.  If you’re in the same spot now, you might not like it either.  But come back next week and I’ll clue you in to my solution.