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Glucose12 t1_irav2hl wrote

Brother is a locksmith. If you're starting from scratch instead of buying out somebody's business when they retire(including their customer database) it takes time(a decade or more) to build up a customer base, and until then you're living in your parents house, eating ramen. If you're mobile, fuel/oil/maintenance for your vehicles. He's just beginning to do well now after moving back here in 2003-ish from the San Jose area, but there's still no way he could afford to buy a house on his own, or have wife/kids/etc.

For small companies, it's a chore hiring responsible workers who want to stay with you(once they've acquired skills and can go solo). The ones who do stay may not be the best workers in the world - but they're better than not having any employees.

He was living like a king in San Jose, plenty of high-rolling customers(banks, tech companies, etc). Obviously had to rebuild a customer list from scratch coming here. The money is not in residential in locksmithing - it's in corporate/business customers, and those are a lot thinner on the ground here in NH, obviously, than in San Jose.

Whatever. Not sure what I was trying to say, other than: the environment may actually not support the population of tradespeople that you'd like to see.

They want to have a house, spouse, kids, send their kids to college, etc., so they will be charging what the market will bear.

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sim_BLISS_ity OP t1_irbfnxw wrote

When the demand far outweighs the supply, you don't need a decade-long rolodex - the customers will find you.

Sure, NH wouldn't be anywhere near the money from San Jose, but things are way cheaper here for sure. If you're charging $100-150+ an hour in NH just in labor, the workers have to be making at least $50-75 an hour after profits and overhead, especially when these companies are so small. If you're making $50-75 an hour in NH and are eating ramen in your parent's house, that's a whole different topic.

The revolving door of apprentices going to do their own thing is prevalent in just about every job in society. The key of course is to keep that revolving door filled with more people.

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littleirishmaid t1_irbnbb4 wrote

That makes no sense at all. If the owner of the business charges $150 per hour, there is no way they could pay their workers those wages. What would be left over for him? Materials have skyrocketed, supply chain issues galore, etc. The majority of these businesses are very small with a family member doing the paperwork on the weekend. They have no office staff to field calls and emails. They work with the customers through their cell phones. Not in an office. Pretty hard to answer your call when you are up on a ladder.

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extravertedhomebody t1_irbpiaz wrote

I think the person above you was specifically speaking of labor rates, meaning any parts would be separate

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