Hi Nick and Johnny,

Nick I know you look after the website, but I am not sure if Johnny see’s these posts as well or not. If he doesn’t then you forward this on to him for me.

Johnny, listening to this episode and a previous one you did on a similar topic I keep coming up with the same question for you, so finally I thought I would post it on here and am interested in hearing the answer from you.

I understand the market is booming over there at the moment and staff are hard to find, and that you are looking for low skilled workers and that you only employ them under a temporary position so anyone looking for secure long term work won’t apply.

The question however I have is, what about if you increase the wage you are offering to pay them by $5 per hour, would that get you more people applying? You would of course have to increase you fee’s that you charge your customer, but my advice would be to just increase your fee’s by $5 per hour.

Now I’m not sure how long it takes you to cut lawn on average, but lets say it takes 30 minutes then charge the customer an extra $2.50.

So technically you won’t be making any more profit, but your staff will be getting paid more.

If you did this, would this get you more guys applying? I’m just curious if this would help you out?

Now I know I am in Australia and the market is different down here, but that been said I think it doesn’t matter where you are from, when you are trying to attract new staff I think money is a big factor initially in getting them to consider to work for you.

Anyway, that’s question 1. The next question I have for you is PR.

Admittedly our population isn’t even 10% of America’s, but over here if I all of a sudden needed to employ 50 new staff, even if it was just for a 9 month position, I am still pretty sure that would be front page news in our local newspaper. And I reckon even the TV news channels would pick it up and put it 4th or 5th story in.

Most stories over here are about businesses closing down, so the news channels they would love a story of a business that is actually looking to employ people and better still a business who can’t find any staff.

Have you thought about doing any PR around the fact that you need staff and just can’t get them?

Anyway mate, just a few ideas for you. I think it doesn’t matter where about’s you are in the world we all struggle with different aspects of staffing. But I must say, I would love to be in your shoes of having the work there, but just not having enough staff to do it all.

Take care boys and am looking forward to he next show

Cheers
Ben