Business Closure Rates For Plumbing & HVAC Contracting Companies

Transcription

1 Business Closure Rates For Plumbing & HVAC Contracting Companies Matt Michel CEO & President The Service Roundtable

2 Business Closure Rates For Plumbing & HVAC Contracting Companies By Matt Michel CEO & President The Service Roundtable Ask someone in the plumbing or air conditioning industry how many contractors close their doors annually and you will receive a variety of answers. Most or all will be guesses, estimates, or hearsay. Most or all will be without an empirical source. In this white paper, the best empirical dataset available is analyzed to determine the business closure rate within the service trades. Conventional Wisdom A rule-of-thumb within the HVAC industry is that 30% of contractors close their doors annually. To measure the validity of this number, an informal survey of industry leaders was conducted. The 30% close rate was posited as a hypotheses. People where asked whether they believed the number was correct, or not. They are also asked for hard data. While some agreed with the figure and others did not, no one had hard data. I don't have any "real data" to base this on, claimed one consultant, But in the 6 years that I have been working with contractors since Dad sold the company, I have only dealt with three companies that went under out of more than 100 companies I worked with. A consultant and sales trainer said, As I travel the country, I tell people that a great visual aid to use while running sales calls is to get a copy of the Yellow Pages and draw a red line through all the HVAC contractors that are no longer in business, and you'll find that it's going to be about 50% of them. In the very few instances that people have done that and gotten back with me, they've told me the number was very close to 50%. Another consultant said, The numbers used at [a contractor group] in the late 80's were 12 to 14,000 contractors in and out. When I did the contract training for [a major manufacturer] last spring, the same num- 2

3 bers were used. The numbers used for the total registered contractors grew from 50,000 to 60,000. Accurate? Didn't seem to matter. No one ever questioned them. This results in an annual close rate ranging from 20% to 28%. I ve heard that the percentage is higher than [30%], said an association executive. HVAC manufacturers and distributors tend to have lower estimates of business closures. They base their estimates on their experience with their companies dealers. Yet, dealers are not representative of the average. By definition, a contractor who qualifies as a manufacturer s dealer is larger, more stable, and better established than the norm. After all, major brands rarely sell through the smallest contractors. My number is 10 to 15%, said a member of the trade press, And most of these are the small shops. This is based on being in the industry long. Seriously, I think the number was verified when I [worked for a trade association] and [the association executive] used the number. An industry services provider said, I remember [an association executive] saying that the percentage of contractors that went out of business each year was in the 25% range. We don't get anywhere near [a 30%] turn over, said one distributor. Generally 30% is a good number, said another distributor. Just thinking about the number of dealers who went out of business while I was a TM, said a manufacturer, The 30% number is a little high. Keep in mind that I am dealing with [a major manufacturer s] dealers. On the other hand, I had contact with many other dealers and the 30% still seems high. [A trade magazine] shows a 25% turn-over rate with no background or reference for where the information came from, said a consultant. Looking over government data, we did find references to construction but no drill down from there. That data reflects an average 3.0 years tenure for the construction industry versus an overall average of all industries at 4.0 years (2004 data). The 30% figure sounds plausible, commented a member of the trade press, But I confess this is the first I've heard of it. I just don't know the answer when it comes to turnover. Estimates of contractor close rates vary widely. Typically, there is little supporting data for the close rates offered. Not All Closures Are Failures A business closure is not necessarily a business failure. Businesses close for a variety of reasons. In addition to outright failure, businesses close due to acquisition, the pursuit of better opportunities by the owner (i.e., the owner takes a job), and the close of an unsalable business at retirement. 3

4 From my association experience, I seldom lose members because they closed up shop, said an association executive. Some are bought/sold/merged and don t re-up. He continued, We generally don t see a start-up join in their first year of business. We wouldn t be in their first year s budget. Budget? They would have come and gone before we knew they even existed Take [a particular contractor] as an example. He has grown one company by acquiring four others. Does that mean that three companies went under? Not really because they have survived (manpower, payroll, market share of work done, etc.) under a new name. For them it was or could have been a lateral move. I am more familiar with this aspect, said another consultant, with owners retiring and selling their life's work for beer money. The close of a business is its cessation, whether from failure, acquisition, retirement, or some other reason. This antiseptic definition overlooks the fact that most business closures represent the cessation of someone s dream. That, no matter how clinically it is expressed, is always a tragedy. In short, businesses close for many reasons. Not all are failures. The close rate should not be confused with the failure rate. 200,000 Contractors Not only does the industry have trouble with the close rate, but few seem aware of the absolute number of contracting companies. The InfoUSA data base, which markets mail lists of small businesses based on yellow pages listings shows 151,846 contractors under the old SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) 1711 listing for plumbing, heating, and air conditioning. This represents more contracting companies than most would suspect, and yet the number is understated. It misses start-up contractors and contractors who do not have a yellow pages presence. The U.S. Department of the Census tracks contractors using the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) 2351 listing for Plumbing Heating & Air Conditioning Contractors. The 2002 Economic Census reported 81,003 plumbing, heating, and air conditioning contractors with a payroll in The Census reports an additional 110,183 plumbing, heating, and air conditioning contractors without a payroll. Thus, in 2001 there were 191,186 contractors. Less than half (42%) had a payroll. Only 11% had a payroll of 10 or more people. Better than eight out of ten owners of contracting companies still work in the field. Few people give much thought to the smallest contractors. The HVAC trade magazine with the largest circulation reaches 44,097 contractors according to their rate card. The leading plumbing trade magazine reaches 44,400 contractors, per their rate card. Even if the two publications have zero crossover (i.e., no one who receives one publication, receives the other) and each subscription represents a different location (i.e., no company has multiple subscribers), the trade magazines reach less than half of the companies in the trades. Given the potential for cross over and mul- 4

5 U.S. Plumbing Heating & Air Conditioning Contractors Contractors With a Payroll 81,003 Non-Payroll Contractors 110,183 Source: U.S. Department of the Census, 2002 Economic Census tiple subscriptions per company, it s entirely likely that three out of four companies do not receive a major trade magazine. We do not have birth and death data for the nonemployer businesses, said a Census representative. Granted, the trade magazines serve larger contractors because their advertisers care more about larger, higher volume companies. Even so, the trade circulation figures suggest the majority of contractors exist beneath industry radar. In fact, the majority of contractors those without a payroll exist beneath the Census radar. While the Census does track business closes among payroll contractors, even it makes no attempt to follow nonpayroll contractors. Known Closure Rates According to the Economic Census, the overall industry closure rate among payroll contractors in 2001 (the last year with available data) was 10%. Smaller companies were more likely to close than larger companies. Contractors with one to four employees experienced a closure rate of 14%. Half (51%) of payroll employers employ one to four people. 5

6 Contractors With a Payroll (Breakdown by Number of Employees) 500+ Employees (1%) Employees (1%) Employees (10%) Employees (14%) 1-4 Employees (52%) 5-9 Employees (22%) Source: U.S. Department of the Census, 2002 Economic Census 16% Contractor Failure Rate Percentage of All Payroll Companies 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0% Number of Employees Source: U.S. Department of the Census, 2002 Economic Census 6

7 The New York Department of Labor tracks business success rates by SIC. By the end of their first year of operation, 17% of SIC 1711 companies have closed. This first year close rate is 70% higher than the annual figures shown by the Census, but it reflects both payroll and non-payroll companies. Unfortunately, the New York data does not show an annual rate. Extrapolating Close Rates Since no one knows the actual close rate among nonpayroll contractors, an estimate must be made. Rather than throw a dart against the wall, an attempt was made to apply a curve fitting algorithm. Given the limited number of data points, this approach is extremely questionable from a statistical standpoint. Nevertheless a reasonable fit (r 2 of 0.90) was found using a power curve. This was the best performance of four methods tried. Using the power curve, the close rate among nonpayroll contractors is projected to be 26.3%. When averaged with payroll contractors, the overall industry s annual close rate is 19.9% (within 10% of the New York state first year results). In other words, one contractor in five closes every year. A 20% close rate is less than the conventional wisdom, but fairly consistent with the New York state data for first year companies. Absent other research, this is the only empirically based statistic on contractor close rates. Projected Non-Payroll Annual Close Rate 30% Percent og Businesses Closing 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Non-Payroll Number of Employees Source: U.S. Department of the Census, 2002 Economic Census With Extrapolations 7

8 This report may be reproduced without permission, provided it is not altered. Matt Michel is the CEO & President of the Service Roundtable (), the world s largest private contractor group, serving plumbing and air conditioning contractors. The mission of the Service Roundtable is to help contractors improve their business and financial performance, leading to a profitable exit strategy. Matt can be reached by at matt.michel@serviceroundtable.com. 8