Slump in trade anyone?

[handyman]

Had my first cancellation today, they are regular customers so I let them off from their contract. I do IT rentals for corporate events. They're not events that organisers have charged tickets for and have paid suppliers and taken customers several months in advance. These are free to attend events (usually) and organised 4-6 weeks in advance.

So because of coronavirus they had to cancel their event. They are in the travel industry as well (a flight price comparison company).

My rankings are going up in google due to a lot of white hat SEO. March is ususally one of the peak months for me. This should have been a nice earner for me.

 

I am am one man band operation. I have an office at the bottom of my garden so my overheads are very little and have enough business to pay the mortgage, bills, and put some money aside. So I am one of the lucky ones. I am guessing some of the bigger companies will struggle, those with big expensive payroll bills to settle each month. They'll either struggle or force their clients to adhere to their rental agreements that may have been signed before the outbreak.

What are your experiences.

Edited March 6, 2020 by handyman

[indyld]

I'm no longer in that side of the business, but all those that are on my social media from the events world have basically had all or nearly all their future work cancelled. It's a worrying time for all freelancers at the end of the chain. (PS, didn't realise that people still used the term 'Whitehat SEO', haha). Edited March 6, 2020 by indyld

[handyman]

I'm no longer in that side of the business, but all those that are on my social media from the events world have basically had all or nearly all their future work cancelled. It's a worrying time for all freelancers at the end of the chain. (PS, didn't realise that people still used the term 'Whitehat SEO', haha).

 

Wow, I didn't realise it was that bad.

I'm fortunate in that my equipment isnt exclusively for big live events, theyre for smaller events too. In fact the equipment I supply is aso used for internal board meetings, video conference etc. So the stuff is used with or without coronavirus.

 

Whitehat SEO - I've been in SEO for a long time. The term could be meaningless noawadays. Where everyone who claims to be doing whitehat tends to do anything but

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by handyman

[willjam39]

I saw a local company in Bedford put out a message saying if anyone wanted to come in during this "downtime" to sharpen up their skills on the various desks and products they had in their inventory to give them a call. Seemed a positive way at looking through the dark.

[mikienorth]

I've seen a few adverts for 'come in and tinker on our kit' the last week. I work all over the industry. I'm hearing of clients losing lots of work over it, and I'm seeing people all over the world losing massive amounts of corporate work because of it.

 

Personally, it's already been my quietest year in a decade, and I'm in a corner business wise because of other issues that adding the risks of this on top of is going to be very hard to come back from. I'm seeing things starting to wake up a little in regards of interest, but I've currently had more days this year without any bookings than I had in all of 2019 or 2018.

 

This week I've started hearing of, and experienced, companies slicing their rates paid.

Personally people I've billed at an agreed rate for years have decided to cut that without talking. We've talked now and fixed that to both of our satisfaction for now, but still.

I'm hearing of other companies slicing their rates by nearly £100/day. Because people are prepared to work for that right now, and accept bookings at that heavily a discounted rate. Thing is, once we are out the other side of this, and it might be in a month or two, it might not be, then getting your rates back to where they are now is going to be a massive uphill struggle. I'd be 95% sure that your clients aren't slicing their rates, or at least by that much.

 

I'm in a bad spot work and business wise due to a combination of factors, some due to choices I've made, some way outside my control, and this is just making things worse.