by Tara Sottile
Mike Pennington is the owner of Paver King in Oshawa, Ont. The landscape contracting company is just over a year old.
COVID-19 has made it challenging for Mike and his crew to do the jobs they had lined up.
I spoke to Mike via Zoom before landscape contractors were allowed to go back to work and he explained the impacts the pandemic has had on his company.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as an entrepreneur?
For us, we’ve had a lot of people delay work, but not necessarily walk away from work. We haven’t had anyone cancel but have had all our work we were supposed to be doing right now delayed until September and October. So, as we sit right now, our struggle is that we have no actual place to go if they told us we could work tomorrow, we don’t actually have a job to go to.
What kind of impact is COVID-19 having on landscape contracting as an industry?
I feel like if this drags on into July, a lot of people will just say, we’ll do it next year – which could be really bad. I think for most landscapers, the problem is going to come next spring. Everyone works right now and then works hard all year. If you don’t plow snow, if we have a late spring next year, that’s where I think it’s going to have a big effect on the landscaping business. I think you’re going to see people struggle if they haven’t built up enough money. You only have eight months really to build up money to get through to next spring.
Do you think Paver King will survive if this keeps going?
I think that for me, for me in my life, I do my best when the odds are the worst. So, I strongly believe we’ll be OK. My whole life I’ve enjoyed the climb a lot more than being at the top. If we have to work long hours on jobs we don’t want to do for less money than we should be getting paid to survive, we will do it…So, I think we’re going to be fine. I believe we’ll come out of it.
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