In times of need, it’s in our innate nature to want to help others. Whether we represent an individual or a business is completely irrelevant during a time of crisis.
Businesses are typically competitive in nature and can be cut-throat at times. However, after Hurricane Michael pulverized Panama City and Mexico Beach, the industry pulled together.
How is the business relationship affected by a hurricane?
If you’ve ever experienced devastation or crisis, you’re aware of the raw love for humanity. You stop at nothing to help others and donate time and money of biblical proportions to get your hometown back to where it once was. The community works together to get people off the streets and provide some sense of normalcy. As tragic and gut-wrenching as it may be, it’s also loving and beautiful.
Category 4, Hurricane Michael destroyed multiple cities as a tornado would level a barn. Cities were literally gone. For any business in the construction industry, phones were ringing nonstop with people needing new homes, new tile, new roofs, and yes, new fencing. I stress the word, “needing”, not wanting. Huge difference.
Entire populations were in desperate need of homes, but how does one build a home when the building supply stores are among the demolished? How do you buy tools when the hardware stores are also leveled? How do you find lumber to build a house or fence when all lumber supply stores are sold out for weeks? How do you rebuild without building materials?
This is when the Beetles song, “I Get by with a Little Help from My Friends” comes into play. We go to our preferred vendors, we go to the businesses we work with the most. We also go to our friends in the industry, friends that have now banded together and become family. A family will help their own before they help strangers.
New business partners and vendors can be a risk, especially during a time of devastation.
As so many homes and buildings need to be built or repaired, many contractors literally come out of the woodwork making promises to help customers. Promises that can’t be kept. Contractors without an established business are not only unknown and considered “high risk” to vendors, but they’re not in the inner circle, they’re not family, they’re strangers. For reasons you would feed your brother before a stranger, well-known customers and established businesses are more likely to get the limited supplies.
Florida Fence is proud to be one of the largest and strongest fence companies in Florida. We’re grateful to have the business partners and professional family that allow us to keep your children and your pets safe, keep your property or business secure, and providing peace of mind that lasts. While it may be a lengthy process, we are confident we will be able to help restore Bay County to a sense of normal, and without question, it’s because of a little help from our friends.