When opportunity knocks

Huh?

5-Dec-08. Conventional wisdom is that times are tough all over; people are struggling, looking for a way to keep it together in perilous economic times. It should be easy to recruit people for a project. Shouldn't it?

Yesterday morning, I went through the yellow pages and selected six ads for landscape contractors who mentioned desert landscaping design and services. I placed six calls:

• 1 call was answered by a live person, who explained that the person I needed to talk to would be back on Monday and took down my name and number for a callback.
• 1 call went unanswered.
• 4 calls rolled to voicemail or an answering machine where I left a brief message: "I'm chairman of an HOA in south Palm Springs and I'm looking for a landscaper for a project in our complex," followed by my name and number, repeated twice, slowly and distinctly.

Of the four calls where I left messages:

• 1 returned my call within an hour and arranged to come by this morning to look at the project
• 3 calls have not been returned

What's wrong with this picture? Are people so busy with work that they don't even bother to return calls for prospective projects?

Granted, it's not a huge project worth thousands of dollars. But, since they haven't even called yet, they don't know that. And, the successful proposal will be on the fast track for 14 more similar projects.

Oh, and the one who came by to check out the job? He stopped by on his way to his adult-education class in English as a Second Language. You've got it — one of those immigrants (legal) that everyone wants to bash for taking American jobs, working his tail off, supporting his family, paying taxes, and trying to improve himself.