Making Money on Marcellus Part 2: “Finding Your Target Markets in the Marcellus Shale”
Filed under: Business Growth, Marcellus, Pittsburgh, Profitable Growth, Uncategorized
“Where is my opportunity in the Marcellus Shale?” I’m hearing that question asked more and more but answered less and less. Where and how do you grow your business if you have neither property to lease, nor services or products to sell to gas drillers? How do you shortcut the 5-10 year’s lead-time it’s supposed to take for Marcellus region’s economy to benefit every business? Are you willing to take a methodical approach to growing your business through Marcellus?
For property holders, and the fortunate few who can sell gas drillers, products, services, or transportation, the riches of Marcellus are already flowing. If you can’t figure out where your business fits in, the answer may be right under your nose. Curious? Please read on.
In this earliest of phases, Marcellus is only about building gas wells to extract gas. Fortunately, doing so takes people, infrastructure, services, and transportation. Let’s explore each one:
- People. While residents may resent the big companies importing experienced work crews from Texas and Oklahoma who will work 7 days a week for $40/hour, these workers need services beyond what their employers provide. And thousands of support jobs are going unfilled. Transient workers are experienced at working hard and spoiling themselves. Also, they need support at their worksite, where they bunk and for their families are back home. And local residents will accept training and support jobs and will be joined by immigrants moving in from depressed regions in search of better opportunities. What can your business offer people to improve their lives in Marcellus?
- Infrastructure. From roads to subdivisions to shopping to worship to recreation, Marcellus means opportunity. As roads are improved, businesses are coming in to support the support system. What products and services has your business offered to the construction, architectural, engineering and subcontracting industries that will be in demand in the Marcellus region? As natural resources are consumed, stretched and probably exploited, what products and services can your company offer to leverage, monitor, or protect the infrastructure and the natural resources with which it must coexist?
- Business services. While lawyers, surveyors and realtors are already making it big in Marcellus, what about your business? If you can sell anything to any business serving the gas drillers’ vendors, your business’ doors are opening. Business to business services are particularly lucrative opportunities since there were few such business services in these areas and outsourcing is the rule as businesses are racing to please their customers ASAP.
- Transportation. Shippers, logistics and supply chain industries are first coming to Marcellus to transport water and well supplies, but the drillers’ vendors and their suppliers will need all kinds of transport. With the emphasis on environmental safety and monitoring, combined with the fact that most of the Marcellus tract offers wonderful recreational opportunities, transportation services of all kinds will be needed to move supplies, people and information throughout the region. What can your business transport or provide to transporters?
So how can your business participate in the Marcellus boom? By thinking about what part of the first wave of people, infrastructure, services and transportation you can catch and ride. In the coming months, I will write about the best timing for when your firm should pounce and then, how to understand and predict buyer behavior. Stay tuned!
And if you just can’t wait, join me next Wednesday the 26th when I will present my workshop on Growing Your Marcellus Business at California University for the Marcellus Chamber. Learn more here. (To register online click here.)
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