What do you do to fight the summer slow down?
It usually hits here late July and August.
thanks
I have some bigger commercial clients that are done yearly that I schedule for that time. It helps off set the residential low
East, midwest and north really seem to have a much more amplified spring and fall than the southwest.
Also seems to be folks in general are all the same page of what to do and when and most seem to be on the same page of “of course you take care of it”
I have noticed a lull in late August, but there always seems to be another type of customer calling in to replace those who dissappear at that time, out here anyway.
I know Curt hits the monsoon season in August
What have you done in the past Chris?
you mentioned doubling up on postcards hasn’t helped, what else have you tried with what results?
sounds like it’s working against the generally accepted twice a year mentality for your area?
[MENTION=1]Chris[/MENTION]
Having added screen repair/fabrication and advertising it separately has helped me to keep busy right through the summer and into fall. I’ve got a lot of property managers now for condos/apartments/town homes etc. As long as there’s bugs out, there’s work.
Good size comm. jobs who want a better price we say “how bout August?”
Res. clients who want a “better” price “we’ll call you in August”
Keep our eyes open for random projects, paint simple decks or fences, maybe 2-3 a year in August
No joke, anyone who wants hours if there is none to go around I offer to come to my home and get projects done for me. Has worked out well the last two years. Guys want hours, I want to get things done.
Well in the past we would offer summer discounts… But as like last season we tried… we will again be attempting to fill our 8 week slow period with larger commercial stuff. Big schools, hospitals stuff like that.
The difference this year is we have a separate person concentrated on just this goal.
We try to do a couple of our hospitals during the summer slow down. Try to push deck restores too.
[QUOTE=Bruce;189401]East, midwest and north really seem to have a much more amplified spring and fall than the southwest.]
I find that June July August are the best months March is a toss up April is a little better this april was bad, had rain one day a week…The possibilty of rain needs to be not in the forecast for 6 months which starts in May.
Since winter doesn’t make a big mess spring cleaning isn’t a big deal.
Dont do your outstanding callbacks til May 15th, book yourself solid through June, and enjoy July and August with pina coladas on your deck 
Nice, hopefully you might share what was tried this year, could trigger a lot of ideas from everyone
I’m going to strategize on creating a workaround that doesn’t try to convince them of something they feel is “an undisputed truth” in their mind but perhaps instead exploit it to ride that pre-exisitng wave, just concept, no details right now
I think your experience of discounts and quantity mailed still not filling void is telling
winter is snowplowing, firewood and such - doesn’t necessarily seem like there’s a summer equivalent . . . wait . . . swimming pool installation resource .com
JK 
it sounds like other parts of the country definitely have TWO economic winters
Yes, one it gets to 100+ with oppressive humidity, and people think it’s too hot to have any work done at home. The other, it gets into the 40s and people say “are y’all cleaning windows in THIS weather?”
Nice people, always so concerned about us window cleaners. 
it would go from March to January real easy if we didn’t have that stupid marine layer and overcast sky garbage going on haphhazardly at any point in time
for those of you not familiar with marine layer: socked in low clouds, looks like a dark day pre-storm about to rain, perhaps drizzle even - but it’s just “dense fog” all the way up to “low clouds” only a couple thousand feet up - the radar? absolutely nothing, no rain, nada, zero, so reschedules and pullbacks are happening for zero reason, the nearest dopplar activity is thousands of miles up north in Washington and Canada
nope, customer will have none of that . . . “it looks like rain”
yep, exactly, looks like, but . . . IT"S NOT FOR CRYIN OUT LOUD! RELAX WILL YA?!
ahhhhhhh, so cal
we don’t have shotgun fungus though, that’s a perk, right?
it drizzled all day out here by the coast,
very pacific northwest
I also don’t get a slowdown of any measure until late August and most of September. Since I’m pretty small everyone keeps reasonably busy. When I have more employed, then I’ll start brainstorming or better yet, see what you guys have found to be successful.
thank goodness for the Ortegas, got a 30 mile buffer, lol, nice and sunny warm out here
Brian gets waaaaaayyyyyy more of this than we do, and we get a lot, or at least enough to be aggravating a lot of the year
Squeeze every dollar out of the busy season. Spend August in Saratoga.
with as many companies that deal with this, the company that figures out how to bust through that objection consistently is gonna be ROLLING in the dough.
don’t wish it were easier… wish you were better!
rolling something out next week
Im convinced commercial lined up way in advance is the only way to keep a solid revenue line from April - November. I have never been able to do it before… and I have tried and tried. We may actually pull it off this year. With every staff member you get, the dip becomes lower and lower.
