Short YouTube video by Mike Andes presenting five concrete strategies for home-service businesses to fix off-season revenue drops: (1) strategically lay off and rehire staff with comeback bonuses, (2) create offers and year-round subscriptions, (3) add adjacent services (e.g., snow plowing for a summer lawn company), (4) sell recurring maintenance plans for steady revenue, and (5) launch a separate brand/business (e.g., Christmas lights) to smooth monthly revenue so off months never fall below ~50% of peak.
Chapters
Like there's something wrong with this industry. I don't make money for three months of the year. I lose money for two or three months of the year. All my crew leaves every office. You're right. That's what happens in almost all home service businesses. And that's why most home service businesses are not a great business to be in. I wrote the entire off season book, solving it with five different ways you can lay people off and have a come back to work bonus. That's cure number one for the off season. Number two, I can sell more and better of my existing stuff by creating great offers, getting people on subscriptions and year round billing. Or I can do an adjacent service. The third option is giving them adjacent service. Something else I can sell them during the off season. For example, if I mow grass during the summer, I then do snow plowing during the winter. The fourth thing is do recurring services. Get them on a maintenance plan throughout the off season. So I get recurring revenue. Even when all of my competitors are laying people off, they're selling off their equipment, they're in a cash crunch. I'm able to keep expanding. And number five, the fifth way to solve the off season is make another brand. Completely different. Do something like lawn care landscaping during the spring. But. But then during the winter I do Christmas lights. Completely different businesses have nothing to do with each other. But I create a whole new brand to make sure that I never have a time where I make less than 50% of revenue compared to my best month.
