How I Squeezed Every Dollar From Weather Spikes At My Home Service Business

If your business spikes based on weather patterns, a bunch of rain comes in and you get a ton of gutter cleaning calls in a short amount of time or a heat wave comes in and everyone calls you because they have no AC in this video, I'm going to give you six proven ways to squeeze every dollar out of those bursts to stop the feast or famine chaos. All right, so we see it all the time. It rains. Basement waterproofing companies get slammed with leads. Gutter cleaning companies get slammed with leads. There's a heat wave that comes in and ac, H VAC contractors get slammed with leads. Hail comes through and roofing contractors, siding contractors gets blitzed with leads. So there needs to be a game plan in place to manage all these leads. And that's we're going to talk about today. I was director of business development at a $3 million air duct cleaning company. And when these heat waves would hit in the summer, all these H vac contractors would refer us business. So we would be booked out like three to four weeks in advance. The problem is that we still pay for marketing. We're still getting leads coming in. We're just not getting any revenue out of these things. So these six proven systems, I actually implemented them in this business. And, and in the first year, they went from 3 million to $4 million in revenue. Because these work, the first thing that we did was created a priority move up checklist. So how does this work? When someone calls in and we say, hey, we're booked out three to four weeks. Or someone calls in and says, hey, right now we don't have any slots today, but we can get to you tomorrow or seven days or whenever. People might say, oh, man, I really need this done now. Perfect. We actually have this move up checklist. And what we're going to do, I'll add you to that. We do these call ahead confirmation calls and I'm going to call all these people today. We had 13 routes. So we're going to call these people today. We're probably going to get some cancellations and I'll let you know, I'll give you a call and I'll move you up in the line. Does that sound good? People would say, yeah, that sounds great. They would be happy. Now, this is not going to necessarily secure them for good, but what it is going to give them is some type of a lifeline that's not just like, no, sorry, we're four weeks out. We're not going to get to you. No, we have this move up list because, you know, you're going to get cancellations in your schedule anyways, so why not have this list of people that are wanting to move up? Some people are like, cool, I can wait four weeks. Some people are like, no, I need it done tomorrow. So setting up a move up checklist, what we did was we had a Google spreadsheet and we just put the person's name in the city that they lived in and their phone number and a priority, like if they said, yeah, I would really prefer to get this done on Friday or a certain day, then we would know. So then we could just go to that checklist, find the person, plug them in, give them a call and get them on the schedule. One, this helps so that we didn't have holes in our schedule when we had cancellations. Two, if someone was on a job and someone canceled, we had someone we could just plug them right into. And then three, it gave the customer some lifeline that was like, okay, cool, this company actually gets it and they want to actually move me up if they can. The second thing, and this was a friction point in our business was trying to decide when are we going to open another route or not. Because there's a commitment to it that if you're going to scale up with these weather patterns, how do you even predict that this weather is going to happen? Obviously we're going to be really busy in the summer, and then in the shoulder season we're going to be slow. So how do we build for this? So what we would do was we had two technicians on jobs. We had a lead tech and an assistant tech. And what we would be doing is on these surge times, we would have trucks set aside and we would put the top assistants so that way we can train them up to be lead techs. This would allow us to say, okay, these lead techs are great. These assistants are great. If we need. Now we have lead techs that can run these routes and we would give them the easy routes. But a lot of times people hold on to their routes and they say, oh man, I don't have another guy for this. I don't have this for that. And really what it comes down to is that you need to build almost like a bench in your business, that when you have this surge time in your business, you can take your assistant tech, plug them onto a lead route and get them trained up and give them some run. So, so that way, God forbid someone leaves or you need to plug someone in, or you actually are scaling your business and you open another route for good you have someone that you already tested out in these surge moments. So I would strongly recommend we had this saying that you can't grow if you say no. And by putting some pressure on your team and getting people up to the level of running these lead routes, it helps you build this team inside of your business that you feel confident if someone were to leave, you can plug someone right in. The third thing that came up a lot, whenever we would talk to people about this surges that we would have was to have surge pricing. And we implemented this not too strictly, but if we needed to, we would implement surge pricing. So what we would do is if we're booked out a week, we'd increase surge pricing 10% if we're booked out 2 weeks, 20%, 3 weeks, 30% and go from there. Now, I'm not here trying to gouge people, but I also know that it's supply and demand and that if people are not willing to pay or people are willing to pay, then I'd rather move them up so we can get more revenue out of these opportunities. And I think that surge pricing has a place. I mean, think about it. With Uber, they're going to surge price you when there's a lot of demand and supply and demand happening in a certain area because the revenue is there and they want to compensate their team accordingly based off supply and demand. So I think that there is a level to having some surge pricing. So how does this look for your business? Like if you do H vac service and you're going out on dispatch fees, then have some type of a surge pricing. So right now for our diagnostic fee, we're charging 200, $300. That way you can would allow people that are not willing to pay the money to to get you out there and people that are just trying to nickel and dime you. It would help filter these people out. This is a really good way to know who's going to be a good customer, who's not, and filter them out right away. The fourth thing that we would do is screen for urgency. What this means is basically asking them like, let's say It's a no AC call. Hey, is your AC like not running at all and it's like 100 degrees in your house, you need someone out there today, or is it that you have this hot room in your house that you want to solve and you're not really sure how to do that and we can have someone come take a look in a couple of days by screening for urgency, it allows you to know a lot of times RCSRs weren't asking the right questions. They were just people called in with emergencies and they said, oh my gosh, my, my bedroom's hot. I need someone out there right now to look at this. It's like, okay, is this been an ongoing problem or is it a new thing? And try to talk to them about what's actually going on. If you can get someone out there, great. But really it's about figuring out is this an urgent need right now or is this not for gutter cleaning, for example. It's like, hey, okay, a bunch of rain just came in. So is your, you know, is your roof leaking and your gutter falling off your house or is it before the next rain comes? You know that you need to get your gutters clean because it was overflowing over the last rainfall. And this is the question that you have to position yourself to figure out, okay, is this a priority gu or is this not? And asking the right questions inside of your sales process is going to help you. I'm not saying to do this every single time, but in these surge moments, it allows you to filter out people and recommend what needs to get done. So if I'm hearing your right customer, it sounds like when it rained last time, your gutter was overflowing. Good thing in for us. I just, I looked at the weather today. The next rainfall is not coming for seven days. So I think I can have a guy out there in the next three or four days. That way, the next time this happens, you're good to go. This is the type of conversation that you need to have. So that way you can make sure that you're maximizing the leads you have coming in and, and filling your schedule accordingly. The fifth one, and this one's near and dear to my heart, and that is by being proactive with texts and emails. So you might schedule someone for two weeks out, but that shouldn't be the last time that they talk to you. You need to have a game plan in place to nurture these people over those, those two weeks time period. It could even be a simple call. Check in after three days, after five days, after seven days. Like, hey, haven't forgot about you. I know you're still on our call ahead checklist. Just want to let you know that I was looking at it today. We might be able to move you up, I don't know, but I just want to check in with you. How's everything holding up? Also wanted to send over, you know, guide on what you need to prepare when we're out there, whatever it is, people just want to know that they're being taken care of and that you are remember them right? They don't want to just be stuck in this thing. You never talk to them again. So it might be like everyone on this move up checklist, we call them seven days or five days and just stay top of mind. You could also have an email or an automatic text happening throughout this process. So like when someone schedules their appointment, send them a text. Hey, glad that you're on the schedule, look forward to serving you. Then send them an email, you know, after three days, which is like, hey, when we're going to be out there for your service, here's how you can prepare for this. Then you send them an email about your company, you and get them more bought in about your business. So that way they're not going to look elsewhere and say, oh, this company's not professional, they're not legit. It will solidify their decision to work with you and wait to work with you. And I think that's the key part, is that you have to build almost this aura around your business and this professionalism that people are willing to wait because of the way that you've treated them through that process. And that's why I think text and email automation is so, so important or even just staying in contact with these people to make them feel like they are getting taken care of and that you have their best interest in mind. The 6 one is going to be having a referral partner in place to refer business out to. It might not be the right price. You might have surge pricing and they're like, oh no, I want to work with this company. Or it's like, I can't wait four weeks for this or I need this done today. You need to have someone in your back pocket that you can refer to. And we had this at the Duckling company. We had two companies that we were like, okay, cool, no worries, call this person and they're going to take care of you. And they would give us a kickback for sending them leads. We would get a bunch of leads during surge pricing and we might not be able to get to all of these people, but having other team, other companies in your back pocket that you can make money off of these relationships and still at least pay for the lead or pay a little bit more than the lead. So that way you're not losing out and you're still adding value to these people. So what we would say is, hey, totally get it. You need someone out there today. Here's a company that we recommend. They have good reviews. Obviously they're a competitor of ours. Call them, see if they can help you. If not, they let's actually just get you on the schedule for four weeks out. When you call them, if you need to cancel, just give us a call back. But at least you're going to get your problem solved and they're going to take care of you. From what we know based off our experience working with them, a lot of people are going to watch this and say, oh my gosh, I would never have a competitor. I would never recommend a competitor. I would never do that. At the end of the day, you're not the hero. The customer is the hero that has a problem and you're the guy that's trying to solve that problem for them. That's why I put this last. If you go through all these checklists, like, hey, what's your urgency? Like, what's your surge? Like, can we get you on a call ahead list? And everything you're met with is, no, no, no, no, no, no. To be honest, they might not be the right customer for you. They probably are going to be a headache customer that needs things done right now and they probably are going to price gouge you on things. This is why I always recommend, hey, let's give them to someone else and dodge this bullet. To be honest, like, you go through this checklist and it's like, this is probably not the right person for us because we try to get them on the board for all these things. Clearly they're not accommodating and they're not willing to work with us on things. So probably not the right fit. All right, so those are the six ways I know for a fact that businesses face this problem and a lot of them don' lead management plan in place. So I can't strongly urge you enough to implement a lead management system in place. So when it's like, hey, we're in search time, this is what we do and everyone's on the same page, that way you're not just throwing money at marketing or sales or commission or leads without actually having a game plan to capitalize on all the good stuff that you have been building for to get to this moment and that's all just going to slip through the cracks. If you like content like this, be sure to hit like and subscribe. I'm curious to hear it. Like, do you do anything else when you have surge time? Put a comment below and I'll see you in the next video.