Protect Profit Through Seasonality

Demand may slow down during the off season. Your overhead will not. When calls drop and crew days go unfilled, margin can disappear fast. Keeping profit through seasonality requires adjustments to marketing, managing capacity, and creating new opportunities.

In this episode of Cracking The Code, Brad Barron and Jason Walker break down how contractors can protect profit through seasonal shifts. From building a 12-month plan and preparing promotions in advance to managing capacity, creating urgency, and keeping teams engaged, they share practical and tested ways to keep thriving even when the weather shifts.

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00:00:00:04 – 00:00:18:22

Sometimes it’s hard for people to understand that it’s okay to spend 3 or $500 for a lead, because if you don’t fill that crew day, you’re losing 1500 to $2500. So every time we don’t happily involve the homeowner. With a club membership as minimal as you might think it is for 199 or 1799, you’re losing a $30,000 investment.

00:00:18:24 – 00:00:34:21

I don’t let them see the next call in those gaggle, because if you do, they’re already thinking about it. And what they’re doing is by looking at the next call, a lot of times they’re stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. They’re thinking about what’s next. What’s next?

00:00:34:26 – 00:00:59:43

What’s up? Y’all are listening to another episode of Cracking the Code. I love it every time you do it. You got your host, Jay Dub, as well as Boom Boom. Brad Brennan. Yeah. Brad Brennan, Brad baron, Barry brennan. Oh, how about this? I’m gonna put you on the spot. I think I need a nickname on the spot. The firecracker.

00:00:59:45 – 00:01:24:36

The firecracker. Yeah. You know why? Why? Because when you think with tongue twister. Because when you make things happen. Yeah. 4th of July, 4th of July. 4th of July. That’s what I like it. All right, so we got Jay Dub in the firecracker. There you go. Like that firecracker. Just see. And there we go.

00:01:24:40 – 00:01:41:09

That’s how we end the episodes. I like it, all right. You guys just got to discover it. See, sometimes you’re in the discovery with us, right? We’re new to this. We’re good times. But this episode, we are talking about seasonality. We are. We’re talking about seasonality and people plans. So because I think that they go hand in hand.

00:01:41:12 – 00:02:05:31

I think so too. So start with that real quick. Talk about talk about real quick. So hang on, hang on. Talk about you know, we’re transitioning from summer to cool season. Yeah. When do you start to that planning process for changing of the season? We we come up with a 12 month plan and so we understand. So we’re from Seattle Washington right.

00:02:05:31 – 00:02:23:40

So we understand that at the end of the day we want to understand our seasonality. We have peaks and we have shoulders right. But we’ve been doing business long enough. And I’m sure you can understand this to at least generally from the California weather. There’s times where you’re going to need to market and there’s times or you’re not.

00:02:23:43 – 00:02:39:55

There’s times you’re going to need to hire. And there’s times when you’re not. And so at the end of the day, we come up with a 12 month plan. Our plan is a marketing plan. It’s tied into revenue and it’s tied into people. And we do that. We build that out every single October of November of every single year.

00:02:39:55 – 00:02:59:24

So I’m a big I’m an engineer. Like I said, social nerd, as my dad says. But I like to dot my eyes, cross my T’s, have a plan. We have to be able to modify the plan as it goes. If weather doesn’t get hot or cold, but at the end of the day, have the plan understand what you need to do to execute that plan.

00:02:59:28 – 00:03:19:09

I think I just said plan seven times because that’s how much I believe in plan, plan, plan planned plan. Right. Yeah. I mean, talk about real quick last season. Right. So, so last year, I mean, rolling in, a lot of people say that they didn’t have the best summer. Yeah. So if you plan on having a good summer.

00:03:19:09 – 00:03:47:02

Right. And you didn’t execute having a good summer and you’re going into seasonality, right. How do you shift? Well, you have to have a marketing plan. So at the end of the day our marketing plan is different tiers. I think before we dive too deep into that though, I’m going to pause for a moment and say, if you don’t have a plan and you’re not filling capacity, overhead doesn’t sleep and overhead eat the profits, it was going to eat the profits of your company, period.

00:03:47:04 – 00:04:05:07

And so I’ll go around and I coach and mentor and work with people all across the United States. Sometimes it’s harder for people to understand that it’s okay to spend 3 or $500 for a lead, because if you don’t fill that crew day, you’re losing 1500 to $2500, depending on your overhead structure. And they don’t look at it like that.

00:04:05:09 – 00:04:31:08

They don’t. They just look at it as the small. Yes. And so that’s where multi-level marketing comes in. A multi-level marketing comes in. So if it’s hot. We have it’s like code green at beginning. Right. Like we don’t need to run any discounts or promotions because demand is driving repairs. You go down into the yellow and that would be like like we’re getting to the point where maybe like a day out, I want my sales team, and I say this in the best way possible to break operations.

00:04:31:09 – 00:04:58:00

I want them to be thinking about how do I spin off another crew, how do I, you know, hire someone or do whatever they can to to labor pool flex pull from service over to install because service is slow but installs busy or whatever it is force ops to figure out how to change and evolve, right? So that’s why I say I like I don’t want to be a three day out company, but I want to push sales to the point where operations is feeling that I love it, right?

00:04:58:02 – 00:05:17:12

I love it because friction is healthy, right? A lot of people don’t like that in a business. But no, you want some friction. So yeah, I like that you said that because as I said, right. I’m always next day. How can we slam these things in, not slam them in, but install them, right. Because the emotion. Because the emotions that right people buy off of emotion.

00:05:17:14 – 00:05:47:43

They do. And so I always felt that if you’re 72 hours out or life happens, right, they go to church the weekend, somebody knows somebody leaves too much opportunity to to have them potentially lose that opportunity. 100%. But I like the way that you explained it because again, I’m always a student, right? So when you’re talking about putting your management team and your supervisors and having them put on pretty much like the hot seat, figure it out, right.

00:05:47:45 – 00:06:10:30

Do we need to to bring someone else because we’re a little bit slower on service to make another install crew? Yeah. But that’s I like to see that. Hey, our focus point is to to break whatever’s going on. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And again, break in the best way possible. Correct. Well, and it goes to I mean, think about like, you know, if you work out or you’re trying to, you know, grow your muscles like, you know, I’m always trying to do that’s not.

00:06:10:36 – 00:06:30:02

You got some big red not working very well. But I’m trying. But what do you want that now. How do you mean? Yeah, yeah, just a little bit. Yeah. So, no. When muscles grow in order to grow, they first have to break. They have to tear. Right. And I think an organization there’s a lot of similarities. You have to.

00:06:30:04 – 00:06:48:09

And we don’t want to go for full break. Right. But like tear a little bit. Right. Like push that envelope. And I think that if you really want to thrive and grow each shoulder season and then go into the peak season, the brakes are what are going to give you those opportunities to be able to grow now. Coming down the other side.

00:06:48:12 – 00:07:08:31

Right. That is where that’s everyone’s fear, right? The the monster that lives beyond peak season. Right. Like what happens when demand goes away. And there’s things that as contractors, we need to do. So going back to the weather though, because I don’t want to bypass that I got from green to yellow. There is also code red, right? So like if you are starting to experience not full cruise.

00:07:08:33 – 00:07:30:19

Right. All hands on deck, right. Like what does that look like? You need to have a, I think 2 to 3 different strong promotions that you can run even in peak season. What’s one of them? You know, a percent off plus 12 months cash financing or I’m a big fan. This is a new thing for Barron. Not new necessarily, but we’ve sort of released into it.

00:07:30:21 – 00:07:49:28

I don’t like to bastardized pricing, so I’m I don’t jump first necessarily to percent off or dollars off of that will do that. We do have really good rebates. So we talk about rebates too. But I like to empower homeowners to be able to choose. And so we have a price book that gives them the ability. We have a seven tiered price book.

00:07:49:28 – 00:08:07:52

So they get to go through that and figure out a sort of choose your own adventure on on what product it is. But we have a similar thing with promotions or add ons. So like for example, we might say pick two of these seven options. And I found that to be really valuable because then they’re choosing from Barron and not choosing Barron versus a different contractor.

00:08:07:55 – 00:08:26:33

We’re giving them multiple options to choose in a home, whether it’s system type and price point and then promotion or special. Right. And so it’s sort of like these two, I call them playgrounds that they get to play in. Right. One is the pricing and equipment selection playground. And then the other is the promo playground. And it seems to work pretty well.

00:08:26:40 – 00:08:51:15

The importance of processes and procedures and going into seasonality. Right? Right. Making sure that your team is running what your processes and procedures are. Right. How do you go about making sure that your team is running and holding them accountable as you’re shifting seasons? I guess my question is, is what do you do with the people to hold them accountable in the swing shift of the seasons?

00:08:51:16 – 00:09:23:19

Transparency and accountability. Right. You can’t hold someone accountable, something if it’s not transparent. Like if you don’t set expectations ahead of time and have transparency there, how the heck are you going to hold them accountable to it? And I think that people shy away from clarity, right? Like Bernie Brown, clear as kind. Right. It’s true. I my upbringing was one in which I maybe I didn’t always want to be vulnerable and transparent because I thought that was maybe weak.

00:09:23:24 – 00:09:51:00

Right. But in business we talked about culturally last episode. I mean, you can’t not be vulnerable and transparent, right? Like that’s imperative. But then I take it a step beyond that. Then how do you dovetail that once you built the trust and then lean into the why. The why is there. But you do need bumpers and guardrails. So like we’re not all going to hold hands and sing Kumba ya like there needs to be clear cut expectations of what that is.

00:09:51:02 – 00:10:14:50

Now that’s that’s expectations again, based on this foundation, this beautiful foundation of trust and respect and understanding. But you got to have that. And so there’s another thing too I used to say like, you can’t build any or you can’t convict without connection. You got to build that connection first before you can convict. And by convict I don’t mean like, you know, throw them in jail, convict.

00:10:14:52 – 00:10:36:14

I mean, like, actually have change happen in their hearts and minds, right? You got to have connection. And I think that the same goes for you can’t hold people accountable to something if you don’t have that connection in that trust. So it’s why it’s transparency. It’s, it’s it’s it’s specifically laid out. It’s a, you know, whatever, 1112 page document that some people might look at and go, that’s overcome them.

00:10:36:14 – 00:10:54:26

Like, no, because I get to sit down and we get to point to exactly what it is that we’re asking them to do, and it also shares why we’re doing it right. And it makes it really easy. So clear as kind as we’re talking about, you know, seasonality and keeping the board full and everything because that’s very important, right.

00:10:54:31 – 00:11:19:00

How many calls? Because I hear a wide range being a trainer of how many calls technicians or how many calls should be on the board. Right. What do you feel like is a good amount of calls? And then how do you also maintain those calls. So multi-part question. So we’re multi trade. We do service and sales. So we have what the industry calls comfort advisors.

00:11:19:00 – 00:11:36:52

We call them home performance experts. But we have outside sales and we have text. So we don’t have selling text. And each department set up like that each department set up like that. On the sales side, most of our sales professionals are cross trade, meaning that they could sell HVAC or generators or water heaters. Most are set up that way.

00:11:36:55 – 00:12:10:19

We have some specialties. So at Barron we’re in a boiler hydronic market because we’re in the northwest. So we have specialty designers and salespeople that do boiler systems or combi systems. We also have a specialty solar team of salespeople that do solar design for our solar group. But when it comes to sort of those mechanical systems, like, again, HVAC generators, water heaters, usually it’s a sales team that is selling those types of products or services.

00:12:10:19 – 00:12:33:26

And so you ask a really good question. I mean, at the end of the day, making sure that I think making sure that they understand what they’re doing is really important. They understand the price book and they’re trained on it. All ties in, I guess, to setting expectations. So one thing you talked about a little bit ago was your marketing.

00:12:33:30 – 00:13:04:33

Yeah, right. And transitioning, you know, understanding what your marketing is. But transitioning during during seasonality of peak and where you’re at. And I understand that every state, every city is different based off marketing. Right. Totally at bearing. Where where did you find your most assess with marketing? And then also two point question, as a smaller company for the listeners out there, you know, and I could speak on this with the royalty side.

00:13:04:38 – 00:13:28:40

A lot of it was sweat equity at first. Right? And then you start developing billboards and commercials and radio ads and things like that. But when is it apparent to do that, do you feel? Yeah. I mean, I think that there are certain avenues that are low cost and easy to get into. And there’s guerrilla marketing opportunities, especially during shoulder seasons that should be implemented and can be.

00:13:28:45 – 00:13:47:00

My grandpa Dan, who started Barron, used to say that a marketing team, first and foremost, should look at marketing as if we had no money to spend. What would we do? Right. I modify that. I say that if you wanted to create the biggest bang for your buck, the least spend with the biggest ROI, what would you do?

00:13:47:02 – 00:14:12:40

Right. And so there’s different avenues. But first and foremost, if you’re getting leads at all, like any leads from any source, that call should be maximized, right? So you asked earlier about how many calls, whether it’s a sales person or whether it’s a service tech marketing ties into that because my view is that when we go out, if we’re a sale outside sales or a technician, we’ve already spent the money to get in the home.

00:14:12:40 – 00:14:32:09

That is our most valuable moment. It’s why I technicians, I don’t let them see the next call in there. Oh, we’ll talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. But like because if you do they’re already thinking about it. Correct. I just spent whether it was depending on lead type 30 bucks to 300 bucks, whatever it is to get that technician out to the house.

00:14:32:14 – 00:14:49:04

Like maximize that call right now. Right. And what they’re doing is by looking at the next call, a lot of times they’re stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. They’re thinking about what’s next, what’s next. And what I always tell everyone is you’ve got to take the blinders off, okay. You got to understand multi trades like you’re doing.

00:14:49:16 – 00:15:11:12

If you’re there for a HVAC call benefit the company take the blinders off. Look at the water heater. Look at the electrical. How can you get another employee in the door. Because again when you’re multi trades like how you are I would rather as a consumer be under one umbrella. Oh 100% with whatever needs to be done in my own personal home or my compound.

00:15:11:14 – 00:15:38:21

Then to have other contractors, multiple contractors in and out trying to deal with whatever it is, especially if trust has been built. If you trust them, why would you call anyone else? Exactly. And that goes into to marketing, precision tuning, marketing and memberships and all that. So but yeah, I would say that if we’re looking at what I was getting at is that I think that marketing channels and the amount of calls that you run matter.

00:15:38:36 – 00:16:01:40

And I think they’re to really important topics that should not be glanced over. My home performance experts are outside. Salespeople ideally run two calls a day. And I know that sounds insane, but I find that a two plus our call is required to achieve a 60 to 70% close. Right. Like, if you’re going to close at that level, it should be two, maybe peak season three calls in a day.

00:16:01:43 – 00:16:23:33

Right. So 15 max a week. I have a big sales team because I’m okay only giving them two calls a day, even in peak season. Yeah. And then I want them to be helping us create opportunities and children’s reasons. So and I always tell everyone as a sales professional, right. Even a technician, you’re your own company within the company.

00:16:23:36 – 00:16:43:43

Yes. Right. If they feed you to an entrepreneurial field, it’s not. It’s not always gimme, gimme, gimme. And I really want the listeners to understand this. It’s how can I help the company when I don’t have the opportunity? Because, again, too many people go home. They go back to the office. They fart around at the office. Right. You don’t want that happening.

00:16:43:43 – 00:17:06:16

You want them to go create opportunity, go shake hands, go to their installs, make sure that what they promise gets delivered right. I always look at and I always highly stress. This is when you’re bringing on a club membership. Yes. Okay. It’s not, you know, 1999 a month or 199 for the year or whatever it is. I always ask the question of what is the value of that loss to the company.

00:17:06:21 – 00:17:26:33

And a lot of times the technicians don’t understand it and they think it’s the 199 to 17 whatever that equivalents to the year. Right. But they don’t understand the bigger picture that okay, our end mission is to retain them as a client, continue our service for multiple years. So the end game, we get the system or whatever it is when it fails.

00:17:26:48 – 00:17:55:16

But then we do such a great job that they refer us to someone in the process. Starts again. Yes. So every time we don’t happily involve the homeowner, with the club membership as minimal as you might think it is for 199 or 1799, you’re losing a $30,000 investment. You are? Yeah, no I agree. And again, that goes back to how do you market and how do you spend marketing money effectively once going back to what I said, once you’re in the home, maximize the opportunity, right.

00:17:55:19 – 00:18:20:21

Don’t let your service techs see what’s coming next. Right. And then make sure that your salespeople have the time needed to connect and grow. But yeah, I mean we’ve been doing at Barron Multi Trade Contracting, you know what since 2018. What was the biggest trade to add on. What do you mean by biggest. Well the hardest trade. Sorry to bring on like the most challenging trade facets of electrical were challenging.

00:18:20:21 – 00:18:42:16

So like if you’re listening on the call wanting to scale into other trade verticals by the way, other trade verticals help with seasonality immensely, right? Because I can fill shoulder seasons that because at the end of the day, remember the company overhead is the company overhead, right? And so just because HVAC isn’t busy during certain times of year doesn’t mean generators can’t be or solar energy or water heaters.

00:18:42:31 – 00:19:18:40

The plumbing is unique because plumbing doesn’t really have a ton of seasonality. It’s, you know, most people poop during the day. You know, and most people shower, hopefully. Right. Or they might shower more if they’re going through puberty or whatever is happening. Right. The high school. You know, sports guys and gals. But at the end of the day, understanding that in a home you have opportunities that are cross trade and understanding that whether it’s electrical you want to get into or plumbing, that the juice is worth the squeeze to go do that.

00:19:18:45 – 00:19:42:00

Just find people that have done it before. Yeah. Find companies that have done it before and then don’t recreate the. We’ll figure out how to scale into that new vertical. But you know, electrical and plumbing. When we went to both those electrical and 18 and plumbing in 19, they were both exciting and challenging for different reasons. Right. In Washington state.

00:19:42:04 – 00:19:59:00

Similar to California. Licensure for electricians is challenging. It takes a long time to get licensure here. When you look at plumbing, I don’t know if I guess I made an assumption. I’m assuming California’s that way, is it not? I don’t know what get hard for licensure and electrical. I’d imagine that it takes a couple of years to get it.

00:19:59:02 – 00:20:30:09

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We’re two for residential for for commercial. It’s not as hard as Texas. Texas is. Is it okay to get plumbing? Well, Washington’s hard so anyway. And so it just takes time to get there. And time is money and so. Absolutely. And you know, when you go in any trade that takes time to get licensure, not just learning skills, but to get licensure like the loss of a lead or the loss of a helper is is immense, right.

00:20:30:12 – 00:20:54:52

And so you can’t it goes back to what we talked about about culture in previous episode of creating systems that get people excited about having fun at a company and all those things. But both were hard and and fun at the same time. Electrical came first Baron because we wanted to support our HVAC installs, right? When we went from a furnace to an add on AC or a heat pump, right.

00:20:54:55 – 00:21:15:45

So gas to electric or dual fuel. We needed an electrician up up in Washington state to be able to do that work. So electrical was a no brainer for us. It’s like okay. I’d rather not sub that out. I want to do that work. Let’s bring it in. House plumbing was just a complementary service for us. Like if you’re at the furnace or heat pump, what’s typically right around that?

00:21:15:48 – 00:21:37:36

Yeah. Water. The water heater and water heaters have a lesser life expectancy than age vac system. So if you wanted an immediate crossover and you know, customer list pollination, it’s not a bad way to go. But plumbers are a different breed to oh, they’re all different breeds. Yeah, it’s sort of funny. It’s like there’s all these different personalities with them.

00:21:37:38 – 00:22:03:16

It’s it’s wild. Yeah, it’s wild that, you know, you have your different, you know, your HVAC trade mindset, your plumbing trade mindset, your electrical solar. Yeah. And everyone has different mindset. Believes the way they think, the way that they take and everything. As we’re talking about, you know, transitioning and seasonality and everything like that, holding the team accountable and making sure that we’re bypassing and crushing those opportunities.

00:22:03:16 – 00:22:41:26

Right. During October, November, December, at least in California, is where royalty, we really got to dial in for our seasonality because you have all the the holidays, people traveling, things like that. So how do you capitalize on those opportunities? Right. Building urgency, like you said, I think urgency, even even when you are in a point in summer where the demand is there, I’m always telling, you know, my employees, what are we going to do to create urgency while we’re at the appointment to have them create and make a decision today?

00:22:41:26 – 00:23:06:52

Because, again, if they’re systems operational, okay. And you’re going out there for two up and you did find some things that are wrong with the system. But it’s like on the borderline manufacturer specs, right. How do you create the urgency to have them pull that trigger? Yeah, I mean, I think that your marketing strategy is is tied into that 100%, like there is seasonality or lack of weather, right?

00:23:06:55 – 00:23:31:52

Especially in HVAC demands something that compels someone to go, I should act now. Right. And our job as sales professionals, right. If we’re in the sales world and again, I’m a sales engineer, so it’s probably more up your alley on all those different techniques. But what I would say from my perspective, from what I’ve seen as having success, is that we need to be able to come alongside the homeowner after we’ve gotten them excited about what we have to offer.

00:23:31:57 – 00:23:49:33

We’ve gotten them excited about who we are as a company, and then we need to get them excited about why they should move now, right? Like why they should make that decision now. And so your marketing and promotions need to be aligned with that. Why? There needs to be an ability to go in and say, oh, and by the way, if we do it now, like here’s what you get.

00:23:49:36 – 00:24:17:11

Letting them know that about every six months you’re going to see pricing go up about 5%, right. Like that’s what it is. And then customers go, really? I’m like yeah. So like like we absolutely. If someone’s like I want to say it’s spring and I’m like, I want to wait till fall. Great. Absolutely no problem. But then you can still bring up the fact that there is a possibility, when we go to that time that we’ll see a price increase and it might be more expensive, you’re more than welcome to wait, and we’re happy to do the work for you when that time comes.

00:24:17:12 – 00:24:37:02

But you bring in some urgency in that capacity. So you need to find ways, whether it’s through promos or through real data, not not BS, but real facts in the industry that create urgency. But you do that after, and I’m sure we were talking about that after. You’ve built trust with a customer and got them excited about the equipment and the brand, period.

00:24:37:04 – 00:25:00:04

100% agree with you 100%. Yeah, not 110. Just just 100%. Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, I guess when you. So you’re two years in, right, to work in your business. What have you found with your technicians and salespeople mindsets to be the most challenging coming off of peak season? Because we’re in peak season now right when this episode airs, it’s the team is tired.

00:25:00:07 – 00:25:23:19

Yeah, yeah. I’m going to tell you right now, we’ve been blessed this summer. Yeah. Where again, I don’t want to over hire and then fire. I’m not one of those employees that make talk about a morale booster. Exactly right. When you’re, you know, talking to your employees and everything and you’re going through these seasonality and these checkpoints and things like that, right?

00:25:23:21 – 00:25:53:24

You have to hold them accountable. You got to you got to show them that you’re willing to invest right in what they’re doing. You know? Yeah. Well, if we’re not willing to invest, what was your question to me again? Well, just when you’re looking at high level two years into running a business and you’re going from essentially peak season, crazy season and trying to coach your team members transitioning into shoulder season, I mean, you made a right comment like, peak season is tiring and exhausting.

00:25:53:24 – 00:26:14:07

Oh yeah. How do you how do you like. And then you go into shoulder season where there’s less demand and you’re asking them to actually probably work harder, harder, longer, but hard, harder in order to get those leads across the finish line. So what is your like rah rah as the leader of that company? Like, how are you getting them fired up when they’re tired showing being there with them.

00:26:14:19 – 00:26:36:09

So for instance, when my my team is tired and I’m home, you know, I show up right 4th of July at their installing, I’m going to show up at the install and lead by example. Right. Because they do get tired. My my team’s right now. They’re you know we’re talking about two appointments. Three appointments. Yeah. We’re at the point where we’re probably running 4 or 5 appointments a day.

00:26:36:12 – 00:27:04:24

Sure. Where they’re running 12, 13, 14 hour days. On top of that, installs are installing consistent, which again, they’re not used to doing one install consistently a day. Right. And then you add one consistent. And then we have another install crew. So now we’ve been consistent two installs a day. So it takes a toll on them when they’re working and they’re not used to, you know from other companies within our market that they ended up coming over.

00:27:04:26 – 00:27:27:00

They were only working. And this is all over my market companies right now in peak season right now, busy time are only working there guys, maybe 2 or 3 days a week. What? Yes. Why? I don’t know, I don’t know, I’ve never seen that. We’re we’re we’re we’re at. Yeah. Really. Our are people run for to keep them from being burnt out.

00:27:27:00 – 00:27:42:38

But they run for full long days like we don’t say for tens. We say for days. I made that mistake early on. We’re going to run for tens. And they’re like, I ran 14, 16. Yeah, yeah you’re right. Sorry. Four days, but you get three day weekends. But we do run for days, weeks and on our service crews to keep them from burning out.

00:27:42:45 – 00:28:04:50

Give them three days of respite. I think burnout is a big thing. With with just the the general of employees, when you’re working them as much as you’re working them and trying to get the results that you want. Right. And talking about culture on the last episode as a business owner. And I want the business owners to listen to this because this is important.

00:28:04:50 – 00:28:22:36

How often are we barking orders of what we want to obtain as a business? Right. But we don’t know what our employees want. We don’t know what’s important to our employees. So that’s also one thing that makes us different at royalty is you walk into our office, every employee has a vision board on the wall. Oh, I love that we did that with our leadership team, too.

00:28:22:38 – 00:28:40:52

It was an awesome exercise. Yeah, I like the idea of rolling it out to everyone. That’s great. And because now and then we put it in the office because now it’s in front of them every single day. So when they do want to go home early as a manager, my supervisor, they could say, hey, you wanted to pay off your pool this year.

00:28:40:55 – 00:28:56:48

Let me ask you a question. If you take today off at 3:00. Do you think that’s going to benefit you? Yeah. Based off your mission. Because now it holds them accountable? Sure. Just like we hold them accountable. You wrote it on the board, right? Exactly. Yeah. So it has to be a win win. And I’m a big believer as a business owner.

00:28:56:48 – 00:29:28:45

Just don’t bark your orders but understand what they want to achieve and make sure that they achieve it and celebrate it. Yeah that’s the big thing, right? Awesome. Well, that’s a lot on seasonality. What do you think we close out. What’s one last thing for the listeners that they or viewers for that matter? Would a good takeaway if you feel like your company’s going to be restricted during the season change, understand that hyper focus on marketing.

00:29:28:45 – 00:29:57:19

And if you’re a newer company, it doesn’t have to be the billboards and everything like that. Like royalty we just invested in this year. Sweat equity goes a long ways. Social media marketing goes a long ways, right? Everybody’s on their phone digitally. But services also go to Digital’s great pick. The lowest cost, highest return. By the way, if you look at our digital, over 50% of our digital leads come from Google Local service and we’re a 45 plus million dollar company.

00:29:57:19 – 00:30:12:26

So don’t forget about Google Local services. Don’t forget about it. Forget about it. Now, as we’re ending cracking the code, I got to ask you, what’s the big takeaway on this episode you want them to leave with? Yeah. Everybody listening right now? I know I asked you, now you just ask me. I’m gonna turn it back on you.

00:30:12:28 – 00:30:33:26

Yeah. No, I think this is the engineering me coming out, but I think having a marketing plan and understanding what your levers are green, yellow, red and having training and conviction of the why behind that is going to be imperative to not only success during peak season, but also if the weather doesn’t show up. Like, how do we turn those levers on?

00:30:33:26 – 00:30:58:04

Because at the end of the day, if you do not recover overhead, if you do not fill that crew day, you have money just going down the drain. It’s not just the opportunity cost lost or missed. It is overhead going down the drain. So plan ahead. Be ready to go. Be ready to flip those things on. Also, when we talk about culture, keeping crews busy is maintaining solid culture too, so don’t forget the importance of that.

00:30:58:09 – 00:31:13:55

But that being said, I always you got to do the you got to try it. You want to try to do it. I’m not going to do it. Until next time, check you out on cracking the code. Okay. Nice work. Wait, firecracker.