What to do when the work goes quiet

Quiet months are when trades make their worst spending decisions. Here is the order that actually works, from free and immediate to slow and structural.

The instinct in a quiet week is to buy leads or drop prices. Both work for about a fortnight and both cost you afterwards — one by burning cash, the other by resetting what your customers think you are worth.

This week: free, and it works in days

1. Ring your last twenty customers. Not a pitch — a check that the work is holding up. A meaningful share of trades get a job straight out of this, and the rest get remembered.
2. Ask your trade mates on site. The sparkie you were on a job with last month knows three people who need you.
3. Fix your Google profile. Free, five minutes, and it works while you sleep: the guide.
4. Ask for the reviews you never asked for, one message each, no chasing: how.

This month: cheap, and it works in weeks

• Get your service area written down properly on your site, by suburb.
• Sort out the maintenance or service-plan version of what you do, so some income carries through the next quiet patch instead of you having this month again.
• Put your prices, or ranges, in the open. It filters the tyre-kickers out before they cost you an evening.

The pattern worth noticing: everything on the first list is a relationship you already have. Quiet months are usually not a demand problem — they are a visibility problem with the people who already know you.

What not to do

Do not sign a twelve-month marketing contract in a panic. Do not drop your rate to win a job you will resent. And do not buy a website expecting it to work next week — it is the structural fix that stops next year's quiet month, not this one's.

If the same month is quiet every year, that is not bad luck; it is a pattern you can build for. That is a conversation worth having before the next one arrives — tell us what is happening and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.