We Lost $500k in ONE Month

The Secret to Navigating Shoulder Season

Sup,

Shoulder season sucks.

Most companies feel it hard. They’ve got 50 techs and 40 of them sitting at home, waiting for work that isn’t coming.

We do things differently.

Before we get into the juice…

Marketing for Success

Service Scalers has helped us to deliver the leads we need to scale Wilson, and their expertise in SEO, PPC, LSA, and GMB marketing has been a game-changer.

Last year their partnership helped us achieve 46% year-over-year growth and this year is going to be even bigger!

If you're in the trades and ready to grow your marketing channels, I can’t recommend them enough.

We’ve built our business to weather slow seasons without layoffs or taking a hit on margins. How? Variable cost structure.

Let’s say we did $2.5M in January but only $2M in February—that’s a $500K drop in revenue. Instead of eating the loss, we adjust costs to match. Here’s how:

✅ CSRs earn commission, not just salary – When call volume drops, costs drop too. But when the phones ring, they’re highly motivated to book every single job.

✅ Techs & managers get performance-based bonuses – If revenue dips, so do bonuses, keeping fixed payroll lower while still rewarding performance in busy months.

✅ No massive inventory bills – We run just-in-time purchasing, so we’re never stuck paying for equipment we don’t need during slow periods.

✅ Marketing spend adjusts daily – We actively manage ad spend based on our 3-day call board, so we’re not throwing money at leads when demand is low.

The goal? Make 90% of our costs variable. Some things—like rent and truck payments—will always be fixed, but everything else should flex with demand.

Oh and while we’re talking about getting that cash flowing again... Check out Modernize.

Modernize is an awesome tool that can get more leads flowing into your call center from day one of integration.

We’re using them for water quality leads and they check in with us every week to keep things dialed in. Last month? We pulled a 576% ROI.

If you need better leads, check them out.

Another LEGEND Has Been Added to The Series

Paul Reed from Northwest Roofing shares his journey from chasing business opportunities to running a multi-state roofing business including the route to building permanent locations and what it really takes to scale a roofing company.

Whether you're a roofing pro or just looking to grow your home service business, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

Have a great weekend. 👊👊

John

We’ve got a new series cooking on the Owned and Operated Podcast. My co-host Jack Carr is diving deep into Acquisitions in the Home Service Industry with exclusive content. Want to stay in the loop? Vote in the poll below!

Disclosure: This newsletter includes sponsored content. However, all opinions expressed are entirely my own.