every July the work load always drops off to nothing

[orion_joel]

I think that you will find the the times actually make sense. Mid fall as you say for showing off at christmas. Winter could be slow as you may find that people dont like to be inconvenienced at this time of year, especially if it is cold they dont want the house open for you to go in an out, they just want things working. While late winter they want things done they have been planning to get done, but been putting off over winter for this reason.

Early summer may be another similar point people want things working in the hot time of the year, nothing like being in the middle of summer getting hot and sweaty and not having a shower working for a day or two while some work is getting done.

Finally can also understand the 1 month after school is out, people go away on vacation or dont want work done when they have the kids home from school. Many different reasons.

Seeing that you are seeing a bit of a smoothing effect so far, it comes down to looking at ways to push this even further, to try and have a much more consistent and even increaseing level of work. While i also think that your idea for the $20 voucher may get you some smaller jobs. I think looking at other types of business may be an idea. Some examples i thought of
- Try and get in on doing work for local government bodies.
- Are you on the books at local estate agents, for maintenance on rental properties they have. I would expect these type of places don't go to the phone book when they need work they would have a list of people they use consistently.
- You mentioned not long ago on one of your problem's that you had to get someone to snake the pipe in a kitchen, a number of times. Even paying for one of them yourself. What would it cost you to get the equipment to do this yourself, and would it be worth your while, to add this to your services?
- How about working with other companies that require plumbing work for installing their product. Eg suppliers of commercial espresso machines, other electrical suppliers, (eg dishwasers).
- Finally how about adding other semi plumbing products to your product range, things like water filter systems, i am sure there are possibly others as well.

Some of these may not be plumbing solely, however things like the last idea, could potentially lead to a lot of work, especially if it is a under serviced market in your area.

[huggytree]

1. gov work...ive always shy'd away from this because i assume most of it will be in Milwaukee (bad neighborhoods) and go to the lowest bidder...i should look into it more though
2. rental properties....they wont pay my prices...handymen is who they hire
3.snaking out my own drains....it maybe would get me 1 job a week to 1 a month...for a 1 hour job id get very dirty.....not interested at all!!!!....no one would pay my price when guys who do drain cleaning only are probably 1/2 of what id have to charge.yuck!!
4. machine installer....ive looked into fireplace installers for their gas lines....i should expand into this idea a bit...there may be something here for me
5. water filter systems...i do that already...there are guys out there who can install watersofteners for 33% less than me.....they are charging $600 to supply/install the unit while i pay $500 for the unit....i cant compete here at all...thats all they do and obviously they get a super price or their unit is junk....i also do iron filters and RO units...ive maybe done 4 water softeners, 1 iron filter, 2 RO units my whole career....id love to do more, but people hire a water specialist for these things and they arent licensed plumbers..

thanks for the idea's...you gave me 2 new one's to think about...

[billbenson]

On the Gov't stuff huggy, bid high. Competing with low bidders won't make you any money. However, on large gov't projects, you may be such a small piece of the puzzle that they don't look for the low bidder, they just look for the first bidder. I've gotten quite a few orders that way. Just don't spend a lot of time doing the quote, just inflate it.

[huggytree]

any suggestions on how to find the govt. work?

i found the stimulus obama work a while back...i didnt do anything they needed.

I also found some urban housing development work in milwaukee...replacing waterheaters...i assumed it meant going into the inner city (hell)......

all the govt. work seemed difficult to understand....it wasnt layed out to be easy to understand....simple & govt. are opposites....cant wait for govt.health care

[therestaurantbiz]

We have found this in the 2 years that we have been running our small business. It scared us so much in year one however you need to keep the faith that the customers will return when they have finished their vacations!

Year 2 we have planned for this by reducing capacity & suggesting that everyone takes their holidays in July. Happy days all round :-)

[prettyimpress]

The same thing happened to my friends company. I think this is the law of market. We have nothing to do but obey it.
In fact, we can do some other things during this period. For example, do some prepare job or just enjoy our lives.