How to keep the phone ringing in January

Ask most trades when their worst month is and they'll say January without pausing.

Everyone's skint after Christmas. The weather's foul. Nobody's thinking about a new bathroom. You go from turning work away in October to checking your phone in January.

Here's the thing though: it's the same every year. That makes it predictable, and predictable problems can be worked on in advance. The trouble is that the work has to happen in October, when you're too busy to think about January.

Why it happens

Two reasons, and they're different problems.

People aren't spending. Nothing you can do about that.

People aren't thinking about you. That one you can absolutely do something about, and it's most of the gap.

Somebody who had you out in March isn't avoiding you in January. They've just forgotten your name and lost your number.

Do this in October and November

Go back through last year's customers. Not to sell them anything — just to be back in their head. A short message: "Hope the bathroom's still doing you well. If anything needs looking at over the winter, give me a shout."

Some will have a job they've been putting off. Most won't. But you're now the name they think of in February when the boiler packs in.

Ask for the reviews you never asked for. Every happy customer from the past year is a review you didn't collect. A message asking for one takes them two minutes and lifts you in the map results — which matters most in the months when fewer people are searching. We wrote about why the map box decides who gets called.

Get the quotes out that are still sitting there. Most trades have quotes they sent and never followed up. Some of those people chose someone else. Some of them just forgot. Chase the ones from the last three months — it's the cheapest work you'll ever win.

Sell the work that suits winter

This is the bit most people miss. The problem often isn't demand, it's that you're selling summer work in winter.

Think about what you do that's indoors, small, and urgent-ish:

• Draught-proofing, insulation, anything that makes a cold house warmer
• Small internal jobs people put off all year — doors sticking, dodgy sockets, a shelf that never got put up
• Repairs and maintenance rather than big projects
• Landlord work — certificates and safety checks don't care what month it is

Then say so out loud. "Winter jobs — small indoor work, quick turnaround" gets a response in January that "kitchen fitting" doesn't.

Line up the work you can do anywhere

If you've got a quiet week, the best thing you can do with it is the work that makes March busier:

• Photograph the jobs you finished this year. You were too busy at the time, and you'll want them for your website and your Google profile.
• Fix the website details that are wrong — old prices, an out-of-date phone number, areas you no longer cover.
• Get your books straight before the tax deadline instead of on the 30th of January like everyone else.

None of that pays this week. All of it pays later.

Be honest about the money side

The other half of surviving January is not needing it to be busy.

If your day rate assumes fifty-two working weeks, January will hurt every single year. It shouldn't be a surprise — it should be priced in.

That's what the weeks off figure in our day rate calculator is for. Put in a realistic number — holidays, illness and the quiet spells — and you'll see what you actually need to charge for the rest of the year to make January survivable.

Most people put 4 weeks in. For a lot of trades the honest answer is 8.

The short version

1. Message last year's customers in October — no sell, just a hello
2. Collect the reviews you never got round to asking for
3. Chase every quote from the last three months
4. Advertise the indoor, small, urgent work you can do in winter
5. Use the quiet days for photos, your website and your books
6. Price the quiet months in, so January isn't a crisis

None of it costs money. All of it has to happen before you need it.