How to Grow Your Heating Business When It’s Quiet

Businesses have high and low seasons. It’s kind of obvious for a heating business, too: winters are busy and summers are a lot quieter in comparison.

It’s because of this that summer is such a popular time for gas installers to go on holiday (coupled with school holidays and the fact that it’s the only warm part of the year). But what about the days you’re still working? What could you be doing to benefit your business when there’s less work to go around? 

Jobs are and always will be what bring in the money. But even when you’re a little quiet, there’s a huge list of things you can do to improve your business – less stress, more free time, extra work, and happier customers included. 

But first: what kind of seasonal changes are we even looking at?

Here is a neat little graph showing the months in which the most jobs are done by heating companies here in the UK:

We calculated this based on the 6000+ companies using our software. The formula for seasonality removes the impact of our company’s growth, so this is a more accurate figure. 

Just by looking at the graph, you can get a clear visualisation of how the seasons affect the number of jobs coming into the average heating & plumbing company.

April is the worst month, with just 80% of the average jobs, while October – January are the best peaking at 117-119% (excluding the Christmas break).

How is this data is useful?

From the graph, you can see that most jobs are completed in winter, and summers are quiet. Any heating installer would know this – but the actual percentages are interesting:

• January – 118%
• February – 105%
• March – 109%
• April – 80%
• May – 86%
• June – 88%
• July – 85%
• August – 93%
• September – 110%
• October – 119%
• November – 117%
• December – 91%

What this data allows you to do is predict your workloads. Exactly how much more work can you expect going into September from a slow August? How much more time are you going to have going into Spring?

This is incredibly valuable because it lets you plan ahead and make decisions:

> Will you need another engineer or are you just coming out of a busy month?

> Are you going to have enough time to take that holiday you’ve been eyeing up?

When are your slow seasons? Calculate your own seasonality:

The data above is an industry average. But what if your business doesn’t quite fit in with the norm? What if you do air conditioning as well as heating work? What if summer turns into plumbing season? There’s lots of reasons your business might not fit exactly to this trend. 

The obvious answer is to calculate your own seasonality! And here’s how you can do it.

• First, download this quick Excel spreadsheet we put together.
• Next, enter your data into the cells.
• Get your results in a graph like the one above!

So, how can you make the most of your slow season?

1) Hire new staff in summer

If you’re already at max capacity in summer, look to hire new staff before the busy season arrives. 

This gives you time to train them up, get them settled in, and prepared for when the work piles on. 

If you’ve got good data showing your business’ yearly highs and lows, this shouldn’t be as much of a risk as it sounds.

2) Planning (pricing, new vans, etc)

Business planning and strategy take time. Whether that be your old van that keeps breaking down or pricing plans that need updating – these are all things you don’t want to be doing while you’re slammed with work. 

Get them done in advance so your work in the busy period is less stressful and more productive.

3) Marketing

Marketing is incredibly important for a successful business. But not all trades businesses (especially if you’re a sole trader) have the time to do it. 

The good news is that there are plenty of marketing strategies that work well and can be prepared in advance. We’re talking things like: 

• Boiler stickers
• Leaflets
• Flyers
• Business cards
• Van wrapping
• Online ads 
• Websites 

These can all be designed & printed / set up over summer when there’s a little less going on.

Brush up on marketing for your business with our guide here.

4) Start using software

Happier customers mean more repeat work and more recommendations. And, while there’s plenty of ways you can improve your customer service, one of the best ones is to go paperless.

This is mainly because software helps streamline workflows and make busy periods less stressful. Not to mention, customers get to enjoy a digital certificate for all their Gas Safety checks and other jobs rather than a flimsy carbon copy. 

Gas Engineer Software is designed specifically for heating and plumbing businesses, so it’s only natural we get most of our new customers over winter. But we’d say that summer is just as good a time as any to look for software. In fact, with a little bit less work going on, it’s the perfect opportunity to experiment and play around with new solutions. If you get to grips with how things work over the summer, it’ll be second nature by the time winter comes.

Read our quick guide on how to choose the right software for your business.

5) Spring time review time

Spring, or more specifically April, is when heating jobs start to slow down a bit. This makes spring a natural time for review and reflection, to see what you can do better next busy season.

Looking back at your past year’s work will help you improve inventory management and scheduling, remind you to check up on customers you’ve just recently done work for, and kickstart your plan for the rest of the year. 

Breeze through the busiest time of the year with Gas Engineer Software

We know just how much paperwork running a business requires. Our solutions are geared towards minimising the time spent on work you don’t enjoy so you can focus on what you do best.

Gas Engineer Software is dead easy to learn and anyone can start creating quotes and invoices in seconds, issue digital certificates to customers, manage schedules, and much more. 

We’ll help you save time where it counts and get the most out of slow summers and wild winters.

Explore Gas Engineer Software in a free trial – no credit card required.