Three Ways to Help Your Tree Care Business Make It During A Slow Season
The summer heat has finally passed, and we’ve been enjoying the first breeze of autumn. Unfortunately, it’s also a sign that arborists will get less work in the next few weeks, until late spring. The workload may transition from working 70 to 25 hours weekly, which is a huge gap. The reason for it it’s because when the weather is cold, people are less likely to go out. Therefore, they don't need to pay attention to trees in their yard.
This decreasing demand will have a big effect on your tree care business. People may postpone calling you to take care of their trees, which causes your revenue to go down. Yet it doesn’t mean there are no opportunities in a difficult situation. You can actually use this time to leverage your business and prepare for the slow season. Here are 3 things you can do right now.
Offer Lower rates
As mentioned above, there’s not a lot of demand when it’s cold. Maybe because people are more worried about their driveway full of snow. You can attract more attention by offering a lower fee compared to those busy days or other competitors.
The trick is how to offer low enough to make it attempting to customers, but you can still operate your company. You can create a checklist of location, crew size, and equipment required when making the offer. Also, check your finances, analyze profits, determine the profit loss areas to ensure you’re making money, not losing more.
However, don’t lose your work ethic. Being able to offer an extremely low rate may help you win over competitors, but it also means you may have to skip some important and required costs for the job. The quality of the job isn’t guaranteed, and your customer trust can decrease then. What is thought to be a victory for your business turns out to ruin it in the end.
Educate your clients
People normally postpone tree care needs as they think it’s not necessary. Because they don’t see the whole picture. Tree care in those cold days can actually do a lot of good.
First, it’s better for the soil. When a tree is removed, the stump will decay and benefit the surrounding environment. It’ll become a home to various species or later will contribute nutrition to the soil where other trees will grow from.
Second, demand for tree care services drops, which can help you do the job faster with better care. Clients also don’t have to wait forever just to get their tree care concerns done. Therefore, if the job can be done during those cold days, it can be a win-win situation for clients and your company.
Your job is to persuade your clients. Checking in your clients via a CRM system is one way to see what kind of work has been done in the past and when. Hence, you can follow up with clients and communicate with them about moving up the schedule for the tree care concerns.
Emailing is another way to communicate with clients. Sending them a newsletter with useful information and benefits of tree care in cold weather to educate them. This way, you can still persuade your customers without forcing them to make decisions.
Be active on social media
It’s no doubt that social media has become an important tool in any business, including tree care. Yet it can be hard sometimes to stay active on social media. That means you’ll have fewer opportunities to listen to what customers say about you or what they need from you. You can use this slow time to do more work on social media so you can gain more deals during the year no matter how the weather is.
Here are some quick tips for your social media game.:
- Work on your hashtags so that people can find you easier.
- Partner with influencers in the tree care industry to spread your brand awareness. It can be a Q&A session or a podcast episode featuring that influencer.
- Use social media monitoring tools to determine your customers’ wants and needs. This will help you engage with them at the right moment, which may turn them into potential leads soon.
Getting more tree care jobs during those cold days for your company can’t be tough. The tips above can help you make it out of this challenging season. There will be warmer days after the cold passes. It may be fall time, but your company can still stand strong.
