In much of North America, winter is a slow time for the roofing industry. As temperatures start to nose below 40 degrees and asphalt shingles stop sealing in the sun, installations slow and the sales team starts taking some vacation time. Your business doesn’t need to head into hibernation though! There are several strategies you can use to keep your revenue from taking a seasonal dip. In this week’s blog, we’ll outline a few winter business opportunities for roofers and offer advice on how to build toward next year’s goals.
Seasonal Opportunities
The first and most obvious strategy is to pivot the skills and equipment your business already has to address the seasonal needs of the market.
- Snow Removal – Attaching plows to your company’s fleet and bidding on snow removal jobs is a good way to keep crews employed for the winter.
- Holiday Decorations – Installing holiday lights is a fantastic way to not only rake in some serious revenue, but it also provides your team with a chance to offer free inspections and garner more customers for your primary business!
- Ice Dam Inspections – In the snow belt states, homeowners are aware of the damage ice dams can cause to their homes. Offering quick, pre-winter inspections is a great way to build your customer base for the following year.
While RoofSnap’s software is designed primarily to produce measurement reports for roof replacements and repairs, we have customers make use of our accurate measurement tools for many other purposes! If you’re not a current RoofSnap customer, take our tools for a spin with a free trial and see how our easy measurements can help your seasonal businesses.
Diversify Your Services
There are many services you can offer beyond roof installation. From floor and trim installation to property maintenance and management, the equipment you already use for your roofing business can play double-duty for other services. If you’re not looking to move into general contracting quite yet, a way to dip your toe into the market is by reaching out to current customers and finding out what services they need.
Consider emailing the customer list you’ve amassed in the last year, and offering services you and your crews are comfortable providing. Perhaps framing sheds and garages is a good place to start – your crews already know their way around a hammer – or installing flooring and tile during the colder months. Branching out into other services may start as a seasonal stop-gap, but you may soon find yourself adding additional divisions to your company!
Training and Certifications
During the spring and summer, it can be hard to justify taking time away from the business to train your team or pursue further education and certifications for yourself. That makes any downtime you have a valuable resource! Put your free time to work by attaining certifications with the manufacturers your company installs, or research new materials to bring to market. Winter is the perfect time to try out new software for the coming year, or dig deeper into the software you’re already using!
RoofSnap offers free training for you and any user on your account, so if you’re trying to hand-off estimating responsibilities to one of your employees next year, send them our way and we’ll get them up to speed! You can schedule training at any time from your RoofSnap account.
Whatever strategy you use to keep your business humming during the winter months, we hope you’re met with success. And if you’re one of the many that use your downtime to try out and train on new software, we’re ready for you! Start a free trial of RoofSnap and schedule a software tour during your trial to see how RoofSnap’s flexible tools can help your business grow in roofing, or winter business opportunities for roofers you pursue!
Thanks for reading and as always,
Happy Snapping!
