With spring coming to a close and the heating season with it, we’ve got 5 top tips for trade business owners to get your businesses ready to bloom this summer.

Whatever your trade, getting your business ready for a profitable 12 week run through June, July and August can mean the difference between a good and a great year. Summer can be a very busy time for some trades, but not for others. For instance, the plumbing and heating sector often experiences a quiet period before the cold weather and ‘heating season’ returns in autumn. However, even those of us who suffer from a seasonal lull can still maximise the time now to prepare their business to prosper. Here are some super tips to help you maximise your business potential this summer.

Review your business performance

To grow and maintain your business successfully, you need to know which areas you can improve upon. Reviewing your business performance allows you to gauge your achievements and milestones. Consider what worked well for your business during the heating season and evaluate what didn’t work so well. Why didn’t it work well and what can you do to ensure it goes better next winter?

At the same time, check on your customer satisfaction levels. Collect any feedback and see where you’re smashing your goals and where there may be some room for improvements. Review your client list. How many new customers did you get? If your client list isn’t growing, it may indicate that you need a new marketing strategy.

Set your business goals for summer

Setting a goal brings everything into perspective. It’s a way to assess where you are right now and where you want to be by autumn. Your business goals for summer can be as simple as having a specific number of clients on your books or identifying the amount of profit you want to make. Your goal may be as simple as switching off completely – plan for that now and make it happen.

Plan your goals the SMART way. Make them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Setting your goals this way helps you focus on the smaller steps and makes it easier for you to succeed.

Schedule jobs and plan efficiently

Whether you’re on your own or have a small team behind you, trying to juggle too many jobs at once. And, with no visibility across each team member’s movements throughout the day and every member of the team running an individual calendar can mean scheduling conflicts easily occur. If you are also unsure which materials are in the van, on backorder, or with a supplier, you have yourself quite the headache.

Oh, and make sure you give yourself a day off here and there. Workplace burnout is a problem that’s regrettably getting worse with time. Plan your holiday in advance to avoid this. And make sure you don't end up doing work on those days off!

Dust off your website

Tradespeople often rely solely on referrals and word of mouth. However, a website is vital and can act as a brilliant ‘shop window’. It can help you to drum up more customers and adds another layer of credibility to your business. If you’re a small business and don’t have a website or haven’t updated it in years, now’s the time to revise it. Maybe you’ve updated your brand logo or perhaps you offer more services than what is currently listed on your webpage. Use a service like Wix.com or GoDaddy to help you.  If you need to create visuals, try something like Canva. It’s a simple way to create eye catching imagery for your website and social media.

Touch base with customers

It is important to plan your holiday time, after all you work to live, not the other way around. Plan to get in touch with your long-term clients to let them know of your holiday operating hours and when you’ll be back to work.

This is a good opportunity to take the time to thank them and to build on these relationships. Explain who to call instead or provide them with a call-back form/waitlist on your website where they can leave their details for you to get back to them once you return to work. If you have business management software, set up an out-of-office automated text and email to let your existing customers know that you’ll be away and will be back on ‘X’ date.

These are just a few helpful tips to get through the warmer months. Don’t let work dry up, stay on top of those admin tasks you neglected during the last heating season, make plans for the next heating season, and watch as your business flourishes this summer.

Thinking about hiring an apprentice for the next heating season? Our blog post, Benefits of Hiring an Apprentice might help