Have Work Waiting for the Weeks the Phone Goes Quiet

The problem in one breath

It's February. Two crews are standing in the yard, the trucks got washed twice, and you're calling old customers to ask if anything is leaking. The money half of this you already handled — Module 6, "Fill the Tank in Summer So Winter Doesn't Break You" put a reserve in the bank. But a reserve pays men to stand there. It doesn't hand them a roof.

Why it happens

The work that fills your quiet weeks never shows up during them — it gets sold in the loud ones. In July the phone won't stop and a tear-off beats a half-day repair, so the small stuff gets turned down: the vent job, the tune-up, the flashing that isn't leaking yet. In February that's the exact work you don't have, and nobody wrote a word of it down.

By then it's too late. Nobody sells a month of small jobs once it's already quiet, so you invent work to keep good men busy or you lose them to a shop that had some.

The play

Build the slow-month list months before you need it.

1. Map your own quiet stretch first. Don't assume winter. A hail market and a snow market go quiet at different times. Module 6, Play 11 walks you through finding yours off last year's deposits. Mark those weeks on a wall calendar; they are what you're filling.

2. Write down every kind of work that can wait. Repairs you deliberately didn't schedule in the rush. Tune-ups and maintenance. Gutter and vent add-ons. Small commercial patch work. Warranty and punch-list work. Shop, truck and tool work. Training days (Module 3, Play 4) and the bench-list calls (Module 4, Play 13).

3. Bank the work, don't just list it. A list is a wish; a job with a date is work. When a small repair comes in during the rush and nothing's running into the house, sell it into a quiet week at a price worth rolling a truck for: "Thursday I'd be squeezing you in — second week of January, you get a crew that isn't in a hurry." People wait when it isn't raining in the kitchen. Sold with a date, that repair is off the rain-day list (Module 14, Play 3). Your busiest month sells your quietest.

4. Decide crew by crew who you carry, and say it a season ahead. Put the banked days next to your men and count how many you can feed. Run the stay talk before the season ends: carried or not, and when you want him back. A man who finds out in December has another shop by March (Module 4, Play 10). How layoffs, unemployment and seasonal pay work is your state's and your accountant's call — ask before you promise a man anything.

5. Spend the rest of the quiet fixing what the rush broke. The step that kept biting all season gets its how-we-do-it page (Module 3, Play 8). The jobs you never put on a job report card get an afternoon at the table (Module 6, Play 19) — last season's job costs say which roofs made money. Then the trucks and the tools.

6. Give every line a name and a date. Who sells it, which crew runs it, and the day it has to be on the books by. No name on it, and it's a wish again.

Do this this week

Pull up every open repair and small job on your books and mark the ones that could honestly wait for a slow week without hurting the customer. Twenty minutes. Those marks are the first lines of your slow-month list.

The tool

Print the card and hang it on the office wall, where you'll see it while you're too busy to care. One line per job you bank: the work, who sells it, which crew runs it, the days it eats, what it pays, and when it has to be booked. The top is your quiet stretch in dates; the middle is the crew-by-crew call; the bottom is the shop work the season keeps costing you. Count it every month: days banked against the days of crew you have to feed. If that gap isn't closing, February is already written.

THE SLOW-MONTH LIST — book the quiet weeks while you are still busy

My quiet stretch runs from ____________ to ____________  Year: ______

WORK BANKED FOR THE QUIET WEEKS
Job / address      What it is    Who sells  Crew      Days  Pays     Book by
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______
_________________  ____________  _________  ________  ____  _______  _______

WHAT COUNTS (circle what you are short of)
  Repairs held back      Tune-ups, maintenance    Gutters and vents
  Small commercial patch Warranty and punch list  Training days
  Shop, truck, trailer   Bench-list calls         Tool and gear work

CREW BY CREW — decided a season ahead, said out loud, to his face
Name              Carried?   Told on      What he was told
________________  Y  /  N    __________   ____________________
________________  Y  /  N    __________   ____________________
________________  Y  /  N    __________   ____________________
________________  Y  /  N    __________   ____________________

WHAT THE QUIET FIXES
  [ ] The one step that kept biting gets its how-we-do-it page
  [ ] Last season's jobs graded on a job report card
  [ ] Trucks, ladders, trailer, tools, gear

COUNT IT EVERY MONTH UNTIL THE QUIET STARTS
Date counted    ______  ______  ______  ______  ______
Days banked     ______  ______  ______  ______  ______
Days to feed    ______  ______  ______  ______  ______

If your crew is 1099

Subs follow the storm. When the work thins here, that crew is three states away chasing hail, and the company that still picks up in January is the one you paid on the day you said you would (Module 12, Play 5). Give your quiet-week dates early to the companies that stayed. Mostly, though, this play is about the W2 men you carry — the ones you owe whether a roof sells that week or not. That payroll is the cost the winter reserve is sized for: the money side fills the tank, this list gives the men something to do.

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.