Busy season starts next week. Set your prices before the phone rings

The pattern in seasonal trades repeats every year. The phone starts ringing in May, the schedule fills by the second week, and prices are quoted at whatever number seemed reasonable in March when work was scarce. Three months later the season is over, the crew is exhausted, and the money is roughly what it was last year despite the extra hours.

The problem is not the rate itself. It is that the rate was set during a quiet period and never revisited when demand changed, and the quoting happens too fast during a rush for anyone to think about it.

Decide the number now, in writing, where you can see it

Take an hour this week and write down the price for each of the five or six things you do most often. Not a range. A number, with the conditions attached: what is included, what triggers a higher price, what the minimum charge is.

Put it on one page and keep it where you quote from. The purpose is not sophistication, it is removing the decision from the moment of the phone call. A price decided calmly holds up under pressure; a price invented while someone is waiting on the line drifts downward every time.

Raise the rate before the season, not during it

If a rate increase is due, it goes into effect before the rush rather than partway through. Increasing prices in March irritates the customers who call in March, who are usually your most loyal and price tolerant ones. Increasing in July means the first two thirds of your season was booked at the old rate.

Announce it plainly to existing customers with a date. Most will accept it without comment. The proportion who leave over a moderate increase is consistently smaller than people expect, and the ones who do leave are usually the accounts that took the most time for the least money.

Price scheduling separately from work

During a rush, the scarce thing is not your skill, it is a slot on the calendar. Charging for that scarcity is standard practice in most industries and underused in the trades.

Three versions work well. A premium for same day or next day scheduling, stated plainly rather than hidden. A discount for a customer willing to take whatever day suits you, which fills the awkward gaps in a week. And a maintenance agreement sold in the off season that guarantees priority in the busy one, which converts a slow month into revenue and smooths the schedule at the same time.

The last one is worth the most. It moves cash into the quarter where you need it and it gives you a book of committed work before the season starts.

Decide in advance what you will turn down

When the schedule is full, every job you accept displaces another one. That makes the marginal job a choice rather than a bonus, and it is worth deciding the rules while you can still think clearly.

Common candidates for declining: jobs far outside your normal radius, where the drive costs more than the margin. Very small jobs with the same setup and travel cost as a large one, unless there is a minimum charge that covers it. Work outside your core competence that will take twice as long and produce a callback. And customers who were difficult last year, which you know and are inclined to forget when the phone is ringing.

Write the list down. Saying no in the moment is much easier when the decision was already made.

Quote in a way that survives a rushed week

The other thing that slips during a rush is what a quote actually says. A number given over the phone with no scope attached becomes an argument in July, because the customer heard a fixed price and you meant a starting point.

Write one short template now covering what is included, what is excluded, how long the price holds, and what triggers a change order. Send it as a text or an email before starting rather than after, even on small jobs. It takes a minute during the busiest week of the year and it removes the category of dispute that costs the most time to resolve.

Protect the money the season generates

A good season is a cash event, and cash that arrives in June is what pays for November. Decide now what proportion of each payment moves straight into a separate account for taxes, and what proportion goes into a reserve for the slow quarter.

Do it as a transfer on the day money arrives rather than as a calculation at the end of the month. The businesses that struggle in winter are rarely the ones that had a poor summer. They are the ones that had a good summer and spent it, because a full account in July looks like profit and is actually a year's operating costs arriving early.

An hour spent this week on a price page, a rate decision, a rules list and a transfer instruction is the cheapest work available all year, and it is the work that decides what the next four months are actually worth.