Staying Busy Through Seasonal Highs and Lows

This is the time of year we’ve all been waiting for. After months of cold and rain, both we and our customers are ready for Spring. As landscape maintenance and construction contractors, we know how quickly things will get busy and how easy it is to fall behind while trying to keep up with weed and insect control, spruce-ups, and installation work.

Knowing that the busy season is coming can distract us from thinking ahead. That’s why I want to share something a fellow contractor recently asked me. They asked how I stay busy during the slow months. My answer? I learned years ago to work backwards when scheduling work whenever possible.

When selling and scheduling projects, it’s important to know your slow periods. From my experience, these are January and February due to weather and tax preparation, and July and August when families are on vacation, or the kids are home.

Here’s how I approach it: I sell work in the moment to keep the crews busy, but as soon as possible, I start scheduling into the slower months and then work back toward the current schedule. In a perfect world this works great, but we all know how hard it can be to keep things moving. Still, having a plan and a goal helps.

The same goes for maintenance. You need to sell for the moment – seasonal flowers, mulching, and tree trimming – but whenever possible, push larger renovations into slower periods if it makes sense for the work.

One last piece of advice: train your crews to handle work outside your usual scope. For example, when we’re busy, I sub out turf, wrought iron work, glass fencing, framing, plumbing, and electrical. But when things slow down, we handle these in-house to keep the crews working. It’s smart to have related trades in your back pocket – it stretches out the jobs and keeps the money in your pocket.

~ David Horton, 2025 CLCA OC Chapter President