Winter work for electricians: getting booked before the clocks go back

The clocks go back on 25 October. From that Sunday it is dark by five, the outside lights stop working, the heating goes on and half your customers suddenly remember the socket in the garage has not worked since March. Winter work for electricians is real and it is predictable, which is exactly why it should be booked in September, not chased in December.

Most self-employed electricians treat winter the same way every year. Busy through September, quiet second half of October while everybody waits, then a mad panic in November followed by three dead weeks over Christmas. That pattern is not the market. It is what happens when nothing goes out to customers in September.

Why September fills your winter diary

Whatever you send out this month lands in the diary in six to eight weeks. That is the bit sparks forget when they are flat out on the tools. The work you do to get work has a delay built into it, so a busy September with no marketing in it is what makes a thin November.

Right now your customers are still thinking about the house. Once the dark nights and the Christmas spending arrive they stop spending on anything that is not broken. You have about six weeks where a domestic customer will happily book a job for later, and after that you are selling into the worst month of the year.

The five winter jobs to go and ask for

Do not advertise “electrical services”. Nobody wakes up wanting electrical services. They want the specific thing that is annoying them, and in winter that list is short and the same every year.

• Outside lighting and security lights. The number one dark nights job. Front and back, sensors, a light over the side gate where the bins are. Sell being able to see the keyhole, not the fitting.
• Sockets and lights in the garage, loft and shed. Everything moves indoors in winter and half of these have one dodgy extension lead feeding them.
• Heating and hot water electrics. Immersions, thermostats, towel rails, the electric shower that trips when the weather turns.
• Consumer units and EICRs on older houses. Nobody wants the board changed in the week before Christmas. They will book it for the third week of November if you ask them in September.
• Christmas lighting and outdoor power done properly. An outdoor socket and a bit of common sense beats four leads out of a kitchen window, and it is a small job that gets you back through the door.

Pick two of those, not five. One message about outside lighting beats a leaflet listing everything you have ever done.

Go to the people who already paid you

Your past customers are the cheapest winter work there is. They let you in the house once and paid without arguing, and most of them have not heard a word from you since the invoice.

Pull the list and send a short seasonal message. Not a pitch. Clocks go back at the end of the month, worth checking the outside lights and the sensors before it gets dark at five, I have got space the week of the 20th if you want anything on the list sorting. That is a useful thing to tell somebody about their own house, and it is why repeat business costs you nothing but twenty minutes.

Anybody you did an EICR for five years ago is due, and any board you flagged as tired is a year tireder. That is not cold calling, that is a diary sat in your own paperwork.

Give them a reason to book now, not in November

A seasonal job needs a date on it or the customer files it under later. “Outside lights and sensors, booked in before the clocks go back” gets calls. “Qualified electrician, free quotes” gets nothing, because everybody else already said it.

The deadline does the work, not a discount. When my mate Paul had three grand due to the bailiffs on the Monday, we printed leaflets at home on the Thursday, walked them round the right streets, and he had over £5,000 in deposits by the Saturday. A specific offer, a date, in front of the right people. No ad budget and nothing knocked off the price.

If somebody asks for your best price, add to the job instead of taking money off it. Do the sensor properly, check the rest of the outside circuits while you are there, guarantee the work. Drop your price once in October and you are still living with it next spring, because that customer now knows what you can be talked down to and they will tell the neighbour.

Price the dark, cold, short days honestly

Winter work costs you more than the same job in June. Less daylight, ladders in the wet, mud through the house, and a two hour job in the loft in December is not a two hour job in July. If your prices ignore that, November is busy and still not profitable.

Two things to sort before the clocks go back. First, your minimum charge for a short call out, because winter is full of small jobs and a small job at the wrong number loses money every time. Second, what a typical outside lighting or garage circuit job needs to earn on a short winter day.

What the customer hears is a minimum charge and a price for the job. The hour figure is your own back office maths for working that out, not something you quote down the phone. As a rough example only, to show the sum rather than to tell you your number: if you decide a short winter call needs to be covered at £95 as a minimum charge, then an hour on site, an hour of travel and parts on a dark Tuesday has to sit above that, not at it. Your figures will be different to mine and to the spark down the road.

Work yours out with the free Minimum Charge Calculator rather than guessing at it in the van. It takes about twenty minutes and it is the number every winter quote hangs off. Minimum charges across the trade have been getting pushed up, not down, and they should be.

Book the Christmas fortnight on purpose

The two weeks over Christmas will be quiet whatever you do, so decide now what they are for. Either take them off properly and price the rest of the year knowing that, or work them as a call out week and tell your customers in advance that you are the one who answers the phone. What kills people is drifting into it with no decision made.

What to do this week

Pick your two winter jobs. Message twenty past customers with a specific seasonal reason and a date. Put a hundred cards round the last street you worked on, so the van has already been seen. Ring three kitchen fitters, plumbers or letting agents and tell them what you have space for in November. Then sort your minimum charge before the first dark night, not after it. If the phone still goes quiet, the running order for filling a quiet week has not changed.

That hour a day on marketing, whether you are busy or not, is the whole thing. I did five until six in the morning, four days a week, and it was the single change that turned my second business around after I lost the first one.

Inside My Electricians ToolBox the seasonal messages, the cards and the winter pricing are already written and tested, and there are around 300 other domestic electricians in there doing the same thing at the same time of year.

So, a question. When the clocks go back next month, is your November already booked, or are you planning to worry about it then?