What are you going to do with the quiet times? If you just go into a panic and you spiral and you start signing anything and everything just to keep the lights on, I'm telling you that you will never get out from underneath of where you are if you sit back and you do what you have to do to focus on bettering yourself and bettering your business moving forward, rather than just signing on a job because you're starving, when you come out of this, you will be that much stronger.
Welcome back to another midweek modern craftsman, where this week I'm specifically talking to anyone who is staring at an empty calendar, wondering if they should be dropping their prices, if it's time to panic, or if they just want to pick up a hammer and start swinging it to feel some sort of productive I've been there, but before you spiral, let's talk about how you can actually use this slow down to your advantage, to fine tune your business, to sharpen Your skill set and prepare yourself
to come out swinging when the phones begin to ring again. One thing before we get started, Nick and I mentioned we are going to be putting together monthly workshops. Tentatively, I'm thinking June 13 is the next one. I believe it's a Friday.
Sign up for the newsletter to confirm that I'm recording this well prior to June 13, but we're going to be doing that monthly free workshop, free resources that we'll be going over modern craftsman.co sign up for the newsletter, and you'll be the first people to know when we're holding those workshops, how you can sign up for them, everything that you need to know. So don't wait on that. As I mentioned, this week's episode is for those people who are struggling with the slowdown or feeling a
slowdown coming. I don't think that this is news to anyone. I feel like this has been coming, probably since COVID, right? Everything's been booming. Prices went up. People continued to spend money. House prices became inflated. Mortgage rates are insane, right now, people don't have equity in their homes because they bought an inflated house with an inflated mortgage rate. They probably over invested or put cash down to pay over appraisal. So there's just a lot of things that aren't
really going for us right now. And what ends up happening is people get hungry, they start to sharpen their pencil, they start to concede a lot of things that they wouldn't necessarily do with regard to business processes, standards, with jobs, and so our clients, or our potential clients, or these leads are leveraging that. So for me, early in my career, this
is something that I struggled with. I'm somewhat happy to embrace it at this point, because I think that it affords me an opportunity to work on the business, to take a breath, to catch up, to get my head outside of the whirlwind of of just the the boom. So to me, it's it's definitely I welcome these times I think that it betters my business. It sharpens my processes. But I know for a lot of people and me, early in my
career, it was very, very scary. So if, if you were feeling that things have slowed down, you don't have work, the amount of leads aren't coming in, it's to be expected. Make sure that you maintain your confidence, understand that you're not doing anything wrong. This is much bigger than you and I and what you're doing and your processes and your clients, but that doesn't mean that it's not time to work on those aspects of your business. So we can spend all of our time panicking that the
phone's not ringing. We can spend all of our time wondering, what are we going to do for money? It's somewhat senseless, and I know that's easier said than done. When you're in it, you're in this panic mode and you're willing to do anything to keep the lights on, but it's a very short sighted plan for yourself. So the catalyst for this conversation has been many consulting calls, many of my clients, conversations we've had recently, just with business in general, and leads slowing down,
and just the state of the market. And honestly, again, I feel like this has been coming for the past five years. I've been waiting for it. I've been waiting for it. It seems that it's here. Some some areas are remaining busy. Other areas have slowed down. I think it's it's dependent on the market, but overall, it's not as hot as it was. And again, there's a lot of reasons for that, most of which I find in my experience when you
look big picture with what's going. On right? We had an election year, and then we had a bunch of tariffs put in place. The stock market took a huge hit. So people who had money in, who didn't foresee this coming, that left their money in, right, they probably bought in while the market was hot. Right? Now, it's took a dip, so they don't want to pull that money out, because they're going to take an immediate loss on it. So they're probably not spending money that they had in savings, even if
they anticipated doing a project. I think a lot of people, from a work perspective, aren't getting the raises that they wanted. A lot of bigger companies aren't doing business, or, you know, in the retail market or or if you're in manufacturing, they're not doing business in the United States, a lot of the big companies. So a lot of people who are employees of these big companies, they're they're buttoning down. They're looking to do whatever they do they can do to remain
competitive. And they're certainly not handing out people big bonuses and more money, if anything, they're pulling back, and they're really streamlining their operation. So I think that has a lot to do with it. And then obviously the real estate market and what it's been doing for the past, however, many years, it just makes it really tough for people who bought into a house that they've over invested in. They have a high
interest rate. They can't pull equity out of it. They probably parted with a lot of cash to get into that house, possibly in a bidding war, to get over appraised value in the first place. And they just they can't justify putting more into it right now, especially with everything else that's going on. So I think there's a lot of people in in the country, and a lot of people who are experiencing just some tight
times for themselves and for their business. But you know, I think that there's, there's a lot of variables that are contributing to what's going on right now. And you know, some people are isolated from this. There's certain markets. I just spoke with the the lady in the permitting office in a town that I work, and she's like, now, things are still coming in so hot and cold. I think overall, there's probably a lot of people being affected by this right now, but for me, this is
something that I struggle with just starting out. It's difficult enough for people who have established companies, who have been in business, who have returned clients, who have the marketing to kind of weather the storm, but I think for a lot of people who are in slower markets that maybe don't have some of the financial capacity of other markets, or people are just
starting out that this is going to be tough to weather. So I want to go over a few things that I do during these time that I tell my clients they should be working on doing these times during these times. And then the main idea here is you can worry about this. You can lower your prices, you can become more competitive. You can concede to things within a scope or within
a program that you typically won't. That's a really short sighted solution to this, and I think that a lot of us are in positions right now that aren't ideal, and I think a lot of times we don't even know that. And I think that to concede to a situation where it's not already ideal for your business is detrimental moving forward. I think that it's you know, you're taking multiple steps back, and from an industry perspective, it
hurts everyone. So the more that we can unite, the more that we can weather the storm and not just concede and lower our prices and be more competitive. I think long term, the better we are. So those concessions again, what can they be? It could be a situation where, hey, I don't typically work in this area, so
I'm going to travel further. I'm going to expand my reach. Maybe a decent solution, maybe it costs you money that you can't capture on a project, as far as paying employees to travel, wear and tear in a vehicle, gas charges, just general downtime. You know, you have punch list on a job that's an hour away versus 20 minutes away, that can be a an expense that you may not be
able to capture in in today's market. So I think that that's again, something that I wouldn't, you know, I don't think is the best idea, um, lowering your prices because your confidence is taking a hit, because you're not getting the projects again, unless you understand right now that you are way over market value with your price, that you're really, you know, just exploiting your clients and charging well above the going rate, which I would
say probably none of us are. I don't think that that's a viable solution, because that's just going to drive the cost of our work down across the industry, and also it's going to hurt you. Moving forward, any new clients that's going to be your price point. Any past clients are going to say, hey, well, he conceded to a price now moving forward, we understand that we have some leverage and some bargaining power there, slimming down, reducing getting rid of employees if you have to do.
That to maintain your business and to not put yourself in a hole. Sure, I would suggest trying to find alternative ways to go about that. I think that reducing overhead with unnecessary expenses or costs from a team approach, if you can do that, yes, but just unloading everyone, I don't think
obviously is a great idea. But I think understanding where you have some fluff and waste within your overhead, within your system, within your processes, and how you could be more efficient, this is a great opportunity to do that and to maintain that moving forward when things begin to flourish again, so that you you up your margins, and you up your profitability, and you realize actually just how lean you are able to operate. So I think that that's a great solution focusing
on your marketing. I don't think that you should wait until a slowdown, until a recession, to market yourselves. I think that it's ideal to market yourself while you're busy, but a lot of times smaller business owners, owner operators. We just don't have the bandwidth. We're busy. The phone's ringing. We're doing a million different things. We don't have time to market
ourselves. So if you are not doing that while you're busy, which I 100% recommend, now is the time to really understand who you're marketing to and that that requires a really deep dive into your business. We do have a pretty inexpensive marketing course out that's a lot of great advice and practical ways that you can market yourself, how to understand how to market yourself, how to understand who you are, who your client is
because marketing is one thing, right? You think of it. I can just pay somebody to market myself, but you really have to understand your business, your numbers, your ideal client, what your value proposition is, all of these things in order to determine how you need to market yourself, you need to understand how much work you need to put in place, what your margins are. Marketing is a task, a part of your business that I feel needs constant attention, and it shouldn't be left until I'm in a
panic. I need work. How am I going to market myself? Because I think you're going to market yourself to a client that may not be ideal for you, understanding what it takes your business to be successful in the first place. And Nick and I just spoke about this on a podcast with a guy, Matt Arnold, yesterday, where Nick was like, you should have a five year plan in place. You understand that you have to understand your
trajectory of your business. I don't want to say he's wrong, because I think that in a perfect world, yeah, we have a plan in place. But to stress yourself out about having a five year plan in place when you don't know where you're going to be, I think the most important aspect of the conversation that we had, and that I want to stress here, is understanding where you are now. So in order to have a plan in place, you
have to understand where you are. And I think that we put plans in place, but we don't really understand where we are. So this plan and this trajectory that we want for ourselves is based on inaccurate information, information that we simply don't have gut check numbers. And I don't feel that that's a
sustainable or practical approach to growth. So when things slow down, it's really time to not panic, to step back, to use this time to assess inventory, analyze and gage what your business looks like, what your numbers look like, where you make money, where you're losing money, where you need to adjust your costs, where you can become more efficient, where you can streamline your business, how you're marketing yourself, what type of money you're putting towards marketing every
aspect of your business should be gone through with the fine tooth comb. And while you may be in a panic and you may begin to spiral and you say, I need work. I just need work. I need to keep the lights on, I think that perpetuates more of the same. And from my experience, speaking to a lot of contractors through some consulting, which I think it's probably over 100 people, more of the same isn't going to work for you, and more of the
same isn't going to work for you when you're busy. Is not going to work for you when you're slow, when we're busy, we do. We just don't realize that it's not working. We lie to ourselves. We allow ego to get in the way. We never slow down to actually look at the numbers. We put work in place, and then we work backwards, and then we struggle through it, and then we think that we need to grow. We need to get more of these type of jobs, and we're just throwing shit against the wall and seeing if
it sticks. When you slow down, you're going to concede to things and you're more of the same type of model already is not working. So why is it going to work when you become more competitive? So for me, it's time to slow down, not. Not add more shit to the pile, and figure out what's working and what isn't working and what you need to do to move forward. And it's a great opportunity to push your ego aside and understand that there might be certain aspects of your business that
just don't make sense. There might be certain aspects of your numbers that you can't justify, and it's something that you want to do, because you see all these other people doing it, and maybe they're not making money with it, maybe they are. Maybe their market justifies it and and substantiates what they're doing. But for you, it might be a decision that you're doing
that's actually no real return. And maybe it's a marketing perspective you can give and take a little bit here and there, but big picture, it might be costing you tons of money. And you You take this time to realize that that's not something that you can do anymore. And you focus on the the tasks that make you money. You focus on understanding your
numbers. You focus on understanding who you are, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, how you can pitch to the right client, who that right client is, and really just not taking jobs that aren't making you money, which is the exact opposite of what most of us do during a recession or during some slowdown. We'll do anything that we can do to keep the lights on which it's necessary, right? But if you don't keep the lights on while understanding how to move
forward, well, understand what wasn't working before. Because if we're all operating in the right type of businesses, and we're not just paying our our daily, weekly, monthly, yearly costs. We should have enough capital put away to cover these slowdowns like, that's part of your business, right? That's part of how you are charging your clients. That's part of understanding how to run and operate a sustainable business is to account for those grace periods where things aren't the
way that you know. They're not running perfectly. They're not as profitable as you would like. But if you're running a viable business, there should be enough in there to cover you during these times. So if you don't have enough to cover you something with your existing business model is wrong. Something's not working. And you need to find out what that is, before you just pile more shit on top of it. You need to be able to assess where you
are in order to understand where you have to go. A five year plan, a 10 year plan, getting yourself out of what you're currently experiencing is not a practical approach to growth or to success or to sustainability or even just surviving if you don't understand what's causing it in the first place, everything else is just a symptom of what's going on. You're trying to treat it, but you're not actually addressing
what the issue is. And there's issues that we all have in our business, that these slowdowns and these recessions give us a great opportunity to sustain, survive and address what we need to do right now in order to maintain the trajectory, the two year plan, the one year plan, the six month plan, whatever it is, but we have to understand what that looks like today.
Another great opportunity right now is to reach out to past clients, clients who were the right fit, not just not clients that you lost money or you lost your shirt, because that's more of the same, which is wrong, but clients that worked out for you. And it doesn't have to be a sales pitch, but it's just, Hey, how's the space holding up? You know, just checking in with normal customers, things are slowing down. On our end, we're looking to pick up any work that we can. Here and there, open the
door, open the conversation. There may be work that they need, that they've been sitting on. There may be little things that you can help out with. They may have a relative or a referral that they can provide you. They'll just reach out to clients. It can be a text, an email, a phone call, a newsletter. It can be a postcard, a letter, whatever it may be, just open the door to those relationships, and you
never know what might come from it. There's always an opportunity to drum up more business for yourself, but it's so important during these times to make sure that you're drumming up the right type of business when we all want to have this plan to be successful, and if we begin to concede everything that we've just worked the past 510, years to build, and it's probably still not as profitable as it can be, if we begin to concede all of those things, we are absolutely
shooting ourselves in the foot. I. I would rather see you take on no jobs and understand what your business needs to survive, so that the next job that you land is putting you on the path towards success of where you need to be, than to just take a job to keep the lights on. That's actually not contributing to any sort of business growth for you, because the referral that comes from that job is more of the same, and it's not ideal
for you. Every experience, all of the testimonials that you potentially can get from that job, the next project that that client wants to hire you for is going to have expectations that do not align with your business model. What it takes for you to be successful and sustainable. You're pricing and selling jobs based on survival, and to me, that's a very short sighted
solution to what you're going through right now. I'd rather see you slim down, manage your overhead, focus on the projects that are profitable for you and they can maintain your business without necessarily adding more volume to it, but just through profitability and through efficiencies and reduced overhead than just piling on more work to keep everyone busy.
Because to me, that's that's not helping growth long term. It's not a sustainable model, and I think that it is an immediate it has an immediate and a long term effect on your business. Stepping back and looking at your numbers, yes, that has an immediate effect on your business, but the long term effect is a positive one rather than a negative one. So again, we all go through these times. I've been through them. I don't need a ton of work to keep me busy, but I'll be the first to
tell you, like, yes, leads have absolutely slowed down. I have a ton of return customers that keep me busy, and I maintain those relationships, and I always have something that is the right type of fit, the right type of job, or I have the, I want to say luxury, but like the luxury to be able to pick and choose, still in these times, what jobs I want to chase and what jobs are a fit for me, without having to concede due to everyone being hungry, because I've practiced These principles
for so long, and I when things have slowed down, other than the first few years of my business, I've realized that I'm better off taking no work than taking work at a reduced margin or for the wrong type of client, or with somebody that I know isn't a right fit or doesn't believe in my program or my process,
because that ended up hurting me a year from now. It could have hurt me immediately, but a year from now, five years from now, so by practicing these principles and digging my heels in and maintaining these standards, and ensuring that what I'm doing now and what my numbers look like now align with what my needs are moving forward, regardless of what's going on with the market, I positioned myself to be able to sustain a lot of these slow periods and maintain those
relationships with return clients, and when the new clients come in, I have the ability to say, hey, is this something That interests me? Does it fit my program? Does it fit my margins? Is it my ideal client and my ideal project, or is this past client that I've already established all of these things with, who understands how I work the right fit for me? And typically it's, it's the return customer.
So I'll continue to market myself, but now I give myself an option as to what, what's a better fit for me and what makes more sense for me, and how much risk do I want to take at this point? So I'm not here to tell you that saying no is easy. I'm not here to tell you that the slow periods are simple and that
they're not stressful because they are. They're easier for me now because I've been around a long enough time to see some ebbs and flows and understand that maybe I take one less job the two that I kind of stick to my guns on make me more money
than if I would have taken that job anyway. I've seen that happen in real time and in real life, and the proof is there to me that I don't worry quite as much I use if there's downtime to work on things that I need to possibly button up some things around the house, if I need to keep busy, if I need to refer my subs to direct to client to keep them busy and remain on good standings with them. I'm not looking to make a quick buck on subs. I want to treat them the way that they treat me, and be
able to thank them. And if somebody needs something, refer them with, with, without me, to be able to help them and my clients out. But I always I want to manage my business during these. Times appropriately and without the hunger and without the panic and without the spiraling and I think when you can get yourself to those point, and you have some funds put away, and your entire team understands how to navigate
these times, that they will be less and less scary. They're always going to be there, but you have to understand how to build your business to hopefully isolate yourself from these market fluctuations, at least to a certain extent. And that might be just, you know, capturing enough that you have enough of a buffer in savings that when things slow down, you understand you're not going to take the jobs that cost you money, and
you have enough of a buffer to to weather that storm. I can't answer that question for you, but if you understand what your numbers look like, what it costs you to be in business, what you need to make every single day, and what you need to be charging, you'll understand how to map that out for yourselves. But the the bigger picture with this podcast, honestly, is to not fear these pauses, to use them appropriately. They're
going to come and they're going to go. Sometimes they'll be more difficult, sometimes they'll be easier, sometimes they'll pass more quickly, but understand this is just the rhythm that you need to fit into. What are you going to do with the quiet
times? If you just go into a panic and you spiral and you start signing anything and everything just to keep the lights on, I'm telling you that you will never get out from underneath of where you are if you sit back and you do what you have to do to focus on bettering yourself and bettering your business moving forward, rather than just signing on the job because you're starving. When you come out of this, you will be that much stronger, and it's going to impact your business
immediately and in a positive way in the long term. So use this pause. It's not lost time. Be confident in yourself. Don't question everything that you're doing. Don't question your processes. Don't think that you need to lower your price and sharpen your pencil and concede to a million things that you would never do, stick to your guns, inventory your business, gage your business, remain confident and find a path forward that really works best for you and your clients are not
able to leverage. It's your opportunity to build something stronger. I hope you guys enjoyed that one today. I think that it's relatively appropriate. Again, I've spoken to a lot of people and a lot of consulting clients where things have slowed down and they're in a panic about what they can do. So the idea is to stay ahead of it, right? You want to position yourself so that when these times hit, it's not a panic. And you need to be doing that every day. You need to be doing it
when times are good. You need to be doing it when times are slow. If I can help you with that, reach out to me. Tyler@trghomeconcepts.com I am still doing consulting. A lot of people reach out to me. Maybe they don't listen the midweek. I do a couple each week. A lot of times on Tuesdays when I'm home doing podcast stuff. But if somebody needs help, I'll fit
them into my schedule with a pretty quick turnaround. So if you are interested in that, or you want to talk more, discuss anything that I do, or your systems, or how you can maintain your standards of business, shoot me an email. Tyler@trghomeconcepts.com don't forget, tentatively, next workshop, June 13. Usually, I think we're doing them 3pm Eastern Time, which is 12 Pacific time. On Fridays, I will confirm them, but the best place to do that is to sign up for the
newsletter. Their free workshops will be giving you free resources. It'll be on a topic that's applicable to you and your business. But you have to be on the newsletter. So you can sign up for that either through Instagram profile, website, monter craftsman.co, if you are that technologically inept like myself, you can shoot me an email, and I'll help you do that as well. All right, guys and girls, have a good week. Hope everyone had a good holiday. Memorial Day was this past
weekend. You'll probably won't get to this till a couple weeks later, but hope everyone had a good week and that's it. I'll catch you guys on the next one.