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Commercial service in the Midwest is steady. Boss tried to hire another tech in August. We all had a meeting and agreed to work more on straight time to get the calls covered. An extra tech in the mix heading into the winter ....

Originally Posted by dan wong

we are super slow !!!

Question for those who are busy; What are some of the thing you done right that keep you busy; did you over book early?, did you advertise more?, did you lower your price to beat out the competition, or did you happen to have account that are recession proof..ie; school, hospital...?

When I was more service oriented it seemed that the guys who sold repairs or services that could be done in the colder weather would stay the busiest in slow periods. Schedule those chiller barrel inspections/cleanings, chilled water coil cleanings, and so forth/so on to be done in your slow periods. Residential guys try selling more pm's and schedule their inspections for fall/spring. If you are not busy rethink how you present your services and you will find that even though you are a good tech you need to be a salesman too if you want to make some dough when everyone else is sleeping in.

We have good contract customers,with whom have steadily developed good relationships.Good mix too of different kinds of work including replacement and reactive service.
My area is generally slow,but so far we are still busy and hoping it stays that way.

Originally Posted by crackertech

Steady? We always are.

same here, i love supermarket work, here we are in december and still getting 50 hours a week, WHY O WHY did i not start in supermarkets from the beginning.

Work

If you have a job keep it. Work in the service end is fair. Make your company/self some money now, only the smart will servive with them selves intact

Twilli fairly busy, one of the things Twilli did was take a class in lying

shut down the whole business?

i can understand layoffs, but the whole place shutting down?

that can never be a solution....

pm's keeping us steady here in north fla,just heard this morning one of our top competition is gonna shut down from dec19 to jan6!WOW!

We are very busy in the Great White North. I could work 80 hours a week if I could keep my eyes open and my mind clear. But, even with work this busy, Family still comes first.

MrFixit

We are blessed and very busy right now. With a strong line of new construction custom homes, a regular commercial account and every customer we have (almost) has an annual agreement with us. These things are combined with a company model to reduce the customers electrical bill, have worked very well and produced year round work. Even with the failing economy, the "higher end" customers are still interested in reducing their electrical usage and increasing their property value. Customers that focus the big picture aren't easily swayed by the stock market and gas prices.
To top it all off, we are still recovering from the recent hurricane. This has caused us to bring in people from surrounding cities as we rebuild the island. The sad thing is, that we don't have enough people out in the field turning screws, so we really haven't been able to persue much new business. Very little advertising, as our plate is already full. Most of the customers are word of mouth, customer referals etc..
Say what you want about Obama, but he has passed many rebates and incentives to help our industry. I just hope we make it to the top before he (big government) fumbles the ball.

We are trying as hard as we can to advertise, tricky when money is tight but there will always be some work, so its best if you get it.

Lots of our commercial jobs have been cancelled/postponed, so a lot of the work we are doing is schools, sports facilities.
Fortunately, the olympics are coming up, which should give us some work.

we are super slow !!!

Question for those who are busy; What are some of the thing you done right that keep you busy; did you over book early?, did you advertise more?, did you lower your price to beat out the competition, or did you happen to have account that are recession proof..ie; school, hospital...?

Had a spate of being very busy about a month ago, but now eerily quiet....
Time to make another cup of tea I guess!

While some of us are struggling & on our way to the poor house-- some of us are as busy as ever. Those who are busy obviously are doing the right thing, but those of us who are not busy must face the fact that there is something missing. There is a weakness that has been exposed. We must use this time to realize that weakness & correct it. No doubt there is a challenge but in this business there's always a challenge.

55+ hours a week

it's flippin cold here!

We are busy into 2010 with schools, banks and restaraunts.

Steady? We always are.

We added 2 more service techs this month. The service side of the business is not showing a sign of slowing yet.

Steady. Not real busy. 40 and a little extra every week.

We've got a few construction projects running, plus our regular service accounts.

Plenty enough to keep working.

Staying steady,not super busy. A lot of our customers budgets are out of money until January.