For Those who are seasonal

[ICS]

Name some of the better decisions you made and some of the not so good decisions you made in trying to improve your company this year.

[DanaMac]

Good:
I stopped servicing rentals for 2 companies - one had about 50, the other about 30. Systems weren't very good, tenants tough to schedule with, property managers demanding. We have a few rentals but no more than 6-8 per manager.
Bought a compressor finally - looks and runs great
Made a few more contacts for referral work

Bad:
Worked too many weekends in Apr., May, June which let to my most stressful year
Yelled (by email) to a good referring company. Have since lost that contact.
Should have tried to line up at least one or two installs for late in the summer to keep employee a little more busy. Last year we had two big revamp jobs and one big lighting install late in the summer season.

[Dirty Water]

I'm going to work as a full time sprinkler tech next spring to take the stress level down a notch. Last spring I spent about 3 days a week doing installs, and another 3 days doing service. Regardless, I was wore out as were everyone else. I don't think working 60+ hour weeks from April to July is healthy.

I found a great kid who I'm training over the late summer/fall/winter to take over being the install foreman so I can stick to fulltime service.

We aren't seasional, we work about 11 months out of the year, but everything slows down a lot in the winter.

[Mark B]

NOt sure this will be a smart thing. But i"m thinking about heading to the keys for 3 months. Last yr it didn't snow at all (I have a plow).. Not really sure that x-mas lighting is worth it for me anyway. So the keys are sounding pretty good... I could go to work for a irritatioin company there as a tech.