Booked past Thanksgiving? This is the week to sell January
Flooring companies are at peak demand right now and most will have an empty calendar in eight weeks. What to say to the customers you are turning away, and the offer that fills the slow month.
If you run a flooring company, this week probably looks like this: the phone rings with "can you get it done before Thanksgiving", you are already booked through the third week of November, and you are telling people "maybe before Christmas" and hoping the crew holds up. It is the best four weeks of the year.
It is also the week most flooring companies set up their own slow season. Every "sorry, we are booked" with nothing after it is a January job that will not exist.
The calendar in eight weeks
By the second week of December, holiday installs stop. Nobody wants a crew in the house between the 15th and New Year's. Then January arrives with a short "new year" bump and a long quiet stretch into February and March. In the dataset behind the benchmark report, 41.7% of flooring companies do not even list hours, and in January a lot of the ones that do are sitting by a phone that does not ring.
The companies that stay busy in January booked it in October. Here is how.
What to say to the customer you cannot fit
When someone calls this week with a job you cannot get to before the holidays, do not end the call at "we are full". Say this:
"We are booked solid through December. Here is what I can do. I can come measure this week so you have an exact quote in hand, and if you want the first install slot in January, I will hold it for you with a deposit and take 10 percent off the labor for booking a slow-season date. Material pricing goes up in January most years, so the quote I give you now is the better one."
Three things happen. You still do the measure, which is your best sales moment. You get a deposit, which means the job is real. And you have filled a January day at a small labor discount instead of an empty one at none.
Most homeowners calling in late October with a holiday deadline will take the measure and about a third will take the January slot. Do the math on your own call volume: ten of those calls a week for four weeks is a January that is half booked before Thanksgiving.
The fall estimates you did not close
Pull every estimate from September and October that did not sign. Some went to a competitor. Some stalled because the homeowner could not get the house empty before the holidays. Those second ones are January jobs waiting for a text. In the first week of December, send:
"Hi [name], [company] here. The fall was busy and we are now booking January installs. The quote we gave you still stands and we have openings the week of the 12th. Want me to hold one?"
One text, no pressure. The follow-up guide has the full sequence, but this single message in December is the one with the highest return of the year.
Refinishing is the January product
If your install calendar still has gaps after the above, point the winter marketing at refinishing. The house is closed up, the holidays are over, and a three-day sand-and-finish is an easier sell than a two-week install. Run a small Google Ads campaign on refinishing terms only and a Meta ad with a refinish time-lapse from a fall job. Refinishing leads cost less in winter because fewer companies are bidding. The slow-season plan has the month-by-month version.
Ask for the reviews now
You are finishing more jobs this month than any other. Each walkthrough is a review you will need in February when the map pack is the only thing bringing calls. The median flooring company has 12 reviews; the top quarter starts at 40. A busy October is where a company moves from one to the other. Have the lead installer ask at every walkthrough and text the link on the spot. The reviews guide has the script.
Do not cut the ads to zero in December
The temptation in mid-December is to pause everything. Pause the holiday-deadline ads, yes. Keep a small refinishing campaign and the retargeting running at $10 a day. A Google Ads account that goes dark for six weeks loses its history and costs more to restart than it saved. Shift the message from "before Christmas" to "January openings" and let it run.
The three-week checklist
- This week: change the phone script to the January offer above. Write it on a card by the phone.
- Next week: tag every unclosed fall estimate for the December text.
- First week of December: send the text, switch the ads to refinishing and January openings, and post the January lead time on your Google profile.
That is maybe two hours of work spread over three weeks, and it is the difference between a January with a full crew and a January spent calling people who have already moved on.
If you would rather have the follow-up texts, the ad switch and the review asks set up for you, any one of those is a free 14-day trial with no card. Text or call (385) 527-5829.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, flooring companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor