🏴‍☠️ Why Winter Exposes The Weakest Operators

Last week an HVAC owner told me:
“Every December I feel like I’m bleeding cash.”

He wasn’t being dramatic. He was preparing for the annual freefall. Phones quiet down. Projects push to January. Cash gets tight.
And the worst part?
He said it happens every single year… and every year it catches him by surprise.

Then a construction company owner said their entire year hinges on two things they can’t control: permit approvals and budget resets.

Different industries.
Same fear.
Same pattern.
Same flaw in the business model.

Seasonality is not weather.
Seasonality is dependency.

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The Hidden Cost of Seasonality

Seasonality is rarely the problem.
The problem is what seasonality exposes:

• No consistent outbound pipeline

• No long-term contract strategy

• No pricing tiers for slow-season cash flow

• No structured renewals

• No backlog management

• No visibility into leading indicators

• No capacity planning tied to demand signals

If you’re honest, you already know the dips are predictable.
What’s unpredictable is your ability to absorb them.

The strongest operators make a strategic decision:
If revenue naturally slows, pipeline must accelerate.
If projects slow, renewals must climb.
If demand dips, prep work must increase.

Seasonality is not an excuse.
Seasonality is a forecast.

The Counter-Seasonal Playbook

Here’s the playbook I’ve shared with HVAC owners, construction firms, architects, and operators across industries.

1. Diagnose Your Revenue Exposure

Pull the last 12 months and chart revenue by month.
Tag each job as seasonal, non-seasonal, or counter-seasonal.
Your winter problem is always hiding in the mix.

Goal: Know exactly what percentage of your business dies in winter.

2. Replace Winter Gaps With Pre-Sold Work

Create one offer that can be pre-sold in Q4 and scheduled in Q1:
design packages, pre-construction planning, system audits, facility assessments, retainers, builder sets, winterization programs.

Goal: Shift 15 to 20 percent of winter revenue into guaranteed work before the cold hits.

3. Convert One Revenue Stream Into Recurring Cash

Pick one line of business and formalize it into monthly recurring billing: service contracts, design retainers, commercial PM schedules, quarterly planning, equipment checks, engineering retainers.

Goal: Build a baseline that covers payroll without praying for weather.

4. Install a 90-Day Pipeline Machine

Create a single outbound sequence targeting buyers who plan before winter: property managers, commercial operators, developers, GCs, multifamily owners, facility directors.

Push for needs assessments, not proposals.

Goal: 10 warm conversations booked every month even when the phone slows down.

5. Lock in a Pricing Increase Before the Slow Season

Owners always wait until spring to review pricing.
Wrong.
Winter buyers are more loyal and less price sensitive.

Goal: Raise effective rates by 8 to 12 percent through better scoping, not higher list prices.

6. Build the Backlog & Capacity Dashboard

Track:
• backlog by service line
• start dates vs. lead times
• crew utilization
• cash tied to change orders
• percent of winter work pre-sold

Goal: No owner should “hope” for spring. They should see spring coming in a dashboard.

Action Plan for This Week

Consider this your winter-proofing sprint:

1. Lock in predictable winter revenue.
Pick one service and move it to a simple monthly bill. Payroll should never depend on weather or seasonality.

2. Pre-sell next-season work now.
Identify the exact buyers who care about spring projects and start booking those conversations this week. Backlog is built.

3. Install one visibility dashboard.
Backlog, utilization, pricing, and pipeline in one place. If you can see your winter, you can control it.

Before You Go

If you want the 5-question Winter Readiness Audit, just reply ‘audit’ and I’ll send it over.

See you next week.

-Kinza