Moving is a seasonal business. The American Moving and Storage Association named May as National Moving Month to mark the beginning of moving season. Roughly 65% of annual moves occur during the 6 months between April and September, and that busy season is coming to a close. It’s not all bad news, though! The relative lull of the off-season gives you a great opportunity to improve on your business processes and get ready for the next busy season, when things will be to hectic to make systematic improvements.

Here are the top 3 things to be doing during the off-season.

1) Get reviews – everywhere!

The classic explanation I hear from folks in the moving industry on why they don’t have many reviews or why their Yelp score sucks is that they just don’t have time to manage their reputation.

Well, you’ll have about 15% fewer jobs over the next 6 months, so invest that time in nailing every job and then politely requesting a review after the fact!

To find out where you need reviews, Google your brand name and see which review sites pop up on the first page. Those are your targets. Disperse your reviews on each site until you have 4-5 stars across the board.

2) Build your digital properties.

If you are thinking long-term, there are few better investments for a moving company than a top quality website. The trick is, building a moving website takes time to pay off. Between 3 and 6 months to hit a highly productive state, on average.

The ideal time to invest in a new site is autumn or early winter, so that your new digital presence is fully productive by the busy season when the most leads are on the table.

3) Train, train, train!

You can build your bottom line in two ways – by increasing the amount of leads you are dropping into your sales funnel, or by becoming more efficient with the leads you already have. More reviews and a better website will increase your overall leads. Great staff training will increase the amount of appointments and sales you are booking out of the leads you receive.

Where to start? Your phone setting department is the low hanging fruit. With an improved script and good coaching, you can significantly boost your inbound lead performance and sales figures.

Check out our phone guide for a step-by-step guide on how to do it!