Your January install slots are sold in the next three weeks or not at all
Winter installs are booked in late October and early November. What to send, who to send it to, and the offer that fills January without a discount.
It is the last week of October. If your January calendar is empty, this is the week it gets filled or stays that way. A bathroom remodel takes three to eight weeks from first call to signed estimate, so the homeowner who installs in the second week of January is requesting an estimate right now, and the one who installs in February is requesting one by Thanksgiving. Nothing you do in December will change January. Here is what to do in the next twenty days.
Who to contact first
Start with the people who already know you. Pull every estimate you wrote in the last 18 months that did not sell. For a company doing five or six projects a month at a 30% close rate, that is somewhere between 80 and 150 households, every one of which wanted a bathroom badly enough to have you in the house.
Send a text, not an email, from the owner's phone:
"Hi [first name], it's Dana from Northside Bath. We have a few January install openings and I am holding pricing through December 15 for past estimates. If the bathroom is still on the list, I am happy to update the number. No pressure either way."
Expect 5% to 10% to reply, and a few of those to book. Some were waiting for a bonus or a tax refund; January is when those arrive.
Then the list that never got an estimate
Every form fill and missed call that never turned into a visit goes next, same message with one change: "we never got to see the bathroom" instead of "update the number". These are colder, but it is a thirty-second text per person.
If you have no list because leads live in a notebook and a voicemail box, this is the month to fix that. The missed-calls guide covers the basic setup; a spreadsheet with name, phone, project type, date and source is all it takes to start.
The offer
Do not discount the base price. A winter discount trains your market to wait for one every year and it tells the spring buyer she paid too much. Include something instead, with a deadline:
- Frameless glass included on tub-to-shower conversions booked by November 20
- Heated floor included on full remodels installing in January
- The design visit and a 3D rendering, normally $150, at no charge for winter bookings
Each of those costs a few hundred dollars against a $12,000 to $20,000 project and gives the homeowner a reason to decide this month rather than in March. Say the number of slots you actually have. "Six January openings" is believable and true. "Limited availability" is noise.
Where to run it
Three places, in order of cost:
- The text and email above, to your own list. Free.
- A Google Business Profile post every week through November with a finished project photo, the town, and "January openings". Free.
- A Meta campaign at $30 to $50 a day with a before-and-after and the included-upgrade offer, radius around your shop, ages 35 to 70. Lead costs in November are usually the lowest of the year because the big remodelers and franchises pull budget for the holidays. The Meta ads guide has the creative and form setup.
Keep Google Ads running at the normal budget. Searches dip a little in November; competition dips more.
The aging-in-place angle
Thanksgiving is when adult children notice that a parent is struggling to get over the side of the tub. The searches for walk-in showers and bathroom safety rise through December and peak in January. Have the page ready now: a curbless shower with a bench and blocking for grab bars, a price range, a timeline, and photos. If the page exists before the holiday, the January calls come to you. The website guide covers the page.
What to expect
From a list of 100 past estimates and three weeks of posts and ads, a realistic result is three to six booked in-home visits and one to three sold winter projects. That is a crew working through January instead of sitting. The cost is a few hours of texting and whatever you put into Meta.
The deeper point: the remodelers who have a slow January are not unlucky. They did not sell it in October. Put a reminder on the calendar for next year, the second week of October, "sell January."
For how the whole year lays out, see the slow-season plan. If you want the list texts, the posts and the Meta campaign set up and running inside two days, any service here is a free 14-day trial with no card. Text or call (385) 452-8683.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, bathroom remodeling companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor