The phone slowed down. Your roofing slow season is here, and you are answering the same questions you answered in July, with fewer jobs to hide behind.
Here is what the first quiet week shows you:
- •Your crew still texts you the job address.
- •Your estimate template changed three times this year and nobody knows which is current.
- •You cannot say what one leak callback costs you.
- •Materials orders live in your head.
- •You swore you would document it in the slow season. Last slow season.
That is a systems problem, not a people problem. The phone is quiet, so you finally have the hours to fix it.
This is the list to work through before your busy season. It covers operations only. Planning and ads already have their own posts, linked near the end.
Why Your Roofing Slow Season Is the Best Time to Get This Done
In a busy month, every hour belongs to a job or a call. A process page has no homeowner waiting on it, so it loses to everything else. In the slow months the pressure drops and you finally have the hours.
In The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande separates mistakes of ignorance from mistakes of ineptitude. Ignorance is not knowing what to do. Ineptitude is knowing and not applying it.
You already know how to run a job. The gap is that it lives in your head, so it only gets applied when you remember.
The Checklist: Six Things to Fix While the Phone Is Quiet
Six items. Start at the top. If your slow season is short, the first three do the most for the least time.
- 01.
Write down the three processes that live in your head.
Pick the three things only you know how to do. Write each one as numbered steps on a single page, in plain words. Then hand the page to someone else and watch them try it. - 02.
Clean up your estimate and contract templates to one current version each.
Pull every version you used this year. Keep one estimate template and one contract template. Put the date in the file name, archive the rest, and make sure everyone who sends them opens the same file. - 03.
Set up one place where every job's status lives.
One board, one sheet or one job app. Every job gets a line with the address, the contact name and a status: sold, scheduled, in production or finished. If your crew needs to know where a job stands, the answer is on the board, not in your head. - 04.
Document the crew handoff from sale to production.
Write down what the crew needs before day one: scope, shingle color, material drop location, roof access, dumpster placement, permit status and anything the homeowner said that changes the job. Keep it to one page. Whoever sold the job fills it out, and the crew lead reads it before the truck rolls. - 05.
Count and log tools, equipment and materials.
Walk the yard and the trucks with a clipboard. List every ladder, tarp, nail gun, tear-off tool and safety harness: what works, what needs repair and what is missing. Then list materials such as underlayment, drip edge, flashing and nails, with a reorder point for each so orders stop living in your head. - 06.
Cross-train one person on the job you do alone.
Name the one job that stops when you are out. Scheduling, ordering and the final walkthrough are the usual ones. Pick one person and train them from the page you wrote in item one.
If you do not know which three processes to pick, start with the four questions your crew asks every week. That is four processes already waiting to be written down.
Item six is the bottleneck problem in its smallest form. You Are the Bottleneck in Your Roofing Business covers the rest of it.
How Long Each One Takes
These times are my judgment, not measured data. Your yard, your crew size and your paperwork will move them.
| Item | Estimated time | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Write down three processes | About 3 hours, one hour each | You |
| 2. One version of each template | 2 to 3 hours | You, plus whoever sends them |
| 3. One place for job status | About 4 hours to set up | You |
| 4. Crew handoff page | 2 hours to write, 30 minutes to walk the crew through it | You and the crew lead |
| 5. Count and log ladders, tools, equipment and materials | One full day | You and one helper |
| 6. Cross-train one person | Four one-hour sessions over two weeks | You and the trainee |
Item: 1. Write down three processes
- Estimated time
- Who does it
Item: 2. One version of each template
- Estimated time
- Who does it
Item: 3. One place for job status
- Estimated time
- Who does it
Item: 4. Crew handoff page
- Estimated time
- Who does it
Item: 5. Count and log ladders, tools, equipment and materials
- Estimated time
- Who does it
Item: 6. Cross-train one person
- Estimated time
- Who does it
That adds up to about 24 hours, roughly three working days. Spread across the slow months, it fits around the jobs you still have.
What to Leave Alone
This list is operations only. Three other jobs belong somewhere else, so they stay off it.
Planning for the money side of slow season is a separate job. Zeph covers it in why the roofers who stay busy plan 90 days ahead. She also covers why slow season is about the homeowner's calendar, not the weather.
Follow-up on old estimates is a sales job. It does not belong on a process list.
Ads are a budget decision with their own timing. Shareef covers the winter version in setting a Google Ads budget before the rain.
Mixing those in is how a six-item list turns into a project nobody finishes.
Frequently Asked Questions
►What should a roofing company do in the off season?
Fix how the business runs. Use the quiet weeks for the six items above: document your processes, clean up your templates and set up one job board. Then write the crew handoff, count your gear and cross-train one person.
►How do I keep my crew busy in the winter?
Some of this list is crew work. Counting ladders, tarps and nail guns, tidying the yard and trucks, and walking through the handoff page all fit. How much paid work you have depends on your market and your backlog of sold jobs, and this list does not replace it.
►When should I start planning for slow season?
Slow months differ by region, so there is no one calendar for every roofer. Look at your own jobs over the last two years and find the weeks when calls drop. My judgment: start the operations work about a month before the first of those weeks.
►What if my slow season is only a few weeks?
Do items one, two and three first. They take roughly ten hours in total and do the most for the least time. Save the rest for the next quiet stretch.
You just cleared the list of things that live in your head. Marketing is the one that keeps landing back on your plate. The Search-to-Booked Roofing System™ takes it off, which is what frees the slow months for the work above.