How to Plan for Slow Season Before It Arrives (Start in July)

Jul 9

Slow season planning is the work you do while you're still busy, so that your service department has paid work waiting when the phone stops ringing. It's not a fall project. By the time you feel slow, the window to fix slow has already closed.

Here's the one piece of math that reorganizes this whole conversation: marketing takes four to six weeks to work.Not tomorrow. Four to six weeks.

So if your slow season starts in September, you need to be marketing at the end of July and the beginning of August. Which means the work of filling September happens right now, while you're buried.

And I already know what you're saying, because dealers say it to me every single year. "But Sara, at the end of July we are slammed. I don't want any more work right now."

You're not spending that money for right now. You're spending it for when things start slowing down.

Slow season shouldn't catch you by surprise

Your job as a service manager is to maximize the off season. Because here's the thing about off season that nobody built into the plan: just because it's slow doesn't mean your revenue turns off. Payroll still comes out. Rent still comes out. Floorplan interest doesn't check the calendar.

The goal of a slow season plan isn't to survive September. It's to have a plan in place that builds your department and grows your profits when everybody else in town is idling.

Most service managers walk into slow season already feeling behind, and they almost always made the same set of moves as every other service manager in that position: they waited until the schedule thinned out to start marketing, they discounted in a panic, and they spent October wondering where the work went. It's not a character flaw. It's a timing problem, and timing problems are fixable.

Do the backwards math

Take out a calendar. This takes about ten minutes.

Find the week your shop actually gets slow. Not when you think it should. Look at last year's work orders. Your patterns aren't mysterious, and you don't need to hunt for them.
Count back six weeks. That's the week your marketing has to be in front of customers, not the week you start thinking about it.
Count back another two weeks from there. That's when the offer, the list, and the plan need to be built.

If September is your slow month, you're building the offer in mid-July and it's landing in customers' hands the first week of August. Now go look at what today is.

Fund it before you need it

Here's the number to write down: 3% of your labor revenue goes to marketing.

For every $100 that comes into your service department, three dollars gets set aside to bring in the next $100. And 35% of your labor rate covers running the shop, so this isn't found money, it's budgeted money.

Most people treat a budget like an anchor. It's not. A marketing budget is the thing that lets you say yes to something, and, just as importantly, say no to something. When a co-op offer shows up in August and you already know what you've set aside and what you're going to do with it, the answer takes thirty seconds instead of three weeks.

Build the slow season package

The move I like most is a pre-season service package with three parts.

A percentage off labor. Ten percent works. You're not giving away the department, you're pricing a unit that would otherwise sit in a bay doing nothing in November.

A percentage off parts. Typically 5%, because that's roughly what you're adding when parts move through the service department anyway.

Pickup and delivery. For one dollar.

Not free. One dollar. Or nineteen dollars, or some odd number that makes people stop and read it twice.

Because free means nothing to anyone. Everybody has a different definition of free, the same way everybody has a different definition of soon. Free could mean a dollar. Free could mean $4,000. It doesn't mean anything, so it doesn't land. But a dollar? A dollar is a real number attached to a real service, and it catches people off guard just enough to make them pick up the phone.

The move that fixes next season too

Now here's where this stops being a slow season strategy and becomes a whole-year strategy.

Think about what happens when season hits. You get an incredible ramp-up. Suddenly there's work everywhere, and before you know it, you're booked four weeks out, five weeks out, and your techs are underwater and your customers are calling to ask where their unit is.

What if you took 30% of that work and pulled it into the slow months instead?

The more equipment you bring in during slow season, the less peak season you have to survive. That's not a slogan. That's a schedule. The customer who brings you their unit in November at 10% off labor with a one-dollar pickup is a customer who isn't calling you in June asking why you're booked five weeks out.

You're not discounting to fill November. You're discounting to un-wreck June.

Get the rest of the dealership in on it

A service department that markets alone is a service department working harder than it needs to.

When a customer buys a new piece of equipment, I want the salesperson to walk that customer back and introduce them to you. Not hand them a business card. Physically bring them, so you can tell them how you'll take care of them and when you'd like to see the unit back.

You're one dealership, not four departments with a shared parking lot. The salesperson sells the first unit. Service sells the second, third, and fourth.

Where to start

Don't build the plan, the offer, the list, and the referral process this week. 30% easier, sustained, beats 100% better, abandoned.

Pick the date. That's it. Open last year's work orders, find the week the schedule thinned out, count back six weeks, and put a hard deadline on the calendar for when your slow season offer has to be in customers' hands. Everything else gets built backwards from that one date, and the date is the only part you can't fake.

If you want a clear picture of what else is quietly costing your service department time and money before slow season gets here, our service department self-assessment takes about 15 minutes. It's a good use of a July afternoon.

Building toward slow season is Section 12, Module 3 of our Service Manager Certification, where we walk through the calendar math, the budget, and the packages that actually fill a shop. That's the module to take right now, because right now is when it's worth something. Come back for the rest of the certification when the bays clear and you've got the room to build.

Slow season shouldn't catch you by surprise. It's on the calendar. It's been on the calendar the whole time.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I start planning for slow season?
Six to eight weeks before your slow season actually begins. Marketing takes four to six weeks to produce results, so if your slow period starts in September, your offer needs to reach customers in early August, which means building it in mid-July while you're still busy.

How much should a service department spend on marketing?
About 3% of labor revenue. For every $100 the service department brings in, three dollars is set aside to generate the next $100. A budget's purpose is to let you say yes or no quickly when an opportunity or a co-op offer appears.

What should a slow season service special include?
Three components work well together: roughly 10% off labor, about 5% off parts, and pickup and delivery priced at an odd, specific number like one dollar or nineteen dollars. Avoid the word "free," because everyone defines it differently and it doesn't register as a real offer.

Why shouldn't I offer free pickup and delivery?
Because "free" carries no fixed meaning. To one customer it signals a dollar of value, to another it signals thousands. A specific, unusual price like one dollar gets read twice, feels concrete, and still functions as a real incentive.

How do I keep my service department busy during the off season?
Market four to six weeks ahead of the slowdown, build a pre-season package with labor and parts discounts plus low-cost pickup and delivery, and deliberately shift a portion of peak-season work into slow months. Moving roughly 30% of peak work into the off season reduces the backlog that overwhelms your shop during season.

Does slow season mean lower expenses?
No. Payroll, rent, and floorplan interest continue regardless of how full the bays are. That's precisely why the off season needs a revenue plan rather than a survival plan.

Sara Hey is the President of Bob Clements International, a dealership consulting and training firm that works with OPE, Ag, Powersports, RV, marine, trailer, and construction dealers across North America. She is the author of The Dealership Equation and co-author of You're the Problem*, and she writes the "Ask Sara Hey" advice column.*

Sara Hey