The phone slows down. The inbox gets quiet. Leads are down from last year. And then the voice in your head starts up: Maybe I should sharpen my pencil a little. Just for a while. Just to keep the crews busy.
We’ve all been there. A slow market has a way of making you feel like the problem is your price — and that the solution is to lower it. It’s one of the most natural instincts in business. It’s also one of the most damaging things you can do.
Not just to your own company. To everyone’s.
Why the Slow Market Creates This Pressure
When work slows down, fear tends to fill the gap. Fear of idle crews. Fear of missed payroll. Fear that your competitor is out there undercutting you right now and getting jobs you should have. That fear is real and legitimate — running a business is hard, and the stakes are personal.
But here is the problem with making pricing decisions from that place: you stop thinking about what the work actually costs.
The cost of doing the job right — paying your workers fairly, covering your overhead, maintaining your equipment, operating legally, standing behind your warranty — doesn’t go down just because the market is slow. Your costs are what they are. When you price below them to win a job, you aren’t actually winning anything. You are borrowing against your own future. And it’ll be a future where you won’t have any profit to borrow on. This is a recipe for business failure.
What You’re Really Doing When You Cut Your Price
Let’s be honest about what discounting in a slow market actually does.
First, you just lost your profit. Margins are already slim in this industry. When you reduce your price, you might keep busy for a short period, but you are now operating unsustainably and it is just a matter of time. Most contractors don’t understand their numbers well enough to realize how little money is being made. If something unexpected comes your way like a repair bill, or you remember that the government still wants its tax installment you may end up working for nothing or running out of cash. This happens to several companies in this industry every year, even on a good year.
Second, it undercuts every contractor in the market who is trying to price correctly. When a homeowner gets three quotes and yours is noticeably lower, the other two contractors don’t just lose that job — they get pressure to explain themselves. The consumer starts to wonder if the higher-priced contractors are overcharging. The downward pull on the whole market begins.
It puts your own business at risk. Work completed at below-cost pricing means corners get cut somewhere — in materials, in labour hours, in the time you take to do things right. The job that looked like a win on paper becomes a liability down the road. A business that strings together enough of those eventually doesn’t survive.
Pricing below your costs isn’t a strategy. It’s a slow leak.
The Market Isn’t Asking You to Lower Your Price — Fear Is
This is worth sitting with for a moment.
A slow market does not mean homeowners have stopped valuing quality. It does not mean your best customers are suddenly only willing to pay the lowest price. It means the pool of active buyers has reduced. There is less work needing to be done, but the same amount of workers looking to work.
That’s actually an opportunity — if you’re prepared to meet it.
The contractors who come out of slow markets strongest are the ones who double down on their value proposition rather than abandoning it. They communicate more clearly. They follow up more diligently. They make the case for why their price is their price. They compete on trust rather than on cost. The refine their processes and work smarter.
That is a harder sell than a discount. But it is necessary for building a lasting company.
The Industry-Wide Effect Nobody Talks About
Here is the part that tends to get overlooked: your pricing decisions don’t just affect your business.
Consumer confidence in our industry is already fragile. Homeowners approach contractors with skepticism, which has been earned — by a market where pricing has historically been all over the map, where the lowest bidder often wins, and where it’s hard to tell the difference between a legitimate company and a fly-by-night operation.
When contractors drop prices in slow markets, it anchors consumer expectations at the bottom. It makes it harder for every honest, well-run business to justify what it actually costs to do work properly. It keeps the bar low for everyone.
The contractor who holds their pricing during a slow season isn’t just protecting their own margins. They’re protecting the integrity of the pricing conversation for the whole trade. They’re one data point in the homeowner’s mind — a data point that says: this work has real value, and people who do it right charge accordingly.
Adapt your business to what the market is telling you and focus on maintaining high margin. Don’t lower your price hoping volume will save the day only to put yourself out of business.
So What Do You Do Instead?
If holding the line on price is the right move, that doesn’t mean just sitting on your hands while the phone is quiet. There’s plenty to do.
Sharpen your value, not your pencil. What does your estimate include that isn’t listed? Are you communicating it clearly? Are you taking the time to educate your buyer? A homeowner who understands what they’re getting — and why it costs what it costs — is far more likely to say yes than one who is just comparing numbers.
Stay in front of past customers. Referrals don’t slow down as much as cold leads do. The homeowners who already trust you are the most likely to move forward even when others are hesitating. Keep those relationships warm.
Use the downtime to get better. Slow periods are when the strongest companies refine, plan, and build a stronger, leaner operation. The ones who use the quiet to sharpen their operations come out the other side ready to grow. Only the strong survive.
Lean on your community. One of the hardest parts of holding your pricing during a slow period is that it can feel like you’re the only one doing it. That’s where knowing other contractors matters. When you’re connected to others who share your values, you find out that you’re not alone — and that steadiness is contagious.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
This is exactly the kind of challenge that MECA exists to help with. The contractors who are connected to each other, who talk honestly about what’s working and what isn’t, who hold each other to a higher standard, are the ones who tend to make better decisions under pressure.
When you know that other people in your trade are holding their pricing — and why — it’s easier to hold yours. When you understand what it actually costs to run a legitimate business, you stop second-guessing your own numbers and your strategy. When you’re part of a community that is genuinely trying to raise the bar, a slow market feels less like a threat and more like a test of what you’ve built.
The temptation to drop your price will always be there when things get quiet. The question is whether you’ve built the mindset — and the connections — to resist it.
This topic will be discussed at our May Members luncheon (Sponsored by Roofmart Prairies Ltd.). Join MECA to be part of the conversation.
– David Ehlers, MECA Executive Director