Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Account Executive Casey Craig to talk about how contractors can maximize the winter months that typically a slower season compared to the rest of the year.
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Director/Host: Alyssa Burley
Guest: Casey Craig
Producer/Editor: Megan Lockhart
Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production
© Copyright 2026. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
Transcript
Alyssa Burley: You’re listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive.
I’m your host, Alyssa Burley, and I’m joined by Casey Craig, Account Executive with Rancho Mesa. He specializes in proving insurance for painting, plaster and drywall contractors.
And today, we’re going to talk about strategies to help contractors stay ahead of the seasonal slowdown.
Casey, welcome to the show.
Casey Craig: Thanks for having me.
AB: Now, you recently wrote an article where you discuss how contractors can maximize the winter months that typically a slower season compared to the rest of the year. And, how you mention El Niño is expected to bring significant weather challenges to California.
So, what are the most important steps contractors should take right now to protect profitability and keep projects moving during the slower winter months?
CC: Yeah, pretty complex question I mean this is tough every contractor deals with it when winter comes around especially those that have to specialize working on the exterior. The easiest path is obviously if we can start booking more interior work planning that out earlier it can make it easier as far as we know there's going to be rain down the road. So if we can push off all interior, that really helps out. But that's not always feasible.
Also, I think a lot of the years we're looking at things like we need profitability to be the exact same. But towards the winter months, it might be smarter to be looking at the profitability or what we're making off of it and dropping that down a little bit. Because the worst thing that can happen to us is have mass layoffs. Once we have those, you're going to start seeing cumulative trauma claims pile up and nobody else is hiring. So, it gets a little complicated there.
AB: Yeah, so in your article, you also discuss workforce planning as one of the biggest challenges contractors face during the seasonal slowdowns. What are some common mistakes companies make when managing staffing levels, and how can proactive planning help reduce both operational and insurance-related risks?
CC: Yeah, I mean, this is another tough one. When you get to this time of year, if you're going to have layoffs, typically the employers are laying off the newer employees or the less experienced. So you're trying to keep on all the ones that you like, but if you let the newer ones go. those are the ones that tend to have the cumulative trauma claims. So you're trying to not have all of the workflow stop at one point where we have five projects at all in on the same day. We want to stagger that out, which obviously for the people that I work with is a little more difficult just because we're the last ones on the job. So we don't get to choose what day we're starting or stopping. But if we can manage that, we want to start trying to think ahead of if we're going to have a slower week or two, we might want to be looking at dropping that profitability on it to make sure we can keep another crew on a job site. But yeah, these are ones where insurance is kind of the biggest part of it.
Once we get to December and January, we start to see an uptick in these claims. And the employers get very upset because this isn't anything where they had an injury. It's somebody that got let go. They haven't had a job for three to six weeks now. All of a sudden they say, my shoulder hurt from before, and these are ones that just start piling up.
AB: Yeah and also in the article you highlight opportunities that can emerge during slower periods, including employee training, risk management, and diversifying work. How can contractors use winter downtime strategically to position their businesses for stronger growth and improved performance in the coming year?
CC: Yeah, I think there's, to an extent, having layoffs is kind of unavoidable at this time. It's going to be slower, but when you have employees, you want to make sure that they feel like they have a future. So when we have slower times, we can kind of bake in that we know that they're going to need some trainings, whether it's OSHA or whether it's trainings for a promotion that could come. If they see that they have a future with the company and there's slower times they get laid off, they do think that they're going to have a path to coming back. That's really important this time of year to make sure you've got those employees coming in for those trainings, letting them know, hey, this is what it takes to become a foreman or to be a supervisor. Those kinds of things really start stacking up and they keep good employees on and younger employees, they know they have a future at that company.
AB: Yeah, and we've got a couple different platforms, SafetyOne™ and our HR portal that can offer some of those trainings, whether it's safety related in SafetyOne™ or if you need those soft skills, maybe you have employees that you want to promote to a management position, maybe a foreman, a superintendent, something like that. We've got some trainings that they can take through the HR portal.
CC:Yeah.
AB: Clients should take advantage of both of those platforms.
CC: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think us as insurance brokers, we know that you guys are slow right now, but we're not reaching out and asking what services you need. If you see slow times coming, it's great to reach out to your broker and just say, hey, we're having a little lull right now. What would you recommend? We'll be able to put you in touch with the right people.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. All right, Casey, if listeners have questions about resources to make the most of their seasonal slowdown, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
CC: Yeah you can give me a call at (619) 438-6900 or you can email me at ccraig@ranchomesa.com.
AB: All right. Well, Casey, thanks for joining me in StudioOne™.
CC: Thanks for having me.
AB: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.