Early to bed, early to rise, they say. Except it doesn’t work out for everyone. When you’re in a field that prizes being awake with the roosters, being a night owl can feel like an occupational hazard. But it doesn’t have to be. If you like to burn the midnight oil, here are five things you can do to take advantage of your focus in preparation for the contractor licensing exam.

Embrace Your Sleep Schedule
One problem with living in a world that starts early is that you may end up running a longer clock than most people do. If you have the flexibility, embrace your sleep schedule. Allow yourself to sleep in when it makes sense to do so, as much as you can. The best thing that you can do for your routine is to find a schedule that you can keep. If you’re consistently waking up at nine or 10 and staying up until midnight or later, your body will adjust to it. This will give you the advantage of a full night’s sleep, which can make those later nights more productive.

Prepare in Advance
On the upside, staying up late to do your studying gives you the advantage of a quiet house in a generally quiet world. As people pack it in for the day, you’re less likely to be bothered. However, this might also mean that you have less access to people to ask questions or get help setting up your study environment. Take time earlier in the day to figure out what you’re going to need, so you can have it ready to go once the late evening hits. This removes potential obstacles to your studying, with the added benefit of outlining your objectives for the evening.

Find a Rhythm
Everyone has times when they feel like they can generally be more productive than others. Doing it a different way doesn’t make it incorrect or ineffective. In fact, by identifying the times of day when you are most likely to achieve your goals, you can target your most important work for those times. People who try to live on someone else’s schedule often find that they don’t thrive in it. By comparison, finding your own rhythm gives you the greatest chance of success. Just make sure that you build a habit in the first place, so that it feels more natural to start working late, even as everyone else is winding down.

Snack for Learning
There are tons of advice guides telling people what they should be eating when they first wake up in order to have a productive day. There isn’t as much for people who get their most productive periods 10 hours after they wake up. Fortunately, the foods that get people going in the morning will usually work at night as well. It’s tempting to go for mindless snacking on carbs after dinner. But if you want to focus, try to give yourself a combination of protein, fat and complex carbohydrates. This balance can help you feel satisfied without giving you a huge boost of energy and a crash shortly after.

Avoid Burning Out During the Day
The thing about trying to study at night is that you’ll probably still have commitments that you have to meet during the day. People who do well staying up late are still at risk for burning out as the day wears on. Unless you’re a person who thrives on six or seven hours of sleep, and most people aren’t, it’s best to pick your battles. Set a schedule that doesn’t require you to do as much first thing in the morning, if you can. Take a break for an hour or two in the afternoon, to help you switch gears. That way, you get to the evening feeling reasonably refreshed and ready to hit the books.

Studying what you learn is the best way to prepare for the contractor licensing exam. To find out how our classes can help, visit CSLS today!

When you get some experience running a business, you realize that there’s a big difference between a lead and a sale. You might have lots of leads but only some of them will convert into actual business for you. At first, you might struggle to get people who are interested to commit to hiring your services. Here are a few things to look at to help you figure out what is going wrong.

Targeting the Wrong Customers
You have a service or a product to sell. There are customers who need the product or service and may be interested in buying it. The trick is to make sure that your sales and marketing attempts are reaching the right customers. For example, if you are focusing your business on business clients, residential property owners are probably not the right fit. Similarly, offering a luxury service may not land well with prospective customers on tight budgets. Consider clarifying your available services so that when customers see an advertisement or visit your website, they can identify quickly if you can do what they’re looking for.

Reaching Leads Too Early or Late in the Purchase Cycle
Anyone who is looking for a contractor will go through a cycle as they make a decision. Securing a customer’s commitment depends on where they are at in the cycle once they find you. If they are in the early stages of research, still determining what they want, you should provide detail about your available services and other information. If they are just about to make a decision, you should be giving them information that helps them feel comfortable choosing you. Meeting them where they are is the key to giving them what they need.

Failing at Follow-Up
Failing to follow up on a lead is one of the biggest reasons that businesses lose out on conversions. Sometimes, you’ll get a call or an email from a prospective customer that you can’t address at the moment. Within a day or two, you’ve forgotten all about it. And by the time you get to it, they have concluded that you weren’t interested and moved on to someone else. It may seem ridiculous that contractors would leave possible clients on the table this easily, but it happens more often than you think. Set a reasonable response interval for new leads, usually one or two days, and make sure that you follow up on them.

Sales Tactics Are Too Pushy or Lukewarm
As a general rule, customers don’t like feeling pressured to buy something. They may need to have you sell them on your services, but there’s a right balance in approach. You’ve probably experienced it yourself many times. Trying to buy something when a salesperson is so pushy and doesn’t seem to care what you want feels exhausting. On the other hand, trying to get a salesperson to respond to your questions when they seem disinterested can be just as frustrating. Aim for a balance between pushing people to commit and acting like you don’t care about getting their business. Responding attentively to their needs is the best path to securing a commitment.

Price Doesn’t Fit the Service
Anyone who works in sales can tell you that there is the price that you want to charge for something, and there is the amount the people are willing to pay. If you’re offering a service based on low cost to customers, then the price should reflect that. If you’re emphasizing custom work or high-end materials, you need to make sure that the customers looking for that service can find you. Sometimes, customers are hoping to get the gold standard but they aren’t willing to pay for it. If all of your customers seem to fit this category, then you probably need to change your pricing structure or your services to suit.

The future of your business lies in your ability to turn potential leads into paid work. With these tips, you can solve possible problems and make your sales efforts more effective. For more information about building your own contracting business, contact CSLS today!