We are certainly living in challenging times, and if you’re a sole trader working in the timber flooring industry you’ll know this to be the case.

Tough as things might seem though, we can be thankful we don’t own a restaurant, café, gym or many of the other businesses that have been forced to close. For now at least our industry can keep trading. The challenge is however, where do you find new work when home-owners are postponing jobs or not calling for quotes?

For the timber flooring industry it is not all doom and gloom. Many contractors are still reasonably busy with work in the pipeline. However there is no doubt that for many the phone is not ringing. Some contractors are wondering where work will come from in a couple of months if the situation doesn’t change, whilst others are already facing having no work.

Evidence shows that the work is still out there, you just need to know how to find it. So we're keeping in touch with some ideas on how you can keep your business moving and work coming in over this difficult period.

Talk to your past customers to generate new work

Businesses that get through these tough conditions will need to be proactive. Those who have previously relied on work by waiting for the phone to ring will need to change the way they do business. It’s time to actively prospect for work.

So where do you start? Make contact with your past customers. Go through old invoice books, diaries and speak to customers whose floors you finished last year, the year before, or as far back as you can go. Phone them and enquire on the condition of their floor. Perhaps it needs a recoat? Or at the very least thorough cleaning.

During difficult times home-owners look to improve the condition of their homes without undertaking a major renovation or incurring a huge expense. Renovating floors fits ideally into this category, it’s relatively cheap and can be done quickly with a minimum of fuss. If you have the right products and service to support this offer, its easy to make a homeowner happy.

Using non-toxic Bona water-based finishes it's not necessary to vacate the premises as there are no dangerous fumes, low VOCs. This is a strong selling point when government directives require home-owners to ‘stay at home’. As the worlds leading manufacturer of non toxic water-based finishes, Bona's years of dedicated R&D to environmentally friendly floor finishes now sees them at the forefront of the market offering home owners the ideal floor renovation solution.

If floors are not showing signs of wear and don’t require a recoat, a thorough deep clean will refresh timber floors and bring them back to top condition, eliminating heel marks and scuffs. Even resilient floors including vinyl, LVT and laminate can be treated. The Bona PowerScrubber is ideal to undertake this task, but even if you don’t own a PowerScrubber it’s still possible to deep clean a floor using a rotary sander and mops and buckets.