Every service business has gaps: a cancellation, a slow week, a new team member who isn't fully booked yet. An empty slot earns nothing, so discounting it can make sense — but only if the discounted job still covers its costs.
Know your cost per job
Before you discount anything, work out roughly what a job costs you to deliver:
- Labour — the hourly cost of the person doing it × the job length.
- Travel — distance there and back × your cost per mile or kilometre.
- Materials — products, parts or consumables used.
You don't need perfect numbers; you need honest ones. If you don't know your costs, any discount is a guess.
Set floors before you set offers
Decide three limits in advance:
- A minimum acceptable price for each service.
- A minimum margin you're willing to work for.
- A maximum discount from your normal price.
On skrhyb's capacity marketplace, offers are checked against these limits automatically. An offer that would breach them can't be published without the owner's explicit approval and a reason — sometimes a loss-leader is a deliberate choice, but it should never be an accident.
Target the right customers
A discount sent to everyone trains customers to wait for discounts. Better to offer it to people who are nearby (so travel costs stay low), who have shown interest in the service, and — if you choose — who haven't used you before.
Make the offer worth repeating
The real value of a filled slot is often the second booking. Do a great job, make it easy to book again at your normal price, and consider allowing the offer to convert to a recurring subscription.
Measure what matters
Track how many offered slots were filled, the revenue they brought in, how many new customers came from them, and how many went on to book again. Volume alone isn't success: a full diary at a loss is worse than a few well-priced extra jobs.