Home improvement contractors who leave the time-consuming and ever-changing work of lead generation to third parties like Modernize can finally get around to bigger and better things.

To put it simply, it’s very unrealistic for contractors to actually find the time or wherewithal to do everything their company needs doing as it seeks to grow, from mastering marketing strategies and nurturing leads well to expanding your digital footprint and optimizing your homeowner data. And in the realm of lead generation, the minutiae gets so specific that even after having mastered it, its various corners will continue to evolve, requiring your attention once again (and then again after that).

There are many reasons to sign up with a company like Modernize to handle your lead generation, but a frequently overlooked reason is a world of opportunity that will open up to you now that you’re not sweating to generate new leads or close new business every day. Rather, you’ll be able to focus on what you’re best at doing, whether your expertise is in completing home improvement projects like solar, windows, roofing, HVAC, and so on, or generally assisting homeowners with existing infrastructure. And while you know best what your priorities are outside of that, here are some ideas to consider that can sweeten your personal time, enhance your professional aptitudes, and overall give you back some of your own time.

From time off to therapeutic activities, there is a lot you will be able to do for your own physical, mental, and social health with your new allowance of personal time.

Take Your Partner On Vacation — Or Hit It Solo

No, it’s not unreasonable to simply take a break. You’ve worked hard to reach a point where you can invest in the future. When doing so saves you slices of time you’ve been overworking to fill with lead generation, it’s okay to grab a friend or loved one and head off. Whether you rent a car and drive far away for a weekend or grab a last-minute flight to another country (or city you’ve always wanted to visit), low-cost and fun opportunities are out there specifically for this purpose.

And if you’re reluctant to go on a trip for purely personal reasons, think of a city or neighborhood whose home improvements (or homes themselves) have always intrigued you. Is there a place other than your city that might help you imagine new ways and ideas to bring back to work?

Learn Something New — For Free

From HarvardX (yeah, Harvard) to Coursera and Khan Academy, there are lots of services that offer you access to online classes in virtually any subject. Adjacent to your specialty, check out classes like Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster and The Architectural Imagination. Sign up and immerse yourself in learning something brand new, just for you.

But an education like this is certainly not limited to personal growth. Courses like The Entrepreneur’s Toolkit and lectures like Entrepreneurial Leadership could help you better face your own work, whether in managing your projects or actually executing them. Finally, you might already know about local workshops or certifications that can further enhance your expertise or your ability to boast about it online. This is your chance to finally hunker down and sign up for one of those.

Go To a Trade Show

Conferences are popular in most industries, but most contractors don’t have time to attend them. In that sense, maybe more important is finding the time to implement what you learned at them and follow up on new things they exposed you to. Now, you could have time to prepare for, attend, and lean into the lessons you will learn from a trade show, conference, or exhibition either locally or regionally and specific to your trade.

References Are Everything — Go Get Them

You’ve got experience and it’s sometimes hard to translate that online. But with your time, you could contact your old clients, visit some of them to assess the longevity of your work, and see what they have to share about you. You could even construct a whole new referral program! From possibly (and of course with their permission) taking photos of those completed projects that you can finally add them to your testimonials tab online to actual testimonials you could throw online or share through social channels, revisiting your work could help you with creating a sustainable referral program and cycling new clients.

Connect with Manufacturers — They Might Be Waiting

Your work involves a lot of products and you are likely not making all of them. As you keep finding yourself a middle man between homeowners and the various products they’re buying (if they’re not buying them from you), consider using your newfound time to reach out to some of these manufacturers about potential partnerships. Maybe you find something interesting in a product you’ve always recommended and are able to get a cut of those sales, or maybe you’re mentioned on their very site as an expert in that product. Regardless of the specifics, harnessing new relationships with companies and people in the industry who are adjacent to your own work is nearly always a positive endeavor.

Time is The Most Precious Commodity

In 2019, the same old approach to home improvement lead generation is not going to cut it. The intrinsic value of turn to a company like Modernize for help in that regard is what you personally get from handing over the headache of lead generation to a third party that is fully dedicated to it. We keep ourselves busy learning the newest trends in lead generation, in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), in marketing strategies, in data analysis, and so on. As you know well about your specific field, mastering a craft means continuously learning about it and its emerging evolution.

It’s okay to not have time for that, and it’s okay to turn to Modernize so that you don’t need to find time for that. At Modernize, for example, we use the thousands of surveys homeowners submit to us to learn more about homeowner needs and challenges in the home improvement space — whether for solar, roofing, HVAC, windows, or other projects. Learn more about our most recent findings in the latest Homeowner Survey Index: Q1 2019. If you want to get back to focusing on what you do so that clients can better appreciate your work, consider a company like Modernize so you are no longer on the hook for leads—we’ll be here, staying ahead of the news and staying prepared to help you.