Contractor Spring Rush Scheduling Guide: Survive (and Profit From) Peak Season

🕒 Estimated read time: 17 minutes  |  Last updated: February 2026

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The contractor spring rush scheduling challenge isn’t really about the rush itself. It’s about whether the scheduling infrastructure underneath the business was built to handle surge volume before the surge arrives. Every year, the same story repeats: contractors who prepared in February have a full, profitable, manageable spring. Contractors who didn’t spend March through May rescheduling people they overpromised, losing clients they couldn’t reach in time, and running their crew into the ground trying to catch up. This guide gives you the preparation framework, the specific scheduling fixes, and the tools that make peak season work instead of hurt.

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Why Spring Rush Breaks Scheduling Systems

A scheduling system that works adequately at normal volume often breaks completely under spring surge because it was never actually a system — it was the owner’s personal capacity functioning as a system. At fifteen jobs per week, the owner’s mental calendar, personal phone, and ability to hold all the moving pieces in their head produces acceptable results. At thirty-five jobs per week in April, with two crews running simultaneously, four weeks of advance bookings, a waitlist of twenty homeowners, and three clients who need to reschedule, the personal-capacity-as-system collapses. The same approach that worked in December no longer works in April — not because the owner got worse at their job but because the volume exceeded the ceiling that approach was ever capable of handling.

The contractors who survive spring rush without operational breakdown are not running harder than their unprepared competitors — they are running a different kind of operation. The schedule lives in a shared platform, not in the owner’s head. Clients get automated reminders, not personal calls from an owner who is also driving to a job. Capacity is tracked in billable hours, not estimated by feel. The crew knows their schedule the night before, not at 7 AM from a text cascade. These differences, invisible in December, become decisive in April.

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The Spring Rush Timeline: What to Expect and When

The spring rush doesn’t arrive uniformly across all trades or all regions, and the preparation calendar depends on knowing when your specific surge arrives. Here’s how it typically plays out for the residential home service trades that experience the most pronounced spring demand spike.

The False Spring Problem (Ohio Valley and Midwest)

In the Ohio Valley — southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee — late January and February often deliver a warm week that triggers premature demand. Temperatures reach the mid-60s, homeowners look out at their properties, and the phone starts ringing with requests that won’t actually be executable for another six to eight weeks. HVAC contractors receive calls about AC tune-ups when the equipment hasn’t been touched since October. Lawn care contractors get asked about cleanups before the ground has thawed consistently. Tree service contractors start hearing from homeowners who noticed storm damage over winter.

This false spring period is simultaneously an opportunity and a trap. It’s an opportunity because those callers are actively interested — they can be converted to real bookings with a future date and a deposit. It’s a trap because contractors who don’t have a booking system in place tend to handle these calls with vague “call us back in a few weeks” responses that lose the client to whoever does have a booking window available. The prepared response is to have the scheduling system open for April and May bookings by early February, so a February inquiry can become an April booking with a deposit collected the same day.

By Trade: When to Expect the Surge

HVAC contractors see the first major AC service surge in mid-April when sustained highs reach the mid-70s consistently. The pre-season tune-up campaign window is February through March. Contractors who run a “schedule your spring AC tune-up now” campaign in February typically fill April within two to three weeks.

Lawn care and landscaping contractors face one of the earliest surges — mowing season opens in mid-March in most of the Midwest and Upper South, and spring cleanups begin in early April. The booking window for spring cleanups should open in late January. By March, the best slots are gone to the contractors who started taking bookings six weeks earlier.

Exterior painters book their spring schedule in March and April for work beginning when overnight temperatures are reliably above 40°F — typically late April in Ohio and Kentucky. Painting contractors who run a February pre-booking campaign capture the homeowners who made a mental note over winter to finally repaint the exterior.

Roofing and gutter contractors see demand spike after the first major spring storms, which in the Ohio Valley often arrive in late March and April. The preparation work isn’t so much pre-booking as it is having the scheduling infrastructure in place to capture and process a sudden, high-volume surge in a 48-hour window after a hail event or high-wind storm.

Pest control contractors begin seeing spring demand in February in the southern part of the service area and March further north, as overwintering insects become active and homeowners notice evidence. The pre-treatment campaign window is January through February for this trade.

Plumbing and HVAC service contractors often see a different pattern — spring is less about a demand surge and more about transitioning from emergency winter service calls to planned work. The preparation challenge is managing the schedule transition cleanly rather than allowing the planned work queue to back up while emergency calls still dominate.

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Problem 1: No System Ready When the Phone Explodes

The most common version of spring scheduling failure has a predictable shape. The owner has been running a manageable winter schedule on a combination of phone calendar, mental tracking, and personal follow-up. Then March arrives and inquiry volume doubles in two weeks. The owner starts taking bookings by text and call, noting them wherever is convenient. By week three, there are bookings in three different places — a Google Calendar, a text thread, a whiteboard in the shop — and nobody is entirely sure which ones overlap with which. The crew doesn’t have a clean schedule. The owner is spending three hours a day on logistics that should be taking thirty minutes. Two jobs get double-booked. One client was told the wrong date and calls furious.

This is not bad luck. It is the predictable result of carrying a scheduling approach that worked at low volume into a high-volume period without any structural change. The volume didn’t break the system — there was no system to break. The volume simply exceeded the owner’s personal capacity to hold the schedule together manually.

Why “We’ll Handle It When It Comes” Doesn’t Work

There’s a common belief among contractors that they’ll deal with surge volume when it arrives — figure it out in real time, hire help if needed, manage the calls as they come. The problem with this approach is that the skills needed to handle spring rush effectively (scheduling platform configuration, crew training on a dispatch app, automated communication setup, deposit process establishment) take time to build and can’t be built while simultaneously managing a surge. Setting up Jobber takes a weekend; setting it up correctly while fielding forty calls per day and running two crews takes significantly longer and introduces errors that affect real clients. The tools and processes that make spring manageable need to be in place and tested before the surge, not installed during it.

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Problem 2: Capacity Is Unknown Until It’s Already Exceeded

Overbooking is the most expensive spring scheduling mistake most contractors make — and it almost always happens because capacity was never calculated in concrete terms before the booking window opened. The owner accepts jobs until it “feels like enough,” which is an unreliable signal. The feeling of fullness typically comes from the abstract sense that the schedule is busy, not from any calculation of whether the available crew hours can actually execute what’s been sold.

What Real Capacity Calculation Looks Like

Real capacity has three inputs: total available crew hours per week, average hours required per job type, and a buffer for jobs that run long. For a two-person crew working five days, eight hours each: 80 total hours available per week. If the average job requires four hours of crew time, that’s a maximum of 20 jobs per week at theoretical full capacity. In practice, subtract 15 percent for drive time, prep, and jobs that run longer than estimated: realistic capacity is approximately 17 jobs per week per two-person crew. That number is the ceiling. Every booking beyond it is a commitment the business cannot fulfill without rescheduling someone.

Most contractors who run this calculation for the first time discover their instinctive booking limit was either above or below their actual capacity — and without knowing which, they’ve been either leaving money on the table or consistently overbooking and managing the fallout.

The Compounding Problem of Multi-Week Overbooking

Spring overbooking compounds in a specific way. Week one is overbooked by two jobs. Those two jobs slip to week two, which is now overbooked by four jobs. Four slip to week three, which is overbooked by seven. By week four, the backlog has become a cascade of rescheduling calls that the owner is managing while also trying to run jobs. Clients who were promised a date in week two are now being told week five. Negative reviews appear. Some clients cancel. The crew is demoralized from running past capacity for three weeks. The spring that should have been the most profitable period of the year becomes the most stressful.

All of this originates from the initial overbooking decision made in week one — which itself originated from not knowing the actual capacity ceiling before accepting bookings.

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Problem 3: No Pre-Booking Strategy Means You’re Always Reacting

Contractors who wait for spring to arrive before filling their schedule are competing for clients with every other contractor in their market who is doing the same thing simultaneously. The contractors who filled their April schedule in February are not competing for those clients anymore — they already have them. Pre-booking isn’t a marketing strategy in the abstract sense. It’s a competitive advantage with a measurable consequence: the contractor who pre-books in February has less competition for their April slots than the contractor who opens their schedule in late March when everyone else does.

The Existing Client Asset Most Contractors Underuse

Most contractors have a client list — the accumulated contacts from every job completed over the past two or three years — that they treat as a historical record rather than a business asset. It is actually the most valuable marketing resource the business owns. A homeowner who hired this contractor last spring already has proof that the work is acceptable. They don’t need to be sold on the business — they need to be reminded it exists and given an easy way to book. A pre-booking campaign to last year’s clients, sent in February with a simple “we’re booking spring now — here’s the link to lock your slot” message, converts at dramatically higher rates than any cold outreach to new prospects. For most residential home service contractors, filling 50 to 70 percent of the spring schedule with returning clients before the public booking window even opens is achievable through a single text and email sequence.

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Problem 4: Crew Isn’t Scaled for the Volume

Crew scaling for spring is a long-lead decision that most contractors treat as a short-lead problem. The hiring, background checking, licensing verification (where applicable), and onboarding process for a new crew member or seasonal hire takes two to four weeks under ideal conditions. An experienced tradesperson who can work independently may not be available on two weeks’ notice in March because every other contractor in the market is also calling them. A new hire who needs training isn’t genuinely productive for the first two to three weeks on the job. If the decision to scale crew happens in late March for an April surge, the realistic on-boarding timeline puts that new person at productive capacity in mid to late April — after the first wave of the rush has already peaked.

The Seasonal Hire Decision Framework

The right moment to make the spring crew scaling decision is when the pre-booking campaign results come in. If the February pre-booking campaign fills 80 percent of one crew’s April capacity in two weeks, that is a clear signal to begin the hiring process immediately. If the campaign fills 60 percent, the current crew can likely handle the remaining volume with modest overtime. If the campaign fills below 50 percent, demand may not justify the additional labor cost. The pre-booking campaign thus serves a dual function: it fills the schedule and it generates the data needed to make an informed crew scaling decision six weeks before the decision becomes urgent.

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Problem 5: The Waitlist Is a Mental List That Doesn’t Work

When a contractor’s schedule fills faster than expected, the instinctive response is to tell overflow clients “I’ll call you when something opens up.” This creates a mental waitlist — a set of names the owner intends to call when a cancellation or new capacity appears. Mental waitlists have a reliable outcome: they don’t work. The names aren’t tracked anywhere, the order isn’t documented, and the “I’ll call when something opens up” promise is kept inconsistently at best. When a slot does open, the owner calls whoever comes to mind first. Clients who heard nothing for three weeks have already hired someone else. The overflow booking opportunity is lost, the client is frustrated, and the business looks disorganized.

What Clients on a Waitlist Actually Need

A client who is told they’re on a waitlist has one core need: certainty about what happens next. They need to know how long the wait is likely to be, that their position is documented, and that they will actually be contacted when a slot opens — not just told they’ll be called and then forgotten. The difference between a waitlist that holds clients and a waitlist that loses them is almost entirely whether the client believes the slot is real. A small confirmation deposit or reservation fee demonstrates that the contractor considers the position binding. An estimated timeline demonstrates that the wait has been thought through. A text message confirming their waitlist position with a number demonstrates that the process is organized. None of this requires complex software — but a platform that manages the waitlist within the scheduling system and sends automated notifications when positions open is substantially more reliable than a handwritten list on the shop counter.

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Fix 1: Run a Pre-Season Booking Campaign (February–March)

The pre-season booking campaign is the most leveraged single action most contractors can take before spring. It fills the schedule ahead of competition, serves existing clients before new ones, and generates the data needed for the crew scaling decision. Running it effectively requires three things: a client list, a communication platform, and a clear call to action.

The Campaign Sequence

The pre-booking campaign to existing clients runs as a two-touch sequence: an initial message and a follow-up to non-responders seven days later.

Message 1 (send six to eight weeks before peak): “Hi [first name], this is [company]. We’re booking [trade] for spring now — our schedule typically fills by mid-March. Reply or click here to lock your spot: [booking link]. Priority scheduling for last year’s clients ends [date].” Keep it short. Include the booking link. Set a real deadline.

Message 2, sent to non-responders after 7 days: “Hi [first name], just a reminder — we’re booking spring [trade] appointments now and our best slots are going quickly. Here’s your link: [booking link]. Happy to answer any questions.” One follow-up. Not three. Clients who don’t respond to two messages aren’t interested this cycle.

The Early-Bird Offer That Improves Conversion

Pre-booking campaigns convert better when there’s a specific reason to act now rather than later. The most effective incentives for residential home service contractors are not aggressive discounts — they’re access-based. Priority scheduling (getting the time window you want, not what’s left), guaranteed crew continuity (the same person who serviced last year), or simply the honest message that slots are first-come-first-served create urgency without training clients to expect discounts for future bookings. A 5 percent early-booking discount is also effective if the margins support it, but the scheduling priority message works equally well without cutting into revenue.

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Fix 2: Lock Capacity Before You Open the Schedule

Before running the pre-booking campaign or accepting any spring bookings, calculate your real weekly capacity and build that limit into the scheduling system. This is a one-time calculation that takes thirty minutes and prevents the most expensive spring scheduling mistake most contractors make.

The Capacity Calculation

Work through these numbers for each crew:

Communicating the Limit Without Losing Clients

When capacity is full and a client calls, the answer is not “we’re fully booked.” It’s “we’re currently booking [specific date range] and I have openings in [specific week]. Would you like to grab a slot now, or I can put you on our priority waitlist for the first opening that comes up?” One answer closes the conversation. The other continues it and either captures a later booking or a waitlist position. Both have value. The scripted response to a full schedule is a recoverable situation. An unprepared “sorry, we’re full” is not.

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Fix 3: Build a Functional Waitlist System

A functional waitlist converts overflow booking requests into deferred revenue rather than lost clients. The key elements are documentation, realistic timeline communication, and a confirmation mechanism that gives the client confidence their position is real.

What Every Waitlist Position Should Capture

At minimum, each waitlist entry needs: the client’s name, phone, and email; the service they want; their preferred week or date range; and the date they were added. In a field service management platform, this is typically handled by creating a lead or a pending job in the system. In a simpler setup, a shared spreadsheet with these five fields works. The critical requirement is that it’s in a shared system — not in the owner’s phone contacts or a mental note.

The Waitlist Communication Script

When taking a waitlist position: “Completely understand — our spring schedule filled fast this year. I’m going to put you on our priority waitlist for the first opening. Based on our current bookings, that’s likely to be [date range]. I’ll text you as soon as something opens up. Can I get your name and number? I’ll send you a confirmation text in the next few minutes so you have our contact info and your position.” Then send a text confirmation within ten minutes. The confirmation text alone dramatically improves retention on the waitlist because it demonstrates the process is real.

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Fix 4: Set Deposits for Spring Bookings

Spring is the ideal time to implement a deposit policy, for a simple reason: you have the negotiating position to require it. When a homeowner calls in April trying to get on your schedule and you have three weeks of bookings ahead of them, they are not going to walk away from the conversation because you ask for a deposit. They will pay it. That same homeowner in November, when your schedule has plenty of flexibility, has more options and more leverage. Use the demand-side advantage of spring to establish the policy that will make the rest of the year run better.

Deposit Structure for Seasonal Bookings

For spring bookings, a 25 to 50 percent deposit at booking is defensible and broadly accepted in residential home services. The specific amount depends on your average job size and when materials need to be ordered. For jobs with significant material costs (HVAC system installations, exterior painting, roofing), a 50 percent deposit is standard and appropriate. For labor-primary services (lawn care, pest control, pressure washing), 25 percent confirms intent without asking the client to prepay more than feels proportionate to a service that hasn’t been delivered yet.

How to Collect It Without Friction

The deposit collection method determines whether clients follow through or drop off. Asking a client to mail a check, call back with a credit card number, or Venmo you before the booking is confirmed introduces friction that some percentage of clients won’t complete. A payment link embedded in the booking confirmation — sent automatically by the scheduling platform — collects the deposit in the same session as the booking decision, while the client’s intent is at its highest. Jobber’s online booking and invoicing features handle this natively. Clients tap a link, enter a card, and the deposit is collected and recorded in the job file without any additional follow-up required from the owner.

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Fix 5: Scale Crew Ahead of the Rush, Not During It

The crew scaling decision has a longer lead time than most contractors allow for. A productive seasonal hire — someone who can run jobs independently with minimal oversight — needs to be sourced, interviewed, background-checked, onboarded, and trained before the peak. That process takes three to four weeks under ideal conditions and four to six weeks in practice. If the peak is mid-April, the hire decision needs to happen in mid-February. If the hire decision happens in late March, the new person reaches productive capacity in late April — after the first surge wave has passed.

Where to Source Spring Labor

The most reliable sources of qualified spring seasonal labor for residential contractors are: former employees who left on good terms (call them first — they know the work and the business); trade school programs in late-winter graduation cohorts; industry-specific job boards (Indeed with trade-specific titles, Craigslist in many markets still generates legitimate trade leads); and referrals from current crew members who often know qualified people looking for work. The least reliable source is posting a generic help-wanted ad in March when every competitor is doing the same and qualified applicants have options.

The Scaling Signal From Pre-Booking Results

If the February pre-booking campaign to existing clients fills more than 80 percent of one crew’s April capacity within two weeks, the case for hiring a seasonal crew member is strong — the demand signal is real and early. If the campaign fills 50 to 80 percent, analyze whether peak-week overtime and route optimization can cover the gap before committing to a hire. If the campaign fills below 50 percent, the spring may not justify additional labor cost; focus on filling the remaining capacity with new client acquisition rather than scaling ahead of demand that hasn’t materialized. The campaign gives you the data. The data drives the crew decision. This sequence — campaign first, crew decision second — is more reliable than hiring based on a gut feeling about how busy spring will be.

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The Platform That Handles Spring Volume

The five fixes described above are each possible to implement manually — a spreadsheet waitlist, a text campaign from a personal phone, a handwritten capacity worksheet. But the practical reason most contractors who implement these fixes without a scheduling platform still struggle in spring is that manual systems don’t scale under surge volume. A spreadsheet waitlist works when three people are on it. It fails when the owner is managing a 20-person waitlist while simultaneously dispatching two crews and fielding incoming calls. A text campaign sent manually from a phone calendar works once; doing it to 200 existing clients from a personal phone takes a full day. The platform makes the five fixes practical at the volume spring requires.

Jobber for Spring Rush Management

Jobber handles every spring scheduling challenge in this article within a single platform. The scheduling and dispatch board shows real-time capacity by week so the owner can see exactly when a week is full before accepting one more booking. The automated client communication system — booking confirmations, day-before reminders, “on my way” messages — handles every routine touchpoint without manual action, which matters enormously when the phone is ringing constantly and every call requires the owner’s attention. The quote and deposit system sends the quote, embeds the deposit link, and records payment automatically when the client approves. The automated follow-up for pending quotes (Connect plan and above) chases unpaid estimates at defined intervals without the owner needing to remember who hasn’t responded. Route optimization (Connect plan and above) sequences the day’s stops by fastest drive path — saving 45 to 90 minutes of drive time per day during a period when every hour is money. The client communication log and job notes mean every crew member arrives at every job knowing the gate code, the property conditions, and the client’s preferences — without calling the office.

Jobber pricing starts at $39/month for solo operators. The Connect Team plan at $169/month (5 users) adds route optimization, GPS tracking, automated client communications, and QuickBooks Online sync — all of which are relevant to spring surge management. A 14-day free trial of the full Grow plan requires no credit card. See our complete Jobber review and pricing breakdown for full platform details.

Housecall Pro: Strong Alternative for First-Time Platform Adopters

Housecall Pro covers the same spring surge management functions — scheduling, automated client communication, deposit collection, field invoicing, QBO sync — with an onboarding experience that many first-time field service software users find more approachable. For a contractor who has never used scheduling software and is implementing a platform specifically in preparation for spring, the faster learning curve can be a genuine advantage. Trade-offs versus Jobber are primarily in reporting depth and long-term platform breadth. As a spring surge management tool for a contractor new to FSM software, Housecall Pro is a legitimate choice.

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What a Prepared Spring Actually Looks Like

The goal of all this preparation is not a stress-free spring — spring in residential home services is inherently busy and demands are real. The goal is a spring where the owner’s time is spent delivering work and managing exceptions, not rebuilding a collapsed schedule every morning. Here’s what the prepared version looks like in practice.

The Week of April 7 in a Prepared Operation

By Monday morning, every job for the week is in the scheduling platform, each crew member has their assignments in the mobile app, and all booking confirmation and day-before reminder messages have already been delivered automatically. The owner reviews the dispatch board — 15 jobs this week, two crews, no conflicts — and checks the waitlist: 8 clients pending, estimated wait 2 weeks. Three cancellations from last week have already been offered to waitlist positions 1 through 3 via automated notification. Two of the three have already booked and paid deposits. One didn’t respond and position 4 got the notification automatically. All four April crews have already been equipped with job-specific details in the app — gate codes, property notes, client preferences — because they were entered into the client records last year and persist automatically.

By 8:30 AM the owner has confirmed the schedule, reviewed payments received overnight (three clients paid their balance invoices before the workday started), and made two actual decisions. The rest is running. By 5 PM, 15 jobs have been completed, 15 invoices have been sent automatically from the field, and the review request sequence has begun for yesterday’s completed jobs.

The Compounding Effect on Annual Revenue

A contractor who captures spring volume cleanly — full schedule, no overbooking, all deposits collected, all jobs invoiced same-day — is generating maximum revenue during maximum demand. That same contractor who treats spring as a systems-building moment — documenting processes during setup, training crew on mobile tools, establishing deposit policy, building the client communication templates — is building the infrastructure that makes fall, winter, and next spring easier. Each spring season that runs well is compounding into a more capable, more profitable, more saleable business. Each spring season that runs chaotically is compounding in the other direction: reputation damage, crew burnout, owner exhaustion, clients who went to a competitor and haven’t come back.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When does the contractor spring rush typically start?

The timeline varies by trade and region. For most residential home service contractors in the Midwest and Upper South, the serious demand surge begins in mid-March through April — HVAC tune-ups in mid-April, lawn care and cleanups in mid-March, exterior painting in late April, pest control beginning in February or March. In the Ohio Valley, a warm week in late January or February often produces a false spring inquiry surge that can be captured as real bookings for April if the scheduling window is already open. The preparation calendar should work backward from your trade’s peak week: scheduling setup and crew decisions six to eight weeks out, pre-booking campaign four to six weeks out, capacity locked four weeks out.

How do I handle more spring booking requests than I have capacity for?

A structured waitlist with honest timeline communication and a small confirmation deposit is the most effective approach. Tell the client exactly how far out you’re booking, offer them a waitlist position, send a text confirmation within ten minutes, and follow through when the slot opens. Clients who receive a confirmation text and an honest timeline stay on the list. Clients who hear “I’ll call you when something opens up” hire someone else. The distinction is entirely in the follow-through infrastructure — which a scheduling platform manages far more reliably than a personal phone.

Should I require deposits for spring bookings?

Yes. Spring is the highest-demand moment of the year, which means it’s the moment you have the most negotiating position to require a deposit without losing the client. A 25 to 50 percent deposit at booking confirms genuine intent, reduces no-shows on long-advance bookings, and covers material costs during a high-spend period. Most clients who call in April hoping to get scheduled accept a deposit requirement — the alternative is waiting another three weeks for a competitor slot. Collect it via a payment link in the booking confirmation, not by chasing the client later.

How far in advance should I start pre-booking spring appointments?

Six to eight weeks before your trade’s historical peak is the optimal window. Earlier than eight weeks, most clients aren’t thinking about spring services yet and conversion is low. Later than four weeks, your best slots are already gone to better-prepared competitors. For trades peaking in April and May, this means running the pre-booking campaign to existing clients in mid-to-late February. The campaign to existing clients goes first; the public booking window opens once existing client slots are filled or after two weeks, whichever comes first.

What’s the most common scheduling mistake contractors make during spring rush?

Overbooking — accepting more jobs than available crew hours can execute because capacity was never calculated in concrete terms before the booking window opened. The result is a cascading rescheduling problem that gets worse each week as slippage from the previous week adds to the current week’s overload. The fix is calculating real weekly capacity (total crew hours minus drive time, divided by average job hours, with a 10 percent buffer) before accepting the first spring booking, and entering that limit into the scheduling platform so the system enforces it rather than requiring the owner to remember it.

How do I handle existing clients versus new clients during spring rush when I can’t take everyone?

A tiered priority system is the most sustainable approach. Existing clients — especially annual maintenance clients and recent repeat customers — get private pre-booking access two to four weeks before the public schedule opens. This fills a significant portion of the schedule with known, reliable clients before you’re competing for new inquiries, and it creates a genuine loyalty benefit that retains the clients most likely to generate recurring revenue. New clients are served from remaining capacity or offered a waitlist position with an honest timeline. This approach is more honest and more profitable than trying to fit everyone in and disappointing all of them equally.

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