What To Do During Slow Season
Slow seasons are going to happen. To everyone.
Every business hits a slow season, whether it’s a pandemic, a seasonal change, or a life event that causes things to barely inch along, or sometimes even come to a complete halt – either way it can cause a sense of panic and stress. It’s not a fun time for any business owner or employee to go through. The important thing to remember is that you’re not alone, and just about every business owner experiences this (often times more than once.) The trick is to be able to go with the flow, to take the slow seasons as a chance to work on the back end of your business, to focus on the tasks you maybe don’t have time for when you’re in peak busy season.
Things you can work on when the clients / customers aren’t rolling in like you want them to.
Like I said, harnessing slow season to be a time of growth and a chance to work on your business is the best way to get through the slowwwwww times. It can be easy to feel like you want to just give up, like things just aren’t working, but I promise if you just power through and stand strong during the tough parts of business ownership, you can withstand so much more than you think.
Things you can work on while you’re waiting for new inquiries or sales:
Blogging
What I’m currently working on – batch these out and write a few in one session of writing. You can schedule these out and have pins ready to go to promote them when they publish. I don’t know about you, but blogging is one of those things that is always on my list of to do’s and it keeps getting pushed aside when I have a mountain of client work to get done first.
Pinterest Growth
This can go hand in hand with blogging. Whatever you blog, but 2-3 pins for it, and then link back to the blog post itself. Also with Pins, you can create new content or repurpose content from instagram and link back to your website. The trick with Pinterest is being consistent.
Instagram reels
These are the things I struggle with most, mainly because they just take a bit of time to create. I’ve recently found that I like to save a bunch of trending audio, and THEN make the reels after getting ideas from the audio. I try and create a handful of reels in one day when I’m feeling motivated.
Business finances
Everyones favorite ;) No really though, the financial part of business can be the most daunting, especially if you’re not rolling in the big ticket sales or booking client after client. Being self employed and running a business can be terrifying when it comes to the numbers, but it’s something that needs to be faced and not ignored. Getting your finances in line can include things like going through your income vs. expenses, tidying up your books and categorizing expenses, I recently started using Wave, and love it!
New offers
Take this down time to brainstorm new offers & services. Maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve come up with something new and exciting to offer your clients, so what better time than when the crickets are chirping to come up with something fresh that get’s both you and your clients excited?
Passive Income
Work on ideas for passive income. Just about every business has an opportunity to create passive income. What’s passive income you ask? It’s basically a product that sells itself and brings in some extra income without much interaction or effort from yourself. For example, I’m going to be creating some website templates, and while they will take some work in the creation phase, once they are live and people can purchase them – there isn’t much I have to do in order to bring in that extra income for my business.
Hopefully all of these tips gave you some ideas of what to do during slow season, and have made you feel less alone. It’s easy to compare your business and success to others that you see constantly posting about their “10k” months and being booked out, but just remember that social media isn’t the full picture, and everyone is in a different stage of life and business. You’re doing great and I believe in you and your dreams!
