Is Business Slow? Here’s Your To Do List for Capitalizing on This Time

Are sales taking longer to close right now? Do you feel like you hit a dry spell and are unsure why Instead of beating yourself up about it, let’s address how to make the most of this slower time in business.

First, let’s reframe your thought process from:

Why won’t anyone buy from me???? 😩

to….

This slower stretch in client work is the PERFECT time to do all those things I’ve put off in favor of serving clients.

The small businesses that stick around year after year, without the rollercoaster of income YoY, are led by owners who see slower times as an opportunity to work on the business rather than viewing it as a) something is wrong with me, or b) let’s just pack it in and take an unexpected break. (Or worse, freaking out that they’ll never stay alive.)

Don’t get me wrong, we ALL need multi-day breaks. Vacations, long weekends, holidays, etc are very necessary to keep the mind fresh and ideas flowing. The key is taking them strategically. For instance, let’s take a quick look at the lessons this pandemic taught us about slow seasons.

When lockdowns first became a reality in March 2020, we all sat back a minute with a big “WTF is going on?” face wondering what to do next. (This is true for both business & life management.) Then entrepreneurs’ reactions fell into a few clear categories:

Group A: Parent/Teacher/Business Owner

Balancing being a present parent and being a business owner are hard enough. Then this group had to add “teacher” to the mix with homeschooling an unexpected new reality on top of business obligations. This group basically lived in a very overwhelmed state for much longer than any of us would want to be.

Some in this group also had to make the difficult choice for the business to take a backseat while they focused on parenting/teaching and their partner focused on finances. (Sound familiar?)

Group B: Business Owner Without Kids

This group of entrepreneurs didn’t have the kiddo factor to consider (yet), but without a social life to serve as a balance to work (social distancing and all that) they tended to throw themselves 150% into work. They focused on their businesses to the extreme.

Some kept their business alive. Some worked insane hours for very little income (depending on the industry) and others found themselves blessed with lots of work and massive income shifts in a positive direction. Nearly everyone I know in this group (🙋🏻‍♀️) also suffered from burnout.

Dealing With the Rollercoaster of Business

By Summer 2021 many industries had begun to rebound and the pendulum of work swung in the opposite direction. As the holidays approach, non-retail industries are seeing the slow down come again, or maybe it even reached you long before now, and the appeal of holidays pull our motivation away from work and over to more fun family endeavors. (If you are still blissfully busy and motivated, hats off to you my friend!)

Because it’s holiday time, it would be easy to say, “Well, it’s nearly Christmas/New Years, let’s just coast until the end of the year and we’ll deal with the rest next year. It’s slow after all.”

To which I say, “While I wholeheartedly feel that statement in my bones(!!), a successful start to busy season (or a new year) 100% depends on what we do now.”

If you want to start the year off on a good note, and well on your way to hitting those 2022 revenue goals, then you need to keep your foot on the gas for the next two-ish weeks. (Even if it’s a 5 mph roll, that’s better than braking!)

You may not be able to control when people decide to buy from you, but there are still things in your control now that you can focus on to make 2022 (or any slow time in business) profitable for the future.

The key is to follow the ABM rule: Always. Be. Marketing.

Keep getting your business, brand and faces out there. When your customers don’t see you or activity on your digital presence (website, email list, social profiles etc), they forget about you. Sad but true. You want to stay top of mind by staying present.

So here’s your to do list for when business is slow:

• Write blog posts that showcase your company’s expertise and provide valuable information to your core audience.
• Record videos to go with each blog post. These will be your social media promotions for the article itself
• Add your company values to the About Us page of your website
• Email your list about what you’ve got coming next year/season
• Setup that CRM system you know you need and haven’t implemented yet
• Document your Standard Operating Procedures (i.e. a set of docs you can hand to an assistant one day to keep your business flowing to your standard when you need to be focused on something else
• Focus on relationship marketing efforts (Rule of Thumb: 3 meetings, video calls or phone calls per week)

The goal here is to focus on the things you CAN control and that will benefit you later when customers are flying in and your time is spent working in your business rather than on it. (And I assure you, if you are doing these things when it’s slow, that pendulum will definitely swing back to busy.)

The goal here is to focus on the things you CAN control and that will benefit you later when customers are flying in and your time is spent working in your business rather than on it. (And I assure you, if you are doing these things when it’s slow, that pendulum will definitely swing back to busy.)