Quiet Times for Your Business
Here are two ways to approach quiet times and both view them as opportunities.
Special Promotions
For some businesses, quiet times are opportunities for special promotions. My business goes quieter over Christmas and the summer. It may be worth considering some sort of special offer for those times.
However, there are two reasons why I most likely won’t.
- Most of my packages run over 3 – 6 months and so the chances are they will run across these quiet periods. I may not take on new clients over these times but I may still be working with existing clients.
- I am likely to want to take the second approach to quiet times.
Take a Break!
Quiet times are an opportunity to take a break. Breaks are important, especially for the self-employed who are always in danger of working continuously over very long periods.
A break is also an opportunity to review your business, write, revise your website and carry out other administration to which you never get around when you’re busy.
Use the first approach if you are a larger business with plenty of staff and especially if cash flow is critical. Use the second if you are smaller and need a break!
Watch Your Cash Flow
However, it is important to be aware of cash flow cycles, particularly if you offer a service. What happens is you put effort into finding customers when things are slow. As you find customers your income increases and so does the work. So, you stop looking for customers while you work with the ones you have. Then you find cash flow declines because you have not been marketing your business. This is the reason many small service businesses fail.
So, whilst there may be quiet times and they may be welcome breaks, you must have a marketing strategy that is effective during the more active times of the year! If you can organise things so that you market during the busy times and provide your service during the quieter times, so much the better.
How do you use quiet times to support and refresh your business or enterprise?
This is part of a post sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.