Summer is Coming!
Bright sunshine. Fresh Air. Warm Breezes. Summer is heaven, right?
Small business owners can get down in the summer months, especially if those small business owners are feeling the pressures of trying to work while the kids that are normally are at school are home, hungry, and bored. While it IS beautiful outside, it can be a little less optimistic inside. There's a thing I like to call the Small Business Summer Slump. People are out vacationing, parents are spending more money on children who are eating more, going to camps, eating more (Oh, I said that already?) and shopping in general has been put on the back burner. So how do you not only get through summer, but still get to enjoy the sunshine, fresh air, and breezes?
First, adjust your work schedule to accommodate new sleep/waking hours, children in your workspace, etc. If you have small children, you can ask for help from family members to help give you some distraction free working hours. If your children are older, you can inform them of your work hours so they can expect that you will be mostly unavailable during those times. Make it clear and make it true. They'll adjust to your schedule just as well as they adjust to the school schedule. If you have no children, you can adjust as you need, especially if your target audience has children. Make time to get outside and enjoy the weather. We all need a healthy dose of Vitamin D sometimes.
Second, embrace the change! Your sales may not be slow, but if they are, you can use that extra time to "catch up". Catching up may mean some backend stuff that you need to do, or it may be that family vacation you've been wanting to do. Whatever it is, this "extra" time can be a relief, especially if you're on the verge of burn out. Also, if you think about the back to school and holiday seasons to come, this slump can be a blessing in disguise (a disguise of very talkative, very bored, very hungry children)!
I can’t tell you what your summer slump will look like or even if you will have one. I do think it's smart to look at previous years trends to prepare for the upcoming year, though. With your statistics and this little guide to Surviving Summer, you should come up with some great ways to make it through the dog days! Now, let's talk about what you CAN do during the summer slump!
Stay connected with your customers! Start or continue an email campaign, keep up your social media presence, try to come up with relevant products or services that fit the season.
Learn something new! Take some time to research classes related to small business or to your craft in general. Check out teachable and see if there are free courses that you could fit into your (newly lightened) schedule!
Reevaluate your workspace! Is your workspace allowing you to be as productive as you can be? Could you use a new shelf or reorganize your files? Now may be the time to test different layouts and organization. Is it time to go through and purge old files or supplies?
Prepare for upcoming busy seasons! You can't always create product this early in the game, but you can game plan! Try planning on your sale dates and terms. Maybe make a list of new products you can try out and when. Organize your shipping supplies. Research competition and trends.
Evaluate your target audience! Are they the same? Have they changed? How? What do you need to do to keep up with them?
Take a deep breath (of that sweet summer air), you've got this! Comment below and let me know some of your tips and tricks to making it through.