It’s only natural that your business will experience profit surges as well as dips. Whether your customers are buying depends on a variety of factors. These include current needs based on the season, as well as current happenings.
Another factor is whether your current product line is meeting today’s needs. Things could be going on in the real world that affect sales. For example, people are often in a buying mindset in December, but decide to tighten up the purse strings after the New Year’s hits.
For this reason, not every day will be a high sales day in the life of your business, but there will be ebb and flow. The question many small business owners have, is what to focus on when things go from hopping to barely happening? Here are a few ideas.
Get organized.
You have a few areas of concern in this regard. The physical space of your business, current inventory if it is a physical product, and things like your office or shop floor, warehouse shelves, and even online and tech-based aspects of your business like your database or maybe an online membership. All these things will need to be purged and reorganized and restocked from time to time. A slow day, week or season is the right time.
You want to take a good look at your product offerings and see if they’re still relevant, as well as make sure everything is functioning correctly in terms of your order process and fulfillment process.
A slow day is a good day to make necessary changes, reorganize, check the flow of operation of your daily operation and give the order and products a test run from the perspective of your customers.
It’s a good time to straighten things out because what you don’t want is for your business to begin coming undone on a very busy day when people are trying to order, such as those times when you’re running a sale or have launched a new product or there is a surge in business based on the season and current need.
Think about outsourcing.
A slow day might seem like the last reason to start looking for outsourcing. But that’s only because we tend to panic when business slows down and start thinking worst-case scenarios. A better idea is to recall all the times that business was soaring, but you didn’t have enough hands to make orders happen and fulfilled fast enough.
How can you prevent that from happening again?
Getting a broad view of the ebb and flow of your business will help you decide where to bring in outsourcing help.
These days, many people who have a small business opt to hire part-timers on an as-need business basis. So, think about who you can add to your team and how often you may need their services. A business attorney, accountant, administrative assistant, bookkeeper, expert, and customer service representative can all help you at various times. Having these types of professionals in your corner mean potential expansion and damage control.
Take care of background tasks.
Background tasks for your business are those functions that we hardly pay attention to, but serve as the backbone of your daily business operation and keep profits flowing in. Things like keeping the computer systems updated, filing, archiving old files and doing backups are all smart things to take care of on a day when not much is happening in your business.
Enjoy a day off.
One needed aspect of being a business owner is– believe it or not– treating yourself to a day off. People who work for someone else often don’t realize that it is difficult to turn off your brain and get out of constant planning, strategizing, and executing mode when you have your own business. The fear is that if you relax too much, something will go wrong at the last minute, or you might be needed. Or… you mentally won’t be able to tear yourself away from work. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, for sure!
One thing that can stifle your creativity and productivity as a business owner is not giving yourself that needed time away. A slow day can be a blessing in that you can decide to temporarily close your business operation and give yourself some soul replenishment. This can be anything from enjoying a day out on the town, to taking a ride somewhere to explore a different scene, to treating yourself to a spa day, or spending time with family, friends, pets or whomever and whatever brings you enjoyment.
Again, try to let go of the guilty feeling that so many business owners have when they decide to make their day about themselves and not about work. Although it is possible that something may go wrong in your business, you can at least give yourself the blessing of a true break because you have very likely earned it and when you return to your business matters, your company will benefit.
