Running a business is all about priorities.
It is a challenge to put your resources into everything you want to do, when you want to do it. Hence, you prioritise on the more pressing needs, causing a backlog of work to amass with time.
This is when the slow season can be a blessing in disguise.
When used correctly, the “free” time afforded by the slow season can help you catch up, pick up where you left off, and streamline business process elements.
Here are a few ideas for how to do that.
Pay Off Your Technical Debt
Designing systems is seldom a clean and streamlined process. Deadlines have to be met, and budgets respected.
When you need to get something up and running in a rush, you resort to quick fixes and solutions, which can inevitably pose risks in the long run.
What better time to straighten them out than the slow season?
You can also do some database management while you’re at it to eradicate any errors.
Be careful not to mistake defects for technical debt, though. Shortcuts are a result of limitations in technology or knowledge. Defects are just poor execution, and you shouldn’t wait to fix those.
Plan Your Long-Term Strategy
The best time to develop a long-term strategy is when you can take stock and run in-depth analyses.
When you’re in full swing, there’s very little time to steer the ship and change course too much.
Start by assessing what you did right and what went wrong since your previous strategic planning.
It’s also an excellent opportunity to work on ways to streamline business process segments that aren’t up to par. You could start by benchmarking your current process and doing an evaluation of greater market trends.
This also includes reviewing who your key competitors are and your standing on the ladder; figuring out any new niches that have opened up in the industry and how to exploit them; even examining macro-economic trends to see how you can better position your business.
Build a Better Sales Funnel
You should be working on updating sales funnels whenever possible anyway. But a respite in action is a great opportunity to rework some critical details.
If your website is older than three years, it’s probably due for a website redesign.
As your brand evolves, the website should reflect that, and competitors are probably working on their own websites so you should at least keep up. A website revamp can also improve the user experience and address security issues that may have shown up over the years.
You could also work on revising your content marketing strategy to include elements that you previously hadn’t. If you were relying on pay-per-click advertising, you could use the time to work on your website’s SEO.
Exploring different types of outlets is also a good idea. You might experience much better engagement than you think on Twitter, Facebook, or other types of social media marketing. Or, maybe even implement loyalty programs.
Update Your Business Continuity Plan
With most of your departments experiencing some free time, it should be much easier to have large-scale meetings to work on cohesive business continuity planning.
Take an honest look at critical areas and functions that have low or no acceptable downtime. For each of those, come up with at least a few ways to insulate them from catastrophic failure.
Also, think about how vulnerable your office space is. Line up a few alternatives in case your offices are compromised. Working with short term office rent providers is a brilliant way to secure flexible office space in case it becomes necessary.
Make Time for Old Sales Leads
You probably have many sales leads that never went anywhere because it wasn’t the right time.
Or, there might be some long-term leads that are due for a follow-up. In either case, the slow season is an excellent opportunity to reconnect.
Make sure you remember past conversations and remind them of the conversation when you re-engage.
For every lead, take a look at when the last contact was. Then, come up with a list of things that have changed since then. It’s important to present new information and show them how you’re better positioned to meet their needs than you were before.
Don't Do Nothing, Keep Things Going
With a little gumption and creativity, you can make your slow season as productive as any other time of the year.
You just have to focus on the right areas of productivity. While things that generally take priority are benched for the time being, go back and work on those you had to put on the back-burner.
Revisit your technical tools, fix any leaks on your sales funnels, and update your image to match your current brand identity.