No matter your sector, it always helps to ready your business for a season like winter or summer, as you never know how they will turn out. Summer can be full of rain, and winters can be unseasonably warm.
Even the slightest changes can impact how much foot traffic your business has, and online sales aren’t invulnerable either. So, how do you manage a company through a specific season rain or shine? From marketing to insurance, here are some vital tips to get started.
Understand Seasonal Demand
One of the critical rules of business is understanding supply and demand. This fluctuates throughout the seasons for almost every product and service, from selling a leaf blower in autumn to taking wedding bookings in summer.
Every good business owner or manager understands there are times when demand is higher and lower. Working out these times and having a plan for taking advantage of them is critical to keeping your company above water.
Marketing to Ready Your Business for a Season
Marketing is more crucial than ever in modern business. The use of social media and the web to find what we need means radio, TV, and magazines are becoming obsolete, although they are still helpful.
New strategies like PPC and SEO are much more effective, however, and should be included in your budget. Further to the budget, it is recommended you keep between 2% and 5% aside if you operate in the B2B sector and between 5% and 10% for B2C services.
Be Ready to Compete for Customers
There are times when customers are looking to engage more with businesses. However, you aren’t the only one aware of this! Your competitors will also try to entice customers with bargains and deals when they know the peak times of engagement during a specific season.
This is why it is invaluable to understand not only the customers but also the competition. At least try to match what they offer and offer something more, such as money off and limited-time deals.
Learn to Engage with Your Employees
Some seasons are hectic for specific sectors. For example, summer is particularly busy for restaurants and bars as more people are out enjoying themselves. Having the right employees who understand the pressure of a season is a massive help for any business.
Take the time to hire the right people in the first place, with an emphasis on hard work. However, you must also understand that employee engagement, even as simple as a thank you, goes a long way!
Ready Your Business for a Season of Slumps
No one can predict with any reasonable degree of accuracy exactly how a season will turn out. More often than not, we are surprised by seasonal results. The weather, economic conditions, and even the supply chain can have a massive impact on business. So prepare for slumps:
- Build a customer list and follow up with courtesy calls that can lead to sales.
- Engage with customers to build loyalty for repeat business throughout the season.
- Consider a broader market by making changes that appeal to various demographics.
- Build relationships with suppliers for better deals when times are more demanding.
- Offer free samples of new products to draw customers in and increase foot traffic.
- Have a dynamic recruitment strategy that compensates for quieter periods.
Customers are key to getting through a slump. Even when there are supply chain issues, loyal customers are likely to accept alternatives, and even pay more money if things are clearly explained. Expanding business into other markets and demographics can also offset losses.
Keep Cash Available and in the Reserve
Having accessible funds will help get through a bad season. There are a few things that can negatively impact your business, and having funds available can offset costs and losses. Even summer isn’t guaranteed to bring in customers.
Consider the UK for example, where it isn’t uncommon to have cloudy, rainy and even relatively cold summer days. However, your employees, partners and suppliers still need to be paid whether the sun pops out or not!
Keep Up with Trends and Adapt
Adaptable businesses are the ones that survive. Staying ahead of trends and making changes to accommodate these trends is a surefire way to ensure you at least get through a bad season without too much pressure.
But it can also mean increased sales, broader appeal to new customers, and even future-proofing of your business. Keeping an ear to the ground in your sector, data analytics services, and analyzing trend patterns from Google provide a solid base.
Insurance to Ready Your Business for a Season
Insurance is one of those things we don’t like, but we really need. However, over 40% of small businesses actually don’t have any insurance beyond legally required policies! It is insane when you think about everything that can go wrong during a specific season.
Some of the most powerful insurance policies you can make use of include loss of business insurance, act of God insurance (weather damage), and portable equipment insurance for devices like tablets.
Plan for Rainy Days and Poor Sales
The weather is pretty much very unpredictable in most places. Of course, places like LA have hot and sunny weather all year round. But even then, there are the occasional storms that keep people away from your business.
A rainy day can cause significant losses in sales when you rely on foot traffic and in-store visits. However, employees in attendance require you to pay them, and this means planning ahead. Of course, you can also try to entice customers inside!
Summary
Learning about supply and demand for each part of the year will help ready your business for a season to maximize sales. However, there are other factors that can impact a real-world business and online services.
This is why planning ahead will help get through slumps when business is hit by supply chain issues and a lousy economy. Of course, there isn’t anything you can do about this, but you can adapt. Yet even rainy days will impact how customers engage.
Article and permission to publish here provided as Contributed Content. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on July 8, 2024.
Cover photo by pexels.com.