Fact: slowdowns and dry spells are inevitable.
No matter how successful your business, there will be times when things slow down. While it’s important to stay on top of your company’s financial health, you have to understand that some dry spells are a result of factors outside of your control – like seasonal trends, holidays and, ahem, global pandemics.
Actually, slowdowns provide rare opportunities for you to fine-tune your business. Think: are there any services that can be repackaged? Are there any processes that can be automated?
You can also take a deep dive into often overlooked but crucial backend systems like client feedback and search engine optimization.
While it’s easy to let your dwindling finances get the best of you, take this time to tinker around and set your business up for long-term success.
In this article, we discuss six proactive things you can do when business is slow to manage your stress and make necessary improvements to your business.
1. Update your website or portfolio.
When you’re neck-deep in work, the last thing on your mind is your online presence. Take this time to upgrade your website or portfolio. No need to rebuild a site from scratch – a fresh wordmark logo or content update is a significant step. Of course, if you’re frustrated with your current website platform or theme, now is the perfect time to make the switch. Prepare and sequence your copy and images in advance to keep the site construction period as short as possible.
2. Repackage your services.
When first starting out, many entrepreneurs get sucked into the hours-for-dollars revenue model. This can be a good way to build a solid reputation for your business, but a few 70-hour work weeks is all it takes to realize that this isn’t a sustainable way to earn income. If this sounds like you, consider repackaging all or a portion of your services into digital products or webinar courses so you can scale your business and make some passive side income while pursuing your larger projects.
3. Refine your marketing strategy.
If you haven’t already, get Google Analytics and take a deep dive into your website analytics. There are many ways to leverage this powerful tool, but what is most important here is to identify what content, platforms, and keywords are bringing you the most site traffic. If Facebook is your largest traffic source, invest more time into Facebook marketing. If a recent blog post has soaring traffic, consider publishing content in a similar format. Get to know your top performers and figure out what you’re doing right.
4. Automate or delegate.
When you’re constantly chasing the bottom of your to-do list, it’s difficult to think about your business processes objectively. Take this time to figure out what parts of your business you can either a) automate or b) delegate. For example, are you repeating yourself every time you reply to a client inquiry? Set up a canned response in Gmail. Are you asking the same questions when onboarding a client? Create a form. If you need help in a specific area, delegate using networking tools like LinkedIn or Fiverr.
5. Increase your SEO ranking.
Dry spells are sobering reminders that your marketing reach is limited. Enter: search traffic. By improving your SEO, you can open your website up to tens of thousands of new visitors every month. Educate yourself on SEO basics with resources like Ahrefs and Backlinko. Then, run your URL through search engine optimization tools like UberSuggest and get diagnostics specific to your website. Complete the steps to make sure your website is serving you in the best way possible.
6. Take a course.
Now is the perfect time to refine your skill sets. Are there tools that you struggle with on a day-to-day basis? Maybe a program or software that you’re intimidated by? Take a class on it. Online learning communities like Skillshare or Coursera are free to join and offer tens of thousands of courses in both hard and soft skills that you can participate in without leaving the comfort of your home. Browsing their course catalogs alone can give you ideas about the many ways you can elevate your business.
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