Employees and hopefully business owners are taking deserved and much needed time off. Everyone needs a break to refresh and reboot and as Midwesterners know, we need to get out and soak up the Vitamin D while we can, because honestly our summers are way too short! You knew there was a BUT coming, didn’t you? My calendar only has 12 months in it, how about yours?
As consultants, we often hear, “we are taking the summer off from training, our marketing, or working on our continuous improvement plans (if they have one)”, “our office is a skeleton crew most days so nothing would get done anyway”, or “we will hit it hard in September.” These statements sound like the Alice Cooper song “School’s Out for Summer.” Summer has somehow gotten tied to complacency.
Teachers recommend taking different approaches with kids over the summer to keep up on reading and math skills (gotta love little entrepreneurs with lemonade stands) to overcome the summer slump. Why should businesses be any different? In small business, it is usually feast or famine and taking a WHOLE 3 MONTHS off often leads to regrets of not using that precious time to do other much needed and often overlooked things.
Using summertime to invest in your employees, increasing operation efficiencies, reviewing
marketing efforts and systems, and developing long-term strategies will benefit your organization year round in a number of ways: 1) it lets your potential customers know you are consistent all year long and therefore would do the same for them, 2) your company will stay on their mind and you will hopefully be who they call when they need help, and 3) it shows you care about your current clientele and potential ones.
More: https://www.lionswayconsulting.com/post/3-tips-for-turning-around-struggling-businesses
More: https://www.lionswayconsulting.com/post/3-myths-all-business-owners-believe