Every business has slower periods.
For some, they’re obvious.
A wedding photographer may know January is going to look different than October. A seasonal retailer knows what happens after the holidays. Certain construction businesses slow down because of weather. Other businesses may not have a traditional “season,” but they still have months where customers disappear, vacations interfere, or sales simply soften.
The slow month isn’t necessarily the problem.
Being surprised by it is.
That was the main conversation in a recent episode of the Planting Seeds Podcast when Nick and I talked about how businesses should prepare for a slow season.
And honestly, most of the answer came down to something pretty simple.
Plan ahead.
That sounds obvious.
It also gets ignored all the time.
You Probably Know More Than You Think
A lot of business owners say they can’t predict what next year will look like.
That’s fair.
You can’t predict everything.
You don’t know when a hurricane will hit. You don’t know when a major customer will leave. You don’t know when the economy will shift or some completely unexpected expense will show up.
But there’s a difference between something being unpredictable and something simply being inconvenient to plan for.
If January has been slow for the last three years, there’s a pretty good chance January might be slow again.
If every summer your customers go on vacation and calls drop off, make a note of it.
If your busiest months are October through December, don’t spend all of October through December like that level of revenue is going to continue forever.
Look backward.
Patterns usually show up.
Know Your “Dead Month” Number
One question we talked about was how much cash a business should keep on hand.
You’ll hear rules of thumb like three to six months of operating expenses.
That would be great.
But for a lot of small businesses, especially newer ones, jumping straight to six months of reserves may not be realistic.
A better place to start is figuring out what Nick called your dead month number.
In other words:
What still has to be paid if almost nothing comes in?
Rent.
Payroll you can’t pause.
Insurance.
Loan payments.
Software.
Utilities.
Anything else that keeps showing up regardless of whether sales are good that month.
That number gives you a target.
Maybe you can’t put six months away yet.
Can you build toward one?
Can you start setting aside a small percentage of income during stronger months?
There isn’t one magic percentage that works for every business.
The important part is developing the habit.
A little money intentionally set aside when things are good can make a very big difference when they aren’t.
Your Busy Season Has to Help Pay for Your Slow Season
This is one of the hardest mindset shifts for seasonal businesses.
The money that comes in during the busy months isn’t necessarily all busy-month money.
Some of it belongs to January.
Or February.
Or whenever your business slows down.
Imagine a photographer who stays completely booked from spring through fall.
The money feels good.
There’s work everywhere.
Then January comes around and the phone stops ringing.
January wasn’t the surprise.
January happened last year too.
The real problem was spending the fall like winter wasn’t coming.
A seasonal business has to think across the year, not just across the month.
Don’t Forget the Expenses That Arrive Later
Taxes are an obvious example.
You earn money now.
You spend money now.
Then months later, the tax obligation tied to that income shows up.
That can make an already slow period hurt even more.
Payroll can create similar surprises.
Hiring someone doesn’t just mean paying their stated wage.
There may be payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, software, training, and the productivity hit that comes from having an experienced employee spend time bringing someone new up to speed.
That person may eventually help the business make much more money.
But there is often a period where the investment comes first.
You need to plan for that too.
One quick rule Nick uses when initially looking at whether a business can support a new hire is to take the proposed compensation and multiply it by about 1.5.
That isn’t meant to be the final payroll calculation.
It’s a rough stress test.
If that number immediately puts the business underwater, you probably need a deeper conversation before making the hire.
If Things Get Slow, Don’t Panic-Sell
We also asked:
If you knew business would be slow for three months, would you cut expenses or try to increase sales?
Nick’s answer started somewhere else.
Plan first.
If you’ve already planned and things are still tighter than expected, cutting controllable expenses may be the next move.
Why?
Because you can control an expense.
You can cancel software.
Delay a purchase.
Reduce something unnecessary.
You cannot control whether a customer says yes.
That doesn’t mean you stop selling.
It means desperation shouldn’t become your sales strategy.
Because desperation often turns into discounting.
And discounting a product that was already barely profitable doesn’t solve a slow season.
Sometimes it just makes the slow season more expensive.
Use the Downtime
A slow period doesn’t have to be wasted time either.
One of the questions Nick threw at me was:
What’s one marketing system you should set up during your slow season so you aren’t scrambling when things get busy?
My answer was basically everything you know you’ll need later.
Get your brochures ready.
Order business cards.
Plan promotional materials.
Update your website.
Figure out seasonal campaigns.
Order shirts.
Build your holiday promotions.
If you’re a photographer planning Christmas sessions, don’t wait until December to figure out the backdrop, location, pricing, and who is playing Santa.
By then, every other photographer is doing the same thing.
Large companies plan months ahead.
Small businesses should too.
You don’t need their budget.
You can borrow their discipline.
The Embarrassing Stuff Happens
There was another part of this conversation that I think matters.
Sometimes you knew the expense was coming.
You knew business was going to slow down.
You knew that software bill hit every January.
And somehow the dots still didn’t connect until you looked at the bank account.
That happens.
Running a business gives you plenty of opportunities to look at something and think:
“How did I not see that?”
The worst thing you can do after that is hide from it.
You don’t need to be embarrassed to tell your advisor something went sideways.
Talk about it.
Figure out what happened.
Then put a system in place so it doesn’t happen the same way next year.
That’s part of running a business too.
Plan While You Still Have Options
The biggest advantage of planning isn’t that everything suddenly goes perfectly.
It’s that you still have choices.
You can save while cash is strong.
You can trim expenses before they become a crisis.
You can prepare marketing before you need the sales.
You can schedule purchases instead of reacting to them.
You can ask questions before the money is gone.
Your slow season may be unavoidable.
Being blindsided by it usually isn’t.
Watch the Conversation
In this episode of the Planting Seeds Podcast, Nick and I talk about seasonal businesses, cash reserves, taxes, hiring costs, cutting expenses, marketing during downtime, and why planning ahead matters even when you can’t predict everything.
At Harvest Advisory Group, we help business owners understand the patterns inside their businesses so they can make decisions before pressure makes those decisions for them.
Because sometimes the best way to handle a slow month is to start preparing for it during the good one.