Most businesses experience peaks and troughs – it’s a natural part of business life. Some businesses peak around Christmas time, others slow right down at this time.
It’s important to have a go-to list of strategies for continuing to develop and grow your business when things are slow.
In our other business, we are wholesale distributors for a range of cloth nappies and baby carriers and generally July and December are our slowest months, so while some might lament a slower sales period, we delight in the opportunity to catch our breath and implement changes that knocked at the door during the busy months.
Here are just some of the things you might like to do when your wholesale business is slow.
- Collaborate with a complementary brand to create a promotion that will increase brand awareness for you both.
- Catch up on your book work.
- Take a holiday.
- Build up a library of social media images.
- Schedule those images using a scheduling app, such as Buffer, Hootsuite or Edgar.
- Review stock levels and performance. Order if necessary and discontinue slow-moving products.
- Create or review your marketing plan.
- Research a better shipping option.
- Review your policies.
- Update your return procedure documentation.
- Develop an exclusive promotion with a current retailer.
- Email 5 retailers and see what you can do for them.
- Update your website (images, product descriptions, about page, contact details, SEO, policies, FAQs – any or all of these!)
- Write a blog post about one of your produts.
- Tidy your blog categories, tags and update SEO.
- Contact a potential brand ambassador. You can find these types of folks on Instagram and in business or blogging groups)
- Email your retailers asking them to check that their stockist listing on your website is correct. Help consumers avoid the frustration of trying to access a retailer through incorrect phone numbers or broken links. Use this quiet time to ensure you have an up-to-date stockist listing on your website.
- Work on a media pack.
- Review your pricing. Discontinue or raise prices for any products that no longer give you the margin you want/need.
- Develop new resources that your retailers will find useful. Bundle them into a pack. Collaborate with a complementary brand to make it really pack a punch.
- Check that all information in your social media profiles is correct.
- Put a social media call out for product testimonials that you can use in future marketing materials.
- Listen to some podcasts that specialise in personal or professional development and general business awesomeness. My favourites are from Amy Porterfield, Denise Duffield-Thomas and Salena Knight.
- Review your business plan.
Over to you; what do YOU do when business is slow? What would you add to this list?
