Business: Feast and Famine

Every business has seasonal periods that are slower or busier than usual.  With large companies, you tend to hear about lay-offs or seasonal/temporary hires during their high and low seasons.  For them, the economic affect is felt, but not like it is felt in a small business.  If you have less than 10 employees, or you are the only employee, a lay-off during a slow period just is not feasible.  I often find that new business owner’s, or those looking to start a business of their own, are not aware of the “feast and famine” aspect of owning a business.  It can vary by industry and business type and what one person experiences with their business, may not be the same exact thing someone else will face.  However, there will in my opinion and experience, be times when business will be slower than other times.

“Feast and Famine” simply means that there will be times of Feast, when business will be booming, busy, extremely profitable, etc.; and there will be times of Famine, when business is slow, and for some, non-existent.  A seasonal business like a tax preparer, will experience the vast majority of their business income during the tax season and little to no business outside of that bracket.  A retailer, may see spikes of feast in their business around holidays and dips at other times of the year.  I think it is important to plan for these peaks and lows if you are just starting out and look for ways to capitalize on your high seasons to help compensate for your low seasons/peak.

I was fortunate enough to learn when those high and low peaks would typically occur for me before I went full-time with my freelance business.  What I do now, as a freelancer, is the same thing I did in Corporate America.  I also freelanced part-time, on the side while I was in Corporate America and I saw that my slow downs occurred around the same time as slow downs occurred at my day job.  My day job also helped me determine some of the reasons why those slow downs occurred.  Marketing budgets were almost depleted, sales were in decline, taxes were due, etc., I took note of those things.

If you have not already started your business venture, do some research to see if you can find out when those peaks and lows may happen.  It will help prepare you for those times, so that you can weather through them.  Last year, I filmed a short video with tips for getting through slow periods.  Hopefully, this may be of some help!