How to position your seasonal business for success

Managing a small business comes with many opportunities and challenges – including, deciding when and how often to operate. For many types of businesses, it may make sense to only keep the doors open part of the year or majorly adjust operating scale by season – think Christmas tree farms, fireworks stands, lake resorts, ski hills, and many more businesses that aren’t viable year-round. While your customers may not get to interact with you full-time, that doesn’t mean your workload is any less – research from Statistics Canada* shows that SMBs across all sectors and industries are tackling inflationary and labour challenges this year.

Regardless of economic conditions, seasonal businesses* need to carefully manage operations year-round – from cash flows to talent retention, and everything in between. Strategically coordinating your resources, inventory, and tools can help smooth over hills and valleys in your income and drive growth during busy periods. Here’s what you need to know.

Use your point-of-sale solution to closely manage working capital and cash flows

All businesses need to carefully forecast* their sales and expenses, but seasonal operations come with extra challenges – each year can bring new economic conditions, consumer expectations, and cost considerations that make budgeting and planning more difficult. That’s why it is critical to invest in a point-of-sale (POS) solution that integrates with your business software and offers advanced sales analytics to closely track your revenue and expenses during your active season. Diving into your historical sales data can help you plan inventory, staffing, and cash budgeting with more precision. Further, your payments provider can also offer a variety of funding options to help maintain healthy cash flows.

Find and retain the best talent for your business – during peak and quiet seasons

Hiring the best employees – and keeping them happy – is imperative for small business success. Seasonal businesses have the extra challenge of needing additional manpower during peak activity, but likely much less staffing during slow times or closed periods. That’s why you need to strategically design roles in your business to attract the right talent (e.g. part-time summer lifeguards, seasonal restaurant servers, etc.) and clearly communicate your expectations and compensation plan with employees. Further, it is worth the effort for seasonal businesses to develop a strong and positive company culture* to keep employees coming back each season; this will help boost performance and reduce turnover costs each year.

Use your off-season time strategically

Even when your doors are closed, there are lots of things small businesses can do to prepare for the next season and position operations for success. For example, consider updating your website to attract new customers and boost sales, bookings or orders during the next busy season. Taking the time to improve search engine optimization (SEO)*, descriptions of your products/services, and images of your offerings can go a long way to build new customer relationships. Further, you can spend your downtime improving your offerings and adding new products to keep customers coming back each year – new menu items, appointment times/types, product bundles and more. Take time to research consumer trends on platforms like Yelp* to tweak your offerings to meet demand.

Invest in customer experience to ensure annual repeat sales

By definition, seasonal companies have a shorter active period each year – increasing the importance of customer loyalty and repeat patronage. To retain customers and reduce churn, it is critical to improve customer experience from the moment someone learns about your business through checkout and post-purchase support. For example, retail shops and quick-service restaurants should consider adding mobile payment devices to the checkout process so staff can assist customers waiting in lines. Reducing the amount of time that customers spend waiting in line to order or pay goes a long way to keeping them satisfied and willing to return the following season. Further, seasonal businesses can add a Buy Button to their websites and social media pages to speed up the online checkout process for their customers.

No matter when or where your business is open, there are many opportunities to position yourself for success and tackle larger economic challenges. Get started with the right tools and tactics to boost your business during peak periods and the off-season.

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