How to Slow Your Business Down for a Season

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Most of our clients come to us saying “I feel like I’m burning the candle at both ends. I want to hire support. I want bigger profit margins. I want clients to find me more than I’m scouting them.”

And what’s interesting is that while these clients aren’t saying “I need to make more money” directly, the solution to every single one of these requests is tied to making more money as a result of smarter systems + processes. 

Together, we’ll work through their backend systems — how to effectively put food on the family dinner table + then be sitting at the table eating it — to help get them out of overwhelm.

Then they start to reclaim some control + can reduce their workload to be home with their families more.

It’s the goal of everything we do at OrganicFamilyCEO. 

What we know for sure is that when you create the margin in your personal + professional capacities, then there’s ample opportunity to identify the right next step for your entrepreneurial life as a parent.

You have the creative space to “download” your next best project idea.

You have the sorting ability to clear out the clutter + run a leaner, greener, meaner book of business.

And when you take those actions, you start seeing a financial return that you can snowball into greater returns month over month.

And that financial freedom then affords you even more freedom to train a team, refine your processes + create the intentional home life you want.

What Our Work Slowdowns Look Like as Parent Entrepreneurs

Our work slowdowns happen in the summer + winter.

In summer, this means that we take on fewer coaching clients. We’ll continue to support our parent entrepreneur clients who have ongoing retainers, intensives or through a smaller support package. We also use summer to refine our own backend processes, so that these clients feel even more supported + that we support them with the ultimate ease.

In turn, our summer days are filled with even more fun + flexibility than we already have throughout the rest of the year as a homeschooling family. 

We spend more time at the beach, hiking at the local parks, taking larger family vacations (like a recent one to Disney World).

We explore on family adventure days visiting museums + farms + small businesses.

We read more books, color more sidewalk chalk, have more water balloon fights + discover new pizza places in search of the best slice in the United States. 

Or we do none of that + stay home in our pajamas all day — because we have the flexibility to decide on any given day.

In winter, this means that we return to a smaller coaching client base again. We spend more time intentionally reviewing the past year overall. We turn inwards + prepare for spring growth.

We spend time with our extended family for holidays. We make big meals from scratch + eat them at long tables. We pull the sleeper sofa out for family movie days cozy by the fire. We donate, volunteer, mentor + merry our way through the season of giving.

While we’re making memories with our family, we’re still making the money that supports them in the background. In the summer + winter, we take the fullest advantage of the return on investment our setup affords us. 

If we don’t actually lean into the benefits of building an entrepreneurial family life on our own terms, then what’s the point of all of this work?

4 Ways to Slow Down Your Work This Season (without reducing your paycheck)

If you’re thinking that a seasonal slow down is in your future, here are a few ways we’re helping clients that might be helpful for you:

1. Pause all work project start dates until the end of the season.
   
   This means that you’ll still have inquiry calls, send out proposals or more information, take deposits or retainers + onboard your clients. The only difference is that you’ll simply let people know that you won’t be starting project work beyond onboarding until that end month.
   
   Implementation Tip: Block off 1 week for no client meetings, calls or deliverables. For women interested in Cyclical Living — timing up your activities to where you are in your menstrual cycle for natural productivity — then this blocked week could be during your period.

2. Set office hours even if you don’t have a physical office space.
   
   This is great to do any time of year + in the slow seasons, these hold a special space on our calendar. Give people when they can expect to hear from you (+ more importantly, when they won’t!).
   
   When you intentionally bucket your time, you can identify who is a go-getter on your team or who is a client that’s taking their work with you seriously. And then you can double-down on those clear all-stars to get maximum results in the fuller seasons.
   
   Implementation Tip: Include your availability information in the signature of your email. This way, your office hours are clearly included on every email you send + you’re reminded to update those office hours as-needed because you’re seeing that signature frequently, too.

3. Limit the number of new projects you take on for the season overall.
   
   And if you feel like spreading out the start dates throughout the quarter feels more manageable, then do that, too!
   
   Implementation Tip: Use these limits as promotional messaging. Post about your limited availability in your online marketing to spark a sense of urgency for prospective clients. If they haven’t gotten on your client roster yet, then they might want to jump at the opportunity now because your book of business is booking up fast!

4. Promote + sell your packaged services with clear start + end dates only.
   
   This means saving offers that include project management or additional support for your more interactive months + freeing yourself up from “showing up” in real-time on an unpredictable time runway.
   
   When we promote offers that don’t require as much of our “forward-facing time”, like LIVE coaching calls, then this makes stepping away for vacation even more exciting because we aren’t hard-pressed for a set return date to be “ON” + in front of the camera. We can ease back into our work however feels best.
   
   Implementation Tip: Match up the end of your promotional times to the start of a larger vacation. There’s nothing like celebrating a promotion well done on a vacation-scale! We prefer to space out the end of a promotion (like a new product launch) + the start of a vacation with a few buttoning-up days in-between, so that we can fully decompress from the promotion, handle any administrative necessities, then step away completely for some tech-free time in true vacation mode. 

How are you planning for a seasonal slowdown in business this year?

Share in the comments below how you’re planning on creating more margin in your entrepreneurial family life. What implementation tips do you have?

P.S. — If you think you might need our help creating the margin to slow down in your family-centered business without reducing your paycheck in the process, we’d love to connect with you. 

Fill out the Coaching Application Questionnaire to get some time on our calendar. 💌