Myth busting the 'summer slump' in business!

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In this episode, I'm busting the myth around this so called summer

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slump. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset

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coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. I want to bust a

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myth. And that myth is that the summer months are slow for your

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business. Now, you're probably hearing that and thinking, but, Katie,

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like, it actually is slow for my business. Everyone's on vacation. Their kids

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are out of school. They take longer to make decisions. Like,

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business slows down between the months of

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June and August. And to that I say, yeah,

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but is it because it naturally slows down or because you slow

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down? And I'm sorry if that was rude. Actually, I'm not that sorry because

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we actually need to have a realistic conversation about what you're

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doing to cause this summer slump every single year.

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And before we get into this, I want to acknowledge

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that the summer is a scheduling

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nightmare for a lot of people. If you're a parent, especially throughout the school

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year, your children are sent off to a building where other adults

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watch them for the majority of the day. So you have time to get your

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work done, and then you only have to deal with them in the mornings and

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the evenings. You know, you can tell I'm not a parent, right? I'm sure your

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children are lovely, but you get a lot more done when they're away. Right? Whereas

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in the summer, you know, it's a little more sporadic. Maybe they're

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in summer camp. That's probably not going to be a full school day's worth of

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time. Maybe they're not in summer camp. Maybe they're just hanging around the house with

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you. Well, then you're the adult in charge. And it's not like

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kids are great coworkers. They're not going to respect the fact that

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you are in a meeting. They're not going to respect the fact that you have

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to get an email out. If they want a snack, they're going to ask for

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the snack because no one wants to be that mom. That has to explain to

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your child's best friends parents that, yes, you do, in fact, feed your

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child. You just didn't get them a string cheese right when they wanted it that

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one time. Can you tell I have friends who have kids? In addition to

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that, there are a lot of vacations that happen during the summer. People get

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married during the summer. I mean, people get married all year round. But summer is

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like prime time in a lot of areas. And even if you're not going on

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vacation, there are people that you're working with who are going on vacation.

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Maybe your graphic designer is taking two weeks off and

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then your copywriter is taking a week off here. Like, that is naturally

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going to slow down some of the stuff that happens in your business. And

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not to mention, depending on who your ideal client

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is, they may slow down in their decision making process.

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There are a lot of challenges to the summer season, and if

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we just kind of, like, threw in the towel every season, like, oh, well, it's

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hard to get clients right now for X, Y and Z reason, so

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let's just not even try. Well, things would not go

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well. They would not go well for your business, they would not go well for

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your finances, not go well for your relationships, because everyone be like, what

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the are you doing? You sure you want to run a business if it's always

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so hard and blah, blah, blah, and then you have to go back because you

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have adhd, you get bored of the job after a year, and then you have

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to go and find another job. And then after another year, you get bored, and

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then you have to go and find another job. That's just a lot of jobs.

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So when we talk about the summer slump, like, there's a part of this

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that is absolutely realistic. There are things that just go slower in the

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summer for a lot of different reasons. Just because

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people are going to be, are more likely to be

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distracted during the summer does not

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mean they're not paying attention.

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One of the things that business owners drop first when

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things are, like, assumed to be going slow

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is marketing. They figure, oh, well, people are at the beach,

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they're not looking at social media. Oh, you know, it's

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the holidays. People are with family and

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cooking and wrapping presents. Have you ever been to the

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beach since smartphones came out? And when they're not on their

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phones, they're getting shown by other people what's on their phones.

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And have you been to a holiday with family?

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Like, people are hiding in spare bedrooms, in the

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bathroom, hiding from the people that they love cause

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it's been too much. And they're on their phones, they're looking for a

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distraction. Uncle Paul sang something racist at the dining room

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table. How do you avoid screaming at Uncle Paul and

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creating a scene? You open LinkedIn. Hopefully you're not

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doing that. Hopefully you are doing some anti racist work and informing Uncle

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Paul why his words are problematic

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and guiding him to a better way of

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communicating and having more empathy for people who are different from him.

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And also, like, sometimes you're just too tired for that. But

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also, sometimes that just is not gonna work for Uncle Paul.

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And this is just gonna be the last time you invite him to dinner for

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the time that he's there. LinkedIn or Instagram is going to

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be your godsend to keep you from

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turning into a rage monster. I don't actually have an Uncle Paul,

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and my family, thankfully, doesn't have any racists.

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But for those of you who have your own variation of an Uncle Paul, my

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heart goes out to you.

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My point being is that just because people are distracted, just because they

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have other things going on, and just because whatever goal you help your

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clients with may not be top of mind for them in that moment, it

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doesn't mean they're not seeing your one of the best

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times to get in front of your ideal clients. Oh, what am I going to

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say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel,

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squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.

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One of the best times to get in front of your ideal clients is

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when everyone else is writing off that they're not paying attention. Whatever it is that

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you help them with. Do not stop

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marketing because just because they're not in a

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buying mentality at this very moment and just want to own,

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that could totally be a story that you're telling yourself. You could

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totally be making up that they're not in a buying mode and

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therefore not inviting them to become your client. That could be a

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totally made up thing by you, and you'll never know unless you continue to

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market yourself. But even if they aren't in that buying mode, it

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doesn't mean that they're not paying attention. It doesn't mean that they're not seeing your

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content. It doesn't mean that they're not planning what they want to sign up for

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in the future. They're not going to forget that you exist. And

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remember, remembering that you exist is the only

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way that they're going to end up giving you money. And I do want to

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encourage you to dial back some of your work during the summer, especially

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if you love the season and you have fun things to do and you have

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loved ones visiting and your kids are off of school, and,

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you know, you enjoy doing the outdoors things that you can't do during the

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rest of the year. You only live once. And we don't start

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businesses so that we can just be a slave to our business

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and suffer through until we hit a certain amount of money and

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then. And then give up. We start businesses so that the business can

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support us living the life we want now. So, yeah, take a day off

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in the middle of the week during the summer. Go to the beach, go

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wakeboarding, do whatever it is that makes you happy.

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And dial back in ways that allow you to have more

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free time. But do not dial back on your marketing. In the last

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episode, episode 89, I actually talked about goals and how you can set them for

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yourself in a realistic way and how you set your

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goals for different seasons. You know, you need to follow the same advice.

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You need to be realistic about what you can get done in a day, in

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a week, and in a month.

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So just like you have an SoP for the rest of the year, the things

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that you need to do every single day and every single week and every

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single month, you get to augment that for the summer.

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And remember, you're the boss. You own this company.

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I mean, unless you have a very bossy dog. But Luna doesn't know what I

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do for work, so she can't tell me what to do specifically. In my business,

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the most important thing for you to remember throughout the summer is you need to

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stay top of mind, because if someone's ready to buy, they're gonna

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buy. And if they're not seeing you online and they're not being reminded

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about how you help people, they're gonna hire someone else

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who isn't taking the summer off. So

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whether it's like water sports, maybe like going kayaking, you can post a

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picture of that. You know, maybe you're going to Hawaii or somewhere

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tropical. You can absolutely share a picture from your vacation. You

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know, maybe you just want to sit in your backyard and read trashy

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fantasy romance novels. That would be kind of a fun thing for you to

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post once a week. You know, here's what I'm reading right now. It's a little

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spicy. Maybe don't read it. Like with your book club that involves your mom.

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Remember, people like to buy from other people who they feel connected to,

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who they feel like they have something in common with. I could absolutely

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share all the trashy fantasy romance novels that I'm reading this

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summer. Once a week, I could showcase. This is what I'm in the middle

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of. Don't listen to the audible version in the car with

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the kids. And someone may be a reader and think, oh, great,

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yes, I want to read that now. Or they could be not a reader and

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think, oh, that's so funny that, you know, this is Katie's hobby, but either

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way, they know something more about me, and knowing something like that

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about someone is kind of like the stuff that you would know about someone if

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they were a friend. And people buy from friends. Think

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about it. You're not friends with anyone that you don't trust. When we allow

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people to become our friends on the interwebs, what we're essentially letting them

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do is build trust with us. And people buy from people they

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trust, and they buy from people who they know exist, even if

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you have some ADHD side quests that you'd rather ditch your work for.

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And to prove my point, I'm going to share with you my top five

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reads that I recommend to you if you're into the

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fantasy romance genre. Okay, so we're going to start off

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with a clockwork angel. This is a trilogy.

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It's technically young adult, but it has a real, like, slow burn on

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the romance side. And it's a little Sci-Fi y,

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but there's a lot of action and there's a lot of, like,

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what's going to happen next. Okay? So don't start this late at night. I

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cannot talk romance fantasy without giving

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Acotar a court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Maas

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a shout out. Now, this is the first of a five

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book series. There is a 6th coming out. It is very

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entertaining, great storytelling, lots of, well, not so much spice in this

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book. Lots of spice in the fifth book. Holy.

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Fourth wing. Holy. There's only two of these out. It

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has dragons, it has magic, it has deception

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and sex and all the things really, really good.

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But if you are reading the second one, don't be surprised if people are

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like, ooh, prepare yourself because the last

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few pages will stab you in the

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heart. Okay. The Red Queen by Victoria

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Aveyard. This is also a five part

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series. I'm actually not done with the series. It got

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intense and I needed a breather after the third

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book. It is a very, very slow burn, but, like, just

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the world building in. This is absolutely insane.

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Can't recommend it enough. And then for those of you who

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just like light, like young adult, I have to tell you, like, this

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series, I'm going to show you them all because they're just really short. By Tamora

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Pierce. This was like my first intro to romance

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fantasy. Alanna, the first adventure. It's about a girl

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who swaps places with her twin brother and goes to become

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a knight while he goes to the convent to become a

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sorcerer where she was supposed to be sent to become a lady. It's four

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parts, and it's actually in a series that has, like, God, like

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17 books. So you can really go into the tortol world

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and get fully immersed. But honestly, like, if you want to do, like, a little

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reading group and you have daughters who are, like, they're preteens and

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teenager, this would actually be a really cool thing to. To

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read and, like, talk about healthy relationships and girl

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power and all that sh t. So that is my

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reading list for you this summer. Enjoy.