How to Make Seasonable Businesses Sustainable

Many people dream of working for themselves. Being their own boss, choosing their own hours, make money purely for yourself and no one else. It’s a great scenario, and I did it myself so I can testify to that. But it isn’t one without risks, otherwise everyone would do it.

If you choose to go ahead and do it then yes it’s true you do make all the money for yourself and not The Man, but you’re also in charge of finding your own source of customers. This is a pretty daunting challenge with a number of complexities, but what about people who start businesses where the work is seasonal as well. How do you make a business sustainable when you only have a steady stream of leads for half of the year?

Unless you’re in the fortunate position where you can earn enough income in peak season to provide enough to spread out over the remainder of the year then you’ll need another solution. The answer may well be that instead of running a seasonable business, you in fact manage two seasonable businesses. T

he major point of difference between the two being that they have opposite seasons to one another. This may sound like you’re taking on double the burden and pressure, but if you can find another business that requires little in the way of start-up costs and with minimal to no training, you’re already halfway there. Providing you have established a means to acquire leads for your first business then why couldn’t you apply the same process to attract leads for the other.

One perfect example of two opposite seasonal businesses that go well together are gutter cleaning and window cleaning, both of which I used to manage myself. Gutter cleaning operates throughout the winter months when people have issues with blocked gutters during periods of heavy rainfall.

You can make good income during this peak season but in summer when there is little rainfall gutter cleaning isn’t a priority for people. Providing a service such as window cleaning is very suitable as it is a service that is in great demand during summer and very low demand over the winter months. Not just that but it is an additional service that doesn’t require training, and can be as minimal as you choose, virtually, in terms of additional expenses.

You can either merge the businesses together under one name, one website etc. Or you could choose to separate them, with has it’s pros and cons. Keeping the two main services under one is easier to manage and can be beneficial if you’re committed to building a strong brand name. However, depending on your market strategy it can sometimes be strategic to keep them separate. You may have some extra costs when it comes to advertising but sometimes it is easier to market one service under a business specific to that service.

For instance the window cleaning business I managed, B1 Windows, was much easier to rank on Google for its major search term window cleaning Perth than it was to rank on the sister gutter cleaning website. You really need to plan it carefully and do your research first into marketing and brand building, and then weigh up the benefits against the drawbacks.

I hope this has given some insight into how it is possible to run your own business when faced with the issue of seasonal work. It is by no means the only way, nor will it guarantee the success of your business. It’s merely an insight into a method that I found to be successful myself but, be warned, it does take planning as well as finding the right combination of services. And of course it takes hard work, but if you’re not ready for that then I wouldn’t recommend starting your own business to begin with.

Small business owner. Entrepreneur. Keen Blogger.