Guidant Financial Group Blog

BusinessWeek came out with a great article today on maximizing profits in seasonal businesses (see Basics for Seasonal Business Owners). Many of our clients consider seasonal businesses when determining what business to purchase or start. For our small business financing client base, there is a lot of appeal in owning a business that only needs to be operated at full capacity for part of the year.

What the article’s author, Amy Barrett, does a great job of pointing out, however, is that that a seasonal business owner needs to have a unique set of skills to be successful. Number one is good employee interviewing and hiring skills. As the business is seasonal, and most workers need to be paid year round, seasonal business owners will often find that their employees leave for new jobs after they are let go for the slow season. This means that re-hiring needs to be done each busy season.

Additionally, some seasonal business owners find that profits during their busy season aren’t enough to sustain their lifestyle and the business, itself. Because of this, a creative marketing mind is a great trait to have. Perhaps, focusing on Business-to-Consumer marketing during the busy season and Business-to-Business marketing during the slow season will help even out those peaks and valleys.