Summer is a time for fun….lots of ice cream, vacations with my family, gardening, time spent on any body of water, letting the kids stay up late, crab feasts, family game nights, a glass of wine on the deck in the evening with my husband, adventures with the kids, and so much more.
I also think of one of Aesop’s Fables each summer: The Ant and the Grasshopper. Summer is a quiet time for our business. Clients don’t request that many meetings, and client acquisition typically slows down. We take the “ant approach” with in-house projects in the summer. It’s time for me to write more blog posts, actually work our own social media accounts (we are always too busy with client accounts!), and add improvements to our website–which typically gets very little love from the team throughout the busy months.
Something different has happened this summer, though. We have three new clients who also take the “ant approach” to their business. Here’s a rundown on them:
New Business Owner: An entrepreneur opened the doors to her business in May, knowing summer wouldn’t be a huge growth phase for her. Her real strategy is, between May and the end of August, do the things necessary to put her in the best position possible to ramp up her business from September through November. We have run social media accounts for her, done some in-house training, and are now starting to build her a new website from the ground up.
Established Business Professional: This incredibly successful professional, like many successful business people, has a goal to take his business to an even higher level. He is putting all the right things in place to scale his business significantly from hiring and training a team during the slow summer months to hiring us for his complete digital media campaign strategy creation and implementation. We have taken on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for him as well as sending three email newsletters per month to different target audiences. Additionally, when his new website is complete, we will be doing the corporate blogging and maintaining his site monthly. His goal is to ramp up activities while everyone else is on vacation so that he is perfectly poised in his industry for year end.
Business to Open in October: As a long-time entrepreneur, this business owner of an establishment opening in October realized hiring a company with our skill set the day before they open isn’t the best business strategy. Right now we are building out their website, which will be delivered this month. Then, we will be managing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for their social media presence. We will also be handling all of their email marketing, photography, work collaboratively on in-store event planning, and blog post writing.
My business challenge for readers this month is:
Are you an ant or a grasshopper?
What can you do–in between fun summer activities–so that you finish the year strong?
Happy Summer!
~Kelly
