About This Episode
Running a business comes with many ups and downs—one of the biggest challenges being seasonality. You’ve been there: business is booming in one quarter, and the next, it slows to a crawl. This inconsistency can be frustrating. So, how do you keep the leads flowing year-round?
Marcus Sheridan (renowned speaker, author of They Ask,You Answer, and partner at IMPACT) shared powerful strategies to overcome seasonality and keep growing, even during slow periods. By shifting your mindset and embracing new tools and tactics, you can make sure your business doesn’t just survive those dips—it thrives.
Is It Possible to Combat This Common Issue?
For many businesses, the off-season is a real struggle. Whether it’s due to the weather, customer buying cycles, or industry trends, things can slow down for months at a time. This dip in activity can be stressful, especially when it happens like clockwork every year.
Sound familiar? It’s a common challenge that leaves many business owners feeling stuck, thinking this cycle is just the way things are. Marcus shared a story of a company that had been fully embracing They Ask, You Answer to build trust and engage customers. But like many businesses, they still struggled with seasonal dips. To combat the off-season slowdown, they decided to try something new—a pricing calculator. What happened next was unexpected.
“Over the weekend, they got 20 leads—20 leads in just one weekend,” Marcus shared. “And this is during their offseason.” The leads kept coming too, with the company averaging ten leads a day after making that one simple change. Two walk-ins even made immediate purchases after using the calculator.
This simple tool made a world of difference because it helped potential customers get instant answers to their pricing questions. And when customers get immediate value, they’re more likely to act. This story shows how a small shift in approach can lead to major results.
Changing How You Sell With Self-Service Tools
A big takeaway from Marcus’s advice is that businesses need to embrace self-service tools that allow customers to access information whenever they need it. Pricing calculators are a great example, but there are other options as well. Marcus also mentioned ScoreApp, which allows businesses to offer assessments that help drive leads.
The idea is simple: the easier it is for customers to get answers on their own, the more likely they are to engage with your business. In a world where consumers crave instant gratification, it’s essential to be transparent and provide tools that empower potential customers. This helps build trust, and trust leads to action. If you’re not making it easy for people to learn about your offerings or pricing, you could be missing out on opportunities.
Breaking the Pride Cycle
While tools and strategies like calculators can generate leads, Marcus emphasized that success isn’t just about tactics. There’s a psychological factor at play, too. He introduced a concept called the “Pride Cycle,” which is all too common among businesses and leaders.
“The Pride Cycle affects every human, every company, every society,” Marcus explained. “When we’re at the bottom, we’re feeling pain and frustration, so we push ourselves to make changes. But when we reach success, we stop doing the little things that got us there, and that’s when we start sliding back down.”
This cycle is all too familiar: when things are going well, you might ease up on your efforts—fewer calls, less outreach, skipping a few marketing initiatives here and there. But as Marcus noted, that’s exactly when businesses start slipping back into the slow lane.
It’s easy to feel comfortable when things are going well, but that’s precisely the moment when you need to double down on the strategies that brought you success in the first place. “We forget about the extra call, the extra door knock, or the training we should have been doing,” Marcus said. And before you know it, you’re back in a slump, wondering how it all fell apart.
Thinking Like a Farmer
One of the most impactful lessons Marcus shared was the importance of “thinking like a farmer.” Just as a farmer plans ahead and plants crops long before the harvest, business owners need to invest in marketing and lead generation before they hit their slow periods.
“You have to plant the seed early if you want to harvest later on,” Marcus explained. This means that when business is booming and cash flow is strong, that’s when you need to ramp up your marketing efforts. Too many businesses wait until they’re in a slump to start pushing hard, but by then, it’s often too late.
Farmers don’t wait until they’re out of food to plant their crops, and neither should you. If you anticipate a slower season coming up, the time to act is now. Invest in new tools, focus on content that builds trust, and make sure you’re doing the little things—like consistent outreach and follow-ups—that keep your business top of mind for potential clients.
Controlling Your Own Destiny
Marcus Sheridan’s insights remind us that seasonality doesn’t have to control your business. By thinking ahead, leveraging tools like pricing calculators and self-assessments, and maintaining the same level of effort during busy times, you can ensure a steady flow of leads even during the slower months.
It’s easy to get complacent when things are going well, but as Marcus said, that’s when you’re most at risk of falling into the pride cycle. The key is to stay consistent, plan ahead, and never stop planting seeds. Whether you’re using innovative tools or simply sticking to the basics, the companies that succeed are the ones that keep pushing, even when they don’t “need to.”
Connect with Marcus
Marcus Sheridan is a writer, speaker, and business expert who’s worked with companies all over the world. Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer and co-author of The Visual Sale.
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