Intro with music: Hey, it's Cindy and you're listening to The Brave Enough To Try Podcast, a show created to provide you with helpful life and small business tips, as well as encouragement and inspiring conversations with friends that I've made along the way so that you can be inspired to be brave enough to chase after your wildest dreams.
Cindy: Hey, it's Cindy, your host of The Brave Enough To Try Podcast. How are we doing? I hope you have been enjoying the summer series as much as I have. We've had some incredible guests give us some amazing tips and tricks and advice in life and in business. This week. I thought I'd pop in solo and talk about embracing the Slow season as summer fast approaches.
Now, it's no surprise if you're one of my entrepreneur besties that summer is usually a slow season in business, even though it feels incredibly fast in our personal life. That's because some of us have kids out of school. Some of us are traveling with family, trying to soak in as much friend time.
Or simply catching up on sleep and the massive to-do list at home. For the purpose of this episode, we're gonna be talking about embracing a slow girl season instead of a hot girl one. Some of you may be wondering what a slow season means or entails. Well, in the context of small businesses, a slow season typically refers to a period of time when your business activity or customer demand decreases.
So during a slow season, small businesses often experience a decline in sales, in foot traffic, and overall customer engagement. I know for a fact that the biggest complaint I hear from the brave enough to try community is that people aren't engaging very much on social media. This is usually due to things like seasonal variations, holidays, weather, economic factors.
This might not be the case for everyone, but I do find that for me personally as a consumer, I just don't have as much time to shop online or invest in my business during the season, and that's usually because I'm running additional errands, going on trips because of the weather, or this is the only time that my family can get off.
So how do we embrace a slow girl season and use it to our advantage to find growth and opportunities? Well first is the power of mindset. It's so easy to get caught up in frustration, self-doubt, financial stress, or maybe you're just simply lacking inspiration. You're dealing with self comparison and pot syndrome, or your motivations are low.
It's important to cultivate positive mindsets, such as viewing the slow season as an opportunity for personal and professional growth. Believing that challenges and setbacks can lead to valuable lessons and skill development. Approaching the slow season with the mindset of curiosity and a willingness to learn from the experience.
Cultivating a sense of gratitude for what you have achieved so far, even during the slow season, recognizing the positive aspects of your business or artistic journey, such as the skills that you have developed or the milestones that you have reached, expressing gratitude for your customers, clients or supporters who continued to show loyalty to you during the slow season, maintaining confidence in your abilities.
In your expertise and the value that you provide through your business or your artistic work. Reminding yourself of past successes and strengths, reinforcing a positive self-image, affirming your resilience, and the belief that you can overcome challenges, including slow seasons. Recognizing that you are not alone in experiencing these slow seasons and seeking support can be super beneficial to you and to your community.
Reaching out to other small business owners, artists, mentors who can provide guidance, motivation, and a fresh perspective. Looking for collaboration opportunities or joint ventures that can help generate momentum and spark your creativity. By practicing these positive mindsets, you can maintain resilience, find opportunities for growth, and stay motivated during a slow season.
Remember, a positive mindset can influence your actions and outcomes, helping you navigate through challenges and emerge stronger. Another way to embrace slow grow summer is by setting up meaningful goals, especially short-term goals that can be achieved or accomplished during your slow season. Some examples would include launching an online marketing campaign.
Let's say that your goal is to increase brand awareness and attract new customers during the slow season. Well, here are some of the action steps that I would recommend you take one, develop a targeted marketing strategy. Identify your target audience. Choose appropriate marketing channels such as what social media platforms are you gonna use, or are you going to.
Solely focus on email marketing and then create compelling content. Two, optimize your business website. Ensure that your website is user-friendly, visually appealing, and provides relevant information about the products or services that you offer. Three, implement a social media campaign. Create engaging post share updates about products or promotions, and interact with followers to build your online community.
Because remember, community is your support system. Four. Offer special promotions or incentives. Create exclusive discounts or incentives for customers to make purchases during the slow season. And five, I would suggest that you monitor and analyze your results by tracking the effectiveness of your marketing campaign, using analytic tools to measure website traffic engagement and conversion rates.
And then I would adjust strategies based on the insights that you collect. Now, if you're a creative or an artist like me, This would be a great opportunity to create a mini portfolio or a collection. Let's say that your goal is to use a slow season to develop a new body of work that shows your artistic skills and your creativity.
Maybe it's a course, maybe it's a product. Here are the action steps that I would recommend to you to do during this slow time. One, choose a theme or a concept. Two. Plan your collection. Decide on the number of pieces. What are you going to use, the size of your collection. Three. Allocate dedicated time for your creation.
Establish a schedule or routine to dedicate regular time for creating artwork. Four, experiment with new techniques or styles. Use the slow season as an opportunity to explore new techniques, new mediums, and different products. Number five, document and photograph your artwork or your products. Capture high quality images of the completed artwork for digital portfolio or online presence.
And then of course, you can't have all that work done and then not promote it. So the final thing that I would say is promote your new collection. Share the artwork on social media, your art community, and consider organizing a small exhibition or showcase. You worked hard for that. You showed up for it, and now it's time to share it.
These goals are specific. They're achievable within a defined timeframe, and they can help small business owners and artists or creatives make productive use of the slow season to enhance their business or their creative practice. Now, Let me go over a couple of other things that I think would really help you during your slow girl season or your slow girl summer.
One, embracing a positive perspective. Reframe the slow season in your mind instead of viewing it as a setback. See it as a chance to regroup, evaluate, and strategize for future growth. Spend this time focusing on learning, shift your mindset towards continuous learning and improvement. Recognizing that even during slow seasons there are lessons to be learned and skills to be developed.
Use this time to seek opportunities for skill enhancement. Identify the areas in your life for improvement and use this season to identify any gaps in your skills or knowledge that may benefit your business. Take those classes, attend those workshops, participate in those webinars, anything that's relevant to your industry.
Or your specific business needs, collaborate and network. Connect with other small business owners. Hop on. Hop on your friend's podcast. Hop on your friend's newsletter. Write a guest blog for your friend's blog. Use this slow season as an opportunity to connect with other people in your industry. Learn from each other.
Share your ex. Experiences share your community. Use this time to reflect and evaluate, analyze your business performance. Is there things that you can do differently? Can you focus on your high ticket numbers? Can you focus on your newsletter, if that's where you're getting most of your inquiries? Set new goals based on your reflection, set, actionable and measurable goals for the upcoming season.
Incorporating the insights that you gained during the slow period. Diversify. Explore new revenue streams. Can you create a new course? Can you create a new product? Encourage creativity and innovation. Foster a culture of innovation within your business by encouraging your team or yourself to generate new ideas.
Or improve existing processes, build relationships with your customers. Community for me is everything. I love my community and your community should be one of your top priorities. Spend this time getting to know them, collect data from them. Encourage them to engage with you. Ask questions, have polls, have fun surveys?
Have fun quizzes. Really build relationships with them. Stay resilient and persistent. Remember that slow seasons are temporary. Recognize that slow seasons are a normal part of business. Stay motivated. Surround yourself with positive influences. Seek support from others and celebrate your small wins along the way.
Do not forget to celebrate yourself and everything that you have accomplished to this point, but the most important thing is taking care of you. The self practices that can help recharge and refocus. My entrepreneur, besties, or my creative peers are the following: Practice, mindfulness or meditation. Set aside dedicated time each day for your practice to reduce stress and increase mental clarity.
Use apps or guided meditation resources to assist in the process. Focus on being present in the moment and cultivating a sense of calm and relaxation. Two, engage in physical exercise. It doesn't matter if it's a walk, it doesn't matter if you get down to your favorite song. Just move your body, boost your energy levels, choose activities that you enjoy.
Yoga, dancing, Zumba, Zumba's, one of my favorites. I love it. Consider joining fitness classes or just simply going outside to bike ride. Do it with a friend. Increase your social interaction as long as you're moving your body. Take breaks and practice time management in your day. Schedule regular breaks throughout the day to prevent burnout so that you can maintain productivity.
Set boundaries. Real boundaries by creating dedicated work and non-work hours to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Use time management techniques like the pompodoro technique to work in focus, burst with scheduled breaks. Pursue your hobbies and your creative outlets. Engage in activities that are unrelated to work simply because they bring you joy and relaxation.
Explore hobbies or interests that allow you to recharge and refuel your creativity. Examples can include reading, gardening, cooking, playing, and instrument, or engaging in crafts. Connect with nature, spend time outdoors. Lay in a hammock, read a book, sit in the park. Enjoy the natural surroundings. People.
Watch birds. Watch whatever you wanna do. Spend some time outside. Cultivate supportive relationships. Maintain connections with family, friends, or other small business owners, artists, creatives who understand your experiences. Schedule regular social activities or virtual meetups to nurture those relationships and gain support.
Engage in networking events or join professional communities to share ideas and experiences. Remember that self-care is personal and can vary based on individual preferences and needs, but it is essential to prioritize activities that bring you joy, that help you relax and help restore your energy levels.
By taking care of yourself, you can maintain a healthier mindset, increase productivity, and sustain long-term success in your small business or your creative endeavors. Now go embrace your Slow Girl summer and remember, I am always here for you. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I can't wait to connect with you next week to continue the conversation.
Come join me on Instagram at its Cindy Moore or at the Brave Enough to Try Podcast.