Web design is an industry that’s generally cyclical.
It doesn’t rely on the weather or any current events. It’s not even really affected by downturns in the economy. Businesses generally need a website year round.
For whatever reason, though, there are those days (and weeks) in which business for hayWire is unusually slow. Our slump happened around July of this year when we were waiting on projects to sign even though our pipeline was healthy. The obvious thing most businesses start to do is pursue sales more aggressively. We, however, use that time to work on more internal efforts and strengthen relationships.
Here’s our “when-things-are-slow” playbook:
Blog
Time and time again blogging has proven to boost and maintain our SEO over other methods. It’s free and requires the extra time that you already have. Protip: Have a bunch of blogging topics lined up when the opportunity arises so you don’t have to sit around and come up with something.
Polish Up Your Website
This seems rather obvious, but you need to make sure your website content is up-to-date. Are your employees listed on the site all current? Are your services current (did you add or take any away)? Or you can pull a hayWire and just completely redo your site.
Check in With Current Clients
Instead of going for new clients, check in with your current clients to see if they have any needs. Best case scenerio you suddenly have more work without hardly trying. Worst case scenario, you just refreshed their memory about who you are in case future referral opportunities arise.
Brush Up On Your Skills
For us, this includes reading blogs, researching new web design trends, learning a new skill, or reading a book. (Side note: check out this great list of unconventional business books) Additionally, we also use the time to do self-evaluations through Strengthsfinder and Strength Coaching.
Networking
This does NOT include the standard “networking” events offered by your local chamber of commerce or otherwise. These are very strategic networking meetings with people that have 1.) Referred work to you 2.) Showed interest in partnering with you 3.) Have a complementary product or services to yours. (More on that to come in our next blog post.)
This is just our list and we can rarely ever exhaust it until work soon picks up again. Want to find out how we can help you on your downtime- hit us up!
