When the busy season hits, it can feel like an all-hands-on-deck situation. Keeping up with client requests, site visits, and event days might drive you to leave some internal tasks on the back burner, but a busy spell shouldn’t hinder your profitability. While you can save some projects for quieter times (like experimenting with new software or updating SOPs), others are essential for your company’s sustained success.
Here are five mission-critical things you should never ignore in your business, no matter how busy your schedule looks.
Marketing
When the busy season winds down, will you have a pipeline of prospects ready to book in slower months? Or will you find yourself with an empty calendar and a sharp drop in revenue? Letting marketing fall by the wayside can lead to a dangerous feast-or-famine cycle, putting your bottom line and team morale at risk.
Staying on top of content creation, publicity, and other brand outreach efforts will keep your audience engaged and allow you to maintain steady bookings in quieter seasons.
“From keeping our Instagram feed current and having intentional captions to updating any directory or business listing, and regularly producing content for our blog, we have to stay on top of our marketing plan during the busy season,” confirms Samantha Leenheer of House of Joy.
You might wonder how you could possibly fit marketing into a jam-packed schedule, but rest assured that it doesn’t need to become an ongoing hitch in your to-do list.
Instead of remembering to post daily, Megan & Kenneth's Megan Breukelman encourages event pros to pre-schedule marketing content. “Take a day to put together a queue of Instagram posts, TikToks, and Pinterest posts to ensure you're not thinking too hard about it during your busier days,” she recommends.
You can adopt the same proactive approach by batching your blog posts, email blasts, and real wedding submissions, saving you the time and hassle of task-switching throughout the day.
Team Meetings
The modern workforce motto is true: Not everything requires a meeting. Most of the time, you can effectively communicate with your team through a quick email, text, or phone call. However, cutting out team meetings altogether can create a company-wide disconnect, causing misunderstandings, decreased motivation, and even resentment.
“One of the most important business-building activities never to neglect during busy season is your 1:1 meeting with team members or weekly team meetings,” assures Ian Ramirez of Madera Estates. While it’s easy to cancel a meeting here and there, he asserts that regular team meetings are “vital for the culture and morale of your business.”
Use these meetings as opportunities to “keep a pulse on your individual team members’ workload, mental health, and overall well-being,” Ramirez adds. “Be sure to prioritize these to maintain efficiency, prevent mistakes, and [prevent] even worse—burnout.”
In other words, don’t leave your team hanging! Show them appreciation and support them in reaching their professional goals. Connecting with them regularly, especially when busy, demonstrates strong leadership and will result in higher job satisfaction and employee engagement.
Financial Tracking
When business is booming, client-related tasks might seem a higher priority than routine financial management—especially if you have a bookkeeper or accountant. But at the end of the day, a business owner is solely responsible for their company’s fiscal performance. You may not have to check your numbers daily, but you must remain aware of your financial status and how it impacts critical business decisions.
“I recommend keeping one day blocked for internal work,” Leenheer suggests. “Staying on top of your accounting, P&L, and cash flow projections can help you make informed decisions for the next quarter.”
Wedding planner Penny Haas agrees that the busy season is no time to neglect your business’s financial health. “During busy season, I make sure to maintain processes, especially with the financials and follow-ups,” she shares. “Making sure deposits and payments are entered while also being aware of inbound revenue and expected expenses will be helpful when you come out of busy season and check the books.”
Ensuring your business’s sustainability is an ongoing endeavor. Monitoring your cash flow and profitability will set you up for greater success during busy and slow periods alike, so don’t expect to take the season off!
Networking
If your calendar is fully booked, you’ll be hard-pressed to find time to attend industry conferences or local networking events. But that doesn’t mean you must put your networking efforts in the backseat!
Bite Catering Couture’s Vijay Goel confirms that there are plenty of organic networking opportunities that won’t cut into your schedule. “The busy season is when we come in contact with our partners and key clients,” he explains. “While we may all be busy working, it's important to leverage the time going into and coming out of events to cement strong working relationships and discuss collaborative initiatives, especially any social media collabs that help build followers and pipeline.”
Effective networking involves more than meeting people and handing out business cards. It also requires nurturing industry relationships by supporting and collaborating with creative partners. Put your best foot forward when working with others; your efforts will not go unnoticed.
Business Development
The future can seem distant when you’ve got your hands full, but don’t let busyness get in the way of reaching your big-picture business goals. Putting off business development tasks can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities, so keep your thinking cap on!
“As the owner, I am constantly evaluating where we are, where we want to go, and my role in making sure I get us there,” shares Loni Peterson of LP Creative Events. “I need to put training and trust into my team to carry the load while I am working on business development strategies, which could include attending educational conferences, volunteering as a member of a board of directors, scouting and looking for the right places to expand in our market, and reaching our audiences in a meaningful way.”
As a creative professional, balancing client-facing work and business might seem like juggling too much. Leenheer offers a solution that works for her team: “We like to alternate working on one client's event and then taking care of a business task. At the end of the day, we have made progress on our business and things for our clients.”
Don’t feel like you must act on every great business idea immediately, either! If time is limited, use busier times to develop strategies and flesh out plans for the future. Then, when your schedule opens up, you’ll have everything you need to hit the ground running and implement those plans.
Navigating the busy season is an exercise in prioritization. Ignore the shiny objects that beg your attention, focusing your energy on profit-driving activities instead. These essential functions will keep you on track and well-positioned to produce lasting results, whether peak or off-season.
Meghan Ely is the owner of wedding PR and wedding marketing firm OFD Consulting. Ely is a sought-after speaker and a self-professed royal wedding enthusiast.
