Avoiding the December Blues

Avoiding the December Blues

For more than a quarter of a century we have been dealing with the cycle of business that I refer to as the December Blues.

It is a time that starts a week before Thanksgiving and does not end until a few days into the new year.

A period of time when I might as well throw away my phone because I know that I will get nothing but answering machines.

The clients are on vacation from doing anything or caring about anything.

The DNR is on vacation too, so any regulatory issues that we have on any projects need to be done before now or they wont be looked at until well into January.

It has been a constant source of frustration for many decades trying to get work done during a time when everyone seems to think that they are on a sort of unofficial vacation.
The trap

Far too many times we have fallen into the trap of working our tails off during the busy fall season only to find ourselves with absolutely no work to do during late November through January, or at least no work that does not require a signature from an absent government official.

It took a while for us to learn to avoid this trap, and even after we learned, we still encountered many years when we forgot to stock up on extra projects early in the fall.

Avoiding the Blues

Staying out of this murky quagmire of no activity requires a stockpiling of projects.
Stockpiling of projects is not only difficult to do but can be risky since so many of our clients expect instant results. 

This meaning that they do not appreciate our encouraging their authorization on the consulting agreement in September or October for a project that we are unable to even look at until December.

Stockpiling is also difficult for our staff who do not like to switch gears from current over loads only to put in efforts toward projects that are far into the future.

Experience says Do It Anyway.

Here is where the voice of the experienced businessman steps in and commands the staff to do it anyway, and even hires a few temps to help with the early marketing push.

Some things can be done by temporary staffers, like postcards, some phone calls, but it does take some senior and intermediate people too.

Without the attention of a senior person, the temps will not know who or how to send out the cards to and make the preliminary calls to.

Without the senior people our success rate at signing up new projects will be nill since it does take a significant knowledge to sign up the projects once the key person is on the phone.

For a business that generally does not do much for marketing, relying on referrals and repeat customers, it does take an extreme effort to take time from our busy schedule to stock up on projects for the winter.

But just as the senior squirrel knows enough to work hard and store up some nuts for the winter our senior foresters know enough to force the younger foresters to stock up on some nuts for the winter as well.


Post Cards
Phone Calls
Reaching out to our network
Reaching out to our past clients