As temperatures rise, sales tend to fall. Customers skip off on vacation, spend more time by the pool than in stores and opt for family barbeques over chatting with their accountants.

After working tirelessly over the last several months, you might be tempted to take advantage of the summer slowdown and fill the coming weeks with a little R&R of your own. Instead, be proactive and tackle projects that get pushed to the side when customers are coming through your doors in droves.

First: Develop a summer strategy

As your business starts to wind down, write out a few goals for the following two to three months. Consider polishing up your website, buckling down on content marketing, expanding your network and/or nurturing relationships with customers. Then, add in a few ideas you want to try to improve your productivity and business methods.

Once you have your list, take a morning to come up with a plan of attack. If your website isn’t up to par, it doesn’t make sense to focus on content marketing first. You’d end up driving customers to a shoddy site just so they can close the tab. If you already have a solid lineup of customer appreciation initiatives and programs, focus on expanding your professional network. The more connections you have, the better a position you’ll be in to meet and exceed customer expectations.

With your priorities in line, take a hard look at how the summer slowdown affects your business specifically. Are afternoons at your coffee shop slow while your base is at the pool? Plan to spend the hottest hours of the day working on your list. Are you flooded with purchases the month before school starts, but the beginning of the summer finds you twiddling your thumbs? Schedule projects so that everything gets done before the back-to-school rush.

5. Evaluate your website

Whether you need a complete overhaul of your site design or want to improve traffic and conversion rates, now’s the time to get started so you’re ready for busier months. And if you’ve really been slacking on your site, consider starting from the top of the list below and working your way to the end.

Update your site, drive more traffic and increase conversion rates:

1. First impressions matter: refreshing and maintaining your website
2. 5 ways to increase website traffic (no content marketing required)
3. Master SEO in 4 steps
4. Conversion rates, goals and testing: making your website work for you

4. Focus on content marketing

Despite routinely being listed as one of the cheapest marketing strategies, the time investment content marketing requires causes some business owners to put it off indefinitely. Grab some lemonade, kick your feet up and come up with ideas for blog posts, videos, graphics and social media. Jump in and create content for the summer so your brand stays on customers’ minds. But don’t stop there—put together a backlog for times when you simply don’t have a spare second to write, shoot or design content.

Create useful, quality content and then promote it furiously:

1. Not a writer or graphic artist? You can still make shareable content
2. 9 tips to make every word count
3. Video is taking marketing by storm: here’s how to get started
4. 9 design products that won’t break the bank (or your brain)
5. The ultimate guide to promoting your best content
6. Recycle, repurpose, repromote: getting the most out of your existing content

And check out our social media series:

1. YouTube 101: getting started and growing your channel
2. Dive into the conversation: a guide to marketing, networking and cultivating relationships on Twitter
3. A comprehensive guide to marketing and selling on Instagram
4. Marketing and selling on the world’s largest social media platform
5. The ultimate guide to selling and marketing to 70 million Pinterest users

3. Expand your network

Take inventory of the problems, setbacks and struggles you faced over the last year, as well as how your competition leveraged their networks.

• How many issues could you have resolved more quickly, and easily, if you’d had some support and a second set of eyes?
• Were there any areas where another business could have helped you meet customer needs and wants more efficiently?
• Did local businesses partner up to put on events or cross promotions and it sparked some ideas for your company?

Prioritizing building your network will help your business run more smoothly over the next year and expose you to new customers. Remember: The relationships you build with fellow business owners and experts are (nearly) as important as the relationship you develop with your customer base.

Take advantage of networking opportunities and cross promotions:

1. Your local chamber of commerce isn’t a relic—it’s a wealth of opportunity
2. Cross promotions: partner up and expand your base

Also, check out the social media series linked previously in this article. The articles contain several tips for expanding your network. 😊

2. Show customers some love

Your regulars might be busy lounging in the sun and jetting off on adventures, but that doesn’t mean you should sit back and wait for them to return. Spend some time developing a plan for a customer loyalty program and/or revamp your customer service and support. Slow months are perfect for trying out new programs and methods, giving you ample time to work out the kinks.

Then, put together plans for customer appreciation events so you’re the first business they think of when their tans fade and vacations end.

Streamline customer support, improve satisfaction and show them you care:

1. Elevate customer support with these tips
2. 5 tried-and-true ways to improve customer satisfaction
3. Making a customer loyalty program work for your small business
4. Tips and ideas for your next customer appreciation event

1. Focus on personal and business development

You know the rule: Always put your oxygen mask on first. Just because you have a business to run doesn’t mean you should slack on developing yourself or your business’s internal methods. Start implementing work-life balance practices and streamlining how you handle administrative tasks like finances and contracts. When you’re less stressed and more productive in a few months, you’ll appreciate the time you spent focusing on what goes on behind the scenes.

Prioritize yourself and your business’s financial and legal security:

1. 5 self-care tips to ramp up productivity
2. Create that elusive work-life balance with these tips, direct from other entrepreneurs
3. Work the perks, avoid the pitfalls: staying productive as a freelancer
4. Get detailed, be realistic: budgeting tips for freelancers and microbusinesses
5. Keep your business secure and thriving with these 4 tips
6. Just starting? 6 legal and financial ducks to line up

Just because business slows down doesn’t mean you should too. But, breaks are important. Tie a “treat” to each goal you meet, whether it’s taking an afternoon off to go to the beach or sneaking away to an air-conditioned theater for a breather. When summer ends and you’re back in full swing, you’ll have your strategies sharpened, a focused mind and a business ready to handle the upcoming rush.

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