It’s August. The school holidays are here. Your inbox is full of OOO notifications and an unnerving hush falls over the office.

You could look at it as a period of frustrating lethargy, where clients are on holiday and projects build up in a bottleneck awaiting sign off. Or you could embrace the slowness! And revel in the opportunity to catch up on all the things you always say you’d do if you had the time. Banish that malaise – the time is now.

Here are our top tips for making the most of the summer slump, and spending some time working on your business, not just in it.

Follow up on tepid leads.

Some leads slip through the cracks because you’re just too busy focusing on serving your existing clients and customers. Use this window as an opportunity to nurture any tepid or warm leads by following up, whether it be via a personalised email chain, leveraging targeted content or just picking up the phone.

Check in with your team.

When things get busy, managerial duties are often one of the first things to slip down the priority list. If you’re a line manager, schedule in your 1-2-1s and make sure your team feels heard – or seek out some time with your line manager yourself. This is your chance to catch up with colleagues about how they are, not just check in about a specific project. 

Work on your own marketing.

While all’s quiet on the client front, you might as well spend some time on your own marketing plan. Do you have a cohesive, long-term strategy? Are you actually reaching your target audience? Is your social content scheduled a month in hand? Or is it time to bring in an external agency to help you get there? 

Invest in personal development.

So things are a little dead right now. Why not get ahead of the next challenge with a bit of upskilling? If there’s a clear skills gap in your team, you could take a course to try and fill it. I learned basic HTML during lockdown – and while I’ve never had to use it – it’s certainly helped me understand the nuances of WordPress content population. 

Implement new processes.

People keep a business running, but processes are critical too. If there’s an internal process which isn’t quite working – you’ve finally got the focus to work out how to optimise it. Similarly, if there’s a process or policy that’s completely absent, use your quiet August to build out a new way of doing things, or mindfully delegate to an appropriate team member with capacity to help.

Catch up on a admin.

Ahh yes, those tasks you avoid at all costs. The ones you procrastinate about the most. If you WFH, you’d probably hoover before you tick these fellas off the list. But the summer slump is the perfect time to tackle them! Chase those invoices, cancel that SaaS subscription you’re not using, fill out that spreadsheet… it won’t take as long as you think.

We hope your August has just the right balance of downtime and productivity, especially if you’re a working parent! Keep an eye on our blog for more nuggets of wisdom.