Sales dipping: how do you stay positive? ‌📉‌

[isabelle]

Hi Seller Community. Each business experiences a sales dip sometime or another. Maybe it's seasonal, maybe it has to do with the economic climate. 

As a business owner, how do you stay positive and/or calm? What do you remind yourself? What keeps you going?

[isabelle]

Thank you @DLRosenberg for the inspiration from this post! 

[TCSlaguna]

I think first and foremost you need to believe in the products you sell. Every business owner has a reason they entered into an industry. Believing in that purpose helps keep you going. 

We surely have experienced dips before, and it can place a mental toll. I try not to look at the numbers constantly when I know things are slow, it will only stress me out further. The slow times are the best times to think about marketing, promotions, reaching out to news stations to get some coverage. It's also a good time to look into new products to carry. We have gone to several craft markets and looked for new products to carry from local creators. This will help differentiate you from the competition. 

Most importantly, take a break. Go on vacation for a few days, enjoy nature and spend time with family. Clear your mind, then the best ideas will surely come. 

[Lovewell]

Love you answer!! We just took a vacation and it pulls us out of the shop long enough to almost help us see things much more clearly. We felt like we could be creative again and came back ready to push forward and have fun. 

We go back and forth between the older mindset of "The owner of the business should be there everyday and never have time off." It's not healthy and it puts a lot of guilt on a business owner when they are burned out a need a break. 

Taking the time to step away is not only healthy for you, its healthy for your team, and the business as a whole. 

[Hotmarketmedia]

Perspective is sometime enough right? If the sap is flowing, the fruit will come.  Sometimes we force fruit when the sap is stuck and its a frustrating task!

[Hotmarketmedia]

This is super and well rounded advice!

[dimo10]

There are a couple of things that keep me calm and positive.

I understand my long term goals in life, I know why I am in business and I understand what I need to do to achieve that goal. If you extend your time horizon to 10, 15 or 20 years, the little things that happened today or this week are so miniscule that you will not remember them.

I also try to only focus my time and energy on the things that I can control, if it is outside my control... I may whinge about it but my focus is always on things I can control. 

The way I look at things on a day to day if there is a mistake or issue. It doesn't matter who made the mistake, as the business owner I take responsibility. I then look for a solution to the problem and implement that change. For me, a mistake is always an opportunity to improve be that in training a team member in the correct process so they can improve or changing a process so the business can improve.

Hope that helps.

[Hotmarketmedia]

I love your attitude.  Putting energy in fixing instead of blaming is so great for you and your business! 

[ProsperityPools]

If the dip is anticipated (such as seasonal), you have to be prepared. I've been an entrepreneur for 25 years, so I've learned to ride the highs and lows of different businesses I've had. Currently, the pool business does have a slight dip in the winter, however, we need to use fewer chemicals to keep the pools blue, so it ends up working out favorably.

With other types of businesses I've had, when there were dips, I tried to figure out WHY and then adjust accordingly, rather than flying off the handle or panicking. So, maybe you're advertising in the wrong places, or maybe a new competitor came to town, etc. and you just adjust your own plan accordingly to get back on track.

The key is not to let anxiety or fear take hold of you. Just stay positive, make adjustments, and keep enjoying the roller coaster ride of business ownership!

[Lovewell]

Love this. Thanks for sharing what you have learned over the years. Because of people like you we can be on year two almost three of business and realize its all normal and we are doing okay!

Thanks again. 

[Hotmarketmedia]

Love this.  Thanks for sharing your experience and wise words. 

[homeprogreen]

I have learned over the years to really only take the year to year reports seriously. I do look at weekly and monthly comparisons to watch for trend’s developing but you will give yourself a stroke trying to plan on the week to week reporting. As an example, this week sales are down 71% for some reason compared to the previous week but when I go to the yearly comparison report it shows that so far this year I am showing 19% gain over last year

[Lovewell]

It is all about perspective and looking big picture. Thank you for this reminder!

[Hotmarketmedia]

That's a great way to look at it... backing up to see the whole picture

[TheRealChipA]

As has been said already, I don’t even seriously pay attention to dips.  All that matter to me anymore are trends.  The most important metrics that I track are all based on 4-week averages as compared to the same 4-week averages in my previous season.  Usually, if there is a short-term dip I can guess that it is going to happen before it happens.  Case in point is now.  My last 3 weeks slowed down much more than expected, even for the cooler end of ice cream season.  It was obvious a month or so ago that the recession had finally arrived, no matter what the experts were saying.  So, we adjusted.  Thankfully this is the time of year that I slowly cut back my staffing, which just happens to coincide with my high school/college staff returning to school.  I just trimmed their hours more and much sooner than expected.

Actually, I’m glad we decided not to make 2022 the year we experimented with winter frozen treat sales.  I have the strong suspicion that this holiday season is going to be brutal, at least if my recent sales trends are any indication (which they usually are).  That suspicion was one of the biggest reasons we decided not to try anything new this year — I’m pretty sure we’d have regretted such a move.  There’s always next winter!

What keeps me going, staying calm and positive?  The blessings of sobriety! In 61 years on this earth I’ve learned one immutable fact of life — life is filled with ups, downs and plateaus.  Recovery, and meditation, taught me not to focus on any one event, not to get stuck in my head.  I do what I can.  I adjust.  I change.  But I keep moving forward without wishing for something different for the parts that are totally out of my control.  I can only change what I can change.  The rest, as they say, is life.  

[Hailey]

I swear our sellers could have side hustles as motivational speakers! Thank you for sharing @TheRealChipA and congratulations on finding balance in your life. Your vulnerability and honesty in the Community continues to inspire. 

[Hotmarketmedia]

I associate that you've taken personal life lessons and tools and applied them to your business.  This is awesome!

[Donnie-M]

I always like to look at my customer counts, weather, and events in the area.  I don't worry about sales dips if my average transaction is higher or my customer count is similar.  Maybe I had a little cheaper special that day, or it was raining last year, etc.  There are a lot of variables, but I look at trends over a month or more to see if there really is a "dip" and I need to really do some course correction.

[shopfybr]

This year has been really hard for us and staying positive can be a struggle. If things aren't going well I focus on what I can change, and also have distracted myself by getting creative with a pet project, our new scent line that is launching this Fall. 🙂

[Hailey]

Good luck with the launch! Do you have anything special planned for it? What type of marketing are you going to do? @shopfybr 

[MJD]

Sales dipping means I just need to shift my focus, owning two businesses I luckily bring in enough from one to allow for fluctuating sales from the other! 

Dipping sales means I get to have fun on photoshop making cool ads as well 😜