Why the “January Slump” Can Actually Be Good for Business

Feeling the January slump? The post-holidays lull is actually a great opportunity to set yourself up for success this year. Here are a few places to channel your extra time:

Make some goals

If you haven’t already, work on setting New Year’s resolutions for your business. Talk to your business partners and trusted employees about what you might shoot for this year. (Here are some ideas to jump-start the conversation.) Once you’ve nailed down a few concrete things to strive for, get started on detailed action plans.

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Streamline, streamline, streamline

Saving time is the name of the game here — and Square can really help. Square Point of Sale is equipped with everything you need to run your business in the most efficient way possible. Spending a ton of time penciling in and then erasing appointments? Square Appointments can help you streamline online scheduling. Having trouble managing your inventory? Square Inventory’s tracking tools can help you get organized. Always finding yourself underneath heaps of paper invoices? Get set up with Square Invoices and send invoices straight from your phone. Automating and simplifying things will go a long way toward running business more smoothly.

Explore new frontiers

It’s a great time to try new things. Maybe it’s a new service, a daily-deals-type campaign, or gift cards. Remember that your customers are likely fresh off New Year’s resolutions themselves — so framing new efforts around things that hit at self improvement is a good strategy.

Analyze some data

Take some time to look at the data in your Square Dashboard. What’s your busiest month? Week? Day? Hour? Who’s your top sales person? This information is instrumental to making crucial business decisions like staffing and planning inventory.

Learn about your customers

What do you hear most from your customers? Talk to the customer-facing members of your team to learn more about what people are saying. Then spend time reading both online review on sites like Yelp and the notes in Square Feedback to glean more insights about areas where you need to improve.

Spending a little time on any of these things now will help you to hit the ground running once business picks back up in a few weeks.