Saturday, November 07, 2026
Haven't paid yourself properly in months and haven't said so out loud? You're far from alone, and the silence is doing more damage than the number itself.
Flat out for four months, then quiet enough to hear the till. If that's your business, you've probably told yourself it's just the nature of what you do — weather-dependent, seasonal, nothing to be done about it. In the US, 78% of seasonal businesses say they face a cash flow gap of three months or longer every single year, and more than six in ten say that gap has become harder to manage over the last three years, not easier (Crestmont Capital, US, 2026, 412 seasonal business owners). It isn't just you, and it isn't getting easier on its own.
The villain is the word "seasonal" itself, used as an excuse rather than a problem to solve. Off-season revenue for seasonal US businesses falls an average of 54% below peak — a number that sounds inevitable right up until you meet a business that refused to accept it.
What you'll miss, left as it is: another ten weeks every year spent hoping the phone rings, instead of ten weeks with a plan already running.
A mountain bike park client of mine had, by the time we'd mapped it properly, eleven separate revenue streams feeding one business — not by accident, by design. One of those streams was season passes: 730 of them, with 300 already locked in from returning riders, leaving 430 to sell in a ten-week window before the season opened. Broken down, that's six passes a day, every day, not "sell as many as we can and hope." Six a day is a target you can actually manage; "as many as possible" isn't.
The same business ran one of the simplest KPIs I've ever set with a client: the on-site mechanic offered fifty customers a free bike check. One number, tracked weekly. Repairs went up. Rentals went up. Accidents went down. One small, deliberately chosen number, smoothing a business that used to run entirely on weather.
"Kevin is a master of his craft... Participants don't just sit and listen; they leave buzzing with breakthrough ideas and simplified, highly effective growth strategies."
— Darilyn Kane, Coaching and Advisory Lead, The Icehouse
This isn't for you if "that's just our busy season" is where the thinking stops. It is for you if you're ready to make the quiet months pay their way too.
If your business only really works four months of the year, that's exactly the kind of constraint we'd start with.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Most SME growth plans have one lever: more new customers. Here's why customer lifetime value predicts real growth better, and how to start tracking it this week.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Small businesses are being paid 9 days late on average, and 56% are sitting on $17,500 in unpaid invoices. Here's the four-step Collection Cadence that turns chasing payments into a system.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Adding more isn't a strategy — it's a tax on your margin and your attention. Here's the three-step audit that tells you what to cut before you try to grow.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Winning a new customer costs five to seven times more than keeping one. Here's why most SME marketing budgets still get that backwards — and the fix.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Your champion loves the idea — and still can't get it approved alone. Here's the multi-threading framework that stops good B2B deals dying in silence.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
If your best salesperson or only bookkeeper vanished tomorrow, would the business survive? Here's the audit that finds your hidden risk points.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Coaching only works if you say the thing you'd rather not. Here's why the polished update is quietly wasting your sessions — and how to fix it.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
More headcount isn't the same as more growth. Here's why the fastest-scaling SMEs hire fewer, more capable people — and how to test your own team.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
NFIB's newest data shows small business profit trends falling twice as fast as sales, even as owners raise prices. Here's the three-step test to find where your margin is actually leaking.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Most growth strategies don't fail because the market changed — they fail because nobody tested the assumptions underneath them. Here's the four-question audit that catches the weak spot before it costs you a year.
Sunday, September 13, 2026
FMCG suppliers just got scored on 38 retailer-relationship competencies — and the results reveal a growth capability gap hiding behind operational excellence. Here's the two-bucket audit to fix it before your next category review.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
82% of small business owners are confident about growth — but 53% say a lack of customer demand is their biggest obstacle right now. Here's the framework to tell which one you're building.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Export feels like the natural next step for a ranged FMCG brand — but it's a different business, not a bigger version of the same one. Here's the validation sequence that protects you.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
A certificate proves someone studied coaching — not that they've built or fixed a real business. Here's the vetting checklist that actually predicts results.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Your calendar isn't a record of what you value — it's a record of what you haven't said no to. Run the audit that shows the real gap and how to close it.