How to Grow Your Business Online During the Off Season

You’ve got a great business going during regular months and then the off season hits. You’re left thinking – how do I keep money coming in the doors while I wait for normal months to kick back in? It’s time to grow your business online during the off season so you’re never without a consent stream of income. We’ll show you how to grow a landscaping business to cleaning fast – all with simple tricks that you can take advantage of online.

#1. Use Online Business Apps

You’d be surprised how easy it is to continue to grow your existing business by taking advantage of simple, online business apps. Looking for a short list of ideas?

Check out a scheduling app for small business. This will allow customers to quickly and easily contact you for quotes without that painful “call me”. You’ll be able to establish a personal, one-on-one connection, so you’re ready to book services when the busy season picks back up. This is a great way to grow a landscaping business, pool service business, and more weather dependent options.

#2. Offer New Options

Now that you have a scheduling app in place, it’s time to offer new options. Work in landscaping, pool service, or pressure washing? Time to offer gutter cleaning, outdoor winterizing, the ability to put up Christmas lights, and more.

Trying to grow your cleaning business fast but running into issues with scaling? Try offering commercial or residential options.

Start thinking through additional ideas that are still in line with your core focus and abilities but easily translate.

#3. Take Your Offerings Digital

It’s not always about being in front of the client. Content is king – which means you can offer videos, ebooks, and more as additional revenue opportunities. It’s never been easier to record and write content and then sell it easily to your customers.

Personal training, yoga, attorney’s, and more are all flocking to digital offerings as ways of monetizing their services. It doesn’t stop there either! You can sell a guide on planting flowers for growing your landscaping business. Need to grow a cleaning business? Get that custom organic recipe listed to remove soap scum in the shower.

You can easily put together guides or recordings to then sell behind paywalls. Don’t know how to do that? There are countless services that will help you do this. That way – you don’t have to be there to sell – it’s an incredible way to literally grow your business online!

#4. Tell Your Customers You’re There

They know…right? No. It can take 5 to 8 touch points from customers to make a purchase, which means you need to be consistently reaching out. If you’re using spreadsheets to manage your customers and one to one emails, you’ll want to use easy customer relationship management (crm) tools to help you scale and then acquire more business.

There are amazing, easy to use CRM’s and marketing software platforms that can help you all in one. You’ll want to make sure you email customers to let them know about your new scheduling, new services, and digital offerings so they can start buying from you. And then, when they start buying from you, you’ve instantly started growing your business online!

How To Test Your New Service Offerings

So you want to test new revenue streams. Here’s where to start.

First, look at the market you’re in and what your competitors are doing. Is there something happening in your industry you want to be a part of, such as offering a new type of service that’s trending or using new tools to run your type of business? Write down what others are doing in your space and what you would like to try.

Next, figure out what sets you apart. What can you do that your competitors can’t do as well? It could be anything from customer service to a unique class you offer clients, but be honest with yourself about what you’re really uniquely positioned to offer.

Then, see if you can find out what similar businesses are charging for these services, and if there is enough interest to make revenue off of them. That’s the test program you’ll want to run. Sometimes this part is a little tricky, but dig out as many details as you can about what you should charge, and then decide if you want to position your service as a full-service luxury option in the market, or as a budget option. Many businesses start with a lower price point to attract new customers, but don’t go too low or people won’t understand the value you offer and you won’t be able to keep your head above water working so hard for so little revenue.

Finally, offer the program to current clients, track your revenue, and see if the results are worth it.

Say you’re a cafe that decides to also be a bookstore. Or a cafe that starts offering catering on the side. If your new revenue stream doesn’t work as well as you’d like, ask for feedback from your customers. They may just give you the hint you need to tweak your services to something that takes off. Many new businesses struggle for a few years with product-market fit, meaning they start with one type of service or product and end up with another. You might find that your service is a great idea, but you could be serving a different set of customers or a different industry. What if you created a subscription service, or offered healthy convenient lunches to a nearby hospital nursing staff instead of business catering clients?

Be open to where this takes you, especially if your new revenue more than replaces your old revenue stream. Is it a longterm service you want to offer? Try testing the service with different customer segments or selling it to a new group of potential customers, and see where it takes off. The results might surprise you and inject fresh energy into your business!