When Is a Good Time To Do Business?

Lost productivity frustrates me. Productivity lost to excuses frustrates me even more. In summer months I hear, “The industry is dead. Everybody is on vacation. Business is dead.”

Then September rolls around, and I hear, “It’s Labor Day week-end. Everybody is trying to catch the last breath of freedom before school starts. Business is slow.”

In November I hear, “These two weeks around Thanksgiving people are travelling. Business is slow.”

December. “The entire December people are busy buying gifts and travelling. Business is dead.”

January. “People are just now coming back from their winter break. Business is slow.”

May. “It’s Memorial Day week-end, man. Everybody’s travelling. Business is slow.”

Sprinkle the calendar with “miscellaneous” holidays, such as Columbus Day, and there go another week or two.

So my question is: in the second-largest economy of the world (EU being the largest), is there a good time for business at all?

Any time from Thanksgiving to Jan1 is worthless. As a contractor in software, I avoid starting new jobs during this period. An existing job might be viable but a new one is suicide. I've had serious problems because people aren't around. I took the blame for it last year. No way I want this mistake again. People try to hire me to start around Thanksgiving and I have to say no, because they are not living in reality.

In the insurance industry, it can actually be quite the opposite (although the net result is the same.) November through February can actually be the BUSIEST time of the year for the insurer as they process all of their clients' re-enrollments (particularly in the case of insurance provided through the workplace.) Couple that with the year-end change freezes that many companies implement and productive work often halts anyway -- regardless of whether or not anyone's in the office.

Good Blog, señor. True enough.

It's just a matter of choosing your markets in time to the seasons - if people are travelling between Thanksgiving and Christmas, then get into the travel agency webapp game from October through January. If business is slow during holidays, build lead generators for companies that are suffering from that slowdown in business that will generate business in spite of the slowdown and I guarantee that they'll open their wallets and give you excellent business, whether the lead generators work or not will be a crapshoot but at least you got paid when no one else was.

"Our belief is that if we continue to release great products, our customers will continue to open their wallets." -- Steve Jobs.

If business is customer-oriented it would get great profits during all the holiday season. There's the right time for every business to succeed.