It’s good to watch the harvest come in. For your business, that likely means seeing new clients sign up and your revenue head in the right direction. This can be a dangerous time, though, as it can cause companies to ease off on sales efforts while they enjoy the fruit of their labor.
In many cases this is what causes “feast & famine” cycles, particularly for small businesses.
- Things are slow, so you work hard on your marketing
- Business comes in, so you ease off on your marketing while you work on the new clients
- Things slow down again (because you got soft on marketing), so you get back to it again
Robert Louis Stevenson put it like this:
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
We certainly take time to celebrate victories, but I also work hard to make sure we never ease off too far. Every day, I make time to plant more seeds: publish content on social media, follow-up with leads we’ve been talking to, reach out to friends that I’ve not seen in a while, etc.
Those things can be difficult to find time for when things are busy, so they may slip a little bit, but I keep them on my radar every day to try to create a smooth flow of work into the future.
The harvest is wonderful, but the seeds are essential.
