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24 NOVEMBER 2016 OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com FEATURE STORY | Best Practices is downside to this practice because sometimes you lose good employees who need full-time employment year-round. I would hope that your goal would be to not do this too much unless you have specifically hired people as seasonal workers and they know that is the plan from the start. No matter what, there is a need to make sure that you are conserving your reserves as much as possible during the slow season, and finding ways to reduce your costs is one way to avoid the line of credit dependence. 2) You need to make sure that you are holding onto enough in your reserve account as the business goes through the high season to make it through the slow times. You need to know what that dollar amount is that needs to be available, so you are not spending your future reserves without thinking about it. Make sure that you look at the past five years of expenses from November through February and estimate the shortfall that might come about on an average year. That is the number ■ BY JEFF SHEETS If you read my monthly articles in Outdoor Power Equipment (OPE), my goal is not to repeat myself too often because that can get monotonous for both you and me. In November 2015 OPE, I wrote an article on using your service department to generate cash flow, which is still applicable for slow season survival. In this article, however, I will focus more on the expense side of the business and preparation for next year. The topic is the same, but it is such a broad one with many layers to examine to make sure that you survive and even thrive during slow season times. You need to be forward thinking at this point, knowing that through your previous experience, the new season will be here before you know it. Do not use lines of credit if at all possible I know quite a few dealers dip into their lines of credit to make it through the offseason. I would discourage you from doing that because every year you will be starting the new season needing to repay the debt, which decreases your profit and forces you into a vicious cycle year after year. The definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you never change your dependency on credit lines, then you will continue to have to use them. You do this in two ways: decreasing expenses and making sure you have enough income set aside for this slower time. 1) Analyzing your expenses and trying to decrease costs as much as you can during the slow times is very important. Examples can be as simple as reducing store hours, thereby lowering the costs associated with the business along with the payroll of hourly workers. It could be also making sure that those employees, who might want some time off, be given the opportunity to do so for a couple of weeks here or there, to help reduce payroll. I know that some dealers actually lay off some staff with the idea of rehiring them in the spring. There IMAGE ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GEORGE PETERS Slow Season Survival Tips