Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
The book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 explains that there is a time for everything under the sun. The world was created with certain infallible laws. One of them is the law of gravity. Whether you believe in the law of gravity or not, if you jump off a building, you will come falling down.
The same goes for the law of seasons. Whether you like it or not, seed time and harvest time will always come and go. This means there is a specified time for sowing and a specified time for harvesting.
It doesn’t just apply in agriculture, it also applies to us as human beings in our lives and our businesses. There is a time where you put in the work- where you sow. Then there is a time where the work you put in begins to bear fruit- this is when you harvest.
However, I have come to realise that so many people do not even know that there are seasons, not to talk of identifying theirs and taking advantage of it.
So many people eat their seeds when they should be planting. Still, many people work hard at planting, they miss the harvest.
There is a time to sow and a time to reap. There is a time to work and a time to rest and enjoy that which you have worked for.
The 12 months of the year are seasons in a business cycle. Have you not realized that certain businesses seem to come out of oblivion suddenly during the end of the year, make noise, gather their profits and then go back into oblivion? Yet they keep growing year after year.
This is because they understand their seasons. All year round, they sow. They plant the seeds of great customer service, staff trainings, brand upgrades, system upgrades and product production. Then towards the end of the year, they create a blitz marketing campaign, sell off their inventory, count their profits and then do it all again.
It doesn’t just work for big businesses. In fact, it especially works for you and I with small businesses.
Understanding your business’ times and seasons will help you know when to build your audience versus when to sell to them.
It will help you know when to plan your marketing strategy and when to execute.
It will help you know how to set your goals and how to tweak them.
It will also help you know when to have 3 hours of sleep a night, and when to sleep for 10 or 13 hours.
It will help you know when to double down on your learning and when to act on all you have learned.
Knowing your times and seasons will help you know when to invest in building relationships and to know when that relationship is ready to pay off.
Remember my post the other day? It took 3 years for a relationship with John Obidi to pay off in speaking invites.
Knowing your times and seasons will help you know when to accept all the speaking engagements you can get for free and when to start charging for your time.
In fact, it will help you know which speaking engagements to charge for, and which ones to speak for free.
Knowing your times and seasons will help you know when you need to create products and when to sell them.
You will know when to offer N10,000 for a coaching session and when to raise your prices.
It will help you know when to go solo and when to collaborate.
You cannot underestimate your times and seasons. Everyone has one, but not many have taken the time to study their lives, occurrences, wins, losses, lessons and moments to be able to understand theirs.
So, how do you understand yours?
Journaling is a great way to document your life. In documenting your life’s journey, you will begin to see patterns.
If you keep accurate records of your business, your finances, your rates of client acquisition and the success or feedback from your product launches, you will see patterns.
If you document when relationships paid off versus when they bombed, you will see patterns.
If you document periods of time when you had money versus when you didn’t, you will begin to see patterns.
Those periods of time when you tried to harvest before the fruit was ripe, was when you bombed. You should have been planting then.
Those periods of time when opportunities seemed to flood you and you even had tons of clients and made a lot of profit, was when your harvest season was upon you.
They always follow a pattern and a cycle.
You may find that you are less profitable between November and February. Instead of whining and folding your hands, use that time to increase your value. Pay for programs, courses, books, coaches, invest in your mentors so you can learn from them.
You may find that you seem to be more creative and productive from January to March. Don’t spend that time sleeping and feeling funky. Write out product ideas. Write that book. Create a new model for your business or update an old one. Create a video series for your YouTube and social media. Write out content for your blog.
You may find that April to October are when you seem to have the most opportunities to speak, grow your Facebook group or email list, grow your client base and make a lot of money. Go ham on your marketing. Sell yourself. Put out your products. Sell something EVERYDAY. Maximize your season.
NOTE: Be careful not to look at someone and compare your season to theirs or copy theirs simply because you’re in the same business. Seasons barely have anything to do with a business, but they have everything to do with the business owner.
Then again, when you’ve made all the money in your harvest season, don’t spend it all. You want to make sure you have something for when your planting season comes again, because it will come. You don’t want to eat your seeds during your harvest. Have savings and put aside money for your personal development and business growth.
What a terrible thing it would be when seed time comes and finds you without a seed to sow.
What a terrible thing it would be when you come into your harvest season but your farm is bare, because you didn’t plant.
Know your times and seasons, they will save you in the days of famine.
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed man.”- Proverbs 24:33.
