Much like the name suggests, a weekend business is a type of side hustle you only work at the weekends. It’s not a more traditional ‘5 to 9’, that you get on with multiple times a week after coming home from your day job. Instead, you focus your time on working just a few hours on Saturday and Sunday and don’t worry about it otherwise.
Really, it’s quite a flexible side hustle setup that doesn’t take up all of your free time overall! But that being said, a weekend business can be quite the difficult thing to grow and scale. After all, if you’ve only got two select days per week to dedicate to it, where are you going to find the time to make it bigger and better?
It’s all about building slowly and steadily. You know, so you don’t get overwhelmed and you don’t run out of time! And if brainstorming ways to do this sounds tough, you’ll want to read through these tips.
Add One Extra Hour at a Time
One more hour on a weekend you work isn’t too hard a thing to adjust to. However, it is a good metric for measuring whether or not more time is possible for you. Another hour is not insignificant, but it’s also not too much in the grand scheme of things.
Take this extra hour and see what it enables you to do. I.e., Do you get your bookkeeping in proper order without holding up any other tasks? Do you get your social media content planned out for the next two weeks in full? Both of these things can be a real boon for a weekend business like yours.
Make sure you also note down the troubles it causes too.
For example, does it delay any care duties you have? Or does it make you late to go to bed at a normal time? If either are true, you need to incorporate this time earlier into your day, or even change the day you work the extra hour.
Encourage Client Referrals
You don’t have time to chase up a thousand different new leads. You probably don’t have time to chase up a hundred either! So you need to bring these leads to you, or you need to depend on the client base you’ve already secured for yourself.
It’s best to use these methods in tandem, but early successes often rely on getting referrals from your established customer base. These are the people you’ve already impressed. You don’t have to put time and money into getting their trust.
You just need to make it easy for them to recommend you to someone else, and that can always be done with a good referral program. On top of this, the power of online reviews often goes unmatched. Start asking for Google Business Profile reviews too!
Hire New Equipment, Rather Than Buy
Whether you run an online store, or you’re a freelance designer, or you have a gardening company that operates in a couple local neighbourhoods, scaling means pulling in new opportunities. The best way to do that is by expanding your current capabilities.
New products, new services, extra touches; they’re all new ways to expand what you do and pull in more orders and/or work. Plus, both your current clients and new clients can benefit from expansion like this, and that’s invaluable. Remember, when you have a weekend business, you’ll be hard pressed to find the time that’ll allow you to focus on both at once!
But seeing as you’re short on time and you also don’t want to spend too much here, you can’t take on too much risky spending either. You don’t want to invest in new tools, materials, and equipment when you’re only going to get maybe one or two orders. That simply won’t justify the cost.
So, if there’s a chance you’re never going to use this equipment again, hire it instead.
If you spend your Saturdays earning money through front lawn landscaping, turn to MF Tool Hire to get the tools needed for your new power-washing service. If you sell your own t-shirts online, hire a space in a screen printing workshop for an hour or two.
Hire the equipment you’re thinking of adopting first, rather than investing fully before you know the actual demand.
Figure Out Where the Issues are Right Now
Because if they’re a problem now, they’re going to continue to be problems as you try to get bigger. The more you scale, the more troublesome these issues are going to end up as well. Figuring them out at this small scale is much better than letting them go on unaddressed.
So, what’s making your weekend business a little too inconvenient for changes like these? A lot of the time it’s simply about not having more than one pair of hands, and only one brain to remember things. If that’s the case, it’s time to think about hiring an employee, outsourcing a certain task, or getting a freelance operative on contract.
Of course, justifying the cost of extra personnel can be just as tricky as trying to scale slowly and steadily. You’ll need to do some research first, and get your experiments out of the way.
Like we mentioned earlier, is there a demand for your new product or service? Figure this out to get a more concrete idea of your weekend business’ future, and then think about getting some help with the day to day operations.
Have You Got a Weekend Business?
Let’s make it the kind of business that makes you a lot of money without any of the associated hassle.
Grow it steadily and surely, bit by bit, using the tips above. And remember, if you ever feel overwhelmed by the workload you’re having to deal with, take a step back.
Something has gone a bit wrong here, and you may need to reassess what you’re doing and how you’re using your time.
