It is May in the UK. The weather is (finally) threatening to be pleasant, the bank holidays are arriving thick and fast, and the start of the new financial year is already a month behind us. There is a deceptive, optimistic calm in the air.
But if you listen closely, you can hear a low rumble in the distance. It’s not thunder over the Highlands. It is the sound of a thousand “Out of Office” auto-replies being aggressively drafted.
The Summer Slump is coming.
For growing small businesses, the months of July and August represent a massive, structural friction point. Whether you are in B2B or B2C, the rhythm of commerce fundamentally fractures when half the country heads to a beach in Spain or a cottage in Cornwall. Today, we are talking about the “Summer Rub” and why May is your absolute last chance to pre-load your pipeline before the great summer stall.
The Pipeline Rub: The Death of Momentum
If you sell to other businesses, you already know the pain of the Summer Sales Cycle.
Let’s say you have a brilliant initial meeting with a prospect in mid-June. They love your proposal. But to get it signed off, they need approval from their Operations Director and their Head of Finance.
Here is the rub: The Operations Director is on leave for the first two weeks of July. By the time she gets back and reviews it, the Head of Finance has just left for three weeks in August. Suddenly, a deal that should have closed in 14 days is dragged out until the third week of September.
Momentum is the lifeblood of a growing business. The summer months are momentum killers. You cannot pay August’s payroll with a “Let’s pick this up in the autumn” email.
If you want a healthy Q3, you cannot wait until July to start selling it. May is your closing window. You have roughly six weeks of solid, uninterrupted corporate attention left before the holiday scatter begins.
Adjusting the Sails for May
You must create artificial urgency now.
- The “Beat the Summer” Incentive: Offer a strategic concession (a slight discount, an extra month of service, expedited onboarding) for contracts signed before June 15th.
- The Brutal Pipeline Cull: Stop chasing the ghosts. If a prospect has been dragging their feet since February, they are not going to sign in July. Give them an ultimatum, clear them out, and focus your team’s energy on the warm leads that can actually cross the finish line this month.
The Cash Flow Rub: When Accounts Payable Goes to Marbella
Let’s assume your pipeline is brilliant and you are delivering great work. You still have to survive the operational friction of the summer payment cycle.
In our March post, we talked about the “Cash Flow Chasm.” In the summer, that chasm turns into a canyon. Why? Because small businesses often rely on the efficiency of other people’s administrative teams to get paid. When your client’s sole Accounts Payable manager takes a fortnight off, your Net-30 invoice silently becomes a Net-45 or Net-60 invoice.
Julie frequently reminds our team during our May forecasting meetings: “A signed contract is vanity. Cash in the bank is sanity. And cash doesn’t clear when the finance director is drinking sangria.”
Frictionless Summer Finance
You have to structurally protect your liquidity before the OOO avalanche hits.
- Audit Your Invoices Now: Look at who owes you money right now. Do not wait until they are 30 days late in July. Get on the phone in May and secure payment commitments.
- Shift to Upfront Milestones: For any new projects kicking off in June or July, adjust your payment terms. Require a larger upfront deposit to bridge you through the summer months so you aren’t reliant on a final completion payment in mid-August.
The Operational Rub: The Internal Ghost Town
The friction isn’t just external. Your own team needs a break, too.
Scaling a business requires relentless energy, and by the time summer arrives, your best people are usually running on fumes. You want them to take time off to recharge. But if your business falls apart the moment your lead project manager or your top sales rep logs off, you haven’t built a robust system; you’ve just built a fragile dependency.
May is the time for Frictionless Delegation. You have a few weeks left to document the “secret sauce.” If you (or your key staff) are stepping away in August, cross-training must happen in May. Who has the passwords? Who approves the emergency expenses? Who handles the angry client escalation?
If you wait until July to figure this out, you won’t actually get a holiday. You will just be working remotely from a sun lounger, which is the absolute worst of both worlds.
The Great Glenn: Strategic Use of the Slump
The grand vision “The Great Glenn” requires recognising that the Summer Slump isn’t just a hurdle; it is an opportunity.
If you successfully pre-load your pipeline in May and secure your cash flow, you can actually use the quiet weeks of late July and August strategically. When the phone stops ringing, that is your window to work on the business, not in it.
The businesses that scale sustainably use the summer lull to implement the messy operational upgrades that are impossible to do during the busy season. They migrate their CRM, they rewrite their standard operating procedures, and they train their staff.
They don’t panic during the silence; they use it to sharpen the axe for September.
The Wee Hurdle: This Week’s Actionable Step
Don’t let the summer sneak up on you. Your Wee Hurdle for this week is to perform a Pipeline Urgency Audit:
- Open your CRM or sales tracker. Identify three major deals currently sitting in the “Proposal Sent” or “Evaluating” stage.
- Draft a “Bridge” Offer. Come up with one high-value, low-cost concession you can offer these three prospects. (e.g., “If we can get the paperwork sorted by the end of the month, we will include a free half-day strategy workshop for your team in June before the summer holidays begin.”)
- Send the email today. Force a “Yes” or a “No” so you aren’t left carrying a “Maybe” into August.
Beat the OOO avalanche, secure the cash, and prepare to actually enjoy your summer.