thread Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2? in Community Corner

What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

Bronze_Palms — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:15:58 GMT

I know we all love to set goals at the end of the year for the following year, but how are we doing quarterly?

My goal for the year, now that I have two locations, is to trust my staff more in 2026 and retain talent; I am finding that these go hand-in-hand.

Q1 I let my salon manager train our two newest hires and WOW they are doing excellent. We have a more lean team that we have ever had before, but everyone has the hours they want/need and I think it is positively contributing to the morale of the location.

Q2 will bring performance reviews, bonuses, and more responsibility for all team members. We do these every 6 months since all staff work part time at the location and I want to honor the fact they can work anywhere, but choose BP ❤️

Your turn!

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

schaefferjosh — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 03:15:22 GMT

For us, Q1 is completely dead given the weather, since we primarily do shows and farmers' markets. So Q1 for us is R&D time. Working on new products to bring out and their new packaging. Shows start to pick up in Q2, so we can ease into the shows with perhaps some new products and try them out before we hit the busy season.

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

DinaLRosenberg — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:41:06 GMT

Honestly. With this economy and the state of the World just trying to keep our head above water!

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

doc_choc — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:02:18 GMT

It's tough going out there for sure... totally understand how you feel, here's hoping some normality and stability returns to the world soon, it would certainly make small business owners happier! 😊

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

doc_choc — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:07:15 GMT

Q1 always busier with key retail calendar dates, Q2 time to kick back and plan the for Q4, but sometimes we kick back too much then the panic sets in. Need to work on this a bit more!

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

CareyJo — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:53:17 GMT

That's us right now, too!

Re: What was your focus for Q1 and whats next for Q2?

CareyJo — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:01:07 GMT

Since we're service based and winter-heavy, our year looks a little different than most other businesses. We're Q3 heavy, leading into Q4 getting heavier with Q1 usually being the busiest. Our coldest part of the winter with the most snow is Jan-Feb. We get spring snow in Mar and Apr. We usually slow down about that time and it picks back up again at Memorial Day/beginning of June. It's difficult to train the public that they need to start asking for AC in April and planning ahead. They call me on June 1st and want it done tomorrow... literally. We still have the potential for snow until June 15th on average and June is our rainiest month. We don't see temps conducive to AC installs until after the 4th of July. Most Montanans are wimps and can't handle temps above 65. What they don't understand is that refrigerants cannot be handled until it reaches that temp or higher. They literally want to turn their systems on when it is 65 outside and make it be 60 in their house. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. No equipment on planet earth will work like that! They don't believe us... so frustrating! Then they call us because their system froze up 🤔

We still don't know if it's the warm winter we've had or the economy or both, but we've had almost no business since September. We're hoping that the lack of winter here will actually create a higher need for AC then normal because we're guaranteed to have more wildfires this year. WF season is already underway and will only get worse. People will want their windows closed, so hopefully that will translate to dollars for us.

We typically cannot "plan" for an upcoming quarter, we just have to go by what we know for typical weather. We always assume the worst is coming so that we're not caught off-guard when it does.