Now is not the time to be complacent. For many entrepreneurs, success depends on being aggressive and utilizing all revenue generating avenues.

One of these avenues is to stay flexible with your hours of operation. You may need to rethink your strategy. There are many locations that plan far in advance to close completely or scale back hours of operation immediately after Labor Day. By doing so, you may be leaving profit on the table.

Depending on your location(s), it may make sense to expand your season to take advantage of the last rentals before the weather turns.

If weather permits, you will make a profit by:

Staying open for five or six hours per day; doing so only requires a few rentals to break even. Our general shoulder season strategy is to stay open for limited hours during the week, expanding weekend hours to include Friday, or pushing out a little further on weekends.

Consider adding evening activities on weekends, like LED-Lit Surrey Night Rides, where possible. We are seeing a strong trend of customers looking for outdoor evening activities driving higher sales later in the day.

We hope you realize it’s a smart decision to extend your season. If weather conditions are favorable, it’s easy revenue from customers wanting to enjoy the autumn weather. If there are still customers interested in renting product, make sure you’re there to satisfy demand.