Employee Retention, Spring Start-Up Cash, and Staying Sane in the Deep Freeze
It feels like the perfect day to talk about winter cash flow – snow is falling here in Maine, the temperatures are dropping, and unless you’re lucky enough to be next to a ski resort, you probably haven’t seen a tourist in weeks.
For many small business owners, winter brings a familiar knot in the stomach. Cash is plentiful in summer, but as fall turns to winter, we find ourselves watching our checking accounts like hawks, wondering whether we’ll have the reserves to make it to spring startup. I know a general store owner who’s been doing this for more than 40 years and still wakes up at 2 a.m. to go downstairs and check the numbers just to reassure himself that everything will hold together until May.
And then there’s the employee challenge: you want to keep your best people, but winter sales rarely justify full salaries. How do you keep your team intact when the revenue dries up? (We’ll dive deeper into employee retention strategies in our next post.)
For now, this short guide walks through several winter cash-flow options you may not have considered—and the good news is, it’s not too late to put them to work this year.
Cash Flow Tools to Consider
1. Open a Business Line of Credit
A Business Line of Credit works like a Home Equity Line of Credit: you draw what you need and only pay interest on the balance. It’s perfect for seasonal businesses that need support in the winter months.
One key difference: most banks require you to pay the line down to $0 for at least 30 days every 12 months. That means once cash starts flowing again in the spring, the first thing you should pay down is this line—ensuring it’s available for next winter.
The interest rate is typically far lower than a commercial credit card, and the annual pay-down requirement helps keep your long-term debt in check.
2. Get a Business Credit Card (Not a Commercial One)
A business credit card through your bank can be a low-cost cash flow tool—very different from a commercial card with 20–23% interest.
Benefits include:
- Lower interest rates
- Rewards or cashback programs
- Protection for your checking account (reducing risk of hacks)
To avoid interest, pay the balance in full each month. Think of it as a buffer, not a loan.
3. Reevaluate Your Winter Hours
If you stay open year-round, winter might be the time to rethink your schedule. Consider limiting your hours to the days that generate the most reliable cash flow, such as weekends.
You can model the impact of staying fully open vs. partially open by looking at variable costs like labor and heating. Sometimes the most profitable move is cutting back rather than pushing through.
And you don’t need to run these numbers alone. Maine offers excellent free business advising, including:
- Coastal Enterprises (CEI)
- Small Business Development Centers (SBDC)
- SCORE
- And other regional economic development organizations
They can help you project cash flow, evaluate scenarios, and find the sweet spot for winter operations.
Would you like help getting your numbers in order or identifying areas to grow value? Reach out—I’d be happy to connect you with free, confidential advising services to guide you through the process.
Eric keeps an office at URCI and is a business advisor for Coastal Enterprises (CEI) in Brunswick, Maine. He has more than 35 years’ of entrepreneurial experience and specializes in business start-up, strategy, sales and marketing, retail, food and beverage, computer software, and operations management. Through CEI, Eric offers free confidential business advising to help navigate the start-up process, your succession planning, and everything in between.