The staging industry has had the opportunity to ride the biggest roller coaster in the business amusement park these past few years. One thing that the COVID era pointed out to all businesses is the importance of keeping cash in hand and how cash flow is so very important.
Fast forward to today. Although the prior circumstance has worked itself out, the staging industry still must deal with the seasonal fluctuations in business. For some areas of the country, spring and summer are the busy times and in other areas, fall and winter are when the business is booming. Every business has fluctuations. So how does a staging company deal with those ebbs and flows?
Let’s break some of the expenses down and see what we can control.
First, there is labor. The size of your team from stagers to logistics personnel, to office staff. For the most part, this will be a constant cost. After streamlining your team, there is not much you can do to deal with that.
Next you have other fixed costs. This would be rent or mortgage on your warehouse, utilities, insurance, and current fixed obligations. Those don’t change regardless of the fluctuations in your business. That brings us to one thing you can plan on to help deal with the changes in amount of stages you are doing.
So what is one way you can help control the outflow of cash large sums of cash to acquire new and replacement staging tools?
Utilizing equipment financing is one way. Instead of laying out large amounts of money all at once, you can forecast what you will need in the upcoming months, acquire all you would need at once, and have the staging equipment on hand when needed by using financing. This will move your staging equipment costs from a fluctuating cost to the fixed cost category.
Depending on different factors, you can acquire $100,000.00 for around $3,600.00 to $4,100.00 per month. This would be a fixed cost for a fixed amount of time so you can plan on your expenses. Maybe you don’t spend that much typically so you can extrapolate an estimate. If you spend $50,000.00 or $25,000.00 the payments would be half or one quarter of the above. The benefit is that you would retain that cash on hand in your bank and still have the necessary items on hand to stage houses and make you money.
Come see me at at RESACON Vegas 2024 or call me prior to attending the Las Vegas Market.
I’ve always been a very competitive person. As a young boy, I wanted to win everything I participated in–from sports to being the top seller in my school’s magazine selling contest. As an adult that hasn’t really changed. I still have that competitive drive in work. I strive to be the best at what I do for my clients, driven to figure out ways to help my clients build and grow their businesses.
During my downtime, I love exploring local flavors, both here in Portland where I live and when visiting clients throughout the USA. Summers are spent on the water enjoying the beautiful weather in the Pacific Northwest. Weekends in the fall are spent attending Oregon Duck football games and spending time with my son who I’ve totally enjoyed raising.
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