The real reason your revenue is lumpy

Your calendar is full through the end of the year. Client work lined up, invoices behind it, nothing urgent about the new year yet. Prospecting is what you'll get to once things quiet down, and anyway you couldn't take on anyone new this month if they showed up. You've been through the lean stretch before. You've called it feast and famine, or a revenue rollercoaster, or a weird quarter, and you've blamed the market for it. The market had nothing to do with it. You decided you were ready to sell, and nobody out there decided they were ready to buy. Those two decisions have never once been on the same schedule. By the time things quiet down, the people who'll be hiring consultants in the first quarter have already started. They've been researching for months, the internal fix didn't take, and somewhere in a meeting you'll never sit in, a short list of names is about to come out of the room. Those names belong to people who were already known there. For consultants who are busy right now and quietly unsure about the first quarter.