Making The Holiday Season Work For Your Business

It doesn’t matter if your business is a retail operation or any other kind of business which tends to do a lot of its business around the holiday season; the Christmas season offers virtually any company plenty of opportunities to kick start growth in the upcoming year.

This is a good time to take a look back at how your business has done over the year and to compare with the previous few years to identify ongoing trends. It’s also a good time to celebrate the successes and victories your business has had over the year, large or small. Part of this process of review is to start getting ready for next year by refining your marketing strategy and setting goals.

The end of the year, or actually, slightly before in early December (if not earlier) is a good time to come up with holiday-themed promotions. If your business offers a product or service which might conceivably be given as a gift for Christmas or other end of year holidays, then it makes sense to make it easy for consumers to purchase these gifts from you. 

Even if what your business offers isn’t a natural fit for holiday gifts, there is another good reason to come up with holiday season promotional offers – it’s the perfect time of year to position a promotion as a way of thanking your customers, vendors and other business partners for their business and support over the year. If your company is not a sole proprietorship, then this is also the ideal time to extend your thanks and congratulations to your staff for their hard work and their contributions to the success of your business.

Since the end of the year is a relatively slow time for companies who aren’t in the retail sector, this may also be a good time to get some upgrades to your operations done. For instance, if you need a new website put together, you’d like to start rethinking some of your production, logistics or other processes, the holiday season lull that many companies experience is an excellent time to work on these tasks.

You can also take advantage of the holiday season to do some valuable public relations work through charitable activities, including donations to charities and non-profit organisations that benefit people in your own community or worldwide. Be creative here. While it’s nice to, say, purchase Christmas decorations for your office from a charity, you may want to do something more highly visible, such as sponsoring a fundraising event for a charitable organisation that will not only do some tangible good, but also help give consumers a glimpse of the compassionate side of your business.

Finally, you shouldn’t neglect to take some time during the holiday season to rest, reflect and allow your staff to do the same in order to recharge everyone’s batteries and gear up for a new and hopefully, even more successful year. This is especially important if yours is a business which relies on holiday shoppers during the season. 

Consider taking on additional temporary staff, if necessary, to allow yourself and your employees a little bit of time off to spend with family and friends. This is one of those intangible benefits which may not pay off in financial terms immediately, but will end up boosting morale and giving you a workforce which is energised and ready to help your company grow in the coming year.

John Banks is the owner of a business that specialises in importing from China and knows all too well how hectic the end of year holiday season can be for business owners. He believes that with a little foresight, businesses in every economic sector can benefit from the unique business climate of the holidays.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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