6 Strategies to Prepare your Business for Christmas

6 Dec

In the professional landscape, the holiday season represents a unique opportunity for businesses to strategically position themselves for success. We are going to unveil six strategies designed to prepare your business for a prosperous Christmas. From financial acumen that safeguards your bottom line to sophisticated marketing approaches, our insights aim to elevate your business during this festive period. Stay tuned for expert advice that ensures not only a successful holiday season but also positions your business for sustained growth in the approaching year. Strategem Financial Services: Guiding your business towards a strategically sound and prosperous festive season.

1.Stock-Up (For Retail Businesses)

It can be a tricky business working out just how much stock you need, especially if this is your first holiday season. Taking pre-orders early can help with this, and then allowing a proportion of stock for some last-minute orders. If you have previous years sales figures to go by, your estimates will be easier to work out. One standard method is to see how much your business has grown in the past 12 months and apply this to last year's stock levels. Allow for any other factors like a stockist who you expect will do very well at Christmas time, or any product lines you are confident will be extremely popular. If cashflow allows, having some extra stock available will avoid the frustration of having to turn orders down.

If your business is service based, understanding and knowing your clients can help you plan. If your clients are typically away in January, you know you this is an opportunity to have staff on leave or to spend time on your business.

Running out of the everyday supplies you need to be able to fulfil orders can hold things up and end up being very expensive if you have to source items in a hurry. I'm thinking about stuff like postal bags and boxes, labels, printed branding etc. Take the time now to make sure you have more than enough of everything you need. Not only can it be expensive to have rush orders, it slows down your productivity and production levels.

2.Look at Your Team

If you are expecting a significant increase in orders, consider whether your current team will be able to deal efficiently with the extra workload. You may need to ask them to work extra hours, or even think about hiring in some extra help to cover the holiday period. Hiring Christmas casuals is a common option for larger retail businesses. Make sure to be mindful of the policies around hiring casual staff and meet your obligations.

On the flip side, if you expect it to be quiet over the festive break, you may be able to encourage your staff to take an extended break while business is quiet.

3. Review Your Workflow

If in your business, the festive season is a quiet period, consider taking some time to review your work process and see if there are any ways you can increase your efficiencies or improve your order processes. Taking time to spend on your business is just as important as spending time in your business and for many of us, we don’t take the time to review and make changes. Taking some time to spend on your business can save you time in the long run and help you be prepared for busy periods and increase work efficiencies. Take time to review the ups and downs that occurred throughout the year. How you might tackle things differently in the new year, how you could improve and what worked. Getting an early head start on some of the routine tasks throughout the year while it’s quiet can also help you for when the busy time comes around.

4. Organised Workspace

In a similar vein to the stock and supplies check, make sure the warehouse, workshop, office or studio is in a tidy and organised state. If you know where everything is, and can easily reach items you use regularly, you will enjoy a calmer and more efficient holiday season!

Knowing that you will return from the festive break to a clean and organised warehouse or office, gives you the best chance to hit the ground running when you return.

5. Communication Planning

Let your stockists know about all the critical timescales and deadlines. If you have specific delivery dates and deadlines for orders, communicate these as soon as possible and send reminders too. This can double-up as marketing communication if you time it correctly.

Communication is key when it comes to busy periods where deliverable timelines may change. Even things such as delays in postage. If people are aware of potential delays early, they are more understanding if delays occur.

6. Marketing and Advertising

Think about how you want to market your business this season. Do you need to make changes to your website? If you use Google Adwords or any other online advertising tools, you may like to set up some specific keywords and advertisements. Social media campaigns need planning and executing over the next month or so.

It’s also important to think ahead into the new year if your business does close over the festive season. Make sure your January is planned out so that you can return to work and not have to rush. Make sure any Christmas messages that are displayed are scheduled to come down after Christmas or any ads that are Christmas specific are scheduled to stop when they need too.

It's enough to make your head spin! But here's hoping, with careful planning and thought, this holiday season could be your best yet!

Finally, while business may be busy, make sure you take time to enjoy this festive period. Whether you take time off over Christmas or after Christmas, take some time to rest and recharge your batteries so you can hit the ground running when you return to work.