Your Business Preparations for Christmas and the New Year

Whatever your type of business, this time of year is all about preparing for Christmas, holidays, the end of one year and the beginning of a new year with a fresh start.

It is a time to:

• Review your business’s performance and compare results from the previous year.
• Celebrate your successes over the past year and enjoy a few parties!
• Prepare your business for the year to come, update business or marketing plans and reset your targets.
• Develop specific Christmas promotions to make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy their Christmas gifts from you.
• Thank your customers and all the other people you rely on for their support over the past year.
• Manage your cash-flow over the holiday season if it is typically a low income, high expenses period.
• Acknowledge and thank your staff for their contributions.
• Catch up on some of the tasks that you have been putting off until things quietened down e.g. a new website, development of processes, upgrade of computers etc.
• Take some time out to relax and recharge your own and your staff’s energy levels and enthusiasm.

For professional services businesses the Christmas period, can actually be a very stressful time when it comes to cashflow and productivity. Staff are on leave and billings traditionally fall away. Such businesses need to plan very carefully for this period, making sure they have secured ample work to come back to and get straight into once the holidays are over.  Waiting to fill appointments and find new projects in the new year can seriously harm your full year’s financial performance and cause a lot of stress.

One option this Christmas is to consider what charities your business can support. Charitable organisations are becoming more sophisticated in raising funds over this period, and it may be easier than you think to contribute towards these by spending some of your Christmas budget with them. It may not be a case of spending more but simply buying your Christmas cards from a charitable organisation for a change

Make the most of this time of year and don’t just hope that the Christmas rush will carry you along with it!  Then, knowing you’ve achieved good results from the Christmas period, you can fall into a comfy chair, put your feet up and……….relax! Until you realise you’ve forgotten to buy your ‘significant other’ a present that is!