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The Holiday Advantage

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Getting Ahead When the Rest are Resting

Assumption – December is a black hole for growing our businesses. We might as well just relax & make peace with it. Not really.

Reality: People are busy at night and weekends but their workday has slowed way down. They are waiting for you to call! It is head trash and/or anecdotal business lore to think that we can’t get great results in December. Last year I had three appointments a day between Christmas and New Year’s (this year I’m taking it off!).

Speed of Execution is the #1 indicator of success in small business. While the other rabbits are taking a December snooze, keep the tortoise moving – make money in December and set up your January to revenue-generating, not planning.

Here’s ways to build your business in December:

  1. Do a seminar on managing credit – one of our clients did it last year on Dec. 22 in the afternoon and had 100 people come – three days before Christmas!
  2. The forgiveness factor – Holiday hellos to stale contacts – great excuse to reconnect.
  3. Forgiveness factor newsletter – Teach your power partners/gate openers to reconnect using Holiday Hellos. Box of chocolates with their Name/logo to give to someone they need to reconnect with. Over-sized chocolate bar; funky desk calendar; holiday wrapping paper. Opens the door for them to call me, get coffee, re-establish the business relationship.
  4. Client appreciation events DURING THE DAY – Holiday goodies, gift-wrapping – ongoing if you have a retail location. A little live music is always a great addition. You can send out an e-mail invitation with all the details.
  5. Host a planning event Host a planning seminar for next year (get a futurist, CPA, etc.)
  6. Take on a charity as a company and get everyone involved. Donate a day as a company. PR consultant-newspapers. Write article, frame it, hang it on your wall, email to your list.
  7. Press Release – Holidays offer a great excuse. Newsworthy idea – great PR exposure. Called piggybacking (on the holiday theme) Here’s some ways:
    1. Make donations in honor of your customers. 10% of profits for one week to the American Cancer Society. Or donate employee time.
    2. Give something back Offer an award (for someone you admire, courageous kids, notable givers, create a scholarship) – dinner and a ceremony.
    3. TurkeyPardon.com – Pardon a turkey, put a camera on it and YouTube, then give it to a petting zoo after the holidays. You can borrow TurkeyPardon.com from me at no charge (1st one to ask).
    4. Holiday poll – Poll/survey and announce results. What business owners really want for the holidays, biggest complaint about holiday shopping? Or something from perspective of your business – get a PR person to shop it to the right audience. Email/send results.
  8. Hand delivered gift cards from a local coffee shop or restaurant. Get an appointment to go with them!
  9. Send a watch – “Happy New Year! It’s about TIME we did some business together.”
  10. Send a New Year’s card – don’t get lost in the Christmas card shuffle – and everyone celebrates New Years.
  11. Crystal office candy bowl Send refresher candy 3-4 times a year at other holidays. Their name engraved.
  12. Offer gift certificates ($25 billion last year – 15% of Holiday revenue!) Carpet cleaning – a great gift certificate! Make the offer for your slow time of year.
  13. Tie your product/service to the holidays – What do people need from me during the holidays? Do they need more balance, a time to relax, a plan for how they’re going to do something better in the coming year? Insert yourself!
  14. Organize a shopping trip for elderly clients PLUS THEIR FRIEND (CPAs, Fin. Planners; anyone with elderly customers).
  15. Bonus ☺ – February 18 – Chinese New Year celebration event Cultural experience– a slower time for activities. How many people would go with to an event where a Chinese person could teach us those traditions?
  16. For Yourself – focus on your Loyal Customers and Raving Fans – do something for them. Do some simple strategic planning for next year. Find out what your Big Why is. Establish a Business Maturity Date. Develop a simple system to streamline your operations. SET APPOINTMENTS FOR JANUARY 3rd RIGHT NOW (don’t’ wait until January – hit the ground running!). Or just relax and enjoy family.

Happy Holidays!

Seven Decision-Making Principles Leading us to Profitability

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Guiding Principles of a business are necessary (honesty, integrity, customer service, etc.), but there is another set of principles that help the Business Owner in particular: decision-making principles.

How we make decisions effects everything we do. Problem – we make decisions subjectively, even when we think we’re being objective. All the research shows this – even at the major company level – we even buy subjectively.

As a result, we react badly to shiny objects, short-term victories and defeats, and strategic planning. So the question becomes, do you guide your biz or does it rule you? Who’s really in charge?

Want to make more money and stop recovering from bad decisions? Get some simple decision-making principles on which you run your business.

Like rails that guide a train, your decision-making principles are a core strategy to having a business that knows where it is going and how it is going to get there.

Here’s my seven decision-making principles. What are yours?

The 7 Decision-Making Principles of TeamNimbusWest Crankset Group:

  1. Business Maturity Date – Know Where I’m going & when I want to be there. (Seriously, you plan your vacation destination and time to be there, why in the world don’t you plan the destination and time to be there for your business. Which one is more important? Duh…)
  2. Make more money in less time. – Why do what others can and will do, when there’s so much to be done that others can’t or won’t do? Yield Per Hour. Distributive Management. Your NOT saving money by doing things below your pay grade. If you want to make $200 per hour, every time you do a $20 per hour job, you just lost $180.
  3. Focus on my lifetime goals, not just on growing my business – A BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) will keep us going, but “grow the business” is a lifeless idea. So is retirement. Get a reason to have a business, then watch how much more money you make, and in less time.
  4. Get off the treadmill, own the business instead of the business owning me. – The purpose of our business is to create a lifestyle for ourselves and our family. Stop making money, stop making a living, and start building a business that makes money while you’re on vacation.
  5. Work ON my business, not just IN it. Highest and best use of my time. – The key to growth – perfecting as we go by strategic planning, not just production. Know where you’re going, and regularly adjust. I revisit my Strategic Plan every Monday. Keep steering all the time.
  6. Make decisions on where I want to be, not where I am. – Clarity of Purpose leads to Hope which leads to Risk. Know where you’re going (clarity), which will give you something to believe in (Hope), which will allow you to risk moving forward. Take good risks to grow.
  7. Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. Stop planning. Implement now and perfect as you go. Speed of Execution rules. It’s a both/and thing. Move NOW (stop thinking), then as soon as you start moving, start perfecting. If you just move, you’re going to get clobbered. If you just perfect, you’ll never start moving. Implement now, perfect as you go.

What are the decision-making principles of your business?

You’ve got decision-making principles that are running the show. You might as well write them down and see if you agree with who/what is actually in charge. If not, change them and take control of your business future.

Learn objectivity in decision-making processes. Know where you’re going, delegate, make decisions based on your strategic plan, and not based on where you are right now. And stop thinking about it so long. It’s not how good the plan is, but how committed you are to the bad (incomplete) plan you have. And how good you make decisions as you go.