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How Small Businesses Prepare for the Holidays and Plan for the New Year

When it comes to the holiday season, small business owners have a lot to do. Not only do you need to be ready for the biggest shopping days of the year, but you also have to plan ahead for the new year.

According to Deloitte’s 2018 Holiday Shopping Survey, over 70% of Americans planned to do their holiday shopping from mid to late November. That means that as an entrepreneur, you always have to be thinking ahead about how best to prepare so that you can efficiently juggle the balancing act that is business management over the holiday season.

Effective Communication with Customers is Crucial
Remember that your customers are being bombarded by sales, discounts, doorbusters, and ads galore. Just taping up a few signs or your reduced holiday hours isn’t going to cut it. Your messaging has to adapt in order to fit the customer’s shopping mindset.

For example, if they’re doing the majority of their shopping in November, it’s a smart idea to keep your microbusiness front-of-mind by letting them know about how your products would make great gifts, as well as plant some ideas in their mind about what to get and for whom.

By December, a lot of the shopping has already been done, so it’s a good idea to focus on the last-minute gift shopper, reminding them that a gift purchased from a small business is not only meaningful to both giver and recipient, but it also helps keep money in the local economy. Shoppers are generally in a feel-good-do-good mood, and this is the point at which your message can ring as true as a set of silver bells.

Understanding How Customers Interact with Your Business
Beyond signage and proper message targeting, it’s also important to consider other touch-points where customers are going to be interacting with your business. For small businesses, this is most typically your telephone support and website.

With regard to your phone, you’ll want to make sure that if you’re going to be closed, that customers know about your reduced hours well in advance. Most people expect that shops will be closed over the holidays, but giving them ample notice as to your hours of operation also encourages them to take action on making a purchase. Show these updated hours in-store as well as announcing them on your website and voicemail.

And speaking of websites, you’ll want to make sure that yours is properly optimized for mobile. Why? Because, according to Google, 76% of people who search on their smartphones for a product or service nearby end up visiting that business within a day. Plus, considering that more searches now happen on mobile than desktop, you could be leaving money on the table by not having a site that’s tailored to both smartphones and desktops alike.

Staying in the Loop with Staffing and Shifts
It’s a fact of life in any industry, employees are going to “click off” before the holidays, simply because they’re focused on other things, like buying gifts, travel plans, family dinner menus and so on. Commercialization has grown extensively, and as many small businesses compete with big box retailers to take advantage of the longer and longer holiday season, employee productivity starts to take a serious dip… of 50%:

That being said, managing employee expectations about time off over the holidays is equally important. There’s perhaps no other time as competitive as having off from work over the holidays, but that also doesn’t have to mean that you end up juggling all of the work yourself.

For example, you could choose to stagger employee schedules so that you’ll always have help on-hand. Or you could simply allot time off under a first-come, first-served basis. Some small business employees don’t mind working over the holidays, and are happy to shoulder some of the extra workload. If yours is a seasonal business or the holidays are your busiest season, this is a great time to pick up some part time or seasonal staff. Depending on your industry, you may also want to entertain the possibility of letting your employees work from home.

There are lots of different strategies to handle what are undoubtedly the most sought-after holidays on the calendar. But the one thing you don’t want to do is ignore the issue or wait and hope employees figure it out on their own. All this does is sow internal strife and disagreement, and at worst, it can lead to poor reviews of the company, which for small businesses, can be hard to overcome.

Gearing Up for the New Year
Even after the gifts have been exchanged and the holiday treats eaten, there’s still the New Year. This is the time of year that’s brimming with possibilities and excitement. Small business owners can capitalize on that enthusiasm by hosting group meetings or brainstorming efforts where teams can come together to collaborate.

During this time, it’s also important to concentrate on growing your business. Encourage your employees and staff to create their own New Year’s resolutions for the company, and work with them one-on-one to clarify those goals so that they’re more concrete. In addition, plan to follow-up throughout the year during times when it seems most resolutions fall through the cracks.

Keeping employees energized and motivated is important, and one of the ways to do that is by recognizing their efforts both inside and outside of the workplace. Not only does this help inspire camaraderie in the workplace, but it also makes employees feel more valued, understood and championed by the small businesses they serve.

Your Small Business Holiday Checklist
With all of these points in mind, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed over the holidays. Let’s recap:
 - The holiday season starts earlier than ever, and most people are doing their shopping from November 15^th-30^th. Use this time to introduce them to the benefits of shopping small business and the thoughtfulness that comes with giving something custom or handmade.
 - Make sure that your voicemail, in-store signage and website contain your updated holiday hours so that customers can know ahead of time when you’ll be open and can plan accordingly.
 - Make sure your website displays correctly on mobile devices. More people are shopping and searching on their smartphones and tablets and you won’t want to miss out on that digital and foot traffic.
 - Decide how you’re going to handle staff requests for time off and how you’ll handle the “click off” that tends to happen around the holidays. Be ready with part-time or seasonal help and be consistent no matter which method you choose.
 - Keep motivation high in the new year by brainstorming business growth plans with employees and staff and openly communicating ideas while setting concrete milestones toward making them a reality.

As an organization that was built by and for small businesses, NASE, the National Association for the Self Employed is here to help fuel your business growth. With resources ranging from expert advice to financial calculators to small business grants and scholarships, we have the tools and knowledge to help you handle the holidays with ease and soar into the new year with confidence.