Getting your business ready for the Christmas period
The Christmas period is no doubt one of the busiest times for many businesses (including ourselves!) due to the pressure of getting projects tied up, organising your staff’s time off, preparing for 2021 – all on top of the usual day-to-day operations.Failing to have your business organised for this period (and January) can result in disaster, which can put a negative effect, or bite into, your planned time off. So, here’s our 4 no-nonsense tips to ensure that you have a smooth Christmas and are ready to hit the ground running in January!
Communicate with clients
It’s a simple and obvious tip, yet often overlooked. If you haven’t yet spoken to your clients and partnerships about your Christmas hours, you may already be behind. Have that conversation with any suppliers, clients or vendors that you work with in order to ensure a smooth Christmas and avoid any confusion. Set out clearly who is and isn’t contactable (if anyone at all) and let them know when you and your team will be returning to work.
“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”
As Benjamin Franklin said in the quote above, if you don’t have everything ready and in hand for closing up shop on Christmas week, things are more than likely set to fail. There’s almost always last minute issues and hiccups when you near the end, so if you leave yourself some space to manouver with these you’re set to have a successful Christmas.Most importantly, if you can get in a position where both you and your business can slowly wind down over Christmas, it allows you time to get in the headspace of separating yourself from work and really enjoying the holiday period with your family.
Have your New Year’s plan in place
Not only should you be planning to be able to wind down over Christmas, but you should already have plans in place to tackle the first week of January and beyond head on. It’s a crucial time of year for new prospects, new projects, and new leads. If you’re left picking up the pieces after not planning accordingly, you’ll miss out on a chance to capitalise on the new opportunities that await you in 2021.If you have a new project lined up, have your staff been briefed? If you need new staff, have you a recruitment partner or strategy in place? Have you your business goals worked out for the first quarter of 2021? These are just a handful of the questions you should be able to answer come January.
Have a lockdown plan for January
We’re not saying there will be a lockdown, and it can be very disheartening to plan for such an event – but with a vaccine at the very least months away, it’s important to have a strategy and procedure in place should your staff need to work remotely once more. For example, if you do specific work or projects at the start of every New Year, make sure all the resources and files are readily available remotely to your teams to avoid the panic and stress should restrictions be implemented once again.