Preparing for the Holidays as a Business Owner

As you may recall from my story about driving with my mom in How to Direct Your Growth, my mom is not always the best with directions. Because of this, one year at Christmas when my siblings and I were still very young my dad decided to give her a GPS (back in the days before those came built into cars and phones) and create a scavenger hunt for her to find it. The night before he hid notes all over our house, some even outside, to lead her to the GPS.

Christmas morning we all open our presents, and with a skeptical look, she opens a card with the very first clue. The entire family followed her from one room of the house to another, outside to our playset (where my brother got tackled by our family dog, but that’s a story for another time), and eventually back to our parents’ bedroom where the present had been the entire time. We all had a fun time and enjoyed breakfast together as a family afterward; it’s one of my favorite holiday memories.

But all of that holiday magic couldn’t have happened if my dad didn’t plan it. He had to be meticulous with deciding where the clues would go, what they’d say, where he’d hide the gift so mom wouldn’t find it until the end, and making sure us kids didn’t ruin the surprise. Similarly, if you’re a business owner who wants a holiday season full of magic this year, you’ll need to plan ahead.

3 Tips to Set Yourself Up for an Enjoyable Holiday Season

As business owners we can feel pretty torn during the holidays: do I capitalize on the holiday shoppers by pushing a sale or a strong marketing campaign? Or do I take the season slowly, focus on existing clients & internal business operations, and spend as much time with friends and family as I can? The pull between wanting to promote and grow your business and wanting to strike a stronger work-life balance during such a special time of the year can leave you feeling unsure and indecisive, like a metronome that keeps ticking back and forth.

The good news is, you don’t necessarily have to choose either. If you want, you can have a Black Friday sale and launch a solid holiday marketing campaign without taking too much time away from your family. Here are my three tips for how:

1. Start planning now

After Halloween, it’ll feel like Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. You’ll have more personal obligations than usual, and if you’re a parent, you may be busy doing all the work to make sure your kids have a magical holiday season. Come up with a plan and get ahead on creating the strategy and all the content needed for your social media and other marketing channels now.

2. Be strategic and have boundaries

If you plan to launch the world’s most intensive marketing campaign, you’ll probably end up overworking yourself. Be strategic and intentional about the amount of work you’re creating for yourself and your team. (And don’t make plans that have you needing to work all the way up to Christmas Eve.) If you want work-life balance, you have to be strategic with how much work your goals will require, and hold boundaries for yourself to take time off.

3. Take advantage of automated processes

If you go ahead and create the content you want to share, the sales you want to offer, and the timeframe you want to do it all in, you can utilize tools to execute a large portion of your work automatically – at all the right times. Your Instagram account can post a new reel while you sip eggnog and bake cookies, and your website can host a sale while you sit by the fire and watch a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie. Automations can be the true hero when it comes to taking time off without putting your whole business on pause.

As long as you plan ahead, think strategically, and take advantage of your business software’s automation abilities, you can keep your business running strong through the holidays while maintaining a work-life balance that lets you enjoy the season. And if you don’t feel confident about automating your processes, we’ve got you covered. Consider going through our Systems Audit to learn more about what you can automate and how exactly to implement it in your business!