It is just a little under a week to Thanksgiving!
So, time to get your turkey ready, your stuffing cooking, and your business ready for an unusual holiday season.
The Miner Agency put together some easy tips and tricks to help manage the last weeks of what’s been a stressful year.
1. Remember to manage your staff, not just your business
As 2020 has shown, people are most important. A crucial step you can take to make the holidays less stressful around the office is making sure your employees and coworkers know the same. One way to do this is to make sure you have an easily understood, overly communicated holiday work schedule. We have all been in different offices with different ways of scheduling the holidays.
Do you go by seniority? Request date? Are you closed on major holidays? Do your staff work half days? All of those questions should be easy to answer, communicated to your staff in detail, and figured out sooner rather than later. An easily understood and prepared holiday work schedule can prevent hurt feelings, disgruntled staff, and the stress of last-minute requests and changes.
2. Are you ready for a surge or a decrease in business?
This one is important too for both customers and staff. Usually, businesses would be gearing up for Black Friday weeks, and in some cases months, before Thanksgiving. But this year, major retailers like Best Buy, will be closed on Thanksgiving and have prioritized online access to deals. So, are you prepared for holiday business in a pandemic? We recommend having a plan now for Black Friday, small business Saturday, and Cyber Monday if your business is participating.
At the very least, have an answer ready now in case customers or staff want to plan their shopping around these major retail days. Also, for your staff, plan your schedules and shifts in anticipation of holiday surges or declines, especially depending on what you’ve seen so far this year. No reason to have all your staff coming in on Black Friday when you know in past years your shoppers preferred small business Saturday!
3. Marketing is the difference between a winter bonanza and a hunk of coal
At a time when people are prone to opening their pocketbooks, you need to be ready.
What do you want to emphasize? What do you want to market as a service or product to sell? Or, like good viral ads have shown lately, is there a distinct message you want to portray about your business?
Good, smart advertising and marketing can do wonders for your business. It also can cultivate the kind of feeling and perception you want for your business around the holidays. Think of recent ads over the years from companies like Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Disney, and many others.
We know it can be daunting, but carefully planned marketing is a key to success this time of year! Thankfully, The Miner Agency can help you come up with a plan!
4. Be flexible
After nearly 11 months of 2020, everyone is well versed on being flexible in the workplace. But, it’s important to keep it in mind for the holiday season. Situations will happen and being flexible will help your patience and morale.
Kids will get the flu or Covid, family events will happen or change last minute, someone will need a late start or early departure to pick something up for the holidays. Just like it happens every year!
At the end of the day, protect your business and know the difference between a reasonable request and someone taking advantage. But, a little holiday flexibility and understanding in the right situation will make you a Christmas angel and not an Ebenezer Scrooge.
