The Small Business Christmas Checklist
The Small Business Christmas Checklist
Use this small business Christmas checklist so you can tick off all those tasks and have the break you deserve with family and friends.
Firstly you need to decide your last working day and the day that you will return. Next create a checklist of all the tasks you need to complete before the Christmas break. Consider the following:
- Outstanding work
- Stating the obvious, note any outstanding work for customers or clients
- Calls you need to make or emails to send
- Invoices
- Sending invoices and chasing in any outstanding payments due
- Paying any invoices owed
- Marketing
- Writing and scheduling newsletters and blogs
- Scheduling social media posts
- Customer contact
- Sending Christmas cards, email messages or gifts to selected clients
- Send an email to all customers and clients letting them know your availability (or not) over the break, how to contact you in an emergency (if relevant) and the date when normal service will be resumed.
- Set up your emails with an out of office message with the same information as the last point.
Now grab your diary and block out time just prior to the break to complete these tasks. I tend to completely block out the week before Christmas to have a mop-up of all these tasks and to deal with any last minute emergencies.
The very last task you want to do before finishing for your Christmas break is to put an out of office message on your phone and mobile, again, saying the date when normal service will be resumed and how to contact you for emergencies (if relevant).
Next set out some time in your diary either prior or during the break, or at the latest immediately in the New Year to do an end of year review. It may not be your year end accounting date but I always find the end of a year is a good time to have a recap on how the business is performing.
End of year review:
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- Review the past year, make a note of what worked and what didn’t.
- If you sell products, do a stock check. What sold well and what wasn’t so popular. What will you plan to sell more of next year and what might you consider dropping from your product line?
- What are industry trends and have they changed? Do some market research to see what predictions are for the New Year.
- Review your outgoings and costs for the past year and consider where are savings can be made (it can be quite amazing how many subscriptions etc creep into our business that we stop using and never cancel or paid advertising that isn’t getting results)
- Set your goals for the forthcoming year
- Prepare your marketing plan for the forthcoming year
Now go take that break! Give your friends and family the time they deserve with you. Make sure you have time with them where you are completely switched off from work. Remember to make memories, not just money!!
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CHRISTMAS CHECKLIST HERE
