Wrapping up your business for Christmas and the New Year

by Celina Lucas

Depending on the kind of business you have, the approach to the holiday season might be one of frantic activity – or it might be one of a gradual winding down for the year. If the latter is the case, why not put the time to good use and use the free time that you have by getting your house – or your business – in order for the New Year?

Yearly review

 Look back over the year in terms of sales, promotions, marketing activities, successes and failures. What’s worked? What hasn’t? What would you do differently?

Marketing 2012

This is the time to plan your marketing for the next year, month by month. What seasonal events could you build a marketing campaign around – things like Easter, Valentine’s Day and so forth. Remember (as if you could forget) that a certain big sporting event takes place next summer. Could you tie in some sort of Olympic promotion with a new product or service?

Information products

This is the time to leverage work that you’ve already done. If you’ve written a great series of blog posts built around a common theme, could you turn those into an e-book? If customers and clients are asking you specific questions, could you give them the answers in an e-course? Could you use your expertise to make a series of training videos to upload to YouTube, or perhaps look into doing some consultancy work? 

Filing and administration

Okay, this is boring but necessary, and as it’s time consuming, a quiet time of year is the perfect time to actually knuckle down and finally do it. Buy yourself some new filing cabinets, folders, filing trays and box files, and get all your paperwork in order for the New Year. The same goes for all your electronic files. Have a purge of the old emails cluttering up your inbox, sort out your accounts and deal with any unpaid bills. 

This is also a good time to look at your office security, both online and offline. Do you have any disaster planning procedures in place? Have you got sufficient computer back-up? When was the last time you changed your passwords? 

Goal setting

Finally, make a list of goals for your business in 2012. What do you want to achieve? Let your imagination run wild! Write down goals for the first week of the New Year, then month by month and finally by what you want to achieve this time next year. Put the list somewhere prominent. Then crack open the champagne and have a mince pie to celebrate. 

Happy Christmas!


Celina Lucas owns Office Alchemy, a virtual assistance business providing administrative, secretarial and creative support to a variety of small businesses. Contact Office Alchemy for a free, no-obligation consultation through the form on their website at www.officealchemy.co.uk

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