Less Stress More Cash for the Holidays
The holidays can be stressful, especially for entrepreneurs.
These months are typically the slowest for many online businesses unless your niche is one of the few that flourishes during the holidays – like home and garden or health and fitness.
For most everyone else, our businesses suffer the terrible cash flow blues.
Then the stress of less cash tends to creep in and becomes even worse because this time of year always means more time away from your business. PLUS you need more cash for personal things like gifts, meals, holiday parties and gearing up for the new year.
I thought we could all benefit from a quick list on how to reduce the stress and potentially increase the cash coming in the door.
So first though… BREATHE.
The only way to reduce the stress is to focus on what you can really get done. Be realistic, practical and most of all don’t create more struss for yourself!
I laugh as I write this because my to-do list is sitting right next to my keyboard staring me straight in the eye!
Trying to balance the personal list and the business list can feel a bit overwhelming.
Let’s tackle the business list first.
How Much?
Determine what kind of additional cash you need to make it comfortably through the next 6 weeks.
How Would You Like To Earn Extra Cash?
Do you want to do a sale on products you have in your arsenal already? Do you want to pick up a few clients doing done for you work? Do you want to finish up a new product so you can launch it during this period?
Flash Sales or Holiday Sales are great way to earn extra cash. Especially when you already have a sales page and the product created and done.
Each year at MYNAMS, we run a sale called December Deals. When we started doing it, it was to retire old products we wanted to take out of our normal sales funnels. Now in year 6, we offer tons of never released before products!
Of course you don’t have to run a month long promotion like we do, but you could offer something over a week long period.
Our customers look forward to our December Deals and that has made December our highest income month each year.
If your business is a service-based business, this is a great time to sell a block of your time to your existing clients. Remember, most other business owners are strapped for cash and strapped for time as well during the holiday months too so getting hours at a discounted rate to be used in the coming year to help generate additional income in their own business is appreciated!
Let’s say you are a graphic designer. You could create a package of holiday themed images to help your client promote their own sales during the holiday months. Once you’ve done the initial leg work of creating your holiday themed templates, it would be easy to sell those packages that can be customized specifically for your client.
Doing the base design work is the time consuming part, right? By quickly branding those images for your clients, you still have to do a bit of work but the templates are already done!
Think about what you can do in your own specialty that uses the same concepts.
Do you have a course that’s almost ready to launch? Run an early bird sale on that course with definitive release dates for the remainder of the course. For example Modules 1-3 are now available and Modules 4-6 will be released on specific dates.. This gives you an opportunity to get customers using the course right away and giving you feedback. Once you’ve built the entire course, you’ll be able to get testimonials from the existing students and you can release the course at a higher price in the beginning of the year.
What's Your Asset Inventory Like?
Once you determine what you have in your inventory, decide how much time you can realistically put towards the project. If you know you’ll be traveling for 2 weeks in December, you don’t want to plan on launching your sale the day before you leave. That’s just way too much stress. Or if you know you will have a house full of guests, you don’t want to always be tethered to your computer meeting client deadlines or working in your support desk.
No Products? No Problem.
So what if you don’t have any products you can use in the scenarios above? Do you recommend other products as an affiliate? Reach out to someone who has a product that really fills a hole in your business and ask if you can do a special promotion of his or her product. Most business owners will jump at an opportunity to make sales. Especially if they have an evergreen product. Ask for a special coupon or add your own bonus to the promotion.
It’s much easier to write blog content and emails to sell someone else’s product than trying to create your own promotions for short term cash.
Got Coaching?
Do you offer coaching services? Create a special limited time promotion to sell XXX number of seats to your program at a heavily reduced price. Begin the program after the holiday rush. Remember your coaching clients are just as busy as you are during the holidays and don’t want to be pressured to meet your deadlines and goals. That is the #1 objection to coaching programs. Not enough time to participate. Meet that objection head on.
Are Live Events Your Favorite Thing?
Have you been thinking about holding a live event? A 30-day challenge for example? Outline your program and create your start date. Put the program on sale. This gives you a chance to build the entire product live at a later time.
When we created our first MyNAMS 30-day challenge on list building, we did it as a live event where we met each day and interviewed an expert. We sold the program in advance and then created the content each day as we did the challenge. By the end of the event, we had a fully built program that we could sell any time.
This same concept works with a live workshop or summit.
Don't Forget About Your Team!
Remember if you work with a team, you need to make sure you are clear on when they will be available during the holidays. You don’t want to create deadlines or delivery dates for your products if your team members will not be available.
Automate For Less Stress!
Automate as much as possible. This allows you to spend quality time with friends and family during the holiday season and BE PRESENT! That’s what being an entrepreneur is all about anyway, right?
Now on to a few personal tips –
Make the time. Yesterday I spent the day making holiday crafts with my aunt. We knocked out 16 gifts, spent time together and watched football. (My family's favorite past time). I scheduled all of my work items in advance so I never had to check the computer or send an email.
A flexible schedule. I get a lot done in a day. But many times, I don’t complete everything on my list. As a wife, employee and boss, I have to be a lot of things for a lot of different people.
When I don’t manage my time everyone suffers. Just ask my husband.
We make lists for chores and projects that need to be accomplished. We divvy them up and then decide what’s really possible to complete. If a project doesn’t get done because life gets in the way, we determine if it HAS to get done and if we can push it off.
When we schedule time together to just have dinner and watch a movie, then nothing else can affect that. Unless an emergency crops up that is...
What are the things you absolutely love to do during the holidays? Do it and do it often!
For me, it’s going out to cut and then decorate our Christmas tree. We plan and prioritize it. No work or other chores get scheduled that day. It’s something that brings me joy and I won’t let anything get in the way of that. Then I love sitting around the tree. My office moves to my living room as much as possible so I can enjoy it frequently!
What are the things you don’t like to do but have to get done? Don’t draw it out. Just do it!
When I’m up against a task I don’t want to do, I try to make my environment as stress free as possible. It may be that I need some great music in the background that makes me more relaxed, or a warm cup of tea. Sometimes it’s complete quiet so I can focus and knock it out.
Communicate. When I have to do something work related that takes away from my personal time, I let my family know in advance.
For example, today I’m writing this blog post. I need to be able to concentrate. It’s a Sunday and husband is at home. We determined the amount of time I would need, then we agreed to do our own thing during that time. He knows I need quiet uninterrupted time to get this project done so he went to run some errands. When our agreed upon time is over, we’ll work on a project around the house together.
I know these sound easy and maybe even a bit silly, but being aware and being conscious is what helps relieve the stress of trying to manage your business life and your personal life during a historically busy time of the year.
I hope you find some of these tips helpful in earning a little more cash for your business this holiday season and having a TON LESS STRESS too!
If you want to be notified when our annual December Deals promotion starts, just enter your name and email below and you’ll have a chance to see some of our best products at 90% off throughout the month of December!
Leave a Reply