This is a strategy I’ve created and put to use most years as the holidays approach. For a lot of small/home based businesses there is a point around the end of the year (usually starting with American Thanksgiving and ending well into January) when normal business stops operating.
People want to take breaks, client prospecting slows down, marketing efforts stop, and the distractions increase like holiday parties, travelling, shopping, kids being off school, etc. Everyone is focused on other things.
You might find yourself coasting through and well into the new year with not a whole lot of new business. You still have things to do and clients to tend to, but for the most part it’s a hiatus.
You might find yourself wanting to take it easy along with everyone else.
This is where I buck the trend and do the opposite. If you can’t control other people’s schedules and how that affects your business, what can you control? I take advantage of this slow period.
I call it The Holiday Hustle.
Instead of treating it as a lazy holiday, I invest the time into building the foundations of how my business can grow once everything starts up again in the new year.
Some of the projects I’ve taken on over the holiday period in years past:
- Research a new market and build a marketing plan to go after it in the new year
- Write some new talks that I can offer that will expose me to new prospects
- Build an e-commerce product to sell
- Do year-end strategy about what the next year will look like
- Write a book to build credibility
- Learn to implement some new technology that will help my business and make my life easier
- Create some products that can create a passive income stream
- Anything else I know will help but have let slide through the cracks
The point is, instead of taking it easy for a good month or more, seize this time to work on projects that you normally put on the back burner. Put them on the front burner!
I don’t even consider this time as work. These are things I want to work on but had to put aside to take care of the more pressing issues. This time is now a gift for myself to get around to these items that will help me build a bigger business.
Now I make this a sport. I challenge myself on what this year’s Holiday Hustle will be and how it will help me, that’s even more beneficial than previous ones.
What ideas do you have waiting for you on the back burner today that you can pull to the front over this (or the next) holiday period?
