How to Prepare Your Business For the Holidays

Tune in or read the blog version below!

Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the podcast. I just got back from a surf and I’m feeling super energized.

It’s really funny because I had a private coaching call with one of my clients in New York, and now is the time of year where we’re starting to feel the temperature differences on our calls.

We’re no longer both in short sleeves. She’s very much wrapped up and bundled, whereas I’m still in a summer dress.

Back when I was living in New York, it was really clear when Thanksgiving was, when Christmas was, because you would feel the temperature change, right?

But now since we’re living in endless summer in the tropics, I would constantly have to remind myself, oh, it’s Thanksgiving this week, oh, it’s Christmas.

And based on the date is how I figure out what I’m doing for the month rather than feeling it in the temperature change.

How We Structure The Holidays

So here at The Wanderlover and with all of my private clients, we have prepared for Black Friday, and we are simply executing on what we have prepared and expecting a high cash sales month.

We are simply reaping the fruits of our labor because this is something we have been expecting for a few weeks now, and given that we are always ahead of the game now, what we want to prepare for is December.

Here at The Wanderlover, we are taking from December 15th all the way to January 1st off.

So no calls on the calendar, no Voxer, everything, including emails. I’m still gonna be checking them, but I’m not obliged to respond to any of them.

This is obviously intentional because I’m going to be with friends back home in New York. I’m going to be with family. We have a lot of trips planned, and I just want to be fully present with all of my loved ones.

All of my clients are encouraged to do the same. And what I love about running this business is my clients want the same for me, right? They’re like, I want you to take time off. I’m not expecting you to reply to my business queries. Plus, they give themselves permission to also fuel their cups for a few weeks.

What I am just so grateful for, because I do this every year, is the ability to completely take off for two plus weeks without having to request time off, without having to ask my manager if I can take off for the holidays.

I remember when I was in corporate, it would be such a scramble to try to get the days off between Christmas and New Year because everyone was trying to get those days off.

In certain industries, I know Christmas is the busiest season and it’s kind of hard to get the days off even if you wanted to.

So the fact that I can just be like, hey, I’m blocking out my calendar, no one gets any time with me while I’m with friends and family, that is just such a blessing.

If you are in the same position, realize how lucky you are, realize that it is such a blessing for you to be in this game, for you to have that option, so now let’s make it a non-negotiable.

Let’s take that time off, knowing that with the time off, it takes preparation so you’re not scrambling through the holidays, trying to get things in order for the next year so that your head isn’t running in a thousand different directions because we haven’t prepared for everything.

Plan Sales In Advance

The first thing that you want to make sure you take care of, that is really going to give you peace of mind, is sales.

Personally, I buy a lot of Christmas presents for my friends and family. December is always a really high spending month.

As a business owner, you want to make sure not only your business expenses are covered, but you can pay yourself enough to sustain and support whatever you want to spend your money on in December.

My first tip for you is to come up with a sales number, whether that’s $2,000, $5,000, $10,000, $30,000, get that number, write it down, and give yourself December 15th or whatever your first day off is as a deadline. And then you want to create your strategy around that number.

So not only are you manifesting it, but how, which actions are going to lead to those sales, to those new customers, to those clients, right? We want to back our manifestations with action.

Whether that’s increasing ad spend, running a flash sale, really going all out for Black Friday, what are you going to do so that you can make that number and give yourself the peace of mind to just take two weeks off with closure without having to worry about not having enough for the holidays?

Create Momentum For The Next Year

Second tip is for you to get clarity on what 2023 is going to look like for you. What are your 2023 goals in terms of business, marketing, sales, your team, your life?

Similar to how we are backing manifestations with actions, we actually want to start acting on it even before the holidays to get the momentum in motion.

For example, 2023 is the year where I’m personally going to start YouTube or restart my YouTube channel. And because of that, I have plans to invest in a new camera.

I have plans to invest in a content team onboard some help to help with my YouTube channel, and all of that is planned out. There’s no surprises.

I kind of already have an idea of what the workflow is going to look like so that you know, come January I can just upload and post without having to scramble and record and do everything when it’s the new year after my two weeks off, right?

So ask yourself, what do you want to accomplish in Q1 of 2023? And then work backwards from there. So you know what you have to get done today, this week, next month, I’m planning for it already.

I’m going to record an entire episode on how to plan for 2023. It’ll probably come out in the next few weeks, definitely before the holidays, but it’s also really important to start thinking about what you’re going to do differently in your business to get different results.

If you basically want to repeat this year and stay at the same income level, stay at the same level as a business owner, you will probably not make any changes and continue with the same style of content creation, with the same outputs that you have done.

What I am going to encourage you to do is to do things differently and to expand and to grow exponentially, so really opening up those opportunities for you to two times, three times, four times your annual income in 2023. It is possible.

If you want something like that, you need to start planning for it, right? It’s not just gonna happen because you wake up one day and you’re like, hmm, I’m gonna do the same exact thing and I’m gonna get different results.

It’s really intentional. There is a process behind it, and I’m going to talk about it in the upcoming weeks.

Schedule And Automate

The next thing you want to prepare for to give you peace of mind is to make sure everything is taken care of and someone is handling the different moving parts of your business, whether that’s getting post scheduled out in advance, so they’re still going out, getting weekly newsletters set up to go out, really automating and outsourcing whatever you can to free up the most time.

I’m going to be recording podcast episodes in advance, right? I’m going to be scheduling out my social media posts. Weekly newsletters are still going out, automations are still running, ads are still running.

So even though I’m physically not in front of my computer, my business is still running itself. In terms of setting your boundaries with your team.

You want to make sure that everyone who’s working with you in your business knows that you are taking time off. So sending out those emails to let them know in advance, right?

Like getting the message out that you’re blocking off your calendar. It’s a non-negotiable and don’t expect a response in the next few weeks.

This also looks like clearing out your calendar well in advance with your clients. So I give more than a month’s notice to all of my private clients because I don’t want it to be a surprise, like, oh, by the way, like I’m taking two weeks off next week, right?

You want them to also plan around their schedule as well. So make sure everyone knows and hold yourself to it.

Actually Take Time Off

Which leads me to my next tip because a lot of my clients tend to be overachievers and workaholics. We’re so type A and we’re like, we need to be go, go, go all the time or else we don’t feel productive.

We need to start practicing and affirming to ourselves, I’ve earned this time off. I will feel better after this time off. My business is going to make so much more money after I take this time off. I deserve this time with my friends and family uninterrupted. I have prepared so well for this time off and really giving yourself permission to be in the moment 110% of the time.

This has taken me years and years of practice, but honestly, like I’ve gotten to the point where I can really zone out and tune out of business in an instant if I wanted to.

It takes practice, but once you really prioritize your mental health over your day-to-day business tasks, you will see how much more free you feel because you’re not tied to your business.

After years and years of being in business, what I’ve learned is there’s really no such thing as a business emergency. Really. It’s not going to kill you if you take a few days off, right? No one’s going to notice on social media that you’re gone.

All of these worst case scenarios, most of the time they are all in your head. And if you really want to prove this to yourself and make you jump in the deep end, experiencing what it feels like to completely tune out is to switch your phone off when you are with your loved ones.

There’s really no need to be on your phone. All the emails can wait, responses can wait. If you’ve given people weeks of notice, then you shouldn’t feel bad about not responding instantly, especially during the holidays.

Final Thoughts

I’ve done this so many times helping clients free up their time so they can really focus on what matters the most and spend the most time with their loved ones. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, and you are able to enjoy it fruitfully with lots of sales coming in, even when you are not working, if it is all set up correctly.

I am flying back to New York next month from Indonesia, and then I am flying to Miami. I’m going to The Poconos with my family, and I’m going to be also spending New Years at home as well.

So it’s going to be really fun, a lot of things going on, and I just know that my business is prepared to sustain itself as I am doing all of these other things.

I want the same for you. Let’s start setting the intention. Let’s start preparing for it. And I know that we are all going to have a wonderful rest of the year. Let’s finish it off strong.

Let me know if you have any questions, my DMs are always open. If you found this episode helpful, please take a screenshot and share it on your stories. And tag me @thewanderlover and @thewanderloverpodcast. Enjoy Thanksgiving.

We’re actually having a Friendsgiving here in Batukaras. Enjoy Black Friday and Cyber Monday and I hope you guys snag really good deals on everything you want. And I will see you guys in the next episode. Have a fantastic week.

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