Business tips to consider ahead of the festive season

International award-winning business coach, Darryn Le Grange, Owner of ActionCOACH Ignite, shares five top tips for business owners to consider ahead of the busy festive season.

Stock management

Ensure you have sufficient, high-demand stock ahead of the busy period. If you are sitting with a lot of slow moving stock items, consider a clearance sale to move these items. This will make space and improve your cash flow.

Marketing

Plan and finalise your year-end marketing ahead of time to ensure you get your slice of the available pie. With consumer spending under pressure, you want to make sure your business stands out and that customers think of you first. This would be a good time to have a strong offer or call to action to bring customers to your business, allowing you the opportunity to up and cross sell to them.

Staff

If you need to hire additional staff over the festive season, ensure you follow a sound recruitment process and that your additional or casual staff are properly trained with all the required product knowledge, as they will be representing your business and you don’t want to miss any opportunities due to poorly trained staff.

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Additional services

Consider offering value-added services like gift wrapping or a delivery service to your customers in an effort to make it as easy as possible for them to buy from you.

Cash flow management

Extra stock, additional staff and increased marketing can have a big impact on your cash flow, so ensure you have an up to date forecast to base your management decisions on over this period.

“I encourage business owners to support fellow, local businesses. In supporting one another we can inspire future entrepreneurs, increase job opportunities and help to improve our local economy,” concludes Darryn.