With Christmas quickly approaching, it is natural to feel stress during the busiest time of the business year. However, the fourth business quarter is one of the best times for knuckling down and creating a plan of action. Below I have listed the three key things you need to do this quarter in order to avoid stress and achieve success.
1) Differentiate yourself.
One of the best things you can do during the lead up to the holidays, is to differentiate yourself from your competition. Everyone will be trying to gain in on the same business, so it is vital that you stand out amongst the crowd, in order to clinch the deal over your competitors. For instance, on the approach to Black Friday, you could hold a mega sale on your products / services that begins slightly earlier than Black Friday and ends slightly later. This will enable you to pick up the early-bird customers and the late comer consumers. Moreover, by offering a discount either side of Black Friday, you will automatically be seen by customers as the best value on the market as they will not be comparing you with other similar companies.
2) Forecast demands.
Although it can be difficult to project sales and customer demands, it is a great way to mentally prepare yourself and the team for the busiest quarter of the year. Thinking forward is a great mentality to teach your team and they will respect you for forecasting the potential workload and preparing and teaching them how to deal with it. As the saying goes, ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’ and this is certainly true in this scenario.
3) Ensure your staff are prepared.
A key way to avoid fourth quarter stress is to ensure that both you and your staff are prepared for what’s to come. Talk to your staff about what will be expected of them in terms of sales and fulfilment and prepare a timeline of big targets and goals that need to be met, and by when. It is also a great idea to operate an open-door policy, so that employees feel comfortable coming to you with any problems or stresses that they may have during this busy time. Working through problems as a team will enable you to gain a closer and more trusted relationship with your staff and they will respect you for helping them work through issues, so that they are de-stressed, without decreasing productivity.
What are you doing to avoid fourth quarter stress?
