Key Highlights
- For a lot of small businesses, fall or autumn is the busiest, most hectic and most important time of the year.
- Clients and customers have started calling, pending issues, and employees require training. Retailers are accumulating for the holidays, and consumers are likely to make big purchases or home improvements now.
Six expert tips or steps to ensure success are mentioned below to take the greatest advantage of this most fruitful time of the year.
1. Sell To Keep Your Business Competitive
Many small businesses depend on holiday sales for a huge part of their income. You will have to start making sales with a vengeance.
Step up your marketing if you sell to consumers, retail or services. Customers have already started buying holiday gifts and making holiday plans, and you want to be in their line of sight. Suppose yours is a B2B business that depends on holiday sales, secure orders, phone calls, emails or in-person meetings.
2. Find Ways Customers Can Buy Your Offerings As “Gifts”
The easiest way to do this is to offer gift certificates. If you provide something most people don’t think of as a gift, for example, a lawyer offering an “estate planning package” as a gift, you may be surprised that people will buy this as a present. If you have a POS (point-of-sale) program, it may already have an option for you to provide gift certificates.
3. Attend Or Exhibit At Trade Shows Or Conferences
Fall is typically a big season for events, but we missed a couple of years with the pandemic. Trade shows bring together highly targeted customers in one place, and most attending conferences or trade shows repeatedly look for new products or services.
4. Stay In Touch With Suppliers
Your suppliers and vendors are extremely busy this time of year too. And with the supply chain interruptions of the last couple of years, they are particularly stressed. Ensure you communicate with your suppliers regularly to ensure your inventory and raw materials are there when you need them. And be sure to pay their bills on time so that they will fill your orders.
5. Build A Reserve Of Money
Yes, fall is when you spend a lot of money, but it is also a time when you are getting a lot of cash coming in. Specifically this year, when the 2023 economy looks uncertain, you will appreciate having money in the bank. Create two savings accounts, i.e., A reserve account for slow months and a tax account just for the IRS.
6. Take Action To Re-motivate You
Fix one business issue that has been nagging you for a while. Call one new prospect or an old one with whom you have been meaning to reconnect. Sit down and try to come up with some marketing ideas.
It is hard to get back to working hard when you would still like it to be summer, but fall is the time to make money so you can afford that beach vacation next year.
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