3 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Service-Based Businesses

If you’re new to running a service-based business or just haven’t quite hacked the holiday season yet, this one’s for you. When I ran a jewelry company, the holidays were an important part of my yearly revenue. But when I first opened up my bookkeeping practice, I was at a loss for how to market my service-based business and make the most of this season for my business. I looked at the small businesses I was working with and realized that a lot of similar businesses struggle to figure out how to get a cut of holiday profits.

So, I put together this handy guide for you. This is an important time for small businesses, and using just one of these tips could up your potential for profits this season.

Reward Your Most Loyal Customers

Look back through your customer data on your payment processor, or take a look at your reviews on Alignable or Google, and chances are you’ll find some happy customers! Take the time to reach out to these people with a special holiday offer made just for them.

For example, this could be a discount on future sessions or a special package of particular services they’ve purchased before. This is a great way to model holiday generosity and make those clients even happier (and more likely to come back to you in the New Year too).

Host a Holiday Event

This is a fun idea that can bring in new or returning customers and create some new buzz around your business. You could host this online or in-person.

Online events could be a simple holiday gathering or meet and greet, or perhaps related to the services you offer. Something like a short webinar related to your services and the season, followed by a Q&A, could be a great option. In-person events can also be a simple holiday gathering, or there could be a focus on your workspace as an open studio.

Attract guests by offering prizes or holiday packages, and make sure to have special offers for attendees that can help turn them into customers.

Offer a Flash Sale on Your Most Popular Service

A quick glance at your bookkeeping should tell you what your most popular service was this year. If not, or if you aren’t clear on how to look for this information, read my article “Maximize Your Profits With Bookkeeping: How To Get the Valuable Info Your Financial Records Are Hiding.”

Once you figure out your most popular service, offer a flash sale on it on Cyber Monday or Small Business Saturday! This is also a great way to get your business booked up through the end of the year, which will help you get more clear on your own holiday schedule.

Want more tips? Check out my article “How to Prep for the Holidays as a Service-Based Business” and “Holiday Marketing Ideas for Service-Based Businesses” by Adams Media Group for some inspiration. You can also subscribe to my free newsletter for monthly financial tips and insights into successful small business life:

By |2023-10-27T12:42:45-07:00October 27th, 2023|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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3 Ways to Prep Your Finances for the Holidays

The holiday season is a time of meaning, gathering, and giving. There are a couple key money moves you can make early on to make sure that’s the focus, instead of financial stress. Let’s talk about a couple different financial situations many of us face at this time of year, and how to navigate them peacefully!

What Do You Love Most About the Holidays?

When getting ready to make any financial decision, it’s important to check in with your values. Setting up your holiday spending plan is no exception. Take a moment and ask yourself these questions:

  • What do I love most about the holidays?
  • What are my needs and wants for this holiday season?
  • What do I want to make sure I do to enjoy this time of year?

These questions will help you get clear on your financial priorities for holiday spending. Pick a few special things, like donating to a cause you care about, taking your family for a sleigh ride, or getting a perfect gift for someone you love.

Then orient your spending plan so that those things happen, and don’t worry about missing out on the rest. As long as you get to do what’s meaningful to you, you’ve spent your money wisely, right? Going through this process will lead to more life satisfaction and less financial stress when you find it easy to pay your credit card bill come January.

Intentional Giving

Speaking of donating, at this time of year all of us are getting requests to donate to various causes. Keep in mind that you get to be intentional about how you donate. You don’t have to respond to every single request.

Again, this is a great moment to check in with your values and ask, what causes matter most to me? Where would I like to focus my donations to make an impact?

Then, identify how much money you have available to donate, and divvy it up according to your priorities. You might choose to make one large gift to a single organization, or spread your money around between several.

Use Money Tools

Both of the processes I have outlined above can be streamlined by using money tools and systems. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend going through a process of figuring out what you value most in life and discerning your needs from your wants. I also recommend checking out my series on creating a spending plan and my article, “How to Make Donating Money Way Easier On Your Finances.”All of these money tools can be a huge help to navigate any financial situation, any time of the year!

If you enjoyed this article and want to go through this process with a guide, I offer personal financial coaching sessions for just this purpose. Click here or below to book a free 15-minute Financial Self Care Consultation to see if we can work together to address your needs.

By |2022-12-06T11:55:26-08:00December 6th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Prep for the Holidays as a Service-Based Business

We tend to think of product-based businesses the most around the holidays, but services-based businesses can easily participate in the season too! You may feel your business isn’t  seasonally relevant, or that your offerings aren’t well-suited as gifts.

However, with a bit of creative thinking, you can find a way to position your offerings for the end of the year. Getting creative at this time can help you meet your income goals and experiment with different offers. Here are a couple different ideas to help your service-based business get prepped for the holidays: 

End-Of-Year Specials

If your services might be hard to frame as a gift, say something like bookkeeping or social media consulting, think about how you can create an offer or special around the holidays or the new year.  This look like an end of year bookkeeping review package, or a holiday sale on social media consulting sessions. Focus on helping your customers reduce holiday stress.

Likely whatever service you provide can be tied into that theme somehow, whether you’re offering more convenience or an expert solution to a problem. Keep in mind what your target market is thinking about during the end of the year. How can you help them solve problems and enjoy the season?

Gift Vouchers

Many business can offer great gift-vouchers for their customers. Consider offering vouchers at a discount for your repeat customers. This an excellent way to attract more clients. When people receive a voucher for your service, it will also come with a glowing recommendation!

Holiday Packages

Services or products can be bundled together to create holiday-themed packages for your clients. Try including a free holiday gift with an extra purchase. You could also consider theming a bundle of different services around the holidays. For example, if you’re a teaching artist, you could bundle together online courses under a holiday sale designed to help people make their own gifts!

This is also a great opportunity to collaborate with other business owners. Perhaps you run a massage studio and you partner with a chiropractor to offer a holiday package that includes a discount on both your services. This is a great way to cross-pollinate your customer bases while also reaping the rewards of holiday season marketing.

Thinking ahead about the holiday season can help you turn plans into action items. This can also be a chance to do one last push toward your annual or quarterly income goals.

If you liked this post, you’ll also probably enjoy being on my newsletter list! Every month my subscribers get a newsletter tailored to small business owners and the best tips for their finances, plus my weekly blog posts! Click here or below to get signed up. 

 

By |2022-11-18T14:23:49-08:00November 18th, 2022|Categories: Cash Flow, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Prep for the Holidays as a Service-Based Business

We tend to think of product-based businesses the most around the holidays, but services-based businesses can easily participate in the season too! You may feel your business isn’t  seasonally relevant, or that your offerings aren’t well-suited as gifts.

With a bit of creative thinking, however, you can find a way to position your offerings for the end of the year. Getting creative at this time can help you meet your income goals and experiment with different offers. Here are a couple different ideas to help your service-based business get prepped for the holidays: 

End-Of-Year Specials

If your services might be hard to frame as a gift, say something like bookkeeping or social media consulting, think about how you can create an offer or special around the holidays or the new year.  This look like an end of year bookkeeping review package, or a holiday sale on social media consulting sessions. Focus on helping your customers reduce holiday stress.

Likely whatever service you provide can be tied into that theme somehow, whether you’re offering more convenience or an expert solution to a problem. Keep in mind what your target market is thinking about during the end of the year. How can you help them solve problems and enjoy the season?

Gift Vouchers

Many business can offer great gift-vouchers for their customers. Consider offering vouchers at a discount for your repeat customers. This an excellent way to attract more clients. When people receive a voucher for your service, it will also come with a glowing recommendation!

Holiday Packages

Services or products can be bundled together to create holiday-themed packages for your clients. Try including a free holiday gift with an extra purchase. You could also consider theming a bundle of different services around the holidays. For example, if you’re a teaching artist, you could bundle together online courses under a holiday sale designed to help people make their own gifts!

Thinking ahead about the holiday season can help you turn plans into action items. This can also be a chance to do one last push toward your annual or quarterly income goals. If you decide to pursue a holiday-related offer in your business, I recommend reading my previous post, 3 Tips to Financially Prepare Your Small Business for the Holidays. It will give you some ideas on what kind of prep you need to do in the coming weeks.

☮

Angela

Image by Toa Heftiba 
By |2021-10-22T17:19:49-07:00October 22nd, 2021|Categories: Cash Flow, Small Business|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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3 Tips to Financially Prepare Your Small Business for the Holidays

It’s important to be proactive when it comes to the holidays. They bring a host of financial challenges and opportunities for small businesses. Let’s talk about three ways you can prep your business for the holidays, so that you’re able to have a profitable and satisfying holiday season, without stressing out.

Reflect on This Time In Past Years

Look back to your records to see what happened in your business in past holiday seasons. Which events, specials or sales, and products were the most profitable? If something didn’t go the way you planned, how can you improve on what you did the last few years? This will give you good data to help you focus your offerings this season.

If your business is relatively new, you can simply reflect on the past year and what’s been most profitable for you. Chances are you know what your best-selling products or services are. How can you make sure you have the resources to sell a lot of them? What strategies do you want to use to promote that offering during the holiday season?

Having access to clear financial records is extremely helpful when you’re doing business planning like this.

Plan Sales and Specials

Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are coming up soon, as well as a host of other times when businesses typically offer sales or specials with their products. Consider whether you’d like to participate in these dates, and how your business is best suited to do that. Perhaps you can focus on promoting packages to up the dollar amount spent by each customer, or offer a deal on your bestselling offering.

Alternatively, you may decide not to participate in these dates, or to do so in a different way. Some small business owners choose not to take part in these events, because it doesn’t feel right to them, or because they choose to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. Even some larger businesses opt out, or take a different path. Deciem, a large skincare brand, holds an annual sale for the entire month of November, to discourage “hyper-consumerism.”

The choice is ultimately yours. Whatever sales schedule you decide to follow, you will also want to take into account your production timeline. Right about now is when many product-based businesses start beefing up their inventories. Here’s an article I wrote for product-based businesses on how to financially survive this process.

If you’re a service-based business or selling digital products, there may still be some considerations for you around your schedule during the holidays. If you’re providing 1-to-1 services, for example, how will your availability change during the holiday season? How can you allocate your resources to ensure you’re able to deliver and make a profit?

Prep for Events

You’ve likely signed up for whatever craft shows, expos, or web events you’ll be participating in during the holidays (or maybe you haven’t yet and now is a good time to think about that!). Now is the time to think strategically about what you can do to get the most out of these events. I wrote an article on upping your profit during holiday events which you can read here.

If this post was helpful for you, you might like checking out my free eBook, The Cash Flow Reboot Guide. This 9-page resource can help you brainstorm to get prepped for a profitable holiday season. Download it for free here.

☮

Angela

Photo by Kira auf der Heide

By |2021-10-15T11:43:38-07:00October 15th, 2021|Categories: Cash Flow, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Prepare Your Business for a Fulfilling Last Quarter

Preparing your business for the final quarter of the year is crucial to both business profits, and your own personal fulfillment. It’s easy to get caught in the holiday rush. Instead, set aside some time to be more intentional. Think about how you want the next three months to go.

Today, let’s talk about a couple different exercises you can use to reflect on your year so far and plan for the time ahead. If you’re feeling ready for a fully fleshed-out review process, you can also check out my article on doing a business check-in.

Reflect and Celebrate the Past 9 Months

Take some time to acknowledge how far you’ve come in the last nine months. If you set yearly goals, check in with the progress you’ve made. Then take a look at all the other things that came your way this year. Even the most focused of us get sidetracked by one thing or another. Running a small business involves a lot of surprises and opportunities. What did you do this year that was unexpected? What are you glad you had the chance to do or participate in? 

Take stock of all the progress and change from this year. If it doesn’t feel like much, compare where you are now to this time last year. Celebrate and congratulate yourself. If you have a profit account, distribute your profits and reward yourself. 

Review and Tweak Your Goals

Now, take another look at any goals you’ve set. Ask yourself a couple questions about them:

  • Do you need to tweak them or change them to make them more realistic?
  • Do they still resonate with you?
  • How can you reach out for support with meeting these goals? 

Factor in the holidays and make sure you’re giving yourself the time and space you need for other parts of your life as well. Any income goals you’re working toward should be based on your actual lifestyle needs, not just numbers that sound nice.

Backwards Timeline

Once you’ve got your goals in place, it’s time to make a plan to reach them over the next three months. One technique I love for charting a path toward goals is called backwards timelining. Essentially, this means is planning backwards from the point in time when you want to have achieved the goal. Make a plan for each goal, divide the plans up into baby steps, and map them out over time.

In this case, you would plan backwards from December. I highly recommend that you also plan to take some time off for the winter holidays, so factor that into your plan! If you don’t want to be working up until the 31st, start your timeline at Friday December 17th, or a similarly spacious date.

Along with considerations for what will likely be a busy holiday season in your already full life, it’s important to keep your time optimism in check. “Time optimism” refers to a person’s tendency to overestimate how quickly they’ll be able to get a specific task done. Especially if your plan to reach a goal requires doing tasks you’re less familiar with, it’s important to ward against time optimism. You’re likely unsure how long those unfamiliar tasks may take to complete. A simple technique to give yourself ample time to complete a task is to simply double the amount of time you think you’ll need.

If you enjoyed this resource on preparing your business for the last quarter of the year, you’ll probably also like reading The Cash Flow Reboot Guide, my free eBook on adapting your business to changing financial circumstances. It’s 9 pages and full of quick tips and ideas to help you plan out a stellar last quarter of 2021. Download it for free here.

☮

Angela

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

By |2021-10-08T11:29:12-07:00October 8th, 2021|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Are You Really Getting the Most From Craft Shows?

Are Craft Fairs Worth It?: At Peace With Money

Craft fair season is on the horizon, and its important to make sure you’re aware of the financial implications of every show you attend. Certainly you want to calculate the cost of the craft show itself and how much you are selling, but that’s really just the beginning. Craft shows are a way to be face to face with your customers, which opens up a world of potential marketing, networking, and connection opportunities. Every element of your craft fair presence should be planned with the intention of getting the most business, exposure, and presence you possibly can. After all, you paid to be there – you might as well milk it! 

Imagine the Possibilities

Begin to think about how you can use the even to your fullest advantage. Consider how you’re using the show from an advertising perspective. Are you advertising it ahead of time so that your fans come to see you? Once you’re at the craft show, are you using it as the advertising opportunity that it is? Are you collecting names for your mailing list ? Are you advertising your other upcoming events so customers and potential customers know where they can see you next? Are you letting them know how to buy from you online or at local shops? All of these pieces of information are important to convey to anyone who visits your booth. Think about the most clear, effective, and inviting ways you can disseminate this information. Maybe your need to tweak your display or create a small colorful flyer. Find a creative solution and make it happen.

Craft shows are also a time to be present with your customers, a rare experience these days. People often shop at craft fairs specifically to support local economies and meet makers face to face, so make sure you are giving people the experience they’re looking for. Be friendly, personable, and connect people. Use this in-person opportunity to its fullest extent. Perhaps you want to demonstrate how your handmade items are made – people love watching live demonstrations and learning more about a maker’s process. Tell the story behind your craft.

Get the Most From Craft Shows: At Peace With MoneyEspecially if you are seeing return customers, ask for feedback on your work. Ask customers if there’s anything they wish you made. If you really want to have fun, maybe set up a poll or other interactive station where people can offer feedback or vote for their favorite product. Simply connecting with other people who live near you by talking about community happenings can make the difference! Craft shows are a great opportunity to really touch base with your customers and get to know them better in order to understand how you can deliver your product to them. The craft show is about connecting as well as making a profit, and those connections eventually pay off. Being friendly throughout the day will also likely improve your experience of the event, and your day to day life in your community. 

I hope these tips will help you come up with more ways to get the most out of the craft fairs you attend this year. If you are interested in chatting about more creative ideas for promoting your business at craft fairs, don’t be afraid to shoot me a message! And of course, you can schedule a time to talk with me or check out the packages I offer if you feel you need more guidance. 

☮

Angela

Image Sources: ,  Miroslava

By |2018-11-08T19:31:29-08:00November 7th, 2018|Categories: Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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How to Financially Survive Holiday Inventory Prep

Inventory and Cashflow During the Holidays: At Peace With Money

The holiday season is fast approaching, with Halloween on the way this week. With this season comes the time forstocking up your inventory. You want to make sure you have plenty of product available for when shopping season begins! The challenge of this time of year is that you want to build up your inventory while still having cashflow. That is, manage your financial responsibilities while increasing your spending on supplies. This can be a difficult balancing act for solopreneurs, so I’ve made a quick list of tips to get you through your holiday prep safe and financially sound!

Holiday Inventory Prep Tips

  • If you’re taking orders, consider securing a deposit from your customer so you can pay for the supplies before production.

 

  • Buy wholesale! Make sure you’re not paying sales tax for materials your plan to resell. This will likely require that you obtain a resellers permit for your state, so be sure to check. Negotiate the best terms with your suppliers. Can you get a discount for buying in bulk?  Will they give you net 30 or even net 60 payment terms, meaning you can receive the items now but not have to pay for them until later? If you find yourself feeling nervous about asking these things of your suppliers, please check out my article on rejection therapy for a little inspiration, then pick up the phone and stick up for your business!
  • Increase the dollar amount of each sale. For example, when I ran my jewelry business, I was able to do this by selling sets of jewelry. I would sell a pendant combined with a pair of earrings, making it easier for customers to make the decision to spend more money at my business. Even though I gave a small discount, I still increased my sales, and my profit!

Manage Cashflow and Inventory: At Peace With Money

  • Do you know your best-selling item? Make sure you have plenty on hand for the holidays! This will increase profits come shopping time.
  • When it’s all over, use a portion of your profit account to celebrate. You’ve worked hard during the holiday season. Make sure you reward yourself. To learn more about a profit account, I recommend downloading the first 5 chapters of the Profit First book on my website.

If you have more questions about balancing inventory and cashflow, don’t hesitate to schedule a discovery call with me! 

If you want to read more about the issues of inventory vs. cash flow, I recommend checking out my articles “Why Selling More Doesn’t Mean Making More” and “The Stages of Financially Growing a Business.”

☮

Angela

 

Image Sources: Drew Beamer , Annie Spratt

By |2018-11-08T19:41:37-08:00October 30th, 2018|Categories: Cash Flow, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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