It’s December… Now is NOT the time to slow down

It’s early in December and if there’s one thing that I know lots of entrepreneurs are tempted to do it’s to hold off on critical business action. This thinking usually starts around Thanksgiving (but gets worse in early December) and goes right through to the first workday in January.  Sure, you might continue through December with some of your already-scheduled appointments and deliverables but some of you might succumb to thoughts like:

• I’m not going to bid on more work because no one is making a buying decision this close to Christmas

• If half of these projects actually land on my desk, I won’t have time to put up the Christmas lights, prepare our big family holiday meal, or buy the kids presents.

• Why should I create and implement a strategy that could change in the new year?

What’s wrong with this picture?
This is hazardous thinking! December is one-twelfth of the year. That’s a lot of time that you could be building your business, generating revenue, and engaging your clients. It’s not a time to be slowing down simply because your customers might be buying less or you might be busier with holiday plans. That choice will result in waking up from your Christmas “business-hibernation” and wondering to yourself: “Uh-oh, did I just take a month off?”

So, what should you do?

Here’s what I advise:

First, continue doing what you usually do each month. Likely there is a mix of administrative work and billable work and marketing. Probably some other stuff, too, that is unique to your business or industry. Continue to do that.

Second, think about ramping it up even more. If you can do 10% or 15% more than you usually do, even better. Here are the reasons:

• If some of your customers are indeed putting off buying decisions until the new year, you will need to add new customers to replace the lost revenue

• Your business will continue on into 2010 and ignoring the marketing and lead generation work today will mean that you have a quite January… potentially ruining another twelfth of the year!

If there’s anyone out there who thinks that I could be a scrooge who is trying to ruin your Christmas, consider this: Around January 15 you’re going to get a credit card bill for your Christmas extravagance. If you slowed down a bit this month, January will be a tight month and you’ll start the year “off balance”. But if you ramp it up – even slightly – you’ll earn a steady income this month and have lots of clients in January and you won’t look back on Christmas with buyer’s remorse!

It’s a new month of opportunity. Let’s finish this year strong and create a great foundation to start next year even more successfully.

Happy Blogging!

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