For a lot of businesses, certain times of the year are much busier than others. Change in season can bring an eagerly awaited break to regroup, refocus and re-energize. You might even plan your vacations and family time each year around these peaks and lulls. While taking time away from your business has a ton of benefits, so does organizing and planning.
Before you go kicking your feet up with a beverage in hand set aside some time during your break to meet with your assistant to refresh your business.
Here are some things you can do to make going into the busy season easier than ever:
Clean up your computer, files, office and space. They call it spring cleaning for a reason. It should not just involve your home closets. By now you’ve made it through another year and another busy season and your desktop and files are probably exploding. Figuring out a good filing strategy and archiving unused documents can free up space and make you feel better mentally! An assistant can help with this or help to find a new system that might be more effective.
If you want to try out a new software this is the time to do it. Get the application in place, take the training, learn the ins and outs before you are too busy. Taking time with this process is important because softwares these days have a ton of functions and to get the most for your money taking the time to learn about them means you will actually end up using them. I have seen a ton of clients pay for software and only end up using one feature or sometimes they don’t use it at all because they never took the time to learn how it works and how to implement it in their current process.
In business the environment is always changing and to be successful you need to know how to pivot. That being said reviewing your strategy each slow season will allow you to keep up with the changes in the economy and trends with your clients. If you fail to reflect on what’s happening now you will get left behind. Another way to strategize is to reflect on how your last busy season went. What would you change or do differently? What worked, what sold well, how can you add on to it?
This is also a great time to look into things that you’ve been putting off like joining networking groups and business development. Your assistant can compile a list of upcoming events for your industry or even find facebook groups to join. Connect with your referral sources and see how you can support them during this time.
Lastly, hiring takes a lot of time and can feel very overwhelming when you are in the thick of the busy season. But you know having the right support can make all the difference when business picks up again. If you know you want to hire, take your time writing a well thought out job post, interviewing candidates and being prepared to have a smooth onboarding. Your assistant can help with posting the position, scheduling interviews and even pre screening candidates.
