It’s not time to slow down for the holidays; not quite yet. It’s time to tie up loose ends and start planning for 2012. It can be a tricky balancing act here in the U.S. as Thanksgiving approaches and then the inevitable onslaught of holiday parties to attend in December starts up.
Take a different approach
Start by looking for last minute opportunities. Just by doing a bit of digging, we found a pool of opportunity containing several tens of thousands of dollars that could be turned into sales before the year ends. These are multiple opportunities that were already sitting on my desk, but I’ve just been tied up with traveling and creating content to support multiple product launches the last few months. Now I’ll stay close to the desk and work with what is already there.
It’s a good time of year to catch people at their desks; so email, postal mail and phone calls can all be effective this time of year. Perhaps you could develop a campaign to reach out to your best prospects with all three over the next six weeks until Christmas is upon us. These folks may even have money left in their budgets that must be spent of turned back over to the corporate treasury. You’ll certainly never know if you don’t reach out and ask.
Wrap your projects up
It’s time to finish this year’s projects and move on to next year. In a couple of cases, this means mothballing a project for now. That doesn’t mean we’ll never look at the project again; but we will get it out of our way as we close this year out and plan for a fast start in 2012.
Evaluate and start anew
It’s time to take look back at the 2011 plan. I’ll give some thought to how well-focused I stayed on my three words. Then I’ll start thinking about what my three words should be in 2012 and how that will look in a drawing like the one I did for 2011. Sometime between Christmas and New Year’s that will all come together; but it will work better if the thinking starts now.
Closing strong this year and starting fast next year are on my agenda. What’s your plan?
I really need to repeat my three words next year.. Since it was a terrible year. Even worst than 2008 and 2009 business wise for me.
I am trying to give it my best and I have no choice but to work the hardest these last two months.