How to Plan a Profitable Small Business Christmas

Prairie Advocate News

If you don't see the heading at the top, please go to http://www.adobe.com to get the Flash Browser plug-in.

Please Don't Quote Me HIstory of Lanark, Shannon, Milledgeville, Mount Carroll, Chadwick, Milledgeville, Savanna, Thomson, Fulton, Pearl City, Morrison, Freeport, Sterling, Illinois

"Cranberry, or bearberry (because bears use much to feed upon them), is a small, trayling plant that grows in salt marshes that are overgrown with moss. The tender branches, which are reddish, run out in great length lying flat on the ground ... The leaves are like box, but greener thick and glistening. The blossoms are very like the flowers of our English night-shade; after which succeed the berries, hanging by long, small foot-stalks no bigger than a hair. At first they are of a pale-yellow colour; afterward red and as big as a cherry ... Of a sower, astringent taste. They are excellent against the scurvy. They are good to allay the fervour of hot diseases. The Indians and English use them much, boyling them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat; and it is a delicate sauce especially with roasted mutton."

John Josselyn -"New England's Rarities Discovered," 1672.

Click on the Flag for More Information

5mb download
FREE

By Tom Kocal

It's that time of year again. Time to get ready for a great holiday season. How do I know it will be great? Because I, not the consumer, or the economy or the media, determine the kind of Christmas sales figures I want to achieve.

Buying a little more stock, being open a little later, spending a little more on advertising and crossing my fingers is a mistake. I want to be in more control of my business, so I decided to give some thought to that and how we can all make this a great holiday season for our bottom-line.

Define what a profitable season is for you. Is it 10% over normal sales figures? 20%, 50%? By knowing how much business you would like, you can make a plan.

Let's Look At Christmas Past

What were your sales last year? Which days were your best days? Start keeping track of them this year if you don't know those figures. How many weekends did you have last year? For example, this year there are 27 shopping days from the day after Thanksgivings until Christmas Eve and only four Fridays. In 2007, there were five Fridays because of the leap year, which added three more shopping days' profits to your coffers.

Here are five suggestions for the next six weeks to help bring in more holiday business.

1. Pay attention to TV and discount stores. Wal-Mart and others are already starting to stock holiday fare. Look at what they are buying. You don't want the same things in your business at higher prices. Stock some similar items that are better quality and more profitable. You're not a discount store the rest of the year; don't act like one at Christmas.

2. Start training your employees now, not later. Get them acquainted with the products you are bringing in. What are the benefits of each item? They not only need to know those things but what items can be packaged together. You should never sell a suit without socks, shirts, ties, tie tacks, shoes, etc.

3. Start planting subtle seeds now that will grow into profits later. Create displays of potential gift items in conspicuous places in your store. Don't use blatant signage that the holidays are coming, just let customers subconsciously file these ideas away for later.

4. Create shopping lists for your customers in categories. For example, "Gifts for Dad $10-$50." Who would buy their Dad a $10.00 gift? Most shoppers will want to see all the items on your suggested list and probably buy something middle to higher value. Remember the hardest part of Christmas shopping is coming up with what to buy for each person on his or her list.

With the tight economy, customers may appreciate suggestions for commonly used merchandise or services like food, oil changes, car washes, and hair cuts. Suggestions for clever ways of giving the gift make them more enticing.

Having a list makes it easy for them to shop in your store. Advertise your list in Carroll County's Prairie Advocate News (PA) so people can cut them out and bring them in. Make sure all employees know each item on each list verbatim.

You can put an item from each list in successive weeks of the PA's "Christmas Catalogue" to entice them. This reaches not only all 12,300 homes and businesses in the PA's distribution area, but also all of our readers on-line at www.PACC-news.com! (See page 28 for great local values!)

5. Don't forget about co-op advertising from your suppliers. Start asking now so you can get ads designed and approved before you have to run them. Also ask sales reps about in-store demonstrations of products and service they offer. Most are on commission and the more you sell the better it is for them so make them work a little.

As you can see there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to holiday success. But I think that you will have to agree that you have more control than you think about the profits that are possible with the right planning and knowledge.

Here's to a happy holiday, not just for you, but your customers as well.

Tom Kocal is the president of Acres of Sky Communications, Inc., publishers of Carroll County's Prairie Advocate News, and developers of www.PACC-news.com. He is a member of the Carroll County Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors, a member of several local Chambers of Commerce, and president of the Lanark Cornerstone Project. He may be reached at 815-493-2560.