“I just checked my account balance at the ATM. It printed me a coupon for ramen noodles.”
-- Financial Wisdom From Pinterest
So you survived the holiday madness and the New Year rolls around...now what? Habib and Tracey talk about how to manage the challenges of the holiday cash flow hangover, how to handle your gift certificate services and offer some tough love strategies on what to do during your down time.
Here it is, a 5 Point Post Holiday Lull Check List to set you off on the right path to abundance.
THE POST HOLIDAY GAME PLAN
We hope that you saw an uptick in clients. We hope you were booked solid and kept special hours to keep up with demand. We hope you are now taking a moment to catch your breath, to put your head on straight, to take stock of all your business highs/lows and most importantly to reset. We’re proud of you and your journey so far. Write down your goals for where you the journey to take you next. Now is the time to revisit your vision because a vision without action is just a fantasy. You want to be the person sitting pretty with balanced books come January.
A SLOW DRIP
The Post Holiday Lull is at your doorstep and it’s funny how it always comes as a shock to the system. The income boom you imagined would last forever is now a slow drip. How hard it hits your bank account is completely up to you. With some planning, it won’t wreak that much havoc. Making money during the holidays is like getting two paychecks in one week. Please don’t spend it all in one place and pace yourself. Make it a fun game to be disciplined and budget. Create a spending plan. Look at how much you brought in and how much you have in the bank today. Set out to get a clear view of all your expenses and what the minimum amount of money you need to be you and operate your business. Then make a clear list of your “basic needs” and your “wants”. It’s easy to be completely unaware of these figures.
Try something new for the month of January, a spending detox. Live like you already have everything you need. Take care of your basic needs firsts. Apply a little delayed gratification and save for your wants. Take a picture of what you want, start a Pinterest board, save it on Instagram and come back to it later. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between a picture and reality. This method of slow spending will help you get through the first few weeks of the client deep freeze.
A GRATITUDE LIST
Accept that the Post Holiday Lull is a time to be low key and low maintenance. Gratitude is something completely free and can help with the spending detox. Keeping a daily short list of three things you are grateful for, helps keep the impulse to splurge at bay. You’ll be surprised that many of the things you are grateful for don’t come with a price tag.
HAPPINESS IS THE TRUTH
The holidays brought with it many new clients. Your goal is to keep all of them as regulars. The reality is you maybe get to keep half. Business always reveals the truth. If your business is not doing well, don’t point the finger at external circumstances. Take a hard look in the mirror and take small actions each day to improve upon the business. There is no other magic to it. Plan. Budget. Discipline. Spend less than you make.
HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
With all things in your business, be honest and realistic. Don’t be greedy. If you took someone’s money for Holiday Gift Certificates/Gift Cards; be prepared for when they get cashed in. If you are already fully booked, do not sell services you cannot provide. If you’re transparent with your money dealings, it might be best to start an envelope or a separate business bank account for all the Holiday Gift Certificates/Gift Cards income. When one of these clients come in, pay yourself from that account. Respect these clients the same way you would the clients that pay you in full at the end of their services. Don’t make it impossible for them to get an appointment. About half of the people that receive a gift card actually redeem it, yay! So at the end of the year, see what’s left in the account. Keep it in the bank and come up with interesting ways to put it back into growing the business.
Spread the love and expenses out over the entire year instead of taking the massive hit at the end of the December. Make January a no spend month. Keep expenses down to the bare essentials.Cultivate these financial habits well before the next holiday season hits and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to be sitting out the Post Holiday Lull on something like much deserved prepaid vacation or a mini mountain made of cash.
**This is an adaption from our YN Biz Talk playlist on YouTube, “POST HOLIDAY LULL”.
Follow our YN YouTube Channel and click here to watch the full discussion here:
06 January 2020