Due to the natural slowdown in work with clients or prospects, this time of year provides wedding professionals with the opportunity for two wonderful activities. We can choose to either take time to relax, recover, and re-energize. Or we can take the time to work ‘on’ our businesses because we finally have the time.

We aren’t recommending one over the other. After all who doesn’t look longingly forward to spending time with our own ‘nutty aunt Mary’ for a change, rather than our clients’ nutty aunt Mary? Rather, we’re suggesting that we all make the intentional choice to do one or the other (or a combination with clear boundaries).

JUST BE INTENTIONAL

We’re all in different places – in our businesses and as business owners – so we don’t feel there’s one right answer. Nor are we in any position to offer our recommendation of which is right for you. We just encourage you to decide which you want to do and be true to your decision.

We don’t want you to be spend time with your family, but secretly thinking about your business. Or invest time attempting to move your business forward, while feeling guilty for not enjoying the holidays with your friends. Either of those would just be ‘the worst’. Either of those are a recipe for entering the upcoming season ill-prepared to win. 

ENJOY AND RE-ENERGIZE DURING THE HOLIDAYS

If you’re like most of us, you put everything you could into serving your clients and trying to ensure ‘their day’ was a special day they will truly never forget. That’s amazing and you deserve to take some time to recover and focus on the family and friends you maybe had to miss seeing on the weekends during busy season. Give yourself permission to connect, catch-up, and enjoy!

Simply make sure to communicate appropriate expectations for anyone who reaches out to your business, or attempts to connect, during the holidays. Set a clear ‘out-of-office’ message or adjust any wording on your website about expected response times. Then enjoy your time away from your business during the holidays.

TAKING THE TIME TO WORK ‘ON’ YOUR BUSINESS

This time of the year is often a great time to work on your business. Not because it’s ‘holiday season’, rather simply because it’s a slower season for working with clients. It’s an excellent time to assess your business and determine the areas that would be most valuable to invest some time improving.

Could you get better results next season if you automated some key processes, created a more robust marketing strategy, or learned how to close more sales (without feeling sales-y)? How can you decide where to invest your time?

• Access your business and your results. Take time to review how your business performed over the last year. Did you hit your goals (assuming you set them)? Did you get strong positive reviews? How about financially. Did you generate the income you hoped for? Evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Where did things not go as well as they could have?
• Determine what changes/improvements would be most valuable. Once you’ve accessed what worked well, you’re then ready to decide what changes you want to make. Maybe you have a CRM system, but you’re not using it as effectively as you could. This might improve your conversion of inquires into business. It might also reduce the amount of time it takes you to handle documents.

Or maybe you could best invest your time learning how to better handle your sales conversation. Or getting a head start on your blog posts for the 2020 season. Whatever you decide is best, set out a plan to make the necessary improvements.

• Create a plan and stay focused on it. Slow season is a time that we can be notoriously unproductive because there aren’t any of the typical deadlines. We encourage you to set a plan and hold yourself accountable to it. When the 2020 season rolls around, you’ll be glad you did!

So, however you decide to spend the holiday season, we hope you have a wonderfully rewarding time. So that you can be fully energized and prepared for a great 2020.