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Countdown to the Holidays:

Lower Your Anxiety
and Increase Your Profits

by Flora M. Brown, Ph.D.

As you move into high gear for the upcoming holidays you may be feeling excitement or anxiety. You may even feel a little scared.

By now you may have gotten so many orders that you wonder if you’ll be able to get them all done in time. Or you may not have gotten any orders and are having that sinking feeling that you’ll be left with cases of gingerbread cookies or cheese shaped like snowmen.

No matter where you fit within these two scenarios, there are a number of tips that can help you get through this season.

1. If you don’t have the orders you had hoped for, get busy. Call your old customers, visit the business offices in your community, contact friends and relations who work in corporate environments. What about all the services you use: cleaners, beauty shop, fitness center, church, and so on. Some companies wait until the last minute to decide on their gifts for the holidays.

2. If you’re still buying inventory, order holiday-specific products very sparingly so you don’t get stuck with them in the new year.

3. Use as many local or nearby sources as possible. Paying high shipping fees to rush an order, or biting your nails while you hope that a shipment arrives in time all add to your anxiety.

4. Use your green packaging and holiday-specific products first. The leftover red non-holiday packaging can be used for Valentine orders.

5. For last minute out-of-town orders consider referring clients to a designer in the delivery area. To learn where some of these are located, check www.yellowpages.com

6. Be ready to put together low-cost gifts on short notice rather than always trying to create full-blown gift baskets.

• stack items and shrinkwrap them
• use a gable box or cub bag rather than a basket

7. Look for local sources of packaging materials from a national chain such as www.uline.com

8. Buy extra cellophane, shrinkbags, glue sticks, a glue gun and heat gun. These are the things that tend to go out unexpectedly, and always in the middle of the night.

9. Begin to plan Valentine designs as you finish your holiday designs. Your promotional material and ads should go out at the beginning of the new year.

10. Make time to be with your friends and family during the holidays. Don't slip into letting your business rob you of energy and time. This way you’ll be able to really enjoy your profits.

Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus at Fullerton College, educational consultant, gift basket expert, writer and professional motivational speaker. From her websites, blogs and newsletters she motivates small business owners and gift retailers with sales-generating ideas, marketing tips, design ideas and business success strategies. She is mother of four and grandmother of three. When she's not traveling she enjoys her home in Anaheim, CA.