While the approaching holiday season has great potential for increased revenues for businesses in all industries sometimes the biggest challenge isn't capturing a share of the shopping frenzy but keeping your operations running so that you can take advantage of it.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners should absolutely allow themselves sometime to enjoy the freedom that running their own enterprises should offer but sadly many simply aren't set up to keep operations rolling unless they are constantly in the loop. If you can relate to this and as much as you would like to head of for some skiing or just take a couple days of quality time with the family you just can't bear to tear yourself away due to the fear things will fall apart perhaps a restructure is in order. Maybe one of your top priorities between now and the New Year should be to get with a great coach and assess how you can reorganize so that this time next year you can be confident in your business running smoothly while you jet off for a month of well deserved rest and relaxation.
In the meantime look at some of the tools which you can implement immediately in order to realize more freedom and enhance your operations. This includes things like toll free numbers which can not only help your organization stand out from the competition during this critical time but which can be used for ensuring seamless communications no matter what the season throws at you. Using the latest call forwarding and routing options you can stay connected wherever you travel without missing a beat and be prepared to switch incoming calls to new phone agents at a moment's notice so there is never a risk of downtime.
If you haven't begun outsourcing yet then this is the perfect opportunity. Experiment with a virtual assistant to help you get more down and to cover for you while you are taking a few hours off. Then keep a few remote workers on call to pick up the slack if you are over whelmed with orders or another staff member falls sick. Note this is also a great way to keep operations rolling when team members request time off for the holidays without having to be the ogre and deny them or let things grind to a halt.
Finally, don't forget to make your team feel appreciated and valued during the holidays it will go a long way to keeping up productivity this year and keeping them around until next year despite attempts by your competitors to lure them away.
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