Every business has it, the dreaded slow month where the
phones barley ring and everyone in the office goes on vacation. Well if you are
still stuck at your desk here are a few ideas to turn your slow period into a
productive period.
Clean Up
When it is nice and slow is always a good idea to straighten
up the office. Clean off your desk of all the piles of paper, file what is important
and recycle the rest. Why should I clean my desk you say well here are some statistics
from
John
Campanelli on the matter:
·
85%
of workers believe that a clean desk says that “someone is on top of things.”
·
40%
of workers admit to “frequently” losing paperwork because of their messy desks.
·
There are
almost 21,000 bacteria per square inch on a average worker’s desk.
·
There are
more than 25,000 bacteria per square inch on a average worker’s phone.
·
Compare
that to 49 – the number of bacteria per square inch on the typical office
toilet seat.
Clean off your computer desktop. Go through all of your
emails and file the important emails and delete the rest. Go through your
office supply closet clean it up so you know what you have and what you need to
buy the next time you go to the store.
Read
Pick up that brand awareness book or the social media expert
book and read. Read articles and industry reports. If you are like me you make
a pile of to-read material. I would like to say I get to it all the time, but I
don’t. During a slow period I find when I read these documents I get inspired
to improve my business.
Need some inspiration check out the
800
CEO read list of the Business Book Bestseller List for 2012.
Review
After you get inspired by that awesome Time Management Book
review your business and see where you can implement your new knowledge. Look
for everyday tasks that could be made easier. Try to stream line processes and
reduce nonsense paper pushing. The goal here is to try and make your business
as efficient as possible while still covering all of your bases.
During this review process it is a good idea to do some research.
Take the time to research your new idea and see how it would benefit your
business. Make sure you talk with your staff about procedures before you edit
them to make sure it would truly improve their work flow.
If you think you don’t need to review your business because
it is already perfect, check out this blog from
Under30CEO.
Implement
Now that you have decided to improve your business, put your
ideas into action. If you have wanted to start a welcome campaign for all your
new customers now would be a great time to do it. Follow through with your
implementation and test out your results while it is slow. Then during a busier
period you will not be trying to learn a new thing, making it even harder to
serve your customers.
Plan Ahead
Right now if you are like,
uh I have already done all of
this stuff. Then you should start planning ahead for your busy period. Start
writing blogs for the next 3 months. Use social dashboards like
Hootsuit to plan out your social media posts
and tweets for the next month. Write free reports to give to your customers.
Refresh old letters and emails that you send to your customers.
If you have done all of this and can’t think of anything
else to do then your slow period can only end with you taking action. Hit the
cement and go get yourself some more customers and when they flock to your business
you will be organized and prepared to serve them.
What do you try to
accomplish during a slow period in your business. Try to be specific.
Its Actively Implementing Marketing Solutions 1 year Celebration!
We know we could not have done it without all of our amazing small business
owners and customers. So I just want to take this moment to say Thank You to all of the small business owners who over the
past year have worked with me to grow my business. 
