Busy during the holidays? Check out our guide to surviving the next few months! 🎄

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What are you doing to survive this holiday season? Whether it’s your busiest time of year or your slowest, this season can be stressful for almost every business out there. With the help of Community Super Seller @pessosices, we put together this guide with tips and advice from Seller Community members so you can make the most of this magical time of year! 

See below for more on how to: 

• Manage Social Media
• Hire & Retain Employees
• Create In-Store Displays
• Audit your Inventory
• Surprise & Delight your Customers

Busy Season

If you’ll be nonstop for the next few months balancing employees, sales, inventory management, and your own holiday shopping, here are some ideas to not only get through it, but make it a fun and impactful time of year for your business.

Rebeka, B Stitches Gallery: “The best way for anyone to stay sane is to simply break your tasks down into smaller project and make a list and mark them off as you go. This helps you feel productive and keeps you from panicking.”

Manage Social Media

Social media is a great tool for small businesses, but can be hard to manage, especially when you have many other things on your plate. Here are some tips for making social media a priority without taking a ton of your time.

Post Often
Post to your social media pages often to keep your business top of mind. Consider looking into social media scheduling tools to help you keep your posts in one place and schedule them all at once.

Karla, Madison Corner Gifts: “Keep your in inventory fresh, post to your FB page often with upcoming events and sales.”

Communicate about Sales
Let your customers know about upcoming sales and events via social media and by emailing them directly.

Square Tip: Check out the video of our marketing webinar for more tips on how to engage your customers on social media. You can also try Square Marketing and Loyalty programs for free for 30 days.

Hire & Retain Employees

You need a good team of employees by your side. Read through these ideas for hiring and retaining employees, and let us know what you think.

Hire Early
Interview and hire early enough in your busy season (or before your busy season!) so that you have time to train them so that they can efficiently help customers.

Hire More
If you hire seasonal employees, make sure to account for sick days and employee time off.

Rusty, Kermit’s Super Wash: “Hire more than you need. If you need 5 [people], hire 8-10. Why? Because some will not stay/show up, and some will not work out. Be very clear on the job, requirements, time frame, and even the fact that if we don't feel you can do the job required we will let you go because we don't have time retrain you. Reward the good ones by giving them an open part-time or full-time slots or build your temp pool by giving them a higher pay rate next time. After my 15 years in retail, I didn't stress about the holidays because of this. Improves sales too.”

Keep Employees Happy
This is a busy time for your team too, so find creative ways to show them you appreciate their hard work.

Rusty, Kermit’s Super Wash: “Your employees are working hard for you. Bringing in food on the weekends when you are the busiest is a good morale booster, keeps your employees in the store.”

Square Tip: You can use Square for employee management and payroll services to keep everything in one place.

Create In-Store Displays

By crafting an exciting or festive store environment, you’ll encourage more folks to come through your door and buy your products. Read on for a couple ways you can make this happen.

Get Crafty with your Window Display
Make a holiday-themed window display to get more foot traffic. You can do it yourself, or hire a company to come and do it for you. You could even find a local artist during your off season and start talking about ideas early.

Be Strategic about Item Displays
Position your popular items so they’re easy for customers to find. Make sure similar items or complementary items are located nearby too. For example, if your have a display of champagne, make sure wine gift bags are nearby also.

Rusty, Kermit’s Super Wash: “Make sure key items are front and center and clearly marked. Put your back stock in a special area that is quick and easy to access. Walk your floor daily with your employees so they know where everything is.”

Audit your Inventory

Knowing what you have on your floor and how much of each product you expect to sell can make all the difference in meeting your goals.

Look Up Sales Data
Look at last year’s sales to make sure you have enough of your popular items on hand. Keep track of what customers are looking to buy this year to help inform next year’s planning.

Rusty, Kermit’s Super Wash: “My Employees always let me know what customers were asking for. We had a list of lost sales. Items we didn't have and they didn't want to wait for us to get back in. We tracked what we could have sold. This helps for next year’s buying.”

Square Tip: You can see all your Sales on your Dashboard to identify sales trends.

Surprise & Delight your Customers

This is something every business should be focused on - make sure your customers are top of mind in every aspect of your business.

Send Snail Mail
Find small ways to make each sale feel special for your customers. This could be as simple as a handwritten thank you note or sending out a handful of Christmas cards for your top customers.

Rusty, Kermit’s Super Wash: “[For online orders] Add a small candy cane. Have gift tag with ‘To: From:’ to place in the box with the correct names on it. Sometimes a call to the buyer to get this information correct will create a customer for life.”

Ask for Customers’ Opinions
Let your customers know you value their opinion and want to use their feedback to improve your business.

Karla, Madison Corner Gifts: “People like to be appreciated and we feel you should always show your gratitude towards customers. Ask if there is anything they would like to see in your store or ways they think you can improve - I mean our customers are what keeps us going.”

Train Employees on Customer Service
Come up with a clever way to help your employees remember that customers come first. Some employees naturally understand this, but for others, use training to make sure your message lands.

Ron, J.R.'s Fresh Cut Fries: “We always use the G.U.E.S.T. approach. G. Greet each and every customer as soon as they come up to the counter. U. Understand the customer's needs and fulfill them. E. Eye Contact, be sure to use direct eye contact with the customer. S. Suggestive Sell something that goes along with the items your customer is interested in. T. Thank each and every customer who enters your Store.”

And last but definitely not least, here’s a list of the amazing businesses included in this guide - thank you for all your wisdom and advice!

• Karla from Madison Corner Gifts - Karla sells clothing and gifts for kids and women (@KMadison)
• Rusty from Kermit’s Super Wash - Rusty manages a few car washes and has worked in retail and other industries as well (@RHatch)
• Rebeka from B Stitches Gallery - Rebeka sells crochet items and patterns (@Crazyyarnmomma)
• Bob from Van Kalker Farms - Bobby and his wife run a garden center (@VanKalkerFarms)
• Ron from J.R.'s Fresh Cut Fries - Ron runs a busy restaurant selling french fries and sandwiches (@Ron)

📝  Comment below with what you do to get through the holidays and check out our attached guide (thanks for putting it together, @pessosices!) for a condensed version of this post!