• Super Saturday
  The Saturday before Christmas has become the biggest shopping day of the year and is perfect for those last minute shoppers.
• Black Friday
  The day after Thanksgiving Day referring to when retailers traditionally would turn a turn a profit or go "into the black".
• Cyber Monday
  A newer term referring to the Monday after Thanksgiving which is widely popular for online retailers.

Step 1: Who is your ideal client?

By asking yourself this question, you are forced to look at who you really want to attract.  You may have a certain set of clients currently, but who would you pick if you could pick anyone?  Entrepreneur has a wonderful exercise to help you find out who your ideal client really is.

Step 2: What is unique about your business?

What problem(s) do you solve for people?  Do you offer a unique brand or jeans that is hard to find, a unique blend of coffee or maybe custom made decorations?  After you have examined this you will be able to better promote your business.

Step 3: What promotion(s) would bring more people in?

Now that you know what is unique about you, you can start tossing around ideas of specials or promotions that would bring people in.  If you look at the big box stores, many of them offer a few choice items at an extremely discounted rate on a limited number of items.  Once you have people in your store you can introduce them to our more premium products... at full price! 

Step 4: Do you want to offer special hours?

Every year it seems like stores are opting to open earlier and earlier.  In recent years, stores have started their promotions on Thanksgiving which is now referenced as Grey Thursday.  This is done in big part to be the first stop on people's shopping trip.  When you are the first stop, chances are more money will be spent at your location because your customers haven't splurged at other businesses.  However, there is another group of people that opt out of these early sales and sometimes even boycott them because they want their families to be together on the holiday.  What group does your business cater to?

Step 5: Have you trained your employees on the promotion?

When groups start piling in, there isn't much time to stop and answer questions.  Have you met with your employees and gone through pricing, discounts and special upsell opportunities?  A great way to make sure they are prepared is to offer cheat sheets that they can keep with them that will answer the most frequently asked questions.

Step 6: Where will you advertise?

Earlier, you asked yourself about your ideal client.  Different prospects shop in different ways.  It is said that one of the items that influence a customer's buying habits the most is referrals.  A great way to start getting the word out about your upcoming promotion is by sharing it with your current clients.  Many people are also starting to make more of their buying decisions online.  They are starting to follow companies that they trust on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter; all of offer options for business ads that can be targeted by age, location, interests among many other demographics.  Don't forget to share the information on your website, newspaper and possibly flyers as well.

Step 7: Have you ordered supplies?

With Black Friday being the second largest shopping day, you are going to see an influx in shoppers.  Do you have enough bags, are there signs ready to be put up, do you have flyers to put with the shopping bags to encourage a return trip, is your gift card display out in a prominent place?

Step 8: Are you ready to open your doors?

You are almost ready to start your day.  Are your signs all up, marquees on, registers filled with change, receipt tape ready to go, everything in its place?  This is most likely going to be the easiest question because many of these tasks are standard day to day items, however you don't want to overlook something as simple as forgetting to have change ready when the crowds start coming in.

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If this is your first holiday season in business, it can be easy to get overwhelmed with all of the details that need to be in place.  Having worked with hundreds of thousands of businesses in our 19 years in business, we have heard a lot of tips and tricks from our clients.  Let one of our team members take some of the stress away.