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Now that the Melbourne Cup Carnival is nearly over, you’ll find the weeks will speed by and before you know it you’ll be sitting down having Christmas Dinner. If you’re unprepared and don’t get your act together early enough, you can find that you can lose golden opportunities to increase business because you’re so stressed out trying to keep up.

Here’s 5 top tips to ensure you make the lead-up to Christmas as productive and stress free as possible:

1. Plan ahead.
Before each day gets hectic, write a list of all your business requirements to ensure smooth-sailing through this time. Some of these ‘to do’s’ will include the tips below.

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How often do you hear business owners complain that their clients are slow payers?

Before working with me, one of my clients who has a pool building business, told me that they only asked for a 10% deposit at the start of the project and then invoiced the balance at the end of it. The process of building a pool takes weeks! Save Time and Money. In the meantime her company would have to cover wages, equipment and all other costs throughout this time. What often happened at the end, the clients were slow to pay causing them even more financial stress.

How are you progressing with the goals you set yourself this year? Have you made a start and continued on until they have been achieved? Or are you still procrastinating or caught the “I’m too busy” epidemic?

Mary’s Story

When I first met Mary she told me how stressed out she was trying to juggle work and home effectively. She ran her own publishing company employing 5 people. Her business although surviving (just) could have achieved major growth except for one major factor… Mary. She was very disorganised and ran her business that way.

Are you one of those people who always turn up to an appointment on time? Or are you the opposite…always running late, flustered and making excuses as to why you’re late?

I had a recent experience where I was considering selling my house and had called a local real estate agent to provide an appraisal. Gary turned up 5 minutes late with no apology. This behaviour bugged me, especially as it was a first encounter and there was a possibility of doing business.

On a recent walk I noticed that one of our local bakeries had closed down. There was a sign in the window saying that due to the passing of the owner, the shop was closed until further notice.

I had seen the owner a few times…he seemed to always be working and his physical condition looked awful. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before something happened to him…and it did.