As a business coach, December and January are months when I help lots of business people with their stress management. The festive season comes round every year without fail yet many small businesses seem to be surprised by it every year.

Following a particularly bad time when he not only under-stocked his inventory and lost sales but also failed to relax for Christmas Day, one of my clients created this festive checklist to ensure that he could enjoy all his future holiday breaks properly.

Set yourself a goal of planning ahead

• Predict your expected demand levels from what happened during the last festive sales season.
• Hire temps to meet seasonal demand without adding to your long-term costs.
• Plan your cash flow through the holiday period and organise stand-by funding to boost your working capital in case your sales peak.
• Send greetings cards to your best customers, remind them what you offer, and tell them your closure times.
• Ask your suppliers which days they close and their arrangements for late deliveries.
• Check how the late supply deliveries might impacts the service you offer your own customers.
• Find out the arrangements for postal collections and for banking before the holiday and into the New Year.

Ensure that you can deliver your promises

• Check your stock levels, note which is stock seasonal and would have to be sold cheap if you over-stock.
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