Coach's CornerTips & Tricks

Pro Tips for Holiday Shopping & Growing Your Business this Season

4 Mins read

Last week the Coaching Team held a Holiday inspired office hours to chat about how to leverage the holiday season for success. It was filled with many great ideas and suggestions, so we are sharing a few highlights from the event!

Our most popular topic was focused on grocery orders during current events. As most of us are beginning to see, we are facing shortages this holiday season, so how does that affect us as business owners, and what steps should we take to keep clients happy, and avoid frustration?

  • Advertise early

When advertising we recommend starting now if you have not already. We definitely don’t want you to miss out on the potential of growing your business during what will be one of the heaviest delivery seasons we have ever seen.

  • Start shopping earlier

As we get closer to the holiday’s, shelves will continue to empty. Advise your client to order non-perishables for holiday shopping as soon as possible.

  • Speak with your clients about any scheduling changes

To avoid any type of miscommunication, mishap, or frustration, make it a point to let your clients know what your schedule will look like. If you have regular clients that order on specific days they may need to get their order in sooner.

  • Set clear expectations with your clients about potential shortages

As we saw last year if a client is not in the stores often bare shelves may not be something that they are used to seeing, keeping them up to date on what you are seeing or just letting them know in general helps them understand the challenges that you are facing before the order is ever placed.

  • Review potential price increases

A new challenge we are facing are increased grocery costs. We know that estimates within the dumpling app are estimates, but now is a good time to reiterate to clients that they will potentially see a higher than normal total once the order has been completed.

  • Help where you can and go the extra mile

Take some time for budget conscious clients to research which stores in your area have “turkey deals” to help with the increased cost this year. For example, Winco typically does a free turkey with a $100 purchase. Calling around for your clients is a great way to go the extra mile!

Pro Tip!

Only 22% of shoppers polled in 2020 waited until after Thanksgiving to begin gift shopping – Starting conversations with your clients now may get them thinking about what to put in their next order. You can ask your clients about their kids’ ages/ preferences to “keep an eye out” for deals (and as a bonus you can offer to hang on to any purchases from those orders and work out delivering them when the kids are not present!). 

Expand your service offerings this holiday season

There are many ways to advertise your business however, holidays give us an extra set of tools that we can use to our advantage when trying to reach new clients or keep the ones you already have excited about your business. Let’s face it, people are busy, tired, and forgetful during the holiday season. So the key here is how do we make things just a little easier, and how do we get our business front and center as a solution?

Offer up services that are outside of your norm

Offer gift wrapping for your clients, and offer to help Santa out by delivering some goodies to family and friends, or coworkers in the area. Maybe you’re willing to run things to the post office, or stand in line for holiday deals. Possibilities are endless, find your niche! 

Pro tip: You can use the adjustment tool within the order on the Boss app to charge for these other services, as long as your fees are within your allotted adjustment amount.  You must make sure your client is aware of, and agrees to your fee structure for your additional services before adding them on to the order.

Make it a point to show your support for small local businesses

Share images of gift ideas from those businesses directly to your facebook business page. You can use this promotion to help introduce your small business to other small businesses – and even to remind your customers that supporting you is shopping small!

Give cards and/or small gifts

  • Who doesn’t love getting a gift? It’s definitely that time of year and clients love knowing that their support is more than just swapping goods and services. A small gift or card can make a huge impact. These can range from you purchasing items or hand making them. (We advise against home baked goods this year.) 

Here are some ideas to get you started.

  • Turn a simple recipe card into a gift your client can use for the holiday and pass on. Special to you recipe on one side, and thank you note on the other.
  • Take the recipe card idea to new heights and purchase some or all of the ingredients to gift with the card and the next order.
  • Handmade or purchased holiday cards. Personalize them with a special thank you note.
  • Some other small gift ideas we heard from other business owners were, candles, warm drink mixes, activity kits to do with the kids over winter break.

Promote your holiday services

Simple graphics on your social media, in a direct message to clients, or even on a flyer at one of their orders are a great way to do this!  

Pro tip: When creating graphics remember to keep it simple – Less is more! Use clean fonts and colors that are easy to read. Remember to include important info such as your dumpling URL and phone number.

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