For any business that deals with travel, hospitality and out door activities, summer may be the busiest time of the year. For the rest of us, summer is the time where innovation, strategy and planning are the most important actions to prepare for the holiday season.
This is where most of us sit back and ask ourselves or maybe even our business partners… What next?
Instead of just thinking about this as a down time and hitting the beach, now is the time to buckle down even more to make summer as successful a season as any other:
1. Make a splash on social media. You've been meaning to learn how to use one of the many social-media sites — such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter — for your business, but you've just been too busy.
2. Network like crazy. All those backyard barbecues, softball games, and pool parties you get invited to are potential networking events, especially when they involve more than immediate family and friends. If you're not getting many invitations, check out what's going on in your community. Be sure to bring your business cards, mingle, and have a good elevator pitch ready so people you meet can easily remember what you do.
3. Update — or launch — your website. Summer is a good time to give your website a facelift. It doesn't have to be extensive, but make sure you have all the newest — and correct — information. Perhaps you want to add some e-commerce functionality, so customers can buy directly from you. And check to see that it looks good on mobile devices, too.
4. Turn those business cards into gold. Yes, I know they take time to enter into a database. But, hey, it's summer. It's the perfect opportunity to get all these contacts into something like Salesforce or PipelineDeals. At least enter their contact info into your digital address book in Microsoft Outlook or Gmail.
5. Start a simple e-mail newsletter. They're easy to create and manage, and they keep your name as well as any specials or news in front of prospects and customers. Once you have names in a database orMicrosoft Excel file, it's easy to import them into a simple newsletter program.
6. Tackle a project. You may have some new products or services in mind to develop, a new marketing campaign, organizing inventory, or cleaning out a back room to turn into an office.
Just remember that summer time is the best time to tackle any of these tasks as well as get some much needed R & R so the holidays don't kill what's left of your drive.
What are your main goals to tackle over the slower summer season?
Image Source: Clive Darra on Flickr
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