Today, I noticed my holly bush is full of red berries! (It’s late August).

Someone asked me: how soon do I start preparing for the holidays business wise?

So, I created this schedule to share, both to make me feel organized, maybe help other businesses that are new to this get their thoughts together and give a peak to customers of what goes into it all.

As soon as I get my year end numbers in May I begin to prepare for the Holidays. (We do fiscal year end on May 31.)

As a one person business (well, my husband Andrew helps), I need to be very organized about business growth. The majority of that growth will come from the urgency and excitement of the holiday season.

I set sales goals for a certain percentage of increase over the year prior and figure out how many and what kind of bracelets I will need to make. Then…

• JUNE- I go through each bracelet and determine what I need to order-how many of each little bead and charm I will need to make the number and types of bracelets to meet the planned goal. I determine which supplier will make the most sense for each item: Someplace that lets me order just what I need or someplace where I must order more or reach a high minimum order but with a lower price. Lots of math and figuring. Ugh.

• JULY- OCTOBER- I make as many bracelets as I am able to in the next few months. But often in December I am making bracelets in the morning for shipping that day.

• LATE SEPTEMBER- With the goal number of bracelets in mind, I estimate what I will need for shipping supplies through December. Jewelry boxes, organza bags, insert cards, shipping boxes, tape, labels and all the little items that go into the special “treat bag” I include in every order. Order it all in.

• OCTOBER- Stick hundreds of logo labels to the jewelry boxes and assemble hundreds of treat bags.

• LATE OCTOBER- Kick off the sales season- we heavily promote early buying with this group of Facebook ads for Opera Week. Emphasis is on the fact that this is a business with individually handmade items and waiting is not advised as we will run out of some items (no matter how much planning I do this will always happen some years Messiah is popular other years Phantom of the Opera- there is no predicting).

• EARLY NOVEMBER- Andrew will make plans for the Facebook Ads he will run. We determine what dates we will run sales for Black-Cyber Weekend, St. Nicholas Day and Green Monday

• NOVEMBER- BLACK FRIDAY- The day after I serve Thanksgiving dinner to 25 people, we leave the folding tables up in the dining room and set up a “shipping office” to process packing during the next busy crazy month.

• DECEMBER – Process orders- Be happy- monitor Facebook Ads and comments- listen to holiday music! Nutcracker score anyone?!
  
  Somebody get me a Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino!