I was reading an article about the holiday selling season and was surprised to find how universal many of the tips were, whether you are selling shoes, banking services, or food. I decided to list a few key points regarding the things to do when planning for the holiday season.

    1. Target the right buyers with the right product, at the right time. Stay away from using the same tired promotion again and again. This may mean finding out how many people bought a specific type of product last year and offering a promotion to increase anticipated sales of this product. You may also consider becoming more involved in the community that you sell to, in order to connect with your customers.

    2. Differentiate yourself from your competitors. What makes you and your services superior to your competition? There are many different tactics that can set you apart from the competition at any given time, but try to concentrate on long-term differentiation of your product or services. Basically, you will need to remain active in building the community that you have become involved with selling your product and services to. By differentiating yourself in this way, you would be active in charitable causes, community events, discussions, and newsletters that pertain to your area of service. By showing that you are an integral part of the community, you will inherently become the default place to go for you services and products.

    3. Consider expanding your sales channels. Use various way to allow customers to purchase from you. Since customers will often be comparison shopping, it is vital that you increase your presence to compete with the market and to also put yourself in front of the customer at every chance that you get. You will also need to maintain consistency in you marketing presence in order that you will build more customer confidence in your company being the one that they need.

    4. Maintain a high level of customer service. Customer satisfaction has a definite impact over time and is very crucial to future business. Try to keep up with the holiday rush and also do not over-promise on what you can deliver. If a customer has a bad experience along any part of the sales process, this will often be translated into a loss of future business transactions, while a good experience might lead to an increase in sales.

I hope that some of these ideas can help you to be better prepared for the holiday season. The main focus of most of your transactions should be on customer service so, just try to remember to smile and make the customers, not the products, central to your business.

Tim Parli is a graphic designer at Splattered Ink.