The Gift of 2015

This is the last month in the year. So much has happened and many moves have been made. Now it's time to sit back and reflect on the year.

What events were successful? Did you start a business, and what strides did you make? What were your failures? What changes are you looking to make in 2016?

In reflection, don't forget the gift that you received in 2015. Every success and failure was a gift. See each success as giving you more gumption to move forward and be creative. Take account that your failures educated you, and gave you the opportunity to explore new ways to improve yourself. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the budgets, the guest lists, the decorations, venues, and forget the lessons we learned and how we grew from amateur to professional.

Don't miss the gift in looking at how much money you made - or didn't make. Take into account each client that failed to pay, each vendor that supplied the wrong items, and each cake that was delivered to the wrong address. Take note on how each success and failure fit into what your goals were for 2015, and how they will improve 2016 or just plain need to be discarded.

The end of the year is reflection time. Look at the good and what you think was the bad. Every experience has a gift attached. All of them teach you something about yourself that you didn't know before, and opens a level of creativity that you never knew existed. So, as you celebrate your wins, don't miss the gift in it all.

Put A Lid On It

Now that Black Friday and Shop Small weekend and Cyber Monday is done, we can breathe a little bit. Well, not really. Now we have to scramble for Christmas. Biting and chewing nails to come up with some hip and catchy Christmas specials and deals, because this is the time of year that people spend money, right?

We jump on the bandwagon quickly to sell. But what kind of Pandora's box are we opening? Do we rush to push out the deals, and not focus on how to market our businesses?

It's very important that we must market our business and push the solution to what our clients really need. Am I against sales or discounts? No, but the focus shouldn't be so much on the sales and discounts, but more on marketing the business, and building the brand. Building your brand will do more to establish trust and longevity with your clients than just pushing the sale. Promote who you are and why you are in business to give your clients that comfort that regardless of what they're in need of, you are on their top list to get it.

If you run an event planning service, offer some helpful tips during the holiday season. Put a lid on it that "salesy" catering service that costs an arm and both legs to boost your commission. Just plainly appeal to the gift of empathy and sympathy to your clients. Even gift certificates are nice, but what your clients would appreciate most is that you understand what they're going through in planning a wedding or putting together a holiday shindig with the stress, budget, flowers - and let's not leave out dealing with the uncooperative staff.

I love giving gifts, but I'm learning that the best gifts to give in business are the ones that appeal to the need more than the wants. Put a lid on pushing clients to open up Pandora's box to frenzied shopping of gadgets and frills, and just simply open a gift of meeting the need.