Raise your hand if this sounds familiar:
“It’s Black Friday today! There’s no point in looking for new clients until the New Year.”
It’s often tempting to think that December is a dead month, that there’s no point in pitching your ideal clients because they’re going to be on vacation/ wrapping up work before going on vacation/ planning to deal with their employees’ vacation schedules/ just goofing off in the office because December’s a write-off anyhow, right?
But smart entrepreneurs know that the key to starting January off right is working like crazy in December, which is why your ideal clients will still be in the office while others are taking time off to drink hot chocolate and go snowshoeing.
In other words: The December Slump is a myth.
So how do you keep your sales up all through December so you can start January off with a bang? Here are a few strategies you can use to have yourself a merry little Christmas work season and be ho-ho-ho-ing all the way to the bank.
Send Past Clients a Season’s Greetings
The holidays are a great excuse to reach out to past clients and remind them that you exist.
While it’s very possible that past clients won’t have anything for you until the New Year, it never hurts to check in – and a friendly holiday greeting is your opportunity to review projects that are in progress, elaborate on potential new projects you’ve been talking about, and even pitch ideas for new projects to tackle.
You can also use the holidays as a reason to get back in touch with clients you worked with a while ago but who may have fallen off your radar. These clients may very well have new projects for you to tackle, but haven’t had the opportunity to reach out yet. Make it easy for them with a friendly seasonal email and you may be surprised at what turns up.
Run a Holiday Sale and Promote it to Your Network
Got a cool program, info-product, workshop, or membership site to advertise? Great! Use that.
The holidays are a great opportunity to tailor your offerings for your audience’s immediate needs. Whether it’s a gift for that one person that’s impossible to buy for, a mentoring call that will help them start the New Year off right, or a skills workshop perfectly timed for one of their off days during the holiday period, there’s no shortage of ways you can give your audience something useful and timely that they’ll jump all over. And by leveraging your existing network, you’ll have an easy way to reach out to your audience without working like crazy during the holiday season.
Keep Pitching All the Way Up to Christmas Day and Beyond
“But none of my ideal clients will be in the office!”
Hogwash.
The CEO is a different breed. They’re always looking for the next advantage, always working to make their company more successful. That means they will always need talented freelancers, startups, and remote workers to provide them with solutions to their problems and make their lives easier – yes, even on Christmas Day.
Plus, the great thing about pitching on Christmas…is that none of your competitors are doing it. That means you’ll stand out and will be more likely to get a CEO on the phone. And even if you don’t land any sales immediately, even if the people you’re pitching are on vacation, you’ll be top-of-mind when they get back into the office and start planning out projects for the coming year.
The December Slump is a common challenge that startups and freelancers alike often encounter. But just because it’s the holidays, that doesn’t mean you have to run out of work. With the right strategies and a bit of initiative, you can land projects for 2018 and start the New Year off with work on your plate. Better to be looking at work than to be looking for it.
