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Want to know the Q4 planning tips every small business owner should know? Quarterly planning can make a huge difference in business and so it is something I highly recommend doing. However, planning for Q4 isn’t exactly the same as planning for Q1, Q2 or Q3. There are differences and paying attention to those differences will help you put together a better Q4 plan and have a more successful quarter. Keep on reading to find out the Q4 planning tips every small business owner should know.
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Q4 PLANNING TIPS EVERY SMALL BUSINESS OWNER SHOULD KNOW
Start sooner than October
When I’m talking about the fourth quarter or Q4 I’m referring to the quarter than runs October to December. Now with quarterly planning some business owners will start their planning on the first week of the quarter. However, Q4 is known as The Golden Quarter. It is the quarter where a lot of businesses make proportionally more sales. So rather than making 25% of annual sales business can make 40%, 50%, 60% and more of their annual sale in Q4. You can find out more about The Golden Quarter here.
Due to how important Q4 is for sales I highly recommend that you plan for Q4 in September. This means you have the plan in place as soon as the 1st of October happens. But also it might be whilst planning you realise there are a number of things that need to be in place for you to roll out your Q4 plan and you can use September to do those things.
Review your annual goals and year so far
Q4 is the final quarter of the year and so it absolutely makes sense to look back at your annual goals and see what has been achieved and what hasn’t been achieved. This will help you when putting your quarterly goals together. Ideally, it should be that achieving your quarterly goals will help you achieve the outstanding annual goals that haven’t been achieved. However, a lot can happen in a year, which is why you should also review the year so far. Has anything happened that you didn’t even consider at the beginning of the year and that therefore has an impact on your priorities for the quarter.
Be realistic about your capacity
It’s easy when quarterly planning to sit down and think you’ve got 13 weeks or 65 working days. In most quarters that isn’t true, and that especially in Q4 due to holidays (like Christmas and Thanksgiving) you can end up having a considerably reduced amount of time at work. Not only could you be working less days, but your capacity energy-wise may be reduced. For example, it might be that you have a busier schedule personally with festivities and that impacts your energy levels.
This is why with any planning I do with business owners I always get them to plot out what is happening in their life first BEFORE we start planning for their business. This helps to highlight clashes and crunch points sooner rather than later.
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Make sure you pay attention to Black Friday
When doing any type of quarterly planning, it is important to consider what happens calendar-wise. In Q4 there are a number of seasonal events that most businesses need to pay attention to – Black Friday and Christmas. Black Friday is particularly important to pay attention to due to the marketing implications.
If you are going to take part in Black Friday that isn’t something to take lightly. You’ll want to have a marketing plan so that you can make the most of Black Friday. And if you aren’t taking part in Black Friday you’ll want to minimise or stop marketing during Black Friday, especially if you are running paid advertising. Black Friday is a very busy period for marketing and advertising. Marketing like digital advertising will cost more at this time and the reality is people are being bombarded with more marketing than usual. It very easy for businesses to get lost in all the noise and also to waste money. So if you are going to take part you want to go full-in by having a plan to follow. Or if you aren’t taking part you’ll want to avoid, as much as possible, marketing during that period of time.
Protect time for CEO work (including your next year’s annual planning)
Q4 is a very busy quarter, and if you aren’t careful, it is easy to get stuck working in your business and never make the time to work on your business. It is not uncommon for business owners to end up working flat out until some point in December, being totally worn out that they head off to their holiday exhausted and then return to their business in January with no idea of what they want to do in the year ahead.
You want to make sure in your Q4 planning that you are setting time for your CEO work. You’ll want a bit of time each week to check your quarterly plan and your monitoring metrics. You’ll also want to block out a day to put together your annual plan for the year ahead. Setting your goals and putting your annual plan together in November or December will mean you are ready to hit the ground running in January.
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Create a marketing plan
Given how important Q4 is for sales, you want to ensure that your marketing is as effective and efficient as possible, and having a written down marketing plan will help ensure that happens. As already mentioned, due to Black Friday it might be that you are doing additional marketing or that you are reducing your marketing at that time. If you are marketing B2B you might decide there is no point with a lot of marketing in December as lots of people take time off and are too busy with festivities.This timing choices can be included in your marketing plan in the marketing timeline. However, a marketing plan also allows you to get clear on these are the sales targets and this is the marketing I’ll be doing to drive those sales. You’ll know what offerings you are marketing, when and on what channels. Having this all written down not only means you can get ahead of yourself if you have the time to do so, but also means if you outsource you can have confidence in what they are doing.
That’s it. You now know the Q4 planning tips every small business owner should know.
Q4 is not a quarter to sleep on. It can make a massive difference to the annual sales of a business and ensure that your business ends the year in a great place. I hope these tips will help you to take your planning to the next level, but if you want personalised one-to-one support to put your Q4 plan together get in touch.
I offer a one-to-one quarterly planning session where I lead you through my tried-and-tested Q4 planning process so you’ll leave with a plan that easy to follow and you’ll have confidence in.
To find out more DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram saying Q4
Or you can fill in my contact form.
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