Make the Most of Holiday Downtime

The month of December can be a little slow.  In between those internet holiday shopping sprees, gift wrapping and daydreaming, there are a few ways to make the most of your downtime.

• Database Clean-up – If you’re not headed off for a fabulous holiday in the mountains or on a sandy beach, now is a great time to do some data clean up.Most CRM systems have deduping tools built in to find and merge one-off duplicates.  If you need a deeper, more database wide dupe clean, there are add-on products to make the task easier.  Zoho CRM has duplicate merging tools built in. For our Act! users, there is Egen Consulting Duplicate Remover Wizard. Remember, make a backup of your database before you do any clean up!
• Revisit your brand – So many customers mistake brand for marketing.  Your brand is your company personality, its image, in short your brand is how your market perceives your business.  Take the time to really see your brand. Things like – could your logo use a refresh? Is your brand voice consistent across platforms?
• Update documentation, templates & collateral – Take a look at your agreements, templates and documentation.  Update any logos or information that’s changed.  Replace references to dates that are no longer applicable.An easy refresh for the new year – take a look at your email signature.  Is it looking a little outdated?  If so, there are a ton of great template ideas out there and it’s an easy way to put a modern, professional polish to your emails.
• Take stock of your applications & subscriptions – Inventory the applications you use.  Do you have the latest versions and updates?  Should you budget for upgrades?Actually take the time to put them in a list.  Create a spreadsheet in a sharable format like Zoho Sheets or Google Sheet.  Create a columns for things like app name, version, application type, number of licenses, renewal date and cost.  If the application is subscription based, now is a good time to evaluate if you are using it.  It’s easy to lose track of how many those oh-so-easy to click and subscribe apps we have.  They add up.  If they aren’t being used, cancel them.

How do you make the most of the quieter business time?