Q4 Checklist: Insider Secrets to 10X Your Holiday Sales

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 Welcome back to another episode of the Servicepreneur Diary. And today we're going to talk about something really exciting, which is quarter four, and how you can really make this the most successful one this year for your business. Before we get into the episode, I wanted to just quickly remind you that if you are someone who wants to learn how to launch ads for quarter four or overall for your business and grow your business that way, then you need to sign up for my wait list for my group coaching program, which will be super intimate.

And it will be a really limited amount of people who can get into the group because I'm trying to give it as personalized as possible. And in that program, we will be launching ads together for your business that are going to grow your business, bring you more clients, and get you consistent clients coming in every single day for your business.

And I'm going to share. All of my tips and tricks that I've learned over these past 10 years, spending so much money on ads, working with so many different clients, and you're going to get an actual step by step instruction without no fluff. Like we are literally focusing on launching ads and how you can maintain them.

with as little effort as possible while you're running your business. So if that's something that you're interested in, then go to www. signasim. com slash waitlist and sign up today because the coaching program will be launching soon.

But let's get into today's episode   📍 📍  

All right, let's talk about Q4. This is almost like a Christmas party or a birthday party for business owners because they prepare, some businesses literally prepare a whole year. For this time, because that's when they make the most amount of money. Some businesses make 70 percent of their revenue in that last three months of the year.

Some make less, but everyone can agree that a lot of businesses make a lot of money during that time. And that's because people are buying in that time. . All of your clients are out there looking to buy. They've been brainwashed so much already that they, they just can't wait to pull out their wallet and buy and book and purchase services, products, whatever they've been waiting for to buy.

And in today's episode, I really want to cover on what you should prepare To be ready 4Q4, to succeed in it, to have the best one yet because I've now prepared so many promotions during this period and it's one of the busiest times for me, my clients because that's when a lot of sales happen and there's a lot of things that need to happen before Black Friday or Christmas happens.

And we're going to cover all of that today.

So it really doesn't matter if you are selling products or services, but because it's the Servicepreneur podcast we are going to mostly focus on services, but all of these tips and checklists work for products as well. So if you sell both, perfect. You can still use all of these tips.

So before we get into the details, I wanted to really share a couple of stats that's going to really anchor in how important quarter four is.

In 2023 in the US alone, almost $10 billion was spent online in 24 hours with the average shopper paying $313. So the average person spent over $300. In that 24 hours and it's only showing that it will increase this year as well Around 32 of those buyers. This is not us. Stats alone Around 32 of those customers will do Christmas shopping.

So they are looking to buy gifts for their family, for themselves, for people. About 45 percent will buy products or services that they've been wanting for a while, so they've been saving up for that, or they finally pulled the trigger and booked it and bought it. And 23 percent of the shoppers just want to spontaneously hunt for good deals.

So these are the dopamine buyers. They want to, they see a good deal and they buy it. As many as 64 percent of consumers globally plan to shop online on Black Friday. That's over half the buyers in the world. They are going to shop on Black Friday. So you have to show up with your business because their money is being spent regardless.

If you show up or not, they are spending it. And why not have your business and your services be one of those purchases? Moreover, about 48 percent of online shoppers will look for deals on social media. So they're using social media as a search engine to look for deals. And they're probably checking out their favorite brands, their favorite businesses, or they're seeing ads on social media.

And around 13 percent of buyers will look for sales on Google. So that's a really small percentage. Most people will be on social media looking for deals. And the good news is that about 19 percent of consumers will look for deals directly on a company's website. But that has a but behind it because it means that they already know about you and they are preparing to buy.

So as you can see, Black Friday is massive and not just Black Friday, but October, November, December, they're all the same because I swear the moment October starts, people are just buying because first of all, it's autumn and most, most part of the world and people need that dopamine hit. So they start buying more.

They start thinking about Christmas. There's people who are like these logical buyers because there's two types of buyers. There's the dopamine buyers, there's logical buyers and logical buyers. Start preparing for Christmas way early, like they are smart, they are buying early, they're buying all the Christmas, they're doing research they're looking for deals, and not only deals, but they're looking for the best options, and then you have the other buyers who are literally shopping on the Black Friday or 24th of December, last minute Christmas gift, and hands up, I am the dopamine buyer, definitely with some of the things, but I'm trying to be better with bigger purchases that where I actually take the time and really research what I'm buying.

So as you can see, Black Friday is so important and having your business presented to your clients during this time is a huge thing. And it really doesn't matter what you sell And one of the things that you may be thinking right now is Signe, I get that Black Friday is important but I really don't want to make discounts and I want to just confirm to you that you don't have to make discounts.

I am working with some of the clients who are not making discounts at all, especially service based businesses because it's not really necessary. But you do have to show up and I'm going to share with you what you need to do. So let's go through the checklist right now So the first thing that you need to start doing to get make the best quarter four for your business This year is you need to start building your relationships now, like you need to communicate with your clients today, because by the time that Black Friday comes, you can't just be like, I haven't spoken to you.

I haven't seen you. You haven't seen my business for three months, four months, six months. Bam, here's an offer. Like it's going to work, but you're going to lose out so much. So it's much easier to start building your relationships now. And when we're going to get to the ads part, I will cover you how you can start doing that.

Another thing you need to do right now today is figure out an epic offer for Black Friday and Christmas. And why am I saying epic? There's a reason for that. offers have to always be really attractive for your ideal clients. But this year is especially important that you work out an offer that's actually beneficial for your clients.

And they feel like they absolutely need it. Because the market has changed. And I may do another podcast episode about that, like what's working, what's not working anymore. There's definitely been a huge shift in the market this year. There's businesses who are really struggling. There's businesses who are massively growing.

There's shifts with advertising, like the stuff that worked before is not working anymore. or it's so expensive that it's unaffordable for most businesses. So there's a huge shift in the market and it all comes down to the consumers changing. So a lot of people are coming out of all this like 2020 drama.

They they have changed their values. They don't want to just buy random stuff anymore. Market is so aware of how you're selling now. Like all the marketing techniques that we were using for 10 years, all the consumers already know when you say certain words, what they actually mean. So the market is really aware.

But the good news is that there's never been time when consumers are spending so much money. So everyone wants to buy, but they are really picky on what they are buying. So if you want to have them buy from you, you have to figure out offers that are really fantastic for your ideal clients. So just saying that I help you with this whatever service you're offering isn't good enough.

If you're offering social media management, just saying like I do social media management is not enough. There's so much competition out there and they, the businesses know they need social media management, but they don't want to work with just that. anyone. So you have to really give them an offer that says I will do this for your business so that you would get this and this result.

So it's really, really important that you package your offers and You can either take an old service that you already are using and repackaging it with with different value adds or bonuses or bundle offers and make it sound new. So it's exciting and it's very limited offer. Or you can come up with a completely new service, make some tweaks to an old service.

That is specifically built out for this period. So for Black Friday and Christmas sales, it's very limited. It's got a very specific result that your clients need during this period of time. And that makes sense for you money wise, profit wise, time wise as well. So really sit down and come up with completely new offers or repackage an old service specifically for that period.

Another thing that you can start doing. now, like within September, because we are in September right now, is you can start actually preparing the emails for your sales now. If you know already what kind of offer you're running, you can actually build out those emails and schedule them in today. Trust me, it takes so much time off from your, from, from that period of, time because November and December are so busy, not only business wise, but personal life wise.

And if you can prepare anything for now, that will save you time, then you should do it now. Like I've usually scheduled and emails months in advance. I usually start working on that period of promotions in August already. This year I'm doing it in September. And I prepare all the emails, all the assets.

Like when I was posting on social media all the time, I was preparing social media posts for those promotions because I knew that I will be so tired during that period, like November, December. Or maybe I wasn't even tired, but I just don't want to do that because I'd rather just enjoy drinking tea, under blanket and enjoying that period of time.

So really just figure out, is there any templates? Is there any assets that you can prepare today? Email, social media, content, ads, everything. And if you are doing any kind of partnership offers, then now is the time to really do them. If you want to do affiliate offers, referrals, like anything. Now is the time when you push this so that you could build out an audience with those partnership audiences now before you put an offer in front of them.

And this is super important point. During quarter four, which is October, November, December, businesses who win the most are the ones who focus on warm audiences. So warm audiences are people who have engaged with your business. Doesn't mean that they bought from you, but they have seen your face even once or heard your voice or read your post or been on your website or watch your videos, like anything, those are warm audiences and you have to focus on them , during the month of October, November, December, when you're doing your promotions.

Which brings me to the ads and I'm going to explain you why. During quarter four ads get expensive. This is one of the most expensive times to advertise and if you, by the way, do social media posts, like organic posts, your posts Don't get as much reach because there is a lot of competition out there So you may have to post more but i'm talking about ads specifically right now so ads are the most expensive during that time because all these billion dollar and pound and euro businesses are all shoving millions and millions and millions of ad spend on a daily basis into Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, like all of these platforms because they know that they will make a ton of money during that time and people are buying.

So does that mean that you can't advertise as a small business owner, not at all, because I am every year advertising for my clients. And yes, I work with clients who make millions in a year as well. But most of my clients are people who, or businesses who don't make million yet, but they will. Does that mean they can't afford ads?

No, not at all, because there is a way of advertising that is cheaper during that period. And one of the ways of doing that is focusing on to your warm audiences. So If you want to advertise during that period of time, you need to start doing your ads today to build out audiences that you can advertise to during that period of time.

So what can you advertise? Your whole focus needs to be on building relationships. So you really need to get your business out there in front of your ideal client, as many times as possible. You have to show them that they can trust you. You know what you're talking about. You can actually help them and they need to either start following you, buy from you, engage with you, or subscribe to your email list.

So you can actually advertise lead magnets during this period or any type of advertisement that builds a relationship. And we call this authority building ads. Because that's an ad that we launch for our clients that builds relationships, shows that they are trustworthy and they can solve their problem and they should buy from them.

You can run those ads now. And those are quite affordable ads. They're really cheap ads that you launch. And if you launch them now, you are building your audience so cheaply up. Like you literally have a month, like two months till Black Friday. So you have time to do that now. And those big ass companies haven't yet started pushing their millions of dollars and pounds into the market yet, but they will.

So if you build out your audiences right now. By the time it's Black Friday, you're spending so much less money because you are not focusing solely on cold audiences.

So for example, we see an average cost per lead for email signups right now between two dollars pounds to eight dollars or pounds. This is something that I see for very different clients all around like super different industries. And I am personally getting leads right now between 70 cents till two and a half pounds.

So it's 3 or something, but obviously I have a lot of experience, so I can get them for cheaper, but if you can get leads under 10 or pounds, that's really good. And if you focus on building your audiences, a lot of those people may not become your email subscribers, but they will become your podcast listeners, Instagram followers, YouTube watchers, whatever, right?

Definitely, definitely launch ads that build relationships today, like really early. Now once you get them in your email list, your work is not done. That's when a lot of work actually begins. And your main goal is to build relationship with them and really nurture them so that they can, trust you, that they know that you are trustworthy, that you are not just wasting their time.

So don't push heavy on offers until it's time for Black Friday and Christmas sales, but until then really give value, nurture the relationships. Try to get them engaged on your email list or social media so that by the time you are putting an offer in front of them, they are so in love with you that buying from you is just something that happens naturally.

Like they are waiting to buy from you.

You also want to educate them about your services during this time , especially on the service that you're going to launch as an offer during Black Friday or Christmas, because by the time that you're launching, You want them basically to be warmed up, so by the time you put an offer in front of them for that service, they know exactly what it is, how it can help them, and why they need to buy it.

And all you have to do is say, you need to buy it now, because it's an epic offer that is for a limited time. So you really want to do that on your email list during this time as well. But let's talk about now ads that you need to launch during November and December. So specifically offer ads. The first thing you may be thinking about is when should you start advertising for Black Friday offers specifically.

So I'm not talking about now relationship building ads, because like I said, you need to launch them today, like right now in September. But I'm talking specifically about Black Friday and Christmas ads. Honestly, the answer to that is it depends. If you have an offer that's only available for 24 hours, which is Black Friday only, you need to advertise a different thing.

You actually have to advertise.

that a sale is coming and you can build an email list of people who want to participate in that sale. Or just advertising to a warm audience that a sale is coming. And if you do that, if you are launching only 24 hour sale, then you can start advertising about 10 days before Black Friday, because people are looking for deals.

Already before Black Friday, way before Black Friday, some businesses are literally promoting the whole November, different offers. But you need to advertise about 10 days before Black Friday and then launch retargeting ads for that 24 hour window to warm audiences to everyone who's on your email list, anyone who's engaged with your business.

That's who you're going to speak with. during that 24 hours. So some of my clients do that. So they have the 24 hour sales, but most of my clients, I've really pushed on this second option, which is that they have sales the whole week or even longer. Like some clients I do promotions like two weeks or even three weeks or the whole November as well.

But what we usually push for is at least a week during the Black Friday. So it starts before Black Friday and it ends on Cyber Monday. Because that gives enough time for cold audiences and warm audiences. When I say cold, Cold audiences mean people who've never seen you. So they are seeing your ad the first time and you have to really convince them to buy like that.

And warm audiences are people who have already engaged with you. So cold audiences, people who have never seen you, they need time. It's so rare. There's only 3 percent of people who see your ad and yes, I'm buying this. Or you have to have an epic, epic offer for them to buy immediately.

Usually what happens is they see your ad, They see it again and again and again until they're like, Oh, what is this? Like on the 10 times when they actually read the ad, right? So they need time. And for that's why I recommend running like a week long. Promotion that's specifically for Black Friday and you can call it the Black Friday week promotion, whatever cool name you can come up with.

And for that, you can launch ads like seven till 10 days before Black Friday because you need to give your ads like about 24 hours to warm up. And there could be issues, there could be like restrictions and stuff. So you really just want to give yourself like 24 hours at least or longer time for the Transcribed by https: otter.

ai ads to warm up so you can test ads so that when the actual promotion is, like the time that people are buying, you are having the best ad creatives, the most budget, you know it's converting and you're not going to have any restrictions, your ads are not going to stop working, like you definitely don't want issues like that.

So that's my answer about the time. And another thing I want to discuss is budget, because ideally you want to really spend money now, right? Like you want to build out your audiences now, because you're going to get them so much cheaper. Like you literally, if you would run lead magnet ads right now, you can get a lead for let's say 5 or five pounds.

If you do that during November and December, that's going to cost you 10 or pounds, right? Like it could easily double the price because there's just so much less. attention you're gonna get. There's so much more competition, not only with like advertising, but like social media content and stuff. So really want to spend your budget now.

And when it's time for Black Friday promotion or Christmas promotion, you want to then spend 70 percent of your budget on warm audiences. So retargeting ads, people who've engaged with your business and really pushing the sale for them and then 30 percent of the budget to cold audiences and those audiences or those ads you can again work on building up an audience or you can do straight promotion that's up to you how much budget you have.

And it really comes down to that. But if you are not advertising right now and starting in September, you are going to lose out so much. You're going to scramble. You're going to pay so much more money than I will or any of my clients will because you just started late. So be prepared. Start now. And again, if you cannot do this yourself, delegate.

Contact me or contact someone who can help you with ads, who can help you with emails. Just delegate. If you cannot do it yourself, don't panic market. That's one of the worst things you can do. Clients who contact me in November, cause they want to promote Black Friday sales in November.

Always lose out because yes, I will work really hard and we will get those promotions up. But We have no time for testing. We don't know if it's going to work really We're paying so much more money because we didn't build out any audiences. So it's always better to start now So if you are someone who wants help Delegate it out now.

All right, so let's go over the last quarter four checklist before we finish this episode. So the first thing you need to do today is launch ads that build relationship. Do not be scared of doing it now. If you can't spend a lot of money, spend whatever you can because you know it's going to come back to you in November and December.

And start with anything, honestly, and if you do have money, don't be scared to spend it now. Honestly, it's going to work out so much better for you in November and December. Start building your list, your email list, your audiences. Your partnerships, your relationships with your audiences now, like really focus on that in the next two months.

Nurture your email list and audiences for the next two months. Figure out your Black Friday and Christmas promotions. Prepare all of the assets if you can now, if you can't delegate it, hire it out. All the ads, assets, emails, sales pages images, like anything you can do it now, because you will be so much less stressed out during Black Friday and Christmas, and instead when everyone else is panicking, you can sit, chill, have a glass of wine.

and see the sales coming in and know that you can relax because all the emails, all the ads, everything's going out and it's all good. Prepare all the ad assets and launch them 10 till 7 days before Black Friday and Christmas. So if you are going to run your own ads, put it in the calendar, for example, that you are launching them before.

You can schedule them and you don't have to do it now. You can work on those in October or November, beginning of November. But if you are someone who's delegating, then definitely look for help now if you're looking for an agency. You can start looking for them right now in September and hiring them.

And if you need any help, so if you're someone who wants to delegate, obviously contact me. I will leave the contact details below. We are accepting two more clients. Before the end of the year right now because of the black friday and christmas sales but if you are someone who wants to do it yourself Then i'd like to remind you that I am working on a group coaching program That is going to launch in october and we're going to launch all the ads in october and november And we're going to build out ads not only for quarter four but really ads that can be run You all the time, all year round, and are bringing you new clients consistently all the time while you are serving your clients and building your business.

If you want to learn more about that, and you want to put yourself in the waitlist, then go to www. signasim. com slash waitlist. The spots are going to be super limited because it's going to be very personalized program. And if you're on the waitlist, you will get a special offer as well. And if we sell out during the waitlist launch, then this is never going to be 📍 pushed out anywhere else.

All right. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave me a review on Spotify or Apple podcast, and I will see you in the next episode.