By Joel Black on 12/26/2013
It’s the bane of a small business owner’s existence: Scrambling to keep up with a frantic workload during the year and then wondering what on earth to do over the holidays and the first few weeks of the new year, when business often slows down.
You can make the most of this slowdown – and ensure that your business is prepared to handle the busier days ahead – by reviewing your marketing collateral and hiring a graphic designer to update (or create) the graphic design materials your business needs most.
This project can be a fun and enjoyable experience that may prompt you to review your business and marketing activities with a more critical eye. And there isn’t a business in the world that cannot benefit from such an exercise.
You may follow the steps in a linear or recursive nature; it really doesn’t matter as long as you cover them all:
With all of this information before you, and with your creative juices flowing, you should be in an excellent position to consult with a graphic designer to brainstorm ideas, plan a project schedule and get your graphic design projects prepared for 2014.
And fear not. Graphic designers are often not as expensive as you might think, and most designers will happily work with businesses to produce work in a staggered manner to help make the project more financially feasible.
At this point, you might be tempted to produce your own graphic design materials through a word processing program. But ask yourself, and ask yourself honestly: Have you ever picked up a flyer that you were convinced just rolled off an office printer? If so, what did that flyer communicate to you about the professionalism of that business?
Don’t make the mistake of putting your marketing collateral in the hands of anything less than a highly skilled and experienced graphic designer. After all, it’s your business, your image and your profits at stake, and they are too important to risk – at any time of the year.