Remember Last December? Plan Ahead NOW!

[eoinfinnegan]

On the 1st of November I got a calendar reminder on my phone.
It simply said “Stock up for Christmas”. It took me a second to understand it as I am definitely not the type of person who starts buying presents and turkeys in November.

This was a reminder I set in mid December of last year.
For those of you who were not here, and those of you who don’t remember, December last year was catastrophic in terms of sales. It was awful. Sales dropped across the board in all categories. On the forum there were countless posts wailing about not having sales. It was in that scenario that I decided I would be better prepared for December next (this) year.

So this post is about stocking up for December. It has a variety of tips and things you can plan for the month of December. Of course, you can use them at any time of the year but my focus is on December.
When you don’t have work, it is easy to fall into the cycle of watching TV, munching on snacks and checking your messages every couple of minutes desperately hoping for even a spam message so you can take some of your frustration out on them with a cutting response. This is not productive. It earns no money. It will depress you.

When you KNOW IN ADVANCE that you will not have much work then it is really up to you to plan for that time. This is called being professional and it is one of the requirements of being a successful full time seller.

So what to do:
Here are some things that I have considered for December, I’m not going to do them all.

• I have bought a 40 hour online course that I plan to complete in December. If you visit sites like Groupon, Living-Social etc, you will find many of these at highly discounted prices. Beware, some are useless and outdated but some are extremely useful. Why not learn the basics of a new language, how to use Wordpress or even something non-business related, a new personal development skill (maybe knitting?). For those of you who don’t have the money to buy one, go to Alison.com and try out some of their free courses. Be careful there though, some are absolute rubbish so don’t waste your time if you feel it is not helping you learn. Babbel.com is great for learning language basics.

• I have signed up to do some volunteer work. Volunteer work can be anything. You could offer your skills to charities for free or simply go collecting for them around Christmastime which is a big fundraising period for most charities. How happy will they be to see someone who is available all the hours that others are not? (I also suggest you do something like this year round as it is a great way of meeting people and getting out of the house).

• I have sent special offers to some clients (not from Fiverr), offering them special rates for orders to be carried out from 10-20th December. This may encourage some with larger projects that are not time-sensitive and they must order before November 30th to get the special rate. This way I can plan my time better.

• You could take a break, go on holiday, spend some time with family or relations you haven’t seen in a while. Plan it ahead though, as many people are exceptionally busy at that time. Perhaps you could go and help them with something, take care of your nieces and nephews for a day to allow their parents to go do something (if you are really good, you might get a Christmas dinner invite in return 🙂 )

• Do a project for your business. To do this you need to be disciplined. It may be that you have been putting off writing a book (guilty), creating/upgrading a website for yourself, creating a blog - why not write 6 months worth of posts while you have the time, then have them to post over time. Make the most of your time, plan it well, stick to a routine, give yourself goals to achieve each day.

• If you are an expert/particularly good at something, go to local community/business groups, job-seeker programs, schools etc and offer to speak or do a presentation for them during December. I have done short talks and discussion groups in schools for students, telling them about what I do, giving them ideas etc. In Ireland, students do a transition year between Junior and Senior cycles at age 15ish. This is to help them decide what they want to be/study in the future. They are given work placements and the opportunity to start their own small business during this year. Giving a talk about marketing and discussing it with them, answering questions etc is really rewarding. I even got two clients from one of these classes. One was students themselves who hired me to look over their business plan (yes I did take their money - they need to learn how the world works!), another was a parent who needed work done on a website. If you really pushed it, you could give “info handouts” with your name and contact details and hope that parents see it! All with teacher’s permission of course.

I am sure their are countless other things you can do, these are just some of my ideas and plans. Now that I have warned you and advised you, there is no excuse for posting loads of “I have no sales” posts during December!
Take a positive step, be a professional, be organized, be successful!

[writer99025]

Man, are you planning to pack in a year’s work into December…just take a freakin’ break…

[eoinfinnegan]

Says the guy who works 12 hours/day…
As I said, not going to do all the above but will see how my special offer goes and may have time for more…

[Guest mortadimarwane]

what has worked for you last year and you are planing to applying it this year ?

[miiila]

Thanks for the reminder. My plan is that I´ll buy a new wonderful pillow and sleep through December. No, I´ll work on my trilogy, if nothing else to do happens. And on tax papers -_-
Nice article again, your posts always make me smile.

[zeus777]

On 11/5/2016 at 4:56 AM, eoinfinnegan said:

When you don’t have work, it is easy to fall into the cycle of watching TV, munching on snacks

That’s EXACTLY what I’m gonna do!!! 😃

OK, joke aside ( no wait I’m not joking!!), last December was OK, at least for me.

I was hoping to get a bit more which I didn’t, but overall it was OK, as I mentioned in other posts I’m just used to dry-up periods and when orders dry up I do absolutely nothing about it, I just focus on other stuff…so I guess that’s what we should do like you said, focus on other stuff, there are always plenty of other things you can do aside from Fiverr.

Great post as always! 😃 

[misscrystal]

I recommend Coursera ( https://www.coursera.org/ ) for online classes. I took an amazing anthropology course from the top anthropologist in the world there. These are online versions of classes taught at top universities such as Stanford, Duke, U. of Michigan, etc.
This is the class I am thinking of taking next:
HTML, CSS, and Javascript for Web Developers

[orcatek]

We are actually going to produce a few courses during the slow time. Right now too busy to get much done, but will get into this holiday season if sales slump like in the past.

[topaz_muse]

@misscrystal Have you explored edX or even SkillShare? They pretty good too. Who knows you might even have class ideas for SkillShare?

What I plan on doing after working on and submitting revamped gigs:

• planning blog posts -have fallen behind on this
• building up online portfolios
• updating online portfolio
• build up my character in an MMO game
• write...finish my light novel

[Guest capitalquality]

December is summer here in NZ so I’m looking forward to this quiet online time everyone is talking about. A beer and a bbq on the deck anyone?

[zubairfb]

First december here 😃 Lets see how it goes… Since everybody is planning holiday I will work your orders and steal your clients 😛

[cyaxrex]

Oh, this means that I can write the book that I wanted to have finished by May/June this year! In this case, if December is slow, look out in January for my disturbing on so many levels tome, ‘Natutal Psychopaths’. Also (Mods) this isn’t a plug, it’s not finished or published yet.

Also, yes, it is semi-autobiographical 

On 11/5/2016 at 10:29 AM, capitalquality said:

December is summer here in NZ so I’m looking forward to this quiet online time everyone is talking about. A beer and a bbq on the deck anyone?

God I miss NZ. The last Christmas I was in Franz Josef, our Christmas dinner, bbq and town drinking fest transpired somehow into a bed race around town. (Pushing a bed like a wheel barrow - it was a tourist hub and everyone in Franz was in hospitality). Ah crazy young days where every idea was a good one as long as you had a six pack of Monteith’s. Miss those.

On 11/5/2016 at 5:18 AM, miiila said:

Thanks for the reminder. My plan is that I´ll buy a new wonderful pillow and sleep through December. No, I´ll work on my trilogy, if nothing else to do happens. And on tax papers -_-

Fellow writer ey? Fancy showing me your trilogy if I show you mine?

[miiila]

Sure! Let´s meet in…say…30 years? By then I should have the prologue for each tome…

[Guest capitalquality]

Use your Fiverr millions to pop over. Those beds are a’waiting.

[zeus777]

I’m not a beer person, but I looooooooooooooooove BBQ.
Never been to NZ, sounds like I can have a lovely Christmas there!

[fonthaunt]

Great post, Eoin!! I just remembered that my sales sunk like a rock last year. I think it ran from the last bit of November to early Jan. Luckily this year I’m doing Nanowrimo for real so hopefully I’ll have a book to edit in Dec! Your post is going in the holiday stickies. 🙂 

[emeraldawnn]

I plan on using that time to visit my family over the Christmas holiday and relax… something I don’t generally do because I am so busy. Of course, last December I stayed busy… barely a slump, but I suspect this December is going to be different. And if it is, it’s all good.

I’ll see what happens and go from there.

[eoinfinnegan]

Last year was my first year on Fiverr and like most people, I thought it would be busy as some sellers are not as available and businesses look for help with things. For whatever reason I was wrong and had little work last December. I will apply the things I have mentioned above and have already had an inquiry for a 70k word translation project from someone off Fiverr who I had contacted with a special offer. It’s likely this will go ahead and will take a considerable amount of time.

[eoinfinnegan]

For some reason, I am not seeing comments from some people. I saw that @fonthaunt had commented but I don’t see the comment. It shows that there are 20 comments on this post but I can only see 17. I’m not ignoring you if I don’t respond to you, I just don’t see your comment!

[eoinfinnegan]

And if your plan is to do nothing and relax, then that is an excellent plan! It is worth doing! What I think is that it is important to plan your time though.
If you need/want a break - take a break.
If you want to work - plan some backup projects.
If you hate sitting around - get out and do something for someone else.
All good plans.

[eoinfinnegan]

I don’t think I have seen you comment on the forum before. You have interesting and quite unique gigs, as a couple. I’d love to hear about how you guys work, what you do, your Fiverr experience etc. As very experienced and successful sellers I am sure you could teach us all a lot.

[eoinfinnegan]

Cool - Don’t forget, it’s spelled E-O-I-N. None of this Anglicized/Americanized Owen, Own stuff - E-O-I-N! (The exclamation mark is optional)

[eoinfinnegan]

Tip Number 7: Head to NZ and have a Christmas BBQ with @capitalquality

[eoinfinnegan]

Be warned! That’s what I was hoping to do last year - it didn’t happen 😃

[Guest capitalquality]

Beer isn’t obligatory. I also have wine and ginger beer 🙂