Prep for the Holidays EP9: Plan Your Calendar by Working Backwards.

It's Week #9 in our Prep for the Holidays series! To make sure you're on top of all your key deadlines and dates this holiday season, start by working backwards from December 31st. I'll walk you through key dates to make note of and how to ensure you've got enough time for making, marketing, selling and shipping!

Whether you’re an artist, maker, or creative service provider, this episode is jam-packed with strategies to keep you organized and ahead of the game. Let’s make this holiday season not only manageable but also wildly successful for your creative business!

This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout

You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.

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And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast

Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.

Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast.
Each week, we sit down withinspiring Canadian women who
create for a living.
We talk about their creativejourneys and their best business
tips, as well as the creativeand business mindset issues all
creative entrepreneurs strugglewith.
I'm your host, melissaHartfield, and after leaving a
20-year career in corporateretail, I've been happily

(00:32):
self-employed for 12 years.
I'm a graphic designer, anillustrator and a
multi-six-figure-a-yearentrepreneur in the digital
content space.
This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives
who want to find a way to make aliving doing what they love.
Hello, everyone, and welcomeback to another episode of the

(00:59):
and she Looked Up podcast.
As always, I am your host,melissa, and this week we are
back with week number nine inour prep for the holidays
mini-sode series.
So for those of you who mightjust be tuning in or have just
stumbled upon us, over the lastnine weeks and for probably the

(01:19):
rest of the year, we have beendoing short, 10 to 15 minute
episodes where we tackle onetask to help us prep our
creative businesses for the busyholiday season.
The series is designed to behelpful for artists, makers,
creative service providers andeven content creators, and so

(01:40):
this week, we are up to tasknumber nine.
If you want to go back andlisten to all the other tasks,
if you're listening on yourfavorite podcast app, just look
for the PFH or prep for theholidays in the title and you'll
be able to see what week it is.
If you are watching orlistening on YouTube, we have a

(02:00):
YouTube playlist for the prepfor the holiday series.
I will put a link to it in theshow notes for the YouTube video
and I'll put the link for theYouTube playlist in the regular
show notes as well if any of youwant to go catch up.
But it's kind of nice.
Youtube lets me create like aspecial place to keep them all,
and I can't do that for theother podcast apps out there as

(02:22):
easily.
The other podcast apps outthere as easily.
So, having said that, yes, weare on week number nine, and
today's for the holidays tip ortask is to start working
backwards.
Now, working backwards mightsound a little bit strange, but
essentially what you're going tobe doing here is pulling out
your calendar, and I find theeasiest way to do this is to

(02:45):
actually print off physicalcalendar pages.
So if you're watching onYouTube, I'm holding up a copy
of one of my calendar pages, andso what you want to do is print
off or get together a series ofcalendar sheets for each month
from now until December.

(03:05):
So you'd be looking atSeptember, october, november and
December, and the first thingyou want to do is you want to
put the important dates in thecalendar.
So obviously you want to haveChristmas and any other holidays
that you sell for.
So if you do Hanukkah andHanukkah aligns with Christmas
very closely this year, Ibelieve so Hanukkah.

(03:26):
If you do other, you knowDiwali isn't really I don't
think.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't think it's a giftgiving holiday, but there are
still a lot of celebrations thathappen for it.
That is again a late fallcelebration.
So if you do any of those typesof things, you want to make
sure you put them in thecalendar.

(03:47):
Don't forget Black Friday.
Don't forget Cyber Monday.
Don't forget Giving Tuesday orno Spend Tuesday there's
different names for it.
Don't forget Boxing Day.
If you plan on doing somethingfor Boxing Day, you want to get
those all in your calendar.
You also want to start enteringin any markets that you're
going to be doing, because thoseare going to be weekends where
you're not going to be able todo as much making or shipping

(04:09):
and packing.
So you want to keep those inmind.
The next thing you want to do,particularly if you sell online
so if you sell through Etsy orthrough your own website is you
want to look at shippingdeadlines.
You can head over to CanadaPost website If you're in the
United States.
I'm sure USPS has somethingsimilar to this.

(04:29):
I'm pretty sure any postalsystem around the world has
something similar to this andI'm pretty sure most courier
system companies will also havethis.
But they will give you shippingguidelines to hit the holiday
season.
So you want to be able to makedecisions about when you are
going to cut shipping off forthings to get there in time for

(04:52):
Christmas, and you're probablygoing to want to have different
deadlines for international, forthe US and for domestic based
on how long they take.
So that's something you want toput in your calendar now.
It's also something that you'regoing to want to put on your
shop in your shipping section,and it's something you're going
to want to put on your Etsystore.

(05:13):
On your Etsy store, at the topwe have that section that is for
shop updates or shop news andstuff.
You want to put that in a veryvisible place there so that you
can let people know.
You're also probably going toget people contacting you asking
about shipping deadlines.
If that's the case, you want tobe able to just let them know.

(05:34):
So having that informationhandy and not having to scramble
for it every time somebody asksyou is going to be a good thing
.
As of right now, there are 16weekends between now and
Christmas, so you need to thinkabout how many of those weekends
are already spoken for, notjust with markets, but with any

(05:56):
family obligations that you mayhave.
Do your kids have Christmasconcerts or holiday concerts or
anything like that?
Start putting those in yourcalendar as soon as you know
about them, because you're goingto have to make time for them.
So now that you know what allthe important dates are, you
need to start working backwardsto figure out when you are going

(06:18):
to do all your making, whenyour markets are.
If you have a market at thebeginning of November, you need
to have enough stock on hand,made and created and ready to go
by that first weekend inNovember, and if you've got
markets every weekend after that, you are also going to make
sure you have enough stock toget you through those markets,

(06:39):
because you might not have a lotof time during the week,
depending on what otherobligations you have.
If you have a full-time job ora part-time job or something
like that, you may not be ableto do as much making as you
think.
So you need to plan ahead, likewhen you're going to do your
making.
You also need to plan ahead foryour advertising and your

(07:01):
marketing, particularly if youonly sell online and you are not
doing in-person markets, or ifyou're a creative services
provider and your big salesweekend is going to be that
black friday, cyber mondayweekend.
So you need to start thinkingnow about when your promotional

(07:22):
materials need to be published.
So how are you going to promote?
Are you going to promote?
Are you going to send emails?
Are you going to do socialmedia?
What ways are you going topromote, and when do those
things need to start beingposted?
Because if you can startcreating those things now and
we'll get into this in a futureepisode but if you can start
creating some of that stuff now,then you can start scheduling

(07:43):
it and getting it out of the way, so you don't have to worry
about it, it's just all takencare of.
But this is the kind of stuffthat you really want to think
about.
And the only thing with thistime of year is time moves
incredibly quickly and we alwaysthink we have more time than we
actually have and we alwaysthink that time is going to pass
slower than it actually does.

(08:04):
So when I say we have 16weekends, it sounds like a lot,
but it doesn't sound like a lot,and that's because it's really
not a lot when you actuallythink about all the things that
have to get done in thattimeframe and the fact that it's
16 weekends until Christmas.
But a lot of your selling andshipping and all of that stuff

(08:26):
is going to happen probably morelike in the 12 to 14 weeks
before Christmas.
So that's how you have to kindof work backwards.
So that is your task this weekis to sit down, get a calendar,
plot out all your dates and thencount backwards to see where
you need to be doing certainthings so that you can make sure

(08:46):
that you're on track.
And next week we're gonna betalking about some ways to make
it easier to stay on track sothat you are able to produce
enough, make enough so thatyou're able to make sure that
your promotions get out thereand that you are marketing
enough, and to make sure thatyou also get to have a bit of a
break in there.

(09:06):
But the first thing you need todo is to mark your dates down,
investigate those shippingdeadlines and put in all the
holiday markets that you'regoing to be taking part in so
that you can make sure you haveeverything accounted for and
then you can work your waybackwards.
So that is it for this week.
This was a very short but sweettip, but it's probably one of

(09:28):
the most important tips that Iam giving you and a friend of
mine actually Lisa Bolton whowas my original co-host on the
podcast.
She used to call it reverseengineering and this is how she
did everything.
She reversed, engineered allher projects, and when she
introduced me to that it was agame changer, because it really
does make you put a lot ofthought into what you're doing

(09:49):
and to realize just how much orhow little time you have to get
things done.
So that is it for this week.
Just a reminder that next weekis actually the season opener of
season six of the show and Iwill be back with my lovely
semi-regular co-host, heatherTravis.

(10:10):
It wouldn't be a season openerwithout Heather, and if you have
just found us in the last fewweeks and you're not familiar
with Heather, heather is, as Isaid, she's my semi regular
co-host.
She is a an artist and muralistbased out of Ontario and she's
also a PR professional and shejoins me once a month on the
show and we always have a greattime.

(10:31):
We've already recorded theseason opener.
It is going to be uh, we didrecord a video for it as well,
so it will be on YouTube as avideo and it will also be on
your favorite podcast app.
So very excited about that,very excited for what season six
has in store.
We will, as I mentioned, stillbe running the prep for the
holidays mini-sodes, but theymay switch to a different day.

(10:53):
I may switch them from Mondaysto Wednesdays I haven't quite
figured that out yet because Idon't want them to interfere
with the big episode day butthey will still be happening
until we get through the entirechecklist of items that we need
to do.
So I'm not going to beabandoning you as we get closer
to the really busy period.
That is on its way.

(11:16):
It's on its way as soon asSeptember hits.
That's it, and we're inSeptember now.
It is full steam ahead untilthe end of the year.
So that's it for this week.
I look forward to seeing youall next week for the season
opener and until then, thanksfor listening.

(11:36):
Thank you so much for joining usfor the Anchi Looked Up
Creative Hour.
If you're looking for links orresources mentioned in this
episode, you can find detailedshow notes on our website at
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(11:59):
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