Before you consume any more mulled wine and mince pies, answer me honestly: Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Once Black Friday came and went, you started getting into the Christmas spirit. It was a time of excitement: your tree and decorations started going up, final plans were made for the Christmas parties, you may have even purchased a few pressies.

Up until a week ago, you knew that you needed to be doing things to help get ready for Christmas, your sense of urgency was building but felt you still had enough time.

This last week has been hectic! Last minute panic buying, frantically wrapping gifts, the kids finished school and have since been sugar-fuelled from that bottomless tin of Quality Streets. You’ve forgotten the brandy butter but can’t face going back to the supermarket.  It’s been full steam ahead and you’ve wondered if there’s enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Well, each of these steps is a typical Christmas Customer Journey and successful businesses would have planned long and hard around each one:

• Early Christmas Season – focus on inspirational and emotional messages, think John Lewis.
• Mid Christmas Season – consumers haven’t hit frenzy level, but with excitement building, businesses were having fun with their messaging.
• Last Minute Christmas Season – people don’t have the time to read or absorb long marketing messages. Did you notice any retailers who were succinct but impactful in getting over their core offering and focused on helping people cope?

I appreciate that now is the time of goodwill, time with your loved ones, time to recharge your batteries.

But I know you. Us entrepreneurs have trouble switching off and have to resist talking ‘shop’ around the festivities.

If there’s one thing to think about so you can hit the ground running in 2020, it’s your Customer Journey.  Here’s some areas to get you stimulated:

• Insights– do you have a clear understanding of the needs of your customers and prospects?
• Impact– do you have a clear focus on the resulting business value?
• Issues/Opportunities – do you know what’s getting in the way, or could be improved, in order to meet these needs of your customers?
• Innovate– have you, or can you, design solutions that deliver both customer and organisational value?

So, I’ll leave you with that.  All that’s left to say is have a very merry Christmas and catch up soon.

BW,

Martin

Martin Norbury

The Scalability Coach | Britain’s Top 10 Adviser 2018 | Author of #1 bestseller I don’t work Fridays  | Ex-CEO of a PLC