The Three 'P's of Summer Productivity: Personnel, Products and Plans
By Taylor Sisk, Staples® Contributing Writer
Whether your business caters to vacationers and other summer travelers or experiences a lull through vacation-time months, the summer offers some great opportunities to bring in new customers or clients and improve relationships with your employees.
Consider these three P’s — personnel, products and plans — as frameworks for taking that next step forward.
Personnel
- Hire an intern. Welcoming an intern offers the opportunity to learn more about how young people view your industry, and to perhaps reassess what you’ve come to accept as prevailing wisdom. It’s also an outstanding opportunity to identify talent you can hire full time later. And an intern can help cover for vacationing full-timers.
According to a 2012 Internships.com survey, 85 percent of employers said bringing in an intern was a positive experience, 47 percent had a structured internship program and 39 percent made full-time job offers to interns.
- Take advantage of the weather. “We plan on holding some of our team brainstorming meetings and client meetings in the beautiful outdoor areas we have near our office,” says Liat Tzoubari, director of sales and marketing for Apartable, a New York City–based company that helps people find apartments. “We want our employees to get to enjoy their summer, and we believe that open spaces make others more open to ideas and help get those creative juices flowing.”
You might also consider allowing employees to work more flexible hours to enjoy warm-weather activities. If the pace has slowed, why the heck not? Or allow them to bring their pets to work one day a week. Call it Woof Wednesday.
- Stay connected with technology. Take advantage of cloud and web-based tools and technology to keep everyone connected even when they are away from the office. The cloud empowers you to be more productive and “can come in especially handy in the summer,” says Michael Spadaro, founder and CEO of Profound Cloud, an IT services company in New York City. Profound Cloud employees use mobile apps like Pocket and Flipboard to access documents, photos or videos via a phone or tablet from any location at any time.
Speaking of time, Spadaro also suggests using tools such as TimeTrade or Pick to share your availability with others and for booking appointments. “This tip alone saves me at least an hour each week of back-and-forth emails searching for meeting times,” he says.
Products
- Create seasonal giveaways. Andy LaPointe, owner of Traverse Bay Farms in northwestern Michigan, offers his customers maps of the surrounding area, highlighting other popular destinations for summer travelers. It’s something visitors are likely to put to good use, and helps them navigate their return to your business. Or how about some summer-themed swag? Logo’d flip-flops, pool totes and funky shades are good options. Remind your customers of your business all summer long.
- Keep it cool. “Our office always has water and coffee on hand, but in the summer months we plan on keeping popsicles in the fridge for both our employees and our clients,” Tzoubari says. “It’s a fun treat that gives you that sugar boost and freshness in the summer afternoons, when most of us would rather be lying by the water than sitting in the office.”
- Be extra generous to staff. Another idea that’s likely to pay dividends is making your products or services available to your employees. If, say, you own a restaurant, have your baker prepare something special for staff to take home for July 4th. If you run a fitness center, why not offer employees a free massage or session with a personal trainer while your regular customers are away on vacation? These morale builders increase employee loyalty.
Plans
- Host an event. Gain new customers or clients and build loyalty with your current ones by extending some real hospitality. Cook up a weekend barbecue. Offer some after-hours live music. Host a round of golf, a winery tour or an evening at the ballpark. In-store events like trunk shows or educational lectures provide a break from the heat.
- Grow and enhance your email marketing list. Take a bit of time to chat with visitors. In addition to asking for email addresses, ask where they’re from, what brings them to the area and the social media channels they use most. Then use the information to more effectively target your marketing throughout the year. Another way to creatively engage happy customers is to offer them a holiday discount if they write a review on Yelp, TripAdvisor or other review site. The payoff is twofold: boosted social “proof” and enhanced loyalty.
- Create or upgrade your social media plan. Take advantage of lulls in business to brush up your social media presence. Set aside some time to create a social marketing plan so you can push deals, updates and other opportunities to your customers and prospects via your own social channels. Make another plan for monitoring social channels to find opportunities to gain new customers or bring back existing ones.
For example, choose key words related to your business and search for them on Twitter. Why? Twitter users express what they want in real time, notes Bernard Perrine, co-founder and CEO of Dallas-based SocialCentiv. “Two of the most common phrases that people Tweet are ‘I want’ and ‘I need,’” he says. If you have what people want, reach out with an offer. Facebook and Pinterest enable you to monitor customer preferences and trends so you can adjust your inventory and marketing to reflect them.
Use any or all of these nine tips to drive your business forward during the summer months.