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Navigating Black Friday for Solopreneurs: Strategic Insights from The Motivated CEO Podcast
Should You Run a Black Friday Special? A Solopreneur’s Guide
Black Friday has become an endemic part of the shopping landscape, expanding its reach well beyond just retail giants to touch solopreneurs and small businesses alike. With the holiday season seemingly starting earlier each year, as Amy from The Motivated CEO Podcast highlights, the pressure to participate and cash in on this massive buying spree can feel overwhelming. But is running a Black Friday special the right move for your business? In this blog, we’ll dive deep into the intricacies of making that decision, exploring capacity, brand positioning, and the potential effects on your business.
Balancing Capacity and Holiday Enjoyment
Amy begins by emphasizing the importance of understanding your capacity as a business owner, especially during the holiday season. She refrains from running Black Friday specials because, for her, it means compromising valuable family time and overloading herself with one-on-one client work. Here are some critical questions to consider:
Do You Have the Capacity?
If your schedule is already packed, bringing in a sudden surge of clients or orders could overwhelm you.
Personal Priorities:
Reflect on your personal life and priorities. Amy values spending the holiday season with family and hence opts out of Black Friday promotions to enjoy this time more fully.
Ultimately, understanding your limits and setting boundaries—not just professionally but personally—can lead to more sustainable business practices and better quality of life.
The Importance of Brand Positioning
Every solopreneur's position in the market will be different, influencing whether a Black Friday promotion makes sense. Amy draws parallels with big brands like Rolex, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and even Apple, who rarely, if ever, put significant discounts on their flagship products. These brands maintain a high-end market positioning by not participating in price slashing, which could dilute their brand value.
Know Your Position:
Where does your brand fit into the market? Are you positioning yourself as a premium service or product provider?
Impact on Brand Perception:
Offering discounts can affect how potential clients or customers perceive your value. If you’re usually premium, a Black Friday discount might send mixed signals.
Amy's insights remind us that keeping a clear, consistent brand message is more valuable than quick, temporary profits.
For Product-Based Businesses
While Black Friday might not suit service-oriented solopreneurs, Amy acknowledges it can be a different story for product-based businesses.
Decreasing Barrier to Entry:
Black Friday can be a fantastic opportunity for potential customers to try products at a discounted price, potentially leading to long-term relationships and repeat purchases.
Managing Profit Margins:
While discounts might boost sales volumes, remember that profit margins will decrease. Consider if the volume will adequately compensate for the reduced margins.
Product-based businesses might find more significant advantages in running Black Friday specials because they can encourage initial purchases that lead to customer loyalty.
Data-Driven Decisions
Data is critical in making informed decisions about running promotions, as Amy stresses. Tracking your sales trends throughout the year can provide vital insights into whether a Black Friday special would genuinely benefit your business.
Identify Sales Trends:
Where are the ebbs and flows in your sales? Pinpointing periods of activity and inactivity can help you decide when a promotion might be necessary or beneficial.
Informed Choices:
Use your historical data to make calculated decisions, rather than succumbing to industry hype or external pressures.
Having this data allows you to avoid what Amy refers to as the "desperate" energy that can come from scrambling to meet end-of-year revenue targets unstrategically.
Reflect and Decide
Amy encourages solopreneurs to pause and reflect before jumping into Black Friday chaos. Ask yourself:
Do I have the capacity for this?
Will this cut too far into my profit margin?
Will this attract the type of clients or customers I want?
Is my brand well-positioned for a discount?
These questions can help anchor your decision-making process in your unique context rather than in the external hustle and bustle of Black Friday promotions.
Conclusion
In the end, you are the CEO of your business, and you get to call the shots. It’s about understanding your capacity, protecting your brand, leveraging data, and not being swayed by external pressures. Sometimes the best decision is to refrain from participating in Black Friday to maintain energetic balance, uphold brand value, and focus on strategic growth.
Amy’s insights deliver a crucial reminder: it’s your business, and the best decisions are those tailored to your specific needs and circumstances. Here’s to making informed choices that foster both your business’s growth and personal fulfillment. Cheers to your success!
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Transcript for Episode 373. Do You Really Need to Run a Black Friday Sale?
Amy [00:00:02]:
Does anyone else feel like the holiday season starts earlier and earlier every single year? We are in the thick of it now, even though it is only November and Black Friday is coming up quick. But as a business owner, as a solopreneur, should you run a Black Friday special? The pressure is real. If you're scrolling through Instagram, you may see all of these trainings, all of these master courses, get ready for Black Friday. But is this the best decision for you and your business from a strategic standpoint? And that's what I want to discuss today is should you do Black Friday as a business owner or not? So let's weigh both sides of this argument because there's absolutely people that say, yes, this is a huge cash injection time in the business. Like you would be dumb not to. But I didn't run a Black Friday promotion last year and I'm not actually going to do it again this year. And this is very intentional. Last year I decided, you know what, energetically, I just want to enjoy the holiday season with my family.
Amy [00:01:24]:
I get to call the shots in my business and I was doing fine profit wise. And it was like, do I really need this cash injection? Yeah, maybe it would be nice. But when I zoom out and look at the data, do I actually have the capacity? Because most of the time I'm working with clients in a one on one capacity. So if I have this sudden surge of clients, then I'm spending my holiday season on even more calls. And I'm a mom. My kids have so much going on this time of year. We're in the thick of swim season. They've got 50,000 different activities at school, the programs, the class parties.
Amy [00:02:06]:
And I love having the ability to generate or to generously donate my time and be there, just be there and be present. Because for so many years I couldn't. So really I made my decision last year kind of from a selfish place. I'm like, you know what? No, I am not going to do this. But what I am going to do is I'm going to watch my data and see how this impacts my business. And so what I did was I enjoyed the holidays, I enjoyed them. It was great to finish the year out just in a state of flow where I'm just really focusing on serving the clients that were already in my world, working on some things in the backend and getting ready for the upcoming year. I didn't have the capacity and it felt amazing.
Amy [00:03:05]:
So this year I started to see the things popping up, you know, beginning of September, get ready for Black Friday, the time to prepare is now. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to do it because from my perspective, I offer the one on one coaching services, right? I'm here to help you strategically break through your sales plateau so that you have those consistent sales in your business. So by discounting my services, what I'm doing is I'm negatively impacting the value. And if you're thinking, well, this really doesn't apply to me as a solopreneur, but yes, it actually does. Let's take for example some of these major brands out there, Rolex, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, they actually don't ever put their products on sale because they have positioned their brand to be a high level luxury brand. So this is why it's important to go back to clarity and know where your brand is positioned in the marketplace. Even Apple, you're not going to see Apple slashing the prices on the brand new iPhone that they just released. You may be able to buy it and get some bonuses with it, but you're not actually going to see that new iPhone on sale for 50% off on black Friday.
Amy [00:04:33]:
So you really need to take the time to clearly identify what is your brand position, where do you stand in the market? But on the flip side, if you have a product based business, maybe Black Friday is a good option for you. Maybe this would be an opportunity to decrease the barrier to entry, to increase your lifetime retention value of those customers. You know, people like to try things before they buy them. So if you do have, take for example skincare products, you know what, hey, this is a perfect opportunity for me to treat myself and to try this new brand. That may be an option where you want to look at leveraging Black Friday, but remember, as a solopreneur, if you are running Black Friday specials, your overall profit margin is decreasing now because your profit margin isn't as big the amount of money you are making from that, you have to sell a higher volume. And then who is that attracting in? So if you're a product based business, this could be a great opportunity. But if you're a service based business, again, we go back to capacity and we need to know, okay, what is that capacity? Because if you don't have the capacity right now in your schedule, if you're already feeling overwhelmed, it's not worth it. And what ends up happening then is you're attracting in a different clientele.
Amy [00:06:13]:
So you are attracting in those sales shoppers who, yeah, they may buy your session for 50% off and that may be it. There may be such a limited lifetime retention value. Could you get one or two? Possibly. Does it work? For some businesses? Absolutely. But it is so important that you quiet the noise and you don't get wrapped up into what everyone else is doing. Really diving in and looking at those sales trends over the year. Where are you seeing your sales drop? Where are you seeing them spike? And then what can we do to offset and mitigate some of those big pendulum swings we see back and forth? This is why tracking your data is so key. Leveraging that data to make informed decisions for you and your business, because you get to choose.
Amy [00:07:13]:
You're in the driver's seat. You are the CEO, and it is your job to see what works best for you. Because when you're doing what everyone else is doing, it can come off very desperate. That energy, like, oh, my gosh, 2024 was a complete, you know what show, and I need money, right? It's easy to get wrapped up in the end of the year. Like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? My numbers aren't where I want them to be. It comes off as desperate. But we don't want that. We want to regain control.
Amy [00:07:49]:
And the way we do that is with our data. So I encourage you to pause and ask yourself, do I have the capacity? Will this cut too far into my profit margin? Will this attract the right type of clients? Is this really something that I have the time to do and the energy to do? Because a Black Friday promotion, you have to treat it like a lunch, right? You have to, again, really be intentional with it. So what I want you to do is pause, pause today and ask yourself, do I really need to do this? And if the answer is no, that's okay. Release and let it go. Because you are the CEO of your business and you call the shots. I am here cheering for you. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire.
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