christmas

6 Festive Alternatives To An Office Party

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support, Home Working
Co-workers raising a champagne glass and celebrating in a Christmas decorated room

Every year hundreds of office parties take place, bringing co-workers together to partake in festivities. They are fun and great for team bonding, while allowing you to thank your team for all their hard work throughout the year. However, increasingly large numbers of businesses have shifted away from traditional office spaces, meaning that most businesses no longer have an ‘office’ to hold the party. What’s more, every company is different – be it in size or needs, so it’s important to explore every option, choosing one that is best suited to your team! With Christmas finally underway, we’d like to share with you some of our favourite festive alternatives to the classic office party. 

Potluck dinner – Restaurant outings are fun, and are almost as common as the office party, but can quickly become expensive or booked up. A potluck dinner is a great alternative and a fun twist on a classic – plus it’s cheaper than eating out and allows your team to freely chat over dinner. It also gives your team a chance to show their cooking flair with a signature dish.

Pub quiz – Hosting a pub quiz is a great team activity. It allows you and your employees to share and gain knowledge, and when split into teams it can become a fun, competitive activity. If you’re conscious of going out due to any restrictions or travel factors, “Zoom quizzes” are a great way to socialise remotely. While not quite as atmospheric as a pub quiz, it’s still a fantastic opportunity for quality team time as well as showing off your general (or festive) knowledge.

Team building day – If you have a day to spare this festive season, inviting your team to a team building event is a great way to spend it. The main strength of a team building activity is in the name – it allows your team to bond over some fun group activities! In turn, this leads to breaking down barriers, improved working relationships as well as a more productive team when ‘back on the job’. It is a diverse category, with many activities to choose from such as: escape rooms, board games, arts and crafts workshops, or cooking classes, just to name a few.

Karaoke night – Another twist on a pub night is a karaoke night! You might be able to find a karaoke bar in a larger town or city, but many pubs and bars also host karaoke nights. While it may seem intimidating for some, it’s a tried and tested activity perfect for a casual, festive outing. After all, what’s a better ice breaker than belting out your favourite Christmas tunes?

Ice skating – Ice skating is a great Winter activity for getting your team into the holiday spirit. Skating rinks pop up in many towns during Christmas season, so make the most of them while you can! It’s fun and rewarding and goes perfectly with a steaming cup of hot chocolate after you’re done!

Festive walk – Walks are a natural, cost-effective way for your team to come together and get into the holiday spirit. The UK is home to many stunning parks and areas of natural beauty, so why not wrap up warm and take advantage of them? Keep your eye out for seasonal events – National Trust sites often host winter-themed walks and workshops, perfect for an outing with your team.

While these alternatives are some of our favourites, there isn’t a one size fits all when it comes to these things, so remember to chat with your team and accommodate them as best as you can. We hope this read has been insightful and provides you with some fun ideas to implement this festive season. If you’d like to find our more or require any other business support – we’d love to help! Get in touch:

T: 01903 688789 E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com

12 Days Of Tipmas Day 1: Have A Monthly Plan And Process In Place For Your Accounts

MOMENTUM Business Support 12 Days Of Tipmas 2021
Two laptops on a white desk surrounded by documents and infographics

We all know running a business can be time consuming and incredibly busy, which is why planning is an absolute must. Monthly plans and processes not only allow you to better visualise your business’ current state but also help to begin the development of future strategies.

Saving time

Monthly planning saves time- allowing you to focus on other important aspects of running your business. Providing a boost to your time management, having a plan in place prepares your business for upcoming spending as well as protecting you from falling behind on payments and expenditures.

Assessing progress

Apart from establishing a regime and saving time, monthly planning also allows you to assess your business’ financial health. You can examine what is working and what isn’t while getting to the root of any problems and identifying underlying issues with ease. It’s a fantastic tool for business growth as well as budget and forecasts comparisons.

A monthly business plan might include:

•  A cashflow statement

• An income and expenditure statement.

• A sales forecast

• A balance sheet

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business with cashflow management, please get in touch: 

E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com T: 01903 688789. 

Christmas Marketing Tips For Your Business

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support, Digital Marketing
Christmas themed decoration, pines, presents, and branches on top of a wooden table

It’s that time of year again. Festive adverts, hot drinks, and your favourite ugly Christmas jumper. December has once again snuck up on us as its almost time to open the advent calendar, but why not incorporate the festivities into your business? It’s the perfect time to connect with customers, look back on your year and promote future endeavours. Here are our ideas for how you too can hop on the marketing sleigh this Christmas…

Dressing up your social media

Whether you’re a pro at festive marketing or a beginner, the best place to start is your social media. Consider updating your profile photos and layout. It can be anything from incorporating traditional Christmas colour schemes to adding Santa’s hat on top of your logo. A little can go a long way and doesn’t have to be too daring. It’s important to maintain your branding, while only making subtle seasonal changes to your profiles.

However, when it comes to your weekly content, the amount of themed posts entirely depends on the type of business and its usual tone. Find the balance that seems natural and complimentary to your routine posting style and join the festivities. Try using festive gifs and videos or running a virtual advent calendar as an engaging countdown until Christmas.

The Lead up to Christmas is the perfect time to build up your customer engagement; colourful and merry graphics will already be bringing in interest, but polls and seasonal questions can also help to spark conversation with your audience while receiving useful feedback. Try to improve relations with your customers, ask about their favourite Christmas traditions, or use this opportunity to gauge popular trends.

Christmas greetings & festive newsletters

It’s important to remember that Christmas is a time to give thanks and express gratitude. Take the time to send Festive wishes to all business partners, associates, as well as current and past clients. Afterall, maintaining strong connections and business relations is a key element to successfully growing your brand.

Another great way to boost your festivities is through a newsletter. If your business already has a regular newsletter, consider sending out a Christmas themed campaign. Whether it’s a festive blog or a seasonal update, it’s a great place to include Christmas content to a pre-established audience. If you’re not ready to dedicate an entire edition, consider a subtle festive sign off instead of your usual signature. Though only minor, these changes add a touch of personalisation and warmth to your content, which helps your business to present in a more organic light.

Advertising and seasonal specials

If your services or products are flexible, consider offering a festive deal or promotion that fits the Christmas theme, as November and December are the largest months in relation to volume of sales and customer spending. This makes them the optimal times for sale events and time sensitive offers, while presenting a fantastic opportunity to expand your clientele.

Don’t forget to utilise pre-existing events and strategies such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Being the only company not offering promotions during commercial events can stunt sales as new customers are likely to search elsewhere for better offers. Finally, remember to make the most out of seasonal hashtags, trends, and key words which will help drive more traffic to your content and build visibility.

Don’t wait too long

Christmas is an extremely busy time both for business and customers, so don’t leave it until last minute! Kick off your festive content towards the end of November and send off your seasonal wishes with enough time for them not to get lost among stacks of Christmas junk mail. Stay on top of your content and be the first to send off New Year’s greetings, and don’t forget that January is known as the month to make resolutions – making it perfect for promoting services which tie in with bettering yourself or making healthier decisions.

Stay connected this Christmas and get in touch! We’d love to hear from you and share our business experience. If you’d like to hear more, we’re only a click away.

makeithappen.. E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com  T: 01903 688789.

What To Outsource A Month Before Christmas

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support
Christmas tree in a town centre covered in blue lights

With only 5 working weeks to go before Christmas hits, what do you have left on your to do list?  

In between concentrating on serving your customers, providing your services and managing your workspace and teams, there’s an abundance of operations and management jobs that need to be done. Why not take some of the pressure off and ensure you finish the year with all these tasks completed too. Here’s some ideas about what you can outsource to ensure you rest easy this Christmas. 

Admin 

This time of year it’s always good to start getting ready for next, and an important part of that is organisation. You don’t want to come back to work in January with a messy inbox, unorganised filing systems and unruly databases. So why not enlist someone to help? It may only be a few hours work, but against providing your core services, it’s not necessarily a priority.  

An experienced personal assistant can expertly organise your emails, purging out of date or unnecessary correspondence, creating folders to file important emails, highlight important messages and much more. They can even send holding responses for you to give you more time to deal with key communications. 

When it comes to your digital filing systems – folders on your laptop/ computer, DropBox (or other file sharing platforms) or local servers – these can get out of hand after 12 months activity! It’s a task that you probably keep thinking about, but let’s face it, the prospect of sifting through and getting them sorted isn’t a fun one. Why not bite the bullet and recruit a helper? With an impartial view and no emotional attachment, they’ll quickly and efficiently tidy your files and likely make them much more user friendly too! 

The same goes with your databases. Over months of use and ongoing updating they’re prone to getting untidy. New names get added to notes, but not the ‘Contact’ section. Numbers and addresses aren’t always up to date. Old information and data entries are kept when they no longer need to be. Excel spreadsheets have formatting errors and inconsistencies. It’s a mess! Get a skilled administrator to have a look and take the stress of this task away. 

Whilst we’re on the subject of admin, have you sent your customers’ Christmas cards out yet? We can source, print, write and post them for you if you like? 

Finance 

This is so important. We can’t stress enough how little time there is until businesses start slowing or shutting down for the 2-week holiday period. Realistically you only have 4 weeks to get your outstanding invoices sent or followed up for payment. It’s nice getting the orders in and goods sent out, but it’s even better to start a new year with the cash in the bank and your finances in order. We understand one can’t happen without the other, but these processes don’t have to be independent. Hiring a capable Credit Controller to follow up older debts and keep on top of new ones is the best way to ensure you’re ahead of the game when January comes around. 

Bookkeeping is another key area that’s often left until it’s an absolute must. Incoming invoices, receipts and payments are a regular daily occurrence for most businesses and it’s easy for them to pile up quickly without being properly logged, making year end books a bit of a headache. Why not alleviate some of the pain and let a professional help you get it all organised? 

Quick question … When was the last time you reviewed your annual cashflow results and forecasts to look for expenditure savings? We’d be happy to help by producing simple summaries and overviews for you.  

Digital Marketing  

It’s easy to let marketing go a little when you have a busy period, but the problem with that is, when it gets quiet again there’s nothing in the pipeline! Don’t let your new year suffer because of your December successes. Employ an experienced digital marketer to help create and keep on top of your newsletters, mailshots, annual summaries and infographics. Keep the promotions going for January and get a plan in place for the rest of the year. 

Whether you currently use social media as a marketing channel or not, now is the time to start thinking about your strategy. If you use it already, you’ll know how important a good plan is and if you don’t, you should be! Seek the services of a digital marketing expert so it’s not all on your shoulders. The best way to interact and engage with prospects often changes, their help and advice will be invaluable – Not to mention they’ll take the daily workload that comes with social marketing away too!  

FYI – We’ve worked with over 30 industries on 100’s of accounts, across multiple social media channels. We’re always happy to answer questions and share ideas. 

So, whilst you’re taking care of order fulfilling; customer services; staff reviews; stock takes; desk clearing; and new year goal setting, let us help with everything in between. Allow yourself to make time for the most important thing of all – spending time with family and friends and taking some much-needed time off! 

We have been successfully providing services remotely for six years now. We are members of the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) and have been for 6 years. We work on our clients’ behalf as part of their team, and you can be confident that all services we provide are GDPR compliant, we take confidentiality seriously. 

If you’d like help with your admin, finance tasks or digital marketing, then please get in touch:  

T – 01903 688789  E – makeithappen@mbsmih.com 

Don’t Get Seasonally Stressed!

MOMENTUM Business Support Business Support
The words stress written with a read pencil breaking on impact

Don’t Get Seasonally Stressed!

On the lead up to the festive period it can be easy to become overwhelmed with your workload and not know where to start. Here are some of our top tips on how to combat the seasonal stresses!

1. Plan Ahead

Look at your current workload and get prioritizing with a good old list. Identify what tasks can be completed now and make a note of tasks that can wait until the New Year.

2. Don’t Overestimate Yourself

In the heightened stresses of the busy season, it can be easy to say “yes” a little too much. Be careful not to overestimate how much you can achieve before you break up for the Christmas holidays, and only agree to taking on tasks that you know you will be able to achieve.

3. Delegate

Looking at your list of tasks, there is in most cases, another colleague or member of staff that could lighten your workload for you.  Delegating tasks and responsibilities to others will also reduce your workload and stress levels.

4. Look After Yourself

There are many simple ways to lower your stress levels that you may not have even thought about in your busy schedule:

• Listen to music

Listening to music has a positive effect on the brain and body, can lower blood pressure, and reduce cortisol, a hormone linked to stress.

• Take a lunch break

It can be easy to eat your lunch whilst working at your desk when dealing with a busy workload. Stop! Take a break. Whether that’s go for a walk, booking a quick massage or meeting up with a friend for coffee, make sure you take some time out.

• Take a deep breath

It’s quite possible you might breathe 50,000 times or more per day. But have you ever really paid much attention to this? When you’re feeling overwhelmed it’s important to focus on your breathing. Take a couple of deep breaths. This will help to restore balance.

5. Have Fun

After all, it’s Christmas! Celebrate your successes, eat well, drink well and embrace the precious time with your family, friends and loved ones.

If you are feeling particularly stressed or worried about your workload heading into the festive period, why don’t you make it easy for yourself and get someone else to help? At MOMENTUM we’re always happy to help with a variety of tasks. Get in contact today by giving us a call on 01903 688789 or emailing us at makeithappen@mbsmih.com – we’d be more than happy to help.