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With Christmas just around the corner, I thought it timely to discuss things you might need to consider in the lead up to and during the holiday season.
Tell Your Clients When Your Office / Support Hours Are
Let your clients / customers know if your business is open or closed for the holiday period and if open, if availability is reduced.
Get your initial advice out early and remind your contacts fairly regularly leading up to the holidays.
Oh yes! Tell them when the last day to order for guaranteed before Christmas delivery is.
And remember, someone will simply just not see all the reminders.
Plan Your Marketing Campaigns Now
Sure, it's only November but before you know it, December 1st will be bashing on our doors and you want to be ready. So get yourselves ready and have your marketing ready to roll out as the festive season approaches.
Manage Your Workload
Particularly if you're in a service business, schedule your work to try and avoid deadlines to meet during your downtime or immediately on your return.
It's a good idea to try to have projects wrapped up a week or so before you leave, so that you can address any lingering questions / issues. It also helps you cater for any project delays that may run into your departure time.
Make Sure You Have Enough Stock On Hand
If you have a business that provides physical items to your customers, make sure you have enough stock on hand to meet the expected demand.
Stock Management is tricky thing because you don't want to have too much sitting on shelves after the holiday period, but you definitely need enough on hand to fulfill the holiday demand.
It's a good idea to check with your suppliers about Sell or Return policies too. This can be a great way to address stock management.
Set Up An Out Of Office Message For Your Email
You might be on holidays. Your business not be operating during that time. The rest of the world isn't though, so make sure you have your voice mail and email set up.
There's a proviso that I'm adding to the email autoresponder: Make sure that your out of office message doesn't get broadcast to the lists / groups that you're part of.
Ensure Your Support Team Know What To Do
By Support Team, I don't just mean your tech support. Do your admin people know how to respond to requests if you're taking time out of the office? Do they have processes and procedures to follow for the more common questions that get raised?
Do you have a system to capture the messages / request that come in so that you're not overwhelmed after the celebrations?
Divert Your Phones to Voice Mail or An Answering Service
Make sure that your phone is diverted to a message service and your message lets people know when you'll be around.
You might also consider using a virtual admin service or hiring a VA who can take calls during the period.
Have Fun
The holiday season and the lead up to it can definitely be crazy and stressful but it's important to remember to have some fun with it all.
Do you have anything to add these suggestions?
Life is busy and there's just so many things to remember. What tools do you use to help you keep on top of ALL the things?
It's easy to react or respond quickly to messages and the like. It's better to do that mindfully. That's why I try to Practice The Pause.
You deleted the app, so your data is gone too, right? Not necessarily. When you sign up for a service and hand over your details, that information lives on the company’s servers, not just your phone. Even if you stop using the app, your data could still be sitting there years later, and if that company gets breached, your details could be exposed.
In this episode, Charly covers:
✅ Why deleting an app doesn’t remove your data from the company’s servers
➡️ How to think about the information you hand over when signing up
⚡ Steps to log in and cleanse your account before deleting an app
✨ How to request data removal under Australian privacy principles
⭐ Why you should revoke app permissions before uninstalling
☑️ How to track down old accounts through your app store and emails
❗ Checking Sign in with Google, Apple, or Facebook for linked accounts
Take the time to go through your phone and clean up properly. Deleting the app is only half the job.
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The Redirection plugin is a plugin that handles redirects, branded affiliate links, and 404 monitoring on your WordPress website.
If you rename or delete a page, the plugin ensures that the old URL is redirected to the new one so visitors and search engines don’t hit a dead end, which is great for your SEO. Redirection also provides some stats on the links without needing to touch server files. Charly has been using it for years and walks through the full setup in this episode, from install to first redirect.
In this episode, Charly covers:
✅ What the Redirection plugin does and how Charly uses it
➡️ How to install and run through the setup wizard step by step
⚡ Setting up redirects for affiliate links and tracking click stats
⭐ How permalink monitoring automatically catches URL changes before they cause 404 errors
✨ Organising redirects into groups so you can find them later
☑️ Using the log and 404 monitor to see what’s happening on your site
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If you are a small business owner wondering whether AI is about to make your skills obsolete, the biggest tech companies in the world just answered that question for you. They fired experienced staff, replaced them with AI tools, and discovered the AI costs more than the people did.
In this episode, Charly covers:
⚡ Why this matters to small business owners who are being told their skills are about to become obsolete
✅ How the Australian government’s 1990s IT outsourcing mirrors today’s big tech AI strategy
➡️ The real numbers behind tech layoffs, AI spending blowouts, and hiring freezes
✨ Why companies are experiencing a corporate-level Dunning-Kruger effect with AI
❗ Whether QA staff cuts and a string of serious Windows update bugs in 2026 are more than coincidence
⭐ The two questions every small business owner should ask before replacing a person or process with an AI tool
Your experience is not becoming obsolete. Make informed, thoughtful decisions before swapping people for tools.
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