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The leaves have changed, a chill is in the air and the holidays are just around the corner. How will your business stand out in the hectic season to come? Why not warm your clients up with a little professional warmth It’s so easy with custom-printed business products.

Show them you care. Start with a classic holiday card! These seasonal greeting cards offer the perfect way to get your message across. Select the right design to suit your business needs, customize fonts and colors and wow them with a photo for that special touch. To show them that you truly appreciate their patronage, include a message on the inside and seal the deal with your signature. Your customers will remember your kindness and repay you with their business!

Stay in front of them throughout the year. If you really want to impress your customer base, it’s time to pull out all the stops. Customizing a wall calendar isn’t expensive and allows you to reinforce your brand identity while saying thanks. Add your favorite photo of the team, include icons and text to remind them of important dates like an appointment reminder. You can even upload your logo. And you won’t have to worry about customers tossing this handy promotional item away – they’ll reference it almost every day.

Do something a little extra special. Every business has a customer that proves their loyalty time and again. They may repeatedly purchase your products and services or boast about your business to their friends. How do you prove that their business is super appreciated? Send them a holiday goody bag filled with fun promotional items like pens, note pads and key chains. These items are useful and have the added benefit of reminding customers of your brand identity.

Get ready to wow your customers – they may be flowing through the door soon!

I recently did some research into the business of lighting. I was researching an article about high pressure sodium lights. However I ended up learning about the business end of being in the lighting industry.

On the website for Fulham Ballast, I found a lot of information about the types of clients that a lighting company might have. Ten of the types of clients listed there were:

1. Customers who manufacture their own light fixtures but need bulbs and other specific lighting solutions to finish off their products.
2. People who work with display cases that need to be lit up in order to show off the items within them.
3. People who need lighting for making movies or for doing other types of entertainment.
4. Signage companies that are interested in adding lights to their signs.
5. The POP business.
6. Businesses that work with pets that require special lighting (such as places that sell snakes which need terrarium lights).
7. Various clients in the medical industry who might need special lighting.
8. Fun clients like those who make or restore juke boxes and arcade games. The lights on these things are cool!
9. Clients who are in the restaurant business or who work in the manufacturing and distribution of industrial refrigerators.
10. Government agencies and business owners that need lights for streets or parking lots.

This all makes a lot of sense but I never stopped to think about how extensive this industry is!

San Diego seems to be the mecca for many people in the dry, southwestern region of the U.S.  And why not?  The ocean, the naval base, the scenery, the mission, Sea World, and most of all the weather are all major drawing points for people who are landlocked amongst desert scenery.

But it’s also a haven for other Californians.  I remember that when my two sons were too small to really get into a full day at Disneyland, (not to mention too small to handle a long car drive or plane ride,) we could drive an hour and a half down and stay overnight in one of many San Diego hotels.  Then we could spend one day at Sea World and the other at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Both of these places are a lot more the right speed for very small children.  And when they get older, they no longer are as interested in these.

We also were fortunate in that our hotel room had a kitchenette, so we could escape there and give the boys snacks, and also feed either breakfast or dinner there in a calm atmosphere.  And one great thing I remember about California hotels versus Colorado hotels:  the pool is always open!

Is your business as prepared as you should be in the event of a disaster? Maybe you have taken steps to insure that you won’t lose everything if something bad like a fire comes along and destroys your office. Perhaps you have taken the time to back up your computer files and were smart enough to store them off site. That is an excellent way to protect your business. But there is another thing you will want to do if you have not done so already.

What about all of your paper files. You probably have file cabinets full of records and documents. The reason you keep files in the first place is because you need them or you could need them in the future. What a liability they are!

This is where a document imaging service can help you. They can come in and quickly scan all of your files. Now that your files are digitized they too can be stored off site. In fact, these companies typically offer an off site storage solution for you as well. They can store your digital documents in a way where you can quickly and easily access them in a secure way from anywhere in the word if there is internet access.

If you are struggling to keep your business alive then you might be thinking about closing your doors. That could be the right thing to do. However, it might not be. Before you close down your business, ask yourself what the reason is that you’re shutting down. Then see if there’s another option that makes more sense.

A majority of businesses that close do so because they can’t afford to stay in business. If that’s your reason, see if there’s anything that you can do to relieve your financial burden. Have you looked at business debt reduction or corporate debt negotiation? Is there a way to reduce your monthly expenses? Ask yourself these things before you close doors.

Another reason that businesses close down is because the owner is burned out. If that’s your reason, have you reviewed other options? Have you taken a vacation lately to refresh? Have you thought about hiring more staff so you can work fewer hours?

Closing doors should be a last option. Unfortunately, it’s the option that a lot of business owners leap to when they are feeling overwhelmed by debt or stress. Pausing to think about the options available could allow you to keep your business and even to improve upon it.