CAS 102: Slow Months

During the winter months, we will continue to experience a downshift in customer count. Along with your daily responsibilities that do not change no matter what the customer flow is, you are finally going to have a bit of time to get organized, educated, and better prepared for high season next year. First and foremost, check in with your manager: what are their priorities? Make sure you partner with your managers to ensure that the things they’ve been tasked to manage that you can help with are at the top of your list. Run through the contractor customer list and check on reseller permits. Are they expiring within the next few months, the business has been notified by the state to renew, and typically they will have their new one well before the old one expires. Request an updated permit, thank them for their business and invite back, then log a call! Deep clean your workspace. This includes old or disorganized files and file cabinets, under desks, in cabinets- get all the nooks and crannies of things that have piled up over the year, things that have been taped down can be scraped up and replaced, windows, surfaces, etc can be washed and areas labeled, organized and tossed if irrelevant. Make sure you partner with management before eliminating old filing, these are stored elsewhere for a specific amount of time, but purging does need to happen. American Stone has loads to learn about, from products to sales to installation. Make the best use of your time to learn as much as you can so you can speak confidently about all our products and services. We also have policies and procedures that are stone business specific, company rules and regulations, Odoo how-to’s and so much more. Pricing audits are so important. Is your showroom price signed? With our prices changing all the time, frequent price audits are important, they are a small promise we make to our customers, and if they aren’t right, it feels misleading. Decorate for the holidays- well, of course. Tis the season. Nothing says festive, inviting and family like Holiday Decor… Partner with your manager to get this planned, it’s coming sooner than you think- Also, Marketing has another contest planned for holiday decor. Run your top 100 and bottom 100 customer lists. Call the tops and thank them for their business. Call the bottom 100, and let them know we miss them. Partner with your salespeople to schedule site visits on their behalf and put in any opportunities in the system. Odoo Clean Up There's never a better time than winter to ensure all the SO’s are in done status, the customer invoices are paid up on time, and the customers with credit have up-to-date documents on file. Organize your computer! Review all the scans and downloads, the forms on your desktop and in your personal drive. Make labeled folders for easy accessibility, and ditch what you don’t use, is outdated, or irrelevant. You can do this in your email as well! Make folders for customer information, vendor information, American Stone information and whatever else you may need. Trash all the old, unnecessary, spam and clutter. Update any forms, lists and logs you use. If you see standard forms that need updates, contact Human Resources about doing an update. Our business is changing and growing every year. Updating our forms to keep them relevant and attractive lends professionalism to our brand. At the end of the year, we prepare Christmas Cards for mailing out and decorate the store.