What does Black Friday mean for you and *your* business?

A day off!! A chance to get caught up on things missed by the busy weeks before Thanksgiving. 

Or perhaps even a time to go shopping for good deals!!! :)

Here in Portland, we have the best program called Little Boxes. It's all about shopping small and local. So, every Black Friday, my daughter and I are out at the Little Boxes stores, shopping and delighting in our community boutiques! 

I hope you get some good deals, @jessbru99568!

Thanks, Shana!! You are sweet!! :)

Small Business Saturday, founded by Amex in 2010, is the most important of the holiday business days for many small businesses. Even businesses without a bricks and mortar location, and that are not retail or restaurants, can participate. They can create special packages, partner with retailers or food establishments, hold open houses and events, offer gift certificates for things that might be needed over the holidays or in the new year, and much more.

Most importantly though, all small business owners should be advocates for other small businesses. We should shop small and shop local whenever possible and we can easily promote days like Small Business Saturday to encourage everyone to do the same. And many of us have clients who are also small business owners so we can promote them and their offers as well.

As a small business consultant I don't have a Small Business Saturday offer to make so I promoted the day itself and supported other business owners. I signed up as a champion with Amex and distributed their materials to other small businesses. Before the day, I held a free workshop to teach business owners how to create and promote their holiday offers. Then on Saturday my business sponsored the childrens craft & snack table at a local pop up makers mart. These events helped many other businesses, created name recognition, and positioned me as a small business advocate. There are always ways for just about any type of business to get involved in Small Business Saturday (or Black Friday or Cyber Monday.)

Absolutely nothing.

I run a service business, where each quote is customized to a specific production, so there is no 50% off or Buy one Get one free type deal that would make any sense to my customers. I'm not looking for increased foot traffic and online black Friday is so 'loud' that it makes no sense for me to even email clients since it would get lost in all the noise of Black Friday sales emails.

I would much rather target my advertising to one single client than try to compete with all the hubbub that gets kicked up on the web around Thanksgiving.

In fact, I did get a call from one of my longtime clients the Monday after Black Friday, with the request to put together a $12K production for him. "I think you just ran the most successful advertising campaign ever," the VP of Marketing for a 1 billion dollar company tells me on the phone "It's almost diabolical. I think of you every single day."

Yet the campaign he is referring to cost me $0 and about 20 minutes of my time.

I'd much rather spend my effort on one qualified client than to compete in the Black Friday roar of everyone else. And getting a $12,000+ dollar job on a $0 dollar investment is a pretty good ROI if you ask me.

Yet Black Friday had nothing to do with that.