Behind-the-Scenes: What I'm Doing to Prepare for Black Friday

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

Black Friday is THIS MONTH, are you ready for it? Even though it doesn’t take place until next month, now is the time to start planning if you haven’t started yet.

In this episode, I’m giving you a glimpse at how I’ve been prepping for Black Friday to ensure I’m ready to go at least one week in advance, while making this the best Black Friday yet, and how you can do the same.

Links Referenced in this Episode:

▶ Get on my Black Friday waitlist

▶ Visit the Cheerful Productivity Shop

▶ Submit a question or topic for the podcast

Connect with me:

Website | Instagram

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Intro

Black Friday is in less than a month. Are you ready for it? Even though it doesn’t take place until a few weeks from now, now is the time to start planning if you haven’t started yet. I actually started planning in October, but it doesn’t mean that it’s too late for you.

In this episode, I’m giving you a glimpse at how I’ve been prepping for Black Friday to ensure that I’m at least ready to go one week in advance while making it the best Black Friday yet, and how you can do the same. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelm goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine so let’s get started!

Podcast Update

Hey, welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. I am actually trying something different this time where I’m going to be recording myself on camera while I do the private or not the private, but the podcast episodes. And let’s hope that I can get it onto YouTube or figure out a process, but for right now, it’s in test mode.

So if you are listening to this on the podcast, but you have actually been a video person, then maybe stay tuned for a YouTube link or probably even on Instagram, I’ll be sharing some clips of me recording on the podcast.

So, just a little side note there, because this is probably going to be the first one that I actually released. I might not release it. Who knows. We’ll see.

But at the time of recording this, we are heading into Black Friday. And I wanted to share this episode earlier, but it’s been pretty chaotic at home. It seems to be non stop, like illnesses coming into this household since school started. So I wasn’t able to record last week because we were all out sick. So let’s hope that that doesn’t happen anymore.

My Black Friday Planning Process

But I wanted to get this episode because in case you are still not sure about Black Friday, or you don’t know what to even do for Black Friday, I figured it might be a good idea to take you behind the scenes of how I plan for my Black Friday and what I have done so far, so that way maybe you can go and run with it and get your own planning done because at the time of recording this, we are less than a month out.

We are already less than a month out and even less by the time this episode airs. So it is time to get your Black Friday stuff in order. So this episode is not going to be a how to, it’s more going to be a behind the scenes of what I have done because I have been planning my Black Friday for about a month now.

I am not even close to being done with the whole process. But I wanted to share that here with you. So my Black Friday process, like this, is basically what I have done.

The Planning Phase

So I started planning around early October and that planning those early phases just really included figuring out what my overall plan was going to be.

Am I going to have a sale during Black Friday week? Am I going to have a Black Friday sale during the whole month? Am I going to have multiple sales? Like what is my Black Friday overall sale going to be? And so that is a lot of what I did in October.

So I was really figuring out the dates of my sales, what were going to be on sale, what products we have, what I’m going to put on sale and when? And so that was in October.

I also went ahead and set up like the waitlist, um, to make sure that people could come into my world and get on the waitlist for my Black Friday sales.

So thankfully, I already had that done from last year so that made it super easy to cross all of those tasks off the list, but I really needed to figure out like, what else do I have to do? What’s going to be the same from last year? What’s going to be different?

And last year, I didn’t have a shop. So right now I have a Shopify store, the Cheerful Productivity Shop. I launched it earlier this year, but I didn’t have this last year. So there are some things that are going to be the same, but a lot of it is going to be super different because I really, I really want to capitalize on the fact that I now have one centralized location to send all my people to whenever I’m running in this sale.

So it was deciding when my sale was going to be like, what is my process going to be? Am I going to kind of go the easy-ish route where I’m just repurposing everything from last year? But that wasn’t really possible because I didn’t have a shop.

So now it’s like, okay, well now I have new tasks that I need to add. Right. So I have new stuff that I need to get done this year that I have to do from scratch because it wasn’t available last year.

Related Post: 5 Tips for Shopping Smarter on Black Friday

Getting My Team Involved

So a lot of October also involved, just me talking a lot of strategy with my OBM and getting some tasks delegated over to my VA. So I have um, on my team, I have an OBM who I talk a lot of strategy with. She helps get, you know, we, we go through a lot of brainstorming sessions where we’re like, okay, well, should we do this? Should we do that? What should we do? What’s going to be the best? And so that’s super helpful.

I also have a VA and at sometime in October I realized like, okay, I actually need more help than what I currently have. So I recently just brought on a tech VA as well. And so my current VA, she’s more, she’s more generalist, so she does. some of the more admin types of tasks.

And then I brought in a tech VA, which is going to be specifically helping me on some, tech type of tasks so that way I can really focus on my messaging, the copy, the emails, the marketing, um, and the strategy as well. So that is what my October really looked like in the beginning.

Creating Trello Workflows for Black Friday Tasks

Towards the end of October, I started really working on my Trello workflows and all of the steps that I was going to need to get done from then until post Black Friday, because I need to figure out like, okay, what do I need to do once my Black Friday sale is over, like, what are those tasks?

And so I have this Trello board where I have everything and anything related to Black Friday. But I’m sitting down, I think I spent a whole day just really figuring out like, okay, I have my plan. I know what products are going to go on sale. I know what my sales are going to be.

Now, what do I need to do in order to make this all happen? And so I took some time to look at my Trello board and I really went through it line by line. Every list by list really figured out like, okay, what tasks are involved with getting products added to my shop? Or making a sale or, you know, changing the prices out for my sale in my shop? the waitlist task. Do I need a sales page?

Engaging My Affiliates

Do I need to bring in affiliates? Like what do I share with my affiliates? Like all of these different things, which actually leads me to the next one, which is I realized like, okay, well I really want to be more active with my current affiliates.

And so I brought in an affiliate manager temporarily And we talked and on how we could re-engage my affiliates.

But basically I have a new affiliate program with my shop. I still needed to get some of my current partners onboarding for. And so some of those outreach emails really help get like, okay, like I’m going to actually become an affiliate for this and keep an eye out for your promotion. So that was really helpful as well.

And then it is just really gathering all of the information that I will need for my affiliates in order to make it as easy as possible for them to promote. So this was all in the planning phase, right?

My Black Friday Task List

I haven’t really done any actual task besides my waitlist, because again, that was already done from last year. And so all of this was planning.

This planning phase is so, so important because once you have really figured out everything that you need to do for your Black Friday sale, then you can see how much you actually need to get done and how much time you have left.

So even if you’re following this and you’re going through and you’re like, oh my gosh, I haven’t even started Lucy. Then start now, start now, figure out what it is that you’re going to do and see how much you have to do. Right.

So, for me. Um, I don’t have it pulled up, which I probably should have, but my Black Friday task workflow includes getting some new products added to the shop because I will be launching some new templates into the shop for Black Friday that people have asked me for.

And so I’m going to get those added. So there, it includes steps to actually get those tasks added. Um, I’m not going to need sales pages this time, but I do need to know the copy that I’m going to add into my shop to announce my Black Friday sale, so that way when the time comes to make that sale, then all I have to do is copy and paste my copy.

And I’m not just sitting there like, should I say Black Friday sale first, should I do this? Like you want to have as much as possible done. Um, the waitlist, I already mentioned that. We have to write emails, a lot of emails.

So that is something that I like to do way in advance because that is really. Me personally, how I base my entire marketing strategy around. So for me at minimum, I need to have emails. Everything else can follow.

So I have my entire content calendar is pretty much based around my emails. So you got to write your emails, you got to write maybe some affiliate emails. I’m probably going to have to write some affiliate emails as well.

Get some graphics created. That’s a task that I am delegating over to my VA. So that’s a part of it too. It’s like, okay, what of these tasks can be either automated or outsourced?

So that is another question that I’m asking myself during this planning phase. What can be outsourced and what can be automated?

So that’s another thing. Um, I think that’s basically it. And so then after the sale, I’m trying to take down, you know, the copy that says that the sale is on.

Make the Time to Plan

So there are so many tasks involved with even just a Black Friday sale, whether you’re doing a two day sale, a one week sale, a one month sale, that it really pays to take the time to plan it out.

Because if you don’t, then you’re going to be left scrambling on a Black Friday, really trying to get things done. Or you’re going to have to decide to not do some of the tasks that could have actually helped you have an even better Black Friday.

And so I really, really recommend that you take some time to plan out your Black Friday sale even if it is a day, like it was for me. It doesn’t have to be, but even a couple hours, even though that seems scary, you’re like Lucy, I have so much other things that I need to do.

And it’s like, yes, you probably do. But if you want a successful Black Friday sale, if you are not too familiar, especially with having Black Friday sales, it’s not something that you can easily assign off to a team member or to repurpose something you did last year, then you really need to take the time to plan what it is that you’re going to do.

First of all, for your Black Friday sale and what are the tasks involved with making that happen? So, If you take anything away from this episode, it’s that. Take the time to make a plan, figure out what those tasks are going to be.

And then you can see, okay, well, we have less than a month from now to Black Friday, and I have a list of, let’s say 20 tasks that I need to complete. Well how can I schedule these 20 tasks out to myself over the next three weeks to ensure that it gets done? Right?

Because personally, I’m in the United States here. So that’s also Thanksgiving week here which means I am not working. I am doing minimal work during the Thanksgiving week, my kids will be home from school and my husband usually also takes some time off on Thanksgiving.

We have family over, or we’re going somewhere else and we do a lot of in-person Black Friday shopping, too. So, um, and actually this year, my best friend is turning 30, so she’s having a birthday party that same weekend. So it’s going to be wild.

It’s going to be busy. And I am going to make sure that I have all of this done before then, because I don’t want to be scrambling on Thanksgiving, trying to set up my sales. Right. And maybe that’s you too.

Maybe you don’t want to work on Thanksgiving or Black Friday or Black Friday weekend which means you need to have as much done as possible before then. Because otherwise you’re just going to be stressed and you’re not going to want to have that negative energy when you’re running at your sale.

So get started with planning your Black Friday, if you haven’t yet. It’s okay if you haven’t started planning yet. Last year, I’m pretty sure I didn’t start until November and it was fine. Like it was fine.

This year, I started earlier because of the shop, because I want to bring in extra things like the affiliates. That’s not something that I really, really focused on last year, but that’s something that I really want to focus on this year, which means I needed extra planning time, right, to make sure that it gets done.

So if you’re starting now is totally fine, but get started on planning, make the time to create a plan and a strategy and to get your workflows in place so that way when it does come time to get the task done, you can get them done with ease. Okay.

And now for my Black Friday deal, I will be announcing it very soon. I am still working out some final details, but if you really want to know, then you’re going to want to get on the waitlist. So you can go to cheerstoproductivity.com/BF-waitlist. And that is going to put you on the waitlist and you’ll be the first to know about what my Black Friday sale is going to be.

It’s you know Hint, it’s going to be with the shop, right. I’ve been mentioning that throughout this episode, it’s the Cheerful Productivity Shop. You can go and take a look at it and see if there’s anything that you would like to grab on Black Friday. There’s anything that catches your eye and it might just go on sale. It probably is.

But get on the waitlist, cheerstoproductivity.com/BF-waitlist. The link is also going to be in the show notes so that way you do not miss out. All of my resources are aimed at helping you get time back in your days, I’m helping you get more productive so that is what you can expect for Black Friday.

Episode Wrap-Up

All right, friends, I will talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats with me at Lucy Reyes. To view the transcript and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit the show notes. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!