1. Got enough staff? If you assume your business is completely unaffected by holidays, consider the importance of having enough staff on hand to continue business as usual. No matter if it's a retail store having to face a crunch of customers, or an accounting firm swamped with requests for end of the year advice, make certain you have sufficient staff at the ready. "Make sure you have enough staff to continue things efficiently and without any hassle," says Maura Schreirer-Fleming, author of "Real World Selling for Out of This World Results." "Also, make sure (your staff is) properly trained. A lot of retail stores at Christmas time have problems because their staff isn't properly trained."

2. Make physical preparations in advance. Get your business in holiday shape well before the actual holiday itself. If you're planning on extensive decorations, have them on hand long before the holiday hits. If you need to rearrange your space to accommodate customer overload, have that on the drawing board as well. Don't overlook transportation equipment, either: "We make sure to have all our delivery vehicles serviced in November," says Casey Cooper of Botanicals, a Chicago event design firm.

3. Consider advertising and marketing. Magazines and other publications plan holiday issues several months before Christmas and New Year's. If you plan on advertising to boost revenue during the holidays, start thinking about your advertising well before publication deadlines. "Start by finding out what deadlines publications have for holiday advertising," says Schreirer-Fleming. "Usually, that's no less than two months in advance of the holidays."

4. Don't limit your thinking to December. Although mid- to- late December is often considered holiday prime time that may not be the case when it comes to the relationship with your business. For instance, candy stores and manufacturers inevitably target Valentine's Day as a benchmark of the year. By contrast, travel-related concerns may focus much of their attention on the fourth of July. Get to know which holidays are of genuine importance to your business and move the calendar back to plan accordingly.

5. Don't assume all will go smoothly. No matter how comprehensively you may plan for a holiday, something may still go awry. Protect yourself by having a contingency plan in place. For example, if staffing requirements exceed your expectations, contact a temp agency well in advance to make sure backup is available. If you order too much inventory, have a follow up sale at the ready to clear the shelves. (One way to remedy that problem is to get a solid retail automation/software system in place. Check out Microsoft Retail Management System as an example of this.)"December is really a wild card," says Cooper. "At Botanicals, we've found December sales the hardest to predict because people order when the holiday spirit moves them." Adds Scheirer-Fleming: "Always have a Plan B on hand. What will you do if everybody shows up? What will you do if nobody shows up?"

6. Don't lose a good holiday idea. A solid holiday-related brainstorm can get lost in the shuffle of the holiday itself — or, for that matter, if you're months away from giving the holiday any serious consideration. Part of being proactive in holiday planning is to make it an ongoing effort. So, set up a system to stockpile good holiday ideas when they strike. Cooper says she often uses downtime in her schedule to brainstorm about the holidays. If a workable notion comes to mind, she makes sure to write it down for later consideration when she's in proactive holiday planning mode.

7. Keep your personal life organized as well. The stress of the holidays from a professional standpoint can often wreak havoc on your relationships with family and friends. Don't overlook your personal life when it comes to mapping out your business for an upcoming holiday. For her part, Cooper says she tries to keep her personal life as simple as possible. Not only can that make her business run more smoothly, it also lessens the overload that the holidays can bring. "It's important to organize your personal life as much as your business," she says. "That way, things stand less of a chance of going completely crazy."