The holiday season can be a bit of a conundrum for small businesses. While many consumer-facing businesses often earn 50% of their annual revenue during Q4, the holiday season is also when many clients, businesses and employees take significant time off. This creates major hurdles for any service-based business leader hoping to make a huge holiday splash. In fact, many service-based small businesses brace themselves for a small downturn between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

So how can you protect your business from a holiday lull - or, worse yet, an all-out slowdown? Here are five small business tips that can help keep your business on track.