I just saw a headline about the hourly minimum wage in New York State—it’s sixteen dollars in most places these days. That has a lot of implications for small businesses, even if you live just south of the state border.

It’s already hard enough being a business owner. You start a business because you are good at this one thing, but running a business requires all sorts of skill sets. As soon as you hire your first employee, you are expected to be an expert in all the human resource laws. The government demands you follow all of the 6,871 pages of the IRS tax code. There are safety regulations, environmental considerations, supply chain dynamics, and don’t even get me started on navigating the logistics of moving products.

It can be overwhelming. So, if they can afford it, a lot of small business owners will hire some experts to help them figure out how to accomplish everything. There are accountants, and lawyers, and such, but many actually turn to a business consultant to help guide the business end of things.

If I had the money to do so, I’d hire Santa as my business consultant. I mean, this guy, he has it all figured out. Am I right? Look, if we count just those under the age of fifteen, he has over two billion customers worldwide. And he only sells one day a year. The man is a marketing genius.

But he is more than that. His business acumen is off the charts. First, he sets up in the North Pole…a spot not governed by any nation or government. Brilliant. No taxation. No political instability. He creates his own little village out in the middle of nowhere so he doesn’t have to deal with neighbors complaining that Rudolph’s nose is too bright and is keeping them up at night.

I’ve never been there, but I’d say he is probably the largest employer in the North Pole. Every picture I see tells you he hired the indigenous population of elves to garner the support of the locals. He gets it—give us stable jobs so we can support our families and everyone is happy.

Then there are the logistics of moving that much product within such a short delivery window. I think I am pretty good at figuring out routes, but this guy is next level. He creates this media-ready story about sleighs and all that, but I’m thinking it is just to cover up an insane contract with FedEx. I bet he built them their own terminal in the North Pole to shorten their international routes, but, in return, he gets their whole fleet for the month of December.

I wonder what Santa charges for business consulting? I could see us implementing some of his strategies. Hmmm. I wonder how the whole “naughty and nice” thing would go over with our customers?