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HOW TO TAKE A HOLIDAY WITHOUT YOUR BUSINESS FALLING APART
1 – Plan your holidays in advance
If you want to take a holiday without your business falling apart you are going to need to plan in advance. From an annual planning perspective it is great to be honest about the amount of time you’d like to take off, and if you can pin down the dates in advance EVEN better. For example, in my business I follow the 12-week year (you can find out more about the book here) and in this model week 13 is a holiday week. I always take off the last week of June and December, but I will flex the last week of March and September depending. Knowing in advance how much time you want to take off is useful for a number of reasons.
Firstly, if your revenue is connected to the amount you work, then you’ll need to do your financial planning taking into consideration the number of weeks you’ll be working rather than the whole year. Too many business owners will set their financial planning based on working 52 weeks of a year and so every week they take off is financially costing the business.
Secondly, if you are able to identify the dates you’ll take off in advance, this will maximise the chances of you taking the holiday. As a business owner it is too easy for your diary to fill up and half way through the year you realise you have commitments all over the place that taking a week (or two) off is impossible. Being able to block the time out in the beginning means you can make adjustments in your business straight away, and then ensure you don’t take on anything else that will impact you taking that holiday.
Thirdly, understanding the amount of holiday you want to take over an annual basis will help when thinking about the systems and support you’ll need. If you are only going to take one holiday in the year, you might be able to shut down your business for that period of time. Whereas if you are planning on taking 3+ holidays then you’ll want to find ways for your business to continue without out.
| TAKE YOUR ANNUAL BUSINESS PLANNING TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY WORKING WITH ME – BOOK A STRATEGY DAY
I’ve been running annual planning strategy days with small business owners since 2019. Doing your annual business planning with someone external from your business and with tons of business and marketing experience and expertise makes a massive difference. I’ll support you to face the facts about your current position, dream big about the future and get really strategic about what you need to do in order to achieve those big business goals. So if you are planning on preparing for the next 12 months and you want to get your annual planning done in the most effective and efficient way, book a Strategy Day. |
2 – Having a holiday plan
Once you’ve decided on when your holidays will be, it’s time to put together a holiday plan. This plan will help you to think through what needs to happen for
Finance – Are they are any financial activities that need to happen during your holiday? This could be invoices that need to be sent, invoices that need to be paid, or payroll. Normally, all of these activities can be done in advance and scheduled, but having a clear list of financial responsibilities is key.
Delivery – How much time can you take off without that impacting delivery? And once you pass that point, what do you do? For example, it might be that you have delivery focused on a few days per week so it’s easy to have a long weekend, but a week would take more preparation. If the time off impacts delivery you’ll need to decide whether that means you adjust delivery and give clients / customers extra before or after your return, or whether you change the financial cost.
Client / customer service – With clients it is usually easy enough to inform in advance about when you’ll be uncontactable, but if you have a course or membership you might need to consider the customer service element. Do you need to hire someone else to be able to cover when you are away?
Marketing – Another reason that small business owners struggle with taking holiday is because not only can they lose money from not working, but often marketing grinds to a halt and so that means having a slower month the next month. You’ll need to decide whether your marketing continue as usual or will you take a break? If you decide to continue as usual, you’ll need to get everything created and scheduled in advance.
Another thing to consider is your social media inboxes. Putting the email out-of-office has long been the symbol of work being finished and a holiday officially beginning. However, now you are likely to have social media inboxes too and if you are going to continue posting on social media then you’ll likely get DMs too. Luckily, you can set up automated replies on a number of social media platforms (definitely Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) so that people can tell you aren’t ignoring them.
| PUT TOGETHER A MARKETING AND SALES STRATEGY THAT YOU HAVE CONFIDENCE IN
Returning from holiday to notifications of sales and enquiries is a great feel, but for that to happen you need a robust marketing and sales strategy – which I can help you with! During a Strategy Day we’ll decide what your marketing and sales strategy is for the year, and put together a top line annual timeline so your marketing will continue regardless of whether you are on holiday or not. |
3. Do what feels best for you
Following the steps outlined above will mean you can properly take a holiday where you can switch off and your business shouldn’t fall apart. However, if you don’t have someone else in your business, it can be very hard to switch off and not worry about what is happening. In those cases, it can be better to log in occasionally just check everything is ok and there is nothing wrong with that. If a quick check every 2-3 days means you can relax the rest of the time – do it! What you’ll find is over time you’ll realise your process work and can go longer (and fully switch off for longer and longer).
That’s it. You now know how to take a holiday without your business falling apart.
You didn’t start your business to work day and night, 365 days a year! As a business owner, you totally deserve to take time off. It’s good for you and it’s good for business. So open up that diary right now and make a decision about when you’ll take your next holiday!
I hope this blog post has been helpful and enables you to have a rested and relaxing holiday.
