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Episode 155: How to Prep Your Business for Vacation
730 Plays2 years ago
One thing we've realized after 10+ years as business owners is that it's actually harder to take a vacation as a business owner than it was as an employee. My current boss is WAY more challenging than my previous ones ever were. ;)
After a few vacations that involved way too much time in front of a computer dealing with tasks that "had to be done" at that moment, we've learned that when it comes to a vacation from your business, a little prep work goes a long way.
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Transcript
Team Responsibility Awareness
00:00:06
Speaker
I think my only other last point is that if you do have a team, it's important to make sure who knows which team members know what they're covering for you. So let's say if I'm going to be out, Kendall needs to know that she's going to be responsible for my email. And maybe Renee, who handles our support, needs to know that she's going to be responsible for certain things that week.
00:00:25
Speaker
And that's going to look different depending on how many team members you have and what business you've run. But I think it's important to communicate ahead of time what your expectations are for your team and then also what kind of communication they can expect from you. Should they expect you to check in every day or should they just expect radio silence for a few weeks?
Preparing Businesses for Vacations
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:53
Speaker
Many of us started our businesses so that we would have more flexibility in our life, but it can sometimes feel overwhelming to step away and take time off. Today, we are chatting about a few things that we do to get our business ready for a vacation. We include tips for solopreneurs and those with teams, so there's something for everyone in this quick episode. We have other episodes on outsourcing, delegating, and hiring a team. If you are looking for more freedom in your business, those are good episodes to listen to as well, and you can find links to them in the show notes.
00:01:23
Speaker
As always, be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources that we mentioned during the episode. And we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see on the brand set book podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at davianchrista. Now onto the episode.
00:01:44
Speaker
All right, Memorial Day is this weekend, so pretty much the unofficial start of summer. Yes. I know we have a few more weeks until summer officially starts, but I'm excited to be talking about I think something that feels very appropriate for the season, which is how to get a business ready for vacation.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yes, I'm not sure when this is going to come out, how close it will be to Memorial Day, but regardless, hopefully you're listening to this in the summer or just any time of the year and you could find these tips helpful so that you feel like you can actually go away and relax and not stress about your business and feel like you need to check in all the time.
Vacation Planning & Personal Experiences
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like just what you said sort of gives away our bias. We are beach people. Well, we have no vacation planned yet, but we should get on that. I know. You know, it's so tragic because, you know, that's what everybody asks now. It's like, so what you doing this summer?
00:02:31
Speaker
Well, I feel like having the baby kind of threw us off because by the time we got out of newborn stage and we're like thinking about where to go, all the beach houses seem to be booked or like super expensive. So I don't know, maybe we can do some planning and figure something out. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. I feel like all of last year we were just thinking about, all right, baby number two coming. And then, you know, when baby comes, it's like, you're not thinking vacation. You're just thinking about getting through nights and routine and
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah. But anyways, there will be for sure some beach time. I won't let the summer go, go by without it. All right. Well, you can do the planning. But we thought it would be an appropriate episode for the season, regardless of whether you're listening to this in the summer or the winter. I think pretty much everything we have here is applicable.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, even for like preparing for the holidays, like if you're going to be out for a few weeks or even a week at Christmas, or I know that now that we have kids, we have some breaks that just seem to pop up. Like we have a break coming next week and there's another break at the end of the summer. So hopefully these can get you ready for this time off. Yeah. Yeah. So where should we start?
Communicating Absences to Clients
00:03:38
Speaker
I think one of my first things that I recommend people doing is as early as possible to update your email footer to reflect any future updates, even if it's just like a day. This helps set expectations early and hopefully it helps communicate to clients that you're emailing with, customers that you're emailing with, that they can anticipate out time from you.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, I think that's important. I mean, just communicating it as far as advancing and possible as possible. And, you know, I think that for a lot of us, right, we book probably pretty far out, you know, even as website designers, I mean, not as much as, you know, a lot of wedding industry folks, you know, we're booking, you know, months out instead of years out. Right. So, but point being is just setting that expectation upfront and early is helpful. And one of the easiest ways to do that in a kind of low key way is in your email footer.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. And then continuing on that thought, if you do have current clients who might expect an email from you, I would say about two weeks before you're going to be out just to email them and let them know what to expect, how long you'll be out. If anything's come up, comes up in the meantime, if there's anybody they can reach out to. So like, for example, on our team, if we were going to be out, I'd probably have them email support or Kate who was our assistant so that if they did need something while we're...
00:04:58
Speaker
No, a lot of K's. A lot of K's. Krista, Kendall, Kate, you know. We just had a major switch. Email Kendall. I miss you, Kate. If you're listening, but we also love you, Kendall. As early as, or sorry. Anyways, so that if they need something in the meantime while I'm away, they know who they can reach out to. If you don't have anybody else on your team, I think that it's still a good idea to send that email because that lets them know what to anticipate and when you'll be back.
00:05:26
Speaker
And if you have a project, like a lot of the projects that we do, we have homework for people to work on, so it might be good to prep some of their homework ahead of time so that they can be working on something while you're out so that their project doesn't get delayed at all. Yeah, I hate that we call it homework. We need to rebrand that work that we have clients do. But yeah, I think that's just really important. I think too, it just shows some initiative that, especially since something like website design, right?
00:05:55
Speaker
You know, projects don't move on as quickly without you in the office, right? Because even though we have a team of designers, everything goes through you just to make sure things are done well. But point being is I think giving clients an option to kind of work a little bit early, I think it goes a long way.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yes, definitely.
Managing Tasks Before and After Vacation
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah. Another thing I think is important to do, and I feel like people have mixed feeling about these, is to set an out of office message. And so I personally don't set one all the time. I only set one when I'm out of the office. And you want to make sure that it includes, again, if there is an emergency, who they should contact. So whether it's another person on your team, like for us, we were going to let a show it site. So we give them the show it contact details, how to get in touch with show it and their help center.
00:06:41
Speaker
It's a good idea to set expectations about when you'll return, how you're going to respond to emails, if it's in a particular order, when should people expect to hear back from you? Because I think one thing that is not super fun is to come back on, let's say a Monday and then have your inbox flooded with things and people expect you to get back to them right away where it might take you a couple of days to get back to everyone.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. We always give ourselves one or two days buffer. So if we're going to be back on a Monday, we typically tell people that we're going to be back in the office on Tuesday and then we'll have emails responded to by the end of the week or maybe by the end of the next business day. But giving yourself a little bit of a buffer and setting expectations in that way, I think is going to save some headaches, especially if something comes up. We might decide to stay an extra day at the beach, right? And you don't want to have to do necessarily all this extra work just to make sure clients are on the same page.
00:07:29
Speaker
Right. Or you might get back later and you feel like you need to unpack. And so you don't want to have all that pressure on yourself to get your life back in order in just a few hours. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think in addition to that, what are some things that we do to try and keep things moving while we're away?
00:07:46
Speaker
I like to make a list of everything that needs to be completed before we leave and then as well as things that need to be paused. So some things you might be able to finish before you go. Like maybe you're really close to wrapping up a certain project, like you're editing a wedding and you know that you can edit that wedding and deliver to your client and then relax. But if you have a more ongoing project, like when we work on a website, it takes a few months, then you need to, I feel like you need to have a stopping point. So you know how far you're going to get before you tell the client, talk to the client and then take a break while you're away.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as much as we can move things on as we go, we do. Right. Yeah. I mean, even occasionally you might check in with the team just to see if there's something that's holding up the team that you can knock out in 15 minutes. Yeah. When I say a lot of this, I'm assuming that maybe not everybody has a team. For us, I feel like since we have a team, we don't pause as much. It's not a true stop point of the business. Things keep moving. But if somebody didn't have a team, that's what I would do.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And I feel like people need to feel like they can take vacation, you know, like they can take seven days, 14 days, whatever it might be, and actually take that time off. Yeah. And I think that's a reason why a lot of people go in business is for maybe a little bit more flexibility. And oftentimes, just because we don't set up systems in our business, we sort of trap ourselves in it.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's easy to feel like you went into business because you wanted freedom, but then you can't ever leave it. You can't ever stop working. So I hope that some of these tips that we're sharing make you feel like you can put things down and everything doesn't fall to pieces. Yeah. When you get back, how do you make it so that you don't feel as overwhelmed with work?
00:09:24
Speaker
Well, when I get back, I like to make a list of my priorities. So email may not be as much of a priority as like certain projects and getting them moving. But I might get to email, like if we came back on a Sunday, I might get to email by like Tuesday, just so that I know that the things I really need to get done in order to keep our business moving are happening maybe on that Monday. What about you? Do you have any tips?
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I like that making a list of what what I'll focus on, you know, when I return, you know, my problem with vacation, we talked about this a little bit just in terms of what, you know, we just did an episode on maybe rest or burnout, right? Yes. You know, I always feel come back from vacation, I have all these different ideas. So there's a kind of catching up on work, but then I'm excited to get on to, you know, new projects, right? Right. And so
00:10:06
Speaker
really focusing on those things that I have to get done in order to get back to people, catch up on some work and then moving on to some of those projects, but making some time during the day to focus on those projects, even if I'm not done my list. So we talked about that as like kind of the 10% rule, but I think it's just a good way to come out of vacation and stay excited about maybe some of those projects that maybe you jumped up while you're away or you're just more motivated to do at the time. And I think less likely to feel like, you know, you're back in the grind as soon as you get back.
00:10:34
Speaker
Right. Another tip for you away is to decide whether you want social media and blog posts and all the things that are scheduled to keep going out or whether you want to just pause them for the week.
Social Media and Communication During Absence
00:10:45
Speaker
I know that there's something to be said for pausing those things and not having to worry about whether that email went out or the blog post went up and then sharing about it on social media. So I think it's a personal preference, whether you think that everything will go up like as scheduled and not have any kinks and it won't stress you out or if you want to just stop it for the week.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that a lot of this has to do with whether you have a team or you have a VA that you can trust with those things. Because the more things you have automated going while you're away, the more possible things that could break and might require your attention during vacation, right? Maybe you have an email scheduled to go out and while you're out, the link's broken.
00:11:21
Speaker
Or who's going to fix that? We would have somebody on our team ready to address that. But if you're truly a solopreneer, is that something you want to take out of vacation time to address? And I think if you're just taking five days off at the beach, really soaking up those five days, so maybe you do end up pausing those things. Yeah. And I don't think that most people are going to miss that you skipped a week of email or social media or whatever it is that you're not doing that week.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. On the other hand, something like social media, which you could automate for that week, might be worth doing, especially if you just feel like you're in a good routine and you don't want to rock the boat there. I just think the more you risk having going on,
00:12:06
Speaker
that week, the more that could potentially draw you back into work. Right. So you want to plan appropriately, I think for vacation. And, you know, that might mean if you have a big launch the next week, you know, maybe that's not a great time to take vacation. Yes. Right. That's true. So you really want to, you know, look at your calendar and figure out, OK, when can I really disconnect from work? Yes. Yeah. That's a great point. And otherwise it just defeats the point. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see other things when it comes to getting ready to go on vacation.
00:12:36
Speaker
I think my only other last point is that if you do have a team, it's important to make sure who knows which team members know what they're covering for you. So let's say if I'm going to be out, Kendall needs to know that she's going to be responsible for my email. And maybe Renee who handles our support needs to know that she's going to be responsible for certain things that week.
00:12:55
Speaker
And that's going to look different depending on how many team members you have and what business you run. But I think it's important to communicate ahead of time what your expectations are for your team and then also what kind of communication they can expect from you. Should they expect you to check in every day or should they just expect radio silence for a few weeks?
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. And, you know, just talking about some team tips here, too, I know for Till Agency, we have some standard operating procedures, especially around out of office time.
Till Agency's Out of Office Procedure
00:13:23
Speaker
And, you know, really, we try to make it as easy as possible for people to disconnect. We certainly don't want to reach out to people during their vacation time and be asking them questions or drawing them back into work. And so that's why we have some of these procedures, even though I think sometimes they can feel like a lot, you know, before you actually go on vacation.
00:13:38
Speaker
But some of those things we include is we have like an out of office template that we have team members complete. So if they're planning on taking time, they have to complete this template. And it's like a Google doc, right? I think I saw this the other day. Yep. It's just in Google docs. And basically it just goes through like what they have going on, what they anticipate coming up, where people can find different resources should, you know, a client ask, you know, those sorts of things, anything that we can think of that might come up while they're out.
00:14:07
Speaker
And then they're responsible for giving that document to the people who are covering for them. So if it's an account manager, they'll go to the other account managers who are covering for them. They'll also post the dates that they're going to be out and not just the dates that they're going to be out, but also the first day that they're going to be back in the office. So again, we know, okay, vacation is going from
00:14:28
Speaker
you know, Monday through Friday. Does that mean you're going to be back in the office Friday or not? Right. And so we just have as much clarity as possible around those things. Yeah. I think that's a great tip, especially for a bigger team like yours.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, our team is relatively big. You know, we have 10 to 12 people, you know, somewhere in there, but, you know, in the grand scheme of things, right? Oh, yeah. You're not like a thousand. Yeah, huge, right? But, you know, the more people, I think the more communication that that has to happen. Right. And again, the way we think about it is just we really want people to have that opportunity to disconnect.
00:14:59
Speaker
And so that prep goes a long way and not only letting our team member get some well-earned relaxation time, but then also serving our clients well while they're gone. So there's not discontinuity in service. Yeah, I think that's a great tip. Yeah. So anything else that you want to mention before we wrap this one out? I don't think so. Do you have anything?
00:15:21
Speaker
No, I'm trying to think about some of the things that we've done with Till, but that pretty much summarizes it. If you think that there's anything that we missed or any advice that you'd like to share with others, you know, one of the best ways to share that is on Instagram, you know, we'll be posting about this, but then also just comment on the show notes and we'll update those, you know, with some of the best tips that we get. And if you have an idea for where we should go away, feel free to comment with that too. That's right. It really, and we're not picky when it comes to beaches.
00:15:50
Speaker
You're set on a beach. I have some other ideas, though. Oh, I mean, I just, you know, this beach, I know. Yeah. And so I'm like, well, yeah, why change something that's not broken? Yeah. Right. Why fix something that's not broken? Anyways, so we hope you find these these tips helpful. And yeah, yeah, we'll be back soon. Thanks for joining us. Enjoy your vacation.
00:16:12
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.