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Preparing Your Business for Back-to-School Season
41 Plays4 months ago
Episode Overview: In today’s episode, Amber Peterson discusses essential strategies for wedding planners navigating the transition from a laid-back summer to the structured demands of the school year. Learn how to adjust your business operations to maintain productivity while supporting your family through this busy time.
Key Points Discussed:
- Organizing School and Activity Calendars:Gather School Calendars: Amber stresses the importance of collecting all school calendars for your children, marking down every critical date on your master family calendar to avoid surprises.
Track Extracurriculars: Log all dates for your children’s activities to ensure full awareness of upcoming commitments.
Tech Tip: Utilize a digital calendar to color-code each child’s schedule, and share with your partner or caregivers to keep everyone informed. - Adjusting Work Hours:Evaluate Needs: Amber guides listeners on assessing children’s school and activity schedules to determine if work hours need adjustments.
Plan Work Blocks: Consider aligning your work schedule with school hours for efficiency, or adjust your day to fit around school pick-up times.
Communication is Key: It’s vital to communicate any changes in your availability to your team or clients to maintain professionalism and manage expectations. - Learning to Say No:Pre-decide Volunteer Time: Decide how much time you can commit to school events and stick to it, ensuring you don’t overcommit.
It's Okay to Say No: Amber encourages listeners to feel comfortable declining requests that don’t fit into their schedules.
Communicate Your Decisions: Being upfront about your availability can prevent misunderstandings and display your commitment to maintaining balance. - Strategic Scheduling for Work:Designated Workdays: Amber suggests blocking off specific days for different types of tasks (e.g., Mondays for client meetings, Wednesdays for admin tasks) to enhance focus and set clear expectations for availability.
Client Interaction Days: Set aside specific days for client interactions, ensuring that you’re fully present for your clients when needed.
Childcare Planning: Assess the need for additional childcare during work blocks to ensure uninterrupted productivity.
Communication with Family: Keep your family informed about your work schedule to manage expectations about your availability.
Conclusion: Amber wraps up the episode by reminding listeners that with careful planning and clear communication, transitioning into the school year can be seamless and stress-free. By organizing calendars, adjusting work hours, and being strategic about commitments, wedding planners can achieve a successful and balanced start to the school year.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you a wedding planner just starting your business or have you been in the industry for just a few years? Do you want to build a profitable and enjoyable planning business that you're excited about every day? If the answer is yes, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the business of wedding planning podcast.
Amber's Professional Journey
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm your host, Amber Peterson. I was a wedding planner for 10 years, a marketing strategist for service-based businesses, and now the owner of Planner's Lounge.
Challenges in Wedding Planning Business
00:00:31
Speaker
I know what it's like to work so hard as a planner but not see the growth and profit you dream of. I also know that while you can be the most talented planner in your market, if you don't have the business foundation, it will be hard to continue growing.
00:00:45
Speaker
I have seen so many talented planners burn out because they become frustrated with things unrelated to wedding planning, like finances, marketing, team growth, and operations.
Building a Dream Business
00:00:56
Speaker
This is where the Business of Wedding Planning podcast and Planners Lounge come in. Our mission is to help you learn what it takes to build the business of your dreams with simple digital product solutions, educational content, and the support of our free community, the Very Important Planners Lounge, or VIP Lounge for short.
00:01:15
Speaker
I understand what it's like to work in this unique industry while having a lot on your plate. During my time as a planner, I had three daughters, bought and moved to two new homes, and launched two other businesses. I am excited to combine my education, industry experience, and passion to help you reach your business goals.
Balancing School Schedules and Work
00:01:36
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Business of Wedding Planning podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about transitioning from summer break to back to school. This is specifically for people who have kids. If you don't, of course, feel free to listen, but this might be more this is definitely more geared toward people who are juggling their kids' schedules, their schedules, all of that.
00:02:03
Speaker
As summer winds down here, many of us are shifting from that sort of laid back summer schedule that our families might have to the more structured demands of the school year.
00:02:16
Speaker
For myself, I have three kids and great like from grades two to nine. It is definitely a challenging time. All three of my kids are in different schools and its they have different activities. It's a big adjustment to go from them just hanging around our house to getting back into the swing of all the schedules.
Time Management Strategies
00:02:39
Speaker
A lot of this information I learned from one of my favorite business coaches, Natalie Ekdall. I've worked with her on and off over the years since 2016, and she is absolutely amazing at getting the most out of your time and making sure that your business schedule and your home schedule all can work together. If you want to check her out, she had her website is bizchicks.com. chicks with an x and she primarily works with nonprofit consultants now, but she has the Biz Chicks podcast that goes back years and years and has so much great information. A lot of this I learned from her over the years and implemented in my own business. And I want to share a bit with that with you today.
Organizing Calendars Effectively
00:03:28
Speaker
So the first thing you want to do to get organized and get ready for back to school is to start by organizing your school and activity calendars. Of course, calendars, the basics, but I know my family, we have a shared family calendar and that is what we go to for everything. Start by pulling all your school calendars. For me, that's three different schools, but luckily one school district.
00:03:54
Speaker
and mark off every major school event, holiday, half day, everything that could possibly conflict with your work hours. I know here in our district, every Friday is early release. They get out of school 90 minutes early every Friday. Make sure that's noted so that nothing comes up as a surprise. The next set of calendars, extracurriculars.
00:04:20
Speaker
My family, we have afterschool clubs, dance, swim, theater. oh I mean, as I'm rattling that off, I'm already a little thinking about how much that actually is. But all of those calendars are going to also be important. I know for me right now, like we don't know when all the swim meets are for the fall, but I do know what all her practices are. Make sure that you are Noting any information that you currently have of meets, recitals, tournaments, practices, everything so that you are not surprised by anything that comes up. Finally, and this is just a little tech tip. If you have a digital calendar, it can, allow and you use that, which is what our family does. We just have a shared Apple calendar, but everything can be color coded to each child's schedule, your schedule.
00:05:15
Speaker
just for ease of use. That way you can at a glance see what does this one person have to do today. And digital calendars are also great because you can share those with you know your spouse, any caregiver that helps out instead of having to kind of write everything down over and over. So I always like the option of a digital calendar.
Adjusting Work Hours for Family Needs
00:05:38
Speaker
The next step is to make any adjustments to your work hours that are needed. With the school year comes a shift in daily routines, which might mean that you need to change your work hours. First, evaluate the needs. Look at your kids' school times, activity times, and determine if you need to adjust work hours to accommodate drop-offs, pickups, or if you need to be present at home after school.
00:06:01
Speaker
Two of my kids are old enough that they could get home and be fine, but my youngest definitely still needs to have somebody at home to meet her at the bus and make sure that she gets her after school time off on the right foot.
00:06:18
Speaker
When you're looking at your work hours, I like to plan work blocks. This means if your kids are older and school hours align closely with a typical work day, you might be able to block your work hours during their school time. If you have younger kids and you need to do early pickups,
00:06:36
Speaker
you might need to consider splitting your workday to accommodate those needs. For example, if you have preschool aged kids and they go to preschool nine to one, then maybe nine to one is when you get the your big projects that need really consistent focus done in those hours. And then if when they're home, you're the primary parent, that might be when you're, you know, quick answering emails, things like that.
00:07:05
Speaker
Finally, when adjusting work hours, communication is key. Since you're running your own business, or even if you work remotely, inform your team and your clients about your availability during the transition period. Setting clear expectations will help maintain professionalism and manage your workload effectively.
Setting Volunteer Boundaries
00:07:27
Speaker
With the start of the school year, there's going to come a flood of requests to volunteer in the classroom and activities. This time of year, I know like every back to school night, there are PTA signups, classroom parents, all of those kinds of things. So this is the time you've got to practice saying no. Set the boundaries now so that you don't overcommit. First, pre-decide on volunteer time.
00:07:56
Speaker
This means deciding right now how much time you're willing to dedicate to your so to school events, and what exactly do you want to do? For me, I never enjoyed being like classroom parent or you know setting a like I'll be here once a week kind of situation. I love doing stuff like field trips and classroom parties, things like that, and it just works better with my schedule. So decide in advance what you actually want to do.
00:08:24
Speaker
Tell yourself it's okay to say no. Don't be afraid to decline requests that don't fit into your schedule or that would cause too much stress. It's better to give a few areas all your energy than stretch yourself too thin across many. And finally again, communicate your decisions.
00:08:42
Speaker
Let the school and other parents know of your availability and your limits. Clear communication prevents misunderstandings and it shows that you're committed to balance, but also you are interested in being a part of your classroom community or extracurricular community, whatever it is.
00:09:03
Speaker
And finally, the last thing, as we're getting into this back to school season, it's important to think about how you'll structure your work time.
Effective Work Time Organization
00:09:13
Speaker
Strategic scheduling can make significant difference in how effectively you manage both your business and your personal commitments.
00:09:20
Speaker
A few ways you can organize your work calendar for maximum efficiency is to one, designate work days. So this looks like blocking off specific days for particular tasks. For instance, you might reserve Mondays for client meetings, Wednesdays for administrative or creative work, and Fridays to focus on upcoming weddings.
00:09:42
Speaker
This approach enhances your focus because you're not context switching over and over. It also helps your team and your clients know when you're available for certain activities. Of course, when you talk about designating work days, there is always something that's going to creep in that might have to be done right away, especially with if you have a week where you're leading up to a wedding, but maybe then you set aside, you know, an hour in the morning and 30 minutes at the end of the day to deal with those unexpected tasks. If possible, another way to work on your schedule is to have specific client interaction days. Depending on the nature of your business at this time of year, you might dedicate specific days for client interactions, which means
00:10:32
Speaker
scheduling all your meetings to leave the office or doing all of your Zoom meetings on those specific days. That way you can be very efficient in what you're doing. You have, you know, your your client brain on and you can just knock those all out at once. Again, this is something that is easier said than done, but if you know that, say, Tuesdays are going to be in the days where you do the majority of your calls, then that limits the amount of, I just need you to jump on a call that can kind of derail entire days.
00:11:08
Speaker
The next thing related to your work schedule is childcare planning. Even though your kids are going to school, we all know school does not last seek the entirety of a work day. So assess if you need additional childcare support during your blocked work times, if they extend beyond school hours, or if you have younger children that are either not in school or have shorter schedules.
00:11:31
Speaker
Now, childcare might not mean hiring someone. It might be working with your spouse, your partner, a grandparent to make sure that everything is covered, but just make sure that you have a plan in place so that you're not scrambling each day or each week to figure out who's going to do what. And again, this section wraps up with communicating with your family.
00:11:52
Speaker
Make sure that your family is aware of your work schedule and your blocks. This will help set expectations about when you're available for family time and when you're focused on your work. Keep that open line of communication with your family and you'll see more balance between your professional and personal life and everything just runs more smoothly.
Encouragement for Successful Transitions
00:12:11
Speaker
As we're transitioning from kind of relaxed summer pace, not for wedding planners always, but for your family, to more structured demands for the school year, following these tips will make it a little bit less stressful. And with a bit of planning and communication, you can set yourself, your team, and your family up for a successful and balanced year.
00:12:33
Speaker
block those calendars, adjust work hours if needed, and remember it is okay to say no to things that don't serve your but your family or your business's best interests. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you find these tips helpful as you prepare for the school year ahead. I know this time of year feels overwhelming. I am in it right now, but it's just another transition and we're here to help you along the way. I hope you come back next week and I hope that you have an amazing back to school season.