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00:00:01
How We Take 6+ Weeks Off Each Year
70 Plays1 year ago
We're trying something new at Foxtrot Branding and starting a podcast (maybe?) to share our thoughts on all things design entrepreneurship and how it relates to our lives. Let us know your thoughts and what you'd like to hear more about in our next episodes!
Resource mentioned:
-Effortless Client Communication Library: https://foxtrotbranding.com/client-communication-library
-All resources for designers: https://foxtrotbranding.com/education
Timestamps:
0:00 Introductions
4:24 Weekend Highlights
7:56 Topic Intro
9:07 What We Did On Our Summer Breaks
15:26 The Importance of Rest for Creatives
20:10 How We Schedule Our Breaks
21:52 How We Financially Prepare for Time Off
26:51 When We Do Our Preparation
28:07 Preparing Your Clients & Automations
33:34 Our Client Communication Templates
35:05 Making Time Away a Reality for Yourself
40:10 Listener Questions
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Spill the Tea'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Spill the Tea, Spilling the Tea. We've not totally decided on the name yet, but you're used to this being just an email, but we're trying something new this time. But before we dive in and talk about all of that, we'll give a quick intro in case you're like new to us, not super familiar, especially not familiar to seeing us in this platform, in this kind of way, through video. Maybe we've just been text on your screen in your email inbox, but yeah, we are Foxtrot Branding. Cassie, do you want to like introduce us a little bit? Yes, we are Foxtrot Branding, so I'm Cass, and that's Amanda. We are co-founders of the design studio Foxtrot Branding. We have been running Foxtrot for coming up on six years, right? Yeah, we're about to hit our... Yeah, this is going to be our sixth year in September. Our sixth year anniversary. Yeah, that is crazy. So I am like the web design half of Foxtrot, and Amanda is our brand design half.
The Journey of Foxtrot Branding
00:00:54
Speaker
um We kind of both met basically when we were
00:00:58
Speaker
starting freelance journeys. And since we both kind of had like complimentary skills, we were like, let's start a design studio together and see what happens. And it definitely looks different. I think then we thought it might, but also in a way, like it's kind of what we, and we had in mind too. Yeah. Yeah. and It's been a really interesting journey, but yeah, we've been doing foxtrot together for six years and I'm excited to kind of start maybe making like a more personal avenue for us to kind of like,
00:01:27
Speaker
talk about business things and just kind of like get to know you guys better. Yeah, we just want to kind of connect in a different way. um And we can dive into here in a second about like why we're doing this new format for spill the tea, testing this new thing out. But yeah, I think like for us, we're just we're having a lot of big shifts in our business right now and trying to figure out what we want it to look like. Do we want to keep it really small? Do we want it to feel more like an agency, all these things, but something that's big on our minds is just like the way we connect online. And we want it to make more enjoyable for us, but also more helpful for you all. So I think like testing something new out like this testing out more video format, because I know not all of us love to just sit and read emails. So maybe it'd be more fun to like
00:02:11
Speaker
do a video kind of podcast thing. Maybe this turns into a podcast one day. We're not totally sure yet. We're gonna figure it out along the way and decide like, see what actually feels fun for us and good for us in our business and also feels helpful for
Working Dynamics of Co-founders
00:02:26
Speaker
you all too. So definitely give us any feedback if you like this format, that'd be really helpful for us. Yeah, I'm super excited to do something that's a little bit more like casual because I think sometimes we felt like i we love doing newsletters and I think we'll keep doing them in some format, but I think it's nice to be able to kind of like break that formality we feel like when we're writing and just show a little bit more of our personalities. Like I think sometimes it's kind of weird when you have like an online platform or a business and um some people are all in on just being sharing like everything in their life and then some people definitely have like a hard cut of like this is my business self and I keep my personal self separate and I think sometimes it's like a
00:03:05
Speaker
ah weird thing for us to kind of figure out like how much of our personal selves do we you know want to share online. But I think we do want to like show more of our personalities and just be able to like connect a little bit more in a way that feels more casual, like I said. yeah I'm excited about this. It's especially interesting, I think, too. and We don't need to talk about this for too long because then we'll get distracted from our main topic. but just like The fact that we are a team of two, like it's not like one of us is like the founder and then we have employees. It's like we're both co-founders.
00:03:32
Speaker
we have to make all these decisions together. And it's it's really interesting to see like, how do we both feel comfortable like, showing up in the business and sharing like who we are. And it's just really interesting. Like, how do we want to like, engage, you know, we have to kind of both be on the same page with all of that. So that's been like, yeah, true for us to figure out like, how do we as a as a team want to show up online and in the world as a business. So Yeah, and I'm excited to like maybe you know show more of that relationship to like through doing a format like this where we can kind of share like how how we talk through things and like what perspective we both bring to topics because ah it's a huge benefit to have to have a co founder and have two people. But like the caveat is you just have to always like talk through things and work through things and take the extra time to make sure you are on the same page about it. Yeah, so I guess we can kind of dive into our topic here in a second. But maybe first we can talk about like a little highlight something positive, like we always always want to start these with something positive. And so we we're thinking about like, what if we share a highlight from our weekend or something? Yeah, Cass, do you have like something good a highlight you want to share? Yeah.
00:04:37
Speaker
I think my highlight from this past weekend is we're recording on a Monday, maybe we'll keep doing this, we can do like a weekend highlighting, but I ended up going to Knoxville to see a show for a band that my husband was playing with and we went to Pilot Light and that was really fun. Me and my sister-in-law drove up and like her husband is also in the band and he didn't know that she was going to be there. So like we surprised him and it was really fun to see them. It was a really good time. there's some really cool bands. There's this one called French Toast. And they did like themed songs. um And they did like they did this one song and they were like, this is a song about things becoming something that they didn't used to be. And they're like, vape shop, you used to be a pizza hut.
00:05:20
Speaker
It was so fun. I think local. So it was ah funny. It was a great, it was very like theatrical and like they had theme songs and then they were like um some, you know, just other more like typical bands, but it was really fun.
00:05:37
Speaker
That's awesome. That's so fun. I guess my highlight, I don't really do any like big things this weekend. I kind of just took a lot of time to just like do some introspection. I've been trying to figure some things out in my life and just like what I want next in my future and all of that. And there's a lot that goes into thinking about that. Just, you know, little questions like that. Just little questions about like, do I want kids or not? You know, just like casual.
00:05:59
Speaker
Really easy decisions to make. Yeah, my late 20s. So that's something I've been thinking about just like spending time with my family and talking about that with them and getting their perspectives and that's been really nice. But then this morning, this was like kind of my highlight, just because it's funny, I came out when I woke up this morning to feed my cats. And Ralphie was looking out the window and he was like, you know, where they like they're locked in on something. And I looked out there and I realized there's a little chipmunk that has been eating my tomatoes. I've had like three tomatoes now on my tomato plant out there. Just like, I was like, I can't tell if they're being eaten or if they were like burning in the sun or something. Cause they were just like mush. And I was like, what is going on with my tomatoes? And now I know the culprit. It's a chipmunk coming and it was so cute. I took a picture. I wonder if I can tell you. Adorable chipmunk, but I caught it. I know. I was like, I'm not even upset because look at him. Oh, he is really cute. cute. He deserves it. You know, I would like he looked like he was really enjoying the tomatoes. So I was like, you know what, that plant is his now. Like that's, and it was retaining Ralphie. So it's kind of a win-win except for everyone except for me, because now my tomatoes are all being eaten, but whatever. It's fun. Well, I guess today, what are we drinking? What are we drinking? I am drinking tea for Spill the Tea today.
00:07:15
Speaker
I'm being really boring. and We do have our matching cups. I'm just drinking black coffee. Well, I guess technically an Americano because I have an espresso machine. um I don't know if you guys know, but I have an espresso machine.
00:07:27
Speaker
It's kind of fancy. It actually saves us money though, because my husband used to get espresso every morning back when we lived closer to a coffee shop. And so when we moved, we were like, we have to get something. Yeah, I'm just drinking a lot of coffee. Yeah, and that's like $8 a day or something, right? How much do this cost? That's so expensive. At this point, it's paid for itself. If we really were, we could make coffee in other ways.
00:07:49
Speaker
It is really nice, I'll be honest. I think it's nice to have those little ways to like treat yourself every day. like Make every day a little bit more special, a little bit more nice.
Managing Extended Vacations
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. Well, let's dive in then to our topic today. So today, we're going to be spilling the tea on how we managed to take six plus weeks of vacation every year. We can also share a tiny bit about what we did on our summer vacation, and then just dive into like how do you actually make that possible? Because I know for a lot of people, like it's really hard to like step away from your business. like How in the world do you do it? How in the world do you set aside the time or how do you manage to like financially prepare for that? so We're going to talk about all that today. I guess real quick, just like what did we each do during our three weeks of summer vacation? Also, like when when do we normally take that time off? We so we normally do take like a summer vacation that's about three weeks and then a winter vacation that's about three weeks. um Those are our scheduled day and ones. and then
00:08:42
Speaker
we will often have like a couple of like vacations or little trips pop up that will work into our schedule, but we always take a summer vacation, usually like June and into July. and like Those are times where we're like absolutely unplugged, whereas other random trips, like sometimes like I went to Colorado this spring to visit my friends. like I was still kind of working for some of those days and not on some of the others because it was like a weekend trip. That's kind of how we manage little things like that. so What did you do on your summer break?
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, so my awesome summer break was awesome. um Well, half it was awesome. Half was less awesome, because I get sick after my trip. But for 12 days, I went and did a really incredible trip with EF Ultimate. There's like a tour group for people ages like 18 to 35. I believe this is a trip I booked last year, um post a breakup. And I was like, I need to do something for myself. So this is like a gift to myself post breakup kind of trip. But I did a 12 day trip through Switzerland, Italy and France. And it was awesome. It was so much fun. We basically just did like a lot of hiking, like it was a hiking focused trip. And it's like their hike the Alps trip, I believe. And it was just incredible. Like every every hike was like pretty challenging, but also all had like the most amazing views I've ever seen. Like we do not have mountains like that anywhere around here in North America. I feel like it's like just
00:10:02
Speaker
the vibes were so different and just like everything was so big and so snowy and beautiful and clear and it was just like just amazing views everywhere you look basically ate lots of good food all the people were awesome so that was like just such an incredible trip overall How did you even find out about that? Like you're definitely more of a traveler, especially like international traveler than I am. I wouldn't even know where to start like to find a guided trip like that. Yeah, I had heard about it. I've had friends who did trips with them either in high school or college. um And I had just like followed like their Instagram for a while.
00:10:36
Speaker
And so when I saw stuff coming up for their like Black Friday sale, I jumped on it. So it was awesome. I might do another trip with them. Like I've thought about doing like a Tokyo or like South Korea trip or something like somewhere. I want to go on group towards like that that are guided to places I wouldn't normally go by myself. That seemed like really intimidating and either just because of like the nature of like the language being so different or just how much like logistical stuff there is to figure out for a big trip like that like that's why I loved this tour because I felt like honestly the most relaxed and joyful I have felt in like a long long time on this trip because it was just everything was planned for me everything was organized I did not have to worry about any transportation I just showed up and just got to enjoy it and that like made such a huge difference I was like I could not have had this experience on my own doing it with the tour group was
00:11:25
Speaker
was well worth it, well worth the extra cost for sure. Yeah, because I mean, if not, it's going to take so much like planning time. And like honestly, I feel like the experience is going to be a lot more experimental if you're kind of trying to figure it out as your goat as you go and you wouldn't have had that like space in your brain for it to be as relaxing as it sounded like it was for you. Yeah, and I think there's like a time and place for different kinds of travel. And I've done lots of so solo travel. And I maybe one day would do a solo travel to Europe again. But like, it's just more fun, honestly, to like have so many great people to spend that time with. I just felt like no matter where I was going, or what I was doing, there was always someone who was interested in the same thing, or like I could enjoy dinner with anyone I went out with. And it was just always a good time. So that was great. I'm very inspired. I don't travel as much as you do, for sure. Amanda is definitely like the traveler out of the the two of us. And for my break,
00:12:14
Speaker
or for our three weeks, I didn't even think I was going to go anywhere. I was just going to like chill at home because honestly, like we were tired. It had just been a really busy first half of the year just just trying to keep up. We had things evolving with everything in our business, you know, and just trying to make it work. You know, we were tired from it basically. So yeah, when It came time for break. I was like, I just want to like just totally unplug from work. I don't really have an issue. like As long as everything is well set up and I don't have things lingering that like I really have to do for a client or like something hanging over my head, I have a pretty easy time just unplugging from everything if it's well set up. um and i don't like I don't feel like, oh, I want to check email or like I want to like keep working on this thing. I did not feel like that at all. I'm just ready to like chill. I did make a list of like things around that my house I wanted to do. homeowner stuff, you know, very thrilling. But also just like reading, crocheting, thrifting, relaxing. Yeah, I can fill my time so easily when I'm not working. I think maybe so. I don't know if it's common for like freelancers or entrepreneurs to feel like I don't know what to do with myself if I'm not working. I don't really feel like that though. I can at least think of a million things to do when I'm not working. I do not struggle there. After a period, I think I would you know get a little bit bored of it if it went on for maybe a couple of months. but you know i There's just a lot of things I could fill my time with, but I did end up taking a really short um road trip to go see my sister who just moved to a beach town. and I took my other little sister with me. and me and my husband and her road trips to see my sister and like she was just freshly moved into her apartment and we got to like go to the beach and hang out and get to see the town that she moved to and that was really, really fun. It also happened to be me and my husband's anniversary around that time, which we both were like, oh shit, I guess that will be our anniversary. like We kind of forgot.
00:14:08
Speaker
Well, I guess you got a beach trip then for your anniversary. We did. Yeah. It was really nice. Yeah. It was our eighth anniversary. Um, yes, I was very young when I got married. yeah Very, very big. You're like, yeah. Yep. I looked young. Yep. That's correct. Um, but we had like a really nice dinner and yeah, I was, I feel like my break was everything I i wanted it to be. I had its also a really good time. Work-wise there was like one thing I had to pop in and do.
00:14:36
Speaker
i'm This is my like guilty admission. I did have to pop in and like finish onboarding a client because they had like booked right before we went on break and I needed to give them their like questionnaire to start working on. A tiny bit of work that I like ate into that break, but I did it and then I just like you know checked out again.
00:14:53
Speaker
And the good thing is that's like fairly automated to like, we've got the template. So it's just a matter of setting it up long at all. Yeah, because I mean, if if a client, you know, it was a client project that was important for us to to book to like meet a goal. And they were booking like right before we went on break. So As an entrepreneur, there are just situations that come up and it's like, okay, like I got to check in at night or on this weekend or, you know, onto my break, but we try to set as many boundaries as we can. So that's not like our, our norm. We really try to set aside our our break time to be just break as much as we humanly can.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's a really good segue to the first part of like our topic today is just like the importance of taking rest as creatives and as business owners and taking extended breaks from work like like I think for us both of us have really realized over the years like it is not enough to just have a long weekend here and there like we need like there comes a time in the middle of the year and the end of the year where we're both like so tired we've been working really hard and I do kind of like that style of like we're kind of in a sprint And then we pause and take a break. Like, that works so well for us. and i But I think that also works well for most creatives and most business owners. Like, if you are not taking breaks in your business or from your business, like, you're going to get really burnt out. And that's going to affect your ability to do a good job at work. But also, like, I think so many people kind of have this misconception or this feeling that like, you have to like earn your break or earn your time off or like,
00:16:19
Speaker
You can't take a break in the first few years or something. And I feel like that that's not something you have to earn like it should be like this is just a standard of living. And for us, it's so important when because we're really big on like work life balance and all that for ourselves and I think we've really gotten to a good place of like, we really honor our need for time off so well now. And so I would love to like share more about that today. How do we actually make that happen? Like, okay, great. Like everyone knows rest is important. Rest is good for your wellbeing and it's good for your business. But like, how do you actually even freaking do it? So we're going to dive into all of that for sure. Yeah. And i I think there's a part of me when we talk about this too, that just thinks about how much it is just like, it's a human need.
00:17:02
Speaker
to have this time off and for me like it just feels so essential to be able to take this block of time off more than just one week because in a way being an entrepreneur is more can be more demanding in certain aspects um like stress wise responsibility wise pressure wise, it's just really high pressure. But at the same time, I like compare it to like working for another company, like, yeah, yeah, in comparison to being an employee for someone. But at the same time, I know that being an employee for someone comes with its own, you know, stressors and responsibilities.
Entrepreneurial Lifestyle vs. Employment
00:17:34
Speaker
And I i feel like it's just important as a human to be able to have like extended time off, especially time to live and to not work and think about work.
00:17:43
Speaker
And to be able to like fully reset your brain because i I just feel like after one week, you've just started to decompress. you know when i When I started getting midway through week two, that's when I started to feel like my creative energy coming back because I had that time to just like chill out because it takes you a second to get adjusted to like, I should be doing something right now. I should be doing something, but you just need to be Chilling. Like to let your body fully relax and match like your mind that's clocked out of work. Like you kind of need both. Like to align there. I just say that to say like, I really think I wish everyone could have large blocks of time off because I just feel like it's so important for humans. And I feel like our, you know, obviously we live in a society and it's just, it's messed up that we can't have these longer periods of time off because it really does.
00:18:34
Speaker
help me stay sane and it's essential for my mental health. like I come back really just feeling like a fully refreshed person. Yeah, and I think especially to with like, if I this is just how I feel, but I feel like if I'm putting in all this effort to run my own business and take the risk that that takes to I want to have a higher reward. Like i I want to have way more vacation time than I would ever get if I was you know, working for some other company that has very limited time off like I want to have a better lifestyle than I could have if I worked somewhere else.
00:19:09
Speaker
I want to be able to afford that for myself. And I'm really proud of us that we have been able to do that for the last several years. And I hope that only continues to get better and and easier and all that to do. um But I think it's so yeah important to like, if you're going to put in all this effort, it should really be worth it. And so like, what is going to be worth it to you? And for us, that's like extended time off makes all the effort worth it. Yeah, definitely. especially when there's always give and take and like you know we we don't have um benefits. you know As entrepreneurs, we you you pay your own healthcare. Luckily, I am married and I get to be on my husband's healthcare, but you know we probably take a little bit lower salaries than if we were to work somewhere and be like in a a specialized design or area of someone's business. or you know there's There's a give and take, so I think it balances out, but it is
00:20:02
Speaker
essential that we have this time off, especially when we're like you said, we're sacrificing in these other areas and taking bigger risks. So let's talk about how we actually plan and schedule vacation time. I think this is like the first step, you know, this is like the most important thing to do. Because if you're not like planning ahead, and you actually have to plan ahead further than you realize, I think, or further than most people may realize, but without doing that, like the time isn't going to happen. Like if you're not setting that aside is just not going to happen. you're You're going to get caught up in the day-to-day, you're going to get fully... I mean, hopefully you get fully booked, right? But like you do need time off. Yeah, especially if you want that to that that full time off where you're not having any client work, you basically just have to put it on the calendar and plan everything else around that or else even if you like you only have like one client project you're working on during that period, you're still not able to fully disconnect. So if that's a goal for you to like
00:20:56
Speaker
be fully off from work from everything you do need to like market on the calendar. Yeah, so what we usually do is we'll start at the like beginning of the year and we I mean, we already kind of have decided like what our chunks are like, you know, how long of a break we're taking but what you could do for yourself is at the beginning of the year or the beginning of a new quarter, plan out your next few months and mark that time off like Cassidy said um and decide like how long you want to take off and then like those decisions will then filter into the next steps you need to do which we'll talk about here in a second i'm just like financial preparation planning stuff like that you need to do. I think it may feel scary to like commit to a large chunk of time off but I think like your future self is really going to thank you and
00:21:40
Speaker
I know it can be just like very intimidating because you're like, how am I going to keep my business afloat? If I'm not working? How am I going to bring in enough income if I'm taking this time off? But we'll talk about how to do that. So that comes to like our first big topic here about how to actually make this happen is actually like financially preparing yourself and your business.
Financial Strategies for Time Off
00:22:00
Speaker
So Cassie, do you want to like kind of dive into the first part of that, which is like personal budgeting? Yeah, I think that's probably like anyone's number one question when they're thinking about time off. It's like, yeah, I'd love to mark that time off on my calendar. Easy done. But like, I how how am I going to do that financially? You know, that is going to be
00:22:18
Speaker
the number one factor which is why we want to talk transparently about what that looks like for us and some ah some tips like you know personal budgeting and some other things you can do to help yourself feel comfortable getting to that point and knowing that you're going to have the income to either flow in while you're gone or balance it out before and after so that you feel like you're covered. So as far as like personal budgeting goes, we each kind of set aside a portion of our income. So like our owners pay that we take just into like a vacation fund kind of thing or just however we I think we both probably budget a little bit different processes. some way yeah
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, I do try to keep some kind of cushion or in the past, I've had like a specific vacation fund that would cover the actual for me, that would be like covering the actual cost of the vacation. For me, that's not like replacing the income that I would have during that time, but it is to cover the actual vacation that I wanted to. I think it's just a smart financial choice just in general to like kind of set aside money for things in life or like goals in life, you know, like people have savings for a house or for a vacation, that kind of stuff, like, yeah, just having and having that there. and out So that's like, covering like what, you know, you want to do personally with your money during that time. And then another thing we have on our list that we do is make sure we have
00:23:36
Speaker
business savings because yes, you want to do everything you can to have that income flowing in before and after or during your break to make sure you're covered, but you can't control everything. And for me, like I'm a very risk of adverse person, averse adverse. risk is a done riskverse ah realna I don't like taking risks. I don't like leaving things up to chance. So for me, it feels really nice to know that we have extra in our business bank account because we've been not paying ourselves everything that we've been making, which is very standard business practice. Right. I guess to give context to that, like we used to pay ourselves on a commission basis. So for every dollar that came through the business, 20% went to the business and then 80% was payout to us. um We don't quite do the math that way anymore. And now we pay ourselves like a set salary amount every month. which took us a really long time to build up to doing that. But that also allows us if we do have like a bigger month, we're not automatically paying that out to ourselves. We're setting that aside in the business, like I said, so we have that cushion there. So that if we ever do have a low month, or especially usually the month that we're on vacation is like gonna be a low financial month, we know that we can still pay ourselves the same salary amount because we had that extra cushion left in the business.
00:24:54
Speaker
If we didn't have that business savings though, i would even you know if we were still doing things we'll talk about to make sure we are boosting our revenue and and having enough to coming in to cover us for that month, I would feel a lot more hesitant to take that break if I didn't know I had that.
00:25:10
Speaker
backup cushion. So I think it's important to build that cushion from day one of your business, because I know like in the first year of your business, you're probably not going to feel super confident taking a three week break, like that's probably not going to be realistic for most businesses. But I think building up that cushion will help you get there more quickly to where you feel like you can take a more extended time away.
00:25:28
Speaker
So the next thing we do is work on boosting our revenue. And we try to do this as much as we can before our breaks. And like we said, we kind of do things like kind of in a sprint, I guess, like quarter one is usually like pretty busy. We're doing a lot of things. We're trying to book as many projects as we can and plan things out. But there's like some specific ways that we try to boost our income. Some of those ways are by like contacting past or current clients to see if there's like any extra work that they need, whether it's hourly work or maybe a half day or full VIP day. Our VIP day services are just like so great for getting some extra income here and there. And that's really helpful for us. We also run promotions or sales on like our templates and resources for designers.
00:26:08
Speaker
Um, and then we also book extra clients for VIP days. So sometimes like by booking extra projects before break, we are a little bit more busy, which does make us more tired, but like we're willing to do that before break in order to bring in that extra income. Like I think we crammed in like one or two extra clients. We just had some people who came in and we're like, great, we can fit you in right here. And that's going to, we knew that that was going to be so a little stressful or tiring, but it was like worth it to have that extra cushion.
00:26:33
Speaker
um And then lastly, we also do just promoting affiliate resources sometimes that doesn't bring in a ton of money. But like, I feel like our approach is just like every dollar count. So if we happen to make an extra, you know, $50 here or there on some affiliate resource, that's great. That covers some other costs in our business. And these would definitely all be things you'd want to do well before you go on break. You know, like start contacting clients.
00:26:57
Speaker
at least a month you know in advance of your break because we do try to make the week before we go, we try to wind down as much as possible and leave as little to do in that week before we leave as possible. I think in the past, we've been we didn't like really know to prioritize that and we would be like working on things up until the last minute with people.
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, like and not leaving any buffer. I guess you want to a buffer week to wind things down because if you end a full project and the last day is like that Friday before you leave, that's not going to be a good client experience. And that's not going to be a good experience for you because often I was just gonna say sorry, so but like clients have questions usually too. So it's like, yeah, okay, but you're gonna be gone. So you need to have that time.
00:27:38
Speaker
So for a formal timeline, we always try and tie that up at least a week before we go on break. With the clients that we're doing maintenance for, um for on their clients we've worked with in the in the past, like reoccurring work, we can kind of cut that a little bit closer because we'll just you know do that small one-off project for them.
00:27:55
Speaker
tied up. And if they had questions, it's no problem for them to kind of like come back and ask that when we come back. But for first time clients and full project timelines, we really try to protect that buffer week as much as we can. And I think that's really important to just like the way that we handle client communication before break, I think that it's like the best way to ensure you're gonna have like smooth operations like while you're away. um So there's a couple things that we do, we actually made like a whole checklist, we're like, okay, pre break, here's our checklist of like every everywhere we need to check in with clients.
00:28:25
Speaker
all the automated like email response messages that we need to set up and schedule all of that. Because I think it's like all of these things for me are things that are gonna make me feel comfortable taking the time off and then fully being away during break. And we've learned a lot, you know, because we've done this for about five, six years now. And there have been times when I didn't communicate like really well with clients or and in enough advance and then I felt bad because like I didn't give enough of a heads up so that's why we prioritize all the communication so much because you want to feel fully within your rights to step away like our bookkeeper is really good about this like when she goes on maternity leave she'll let us know a month at least in advance like hey this is going to be happening in a month and it just feels really professional and like leaves no room for anyone to feel
00:29:13
Speaker
abandoned or like you had a ah bad business practice or something right and she's really good about being like you know she's gone but also here's how you're going to be taken care of you know like she's got a team or or whatever it is for your business right and so for us like we don't have other team members currently that are like managing projects for doing anything like while we're not also working. But I think just like, yeah, just letting your clients know what's up and planning ahead. And that way they can feel taken care of is really important. So usually it's like one or two weeks, I think two weeks is better. But that's before our break, we will email them and we'll send out two different emails, one email to all of our past or current clients. And that was to inquire to see if they had any extra work that they needed us to do. And so we just use like a template and sent it to everybody pretty much.
00:29:56
Speaker
And then we had a separate email that we sent out to any potential clients or leads, anyone who has, we've got kind of loose ends with, or who hasn't booked a call yet, but inquired about a project. Like we email all of them like, Hey, you know, we've got a few limited spots for calls in the next week or two. If you would really like to book a project with us within, you know, X timeline.
Client Communication Before Breaks
00:30:16
Speaker
it's important to book this call soon stuff like that just so they're aware like hey if this it gives them that little push like if they've already inquired but haven't taken the next step like this is a good time to get this taken care of yeah just doing everything you can as early as you can to prepare your leads and your existing clients um and like your social channels. There's a lot of touch points, so it is really helpful to make a big list or else you probably will forget things. and I just hate the feeling of like being like, shoot, I forgot to tell that client. you know and It happens sometimes when you are a small business and you don't have a full team and you know you're trying to remember everything yourself. There's probably going to be you know something you miss inevitably, but making that list helps us
00:30:58
Speaker
check things off and make sure we've got all of our um like one-on-one communication done and then also our automations. Amanda, if you want to talk about like what those kind of look like to make sure anyone new that inquires gets it the proper message. Yeah, we had automations on our honey book, so anyone who inquires, they got an automatic response letting them know that we were out of office and when we we we would be back and respond. But then we also included a link for them to go ahead and schedule a call.
00:31:25
Speaker
on our calendar for when we are returned. That way, they could just go ahead and feel like that's taken care of because we definitely don't want to leave those inquiries like, I don't know, just sitting there with no response, we're gonna lose that potential income, you know, if that's someone who wanted to work with us, they're just gonna like feel ghosted, basically, if you don't take care of that. And I think that also helps kind of secure that momentum, if you can go ahead and just get them to book a call.
00:31:46
Speaker
I feel like they're less likely to then go and like work with someone else or search for another option while you're away. Of course, it's not like a foolproof thing. Not everyone who inquired during our break ended up booking a call, but several did. So we did actually have sales calls scheduled for when we return. And that felt really good for us to know that like, cool, we've got like potential business coming our way when we come back. So that felt really good for us to have. And that is a risky take when you step away, especially for a long period of time. If if you're fully going to kind of be shutting the business down you know for that time when you're gone and you're not going to be able to personally reply, ah you might feel like you're taking kind of a risk on losing potential business. But if you have your system set up to let them book a call, like that makes me feel okay about it. And like I've done everything I
Client Feedback and Business Values
00:32:30
Speaker
can. And if you're taking you know a shorter amount of time, like let's say,
00:32:34
Speaker
your newer or maybe it's just your vibe, you only like want to take a week off. I think that's really reasonable and like most potential clients are going to fully understand that. For us, you know when they see like how long we're going to be gone, I think people might be like,
00:32:46
Speaker
Oh, you know that's that's a long time away. But so if if they're really interested in working with you, they usually are willing to wait. And then some we've actually gotten a compliment before from somebody who was like, I love that you guys take this time off and you like respect your mental health and like the the fact that you need rest. That makes me feel like you're the kind of business I want to work with. So that was so cool. like ah message we got from somebody one time, I was like, okay, so like, you know, that is putting a vibe out, you know, to people that like, this is the kind of business we are. And if it is someone who's like, man, I have to wait three weeks to even get a call with them, I want this done. We've now had those responses too. And we're like, okay, immediately. That's probably someone we wouldn't choose to work with anyway. So yeah, I don't, I don't get too worked up about it. You just do everything you can. And that's just a part of having a small business if you're not going to have somebody, you know, like doing admin for you, like, it's okay.
00:33:35
Speaker
One thing that can be really helpful for just like client communication in general, because like we're all about our templates and like easy resources, is our we have a effortless client communication library. So this is like a Google Doc template, and it has like 20 plus email and just like project message templates that you can use for every single step. That is a super great resource. And you can find that on our website, if you go to foxtrotbranding.com slash education.
00:34:03
Speaker
I just wanted to mention that here because I think that client communication is so important in order to like give yourself that mental clarity when you're taking your time off. and think that It can be hard to strike the right tone sometimes of being professional but friendly. and it's also It can be exhausting to write the same type of message over and over again, which is why we need this.
00:34:26
Speaker
even to just know how to handle things because that that guide also includes I forgot to mention, but it also includes like 13 bonus templates for what to say and do in difficult client situations. Because yeah, a lot of us I mean, when we were starting to we had so many questions so much self doubt around how to talk with clients and how to handle tough situations with them too. So I would have died for a resource like that. And it's honestly even more than just having the template like you get to see sometimes a little peek into like the process of how we do things in the way that we word responses to clients. So I think that's a great place to start when it comes to like templatizing things in your business. Yeah, I agree. But yeah, overall, I think just like it's important to remember as a business owner that taking time off and extended breaks is not a luxury. Like I think it should just be the standard for everyone for your well being as a person, regardless of like your productivity at work, but just as a person. I think we all
00:35:22
Speaker
need more time to just live and just exist and be and enjoy our lives. So especially as a business owner, I really encourage you all to like, make that happen for yourself, find a way to make that happen, whether it's a one week break, or a three week break, or maybe it's little things sprinkled throughout the year.
00:35:38
Speaker
just like be really intentional about setting aside that time because it is possible and I know it feels very impossible sometimes but if you follow you know the things we talked about today if you plan ahead whether that's planning out your calendar or planning out your finances and setting yourself up in a really smart way that's gonna make that possible for you and I think you're gonna be so grateful that you did that for yourself in the future I think I end up feeling like if I didn't do this I'm kind of scared as to what like would have happened. We would not still be running the business like if we didn't have time off. I say that a lot like without the time off I don't I wouldn't either wouldn't be running the business or not at the capacity that we are just because it does come with a very high level of stress sometimes and a high level
Importance of Taking Breaks
00:36:26
Speaker
of
00:36:26
Speaker
responsibility. So I think I know for myself, I really need that. That time often, if you're someone who is in the first month or year or years of building your business, you know, like I said earlier, I think you're not going to be able to probably start by taking like two, three week breaks off, maybe you can, if you can do it. But if you're feeling more support in your life, you may be able to do that or in your business somehow it kind of depends. Like, you know, I think if you have like a partner who has a good income,
00:36:53
Speaker
that maybe that makes like the money part a little less scary to take that time off. You know, there's like different aspects of people's lives that may determine whether it's like difficult or not in different aspects. But the details of it are going to look different for everyone as far as how much time you actually take off when you do it, how much you pay yourself during that time or whatever financial support you have. But I think the most important thing is just to get used to that routine for yourself. Even if you are more spontaneous and you want to take vacations at different times, at least get used to like building out that time for yourself and creating a system for what that looks like for your business when you are out so you can have that that time and and step away like start practicing that even because i I think back to the first year of our business and we had a lot of like startup energy and we didn't have like a lot of overwhelming clients timelines and stuff we had to be doing it was kind of more like
00:37:43
Speaker
we just had more free time. But I still think I can't remember exactly what we did in our first year. But if I were to go back and do it again, I would still want to practice. This is when we're going to go on our vacation or a break and step away. And we're going to make sure we have these automations or whatever we need to set up so that you can gradually build it up. If that is a big goal for you, just start practicing it and then you can grow it from there to what you ultimately want it to be.
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah. And I think a good way to practice too, if like totally stepping away for you is still just seems so impossible. Like you could still try to do trips where you're working half the time and you're like you're booking a trip that's on, you know, goes across a weekend. And so maybe you are working like one or two days kind of part time, you know, could you cut your hours down and just check your email and just schedule calls, but like try not to do client work when you're gone, like like Like I said, I still do trips like that to where I'm like kind of half in half out. And that's still so much fun, because I'm still getting to like change things up and like, you know, do something enjoyable and fun in my life and do this little trip, right. So I think that could be a great way to like dip your toes in to like trying to take a step back from your business and take a break. But eventually I still encourage everyone to like take a gay full break off of work because it's so nice. It's truly yeah like so like just re-energizing refreshing to have. It brings you clarity. I think every single type of creative needs that or it is forced upon them because if you ah yeah burn out and then you're going to burn out and end up taking a longer break. That's not going to be as bad during the break.
00:39:18
Speaker
You feel like crap and you're like, I'm not creative. I have no ideas. My business is failing. My life sucks. Like it's it's kind of like spiral if you're being forced it or you can literally get sick, like burn yourself out so much that you're just quite literally sick and exhausted. Yeah, I don't think there's a way to always perfectly avoid that. You know, we can't control everything. But I think by building in these breaks, you're kind of like giving yourself um some padding to really try and make sure that you don't get to that point of burnout because you you have that built in for yourself. And everyone's going to be different. Not everyone is going to be like us where you want to take ah six full weeks off. I know some people talk about like feeling more stressed if they're not checking their email inbox at all. So you don't have to make it look a certain way. Just maybe try out some different types of breaks and see see what you like and then see how you can start building it in.
00:40:11
Speaker
So I guess to close things out, we would love to continue like doing these. Definitely give us feedback if you like this format or not. But we'd also like to add in the little segment where we answer your questions. So we don't have any questions today because this is our first time doing this. um But if you guys do have questions, it can either be about you know the topic we are you know shared the last month or just anything. Then you can feel free to DM us those um at foxtrotbranding on Instagram.
00:40:38
Speaker
It's a great place to connect with us on. If you also just want to like learn from us and see some other content, um educational designer content, we share a lot on TikTok as well. So Cassidy's is at Cassidy dot Foxtrot and mine is Amanda dot Foxtrot. So you can find both of us there. Anything else Cass in mind thing to share? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't know. A reminder just to like, if you guys are interested in that client communication library.
00:41:04
Speaker
go to our website and check that out too. And all of our other free resources and templates are also there. And those are all great if you're like starting up your business or in your first few years. Yeah, if you've watched this far, thanks so much for hanging out with us. I'm really excited to keep doing this. Hopefully we'll get um and more streamlined and talk about all the different aspects of our design business from our our perspective as kind of chill down to earth people who actually our business is not like our entire life.
Conclusion and Engagement
00:41:30
Speaker
We really enjoy having a work-life balance as much as we can. So that's kind of the perspective we bring to things. But yeah, I've had a great time. Yeah, me too.
00:41:38
Speaker
All right, well we will see you guys next month for our next fill the tea. Yeah. Bye guys. Bye.