Being a business owner is hard. There is no point trying to hide from the fact that owning a business is so much more than a full-time job. It’s your baby, and giving yourself time off is really, really hard. So what happens when you go on holiday? When you need that time off, how do you make sure your business and your social media is being looked after?
Here are my 5 top tips to give yourself a break this summer.
It is completely ok for you turn your phone off, put your out of office on and tell them when you will be back. I remember when it was only me working for my business and I took my first ever holiday, my out of office contained the words:
“If your matter is really urgent, and I mean your office is on fire urgent, you can call me on my mobile.”
This worked. No one rung me and I had a lovely break.
I gave my clients a way to contact me if it was urgent but also told them what I classed as urgent.
Your business can’t stop because you take a break, so schedule your marketing to continue to run while you are away.
Remove the calls to actions which may trigger the sales, instead focus on brand awareness content which improves your relationships with your customers.
You can schedule all of your social media content for free using great apps like Tweetdeck, Buffer, Sendible and Facebook itself. See how to schedule posts for Facebook for free in our free Savvy lesson here.
Do you have a team? This is their time to shine, give them some responsibility and ask them to handle anything urgent in your absence.
If you don’t have a team this is the freelancers time to shine! I love a freelancer and have used many over the years. Ask around locally and you will find someone who would be more than happy to look after things in your absence, even if it’s just answering any ‘urgent’ emails.
There are also agencies that offer great out of hours and holiday cover that will be able to help at a low cost so you can relax. Why not find out more about our Out of Hours service? We can offer ad hoc holiday cover – just get in touch to tell us what you need and we’ll handle the rest.
We all know that niggling feeling when you are worried about something and that little voice makes it much harder to switch off and enjoy your holiday, so keep it quiet with a plan, followed by a few cocktails when you land on the beach.
Your back-up plan can be simple: take an iPad with you; give the person covering your email your mobile number; speak to all clients before you go; check the hotel has wifi. Anything that you think will help put your mind at rest so you can enjoy your holiday.
Our 5th top tip may seem simple, but it really is the hardest of them all. Stop thinking about work and enjoy yourself.
You have worked hard for a long time, now it’s time to reap the rewards and relax.