Your Business Needn‘t Stop When You’re On Holiday
Post published 8th July, 2014
Recently I read an article about how business owners don’t take holidays as often as they should do. This does not surprise me at all. When you run a business it’s so much more than having a job, it’s a massive part of your life and it becomes very personal to you. We will all have invested considerably in our businesses, I don’t just mean financially, a lot of time, a lot of effort has gone in to developing our offering, often every detail has been thought out and created to be just the way we want it to be. So the thought of taking a break from it, whilst no doubt much needed, as many of us will work longer hours than we ever did as paid employees, is something that can cause alarm bells to ring.
Will things be done the way I want while I’m away? What if a new business enquiry comes in? What if a customer has a problem? In short, will my business still be standing when I get back?
The fact is, taking a break is important. To run your business effectively and be the best you can be you need to rejuvenate yourself to keep fresh and alert and able to push your business forward with enthusiasm.
So what is the answer?
There are a few steps that you can take to keep business as usual while you are away.
If you have a colleague that you work with prepare to give them a handover of any work in progress which you will need them to take over as part of your holiday cover. Prepare them also for any eventualities that might realistically happen while you are away.
If you have a colleague dealing with your work set up an email out of office reply letting anyone emailing know that you are away and who they should contact in your absence.
To help out your colleague, or if you work by yourself you could use a telephone answering service to provide holiday cover for you. Calls will be answered exactly as you want them to be, so if you don’t want your callers to know that you are away on holiday they needn’t be told. Messages will then be sent through to you to deal with or handled by the receptionist if you prefer to give you a proper break. You can choose to receive messages as and when they come in, or all at the end of the day to give you more of a break, or just to contact you in the event of an emergency, however you want to deal with it.
There’s no need to stop your marketing just because you are away. Scheduling email marketing or social media updates for while you are away means that you can carry on trying to win business while you are away.
Finally, try to relax. Enjoy taking the time away from your business and come back with renewed enthusiasm on your return ready to move forwards to the next level.
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