Erin Thomas Wong (00:00)
We are fast approaching the summer holidays so today I'm going to be giving you my best tips for managing the juggle during the summer, keeping consistent with your visibility and making sure that you come back to a thriving business in September.
we're talking about the challenges that female entrepreneurs face whilst often being the primary carer of their children if they have them, one of the things is actually dealing with school holidays because there are 13 weeks of school holidays every year and you know if you're employed and you have four weeks holiday it doesn't really get you very far so for so many women this is one of the driving forces of why they have decided to go
self-employed as well so that they can build in this flexibility to be able to deal with 13 weeks of school holidays without having to fork out for constant clubs and summer camps and things like that and relying on other people to look after our kids. So in the UK we are starting to come up to our five, six week summer holiday and you might be starting to think okay how am I actually going to manage this? How am I going
to run my business during this time. And I would really encourage you to start planning now. So this is where hopefully you are adopting CEO time in your business where every week you're taking an hour or two to think about the bigger picture of your business to make sure that all the actions that you're taking on a daily basis are actually moving you in the right direction and are building that traction that we all need because otherwise we're busy, busy all the time and we're still not
achieving what we want to achieve. So now in your CEO time sessions you want to build in this planning for the summer holidays and you know I know from personal experience so my eldest is coming up to 17 and I started my first business when he was six months old so I've had many years practice of dealing with school holidays and one thing I can tell you that I find really hard is having one leg in the business and one leg
in being mum and looking after the kids and so it really helps me to kind of compartmentalise but also be as prepared as possible. So depending on the way that you're running your business obviously you're going to have to make this work best for you but for me generally I don't have many calls during the school holidays. Up until last year I didn't have any calls during school holidays but that's starting to change now because my kids are
almost 17 and 12. So, you know, they can get on and do things on their own without me having to watch their every move. But generally in my business, my membership continues. I still have training and content. I'm still in the Facebook group. I have a couple of mentoring clients that I will still be looking after and a few masterminders as well. But generally I won't be sitting on calls necessarily during that time. I will be checking in when
I can when suits the kind of family arrangement but I definitely find that the more planning I can do before the holidays start the more I can relax and actually allow myself to enjoy the change of pace without feeling like I'm losing grip of everything in my business.
And I also want to share as well, if you've experienced this yourself, to know that you're not alone, is that feeling of it takes a while to allow yourself to slow down and to feel into that change of pace and maybe think, you know what, I'm not actually even going to open my laptop today. Everything's okay. I don't need to do that. And then you eventually, you know, start to wind down and you allow yourself that time of not working. And then you reach a point where you have that sudden panic of what if I never
feel like working on my business again and that sudden panic of I've lost my mojo I'm not sure whether I care enough about this anymore my motivations gone out the window I just want to reassure you that actually I think this is a really healthy process to go through and it means that you have allowed yourself enough time to switch off and then you'll be renewed and refreshed to start again and I have always
bounced back when I've had those moments of thinking, my goodness, like I've been able to step back so much, I'm not sure whether I'm going to be able to pick it up again. But it's like this cycle that we go through. And I think, you know, if you haven't taken enough time off, you might have really struggled to switch off and kind of never allowed yourself to switch off when we're taking short amounts of time off. And we all know this, like, you know, when you go on a holiday and say if you go on a seven day holiday, sometimes it's
not until day three, day four, until you really relax into it and then you switch over into worrying about the journey home. So definitely try and allow yourself that time to really change the pace. It's so good for your wellbeing, it's great for your family, you know, to be able to be mindful in that moment and you will bounce back. So that's the first point that I wanted to share.
But.
But definitely pre-planning is what we need to be doing to make sure that we are being intentional with what we're putting in place and the things that we're doing over the summer period. Also, just to say, even if the school holidays don't impact you personally, it's very likely that they're going to be impacting people that you might be working with or your ideal clients that you're trying to reach. So it's something that we all need to be aware of, that there is this change of pace. And often social media
it does go a bit quieter for people as well. So we need to be thinking about how we're still getting our message out there so that people don't forget about us. Because, you know, what I want you to be thinking about is how you can keep that customer journey going so that when people have time to think about whatever their problem is, they can then find you that you are discoverable and that they can consume enough information about you to know that you're the person that they want to work with.
So I'm going to share five tips for being really intentional with what you need to be doing right now, getting ready for the summer so that you know you're going to come back to a thriving business in September.
Number one is think about what you want people to be buying from you in September, October time. Now it might be that with your business, you're still continuing to sell over the summer, even if you're not actually at your desk, you know, maybe you're going on holiday as well and you might still have things that you can sell during that time. But we also need to think about the fact that for so many, September is effectively a new year. It's for my business, working with business owners, it's
just as big as January. So we want to be thinking ahead as to what is it that we're going to be focusing on trying to promote during that time and how much of a run-up we need for people to get to the point where they're ready to buy from us in September, October. So number one is thinking about in your business what you want to be focusing on, what you want people to be buying from you in September, October.
Number two is what information they need to know, learn or believe about you and what you offer that will make this an easy yes for them. So what can we be doing from now to nurture them so that they have all the information? So you might have heard me talk before about the messy middle. So this is Google's kind of updated marketing funnel that basically people
happens now is people find out about you and then they might follow you, they might read your blog, they might watch a video, they might join your email list and they're basically exploring during this time and it's all a messy middle and then hopefully you want them to come out the other end and buy from you. But you need to think about what you've got for them to consume in that messy middle part. So that's something that you can start putting into place now so that they can come to your website, they can
download a freebie so that they can search on Google and your Google business profile is going to come up and have you higher up in the search rankings. You can be thinking about what posts you want to be putting out on social media. What can you do to put this information out there that means that they can find you and they can learn about you and how you can help them without you having to sit tied to your desk because you want to be off enjoying the summer.
So number two is what do they need to know, learn or believe in order to make it an easy yes for them to buy from you when September comes around.
So number three, like I said, is about thinking about what content you can create so that you can cover all of those questions that they might have. And you want to be thinking about mixing up the formats as well. we know with visibility that it's an accumulative effect. And so it's not just one post. Someone's not just going to see one post or two posts and instantly buy from you, unless it's a spontaneous purchase, maybe a low.
price thing and it absolutely is key to what they want in that moment. More likely they are going to take some time and they're going to be looking out for you to, you know, we want to be kind of reminding people all the time that we're there, we've got the right thing for them. So, you know, could you do a video format on one thing? Could you do a PDF that they could download? What are the different formats that you can do? And also think about a call to action for every piece of content that you're
creating?
What do you want people to do?
I'm not saying that it should be really prescriptive and that every single post that you put out there on social media should say like, buy from me, but you do need to be thinking what's the next step for that person. So, when they've read a social media post, what do you want them to do next? Do you want them to DM you? Do you want them to download something? Do you want them to read a blog post, listen to a podcast? So this is where the intention comes in. Intentional is the big word for today.
This is what is going to help you get strategic about the summer holidays. number four, of these can you pre-schedule?
For example, you can be scheduling your social media. So I use Buffer because I really like the fact that I can put the post in once and put it on all the channels and then just make little tweaks. You can of course schedule within Meta for Facebook and Instagram and things like that. But you know, for me, I love the fact that I can do it across all of them and including Google Business Profile because the more you're posting to your Google Business Profile, the more Google recognizes you
the more Google recognises you and the value that you're bringing and the fact that you're putting recent content up there as well.
Also, you could be scheduling emails. So do you have an email list that you want to be nurturing during the time? So do you have an email list that you want to be nurturing during this time? These are your warm people. They've already stepped into your world and expressed an interest. So whatever it is that you're hoping to sell to them next, you could be taking this time to nurture them gently over the summer months, sharing tips with them, sharing things that are relevant to them, asking them questions. And this can all be
up in advance before you step away from your desk.
And just to say as well, you know, if you have got clients at the moment that, you know, are going to be working with you during the summer holidays, think about the check-ins that you can schedule for them with them as well. Make sure that you're managing their expectations of, you know, when you're going to be working, how you're going to be contactable. The more that we can manage people's expectations, the better our customer services, but also the more we can sit back and relax a little bit. And I highly, highly recommend putting an out of office
your email even if it's just saying that during the summer months you're going to take longer to get back to people because once again it's managing their expectations and it also means that if you do get into that lovely flow of actually being able to switch off from work and have a little break yourself you're not going to have that awful feeling of dropping the ball if someone has waited to hear from you and you haven't had the out of office on.
So number five is taking into account what you have planned for the summer and thinking about when you're going to check in to work. Now I know that this might change because we all like to have a bit of spontaneous fun and things can be a bit fluid, but you need to find the right way for you. So for me, now my kids are older, I can do the whole thing of working at eight o'clock in the morning if I want to because I'm an early bird and they're still in bed. ā
Until the last few years, I would just be so envious of anyone that could do that because neither of my kids slept well and were both awake from 5 a.m. So once again, it's about finding when would be a good time for you in your schedule and speaking to those around you who you know your partner who might be able to help and say, know, during these times, I really would like to be able to check into my business. I've always found that the best thing to do is to kind of have that psychological ā
you
is to have that kind of set time where I know I'm going to be jumping into work then, everyone knows, everyone's expectations are managed. Because when I find myself ad hoc, kind of thinking, I've got a moment, I'll just go and do something now, you can bet your bottom dollar that one of the kids is going to need you and then you're going to feel that awful mum guilt and you're going to feel torn and then you're going to feel resentful the fact that, you know, they're wanting this from you and actually you want to be doing this. So try to make that time and obviously, you know, I'm a massive fan.
of leaving the house if you can, if you are in the situation where you can do that. Taking yourself off for an hour and a half to a coffee shop, you know, once a week or once every fortnight just to check in with work stuff is a great way to do it. Obviously the other thing to say is that even though I really recommend pre-scheduling emails and social media posts and things like that, you know, that will not...
that doesn't replace the human touch. if people, you you do need to be checking in and seeing if anyone's commented, not necessarily every day, but every couple of days, depending on your business and how urgent it is when people get in touch with you, you know, you do need to be kind of checking in. So it's not the case necessarily that you can schedule a whole six weeks and then step away from your computer. I did manage to do that a couple of years ago. We went to Canada.
and I had 34 days away from my business and it was amazing and obviously it took a few months to get everything in place to be able to do that and I also had the help of my online business manager. So you can do it but you just need to be really intentional with what needs to happen during that time to allow yourself that time off. But with these tips today I just really want to help you start to think very intentionally and strategically.
about the next couple of months so that when you come back to work and sit down at your desk in September, the ball has already been rolling. It's not the case that everything has come to a halt and you have to muster up all the power again of trying to get that traction. So just to recap, the five tips are to first of all, be really strategic thinking about what you want people to buy from you in September, October time so that you can be planning now
Number two, what they need to know, learn or believe for this to be an easy yes for them. So what can you be creating in terms of content? This is number three, content ideas to include the information, to answer the questions that they might have to decide that this is an easy yes for them. And think about how you can mix up the different types of content as well and think about emails and videos so that you've got this consistent presence going out because
you know, so many small businesses drop off the face of the earth during the summer because they haven't thought this through. And there are other businesses who are clever and savvy and are taking this time now to plan and they're getting the sales. So this is where you really need to prioritize this in your CEO time. Number four is which of these things can you actually pre-schedule? Can you get on a social media schedule? Can you schedule in your emails? Can you get messages out?
to your existing clients to make sure that you've still got that nurture going, that you're managing their expectations now of what to expect over the summer months. And number five is to take into account everything that you're planning to do this summer and try and plan now when you're going to dip in and out of work so that you can be replying to people. You're not going to let everything completely dry up during that time, but you're also allowing yourself time to slow down to reach
rejuvenate, enjoy time, doing things with people that you love and really getting the most out of that nice change of pace that summer can be. I think it's really easy to get very frustrated when you've got 13 weeks of school holiday to contend with, but actually we can leverage that. We can allow that time to be blue sky thinking time. We can allow it to be the creative time. I know that as soon as I tell myself, that's it, I don't have to work now.
set up, I can take a bit of a break. I know that my creative brain will start going, oh, this would be a good idea for a blog post. And that's where I have my keep notes, Google keep notes on my phone. And I will put these notes in and set a reminder for when I'm next working so that I can capture those thoughts. Sometimes I'll write a good few paragraphs. just, you know, downloads. And then I can go back to that when I'm working. So we need that time. We need that time.
to decompress from everything we're doing. It's so good for your well-being and your nervous system so please do allow yourself that and trust that you will bounce back. Once you've had that good rest it's a good sign if you feel like I'm so calm and relaxed now I don't know how I can cycle back up to it. It will happen naturally and if it doesn't you can reach out to me. ā But I really hope that this has been helpful and that you're looking forward to the summer.
rather than dreading it, let's take some control now thinking about what we can put in place to support ourselves so that you know we can make it a fun summer for ourselves, for our family and also keep our business ticking over during that time. Let me know if this was helpful, I'll see you next week.
