This year is the first time I’ve ever taken Christmas off since I launched my business 5 years ago. I’ve taken vacations, for sure, but never Christmas. I’ve lugged my laptop around and worked from my mother-in-law’s dining room table while the rest of my family enjoyed themselves. Every year I vowed that next year would be different… but up until this year, it never was.
So what’s changed?
Me.
(And healthy doses of planning and preparation. More on that later.)
For years, I allowed clients to dictate my schedule. To demand that I be available at all times and cater to their every whim. (These were the same clients who consistently changed their minds at the last minute and who couldn’t get something to me on time to save their lives.)
My business coach likes to remind me that “the way you do anything is the way you do everything.”
The reason this happened consistently is because I let it. If I wanted Christmas to be different, then I needed to do everything else differently.
The first and most obvious thing was to let go of those clients who I had allowed to walk all over me.
Yes, that’s easier said than done. The first thing that ran through my mind was the thought of losing all that revenue those clients provided – that’s a poverty mindset though, and does no one any good.
I came to realise that I was also doing my clients a favour by letting them go. We simply weren’t a fit. By ending my business relationship with these clients, I was freeing them up to find the right person to work with.
A funny thing happens when you let go of the less-than-ideal clients: the ideal ones start showing up, because you’ve now created the space for them. These are the clients who respect your expertise, who respect your time and your schedule, who understand that working with you is an investment in their businesses and therefore gladly pay your fees – and pay them promptly. They’re the A+ clients you’ve been dreaming of, and best of all, they actually exist.
Who doesn’t want more clients like that?!
The second thing I did was to start reading.
That in itself was a complete shift. (I originally typed “start reading more” and needed to correct it because, to be honest, I was never much of a reader)
I was gifted a subscription to Success Magazine, and it had a huge impact in the way I started viewing myself and how I run my business. From there, I started reading more business-related and personal development books. These 4 in particular had significant influences on me this year:
- Business For Punks
- Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
- Connect
- The Aladdin Factor
The first three are what have inspired me to take everything I know about marketing on social media and turn it up on its head (watch for how it all plays out in the year ahead). The fourth one taught me how to figure out what I want and how to ask for it. Totally life-changing.
The third thing I did was to start planning.
One of the things I’ve learned from my business coach is to plan things out in 60-day increments. It’s taken me a couple years to really get the hang of this, but now it runs my life. (I kind of maybe annoyed my sister-in-law when I emailed her the day after Halloween this year to talk about Christmas plans – LOL)
Don’t get me wrong – I understand that things can and do change. There’s almost always flexibility in the plans, but occasionally hard deadlines are required.
It’s those hard deadlines that are making my goal of taking the next 12 days off a reality.
In early November, I started telling my clients that I’d be taking 2 weeks off at Christmas. We talked about the tasks and projects that would normally be fulfilled during my vacation time, and together we set the deadlines for when I needed the related items from them.
During each meeting, I reminded them of my upcoming vacation and what their specific deadlines were. Throughout every interaction, I made it clear that if a deadline was missed, there would be no guarantee the project or task would be completed before my team and I left for vacation at 4:30pm Eastern on December 21st.
And you know what?
My clients have been completely open to it. Because they’re the dream clients – the ones I talked about earlier. These clients have their shit together. They also are taking Christmas off, and they appreciated my being proactive enough to help them plan accordingly.
Whether you’re taking time off over the holiday season or planning a vacation sometime in 2017, this type of planning can save you (and your clients!) all kinds of aggravation. How do you plan for time away from your business? Leave a comment – I’d love to know