19: 3 tips to prepare your business for a holiday break
Now that Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday promos are complete, you’re probably turning your mind to the end of December. For many of us who are entrepreneurs, that means lining up as much business as we can in the remaining weeks of the year and preparing to take a few days or even a few weeks away from our businesses over the holidays.
It’s so important to build in time away from our businesses so that we can spend precious time with our loved ones or just give ourselves a much-needed break to relax and restore our energy.
If you are planning to take a little time off during the holidays, I thought you could use a few tips to help you set yourself up to take a wee break from your business - guilt-free. In this episode of ill communication, I’m sharing three tips to help you prepare your business to take a holiday.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Why you need to set up an autoresponder
Ways to add some joy and personality to your autoresponder
Why you should consider pre-writing emails
Planning what business you’re willing to do during the holidays
So there you have it! Three tips to prepare your business for a holiday break. Remember, the first step is deciding what taking a break means to you. Then set up an autoresponder with some personality. Lastly, pre-write some emails in advance to send out while you’re away.
If you’re listening to this episode in December of 2022, I am hosting a free holiday writing session. Come put your head down with me for two hours on Monday, December 12th at 11 a.m. Mountain Time. You’ll get four writing prompt ideas and a template for writing your autoresponder. Register here!
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Welcome to Ill Communication. Copywriting Tips and Sales Strategies for Small Business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and changemakers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soul mate clients. Let's get started. Hello, my sweet friend, and welcome to the 19th episode of the Ill Communication Podcast. Now that Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday promos are complete, you're probably turning your mind to the end of December. And for many of us who are entrepreneurs, that means lining up as much business as we can in the remaining weeks of the year and preparing to take a few days or even a few weeks away from our businesses over the holidays. If you have kids or aging family members, it's so important to build in time away from our businesses so we can spend precious time with our loved ones, or just to give ourselves a much needed break to relax and restore our own energy.
Over the last five years of running a service based business with young kids in the house, I've developed a few strategies that have served me well whenever I plan to take time away. If you are planning to take a little time off during the holidays, I thought you could use a few tips to help you set yourself up to take a wee break from your business. Guilt free. I'm here today to share three tips to help you prepare your business to take a holiday. And one of those tips might surprise you, but honestly, the first tip is no surprise at all. It's to set up your autoresponder. Nothing signals holiday to my nervous system more than setting up my out-of-office attendant. Now, there is nothing revolutionary about setting up your out of office autoresponder, but please, for the love of Gouda, don't set up just a boring standard message like, Thank you for your message. I'm away from the office and will reply when I return. You can and you should use your auto responder to share a little delight, a little joy and some personality. And you can even use it to deliver some value. I have a few ideas to get your juices flowing about how you can infuse a little more personality into your auto responder. Of course, you probably know I'm going to recommend using a gif in your auto reply.
Gifs are those little tiny short form video images that you can embed into an email and they are known to increase the engagement on emails. So why not include one in your auto responder? When I was out of office for Thanksgiving, I used that classic friends gif where Monica has the turkey on her head to impress Chandler. When I went away for a summer vacation, I wrote something like I'm away from the office taking some time to enjoy the summer with my kids and perfect my paddleboarding and I paired it with a gif of someone falling off of a paddleboard. And during Christmas break I've used Christmas vacation or Buddy the Elf gifs in my auto responders. If it feels on brand for you to add a gif to share a little bit about how you're enjoying your break from your business, go ahead and do that. And if you need a tutorial on how to find and use gifs, go back to episode 14 because there's a little tutorial there in the show notes. You could also share something fun in your auto responder, like a link to your favorite holiday Spotify playlist, or include your favorite holiday cookie recipe. Maybe you have a favorite holiday quote or even a fun holiday photo of you and your team or you and your furry friends brainstorm a few ideas that might feel on brand for you and have fun with it.
You could just include that in your auto responder. You can also use your autoresponder to deliver value to your reader. One of my clients, Lauren Goldstein, includes links to additional resources on her website to help people experience her genius in her absence, which I thought was a great tip and one I'm going to be stealing myself this season. She also has a great podcast called The Biz Doctor, which I'll link to in the show notes. So what kind of things could you share? You could link to one of your top blog articles to a quiz. You could share a free training or a downloadable PDF. You could link to a podcast episode depending on the nature of your business. You could link to a free audio meditation or to a mini workout. It totally depends on your business and your audience, and there's no need to go overboard with any of these examples. Just aim for a simple, cheerful and delightful autoresponder and just imagine how your auto reply will stand out in a sea of boring out of office auto replies if it includes a little delight, a little personality, or a little jif. My second tip to help you prepare your business for a holiday break is to pre write or batch your emails to send while you're out of office.
And I have to be totally honest with you, it is not my normal MO to pre write and batch content. I tend to be more of a write one inspired by the looming deadline kind of a person. However, the few times I've preloaded an email or two when I'm on holidays, I never regret it. It's also pretty fun having your email or social copy work for you while you're away to build connection, engagement, and even sales. And if you're listening to this in December of 2022, I want to let. You know, I'm hosting a Free Goddard on holiday writing session. You can come and put your head down for 2 hours with me on Monday, December 12th at 11 a.m. Mountain Time. I'll share four writing prompt ideas and a template for writing your autoresponder. And you can use this time to write and batch some content for the holidays. I'll drop the link to register in the show notes. And now the third tip to prepare your business for your holiday might surprise you. The tip is to decide ahead of time what amount of business you're willing to do while on holiday. As entrepreneurs, it's so challenging to take time away from our businesses, especially if you're a solopreneur with little to no team. There may be activities you can't stop doing or you're unwilling to pause during your holidays, and that's okay.
You're the boss. You get to decide how and what you do to make your business and life work. If you want to take a complete break and not think about work while you're gone, do it. If you want to spend some time in the mornings before everyone gets up to attend to a few business tasks, do it for me. I'm not planning to take any meetings for two weeks and I'm probably going to work a few mornings because I like to keep the momentum going. I like to clear a few things off my to do list and then be fully present when I'm doing activities with the family. I also get a lot of great ideas when I'm away from my home office, so I will bring my laptop along with me when we head to the mountains for a ski trip. It's my business and I get to decide what works best for me. And what's best for me is usually to keep a little space to work. When I'm inspired to work and then play when I want to play. So, my friend, I invite you to take a little time to decide what's best for you. And maybe it is to take a full two week break. Or maybe it's to allow yourself to work a little bit here and there.
Give it some thought. Just making a decision about how you want to manage your work will give you a sense of freedom no matter how you choose to spend your time. So, my friend, those are three tips to prepare your business for a holiday break. First tip is to decide ahead of time what taking a break actually means to you. Will you be fully closed or will you give yourself some grace to work a little around your holiday schedule? Tip to set up your autoresponder, but infuse it with a little personality delight or to deliver a little value in the message. And tip three is to batch a few emails or posts in advance and schedule them to send while you're away. It'll help you stay engaged with your audience, even if you're taking time away from work to watch Christmas Vacation, which is the greatest holiday movie of all time. And if you'd like some support with pre writing your content or crafting an out-of-office reply, that strikes just the right balance of business and pleasure. I hope you'll join me on Monday, December 12th, 2022. For a free get or done writing workshop you'll get for email prompts to help you quickly craft content to share throughout the holidays. You'll also get a plug and play out of office template that will delight anyone who reaches out to you when you're away from your desk.
And I'll be on hand for some copy coaching. So as you batch write your content, you can get my eyes and expertise on it before you load it up into your schedule. Register for the free writing Workshop at Kim Alchemy Holiday. I'll be right there with you, putting my head down and batch writing my own content too. I'll drop the link in the show notes so you can find it or you can visit Kim Qualcomm's holiday. Thank you so much for joining me today. Next week, you'll get a copywriting formula that really tugs the heartstrings. It's great for year end advertising and it's perfect for getting year end donations, too. I'll see you then. And that's a wrap on today's episode of Ill Communication. Hey, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, I would love if you would leave a rating and a review to let me know. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss out on the tips, prompts and strategies I share in every episode. They're designed to make you an ill communicator, too. As always, you can check out all the links and resources from this episode on the web page. Just head over to Kim Dotcom slash podcast. I'll chat with you again next week.
Resources Mentioned
Register for the 2022 holiday writing workshop
Check out Lauren Goldstein’s Biz Doctor Podcast
Additional Resources
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