Today, we’re talking about how to take time off from your business without losing money.
Now, this is particularly relevant for me at the moment because I’ve just been on holidays. It was my first holiday in quite a while because I’ve had a mindset that I wasn’t allowed to take time off from my business.
Really, for the first couple of years of my business, I was hustling so hard that I honestly couldn’t take time off without everything falling apart.
If you’re feeling a little bit burned out and resentful right now; or you’re itching to go on holidays but you don’t know how, then this article is for you.
The first thing I want to say is that I’m the kind of person who goes on holidays and still thinks about work. That’s okay if that’s you as well.
I’ll go and get a massage and suddenly I’ve got an idea for a new book. Or, I’ll swim in the ocean and think, “Oh my God! I can do this new program; I’m so excited.”
Let’s just acknowledge that some of us are just those kind of people. We’re always creative, we’re always on and we’re always thinking about our business because we love it.
I think that is a good thing.
However, I see a lot of female entrepreneurs with this mindset and belief that we’re not allowed to take time off because our clients will hate us or we’ll lose all of our money.
Today I’ve got three tips on how we can all collectively take more time out for creativity, refreshment, relaxation and spending time with our families.
Be the CEO of your business
Tip number one is to get really good at being the CEO of your business. You might have heard me say this before, that CEO does not stand for Chief Everything Officer.
Now, at the start of your business, you might be doing everything and that’s great. That’s fine. That’s your apprenticeship.
But, as you go on in business and as you start to earn more money, you have to then step up and start to release some of those tasks.
Get good at batching
For example, you could batch your video content like I do. Or, if you put create your social media content ahead of time. Which means that you’ve got content for when you’re on holidays and your marketing doesn’t just shut down.
Automate tasks
Now, I’m actually of the mindset of rather than hiring somebody to do a task, I always look first if there’s a software that I can buy to automate the process to take human nature out of it completely.
For example – social media scheduling tools can market your business while you’re on holidays. Or having autoresponders set up so people can buy from you 24/7. If you’re still sending out receipts manually, then you’re going to feel panicked about going on holidays in case you get sales while you’re away.
Delegate EVERYTHING you can
Delegating is a skill, and it takes practice, especially if you have the mindset that you have to do everything yourself or it feels like cheating.
When I had my first baby, I was still doing my newsletter in the hospital because I really sucked at delegating and was being a control freak.
In reality, my assistant did the newsletter WAY better than I ever did. But I felt bad about asking her to do it, even though that’s what I was paying her to do.
Delegating is a skillset that, when you get good at it, will feel SO AMAZING, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it earlier.
Guess what?
When you really embrace that batching/automating/delegating mindset, you won’t be the bottleneck of your business anymore, and not only can you take time off, you’ll give your business the opportunity to grow beyond you.
You can go off and have a holiday and it’s not all going to collapse without you!
Once you master that, it’s time to take it up a notch.
Create passive income products
Again, I talk about this all the time and it’s really, really key.
It doesn’t matter what you do, any business can create some sort of passive income product.
A perfect example of this is a book. You write the book once and then each time someone buys it you earn income from it.
You don’t have to go and read it to them. You don’t have to be like, “Can I come to your house? I’m here to read my book to you.”
They buy it and you get paid a royalty.
That frees up your time so much.
My very first passive income product – after my book – was creating a $50 eCourse. It was filmed on my iPad, it wasn’t fancy and it didn’t cost me very much money to put together.
I started earning about $1000 a month from that $50 eCourse. That freed me up so that I didn’t have to take on every client that came along.
Passive income gives you freedom
Get a taste of freedom, and you can build on it. You can go on holidays, you can take time off on maternity leave. You can take a sabbatical. And your income won’t suffer.
Start small.
I’ve spoken about how my money bootcamp has earned well over a million dollars in revenue. That started from creating my very first passive income products – a book and a cheap eCourse.
Take action on creating your first passive income
It doesn’t have to be perfect, so stop procrastinating on it.
Create one or two little things that people can buy from you straightaway, like an eBook, a small eCourse or an audio.
Then, if they want to work with you further, that’s great. But, you’re earning money without your physical presence. That frees you up to take time off.
Update your mindset & give yourself permission
Here’s my final tip on this – and this is probably the most important – your mindset.
Give yourself permission that you don’t always have to work really hard to make more money.
This is a money block.
This is probably the most common money block that I see in women – the belief that we have to work really hard in order to make the money.
When we release that money block, suddenly the possibilities are greater for you to find different opportunities to add value to the world and get paid beautifully from it in return.
In my experience in creating a six and then a seven figure business, 10% of it is strategy and the other 90% is the mindset and beliefs that you bring to your business.
Without dealing with that mindset block, you are probably going to burn yourself out.
You’ll resist delegating. You are going to sabotage your success and be the bottleneck in your business because you’ve got the belief that you have to work hard to make money.
You’re going to perpetuate that belief in everything that you do, and then of course, it becomes self-fulfilling. Your business will feel hard work, and you won’t be able to take time off without everything collapsing.
There are my three tips: batch/automate/delegate, create a passive income product and work on your mindset – particularly identifying your money block so that you can give yourself permission to earn money and it not be hard work.
We’d love to hear from YOU…
How often do you take time off from your business? Could any of these tips help you step away and still allow things to run smoothly? Leave your answer in the comments below!