Does taking a holiday from your business sound too good to be true? Are you worried about how your business will keep going without you? Or have you taken a holiday before but been unable to switch off and relax, taking the business on holiday with you? If this sounds like you, this video is for you!
In this video I cover how I earned income while on the road holidaying in Japan. I share tips and tools you can replicate to successfully outsource to virtual assistants in order to take a real holiday from your business.
For those who prefer to read, below is the transcription of the video.
If I said to you that you could take a holiday from your business, I mean really switch off, and your business would keep humming and your clients would be looked after, would you look at me like I was crazy? Or think, one day, maybe?
Well, I'm here to tell you that it can be done.
I just did it and it was awesome.
Even if you think that there are tasks in your business that only you can do, you really can do it and it's so worth the effort.
Let me tell you a bit about how and what I did to be able to have a holiday from my business.
If you don't know me or if you haven't seen some of my latest updates, my name is Nerin. I'm the founder of Positively Sorted and I'm a virtual assistant. Positively Sorted focuses on the techy behind-the-scenes stuff that you might just hate doing or loath trying to figure out your way around it.
If you're just starting out, thinking about using a virtual assistant or don't feel that you have any of the systems in place to be able to manage it, that's our specialty.
Back to the travel and the holiday. I just took two whole weeks off to travel around Japan with my family! It was an amazing adventure and it was all-consuming, with navigating, managing kids, seeing the sites. It was great. Not exactly relaxing, but it was still switching off from the everyday.
It was only when I was sitting on the plane on the way home, at 3:00 a.m. on a red-eye flight, uncomfortable, couldn't sleep, that I started thinking about the fact that I had taken all that time off my business, and most of my current clients were at least partly looked after. My clients were able to keep rolling in their business with very little input from me.
That was a massive wow moment.
In the dark, somewhere above the ocean. Realising that I could still earn income while I'm away from my business, but also that my clients weren't let down and they can keep their businesses going.
So, how did I do this?
I've got systems and team members now, set up in my business that can work on my behalf.
It's taken about 12 to 18 months to really get it humming. It definitely doesn't happen overnight. But it is something that you can start working on gradually. You can definitely delegate things that you thought you couldn't.
In the beginning, would just get help with parts of a bigger project. There were parts that I would check or that I would "just do that bit" because that was the most important and I felt it "needed" to be done by me. However, after getting all the steps documented, so everybody knows exactly what needs to be done and when, I gradually introduced extra steps to other people. Until my clients and I can be comfortable that it can be done the way we want.
The last time I took a trip away was about 15 months ago I was only just getting started with having a Virtual Assistant of my own to help. We weren't really set up with all of those processes and systems, so I was taking on this holiday at least an hour, maybe two of work each afternoon, while we were away. I would go through emails, answer questions, and sort of keep things rolling. Then some things I felt we couldn't just completely put on hold until we got back. It was pretty full-on, getting back up and running again.
This trip to Japan, we were on the road every day, so taking a couple of hours to just sit and work wasn't really an option. But I didn't need to! All I had to do was keep an eye on my emails. There were a few questions that popped up that I needed to answer, but it was five minutes to answer them.
It was awesome.
My team members could keep the business moving. To give you an idea, I've got one main Virtual Assistant that helps with lots of different things, Louise. She's did an awesome job. Thanks, Louise!
Then I have currently two other people that are helping with social media and graphic design. This is a newer thing that we're still getting up and running with, but it is really great that they were able to help keep another couple of clients rolling along while I was gone too.
That's just a bit of a snippet and taste of how I took a real holiday from my business. Hopefully it can give you an idea on how it can be done for yours.
In the past I've shared tips about being productive and being organised. Now what I would like to start sharing on a regular basis is based around the systems I use:
Getting set up to be able to work with a remote team member or members.
The types of Virtual Assistant help you can get.
How to easily record steps for a Virtual Assistant to follow
My favourite online tools for sharing tasks, files, information, with team members and clients.
When you're working remotely, different people need access to files, clients need information about where the tasks are up to. You need to be able to track time for both your work and that of your own virtual assistant - all that sort of stuff!
I hope that you will find that helpful. I'll try and share bits and pieces every week.
Now, I would like to ask you a question.
Where are you on this journey? Do you work with a Virtual Assistant? Or do you wish you could? Do you feel it is all too hard or you don't know where to start?
What are your challenges with it? What questions do you have?
Let me know in the comments below and that will help me to prioritise what I talk about first in future videos.
Thanks for watching (or reading!) and I will see you soon!
