Twelve Tips for Managing your Business during a Vacation Managers and vacations don\u00a1\u00a6t always mix. So how can you possibly pull yourself away from your young business for two weeks to take a vacation that you\u00a1\u00a6ve needed for five years? Just think of all the things that could go wrong: all of the operational flubs that could go unanswered, all of the poor decisions that might be taken, all the accounts that could be lost. You\u00a1\u00a6ve climbed every mountain to become a sucessful small business owner, so how can you possibly leave business in the hands of your handful of employees while you go mountain-climbing?<\/P> Because without the work life balance and perspective that a holiday provides, you won\u00a1\u00a6t remain an effective executive.<\/P> \u00a1\u00a7I was that guy checking email at the beach \u00a1V not a good thing,\u00a1\u00a8 says Scott Miller, a serial entrepreneur who in 2010 launched The Bee, a web-based financial application. \u00a1\u00a7I just decided to take the risk.\u00a1\u00a8 During a month-long family vacation in New Zealand while he was running a previous venture,<\/P> Miller had absolutely no communication with his staff or clients. \u00a1\u00a7I gave my staff our itinerary, but I wasn\u00a1\u00a6t going to make it easy for them to reach me. They handled issues on their own and made some great decisions.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> Don\u00a1\u00a6t feel ready to take the plunge and revamp your managment style? For your pre-vacation reading, scan these dozen top tips from seven entrepreneurs who know how to take a small business vacation.<\/P> Get clients familiar with your proxies.<\/STRONG> Don\u00a1\u00a6t let your email auto-responder be the one to tell your customers who to contact while you\u00a1\u00a6re on a two-week pleasure trip. \u00a1\u00a7In the client contract we make it clear that my non-equity partner and contractors might get involved; transparency is important,\u00a1\u00a8 says Erin Powers, owner of Powers Mediaworks, which represents law firms.<\/P> Network it.<\/STRONG> Network with other small firms in your industry and exchange resources when principals go on vacation. \u00a1\u00a7It does require a high degree of trust to work with people who are occasionally your competitors,\u00a1\u00a8 says Powers.<\/P> Who will do your duties?<\/STRONG> Enumerate and delegate your daily activities, one by one. Rob Jager, principal of Hedgehog consulting, advises: \u00a1\u00a7Look for tasks that only you do. Ask yourself, is it critical that I do these tasks? Identify who on the team can perform them.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> Maximize opportunities for staff.<\/STRONG> Make a virtue of your need to depend on your staff while you\u00a1\u00a6re away by asking your employees to do more. \u00a1\u00a7It was great to see people step up and take more responsibility,\u00a1\u00a8 says Miller. \u00a1\u00a7Looking in the mirror, it was obvious that I had been holding that back.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> What would Socrates do?<\/STRONG> Starting now, get in the habit of asking your staff lots of questions in the course of business. \u00a1\u00a7Every time a problem or question comes up, a business owner should ask, \u00a1\u00a5What would you do if you couldn\u00a1\u00a6t get hold of me?\u00a1\u00a6 \u00a1\u00a8 says Jager.<\/P> Practice, practice, practice.<\/STRONG> \u00a1\u00a7Practice being hands-off for longer and longer stretches — even when you\u00a1\u00a6re in the office — to allow employees to get comfortable being in charge,\u00a1\u00a8 says Kate Koziol, president of K Squared Communications.<\/P> Prepare for the worst case.<\/STRONG> What\u00a1\u00a6s the worst that could happen? Take this not as a rhetorical question but as a challenge requiring a detailed, documented response. \u00a1\u00a7Put contingent action plans into place for what staff should do if something goes wrong,\u00a1\u00a8 says David Gammel, principal at High Context Consulting.<\/P> Meetings in brief.<\/STRONG> \u00a1\u00a7While I\u00a1\u00a6m away I don\u00a1\u00a6t do all the Monday meetings, but I do have the COO brief me on them,\u00a1\u00a8 says Tracey Frost, owner of Citibabes, which operates membership centers that combine child care with adult fitness and related facilities.<\/P> Your admin keeps the trains running.<\/STRONG> \u00a1\u00a7Behind every great entrepreneur is an amazing assistant who solves problems and handles things,\u00a1\u00a8 says Yao-Hui Huang, CEO of Gigapixel Creative. \u00a1\u00a7Your assistant can take messages, call you in a block of time, get the answers and get back to people.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> Access when you\u00a1\u00a6re remote.<\/STRONG> If you can\u00a1\u00a6t entirely avoid doing business while on holiday, consider making advance arrangements for virtual meetings and remote access to documents via secure download.<\/P> Smartphone as security blanket.<\/STRONG> If no news is bad news to you, do bring your smartphone but set limits on its use. \u00a1\u00a7In some ways the BlackBerry gives you more freedom when you go away; I\u00a1\u00a6d be nervous if I were out of contact,\u00a1\u00a8 says Frost.<\/P> Do a post-mortem.<\/STRONG> Debrief your team and critique yourself so that your next vacation is even more successful. Miller says if his preparations for vacation fell short in one area, it was business development. \u00a1\u00a7When I returned, the sales pipeline wasn\u00a1\u00a6t as full as usual. I could have done a better job by loading the pipeline with more pre-sales activities.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> Your small business vacation away from your business gives you the chance to learn some big lessons. Here\u00a1\u00a6s Gammel\u00a1\u00a6s teaching for entrepreneurs who are beyond the earliest stages of operation: \u00a1\u00a7Owners should be working primarily on their business rather than in it.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> Of course, it\u00a1\u00a6s difficult to imagine your bootstrapped enterprise carrying on while the owner is (you) is taking a vacation. Says Powers: \u00a1\u00a7When you have your own business, it\u00a1\u00a6s hard to let go. But it becomes more comfortable over time.\u00a1\u00a8 Miller also urges fellow entrepreneurs to get over it. \u00a1\u00a7I thought it was going to be a huge deal, but it turned out not to be.\u00a1\u00a8<\/P> <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twelve Tips for Managing your Business during a Vacation By: John Rossheim, Monster Senior Contributing Writer Managers and vacations don\u00a1\u00a6t always mix. So how can you possibly pull yourself away from your young business for two weeks to take a vacation that you\u00a1\u00a6ve needed for five years? Just think of all the things that could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-startups"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foundit.sg\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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By: John Rossheim, Monster Senior Contributing Writer<\/P>
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