I just got an email from a coaching client of mine that really surprised me.
Before I tell you about the email, I should explain that the sender is a recruitment business owner who works extremely hard and personally bills over one million Euros per year in net fee income.
The thing that surprised me about his email wasn’t the content, it was the timing. You see he recently got married so I wasn’t expecting to hear from him for a few weeks. Turns out he sent me the email while on honeymoon. I think you’ll agree that this is not ideal.
Do you make the same mistake? And by “mistake” I mean take your laptop with you on vacation, or check emails on your phone, when you’re supposed to be relaxing and spending time with the people who are most important in your life? Or worse, do you avoid taking holidays altogether?
So I challenged him, asking: “Paul, why are you working and checking your email when you’re on your honeymoon?”
He replied: “Because I don’t want my customers to disappear while I’m on holiday.”
The fear of missing opportunities and letting his customers down meant he couldn’t fully relax – not even on his honeymoon.
Which I completely understand, by the way. But the thing is, if you’re working you while you’re on holiday, that defeats the whole purpose of having your own business! The reason you started your business was to have more freedom, right?
If you’re like Paul, and you find yourself working when you’re supposed to be on holiday, that tells me is you haven’t set up your business correctly.
I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh. I’m coming from a place of deep caring and concern for my clients and subscribers. But I feel really strongly about this. If you can’t take a holiday, you don’t have a business, you have a job. In fact, it’s worse than having a job because at least when you have a job, your teammates provide holiday cover for you.
So what’s the solution?
As a recruitment entrepreneur, you need a support team. I don’t mean an offshore RPO who search job boards and send you CV’s. I mean you’ve designed your org chart so you can focus on the strategic and revenue-generating activities. Then you have competent people in place who you trust and to whom you can delegate everything else. You need the infrastructure in place so that you have the freedom to take days off while the business continues to operate and your customers are still being looked after while you’re away.
And YES this applies to lifestyle businesses too. I’m essentially a one-man band, but I have figured out the right way to build a virtual team so I can leverage my time and focus on the parts of the business I love.
I’m not going to pretend my business is perfect or I have everything figured out because it’s not and I don’t. Just like you, I’m on this journey of constant challenge, learning and growth called “running your own business.” But outsourcing and virtual team building is something I’ve studied and worked hard at for over a decade. So I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned a lot along the way.
Imagine if you could finally take a vacation with your loved ones without worrying that you’re going to lose business or miss out on placements. If you need help setting up a virtual team and putting together the processes and the systems so that you can actually continue to get paid while you’re on holiday then set up a 15-min “pitch-free” brainstorming call here.
P.S. Paul – let’s move this to the top of our agenda.
