9: How To Take A Vacation (While Your Business Still Operates)

I'm very specific about what I am delegating so if I'm delegating for instance, finding a sofa, I let them know. I would like for you to find this sofa with this type of arm, this height on the seat, this height on the arm, this height of the seat back this color, this type of fabric. this pitch on the back of the sofa, et cetera, et cetera, you get the picture. So it's very, very detailed. And if you think about those types of details, when you delegate that that person should never have to come back to you to ask you a follow-up question, because you have put all of the information in there. 
This is really important when you're not around to answer a follow-up question. 

Welcome to the designer within podcast episode nine.
Welcome to the designer within podcast, the business minded podcast created for interior designers and creatives by an interior designer and creative me. I know firsthand the challenges, but also the victories that can come with our careers. And I'm here to sip and spill the tea with you. It's time to dive deep within yourself and redesign your business and your life from the inside out.
Together, we will uncover secrets and share valuable insights. So prepare for a truly transformative experience, because it's time to Unleash the Designer Within.
 Hi, everybody. Welcome to the designer within podcasts. So happy to have you here again. This is going to be a fun one. Today's topic is how to go on vacation. This might seem obvious of how to go on vacation, but I know, I know as a business owner, and especially if you are a solo entrepreneur or solo preneur, as we sometimes are called. This could seem difficult and downright impossible, but I am here to tell you that you can do it. I'm going to set the record straight that you can take a vacation. You can spend a time away from your business and from work. And guess what? 
The world where keep on turning projects will keep on progressing. Clients will still trust you when you come back. New clients will still be reaching out to you. Everything will still keep happening. We are important, but I will tell you if you set things up correctly, you will still have a wonderful viable. 
Successful working business. When you return, I've done it. And I'm actually doing it right now. While you're listening to this. If you are hearing this 
On the day of, or sometime near the day of it was released. 
I am probably sipping a drink on the Lido deck of a cruise ship somewhere. In the middle of Spain, don't even know where don't even care where honestly, 
But guess what? You're still listening to this. You're still getting all the good juicy bites of the podcast. And I am still communicating with you, you know, why you know how that's working because I pre-planned. It was very simple. Pre-planning is what allowed me to stay on top of things. Pre-planning is what allowed my business. 
To continue to grow and my podcast to continue to be published and other things that we're going to discuss today as well. And. I'm here to tell you that you too can do this. Even if you don't have a podcast, it doesn't matter. You can keep your business running just as efficiently, if you are not around. And I'm going to talk about all the things from projects to social media, to emails, to prospects, all the things that you're probably worried about right now, you're saying John, there's no way there is no way possible. 
I could pull away from my business. I do everything. I keep everything running. I. Talk to everyone. I answered the phone. I I'm a CAD person. I'm there when the client has a problem. Well, you know what? I promise you, you can, and here are the ways that you can do that. So first of all, 
Take a deep breath. This might be a little outside of your comfort zone. If you're not accustomed to some of these things, it might take a little bit of learning. And with every learning curve, it's going to take some time to adjust to that. So that's why I'm going to tell you. To start working on this with as much pre-planning as you can start working on your time away as far in advance as you can. I love as much of a notice as possible when I'm planning time away. I require my team members to at least give me two months notice if possible, when they have a trip that is more than two weeks away from the office. and if you are the solo operational person for your office, you too should keep that same mantra going. So you should truly try to plan any large trips, any large time away from your business, as much as possible in advance. I would suggest three months, four months, even if you could do six months, that would be wonderful, but chances are your projects will be in different stages at that time. So it really won't matter. 
I do find that that two month timeframe two to three months is that sweet spot of notifying everyone that, Hey, there's a big trip coming up. I will be out of the office. I'm going to be in Europe or wherever you're going to be. That's fabulous. even if you're in your own backyard, who cares, you're going to be away from the office, but the point is you're going to be an assessable probably. 
And you are going to let them know this two to three months ahead of time. 
The very first thing I will say is this. If you've heard me at all, you know, that I love systems and processes and our processes. And I have set my company up in a way. That it really runs like a franchise model. I set it up to operate whether, without me sometimes better without me. 
Frankly, if my team members are doing everything as I've laid it out, which they are fabulous and they do. So I have set everything up to sort of run on its own. And I've created these systems and processes down to the SOP, which is your standard operating procedures. So even if you don't have pages and pages and pages of processes for your company, you can make these very simple standard operating procedures. 
That could guide people through specific situations. think about the specific times in your business, when you need to document your business processes and procedures. So that anyone stepping in during your vacation can easily understand how things are done. How things are supposed to happen, how you would do something in this situation, what are the steps that they follow? And by the way, this SOP the standard operating procedure. 
It's literally that it has steps. It has steps one through every how many you will have. And it leads that person reading that document all the way through to the end and it gets that task accomplished. And the point of this again, Is that anybody who is stepping in during your absence can pick up that paper and complete that task. So write it as if you're speaking to someone who knows zero about your company. 
And even zero about the industry that we're in. So it should be very easy to understand layman's terms. And don't assume anything, when you are riding your standard operating procedures, and this will just make it easier for someone else to manage your business temporarily, whether it is a team member whether as a temporary employee that you have decided to bring in or a family member or anyone, this will allow them to read that document and continue to run your company. 
Now you might not need this. You might not have anything dramatic. Going on where you have to have these SOP running, but I do suggest that you have SOPs anyway. That's just part of running your company. And if you do have them the better off you're going to be. 
And if you're confused on where to begin to even start setting up processes and systems for your company, I invite you to go back to episode number two, entitled the power of the process, where I actually share with you three very easy steps that I use to make every single process within my company. 
They're very easy to follow. And it will allow you to basically adapt everything that you do within your company into a written format that anybody can follow. So that's back in episode three, the power of the process, go back and grab that episode and take a listen. 
I mentioned projects earlier. And of course, when you have a project, there are so many people involved in that you have your clients, your trades, people, your general contractor, architect, vendors, anyone else that is involved in that project. All of those people have to be notified that you were going to be out of town and hopefully not accessible. Hopefully you're not even available. Hopefully that's how you have this set up. But we'll talk about that in a moment. We're going to talk about assessability and if you do want it to be assessable, the point is for all of the projects for all of the people that you are currently interacting with and will be interacting with during your absence, you have to now start alerting those people that you will be out of. 
The office. And again, as I said, preferably two to three months ahead of time, you will start letting them know that I will be out of the office for two weeks in January. And you will not be able to reach me. So let's figure everything out that you need to have done by then so that we can have things continue to run smoothly. So you've let them know two to three months ahead of time. And now you want to of course, follow up with them again, as the months progress, you continue to remind them that you're going to be out of town. Out of the office. And then the final notification will be one week before you are out of the office, you are going to let them know one more time. I'm out of the office next week. Just wanted to double check, triple check, quadruple check with you that there is nothing else that you need for me, because I will not be available to send you things as I won't be here. 
And I want to make sure that you have everything that you need. for clients, let them know that all their questions are answered. Let them know that this is a trip with your family. Let them know whatever your comfort zone is with letting your clients know your personal life. But at the very least remind them about a week before you head out of town that you won't be available for those dates, but you will be checking back with them. 
of course the important part about this is everyone's going to want to know when you return. it's going to be very important to keep reiterating that return date and not your return date of the trip. I always refer to the return date in the office. So my return date in the office is going to be the 28th. 
That is when I will start to return all emails and phone calls. 
delegation. If you do have a team or another team member, delegation is critical, you will start to learn how to delegate your tasks to them. I call it diligent delegating. And for me, diligent delegating means that not only do I ask someone to do something, but I explain it in a way that is very detailed, much like the SOPs. 
I'm very specific about what I am delegating so if I'm delegating for instance, finding a sofa, I let them know. I would like for you to find this sofa with this type of arm, this height on the seat, this height on the arm, this height of the seat back this color, this type of fabric. this pitch on the back of the sofa, et cetera, et cetera, you get the picture. So it's very, very detailed. And if you think about those types of details, when you delegate that that person should never have to come back to you to ask you a follow-up question, because you have put all of the information in there. 
This is really important when you're not around to answer a follow-up question. and we like to use a software called a sauna to do that. You can use whatever you like. If your project management software has something inside of it, you can use that software program to delegate something and put a task in there. 
For that. I know that my Domo has something very similar as does Houzz pro. you can use their system to actually delegate something to someone and assign a. Task to other people. And when you do assign those tasks, once again, be very specific about what you are assigning and very specific about what your final goal is with that assignment. 
Now you might be saying, John, I do not have another team member. I do not have anyone else to reach out to. So here is a solution for you there you could consider hiring a freelancer or a VA, a virtual assistant, or even part-time help to handle these essential tasks that you might need to have done during your absence. 
things like customer service or admin work or anything that you feel has to be done, or if there is a local college nearby, perhaps. There is a program where someone could come in to continue to work on projects that you need them to work on, And they could be referred to you by a former professor that you had. think outside the box. If you do need someone, if you really, really need someone to come in, I don't think that you do, but if you really need someone to come in, then you could look at these outside sources for freelance work or virtual assistant or part-time help. 
And there's plenty of them out there. If you just do a simple Google search now. Back to the projects. I want you to think about this to you. I want you to set your main project schedule. So this is the schedule, the overarching schedule of when everything is happening. Think about new construction and think about renovation or even think about any sort of deliveries that are going to be happening. You need to set your main schedule so that there is no major work done while you are away. And I mean that, if there are walls that are to be removed, or if there are, you know, plumbing stacks that are having to be changed or possible electrical changes that could require you to be onsite, you want to make sure that none of this is happening while you were gone. 
If you are the person making the decision on those tasks. Now, if you have a team member who can do that, wonderful. But if you are the person. Who is the only person who can make those decisions. You do not need to have any walls coming down, any major presentations to be happening, any big decisions to be made while you are away, you want boring, boring, boring. While you are gone. 
You want the most mundane things to be happening and as I said before, one week before you leave town, check in with your GC check in with the trades, people make sure that the schedule has not changed with what the plan was. 
And let them know one more time that you're leaving town and the schedule should remain the same because you do not want to be bothered. With any big changes or any big questions that need an immediate answer because you won't be available for an immediate answer. 
 another thing I wanted to remind you is technology is your friend. I love technology even when I'm not out of town, but especially when I'm out of town. Technology is truly my friend and it can be yours too. as I said, I'm not even in town right now. I am in Europe and you're listening to this podcast and I love that. I love that the wheels keep turning. Everything keeps spinning. 
And everything is continuing as I want it to be. That's because I'm using technology to preplan and to prerecord and to. I get everything scheduled ahead of time. And I've done that even for not only my podcast, but for my social media posts. So you're going to see social media posts about this podcast and about other things within my company, on my Instagram feed. And you're going to see newsletter about my podcast, pop into your inbox. 
If you are a subscriber to my newsletter that reminds you that the new podcast is out. newsletters to my potential design clients who were on my other newsletter lists for my design related business. Those are going to continue to roll out our blog post or scheduled. so using technology to preplan, all of our social media, all of our communication, all of our newsletters is critical To continuing those to keep rolling along as they normally would. I like to use them on a daily basis anyway, because it just sort of frees your mind as you're working. But more importantly to use them when I am out of town. Oh, and by the way, Instagram, if you haven't used it, they have a, pre-planning a pre scheduling system set up now inside of Instagram that can allow you to schedule ahead of time. 
on your own without having any sort of outside software involved in that. 
Next set up your office phone to reflect that your office is closed. Sounds simple, but I just wanted to remind you to put the dates into the office voicemail of when you are leaving the office and the date. When the office will be open again, you also want to alert any deliveries that could be happening to your office, that you will not be there. 
And I also love to put a simple sign on the door that says we are out of the office for these dates. Please hold all deliveries. Next on the vein of technology, it's important to set up your website to still take appointments for your discovery calls and for your consultations. 
I do that anyway on again, on a daily basis. That's how we take our discovery calls and consultations. But even when we're not in the office or if my entire team was out of the office, we could still take discovery calls and consultations. The reason it works so well is that we have our calendars all sinked with our discovery calls and consultations. These are all sinked with our Google calendar. So we simply block out any dates on our Google calendar that we are not available and no one is allowed to book those dates while we are away. So if you are a solo preneur, once again, you simply block the dates on your Google calendar and you're making sure that that links to whatever system you use for scheduling your appointments. 
Calendly acuity, whatever you like to use. And those dates are going to show as unavailable, but the person going on to book those appointments can still book the appointments. They can still receive your questionnaire. They can still receive communication from you as if you are continuing to work. And we have hours very detailed. I get a reply email with lots of information in there about our company. 
And so the conversation still continues even though we're not verbally there doing it and we're not manually typing those in. it just, again, keeps. Your business running. It keeps new business coming in Without you being physically there in the office. 
On your out of office. I want you to be clear and concise. Your dates need to be on there again, not the dates that you are going to be on vacation, but the dates that you will be in assessable. And also if you do have a contact person, put that in that email as well, don't go overboard on telling everyone so much information. Just be very concise in your message to get the point across. I use Gmail for ours and that's how we have that sync to our. 
Email system and it works perfectly. 
Now it's important to remember if you have multiple email addresses, such as info at orders at, or just your personal email, you're going to want to cater each reply each out of office. To that email address. So for instance, we have. An email address that we use strictly for ordering and placing orders and receiving orders and tracking orders. And that is orders@johnmcclaindesign.com. So that email address of course, would have a different out of office than our info. 
At John McClain design.com, which is used for. Prospective clients it's used for anyone reaching out to us for general information for a media inquiries, that sort of thing. Remember, just make sure that you cater the email response to the person who you anticipate that will be reading that email because your personal email address will have a different reply, a different response for your out of office, then your office and your main email addresses will have. 
Also, if you use a tool like slack, I suggest you stay off of it because you are going to see a lot of interoffice chattering happening, but you can also set that up to notify you for emergency situations. My technique is this no client has my cell phone number that I can think about unless it's a client from a long time ago, because we just don't give those out anymore. 
But my team only knows to contact me with a list of emergency. So if it's an emergency situation, my. My team knows that they can reach me on my cell phone. And if I see a team member calling me or texting me on my cell phone while I'm away on vacation, I know that it is a true emergency. 
And we've already talked about what those emergencies could be, and they really, really need to speak with me. Otherwise, they know not to reach out to me. And once I do and clients do not have my cell phone number. 
also to remember, there really are no design emergencies. Usually they really are not. And they usually work themselves out on their own. Think back to any quote unquote emergencies. that you've had within your company or that our clients had, or that a contractor has had those really aren't quote emergencies. They were just that person needing or wanting an answer at that time. you just kind of need to put yourself into that mentality of, there really are no emergencies per se. 
It's just someone wanting an immediate answer. 
If you do feel the need, you could designate someone to be an emergency contact while you are away. You could find a trusted friend or colleague or a family member who can handle urgent matters while you are out, but make sure they have all the necessary information and the authority to make decisions on your behalf. 
Not necessarily design decisions, but any sort of bigger picture emergency decisions about your company, about your office, if there's any sort of emergency in your office, or if there is something that really has to be taken care of immediately, you could designate a trusted person to be that emergency contact person. 
for your finances and bills, be sure that all of your finances are in order before you leave, set up any automated payments. It's four bills and invoices. And have a financial buffer in case any unexpected expenses arrive such as a line of credit that you could pull from. If something happens. 
Or any sort of credit card that could have buffer zone on it. Anything that could allow you to have bit of a, extension period on it would be great, but also know that most companies will understand when they see that you are out of the office. If you have a vendor who is requesting payment for. 
Something that you have ordered from them. They are going to see your out of office and they are going to understand that you are out of office. 
And lastly taking all of this into consideration, knowing that you took all of the precautions to make this happen. My final piece of advice is fricking relax. Relax. Enjoy yourself. You have earned this, you have taken all of the precautions. You have prepared yourself. You've prepared your clients. You've prepared your trades. People you've prepared your builder. You've prepared your GC. 
You've prepared your team members, you have done everything necessary and you need. A vacation. This is so important. It will allow you to continue to dream. As we've talked about, it will allow you to think bigger. It will allow you to see things from that 30,000 foot view. Your mind will be open and expanded. 
Because you are not in the thick of things, you're not in the weeds, working daily in the office. And with client projects, you are allowing yourself to think freely. And those are when the biggest ideas truly come your way. But taking a vacation is just so important for your wellbeing and it can actually benefit your business. As I said, in the long run by just implementing these simple strategies, they're not that complicated. I kept them very simple. And if you go back and listen, 
Write them down. Bring them into your company. It can truly set yourself up to enjoy your time away without constant worrying about your company, about your clients. And most importantly, you won't be spending your vacation when that other, not so nice sidekick burnout. The one that we do not want to go on vacation with, so burnout will be avoided by allowing yourself to take some time away. So I implore you do not feel guilty, do not feel that it's impossible. Follow the simple steps, make a plan of action and take some time away for your vacation, for your wellbeing, for your family's wellbeing, and honestly, for your business as wellbeing. 
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to head back over to the bar and get a little refill on this cocktail. I'm a little parched. See you soon.