How often are you taking time off from your virtual assistant or OBM business? As in fully stepping away, off the tools, head out of the game? Chances are, if you’re a solo service-based business owner, this isn’t happening nearly as often as it should!
As I write this, I’ve just returned from a 3 week holiday to visit family in California (and I’ve brought back a pesky head cold, less fun).
This trip was special for a few reasons (family time, Disneyland, awe-inspiring sequoia trees, squirrels), and a big one of those was that I stayed out of my business almost entirely. I don’t remember the last time I allowed myself to do that for longer than a few days!
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, taking time away from your business should be an essential – but I also know that for a lot of 1:1 service providers it just doesn’t feel possible, especially when you’re a virtual assistant with a full client roster.
And when I looked around for ideas and advice that would suit my business and workload, there wasn’t too much out there. Mostly there was advice from people with a totally different business model (like online courses) or with a big enough team to delegate everything to. I do have a gun subbie, but she’s only with me a couple of hours a week, so delegating everything to her wasn’t an option.
So what do you do if you’re running a one-person show? The closest I came to finding advice was a social media manager/business coach who’d created a reel titled “How I prepared my business for a 2-week holiday” but then the only thing they did was… schedule 2 weeks of their own Insta posts?! (Don’t even get me started on self-declared gurus offering shitty business advice…) What about their clients? What about their team (if they have one)? What about their inbox?
That’s why I’m sharing what I did to prepare my business for a holiday. If you’re a virtual assistant or a 1:1 service provider with a full hands-on workload, I hope these tips and ideas might help you to organise a decent break for yourself too.
planning
Preparation is key! So the best place to start is with your planning. Things to consider include:
Timing
How much time do you intend to take off, and when? This will impact what needs to happen while you’re away. For example, if you’re taking time off over Christmas, maybe your clients are as well so there’ll be less that needs to be covered. My break was in October so I knew my clients’ businesses would be in full swing – which needs a different plan.
Resources
Do you and your clients have other resources available to them? Maybe you’re part of a team for your clients, so they can cover your tasks while you’re away. Maybe you have subcontractors or business babysitters that can cover for you. Maybe it’s just you and your client, so you’ll need to make sure they’re as prepared as possible before you go. Understanding what this will need to look like will help you plan your time in the lead up to your holiday and ensure a smooth handover to your team or client.
Budget
Depending on how your business is set up and your projects and retainers, it could be the case that if you’re not working there’s no cash coming in. If that’s you, make sure you’ve mapped out your budget and you’re planning well ahead of time to save up a buffer (if you don’t already have one). Do you need to take on a few extra projects to help you get there? What will that look like?
In my business I have a mix of fixed fee projects, time-based billing, and I’m slowly introducing fixed-fee monthly retainers. This is a work in progress for me and it means my cashflow is still sometimes quite lumpy, so ensuring I had a financial plan was an important part of being able to enjoy some time off.
As you can see, there’s quite a bit to think about and decisions to be made. I started this about 3 months or so before the trip so I knew what I was aiming towards and what it would take to get me there.
mindset
Something my VA and OBM colleagues have in common is that we love to support people. It’s one of the reasons we love what we do. The flipside to that though is some of the mindset hurdles we face – like people-pleasing tendencies, flexible (or non-existent) boundaries, and difficulty saying no.
If you find it difficult to be absent from your clients, chances are these issues are coming into play. So to really step away and switch off, you will need to tackle your mindset and give yourself permission to take time off.
I struggle with this big time! Even for this trip, I felt a lot of guilt, and found it really hard to say “No, I won’t be able to do that because I’m on holidays.” So let me make it very clear: you are entitled to a break. It is ok to take some time off. It is not your responsibility to manage your client’s business all the time. They will survive without you!
communication
As with all things, communication is key. I like to involve my clients as much as possible (within what’s appropriate) in the entire process – giving them plenty of notice and frequent reminders, checking in with them about what needs to be covered while I’m away, who’s going to be responsible for what, and what to do if they get stuck with something.
I also put my away dates in my email signature basically as soon as I decided on them, so everyone I communicated with (client or not) had that information, and my out of office set expectations about when people would hear from me. You might decide you’ll be checking your emails from time to time, people can text you if it’s urgent, or that you’re completely offline – whatever it’s going to look like, make sure people have that information.
So there you have it – the steps I took to get ready for some time off from my business. It wasn’t always easy, but it was absolutely worthwhile to be able to switch my brain off for a little while. By the end of my holiday, I was excited to catch up with my clients and dive back in, and I had fresh ideas about my own business too.
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