How to Prep Your Business for Vacation

It’s finally here! Memorial Day weekend! The start of summer (at least for those of us in the South!) I know most northern states still have a few more weeks of school. Hang in there!

One thing we’ve realized after 10+ years as business owners is that it’s actually harder to take a vacation as a business owner than it was as an employee. My current boss is WAY more challenging than my previous ones ever were. 😉

After a few vacations that involved way too much time in front of a computer dealing with tasks that “had to be done” at that moment, we’ve learned that when it comes to a vacation from your business, a little prep work goes a long way.

So how can you prep your business for time OOO?

1. Set Expectations Early

Update Your Email Footer
As early as possible, update your email footer to reflect any future out of office dates. This will help manage expectations for those you’re communicating with before you ever reach out to tell them that you’ll be away. This is why my email footer typically looks like:

Keeping those out of office dates in my footer is something I do all year – not just during the summer. As soon as the school year calendar comes out, I mark off days when I know that I’ll be working less because of school closures. This helps my clients anticipate when I’ll be available. I’ve found that my clients really do pay attention to those dates and they’ll make comments such as “I know you’re going to be on vacation next week so no rush getting back to me!”

Send Clients a Message Two Weeks Prior to Leaving
If you have clients, let clients know about your time away two weeks before you leave. Consider giving them something to work on while you’re away. For example in our business, I might give someone an outline of the next page of their site (even if it’s a bit early) so that they can gather their content. That way my away time is less likely to hold us up.

2. Set an Out of Office Auto Responder

This might go without saying, but it’s important to set an out of office message auto responder.

Within this message, make sure you let anyone contacting you know if there is anyone else they should reach out to in case of an emergency. Set expectations for your return as well. What day will you be back in the office? When will you respond to emails? In what order?

Consider telling others that you will be back to work two or three days after you actually get back in the office. Doing this will help you catch up before anyone expects to hear from you.

My out of office message typically looks something like this:

Hi Friend!

Thanks for reaching out!

I’ll be out of the office Thursday + Friday for a family vacation. If you need anything in the mean time, please reach out to support@alex

While our team doesn’t work on weekends, we do monitor the inbox for true emergencies.

If you need help with your Showit account, consider checking out the Showit Help Desk or sending them a support request. You might also find it helpful to post in our Davey & Krista Facebook community.

Have a great week!
Krista

3. Prep Your Team (if you have one)

If you have a team, before you leave, it’s a good idea to delegate tasks to other team members. That way everyone is on the same page when it comes to who is covering which tasks. When we’re out, our assistant Kendal knows to check both of our inboxes. I also try to make sure that the designers on our team have enough work to fill their hours that week without needing approvals or content from me.

At Till Agency, team members prep a Google Doc before they leave that outlines when they will be away, when they’ll be back in the office, what their current responsibilities are, who is covering them and where any necessary files can be found.

4. Get Organized

A few weeks before you leave, make a list of what needs to be completed before you go and what needs to be paused. If you have the type of project that could be wrapped up (such as editing a gallery), aim to finish things a few days before you go. If it’s a bigger project that can’t be completed before you go, set a stopping point.

If you plan to publish content (such as blog posts, emails, social media, podcasts) while you’re away, schedule those ahead of time. Apps like Planoly and Later make this easy for social media. Our podcast software (Fireside) lets us schedule podcast episodes to be pushed out at a certain time and WordPress, Flodesk, Kit and other mailing list programs have scheduling software built in.

Or, consider not scheduling anything to go “live” so that you don’t need to worry about schedule mishaps or mistakes. It’s likely that the last thing you’ll want to be doing on a vacation is to be fixing problems or mistakes from your phone when you’re sitting on the beach or about to board a plane.

Before we leave, we also like to make a list of what what will focus on when we return. That way we don’t get bogged down by email or smaller tasks that ultimately take us away from reaching our big goals.

We hope this post helps as you feel ready to relax during your time away. If you have any other tips, feel free to post them below!