Amanda McVicker (00:00)
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the OBM Educator.
It has been a couple weeks since I have recorded an episode. I took two weeks off, one for being on spring break with my kids, for vacation, and then another because it takes a bit to get caught back up, and that's actually what we're going to talk about today. But I wasn't fully anticipating taking another week off and in fact it's the longest break I've taken since starting the OBM Educator podcast almost a year ago. I was just looking at the calendar. I can't believe it has been almost a year in a couple of weeks. But from that experience, I'm going to use it to talk today about kind of the coming back from vacation. Right, I've done an episode on taking time off. I did it, you know, specifically around the holidays, but we are coming up to summer right now in the United States and I know a lot of people are wanting to take time off. They want to be with their kids, they want to go on vacation and you know it's great to know how to take that time off right. How do we prepare for it, how do we tell our clients? But what happens when we come back? I feel like that's as important of a conversation to have, and so that's what we're going to get into today.
Before I jump into it, I do want to share that my April workshop will be next week, on April 22nd, which is a Tuesday at 1pm, and it's going to be about leading strategy sessions as an OBM. Strategy sessions is one of my favorite things to do as an OBM, to you know, to sit down and talk with a client or business owner about where they're wanting to go in their business and how we can get there. It's how I start every single one of my retainer clients and it's become a one-off thing I do as well now that I'm booked out, and over the past five years I've really kind of nailed down how it is that I do strategy sessions, and so I'm going to be sharing my process and things to you know, be aware of, look out for and how to practice so that when you are on a strategy call strategy session with a client, you're able to give helpful information, even if maybe you're not knowledgeable on everything. So the link to register for that is going to be in the show notes. Love to have you there, and if you can't make it live, you know, sign up so that you can get the replay still Okay, so let's get into today's topic up so that you can get the replay still Okay, so let's get into today's topic.
Welcome to the OBM Educator. I'm your host, Amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven figure entrepreneurs as well as educates new OBMs with the skills and confidence they need to start and grow their own successful online business management business. Follow along as I share valuable insights behind the scenes, sneak peeks and proven strategies to help you build a better OBM business. So you go on vacation. You know, you did all of the prep work for it, your clients were notified, they were taken care of during, before and during your vacation, and now you've come back. You have a partner crowded inbox, project management system is overflowing and you have, however, many clients three to four clients waiting for you to get back on the work that you're doing.
You might have a situation where you're not able to increase your workload when you get back right. You could have a situation like mine last week, where I came back to my entire state flooding and they closed schools for three days, so we had a little extended spring break. Basically, so many things could happen that when you get back, you are not able to work 12 hour days to jump back in and get everything going right. So how do you handle coming back from vacation without going insane? And so the first thing is this is you know going to be happening before you leave? But it's setting expectations, right, if you have things that you were saying that you were going to do before vacation and you know something didn't get completed, or you're like I'm going to get to that when I get back. Set expectations that it's not going to be the Monday you get back. Set expectations that you need to catch up. You need to have a little bit of buffer time before you dive into it.
And this could look a few different ways. Right, it could be telling your clients that your vacation actually is going over a couple days. Right, like you could say I'm going to be out this week and Monday and Tuesday of the next week and use that time to catch up, without the expectations from your clients that you're going to, like, immediately be diving back into their work. It'll also be about setting the cue for the work that you are doing, right, when you get back. Obviously, there's going to be things waiting. There's going to be things that are more important to handle than others.
You know, make a cue of the work that you are doing and put things in the queue so that when you come back on that Monday or whenever, and you start going through your work and a client comes back and says, okay, and also this, you can say, okay, I have this queue going. I'm going to be able to put that in at the bottom unless it needs to take priority over the other things that are on my list for you. You let me know, like your choice, but this is where I'm at. I could probably get that to you later this week. But by doing that, you are communicating with your client that what their expectations should be right. You don't want to come back and say, you know, say, yeah, I'll get that to you on Monday, I'll get that to you on Monday. And then any work that they have added, you're like, yeah, I'll get to that right away.
You don't want to say things like that because, even if you get to it like you are going to be stressed and burned out and maybe not performing at peak performance, right, peak performance, right. So you want to give yourself that flexibility, that grace to work on the work like kind of in your own time. We do want to be somewhat quick about it, right, we did, especially if they are waiting on things, right, we don't want to drag it out all week, but we do want to do it in a way that we can get them the work in a way that feels good to us, something that is helpful. That, I know, is not always an option for everyone, but if you are able to take a couple hours the day before, say, like you get back home on a Saturday and you take the Sunday to go through your email, clean it out, file things as needed and create your to-do list before the week starts Like create it when no one is sending you anything additional so that you can go into the week with a clear plan of what it is that you are going to be doing, like I just said, you know clients might add on to it, other things might take priority, but if you go into the week with a clear plan of this is what I'm working on, this is what I need to catch up on and this is the plan that I'm going to be following, it's going to save you so much stress.
But that's also something that you can share with your clients, right, you can share that list with them. Like hey, back from vacation, I've gone through everything that you've sent over and here's the list of what I'll be working on this week. Let me know if anything needs to shift in priority, if you have something else that needs to be done that we can add to this list. Otherwise, I'll be working on this. Right? This is a way that, as an OBM, you can be proactive. You're not waiting for your client to follow up on something and be like hey, just want to make sure you saw this. Like you are telling them hey, I've gone through everything from what I can tell, from what you had sent, this is what I'm going to be working on this week. Let me know if this is still good. Right, some things might have changed, right, your client could have sent an email or added a task that really might not be as important anymore, or maybe they took care of it themselves and they didn't mention it to you. So when you put together a list like that and you share it with your client, both of you guys are going to be on the same page about what it is that is going on.
And my big piece of advice kind of throughout all of this is remember that it's not going to look perfect and that's okay. You're probably going to be stressed that week. You're probably going to work more than you normally do, you might have to work in the evenings, you might have to get up early to work right, and it doesn't make it bad. It doesn't mean that you didn't take vacation correctly. It doesn't mean that you can never take vacation again.
Right, we had this break. It was nice, we could unplug. Like over my break I was able to not open my computer once that is amazing for me and I came back to a bit of a stressful situation, and that's okay. It doesn't make it wrong that I didn't open my laptop during the week. It doesn't make it wrong that I had to work in the evenings and when my kids were home I had to say, hey, go do this other thing because I do have to catch up on work. Right, we started our business to be flexible, but it's still a business and we still have to do our work, but we get to do it in a way that feels good to us. So know that it's not going to be perfect, but know that it's not wrong.
So, as we get to the summer months, I hope that you're taking vacations. I hope that you are taking the time to be with your family or just taking breaks in general, because that is how we are going to create and sustain a business that works for us. So I hope this was helpful as you are planning your vacations and coming back from your vacations. As a reminder, sign up for the strategy session workshop that I'm hosting next week as part of my Like an OBM workshop series. The link to register is in the show notes and I will talk with you guys next week. Bye.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the OBM Educator. I hope what you heard today is helpful for you on your OBM journey. If you loved today's episode, I would so appreciate you sharing it and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Want to be a guest on the OBM Educator? Fill out the form in the show notes and I'll be in touch. Join us next time on the OBM Educator.
