Can you really have the summer holidays off (and do you actually want to?)

Welcome back to the LionHearted Marketing Podcast!

What’s this episode about?

The summer holidays and how to navigate the change in routine, kids at home, more people away and the inevitable (or perhaps not!) dip in income has been a hot topic of conversation for Sophie with her friends, in her mastermind, with her coach and for clients for the past few months. In this episode, she opens up those important conversations and how they have shaped the way she looks at the summer and the impact on her business, and life.

In this episode we cover:

• Current situ - where Sophie is at with the summer holidays at the moment

• How seasons of life and business impact summer holiday decisions

• Triggering conversations and judgement

• Ideas on structuring your business around the summer holidays

• 'Will I regret working?' vs 'I don't want to spend 7 days a week with my kids'

• Reviewing & planning for next year (already!)

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. LHM 007: Solo - Summer holidays === [00:00:00] hello, and welcome to Lion Hearted Marketing. This is a podcast for bold businesses who are ready to go from a slightly scattergun marketing approach to connecting everything they're doing to create joyful, repeatable customer journeys, that build connection and consistently convert new clients. That's called a funnel. If you fancy. If you have that nagging feeling, you should have more of a grasp on your marketing, more of a plan, more of a system to support your pretty successful business. You're in the right place. This isn't about trying lows and new strategies. It's about taking what you've got and making the most of it. I'm Sophie your host. Self-confessed tea superfan marketing strategist and funnels or joyful journeys, as I like to call them, demystifier. Join me every Tuesday for my Lion hearted approach to marketing. To help you navigate those big moves, stay focused on your goals and ultimately take your business to the next level. Let's jump in to today's episode. Hello. And welcome to this week's episode. I am [00:01:00] so excited to have you here. Now this week, we are talking about summer holidays. Now, if you're in the UK and you're listening to this as it's released, you will know that it is currently the school summer holidays. Now when we launched this podcast. One of the things I really wanted to do was reflect on here. Some of the conversations that I have with clients in my mastermind groups that I'm in. You know, with my coaches, the sort of things that I am coming across now and trying to navigate as my business grows and my children grow my business evolves and then reflect them back on this podcast and have those wider conversations. Now, partly that's through interviews, which I have every other week, but I also just wanted to use some of the solo episodes to talk through some of those conversations that I'm having. And just give you a bit of a flavor, a bit of an insight and just talk through the different perspectives and angles that I'm hearing. And I'm kind of taking into consideration as I grow. . Now this is something that's probably slightly more relevant if you have children, but I still think it's relevant, [00:02:00] even if you don't. And the reason is because people who do have children often change their behavior over the summer holidays. So there's so many questions that come up like, is it still worth launching things, you know, should I be dialing down my marketing? Should I be taking time off? Like, should I just be preparing for September? Are people still buying during August? I've spoken to so many other business owners where actually the trigger for them leaving their corporate jobs or or not going back after maternity leave is because the school holidays in general are really, can feel really hard to manage. When you're in a corporate job, you can't just take six weeks off. It's, you know, juggle with childcare. You don't have enough leave. You can feel really, really stressful. And I don't underestimate that at all. . However, what I have found is running your own business poses a whole different set of questions and challenges and decisions that you need to make about how you want to live your life. So in this episode, I'm going to talk about the kinds of conversations I've been having with my peers. Co-chairs my [00:03:00] clients recently share the kind of actions that my clients have taken and some of them quite different to each other, to make sure that their business stays on track and grows in the way that they want it to and is ready for when they kind of come back after September. Let's kick off with me talking a little bit about where I'm at at the moment. For those of you that don't know I've got two girls, a six-year-old and a very, nearly three year old she's three next week. And so the six-year-old goes to school the two year old. To almost three-year-old is it nursery two long days a week? About he's going up to three in September because I am very excited to get her 33 hours through. Now, generally speaking in term time I work. Four days a week, two short days, two long days. And whilst I have actually been working for myself for six summers now, which feels insane. This is actually only my second school holiday summer. Now the difference generally I found is that the nursery that my daughters have gone to anyway is year round. [00:04:00] So actually the summer didn't make a huge amount of difference for me for quite a few years. And in the early stages of my business, when the kids were younger, I actually worked less. I worked less days. I worked less hours. I pretty much carried on as normal through the summer. What I guess I tended not to do was take on new clients mostly that's because the clients I was taking on, I specialized in parent and baby brands. They were mostly parents themselves and therefore they were kind of off with their kids. So we didn't really do the onboarding process. We tended to shift that to the beginning of September. So overall, I would say the summer, wasn't really a massive deal for me for quite a few years. And it's not that I didn't really understand why, why it was talked about St. March, why it was such a big deal. I guess it just didn't really have lived experience. And yes, I found social media really dropped off over summer. That is something that I really noticed. And it, some years I decided to make the most of it and be really, really visible knowing that I'd have less competition. Other years, I [00:05:00] decided to just take the whole summer off last summer. For example, I didn't post on Instagram at all. However, I did test out posting on LinkedIn every single day. instead. So I've often used summer as a bit of a testing ground time to look at new things. Think about what September is going to be like. I may as well tell you now I bloody love September. September is my month. I mean, my birthday's in July, but September is the month. I absolutely love the turning of the seasons. The. The feeling of a new school year. Inevitably like business picks up. It's a, can be a really exciting time, like going into Christmas. So I'm all about September. I might often use summer to prepare for September. As I've started to grow my business and actually changed my business model. So when I started my business, I had monthly clients again, like the impact on summer. Wasn't really huge because I had, I think I had like five. Monthly management ads, clients. They signed up. for a period of months. And then as long as I had those spots filled summer was the same as [00:06:00] any other month. Now that I've shifted to more of a training coaching model, where people are signing up more frequently. I have capacity for more clients up until last month I had my group program as well. So thinking about like intakes for that, if I wanted people to come on board and do three months, I found this a lot of resistance to signing up to anything. That's a longer, maybe eight to 12 week program, even after Easter. I mean, it's not too bad between Easter and may half term. I think as long as you've got really strong message and you're really clear. But after the may half term, getting parents. To sign up to anything that goes over the summer holiday can feel really, really hard. And there's definitely a real split online on social, the IC there's really the pushing of take the summer off. You know, this is why you work for yourself. Be flexible. Don't feel like you have to work in your business. Like the ultimate goal is to take the six weeks off with your kids, like [00:07:00] have the rest. And then there's like the polar opposite, which is the sales are still there. You know, don't stop selling in summer. Prepare for, for September. You know, you need to keep the momentum in your business. Keep growing. Don't, you know, don't take your eye off the ball. As ever, I think my view is like, there's a happy medium somewhere. I think everyone is going to sit on somewhere different on that continuum. It depends how many kids you've got, how old they are, whether they are happy going to camps, whether they want to be at home with you, what do you do going abroad for a period of time? Whether you have all year childcare. So I still have two days of nursery for my two year old, which makes a huge difference. There are so, so many factors that come into play, but what I really wanted to talk about today, I guess, was the kind of conversations I'm having about. Can we, and do we want to mitigate summer? I was a little bit triggered by a conversation I had with someone a few months ago, we were talking about the fact that it was coming up to summer and she asked me. Something along the lines of is your.[00:08:00] Are you having to work over the summer? Now I have dropped down to three days a week. So that's my change shift over the summer. Instead of working four days, two long days, two short days, I'm working three days. And they're shorter days. And then I'm taking a full week off at the end of the summer. Now. The reason why it triggered me was because me working three days a week is a really positive choice for me now. I might get a bit of backlash for this because I know there's also that real, let chat around. There's only 18 summers and spend it with your kids, but I don't want the summers off with my children. Now that might change. If they get older. But . I'm in a season of my life where. I love my work. I get a huge amount of satisfaction from my work. I really, really enjoy it. It's something for me. It's something that keeps my mind busy. And it's something that I love doing. The idea of stopping it for six whole weeks and just looking after my two children who as incredible as they are. And as much as I love [00:09:00] them, , spending seven days a week with them for six weeks. Actually isn't the dream for me. I am a much, much better mom when I have the balance between work and home. That for me is a really nice balance. It's the balance that I started last year. And I really enjoyed it. And when the girls aren't with me, you know, that either at nursery they're with their grandparents, there are sports camps. They're having fun with their friends. Like they have the best time and they have loads of different experiences and they absolutely love it. And I love the days where I get to work. I like also love the days I get to spend with them. For me, that's a great balance. Now the reason why I was triggered by this woman asking me, , do you have to work over the summer? I said, oh, well, I'm working three days a week. And that's really, that works really well for us. And she said, oh, that's a shame for you maybe next year, you'll be able to take more time off with your kids. So, yeah, I don't think she meant any harm by it. But it made me feel a little bit judged if I'm honest. It also made me [00:10:00] think. Oh, you know, will I look back and regret the amount of time I work versus the amount of time I'm spending with the kids? Do I do, I want to take more time off? Like, could I, should I do that? I have thought about it a lot, and I have had a lot of conversations about this, which is why I'm going to bring it to the podcast. Why am I kind of got to the end was is a conscious decision. I want to be working. I don't feel like I have to be working because if I don't work, I'm not going to bring an income in and therefore I have to do it. Like, I don't feel beholden to my business at all. I think if I really wanted to take the six weeks off. At short notice I could do reasonably well. I reckon I could probably get onto one day a week with some structural changes. If I wanted to do it next year, then I absolutely feel like I could set my business up in that way. But I don't. But it's definitely a choice. It's an active choice. I made this decision back in. Like April, may, like, I always knew I was going to be working three days a week. And that felt really good for me. I think the second [00:11:00] thing as well is being strong with my boundaries. It's something I've been really mindful of. I'm having less time to work in my business has mean has meant that I spent quite a lot of time in July looking automation. Bringing new team members on board. I now have a social media manager. I have a VA to support me with my admin. I also have a VA to support me with my podcast. Have an accountant. So I have quite a lot of people that I've brought into the business to support me so that when I worked three days a week, When the girls come home and it's the days I'm spending with them, I'm not still logging in. I'm not still checking my emails. I'm not still desperately trying to get stuff done at the kitchen table while they're in the lounge. So for me. I would rather have dedicated work time and then dedicated time with the kids rather than trying to work around the kids, but absolutely no judgment if you're the other way around and you would actually rather have them at home and be working upstairs. I think that's a reflection of my children. Their energy and [00:12:00] their need for my attention and their age as well. So think like this whole podcast. These are conversations I've had and, and my views, but I really feel like the power is in knowing what you want and then being able to bring that into reality. I think we've suffered from in the past. Not last year, but the year before is I felt trapped by my business over summer. So I was moving towards training. I wanted to launch a course. I was desperately trying to increase my income. I was trying to do all the things and it was Eliza's last summer before she went to school, I had a one year old. And I was trying to juggle all of this work. And the one year old had literally just started nursery, but maybe I think it was just a couple of mornings. And by the end of the summer holidays, I, I felt so, so de-motivated, and like I needed to September just to recover. I found it so incredibly tough. And that was kind of the year I thought, right? I can't do this every single year. [00:13:00] I need to structure my business and I need to work out what, what works for me, what boundaries I want to put in place, what I want to do now, we're lucky because I do have incredibly supportive parents and parents in law. So I do have the option that Eliza doesn't have to go. , To activity camps all the time. Which is really, really nice. So she can just go and tell him my mom and dad's house. Rather than just being. In kind of paid clubs all the time, because you know, that is an incredible financial impact of that. Obviously.[00:14:00] Just thinking about that summer a few years ago. I think the issue that was a clash between my aspirations and what I really wanted. Like, I really wanted that summer off. I really actually did want to spend time with Eliza before she went to school. I was still breastfeeding my one year old. I just had a lot going on. And I think in hindsight, I should have really tried to set my business up. So I had that month or six weeks off, but I didn't feel like my business is in a place where I could stop the momentum. I had monthly clients. Like, I didn't feel like I could outsource those. I didn't have the money really to pass the work off onto someone else. So I just muddled by, but I felt really unhappy with the balance I achieved. I think at that point I realized that my aspiration [00:15:00] was a much more around this clear split between parenting and work and setting my business up so that if I wanted to take time off and dial down my clients and I absolutely could, and you know, monthly clients while it's great because your income doesn't, Deppen your work doesn't dare pay for summer. The reality is. Like you still have to do the work. And so you still have essentially the same workload, whether it's February or August. So the shift towards training towards coaching towards shorter term projects was really intentional for so many different reasons. But partly as well for. On the school holidays, not just some holidays, but school as well. Now I know a lot of my colleagues who run training programs and courses, they structure their programs in all sorts of different ways to allow them to have time off over the summer holidays and Christmas as well. So the first time I came across, this was Gemma, Gilbert, who is one of my coaches. She introduced me to this idea of writing it into [00:16:00] your contract, that you don't work school holidays. And at the time this blew my mind. This was after that summer of incredible stress feeling like, you know, I had to work and had to do all the things I've committed to and then look after my children as well. Yeah, she just said. When a client signs up with me, I say to them, you know, this is how we work together. This is what happens. And I don't work the UK school holidays. And that's written into the contract, and it's really clear that there's no impact then on what the client is actually receiving. So for example if there is a week long half term, that week is then added to the end of the time that, you know, she works with someone. So, you know, there's ways of making sure that it's not a negative impact on the client. And actually, you know, they get longer term support. And when your clients are parents often, that's really helpful for them because they don't necessarily want to be having a coaching call on a Tuesday at 1:00 PM as normal. Anyway. So that was my first sort of insight into like, oh, okay. I could actually make this work for myself then. So I did put [00:17:00] them into my contract for my training clients and also my monthly clients. I wasn't available for calls. During school holidays. And then my training clients, they bloom that has run for the last year. It was in my contract then. And I enforced it for the whole year. I ran blame. I don't work school holidays. So that's the half terms, Christmas holidays and Easter holidays so far. I have actually just stopped bloom for now. Over the summer holidays and I'm not restarting in September. So I haven't had to take that decision about whether a six week break of that core. So it's a 12 week program. Whether a six week break would be too long. That is definitely something I can see, like two weeks over Christmas and Easter is probably long enough, six weeks. You're looking at a, quite a different momentum change and shift and, you know, the support that people are looking for for me, for example, with Facebook ads. You know, if you've got a problem with a Facebook ad and you run into it on the second day of the summer holidays, I don't really feel like it's okay for me to say, like, I'll come back to you [00:18:00] in September. So, I guess an alternative I could have looked at would be paying another coach to come into the group potentially or reducing down the support. So it's not every day, but maybe it's certain days of the week. That's the kind of thing I would have looked up. The next thing is a lot of the coaches I work with from about June onwards. They basically say you sign up now you get you know, the rest of July and August free. And then we really start in September. So they kind of position it as bonus mums. So your actual time paying starts from September, but you're you're actually joining now and often either the pay deposit in July, or you pay your first payment in July. Not only does that Inc. You know, make sure that you're still getting income in through July and August from these people signing up. To get their free month. But also it means that you're not having to worry about onboarding them. I'm working with them and you can actually just start in September. So you don't have that stress over the summer holidays. So that's another really interesting model. Another model is changing the way you support. So I've got a couple of my clients who instead of [00:19:00] having zoom calls, they've switched to Voxer support through summer. So they're still available. They're still there for their clients if they need them. But instead of having a weekly or fortnightly call, they've actually switched to Voxer. Which I think is a really interesting way. Of being able to provide support without having to have that sort of clear time at your desk. I think that's, what's really challenging. Isn't it like. One thing I am struggling with this summer is when I'm trying to schedule calls with clients, often the days that they're working, which are few or the normal and the days I'm working are quite different. So that can be really challenging as well. And then I wanted to talk about is this concept of seasons in our life and in our business. And this relates back to, you know, whether you've got kids or not, whether you got young kids or older kids. Whether your business is taking long, really nicely, and you're really happy and it's nice and consistent versus whether you're in a real big growth phase. One of my amazing coaches said to me the other day, growth is about the actions you're taking and the momentum you [00:20:00] have. It's not necessarily about the results you're getting right now. And I think that for me is probably the core reason why I'm really happy working three days a week through the summer at this point in my life, in my business. because I am in a growth phase of my business. And that's to say that I'm doing anything huge this summer. I'm not, but what I am doing is still consistently sending my emails out consistently. Posting on social media consistently having a podcast out every week. Consistently talking to new clients, understanding what their problems are. I'm onboarding new team members to make sure that then in September, You know, we can continue to grow because I've got the capacity and the time, and I've got the automations going on in the background. Whether it's because I've outsourced it or because I've automated it with emails and ads and. There's so much going on that feels like momentum in my business feels like growth. And for me, that's just so exciting. And working on that three days a week is giving me so much joy. [00:21:00] That I'm pretty confident. I'm not going to look back and think, oh, I wish I'd taken more time off because actually the days that I have for the girls are really amazing as well. And I can switch off from work and really enjoy them. Generally. I mean, sometimes I'm distracted. I mean, it's inevitable, right? I mean at the end of this summer, I will absolutely reflect and think about,, how much did I work? How much did I earn? How much energy did I have? How much time off did I have? How much freedom do I feel like my business gave me, like how much flexibility did I have and then what do I want to put in place for next year? Because as much as I'm not a massive long-term planner, I do feel like for something like the summer holidays, To take lots of time out, but ensure that your income isn't massively impacted you, don't lose loads of client, that your structure of your business is sound so that you can continue to work with clients. And it doesn't mean that your business falls off a cliff and then you have to pick it all up again in September. It does take thought and it does take time and it does take the long game to think it [00:22:00] through I know that lots of the amazing women in my mastermind, like we started thinking about this stuff in April, but the reality is that the people were already on our programs. By the time we started thinking about how much we wanted to work. That really, you know, when you're designing your services, you're designing your programs. How much do you want to, deliver live? How much do you want to have to be available? How much do you want to have that consistency? Every single month? Like if you're going to run open a membership, for example, How do you want to be doing that through August next year? Because if you don't, you need to put that in the contract. When you start signing people up. So, I guess my final reflection is this is an evolution, but it's something that is actually always on my mind, going forward, thinking about. How things might change . What next summer might look like and starting to make changes to make sure that by next summer, I'm at the point where I want to be again. And it's an intentional decision. I'm really happy with. So I hired that was a useful insight into a conversations that I've had with a lot of different [00:23:00] people. And I know that the summer holiday juggle is real and I hope I haven't made it sound like, ah, I'm living the absolute dream. I have to say the balance. I've got this yet. It's pretty good. , I'm really enjoying my three days working. I've had two nights away with my husband this week, so I'm actually only working two days. I've got holiday at the end. I've got some days planned out for my daughter's birthday next week. It feels like a really nice mix. But that's not to say that next year. It's not going to be totally different. And it's not to say that their set up would work as well for anybody else. I really think it's such an intentional thing. Based on your, your life, your kids, your business, your desires, your aspirations. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode. It's a slightly different one. I'd love to know if it was insightful, useful. If you want kind of more of this behind the scenes. Another thing I want to talk about seeing as like growing your team, I feel like that is another conversation I have over and over again. You know, when do you outsource, who do you outsource? What kind of tasks do you [00:24:00] outsource? How do you find the right people and then actually get the benefit of outsourcing so if that's of interest, then absolutely let me know and I will make sure I do an episode on that as well as always. Thank you so much for listening. And however you are spending your summer this year. I hope you are enjoying. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes every Tuesday when they're released. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to rate or leave a review wherever you are listening to it. It only takes a few seconds, but it really does make a massive difference to new people finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of Lionheart Marketing. See you next time.