Mind Your Business

Taking a Summer Vacation – and Leaving Your Business Behind

Small business owners are notorious for not taking vacations from their businesses. We start working for ourselves because we want the freedom of being a small business owner. But then we devote ourselves 120% to our businesses and our clientele and forget that we need to nurture ourselves as well. 

Even if you do give yourself a break once in while, you might not completely break away from your business. Have you ever checked your business email while you're supposedly on vacation? I know I have.

As a small business owner, I know every customer interaction can make a big difference. It’s easy to be of the mindset that you don’t want to miss any opportunities, but I have also learned how important it is to take a true break from my business every once in a while.

How can you give yourself the vacation you need, while making sure your business won't suffer in your absence?  If you’re ready to take an honest to goodness vacation away from business, here are a few tips to keep things running smoothly while you’re away.

The first thing you'll need to do is decide how much of a disconnect you can handle. If you want a complete break, you’ll need to announce you're closing up shop for a little while. Posting a sign on the front page of your website is one way to handle your closure. If your website has a "Contact Me" page, you might also want to add a closure notice there, in case they missed the front page.

If you have a Facebook page, be sure and post a note that you’ll be gone and send out a tweet or two letting your followers know. Your business blog is another place to post your closure notice. Write a blog post announcing you'll be unavailable for a while. And that email list you've been building? Send out a notice to your subscribers as well.

Even though you'll do your best to let everyone know in advance, some contacts might miss your notice and still try to email you. In order to reach everyone, you can also set up an auto-responder on your email account saying that you're on vacation and let them know when you'll get back to them.
While you should take an occasional break from your business, customer service is still important. An upset customer might email about a problem they've discovered with their order or  a potential new customer might try to get in touch.  In these cases, sometimes a "Closed for Vacation" sign and a friendly auto-responder message can be a missed opportunity to make things right, or gain new business.  By the time you get back from your vacation, the unhappy customer might be demanding a refund and the potential new customer may have found somewhere else to shop.
This is why it's also a good idea to have someone screen your incoming email while you're away. They can alert you of any potential problems so you can address them or or instruct them how to handle the situation at hand. Sometimes a personal note from you explaining the situation and your concern, and your commitment to handle it promptly upon your return is enough to defuse a potential problem and gain the trust of a potential customer.

If all of this is just a little too disconnected for you, and your way of vacationing is like mine, you may want to stay in touch, even if on a limited basis.  Try and limit your time to checking e-mail, answering only necessary ones. Schedule blog posts to automatically post at different times during your absence, and if you really want to stay in touch, you can use services like Hootsuite to schedule Facebook posts and tweets. Sharing some of your vacation hi-lights can be a good way to keep your friends and fans engaged and connected with you on a personal level. After-all, this is “social networking” But only if it fun and relaxing for you.

Joyce Lucas
Make Mine Pink
Cottage Collections

Romancing Your Business – Making Everyday Valentine's Day for Your Small Business

People frequently say they don't celebrate Valentine's Day because they believe, when you really care about someone, there should be romance in your relationship everyday.  Whether you celebrate Valentine's Day or not, those naysayers do make a good point. Giving a relationship the attention it needs only one day a year won't make up for any neglect from the rest of the year.

Owning a business is a lot like being in a relationship with someone you care about. And just like a relationship, it's not showy displays of affection one day a year that help it grow. It's the tiny details, remembered everyday, that help it blossom and reach its potential. Here are some simple ways you can romance your website, your customers, and your goals, to make everyday Valentine's Day for your small business. 

Give your website the daily attention it craves. One of the most essential elements of any successful website is its content. Regularly updated and relevant content will keep your customers and visitors coming back to see you again and again.

Creating new content doesn't have to take a lot of time. If you don't have time to write or skill to write your own articles or blog posts, you may want to look for a ghostwriter, or use reprint articles. Reprint articles can be personalized by adding a few thoughts of your own as an introduction.

Market your business a little bit every day. We often think that marketing has to cost a lot of money, or is hard to do. In reality, marketing is simply telling people about how your business can help them, then telling them over and over and over again.

Some of the most effective marketing techniques don't cost a penny, and they can easily be added to your daily routine. For example, if you've written an article for your website, let others know they can reprint it so long as they give a link back to your website. Writing and submitting press releases is free too, and can land your business on the front page of your newspaper-the best advertising there is!

You can market your business for free offline, too. Hold a class at your community center to educate your market on how your services can improve their lives. Volunteer to speak at a local networking event. Find out if you could write a weekly column for your local newspaper. All these methods can keep your business in front of your market, are easy to do and don't cost a thing except your time.

Maintain your focus.  Just like any relationship, your business needs your devout attention to flourish.  But it's hard to give the revenue-producing side of your business the attention it needs when you're distracted by other things – maintaining a website, sending out invoices, following up on customer complaints.

What is distracting you from your main goals? Make a list of everything you do in a day... which tasks are helping you reach your goals? Which could you drop right now, without seeing any difference in your results? Is there anything you could outsource to help you maintain focus on the things that really matter?

When you make a point of giving your small business the attention it needs daily, you'll create a lasting romance, and soon everyday will feel like Valentine's Day. 

Marketing Wednesday has come and gone..

But the need to market has not!
Good Morning ladies. By now you know that marketing Wednesday was just a ploy to get you thinking about and taking responsibility for marketing you business. Because I am fortunate enough to have continuous contact with so many women that have their own small business, I'm able to see how the effect of marketing or not marketing make on a small business. It's pretty clear. If you don't market your business, you can't make it a success. The good news is, you don't have to do it alone. You don't have to think of new ways to market and cold call with other businesses to to see if they are willing to network. Through sites like Make Mine Pink.. you have a wealth of ideas and information at your fingertips along with hundreds of women that are not only willing, but eager to network and cross-promote. So step up your marketing and increase your sales by joining Make Mine Pink!

Marketing..it's all about reaching out.

It's Wednesday and that means it's Marketing Day at Make Mine Pink! Of course everyday is marketing day at Make Mine Pink, but this day is supposed to be used for stepping up our marketing and networking and reaching out to new people. I have to say that Marketing Wednesday is almost anti-climactic for me this week. I have been reaching out and networking for the past two weeks "Like I really mean it" and have made some wonderful friends and contacts.
This week we ventured on to twitter.com - I KNOW... What the heck is twitter?? I said the same thing! I'm still not sure I completely get it but I am building my network and having some fun figuring it out! I am following all sorts of interesting people!
Reach out this week.. visit a few new blogs.. expand your group of friends. Sometimes we get too comfortable where we when we really need to be ever changing. Take today to make those new contacts. You'll be glad that you did.
Don't forget to invite your new friends to meet you at the Make Mine Pink Retreat in September!