Take time off to focus on your business

Speaking of going away… I know, you’re probably thinking, “What do you mean, schedule time off? I thought we were just getting started here?” But the thing is, it’s important to also schedule time off so that you can really focus on work while you’re at work. (How many burned-out entrepreneurs have YOU met? Yeah, me too, and they’re not that “Client Attractive.”)

Why does scheduling time off belong in your business? Because when your schedule allows you to feel rested, have plenty of time off and feel all-round good, you have more energy to devote to attracting new clients. Potential clients don’t want to hire overworked, cranky and unhappy service providers.

Figure out how many hours you want to work per week and per month. When you’re self-employed, you can make whatever schedule you’d like and then educate your environment (clients, etc.) about it. I was recently interviewed me about my schedule, after hearing that I work what seemed so little to them while still being highly successful. Here’s what I told them at the time (now, I work even less): I work with clients only 12 days a month. Yes, only 12 days a month. That’s 4 days per week (taking every Friday off) and just the first 3 weeks of the month, leaving each 4th week of the month completely blank (by the way, that’s more than 12 weeks of vacation a year, not counting the months that have 5 weeks each.)

Those days off can either be your marketing OR vacation days. I recommend using them as your marketing days until you have a full practice, and then taking half of them as downtime days when you no longer need to work so hard to get clients.

On my days off I either go to the beach, write my own e-mail newsletter, or write my book (as I’m currently doing). I tell my clients that those are my writing days and that I’m not available for consultations. They respect that and it gives me time either to work on my book or market my practice. Or else it allows me just to enjoy life knowing that I’m not making any less money by living the kind of life I want.

Your Client Attraction assignment:

How can YOU structure your clients so that you have some time to keep your sanity? What days will you consider off-limits to your clients? Put together a full year’s schedule around this using an Excel chart.

Now, no one can enforce this but you, so be careful not to get sloppy around those boundaries. If you don’t actually follow these boundaries, you’ll find yourself exhausted and that’s not going to help you get clients quickly.