Going on vacation as an entrepreneur can trigger a lot of things. It can cause you to feel like you don't have any control. It can cause you to worry about your revenue. All in all, a lot of entrepreneurs are really, really bad at leaving to go on a holiday.
So, how do you fully let go and take a break? How do you leave your business at home, forget about revenue, and still make sure there is money coming in when you’re gone? This week on The FastForwardAmy Show, I will tell you how.
Don’t be afraid of digital products
To be honest, how much you need to organize before you go away depends on how big your team is. For those of you who run your business alone, or with a small team, it’s much harder.
Maybe you serve clients one-on-one, maybe you don’t have an office yet or a packaging center for your products. So, actually getting products out the door when you’re away may feel super difficult.
The first thing you could think about to keep revenue rolling in while you are away is whether or not you have anything you could offer as a digital product. Maybe you give clients an ebook when they join a program — that could be a digital product!
Why are we looking to create a digital product? So that when you are on vacation, you have something you could be selling that doesn’t need you to deliver it.
If you have an ebook, people could be buying it in your shop and getting it delivered to them digitally without you having to do anything. That's our ideal, best case situation — a digital product that can get delivered without you having to interfere.
Have a vacation sale
Instead of making no sales while you’re away, you could run a sale and promise your customers products will be shipped as soon as you’re back.
Something as simple as ‘hey guys, these are the hottest sellers this summer! They’re 15% off while I’m away and I’ll be shipping them as soon as I’m back!’ could keep your sales going as you travel.
By the time you get back, you already have some new revenue and some clients that you can serve from the first moment you're back.
Being gone on vacation doesn't have to mean that your company is doing nothing. You can let everything work for you that you've already built in the months leading up to your vacation.
When you post that there will be a sale while you travel, or while you’re in the air, this creates a sense of urgency and people really interact with that. For example, I have done sales before where I tell my customers I will be on a plane for 10 hours and for those 10 hours they can get 20% off.
If you have a team at home, you can always leave them to handle sales. Maybe, you can task them with setting up calls and tell your customers that while you’re away your team is offering calls to tell you more about a product you’re interested in. Or, if your team hasn't grown yet, you can set up automated emails that can assist customers while you’re gone and help the sales cycle keep moving.
Either way, what you really need to ask yourself is what can I do to get sales in while I’m away?
Schedule a pitch email
Just like we can schedule in a sale while we are gone or before we leave, we can also schedule in a pitch email or a sequence.
For example, I could schedule a broadcast about goal setting and I could create a sequence that goes out to everyone who clicks that episode about goal setting.
I could have a three day pitch sequence that tells them ‘hey, you're interested in goal setting. Do you feel weird about your goals? Or are you afraid to set goals? I have this goal setting training. Do you want it? I'm giving you 48 hours to grab it at this deal.’
Again, we're talking about a sale. Do I always give discounts on everything? No, but you can segment your audience. I'm also not sending it to the full 10,000 on my email list.
I'm just sending it only to that segment and giving them an exclusive offer. The more you look at the different ways that you can do stuff like this — for example, an ‘Instagram only’ deal — the more you will realize that there are always things you can be selling.
For example, my brother is getting married this winter in Australia so I’ll be taking time off. I always find that my energy changes as the seasons do. In summer, I’m high-energy and I want to sell more. In winter, not so much.
So, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna make sure that I have everything set up in an automated funnel with a webinar where I'm selling something that's also evergreen. I'll be promoting that while I’m away. I’ll funnel through ads while I'm gone and I don't have to do anything for it. Maybe I'll pre-record podcasts, drop them while I'm gone, have everything planned and the podcasts might run to a webinar. In that webinar, I can pitch something and I don't have to touch anything.
Basically having a vacation coming up can really help you push yourself to renegotiate with yourself. How are you getting sales and how are you making money?
Get some affiliates going!
A really fun idea that you could implement is using affiliates. Perhaps people who are already customers could be an affiliate for you and they could promote your stuff for you. They could be promoting your actual products, or you could also use affiliates to promote your lead magnets.
An alternative to running ads is you can say ‘hey, these clients are already satisfied! They could refer new clients to me. They're gonna get a percentage commission, and they are going to refer people to me. If those people buy from me within a 90 day timeframe, I'm going to give them a piece of the commission.’
It doesn't matter if you are a service entrepreneur or if you're a product-based entrepreneur. It doesn't matter if you have the audience now, but you just don't have time to deliver the product. Deliver the product or the service in two months from now, maybe at the end of the year. I'll sell something in the summer that will start as a program in February. Just always keep selling.
You are the business owner. You choose. You set your boundaries.
You can tell customers you get a discount now but you have to wait for the product. Buy it now and I'll send it to you next week, and so on. You're the business owner. You call the shots. Make sure that the shots you're calling are definitely bringing in sales because the sales are the fuel of your business. Without sales, you don't have cash flow.
So, looking back, here are 6 ways to keep making money while on vacation — without having to do any work!
- Don’t be afraid to create a digital product.
- Have a ‘vacation sale’ — create some urgency!
- Schedule a pitch email or email sequence that can roll out while you’re away.
- Let your team take over sales calls.
- Pre-record content or webinars and set up automated funnels.
- Use affiliates to bring in sales on your behalf.
To find out even more, listen to this week’s episode before you head off on your vacation.
If you want more tips on how you can grow your business — while you're there or not — I have a ton of free resources about this. This could be training on how you can increase your income with some hacks, or how to learn how to delegate.
I have a ton of resources to help you for free because it is my mission to help you to become financially independent by doing what you love. If you're thinking ‘wow, I'm so motivated now to go and sell more’, that's exactly what we want.
I'm offering a bunch of my resources to you for free through fastforwardamy.com/freeresources.
Good luck, have a nice summer, and make lots of money!
Watch this episode on YouTube or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 189 of The FastForwardAmy Show.
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