How to keep your business running when life gets complicated
Running a successful business is challenging enough, but when you add the complexities of life into the mix, it can feel overwhelming!
As a small business owner, it’s up to you to keep your business running regardless of what’s happening in your personal life.
So what if, instead of scrambling when life inevitably happens, why not build a sustainable business that takes into account your real-life circumstances from the get-go!
In this blog post, we will explore how to keep your business running smoothly even when life gets complicated .
Get strategically simple when business has to take a back seat
When life is life-ing is not the time to try to juggle a complicated project, deal with challenging clients, or try to pull off a high-pressure launch. When your business has to take a back seat because life needs your focus it’s time to get strategically simple about how you keep business ticking along when you have to step back.
Here’s a few quick ways to simplify your business in a hurry
The first thing to look at is your calendar and see if there are any appointments you can cancel or reschedule.
Review your deadlines and projects currently in progress and see what you can move or push back until things calm down.
Communicate any changes in your availability, deadlines or deliverables to current clients.
Set an out-of-office email responder if you aren’t going to be able to stay on top of your inbox.
Make sure you can make money if you have to take time off
If you need to step back from your business or step away entirely, due to larger life circumstances such as health challenges, pregnancy, or childcare falling through, you’ll need to decide if you still require your business to bring in money and if so, how much in order to stay afloat.
If you do need to continue to make money with your business, you’ll need to assess the following:
What are your ongoing expenses?
Are there any expenses you can cut out or reduce?
What is the minimum you need to earn to meet your income goals?
What are your current income-generating offers - and can you continue to sell them with your change of circumstances?
How much do you need to sell in order to meet your goals?
Is that a doable amount to sell that offer? Would a change in your offer price or positioning make it easier to reach your goals?
Build out your marketing buffer
Now you know what you need to keep doing to meet your goals, you’ll need to make sure your marketing is still working in order to bring in new leads for your offers.
There are some forms of marketing that require less hands-on effort day-in-day-out, mostly search engine-focused platforms such as your website, blogs, YouTube, and Pinterest. So if you are currently using SEO-focused strategies to market your business, you may not need to worry too much about your lead pipeline while you step back from your business.
Want to kickstart your SEO strategy? Take my beginner-friendly SEO Quickstart course to optimize your website for search engines!
However, if you rely on more active marketing like social media or email marketing, you’ll want to focus on batching some content ahead of time when you have time so your business can continue to show up even if you aren’t working.
Personally, I love to batch content ahead of time when I do have time, energy and childcare so I know my business will continue to get in front of my ideal clients when I do have to step away.
Check out this blog post where I walk through my content batching process.
Conclusion
While we can’t always anticipate when we might need to take a break from business when life gets complicated, hopefully you now have some practical strategies to help you prepare ahead for your next break and some ideas to help you keep your business running when you do have to take time off!
