The summer season can be challenging for a lot of businesses — school vacation, family vacations, kid summer activities all pull on your customers’ and clients’ limited attention spans. Other businesses are dealing with employees vacations and will use the slower summer months to prepare for their own busy fall and holiday season. Either way, people are distracted and it can often make meeting your business goals harder. If you have a summer lull, now is the time to do a little “housekeeping” and make sure you’re ready to manage your busy season with aplomb.

Delegation. It’s the Answer to ‘But … I Don’t Wanna!’

Yes, the beach does beckon, but summer is actually a great time take care of all those administrative, marketing, and/or business development tasks you keep putting off or tackling when you really need to be working on specific projects for which you may have some resistance. Of course, if you can figure out a way to get good work done at the beach, consider yourself brilliant … and teach me your secrets! 

When you feel that resistance, pull out your Vision Statement and reacquaint yourself as to why you’re doing what you’re doing. Remember, to support your big why and be successful, there are many tasks that need to be done and nurtured — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually — in any business owner’s life, but you get to decide how to spend your limited time. Sometimes (read OFTEN), it makes much more sense to have someone else help you with a particular task versus you struggling to accomplish something outside of your skill set.

I’m a huge fan of delegation and make sure that if a task is something that I personally don’t need to do, or more to the point, is a task that can be done much better and more quickly by someone else, I delegate it because that frees up my time to do what I do best in my business — helping my clients hone their messaging and create fantastic and effective marketing materials.

Your Business Summer Checklist

You likely have a long To Do list, but if things are feeling less than concrete, here is a list of tasks that are perfect to tackle in the slower months. You don’t have to tackle ALL of them, just the ones that need your attention. And if the list is bigger than the summer is long, that’s ok. You’ve captured what needs to be done and you can plan when you’ll deal with them or hire someone to help you.

Your Message

Are you effectively telling your story? Reach out to current and past clients/customers — it’s a GREAT way to discover if you’re actually conveying what you think you are conveying. Ask:

• Is your impression of me and what I do/offer the same from before you worked with me to now? If not, why?What didn’t you know about me and working with me — that wasn’t on the website — before we actually met?
• What is the biggest thing you learned about me/my business after you started working with me and/or bought this product/service?
• What do you tell your friends about me?

Marketing

• Marketing/Editorial Calendar. Have you created one? Having this in place can save you a lot of time and headaches when it’s time to create your newsletters/blogs/social posts/launch campaigns, etc.
• Website: Review your website, specifically your Home, About, and Services pages. And ask:
  • Do they still reflect what you do? Do you have new offerings that aren’t on the site?
  • Are there any questions your clients ask that aren’t being answered by your website?
  • Does my website actually make me stand out to new clients/customers? (TIP: Visit the sites of your competitors. If your language is overly similar to them, it’s time to improve copy.)
• Social: When’s the last time you looked at or updated your bios on your social sites?
• Blog: Always part of your overall marketing calendar, but they can take a lot of effort at times. Are you keeping up? Can you write any posts now that you’ll use later? Is it time to outsource this task?
• Business Cards & Printed Materials: When’s the last time you looked at your business cards? Do they make an impact? Is all the contact information correct? What about other print materials you may use? Do they reflect your brand and message adequately?

Admin Tasks

There’s never a shortage of admin tasks that need doing. Take a look at your processes and systems and figure out what’s working or not. And then make sure you have what you need to be as efficient as possible during your busy times.

I Can Help You With These Tasks

Remember, I’m a resource for you! Here are a few of the services I provide:

• Website Copy Content. Whether you need one page, twelve, or more, I can help make sure your clients/customers know exactly what you need them to know.
• Messaging. Core business information! If your business is new or you’ve added services or re-focused your business on a niche or particular offer, making sure your messaging is on target is key. It’s the foundation for all your marketing!
• Copywriting/Editing Services. Websites, emails, bios, social profiles, launch campaigns, or anything else that you need written. I can make sure you get the results you want.
• Blog Writing. We all know how important this is, but it takes time. If you don’t have that time, or simply “don’t wanna”, let me know and I can help.

Have questions? Just let me know. If you’d like to talk over something, let’s get a call on the calendar. I’m wishing you all a happy, successful summer!

Deb