You work hard. Commit with dedication. Finally building momentum within your business and then the summer hits. You don’t receive answers to your emails. Connections seem to have fallen off the map. You may wonder if you should give it up and restart in September.
Or? You could make the most of it! Here is how:
Conny’s 10 Do’s to Escape the Summer Zap Trap
1. Focus – Target your business development on niche markets that require your services regardless of the time of year. If you focus on prospects, which see your services as a necessity, you will continue business as usual.
2. Capitalize – On your competitions in-action 🙂 While they are hanging out at the lake (probably stressing that they should be working), you are taking more market share. You may even be gobbling a little or a lot of theirs, too. Bon appetite!
3. Plan – More than half way through the year it’s the perfect time to assess how things have gone so far and develop a clear action plan for the rest of the year. You’ll be hitting the road to success with known certainty of how, who, where and what.
4. Create – Develop new revenue streams such as new products or services and ‘pantry’ content. These are creative ways to increase revenue potential as well as reducing content creating time during peak business season. (Content can then easily be scheduled with a tool like www.hootsuite.com)
5. Educate – The perfect times during the year to book courses or dedicate time for continued education are the summer and Christmas time. You’ll be pumped to share your new ideas and wisdom with your markets leaving your competition weeping.
6. Prepare – Start or update an event calendar with target market related events for the remainder of the year. This ensures you will never again miss an important networking opportunity, speaking engagement or sponsorship potential.
7. Leverage – Get ready to find new sub-contractors. You may well negotiate a reduced rate after they have taken too much time out in the past couple of months and are now clambering for work.
8. Clear out – Unlike the typical idea of spring-cleaning, leave these tasks to the summer months. Tidy up your processes and documents. Update and clean up your marketing database. Summer is the perfect time for a thorough business cleanse to clear out the clutter, update and spruce up your processes and materials so they are current and shine sharply.
9. Implement – This is an awesome time to implement the new Contact Management System or any other new technology you have been wanting to try out. You will have time to familiarize yourself and get savvy with the new system before you get too busy again.
10. Partner – Nothing quite like the summer months to cement important relationships in a relaxed setting. Invite special connections for BBQ’s or a fun activity together. When you play hard all year, you should reward yourself and your partners with a much-deserved shindig!
Now you have the ideas on how you can escape the summer zap trap, choose the do’s that continue to move you forward. With daylight still so long, you know you will still get plenty of chance to play whilst making great progress in your business.
Happy Summer!
Conny
