Nana's Rant This Week
Treat Yourself and Your Loved Ones To Quality (not Squeezed-in) Time Off This Holiday Season while Increasing
Your Holiday Income.

Tis The Season - To Schedule Time Off

Topic: How To Take Time Off & Make More Money!

Task: Pre-schedule Two Big Breaks and Send Clients your "Holiday Schedule" email announcement and a follow up reminder email every two weeks. (click here for free editable example word doc to customize)

For most of us we have a tendency to expect business to slow down over the holiday season and look forward to long unstressful - no client pressures - holiday weekends, however, how many years in a row has that worked out to actually be the case?  Isn't it true that while you expected to have a slow week the week of Thanksgiving all sort of strange 'rush' or high pressure requests came flowing in just in time to ruin your sense of peace and fill you with a sense of guilt so that you only took off Thanksgiving Day and either worked 'behind the veil' the Friday after or planned to and then last minute just decided it could wait until the following Monday again adding to your sense of self employment frustration?

Part of the problem with expecting client's schedules to automatically match your own is that they rarely ever do, in fact, some of us seem to be a magnet for clients who apparently use all of their 'holiday' time to work on the very projects we're doing for them (ah ha! you say that's exactly what's going on!) Yeah, it is.  Unless your dealing with banks and other corporates (and even within these there are some definite 'Scrooges') you will find that most of your clients who are moonlighting and self financing their dreams and projects with you will actually put off a lot of the necessary focus and 'tasks' on their projects for exactly the time you are expecting to take off and have a break (notice how many emails come in evenings and weekends as it is?). For them extended holiday breaks from their own jobs is the ideal time to put all their focus into their projects. For you it means no quality time off (quality = guilt free and financially secure).

Most of our members express some fear at pre-scheduling time off especially during the holidays. For one there is always the anxiety of knowing that you want to have more income during this time and that generally, especially around the December Holiday's, business has a way of slowing down so most designers and programmers feel a sense of dependency for staying 'open' during the holidays in order to capture any possible work requests.

So here's the information you're paying for that will change the way you forever schedule your holiday breaks and generate additional income before the break:

When you preschedule your extended holiday breaks (and this goes for vacations also but we'll cover that in another issue) well in advance and send reminders out every couple of weeks you will also be including a 'call to action' (see free email letter .doc) telling clients when they have to submit their work requests by in order to ensure they can be completed (and paid for) prior to the closure date.

Now you may be wondering where the concept of creating additional income comes in, here's where; when you are sending this holiday schedule out you are sending it to your entire client list - current active project clients, recently wrapped completed clients, and your old clients that you haven't heard from in a year or more.  Guess what is going to happen?  (Now, if you already have and will have more work than you can handle between now and your closure date don't include your old/non-active clients in this mailing.) But if you would like to generate new work and reactivate old customers then this is the way to do it.

If you are really fishing for additional work you may want to include a paragraph about how this is the time for clients who have not made any updates to consider doing so to take advantage of the year end tax considerations or to make sure they do not continue to have outdated materials either on websites or in print.  Programmers/Network Administrators this is also a good time to remind clients to schedule a systems or processes check up or to discuss changes/improvements as most clients simply wash their hands of systems in place (unless they're broken) and don't think about growth and modifications. If there's anything 'new' they will benefit from let them know.

A last consideration, if your general reasoning for not advance scheduling, or worse, not taking this time off is due to either an insecurity or worry that your clients will not take you seriously or will somehow appreciate you 'more' by being available to them, I can assure you that you are wrong on both accounts. The only thing you are accomplishing is training them what to expect from you so if you make yourself available to them during these very common times to be 'unavailable' then you will experience future difficulties with their expectations and lack of respect for your scheduling something you will later come to resent and further push away the ideal of working for yourself.

The Homework:

1. Schedule your Thanksgiving Break Now

2. Schedule your December Break Now

3. Compose your announcement email and send out by Friday of this week

4. Put it on your schedule to send the reminder emails out every two weeks

Not only will advance scheduling and announcement, as well as the follow up reminders, increase client work requests before the scheduled closure dates it will also immediately provide you with a better sense of ownership over your work and life, and of course, give you some guilt free time off to look forward to.

Nana's Note to the Type A's out there (you know who you are)

Designers, Developers and Programmers who are still working around the clock at all hours, behind schedule, believe they have upset clients, or even just 'feeling' over run with client projects are always tempted to use the scheduled closure dates to work in quiet and "catch up".

Short of showing up at your door and removing the power cords from your equipment I realize there are few words of encouragement I can offer you to please 'not do that'.  If you are already anticipating, after reading this, falling into this category then you are sabotaging your chance to start off on the right footing in the new year which promises to be a very busy year for all of us.  You have plenty of time just like the clients will after your announcement to get your project schedules under control, and if not, then that's okay too... but do yourself and body and your personal life a huge favor this holiday season and simply make the commitment to yourself of truly taking time off and detoxing from the tech world.  Your clients will not bail on you, you will still be alive (and better for it) and it will be business as usual when you return.

You will never "find" time for anything. If you want time, you must make it. Charles Bruxton

Client Caving In To Client Special Requests:

Julie is one of our long time coaching clients who has made some tremendous changes in how she operates her web design and marketing business. After the tech crash of the late 1990's she took some much needed time off and then restarted her business early in 2001. She was shocked to find how low designers had begun pricing themselves out for in desperation to find work. So in order to launch competitively she followed suit and offered her previous $65hr design services for $25hr and sometimes even less in 'flat fee' package deals. Her stable of clients grew relatively quickly but she noticed a severe lack in the 'quality' of clients she was getting. They were more demanding, much less tech savvy, and in some cases out right rude and all of them tighter budgeted all of this adding up to a huge amount of stress and unhappiness.  February of 2006, was when she contacted us for business coaching. She hadn't raised her rates fearful she would lose her stable of 'Bad Clients' and found her self completely burned out having worked an intense project all through the recent Christmas week (even Christmas Eve day) right through New Years for an ogre of a client who had promised to pay her prior to Christmas for this 'special consideration' but who didn't, he withheld paying as a carrot to keep her working day by day well into January.  Ultimately she didn't receive any payment until January 20th, and only then by demanding compensation and threatening to withhold the final work.  Fortunately, this horrible lesson lead to something powerful for Julie, she vowed to never again work during times she had promised herself she would take off, not for any amount of promises or 'money', and I'm happy to report that she has since raised her rates up to a competitive market rate of $50hr and by following our recommendations has released some of her 'bad' clients (most have stayed but retraining has helped turn them into 'better' clients) and has overall gained the respect of her clients and of course they don't bat an eye at the standing annual list of closure dates.

We are always looking to hear your story!
Happing ending or not if you have a story to share about the pitfalls of not taking time off or allowing clients to guilt you into working for them during times you had planned to take off or even over weekends, we want to hear it!
Or, if you have any special tips to share to help others feel 'good' about taking time off please email us!
PBJ@norwestdesigns.com

Things to Consider:

How do you feel about
a company or service who
notifies you in advance
about dates of closure?

do you panic or get upset or
think the company is flaky?
or do you think... okay no
big deal I just need to
get my order or whatever
into them before then.

Compare your answer to
your own thoughts or anxiety levels regarding being able
to close your shop.

How do you feel about 'working for yourself' when other family members or friends have time
off or paid vacation time?

Frustrated? Envious?
Or do you think, "that's nice
but I take more time off than that, I'm so glad I'm not tied
to someone else's 'permission'
or schedule to take time
off!"

(note: power outages, trips to the dentist, taking family to the airport, and other life and work interruptions are not 'time off')

If you find yourself making excuses
for why you can't (or won't) do the creative input assignments please email us your thoughts or reasons, we want to help more members overcome this block as these
are very effective exercises.

PBJ@norwestdesigns.com

• Sensory Lunch Date - Take a 1-2 hour lunch break and LEAVE the office (if you work from your home you must LEAVE your home). Visit someplace in town you have never gone before a park, a shop, a museum, public library, a church. Any place that you have NOT ever been. The point of this exercise to feel the sensations you can only get from being in a new place 'alone'. Spend as much time as you can taking in everything around you, the colors, the smells, the sounds, the people, absorb. "Do very little". Your job is to receive during this break if appropriate do bring a lunch but stop and pick something up that you've never had before.
   
• Zero Tech Night - Schedule a night this week with no computer or TV, if you have favorite shows just record them.  If you live with friends or family try to get them in on this also, otherwise, retreat to a separate space. Read, write longhand, play a game (no video games), build a model, paint, buy something specifically for this evening if you have to, but spend the entire evening engaged in something outside of TV, computer, video games, ipod, stereo etc. When the evening is over and it's time for bed take a warm shower and go straight to bed. You will sleep better than you have in a very long time!

October 15th Drawing Winners

Congratulations to Jason L., Corona California - Our October Holiday drawing winner. Your Sees Candy Halloween Gift Box is on it's way. Enjoy! Congratulations to Brad T., Enterprise Alabama your $25 Starbucks Gift card is on it's way!

Free Chocolate for Everyone
Free Nestle Crunch Bar
http://www.playinyourday.com
Hurry they're only giving away 2000 bars!

Here's Our Newest Treasures Always Amazing and FREE:

Do you have clients who have file transfer challenges that become your headache? This site is the cure: http://fliiby.com

Have clients who want to do a podcast but there's little hope they'll be able to set up a recording method? Turn them on to Phonecasting! http://www.phonecasting.com

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words Right?
Well Check this huge time saver out!
http://www.websnapr.com

Another Cool Tool - That Saves Design Time
http://www.reflectionmaker.com

Free Adobe Vector Plugins
http://www.bittbox.com/category/freebies

November 15th Drawing:

Hickory Farms Gift Basket
Get Ready for a feast!!!