Summer Attitudes

For the past twenty years I have worked with entrepreneurs and watch as they took the summer off. Truly, just like the were still in school.

Granted a lot of them have children and wanted to spend time with them doing the typical fun summer activities. It is wonderful in theory.

But what happens to their business? I have seen too many have to start their business from scratch every September, struggling to make ends meet through the holidays only to have to start all over again in January after taking the last two weeks off for the holidays.

I know how important it is to spend time with your children, but I also know that you can accomplish a lot of business in two or three hours a day. I often would recommend parents break up their entrepreneurial duties to daily activities.

On Mondays, they could make calls and follow up with a potential prospects to set up appointments on two days of the week. They should have Power Partner (strategic alliance) meetings one day a week to keep the referrals coming in consistently and at least one day of the week keeping up with their Social Media.

When entrepreneurs follow this basic routine working about 18 – 20 hours a week during the summer, they usually found their business increased during the summer.

The reason is because they had less time and became more efficient at the tasks that are required to keep up with the demands of being in business. And the biggest benefit was when the kids went back to school in the fall, they had developed better work habits. They remained more efficient and more productive.

I also challenged then to hire out the tasks they could hire for as much as twice what they earned per hour. Most entrepreneurs have no idea what they make per hour, so the simple formula is to take last year’s annual income, divide it by 52 (weeks) and then by 40 hours (week) to arrive at your hourly rate.

Then it is important to challenge yourself to increase your income by 20% every year. The average increase cost of doing business is 12-15% so to get ahead each year, an increase minimum of 5% is necessary.