You have worked hard all year towards your goals, you deserve a vacation to truly disconnect from work and relax and rejuvenate. The challenge comes on the weeks that you are supposed to be working and focused on the growth of your business like usual but are tempted by summer calling your name, golf, swimming, hiking, boating, motorcycling, whatever your pleasure is.

Here are some tips to keep your business growing even during the summer months.

1. Change your mindset: You may have fallen into the mindset trap of thinking people don’t buy in the summer months and avoid marketing campaigns, sales calls and launching products in the summer but the truth is people and companies are buying all of the time and in the summer you have an advantage if you stand out from your competition during these months.
2. Create a summer schedule and STICK to it!  Before the summer starts ( actually I plan mine the year before) make sure you have created your summer work schedule.  Do you want shorter days, Fridays off, golf once a week?  Plan it.  They say if you want something done give it to a busy person so by shortening your hours you can compress your usual work week into less time, the key is to actually use that time more productively.  By creating a plan you can enjoy your time off , guilt free.
3. Have a delegation workshop.  Take an hour and list all of the things that you can delegate and outsource over the summer that will give you leverage and help you increase your sales and profits.
4. Create a daily action plan.  Each week I plan out all of the projects I am working on and what the next steps are.  Each day before I leave the office make an action list for the next day of the highest priority items.  This helps you be very focused and productive.  To get even better results make sure that your staff is doing this too to stay focused on the highest ROI activities.
5. Connect with prospects and clients.  Look at ways to improve your CRM process. The summer can be a good time to send them a fun gift and stand out from all of your competitors.  Last summer one of my clients sent out a BBQ rub to all of his prospects and clients which really stood out and was a good conversation starter.
6. Pick some Low Hanging Fruit. These are low cost , high ROI and simple to implement.  Two simple ones to start with:

• Reactivate old customers: Look to see any clients who have not spent money with you in the last 1-3 years depending on your market and make an offer to get them to come back.
• Create upsells for your most popular products or services: One of my coaching clients is doing this now with great results.  Each week he tracks how many opportunities there were for an upsell and how many were made and shares this with his sales team so they can see the massive opportunities they have for increased sales from adding a few simple questions to the sales process.

One last thing to remember is to also have fun and enjoy the season since it goes way to fast.  Have flip flop day at the office, have a BBQ’s for your staff or clients or go to the park with your laptop to write your newsletter.  One of my clients capitalized on one of the last days of summer last year by having his sales meeting at the marina and then heading out on his boat with his team.  The beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you have the freedom to be creative,  increase profits and have fun at the same time.

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