How to build business by going on vacation

Simple psychological insights that pay off
 
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
 
Usually.
 
Then, you may justifiably ask, how the heck can you build your business by going on vacation? It certainly does sound too good to be true.
 
If you’ve been reading any of these articles, you’ll know that we have a certain fondness for counterintuitive, social-engineering-type solutions to traditional business problems. And we’re big on business development, too. So those two topics will intersect in this installment.
 
Ready, set… expectations
 
There’s a famous story about the invention of the microwave oven. It was basically discovered by mistake. An engineer was working with microwave radiation for some kind of defense/communications type of assignment, and noticed that a candy bar in his pocket had melted in the process. It was an aha moment that eventually changed our kitchens, and our lives, forever.
 
Honestly. Would you really wait 45 minutes to heat up a frozen entrée these days?
 
Back to business development. The topic of this article was discovered by accident as well. In fact, the same exact thing has probably happened to you… but have you ever capitalized on it?
 
The story goes like this: We were going to take some well-deserved time off, and sent out an email to all our clients, giving them a heads-up so that no deadlines would be missed in our absence.
 
This went—bcc’ed, of course—to all clients, whether they were hot-active or cold-dormant.
 
And we bet you can guess what happened next.
 
Of course we were overloaded with desperate pleas for work. And not just from the current clients, but also from the ones that were so dusty we were about to archive them!
 
This was the microwave oven/aha moment.
 
Cashing in
 
Now, you can take this story two different ways. The more nefarious way is to “fake your own death,” i.e., send out a “vacation” blast even when you don’t have one planned.
 
We don’t advocate that. It’s sneaky, and like most lies, it will catch up to you.
 
The other way to take this is to simply tweak it to better suit your purposes.
 
Consider: You’re going to take time off. Eventually. You’ve earned it. You also 1) want more business (who doesn’t?), and 2) don’t want to deal with unnecessarily brutal deadlines.
 
So you add 1) and 2) and you get 3) Simply send out that vacation notice earlier. In a word, Duh! If you’d previously sent it out two days before your time off, send it out a week before. Heck, depending on your situation, you might send it out two weeks before. This isn’t greedy. In fact, it’s considerate. It will allow those knee-jerk clients who “suddenly” realize they need your services before you go to actually get them, since you’ll have afforded them a more reasonable turnaround timeframe.
 
Grow your business by redefining simple terms
 
Vacations are great, but they’re also rare. So how much mileage—or business—can you get out of this technique?
 
Well—and with a doff of the hat to Alex Trebek—let’s frame your answer in the form of a question:
 
What if you take everything we’ve discussed about “vacation” and applied it to “business trip”? Or “out of the office”? Or pretty much anything that makes your available time more precious and rare?
 
See? It’s not that hard.
 
The important point here is to temper your output. If you blast your clientele every time you’re about to go to lunch, you can rightfully expect those missives to be marked as “spam.” So be judicious. And consider the calendar: weekends, national holidays, overlapping school vacations for clients’ kids…. all of these should factor into your timing.
 
Done properly, this technique can transform a traditional headache (“I’m going to lose business while I’m away!”) into a pleasantly surprising source of new business.
 
There are other ways to grow you business, too. Contact us and let’s discuss. 

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