How To Enjoy Your Summer And Keep Your Business Moving Forward Too

It’s officially summertime and for moms and business owners like myself, this time of year can be a blessing on the one hand (late morning sleep ins, days that feel slower, more time outside with the family and later summer evenings) and frustrating on the other hand when it comes to trying to keep the work momentum going.

Momentum is important for any business. When you have momentum, you are getting more done that leads to creating more results and pushing you closer to your goals. Without momentum you can feel like you are struggling and that leads to a lot of frustration and self-doubt.

As a mompreneur, I work hard to keep my business going, to keep the momentum going. It provides a solid income for my family so I can not afford to check out and lose the momentum I spent months working to build but going into the summer months I also want to enjoy life and my family too. What is the point of working hard if we also don’t have time to enjoy the fruits of our labor with those who matter most?

Somewhere recently I read “you only have your kids for 18 summers” and when you put it like that, the time seems even shorter if you are a parent. So in this blog post I want to share some tips to help you enjoy your summer to the fullest and without losing your momentum going into the fall and winter months which is a busy time for most business owners. Without momentum, you will be starting all over and that is no fun and can be a huge setback.

While it’s true that summer is a slower time, it’s also not a reason to totally check out either. You still have a business to run and yes, while it’s true that other people are enjoying their summer and may take longer to respond to messages or commit to making decisions, it’s still important to plant seeds. Planting seeds is another way of saying build relationships. Business is about trust and when we build genuine relationships we are planting seeds.

Let’s use this as an analogy – think of your business like a garden. You can carry a packet of seeds around in your pocket all summer telling yourself things like:
“when the kid’s go back to school I will get my business going again”
“when we get back from vacation I will get focused again”
“why bother right now, no one is responding to my messages any way”
or you can spend that time taking action to plant those seeds.

Which scenario is going to result in something to harvest? Planting the seeds of course. Carrying the seeds around in the darkness of your pocket will result in a whole lot of nothing. So what does planting these seeds look like during the summer months?

Focus this time of year on letting go of the outcome and focus more on cultivating and caring for the seeds that you are planting. I find that this time of year I need to switch gears from heavy recruiter to heavy relationship builder.

• Send messages to people daily through Facebook, text, email, Instagram  (however you best like to communicate) asking how they are doing, asking how their kids are, how their summer is going. Take a genuine interest in them to learn more about them. From those conversations you can find a need that your products or opportunity can help with.

If you share and they don’t act interested or come back with how busy they are and they can’t focus on anything else right now, be supportive and understanding of where they are, don’t push, and when summer is over, kids get back in school and they back into a routine, you will have planted seeds that can lead to more direct conversations when they don’t have so much going on.

• Spend 10-15 minutes to like and comment on their posts. Be encouraging and supportive.

• As kids are playing at the park or at swim lessons, have conversations with new people around you. Get connected with them on social media, expand your network and the people you can plant more seeds with.

• Connect with people while traveling. Have meaningful conversations while on vacation with other moms and parents to see where they lead. Who knows by the time you make it back home you could have 5-6 new connections to plant more seeds with over the coming months.

• Give yourself permission to enjoy your summer too. It’s okay for this to be a slower time in your business so you can enjoy more quality time with your kids. This can be a great time to reflect on where your business is now and where you want it to go, time to set some new goals and recharge. Getting frustrated that people won’t answer your messages and trying too hard to push people to make decisions and commitments they are not ready to make will only damage those relationships and hurt your business.

The time you spend planting and caring for the seeds in your garden over the summer to be an intentional relationship builder will allow you to reap a harvest and create more momentum as you move into the fall and winter months.

Conversations and relationships that you have been building that can quickly lead to “hey I know you mentioned wanting to quit your job by the end of the year, I am happy to share what I am doing with you” or “I know a couple of months ago you mentioned having issues with____, I think I may have something that can help“.

The more genuine conversations you have with people the more you know how you can help them.  

So spend these precious months going with the flow of the time of year doing things you love with the people you love while staying intentional with the daily actions you take and you will be able to enjoy your summer and keep your business moving forward too.

Did you find this helpful? I would love to hear from you so be sure to leave me a comment!