Kristen Doyle 0:00
Ever wish you could step away from your business for a few weeks, or even a few months without everything falling apart? Whether you’re running a digital product shop or you’re offering services to clients, today’s episode will show you exactly how it’s possible to step away from your business for a while.
Kristen Doyle 0:20
My friend and podcast manager Sara Whittaker recently took a four month maternity leave, and as one of her clients, I got to experience firsthand how smoothly everything ran while she was away spending time with her baby. She is sharing how she kept both the service provider side of her business and her digital product income flowing and kept everything on track while she was away.
Kristen Doyle 0:46
So whether you are planning a maternity leave, you’re hoping to travel, or maybe you just need an extended break, Sara is showing us exactly how she set her business up to run without her, and sharing some simple steps for how you can too, no matter what type of business you run.
Kristen Doyle 1:04
Even if you’re not planning on walking away from your business anytime soon to take a break, definitely give this conversation a listen, because you just never know when an emergency could pop up. And some of the tips that Sara is sharing with us today are going to help you set your business up to run without you, even in the event of an emergency.
Kristen Doyle 1:25
Sara is a teacher turned podcast strategist who helps entrepreneurs leverage podcasting to build their brand, scale their business and connect with their audience. She is also a podcaster and a course creator herself, and while she’s usually behind the scenes helping me make this show run smoothly, today, she is stepping into the guest seat to share how she set up systems and strategies for taking extended time away from your business.
Kristen Doyle 1:57
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place.
Kristen Doyle 2:13
Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 2:39
Hey, Sara, thank you so much for being here.
Sara Whittaker 2:42
Hey, Kristen, I am always happy to sit down and talk with you. Thanks for having me.
Kristen Doyle 2:48
I know we usually talk about podcast things, but I really wanted to have you on the show after your maternity leave, because as a client of yours, I got to experience how you handled your maternity leave, and it just went so smoothly. And I could tell from your side of things that you really were getting to take that time away from your business.
Kristen Doyle 3:13
And I know a lot of our listeners might be planning a maternity leave, but they might be totally finished with that phase of their lives too, like I am. And so even if we’re not planning a maternity leave, there are so many reasons that we sometimes need to take a step back from our businesses. So I really am just excited to talk to you today about kind of how you set your business up so that it ran so smoothly without you for a while.
Sara Whittaker 3:38
Yeah, I’m excited to get into this, and I completely agree. I think, you know, whether it’s maternity leave or vacation or sometimes just like, just take a break, to take a break and take a little sabbatical, I think that’s something that we all should be doing, is stepping away for a little bit.
Sara Whittaker 3:54
And a lot of us, especially if you’re a service provider, feel like you literally cannot do that, if you walk away your your income is going to stop. And I think with some intentional planning, it totally is possible for any of you to to walk away for a little bit.
Kristen Doyle 4:09
Yeah, absolutely. And I know I’ve been able to do that some in my business at different times when I needed to take that break. And like you said, it’s the planning and preparing for things ahead of time, remind me and tell our listeners, how long did you actually take off for maternity leave?
Sara Whittaker 4:27
My original plan was to be off for three months, but I ended up having some complications at the end of my pregnancy, and was induced three weeks early, which, you know, I got kind of a heads up about that. I could tell that that was the direction it was going. So I ended up being out for four months. I was out from very end of march through July, and I
Kristen Doyle 4:47
think it really speaks to how smoothly this went, that I just had to ask you that question, because I can’t remember how long it was.
Sara Whittaker 4:54
Yeah, and it’s so it’s so nice to hear that. That’s the feedback that you want when you’re a service provider, is hearing the things went smoothly. Yeah, absolutely.
Kristen Doyle 5:01
So let’s talk a little bit like you said. This can be done when you plan and you prepare things ahead of time. So let’s talk a little bit about kind of the timeline that you followed and how you started planning to walk away from your business for four months.
Sara Whittaker 5:17
Okay, so I’m trying to think where to start here, and I will tell all of you who are listening. I have kind of two sides to my business. So I am a service provider, and so we do, like monthly podcast production for our retainer clients. So those are, you know, things that we’re working on every single week.
Sara Whittaker 5:33
But then I also do have that digital resource side to my business, where I have online courses that I’m selling, and I’m a podcaster as well, so I can hopefully give you some insight from both of those angles, depending on where you are in your business.
Sara Whittaker 5:48
But I started really thinking about how I wanted to go about maternity leave, probably in like November, and I had my baby at the beginning of April, so several months before I was actually going to go out, I told clients that I was pregnant and that I was planning to go out, how long my leave was going to be, all of that good stuff when I was about 20 weeks pregnant.
Sara Whittaker 6:13
So I think that was like beginning of January ish is how that was. And so as far as when it comes to preparing to be out with client work, I one of the biggest pieces to this puzzle was having a really strong project management system in place. So I use ClickUp. That is, I mean that played such a huge role in me being out, and also, just like in my everyday business.
Sara Whittaker 6:41
And I will say I, for the past, like, couple of years, I have grown my team a little bit. So I do have support, because our client load has grown so much over the years. And so I did have some support in terms of the, you know, the weekly tasks that we do.
Sara Whittaker 7:00
And so what I did, one of the first things that I did, was I sat down with just a Google Doc open, and I thought about, okay, this is every single thing that I do in my business for each of my clients. And and then I picked it apart, and I thought, okay, X, Y and Z. Person on my team handles this. These are all of the things that I still do. And if you’ve never done something like this before, like sat down and really picked apart your day to day, it’s crazy how many like little tasks that you do that you don’t even realize that add up.
Kristen Doyle 7:38
Yeah, and even if you’re just a digital product seller and not a service provider, looking at all the things that you’re doing that maybe you could be handing off to a VA and freeing up some more of your time and things, it really is so helpful to take that time to really list out all the things I am doing on a regular basis. And I know when I’ve done that for my own business, I can’t do it in a day. I have to pull up the Google Doc and start listing. And I might be working on this for two or three weeks, because there are those things you only do once a month or so.
Sara Whittaker 8:14
Yes, oh my gosh, absolutely. If you’ve never done time tracking, this is a really good time to do that, too, because then you can kind of get a feel for how long each of these tasks take. So that’s also really eye opening. So that’s one of the first things I did was thought about, like, okay, these are all of the things that I already have team members doing. These are things that I’m doing that I need to assign to people eventually. It’s going to take some a couple months to get to that point, as I can, like, gradually release these different tasks, and I can see what kind of training I have to do for people.
Sara Whittaker 8:46
And then on the other side of my business, like with my podcast and my email and, you know, social media and my marketing for digital products, I thought about, okay, these are all of the things that I’m that I do on a weekly basis or a monthly basis that I’m going to need to think about how I want to handle while I’m out.
Sara Whittaker 9:07
And so then I kind of took that list and thought like, okay, these are the things that I’m going to need to outsource. These are the things that I can maybe batch ahead and get done ahead before I go out on leave. And then these are things that I once my maternity leave starts, I am just going to release and let go of and just literally not do until I get back.
Sara Whittaker 9:29
And what I decided, and I decided this from the beginning, is that because I didn’t have any help with social media at the time, so I just decided I’m just going to be off of Instagram my entire maternity leave. And I think for some people, that might seem a little bit scary if you’re super consistent on social media, but it ended up working out beautifully. So that was just an example of, like, something that I just said, Okay, I’m not gonna even worry about this, because you really do have to pick and choose. There’s so many things that we do in our business.
Kristen Doyle 9:58
Yeah, you definitely have to pick and choose. And if you’re not ready to just walk away from social media for a while, you can always do something like Smarter Queue, where you sort of set it and forget it, let it recycle some of your old content that performed really well, and just, you know, keep showing up, but you’re not actively putting out new content. So you really can just walk away from that for a while.
Sara Whittaker 10:21
Yeah, and my plan for email marketing was to batch all of my emails ahead of time, but I, because I ended up going early, I ended up not being able to do that. So that was another thing I kind of just let go of for the time period that I was out.
Sara Whittaker 10:36
But yeah, so I basically, you know, I got out my calendar, I got out my list of everything that needed to be done, and I just kind of got to work for the next few months. And as far as outsourcing things on my team, I that was a very gradual release of things that I typically would do. I was starting to assign that to people so that I knew it was systems were really put in place. We had our SOPs. People knew what they were doing.
Sara Whittaker 11:03
And I got really if you are a service provider, or even if you’re not a service provider, if you have anybody on your team, you know that there might be, like, these little things that maybe you need to tweak after somebody does them, and you just do it yourself because it’s faster.
Sara Whittaker 11:19
One thing that I really did in this preparation time period was I tightened up on that. And I, even if it was a tiny little thing, I would go back to the person and say, Hey, let’s actually do it this way. Or, Hey, can you fix this? And I let them know, like, I’m gonna be like this until I’m out, because I just want to make sure that things are as smooth as possible.
Kristen Doyle 11:39
Yeah, you know, I have learned just from working with different VAs over the years that I just need to be that way all the time. Yes, so anytime I bring somebody on who’s new, I usually tell them up front, I’m going to be really nit picky right now, but it’s because I just want to get that part over with so I don’t have to be later, so that we can just get things running smoothly, and it just works out so well.
Sara Whittaker 12:01
So smart, so smart. So, yeah, that was kind of those first steps. And then I, like, I said, I let my clients know kind of my plans for maternity leave a few months before I actually went out, so that they knew what was happening. I did make that decision. Like, I know some people go out on maternity leave and they’ll ask clients to get them things that they need ahead of time. I didn’t want to put that on my clients, because that would be a lot of podcast episodes that people had to get us early. And so really, while I was out, the goal was just like to have things running as they normally would.
Kristen Doyle 12:39
And we’re headed into December right now, and you do on a routine basis, have us turn in podcast episodes for December early now. I appreciate that. I think it helps me take December a little slower as well, because I’ve got that part of the work out of the way. But you’re right asking for four months worth during your maternity leave is it’s a different situation, right? In December, it’s a win, win for everybody. Yeah, for four months of maternity leave, that’d be a lot of work.
Sara Whittaker 13:06
That would be a lot of work, yeah, and it would require that, I just think it was, it would put way too much responsibility on the client. It would require you to, like, be way ahead in your business, and think about what topics you wanted to cover on your podcast and all of that. So I found that the best option was to just keep things running as normal.
Sara Whittaker 13:22
What I did was I I had somebody who had been on my team for a while, who was super familiar with all of our processes already. I made her what I called an account manager while I was out, and that was putting her in charge of of communicating with clients. So if there were ever any questions from clients, or if there was something missing that she needed from the client, or if there was an issue, Brandy would be the person that the client would contact.
Sara Whittaker 13:52
And so all of that was communicated to you all before I went out, and, you know, did a little introduction, and had things in our Google Drive so you knew exactly how to contact her, and so that, for me was what really helped me have peace of mind while I was out, because letting go of all of that client communication for me was the hardest part, because as a service provider, you just think, oh my gosh, like, what’s gonna happen If I’m out? Will the clients be mad if I go out? What if something happens? It’s like all of those thoughts that go through your mind.
Kristen Doyle 14:27
What if this person doesn’t do the job I expect them to? What if, yeah, this person makes the client mad, or Yeah, on the client side of things, it was really helpful to have that one point of contact. And we even, you know, we communicated the same way that you and I do, it just was really easy to have, kind of, to have it fit into the same workflow I already had. I’m just talking to a different person, and just to build that relationship with her over that four months, we got to know each other better. Well, got to know each other, because I really didn’t know her at all, other than sometimes seeing her name on things.
Kristen Doyle 15:05
So we got to know each other and were able to, you know, brainstorm some things back and forth that I had questions about, or I was struggling to come up with titles for things or whatever, just the same way that you and I did, and that was really helpful, just to have that consistency.
Sara Whittaker 15:21
It ended up working out really well. And that was kind of my goal, was to just make it really easy for the client, and then there were all these things going on on the behind the scenes, but you guys don’t have to worry about that.
Kristen Doyle 15:34
And I mean, realistically, I missed chatting with you, of course. But as far as the work was concerned, it almost no offense. Love you. Felt like you weren’t gone. I mean, everything went so super smoothly. It wasn’t you, but it was still great. And that’s really what we all want when we walk away from our business.
Sara Whittaker 15:57
Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, that’s music to my ears. I’m so happy to hear that. So yeah, I feel like that’s a lot of kind of how I prepped for the client side of my business, the retainer side of my business, but as far as the other side of my business, like I said, I’m a podcaster, and so I did decide, okay, if I’m not going to be on social media while I’m out, I still want to show up consistently in some way.
Sara Whittaker 16:21
So I chose to keep my podcast running as normal. I do weekly episodes. So I said, Okay, I’m definitely gonna continue doing that. And so I started batch recording months in advance. So by the time I went, by the time we reached, like the end of March, I was batch recorded through the end of August. And it didn’t feel hard, I will say I’m not actually usually much of a Batcher. I’m always, like, a couple weeks ahead, but I’m not somebody that, like, sits down and records 10 episodes in a week or anything like that.
Kristen Doyle 16:58
I am obviously not either.
Sara Whittaker 16:59
Yeah, you’re not either. Kristen.
Kristen Doyle 17:01
I turned my episodes in the day they are due.
Sara Whittaker 17:04
Hey, that’s okay. That’s okay. I’ve been there too. But it didn’t feel hard because I started so early. It was just it was like sprinkled in throughout the months. And so that part really didn’t feel hard. And so I really used my podcast as, kind of like my main marketing platform while I was out. So I, you know, I I pre recorded ads that I could put in my podcast that kind of drove people to my online courses. I also did, I did sprinkle in what I called guest takeover episodes.
Sara Whittaker 17:36
So I invited some people who had been guests on my podcast before, and I asked them to record an episode on a different topic than they spoke on before and and that worked out really well, because that did give me a little bit of breathing room. I still recorded like an intro and outro for those episodes, but that was really helpful.
Sara Whittaker 17:54
I’ve seen people do that for email as well. So if you’re somebody who’s going to be out for an extended period of time, inviting people from your circle in to kind of take over your social media or your email or your podcast is kind of a cool way to take some of that, yeah, overwhelm off of you.
Kristen Doyle 18:12
Another really cool thing I’ve seen done for email is someone whose list I was on took an entire summer off last year, and she had already batched out her email. She had written the content to send out, but then she emailed us before she stepped away and she said, Hey, here’s what I’m doing. I’ve already written all the emails. You’re going to get an email every week, like always, with the things that I always email you about, but my assistant is going to look over them, and if there’s anything you know timely going on, or any whatever, she may add some notes to it.
Kristen Doyle 18:48
And every now and then, I’ll get an email that at the beginning, it would say, Hey, assistant person’s name here, you know, here’s this little quick update about something that we needed to know that was, like, timely things going on in her niche, in the topics that she shares with us about, and then it went on with the rest of her email that she had already written it. And I thought that was a really cool way to handle, you know, those we were always afraid to schedule emails and things out too far, because what if things change?
Kristen Doyle 19:20
You know, you think about like some of us had lots of content batched out the week that COVID hit and the world went into chaos. And then here you are emailing just your usual Lottie Da, like this normal stuff, because you had already scheduled those so having somebody who could look at it and make some little adjustments, add some notes at the beginning. I think it’s just such a smart way to handle it, and it was so transparent.
Kristen Doyle 19:44
I really liked how transparent that was. I wrote my emails ahead of time. You’re still hearing from me, but she might add some content to the beginning to let you know about something that’s going on right now. Yes,
Sara Whittaker 19:55
Oh, I love that. Yeah. I think that that’s so smart. There’s so many cool, creative ways that. You can go about just like having some help and still making things relevant, even if they’re batched out ahead of time.
Kristen Doyle 20:08
And staying authentic and keeping it, yeah, just be honest, have some help. Yeah,
Sara Whittaker 20:13
Absolutely. I mean, most of the people in your audience are probably, you know, they get it. We’re all human. We’re all
Kristen Doyle 20:19
We all have lives outside of our businesses and outside of, you know, whatever area that we’re serving people in, we all have lives outside of that topic. So I think everybody can understand a need sometimes to just walk away for a little bit and put some things on autopilot, schedule some things out, so that you can still show up, but to be a little less personally involved for a little while.
Sara Whittaker 20:42
I love that. One other thing I will say that might be helpful for anybody who’s thinking about taking a break is, you know, like I said, I I did hire, or I didn’t, so much hire additional help, but I extended the role of people that were already helping me. And so obviously that is taking away from my normal income. And so I knew my income would be down a little bit, so to kind of like make up for that, there were definitely a couple things that I did, like, I ran a sale right before I went out.
Sara Whittaker 21:16
So my courses were on evergreen the whole time that I was out. But I wanted to do kind of like just a little push before I went out to have that, you know, quick cash injection. So I did that about a month before I went out. I also, this is like a little detail, but something that could be helpful. I went through and I thought, like, Okay, I’m gonna I already have my podcast episodes batched out for the next few months so I can cancel my recording platform for the next few months.
Sara Whittaker 21:44
So thinking about like, Okay, what platforms Am I realistically not going to be using that I maybe have a monthly payment for, cancel those during the time that you’re out. And little things like that add up too.
Kristen Doyle 21:56
Yeah and especially for things like a recording platform, where you don’t necessarily have a lot of things saved in there that you need forever. You can cancel it and come back, even if you have to start a brand new account when you come back. You would be okay, because you’re using it for that recording, for that service, not, you know, for storing all of your podcast episodes.
Sara Whittaker 22:18
There were even a couple things that you can reach out to customer service places and let them know, like, Hey, I’m gonna be out on maternity leave or whatever. Can I just put this on pause versus having a bunch of things deleted. Can I just pause this? And people are super accommodating.
Kristen Doyle 22:33
Yeah, I’ve been surprised at how many places will do that. And sometimes for free and sometimes for just like a low maybe they’re gonna drop you down to five bucks a month or something like that.
Sara Whittaker 22:44
Yeah, yeah. Like, on a personal note, I have a there’s a local little spa by us, and they do a membership, and it’s amazing. And I have this membership, but they let me, you know, pause it at no fee or anything like that, no penalty, while I was on maternity leave. So just ask.
Kristen Doyle 23:02
I’ve had some of those experiences too. I got hurt earlier this year, you know, and the gym was so great about letting me put my gym membership on pause for four weeks. It was fantastic.
Sara Whittaker 23:14
Aand those gym memberships, I know what you pay for that gym membership, because I used to pay it. So if you can put it on pause, you definitely want to.
Kristen Doyle 23:22
For sure. So let’s talk you just mentioned your course a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Because when you are when you’re doing services and you step away, some parts of that have to drop off, and like you said, that affects your income. I know you have your retainer clients, but you also do podcast launches and things like that, and you can’t really do those if you are on maternity leave, because those, I’m sure, require so much more of you, and aren’t so easy to just hand off to your team.
Kristen Doyle 23:52
So we talked earlier about how one of the things that you did to help boost some of that income is keep your course spelling. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sara Whittaker 24:03
Yeah, you’re right about the podcast launches. So when I do podcast launches, it’s just me doing it. And so what I did there was I let people know, like through email and through social media, hey, I’m I am gonna be out. So the last month that I’m available to do podcast launches is this month. And so I kind of gave myself that hard cutoff date of, this is the last project that I’m going to do.
Sara Whittaker 24:26
And again, planning for that ahead of time was really helpful, because, you know, I could just account for, okay, this, this is the last project I’m going to take on. And then as far as courses go, yes, so I have had my courses on evergreen for a while now, and I decided to continue that while I was out.
Sara Whittaker 24:45
And the big things that I did to kind of keep traffic coming to courses was like I said, with holding the sale that I did on my courses before I went out, and then I had dynamic ads running in my podcast episode. So what I did was I recorded a dynamic ad one per month that I’d be out. So I kind of had a focus for each of the months. And I also planned my my podcast content around those topics as well.
Sara Whittaker 25:14
So that’s kind of one way that I that I wanted to drive people to the courses while I was gone. I also, before I went out, I kind of went through some of my email sequences that I had that were attached to lead magnets that funnel people into my courses I went through, and just like, made sure that those were up to date, tweaked those and so that was that was great to know that all of that was running on the back end while I was out.
Kristen Doyle 25:43
Yeah. Any time we can put things like that on evergreen, it really makes such a difference. One thing I’ve done really recently in my TPT store, in my chalk and apples business, is I have put that email marketing on evergreen, and I’m doing it a few months at a time. Right now, I have three months worth built out.
Kristen Doyle 26:02
In December, we are building out the next three months worth. I’m super excited about that. I have a lot of emails to write and to get ready, but I’m going back and I’m pulling from old emails, like you said. So it’s not, you know, sitting down on a blank Google Doc and trying to write a ton of emails.
Kristen Doyle 26:18
But what’s nice about it is, I know, as people come into lead magnets and things, they start going through this longer sequence of emails, and it just pushes them through one month after the next, after the next. And eventually I’ll have a full year’s worth of that content ready to roll out automatically. So I really can walk away from the email marketing for that business almost completely outside of, you know, special sales and things like that that are going on.
Sara Whittaker 26:44
That’s so smart. I know I feel like I’ve been hearing about this from, uh, from, I know a few people who have done these, like, longer sequences that go on for 90 days plus. And I think that’s just such a smart way to make sure that things are just constantly working for you on the back end.
Sara Whittaker 27:00
Yeah, so, like, think about things like that. Like, what can I set up ahead of time that will work for me when I am not physically, you know, at my computer and and doing that marketing on a day to day basis. Things, even things like, do you have pop ups set up on your website so that when people are coming to your site, you’re you’re capturing leads, all of those little things. There’s so many things that we can do to kind of have have things on autopilot.
Kristen Doyle 27:29
And honestly, we’re talking about doing that in terms of being able to step away from work for a little while. But that stuff is so important to do all the time, because it can keep our business working harder for us without our direct input, and it really just can help grow our businesses that much more and free us up to do other things.
Unknown Speaker 27:49
Yes, amen. So true.
Kristen Doyle 27:52
So I know you told us as clients that you were going to be out and that our new point of contact was Brandee, but I remember you saying something about, you know, if there are emergencies, I’ll be here. Yeah, so can you tell me, tell us a little bit about how you put some systems in place to handle those things that pop up that really do kind of need at least your input while you’re away.
Sara Whittaker 28:19
Yeah, yeah. Good question, yeah. Again, stepping away from clients was really scary, and that was one, one other thing that was important to me was like, I don’t I want my clients to feel like, okay, but if something happens, like, what do we do? So I wanted to have something in place for that.
Sara Whittaker 28:36
So, I think what I had told clients was, you know, obviously, here’s brandy’s information. This is how you can contact her. She agreed, because I talked to clients a lot on Voxer, like you, and I talk, Kristen. And so I gave everybody Brandee’s Voxer information so they could continue using Voxer with her. If they had any questions.
Sara Whittaker 28:55
We also had email. And I said, like, if there is a big question that you want to contact through email. Brandee would be checking my inbox daily, and I told you what to put in the subject line so that she knew it needed immediate attention. And I had told Brandee, you know, I fully trust your judgment if somebody has a question for you. But if you’re if you’re stuck, and you’re like, this seems like a sticky situation. I’m not 100% sure how I should answer this question, or how I should solve this problem. Please contact me.
Sara Whittaker 29:29
So Brandee knew that she could contact me on Voxer. I still obviously had my phone with me. Voxer was still on my phone so that I could get those messages so she had my full consent to contact me if she needed me. And honestly, there were only, like, a couple situations that really needed my immediate attention.
Sara Whittaker 29:51
But then I also did tell clients if there is an emergency that, like, you need me. And I, like, gave some examples, please. Voxer message me. That will be the fastest way to get in contact with me, because it’s on my phone and I’ll I’ll check that faster than I check email. So I told them, like, Please, I’m still here if you need me.
Kristen Doyle 30:12
Like when one of your clients decides to rebrand her podcast.
Sara Whittaker 30:17
But you know what? By that point, I was kind of itching to talk a little bit.
Sara Whittaker 30:27
Yeah, I actually, I mentioned earlier, I so I ended up being induced three weeks early, but then my daughter ended up having to have a NICU stay after she was born. So, I mean, it turned into a huge fiasco and a longer leave than I ever expected. But again, that’s why, like, I was so grateful that I had these things in place, because otherwise I don’t know what I would have done.
Kristen Doyle 30:50
For sure. And, you know, we just never know what could happen. Obviously, a pregnancy, we get a little bit of a heads up that it’s that you’ll be wanting a maternity leave. You have a few months to figure it out, but, you know, we just never know.
Kristen Doyle 31:05
In January, I got hurt at the gym, and I was flat on my back for a week, unplanned. No idea that this was gonna happen. I had nothing in place aside from, fortunately, I had a team of people. We had some systems already, and so we were able to, you know, clean some things up, tighten up some things so that I really could rest and recover, at least for that first. I mean, honestly, there was a week where I was literally flat on my back.
Kristen Doyle 31:43
It was horrible, awful, but having at least some SOPs in place, having some people who know my business, who I could talk to and have them help with things. And of course, you know I mean, aside from not being able to stand up or walk around, I could hold my phone and send messages. So I was definitely not off off during that week, but it just it was so important for me to have kind of a contingency plan in place, because we just never know when things might happen.
Sara Whittaker 32:17
For sure. Oh my gosh. I think that could happen to any of us, we could have a family member get sick, or we could be down with the flu for a week and you just can’t even move. And I think it’s an important question for all of us to ask ourselves, is like, Okay, if I needed to, if I was forced to not be able to work for even a week, do I have systems in place to allow for that? Like, what would I do? Because it’s bound, something’s bound to happen at some point.
Kristen Doyle 32:46
Exactly. And you and I are both service providers, so we’re thinking, you know, how am I going to take care of my clients? How am I going to keep up my commitments? But even for digital product sellers, I know there have been times, just as a TPT seller before I started offering services where something would happen and I would have to walk away, and the whole time, I am worried about what I’m going to find in my inbox, who’s going to be upset because they couldn’t get a file to download. You know what’s going to be there when I get back.
Kristen Doyle 33:15
And one thing that I did earlier in my business, before I was really hiring people who were on my team on an ongoing basis, I had a TPT bestie who like, if push came to shove, I would hand her my TPT login, I would hand her my email login, and she would check it and just make sure that there are no dumpster fires. And I would do the same thing for her.
Kristen Doyle 33:44
And so even if you don’t have a team, I think it’s really smart to find those people that you know who kind of get your business a little bit, at least enough to be able to check up on things for you, whether that’s a spouse or a friend or whoever.
Sara Whittaker 33:59
So smart. And I mean, I 100% even if you don’t, if it’s just you, like, start thinking about how you can start documenting some of this stuff. Like, even if it’s a Google Doc that you just have, like, okay, these are all of the platforms I use with my passwords. And start taking screen recordings of yourself while you, while you do everything, it literally doesn’t take any extra work for you, like, even if it’s not a fully written out SOP. A video of certain tasks that, if needed, somebody would be able to do for you if you needed that.
Kristen Doyle 34:32
Yeah, I think that’s so important. So for someone who is thinking they may at some point need to take some extended time away, or they are just wanting to plan for the emergency situation. What would you say is the first step that they should take?
Sara Whittaker 34:46
Well, my best advice would be like, if it’s a planned leave of absence of any kind, whether it’s a week or four months or more, like plan as early as you can so that you can gradually start that preparation. So that it doesn’t feel as overwhelming, because, yes, we can batch things, but if you need to batch your social media and your email and your podcast episodes like that is overwhelming.
Sara Whittaker 35:08
So my best advice is is to plan as early as you can, and I would start with that list that I talked about in the beginning, sit down and do a little time audit of yourself and just get that list going of all the things that you do on a regular basis that you know you would need to continue doing in order for that income to continue coming in.
Kristen Doyle 35:29
Yeah and I’m sure anyone listening to this podcast has heard over and over that we need to create SOPs and we need to start documenting the things that we do before we need the documentation. So definitely would encourage everybody to start, just even if all you do is a screen recording as you’re doing something and talk through what you’re doing. Start documenting your processes so that you have that stuff there, just in case.
Sara Whittaker 35:54
Yes, and like I said, I use ClickUp. There’s so many project management tools out there. If you don’t have a project management tool, I would that would be my first step is to get a project management tool. Because, like, what I’ll do is, like, on ClickUp, I have a client section, and then I have a section for my business, for things like email and podcasts and all of that.
Sara Whittaker 36:15
And you can separate out your tasks, and you can link right there your screen recording of each of those tasks. So everything is just in one nice, neat place. And once you get that system going, it’s not hard to keep up with and you will thank yourself so much when it’s time for you to get a little break from your business.
Kristen Doyle 36:33
Absolutely and never underestimate how great it is to have everything in one place. We are right in the middle right now of transitioning systems, because we had gotten my business had gotten to the point, just as a kind of a byproduct of growth, that I had things in multiple different places as I had added things to my business, and really just needed to get it all into one system.
Kristen Doyle 36:59
So right now, we’re in the process of consolidating and moving everything into one place, and it’s like we see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and I’m so excited. I know my whole team is to get everything in one place. But right now, it feels so messy. So I would, I would definitely encourage people to find what you like and put everything in one place as much as possible.
Sara Whittaker 37:20
Yes, oh my gosh, I’ve been there. And so if you, if you’re listening and you, it is just you on your team, or maybe you’re just getting started in business, or whatever the case, I kind of see that as like you’re in an advantage with what we’re talking about, because you can now make the decision, okay, this is what I’m going to use. This is where I’m going to keep everything. And you won’t have to be in that messy middle like Kristen just mentioned, because that is not a good place to be.
Kristen Doyle 37:45
It is not but there is light at the end of this. It’ll be great when it’s over. It will very soon we are almost there. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today all about setting up your business to walk away and take a little time off. I know this is something that so many of us need to plan for.
Kristen Doyle 38:04
Whether it’s a maternity leave or I have some travel coming up. I’m actually traveling three weeks out of probably eight in first quarter of 2025. And while most of that travel I’ll be available, and I’ll still be doing some work, some of this business travel and things I also know, you know, I have to plan things like podcast recordings and all of those sorts of things.
Kristen Doyle 38:30
So regardless of why you need to walk away, I think we just all need to start taking steps and planning for those sorts of things ahead of time. So thank you so much for your insights on how you made that work in your business.
Sara Whittaker 38:44
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, and I hope that if you are someone who’s been afraid to walk away from your business, that this was a little bit of an encouragement for you, because like, like Kristen just said, no matter the circumstance, we all need to be able to walk away. And we need that little break.
Kristen Doyle 39:00
Yeah, and sometimes it is, we just need a little break. Yeah, we need to walk away for no reason other than our own mental health.
Sara Whittaker 39:07
Exactly, exactly.
Kristen Doyle 39:09
I hope today’s episode has shown you how, with the right planning and the right systems in place, you absolutely can step away from your business for a while. Whether it’s for a maternity leave, travel, maybe you have an illness or an emergency that pops up. The key really is starting preparation ahead of time and being intentional about documenting your processes, whether that’s product creation, customer service systems or content marketing and then building a team that can help you while you’re away.
Kristen Doyle 39:45
If you’re ready to start planning for some time away from your business, take Sara’s advice and start by doing a time audit. List out everything you do in your business on a regular basis, from creating new products to answering customer support emails to scheduling social media to the way that you serve clients if you’re a service provider.
Kristen Doyle 40:05
This will help you identify what needs to be delegated or automated or batched ahead of time, and start looking for ways you can go ahead and put some of those supports in place now.To connect with Sara and learn more about her podcast strategies, check out her show her courses and her other resources for entrepreneurs like you. I’ll drop all the links in the show notes at Kristendoyle.co/episode130 and if this episode was helpful for you, I would love for you to take a screenshot and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag both Sara and me so that we can share it as well. Talk to you next time.