Young entrepreneurs must stay motivated during the summer months. Whether your business is entering its busy season or slowing down for a few months, entrepreneurship momentum continues. Don’t miss out on summer sales and business-building opportunities. As the CEO of your business, you know sales pay the bills, so strategize, stay ahead of it, and don’t let the heat beat you!
Successful entrepreneurs heed the often-shared advice to “lean into the seasons.” Every season offers opportunities to celebrate life and live fully while maximizing your business opportunities. Whether your business is booming during the summer or whether it’s a slower period, there is work to be done, so stay motivated! Embrace summer for all its glory and fun while doing what’s right for your business and your future.
After a busy semester, finals, and graduations… lose yourself in summer but keep your motivation up. Your commitment leads to your payoff.
Motivate yourself.
You know you continually think of what’s next, and boredom is awful – but so are distractions.
If it’s too hot to walk, it’s not too hot to think, contemplate, or check out what your competition is doing. You are already futuristic, so maximize that factor.
Studies show that young entrepreneurs are driven by rule-breaking, thinking outside the box, and friendship. Whether this is totally you or not, let’s put these motivating factors to work. Change up the headings to whatever you want, but keep focused and move forward.
What are your summertime excuses?
- Don’t know where to start, or just don’t know?
- Don’t feel like it?
- Didn’t get enough sleep or overslept?
- It’s too hot, or it’s not hot enough?
- It’s raining? Sunny? Cloudy?
- It’s too loud, or is it too quiet?
- You never took out the trash, or you need to but still haven’t?
Whatever your excuses are, they are. However, they aren’t good enough to keep you from taking a step forward.
Relate motivation to your business plan.
If you don’t have a business plan, write one. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but you need one to help you focus.
BREAK THE RULES
Summertime brings different schedules, and you need to be flexible and easygoing. 45% of us report being more distracted in the summer. Don’t let distractions trip you up. Instead, use distraction to your advantage.
- Goals can change. Goals can be made smaller. Deadlines can be changed too, but not eliminated.
- Consider and reconsider your product, model, vision, and mission as part of your new or updated business plan.
- Create fun summer activities with the objective of helping you reach those goals. Go to places where you can observe and better understand your consumer and shopping habits.
- Create a summer schedule. Limit it. Change it up. You are in charge, so start early, start late. Don’t miss out on your ideal time for recreation because you are stuck to a 9-5 schedule. The adjustment will be meaningful to your psyche and your business.
- Do you have a typical office? A command center? How about working outside at home or at a park or brainstorming as you ride a bike or train?
- Review your short-term marketing strategies and create a summer marketing campaign.
Summer is a great time to maximize your entrepreneurial spirit and test new ideas.
It’s important to get your creative juices flowing! Enjoy your new workplaces and your new perspective!
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
You have a business plan. You have priorities. You have deadlines.
Don’t be tempted to rise and grind every day with no breaks or enjoyment, but also don’t hit the opposite end of the spectrum where you slow down so much that your business becomes stagnant.
Your success as an entrepreneur depends on your ability to get your work done, and your success in life depends on your ability to blend what must get done for the business with what needs to get done to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Even if you are still in the red, taking breaks to recharge makes you much more effective so add a creative twist to your summer.
- Focus on administrative tasks related to your plan. What needs to be done? What will get in the way of your ability (or desire) to follow through?
- Get your files in order. Note your successes and find holes that need to be plugged.
- Network while walking. It’s okay to connect without wanting something other than to simply share an idea.
- Brainstorm in your favorite summer place. What can you do to move forward? What does your business need?
- Dream. 68 percent of people daydream in the summer.
- Take a walk. Ponder. Think about what consumer need you meet or what problem you solve. What’s not perfect?
- Go for a walk and turn on – or turn off.
- Consider where you want to be and where you do your best work and most effective thinking – schedule time there.
FRIENDSHIP KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED
Bring your friends into this endeavor. It’s a great time to reconnect, even if it’s poolside, at the beach, hiking, or sitting by a bonfire. Take the time you want, just be smart about it. Make them part of your business strategy – the self-care part – or ask them to help you brainstorm.
- Self-care and work-life balance will always be important and especially throughout the summer. Being with your friends and family or meeting new people to laugh with is part of that.
- Create a focus group of friends. What they use, don’t use, and why.
- What consumer solution do you think you offer? They are consumers. Ask them for candid feedback.
- Plan a future marketing campaign with their help focusing on a community need.
- Volunteer together.
Summer should be filled with fun, and combining productivity with vacation time is simply a matter of managing your task list and your calendar.
Go with your flow.
If these are key months to move the business, then move and make it happen. If these are your months to move less and enjoy a slower pace, then use your time for admin and daydreaming… and planning your next moves. As a successful business owner, starting a business or already building it, time management is an important skill. Put your strategies to work for you so the idea of balance comes naturally.
Do not let your great ideas evaporate in the heat. If it’s too hot or you need a mental or physical break, that’s fine. Enjoy summer but keep yourself moving forward in some way. Change up your tactics to meet your seasonal needs and desires, so you can enjoy both. You got this!
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