How To Take Vacations in Business

Glenn Mattson
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Transcript

Glenn Mattson
Welcome back to the Building Blocks of Success. Season Four, Episode 11. Regardless, if you're starting off in the business as a, you know, an emerging entrepreneur or maybe you're a developing entrepreneur, maybe you're a rainmaker at different phases of your professional career. Now, some people when you're first starting off, you don't take a lot of vacations or time off because you're working and you're building the business. And then when you do take the time off, unfortunately, sometimes you don't take it off. But there are times when we have vacations, family vacations, and times away, and I'm not talking about taking just a Friday off, we're talking about taking a vacation.

Glenn Mattson
Now. Part of the issue with a lot of people is they will come back from vacation, and it has an adverse impact on their business. Many of them, you may find yourself in this story. The vacation is coming up, it's exciting, you know what's coming up, you want to get home a little earlier, you want to make sure you can pack, you want to make sure you get yourself prepared for the trip, and all the things that you need to do. So, even about two weeks before you get to the actual trip, maybe even a week before, all of a sudden, you're not doing the right behaviors or not working at the right stuff. You're doing things that are more geared around no paid time than pay time, kind of doing busy work. Quite honestly, for many people, they might even be at work, right? They may be buying stuff for the trip. Or if they're at work, they're thinking about the trip or you're cleaning things up that need to be cleaned up. So you think you can go on the trip without worrying about anything.

Glenn Mattson
Yet when you come back, your calendar for the next week or two is light. Then, all of a sudden you get to pick it back up and then get back on the course and a lot of times people will sit back and say, Man, I should never have taken a vacation. You need to take a vacation. Vacations are important, and recharging your batteries is important. I'm not talking about going on a vacation where you come back and you're more exhausted when you come back than when you left. But there are things that we look at in terms of growth and I want to take a look at this phenomenon of vacations because this part of the year. A lot of times people are taking vacations with the kids spring breaks can be school vacations, others are taking you know breaks with production awards or certain sales kickoff meetings. We are gone for two or three days and all of a sudden you put another trip on the back of it because you'll already be someplace nice and you're there for 10 days or whatever it may have you.

Glenn Mattson
So right now, a fair amount of clients are coming back and, and having this as an impact. Again, newer coaching clients where this is starting to occur. Even though we've done some goal setting and some quick booking, I want to share with you some things that you can do so that vacations don't adversely impact you, I even had a conversation with one person today. They said, you know, half the vacations I go on, I literally come home early because I have too much anxiety about the business. Not sure. It's making sure that everything runs, and I'm not sure if it's gonna get done if I'm not there. I have to make sure that revenue is coming in etc.
Glenn Mattson
I want to talk to you about vacations and making sure that when you're there, you got to be where your feet are, right, we've had conversations about, you know, having your brain not be where your feet are. So today, let's take a look at this thing called vacations. Let's take a look at what happens with a vacation and how it impacts us. Right. So let's take a look at goal setting. First of all, you know, goal setting is really taking a look at what your personal goals are, therefore what your sales goals are, and therefore, what your sales process lead needs to look like. Therefore, what does your behavior need to look like? So it's really four buckets, right? You also know that all goals have to be converted down to daily behaviors. If you haven't listened to it go back. It's probably five months from now when we did the leading and lagging indicators, you really have to understand what goals look like, right? So goals are going to be things that drive you along with the benchmarks that you need to have to get there. So goals are for sure, whatever the heck you want to earn, right? But that's got to go back down to sales.

Glenn Mattson
So that means how many sales do you need to make per month that means now, you need to get into the next piece, which is the process right? So to get that many clients, how many closing meetings and how many first appointments may you need, right? So if you take a look at a funnel, the best place and easiest place in the beginning is to look at the front and the back of the funnel, right the stacks. The stacks are, how many first appointments, you need to have to get to the last stack, which is your closing meetings, which means that right after a closing meeting, you should have a yes or no. So if that assumption is correct, then when we look at it, it's the number of clients we need, which is the sales, and then we have to go over to the sales cycle to figure out what those numbers are. That stacks how many first appointments you need to have and how many closing meetings you need to have to get the number of clients you need. The number of clients you need will give you the income you want. So it's just reverse engineering.

Glenn Mattson
So, when we're looking at this little piece here, which is now the number of first appointments you need, that's the third bucket, right? That's part of the third bucket bucket matrix. So, if we understand how many first introductions or discovery or whatever you may consider to be called, you need on a quarterly or a monthly basis within a timeframe right that you can stamp it. So for now, we'll just call it monthly. So, if you're looking at it, hypothetically, I have to get in front of 30 new people a month to get 16 Closing meetings to get to my six clients. Let's suppose that's your ratios for the sake of discussion. Well, the real key is not understanding just the 31st appointments and the six closing meetings. But the real money the real process is the next bucket which is the behavior bucket the behavior bucket is what sources are you going to utilize to get to that sixth through 31st appointments. So are you going to have a second discussion on a sourcing wheel, you can have things like referrals, you could have leads by marketing, you could have orphans, you could have joint work, you could have other avenues, alliances, and current clients.

Glenn Mattson
Identifying the sources only gets you to first base, what we need to do is once you understand what the sources are, we have to allocate the number of first appointments that you want or expect are going to get based on the source. So, if you have again 3 1st appointments and you're going to get 15 first appointments based on referrals, then what we need to do is ask ourselves to get one referral on the book. You have to move that backward to figure out what's the baseline behavior which is an ask. So if you think about it, you ask you get a name, you dial you have a contact which is a conversation, and then you have appointments set for I would hope the appointment set to appointment kept as the same ratio, but if not, then we do appointment kept so ask kind intact conversation appointments set. To get one appointment, how many times do we have to ask? That's the baseline behavior. So if we're going to have the behavior that's necessary for each source, if I do behavior x, I will generate the number of first appointments. If I generate the number of first appointments, I shouldn't theory based on your history and your ratios, get the number of closing appointments that we need to get to the number of sales. So that's just creating a roadmap. So now that we know, that's what the premise of behavioral mapping is, with regard to goal setting, we have our goals, we have our numbers, we have our benchmarks, and we have our behaviors.

Glenn Mattson
Now, let's assume for a moment that we are talking about someone who has discipline. So when I say someone who has discipline, that means that we're not challenged by the consistency of doing their behavior, when people aren't consistent with their behavior, then what happens is they have inconsistency with several first appointments. They have inconsistency with the number of first appointments, they have inconsistency with their closing meetings, which then has a rippling effect on everything else. The worst part is that when they have a large sale, they turn around and adjust their behaviors to make up for it. That's called a comfort zone. That's called adjusting your behavior, because you're out earning what you think you're worth, and you don't think it happens to you look around your office, look at yourself, and ask yourself, when What's the last big sale that I made? Then ask yourself right after I made that sale, what did I do for the next two or three weeks with regards to my behavior, the average person lets up the gas, unfortunately, only 20% of the population will keep the gas the same, or a little more. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about those individuals that have discipline, they're the ones that do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it.

Glenn Mattson
Yet, when they go on vacation, they take time away. It has an adverse impact on their ability when they come back to produce. I want to talk about that piece. If you have issues with accountability or consistency, you have to go back and ask yourself a handful of questions. How bad do you want those damn goals, because what you created was a plan to achieve those goals back down to their behavior, you're creating a roadmap, right? It's like Waze, or if you're going to Google Maps, you know, because of my age, we had something called trip packs, and it was, you know, AAA, which was an Automobile Association that’s still around. You would go and get maps, and they would highlight, you know, the exit you're supposed to take, etc., it's called the trip pack back then it was, you know, it was epic was needed. It will tell you exactly what you need to do to get to where you want it to be. As a matter of fact, if you wanted a little higher end, if you said you were going to leave at this time, they would even tell you where you should be at each of those exit ramps. Things that most of you today are, would just shake your head and say, well, that's even, that's so normal, but a long time ago wasn't.

Glenn Mattson
So what you have is with your GPS, with your ways, with your Google Maps, you know, where you want to go, you know, when you're leaving, and you know, exactly the estimated time it's going to take and by the way when you're on the road. There's a better way to get there because there's a there's a problem. It'll tell you. That's what a cookbook is. So, if we have an individual and they go on vacation, let's talk about things you have to remember about dealing with your behavior and dealing with your book while you're on vacation or before. Okay, so let's talk about a couple of things I want to share with everybody. Because I've had these last couple of weeks, I've had more than one conversation with individuals who did not prepare themselves for vacation. If you don't prepare yourself for vacation, it does take a bit of time. For some, depending upon the client you're talking to, the type of client you're talking to, and the sourcing that you have to drum up and shake those trees enough to get enough pieces of fruit to fall on the ground to get those first appointments you need. So let me walk you through a few things tips to remember really about going on vacation to make sure it does not adversely impact your income.

Glenn Mattson
The first thing I want to share with you is kind of really important, is what type of vacation are you going on? And this is gonna sound crazy, but you do have to realize there really are in my eyes, three different types of trips that you take One trip, the best way I can describe it, as you're changing location, you're still working, you're still gonna have access to your phone, you're still going to get up and talk to people if they call. That doesn't mean you're not working, that means you're changing your location. Don't make a facade by telling your spouse, your kids, your family, or anyone else that, hey, we're going on vacation, but you can't do anything until 10 o'clock you have phone calls to make. Then when you're actually doing something with their family, you're either texting or you're on the phone, and you're saying, Hey, listen, I apologize, but I have to get this or it's an emergency, etc. Team, just bear with it and embrace it and say the fact that I'm still working, I just changed my location. That also means that for instance, when I go away, maybe we'll go down to a house in Florida, I'm changing location and still working. But at five o'clock, we're done and then that's when I'll go and have fun and do things, but I'm still working.
Glenn Mattson
So, you have to ask yourself, are you changing location? Or are you a semi and semi means that second bucket, where every day or almost every day, maybe it's every other day, you're going to work, for instance, from six o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock, right? Maybe you're going to work X amount of hours per day, every day, but it's going to be consistent. That's kind of a semi-vacation semi-work. Then the last one, and by the way, some of you are gonna say, Well, I don't do some I don't schedule it exactly two hours every day. Yet, on vacation, you work two hours every day, it just may be an hour at one and an hour at four. It may be an hour, it's eight o'clock in the morning, right? So you may be inconsistent with it, but you're still working every day. If that's the case, again, are you in change location, or you're in the second bucket which is semi third bucket? Semi, by the way, can be you can do an hour a day, it’s still semi. None is none.

Glenn Mattson
Show up at the resort. Take your phone, take your smartwatch, and you'll put it in the safe. Maybe you travel abroad, and you don't buy the add-on for your phone. So you can't have anyone from the office call you. None means none, you're out, you're tapping out, you're on sabbatical. So added you first of all, you have to figure out which one you are. But let's take a look at the ones that or none. That's what I'm hoping, that when you go on vacation you've earned it, you should take it when you take it and take it. So the first tip is I want to give you, this you know, it's interesting, I was learning how to mountain bike and doing this for the last five or six years. Where we are, is not all downhill. It's not all in the fields, mostly where we are is up and down pretty big hills, etc. One of the things that's really important to realize is that if you have a pretty good-size Hill and you're going at the same speed and then you hit the hill, about 28% of the grade is when you have to start really pedaling hard. Yet, if you see the hill coming, change your gears and start pedaling harder and faster as you pick up your speed. If you can pick up your speed well enough, which is about a 30 to 40% increase in speed. You'll hit the hill and you'll go up two-thirds of the hill before you need to start really pedaling hard. One of the things you have to ask yourself is are you having momentum before you go on vacation?

Glenn Mattson
Momentum means that you have to potentially work harder before you go, not slower, not easier. Build up that momentum, especially with your behavior and first appointments. So that when you do go on vacation, hence the hill that when you come back, hence is when you actually have to start pedaling again. Where are you? You don't have the momentum. You're starting at the bottom of the hill. That means you have to start prospering things again, to start filling your funnel, you have to start doing all these things, and it's tough. So, momentum is insanely important. When you take a look at it, you're going on vacation. I can't stress to people, when they say, Yeah, I'm going away for two weeks. We're going away in three weeks, Mike, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing about your behavior? What's changed in your behavior, know that if you're doing X behavior to get to your 3 1st appointments, what adjustments are we going to have to make so that you have enough momentum, so when you come back, we're not missing a week's worth of production? You can't be consistent on weeks one, three, and four, and skip two yet still think you're going to make the same amount of money. You have to get the momentum to make up the difference before you leave.

Glenn Mattson
Momentum. Enjoy yourself on the airplane. Before you get there, right? Get yourself to stay focused on work. The second tip I want to give you is when you do cook booking, part of the key is consistency, doing a little bit all the time, not a lot some of the time, doing a little bit every single day to fill your first appointments. That's consistency. So in theory, if you're consistent with your behavior, you should be consistent with your first if you're consistent with your first you should be consistent with your greens, right with your closing meetings off first, or yellows, we've talked about that a million times right yellow brick road, where you should be able to look at your calendar, and in one blink of an eye know exactly if you're on or off track. So, all first appointments are yellow, that's new business meetings that are first appointments. Now you may have 2, 3, or 4 meetings for qualification, and that's fine. But your first appointments are yellow in your last one, the last one where it's a yes, no, and we're in or out, that's green.

Glenn Mattson
So, you should be able to see if you have a for instance, in this scenario, 30 and 16. That means this individual, when they look at their calendar, it shouldn't take very long to understand if they're on or off track. So this individual also knows pretty darn close that they need to have about eight, right, give or take first appointments, yellows every single bloody week, they also know that they need to have four greens every single week to be consistent. Now, with that being said, the another technique that you can do to pivot from that. So, instead of being consistent with the other, you have what's called red and blue months, let me explain what a red and blue month is. A red month is any month where you're going to have less than four weeks of production. That's the red month, the blue month is if you're going to have four weeks of production. So if you're going to go away penance, for instance, July 4, you're gonna take a handful of days off, and then you're gonna take the July 4 week off and you're gone for 10 days, that's a blue month, I mean a red month, if you're going to go, the week of Halloween, you're gonna go away, that's a red month, if you're going to be taking off Memorial Day, that whole week, that's a red month, if you're gonna go away to a business trip, and you're going to be at the National Conference, you there for three days in the following days flying home, you're gone for four days, that's a red month.

Glenn Mattson
Now, if you're going someplace and you're just changing locations, that's a blue month. Let's talk about what a red month is. So a red month is where you predetermine the number of red months that you're going to have per year. So you can adjust what the gap is with the dollars and add it into the blue months. So for instance, if your average was say 20 grand a month, and you may have a red month is 10. And your blues are going to be 30. That only makes sense if you have six red months and six blue months. Yet, if you have, for instance, two red months, and we're looking at those two, then all of a sudden your blue month right instead of being a normal 20. If you have a red month where it's 10 Then all of a sudden but you have two of those months, we basically have $20,000 that we have to distribute over the remaining eight months. So all you're doing is moving around the dollars. So instead of a blue month being 20 grand and now it's 23 Five or 20 For as long as you do your blue months at 24, and your reds at 10, at the end of the year, you're still going to be where you need to be.

Glenn Mattson
So, the second strategy or tactic is changing that consistency, to have red months and blue months. The third strategy I want to share with you really quickly is understanding your pay cycle and your sales cycle. So, what I mean by that is this if your sales cycle is four weeks long, that means if you see somebody and you meet with them, and the first time you have a chance to talk with them, is say the second, and you have a 30 day sales cycle. That means if you met them on the second, you're probably going to hopefully get the commission check on the following month, on the week of the second. That's a four-week sales cycle. Okay, in terms of them saying hello to them saying yes and no. Then you have the pay cycle. pay cycle is how long it takes from the time that they say yes to you, to the time that you get it and your commission check. So, some people have their sales cycles the same as their commission cycle, they close someone tonight, literally tomorrow morning or that day, and they get the commission, that's fine sales cycle pay cycles, the same other people a sales cycle, maybe 30 days. Their pay cycle is another 30 days after that.

Glenn Mattson
So, here's the theory. If you're going to be going away for a week, what we need to do is understand your sales cycle. So, let's take the example of the individual who is going to go away for a week and they're going to go away for a week, the first week of the month. Well, six weeks before that up to about four weeks before that give or take. Individuals are going to understand that cycle right there, which is about four weeks before their vacation starts four weeks before, right? Their vacation starts. Also four weeks before their vacation ends. They are double dipping on their prospecting. So, by understanding your sales cycle, what we want to do is double down on our behavior, which by the way is probably a week or two before that date. So that you have your first appointments, your sales cycle out, meaning if you want to have you're going on vacation, the first week of just take a month rate, let's just say for sake of discussion, it could be March, right or April, let's take April because April 1 is on a Monday. So, you're going to be going away, and you're going to be leaving for the first to the seventh. So, if your sales cycle is four weeks, let's go four weeks behind that.

Glenn Mattson
Now we're at the first week of March and or the last week of February. So, we're going to be at that time period, double dipping heavy, heavy on first appointments. That means they may have to go back a couple of weeks before that like February 19 to start double dipping on their prospecting. The reason we want to have that is so that by the time vacation hits, you're not going to miss a beat. With regards to the being out. You're closing a ton of business before you leave. When you come back, you already have a full schedule of greens. Not prospecting, not first, but greens. So, you come back from your vacation swing, and just as hard as when you left. So to do that, you have to understand your sales cycle and just work your sales cycle backwards. Make sure you add a week or two for the prospecting it takes and be seriously focused on your first appointments. Along with that, is also understanding that if that's not occurring at the level you want to then the old trick is momentum creates activity. So what that basically means is that when you come back, if you don't have the ability to get that flow going, as we talked about when you come back, the first two hours, when you're back from the office, it's fine getting yourself settled up, you know, you got to do all your emails and clean that stuff up before you go to work. But when you walked in and got everything level set, you have to have action.

Glenn Mattson
So, if you're, some of you're listening in, and you can do a review, for instance, having your first day back with two or three reviews is great, it gets your sea legs back underneath you gets right up right back in the game. So activity always breeds a different mindset. So when you're on vacation, I love the fact that you're going to go and charge your battery and take some time off. Ask yourself, am I just changing my locations, am I in a semi-vacation or a full vacation?

Glenn Mattson
When you're going on vacation, please remember, momentum, momentum is everything. Nothing's worse than doubling down, doing some nice business going and vacation coming back, and having to start from ground zero. Nothing's worth even more so than before you go on vacation, it's a little light, you come back from vacation, and it's even more light, or arid, to start all over again. So, momentum is everything. Also understand that if you want to instead of having consistency and doing a little bit all the time versus a lot some of the time, change it to red or blue months, that's very effective.
Glenn Mattson
The third tip I want to give is understanding your sales cycle so you can bring the future into the present. Bringing the future into the present is understanding what's coming down the pipe and controlling it today. So, by controlling today, you can control your future and bring the future into the present. By taking a look at the fact that you're going to be leaving on vacation, go back to the length of time it takes ie your sales cycle, move that backward and start asking yourself how do I have a rarely robust before I go and a very robust from the day I get back. To do that you have to understand your sales cycle. If your sales cycle is very different than your pay cycle, understand your pay cycle so that when you do come back in you're maybe living a little pasture means you're living large, and you're not going to have stress about your next paycheck being low. So hopefully, it's going to help you to make sure that when you go on vacation, you've got to take that time, take that time to recharge your batteries. But also make sure that your vacations and your time off never have an adverse impact on your income because it doesn't have to be, and it shouldn't. So, enjoy yourself as you move forward. To the next session of the Building Blocks of Success.

Glenn Mattson
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.