A business retreat. Yah, I know, you barely have time to get everything in your days accomplished now. The idea of a retreat makes you scoff and throw up your hands in despair, and cues much gnashing of teeth for all the time you do not have. (It gets crazy up in there, with the wailing and the FMLing.) I know.
But. For the length of this article, let’s pretend that a business retreat is possible for you and your helpers, if you have any. Let’s imagine you have the time and the funds and the day or two or four necessary to enter into deep planning and strategizing on behalf of your business for the coming year, okay? Okay.
First, decide a business retreat is a valuable tool for your psyche and your income.
It’s easy to spend so much time working in our businesses that we forget where we’re going. We’re like overworked sailors, tying the rigging and keeping the decks swabbed, but we’re also the captains – so when we’re busy beyond belief, no one is steering the ship.
A business retreat allows you to steer your ship. To pull away from the everyday tasks that must get done and chart a map for where, exactly, your business is going.
Some questions you might find helpful to ponder and to answer during your business retreat:
What did you accomplish during the previous year?
Add five more things than you find strictly necessary. Give yourself a moment to acknowledge your hard work.
What did you learn during the previous year? Big lessons, small lessons?
How can you improve communication with one another (if you have a team)?
With your clients? (Forms, policies, phone calls, etc…)
With your potential clients? (Website copy, FAQ’s, etc…)
How do you want your business to make you feel?
What do you want your business to accomplish in the upcoming year?
Financially?
Personally?
Which parts of your business consistently make you feel stressed, tired, or overworked?
Can those parts be outsourced?
No, really. Can they be outsourced?
Do you need additional help in the form of a team member?
If so, write a job description for him/her.
How many hours per week do you want to work?
How do you want your business to change, if at all?
What changes will you have to make to achieve your goals?
When will you take time off during the coming year?
Second, build in fun.
While it seems counter-intuitive, fun has got to happen, or you won’t enjoy your planning retreat. I realize that a business planning retreat sounds like you’ll be stuck in a hotel room eating crusty bagels and slurping coffee for endless, tedious hours, but that’s simply not the case!
Haunani and I recently took a road trip/biz planning retreat to Pittsburgh so I could show her around my favorite city. I took her to the zoo, on a boat tour of the rivers, to the Children’s Museum, shopping, drinking, and generally sightseeing – and we still accomplished every one of our goals for the trip!
While our husbands were a bit dubious about the amount of work that was accomplished, we emerged from our creative cocoon with a clear plan for the coming year. We decided upon what’s sticking around, what’s getting the ax, and what’s breaking new ground in 2013. (Turns out there’s a lot that was waiting to be revealed when we made the space for it to emerge!)
If you’re undergoing this journey by yourself, what would make this retreat fun for you? A massage, a facial, a visit with old friends in the evening, catching a play, shopping, eating whatever you damn well please, or taking a cooking class…your choices are your own!
If you’re bringing your business partner, virtual assistant, or employees along, ask for their input. What would be fun for them? Take notes and see how much juice you can squeeze from life during these few days.
Then, choose a location. Renting a cabin in the woods, a glamorous hotel, a seaside cottage, a bustling studio in New York City – the possibilities are endless! Airbnb.com is a fantastic resource for getting your wheels turning and thinking outside the box – you can stay with strangers or have the entire place to yourself. Whichever option feels most comfortable and fun is the right one for you.
Think of this retreat as a delectable treat that rewards you with business clarity and strategy. Make it as sumptuous, fun, loving, and fantastic as possible.
The final step to planning a business retreat is to make time for it.
Yes, to make time.
If you default to trying to squeeze your retreat into your calendar, just like you squeeze in your day-to-day business, it will simply never happen. If, however, you find a spot three to six months’ away on your calendar that isn’t yet full of activities, you’ll actively MAKE time for your retreat to happen. You’ll consistently and lovingly deflect commitments from filling up those few days, and your retreat will proceed as planned.
The length of the trip is entirely up to you: a single overnight retreat if you just need a bit of clarity to whip up goals for income and to brainstorm marketing ideas. (Refer to this article to get people buying and booking whenever you want.) A longer retreat is fantastic if you’re feeling stuck, dissatisfied, or as if major changes need to happen. (Read this article if you want to make any dream come to life.) There’s no right or wrong retreat length, so long as you’re dedicated to answering tough questions during the time allotted.
Oh, and your biz retreat needn’t be exotic, though feel free to make it so if your budget allows! A simple drive to the local Holiday Inn for peace and quiet, a dip in the pool, and room service is more than enough stimulus to get you kicked out of your routine and into your planning journey.
A little note about your terrible, horrible, no-good thoughts: right about now, your brain will start to tell you that can’t be trusted to do this business planning thing on your own. You can. Sure, you might need help and you might not be perfect, but if you head into the great unknown with the questions I’ve provided and a fun agenda, you’ll be just fine. Everything will unfold as it should, and you’ll be one step closer to having the business of your wildest dreams.
Giveaway alert!
Ooooh oooh ooh! Bonus retreat goodness! If you’d like to win a virtual pass to the Beloved Collective Festival so you can tune into my speech, Marketing Without Shame, you’re in luck! Tell me what, exactly, you will address during your business retreat in the comments — and the best response wins the registration. You’ll also win access to the other speakers’ speeches, so you can get inspired for retreat planning from the comfort of home.
To enter to win a free virtual pass to the Beloved Collective Festival, tell me what you’re going to work on during your business retreat — and why you’re going to work on it — in the comments below. Deadline for giveaway entries is Thursday, September 6th, at 6am EST!
great post, Kristen! Just this year myself and a fellow photography business owner friend have been going on retreats to a local Bed and Breakfast Main Street Manor Bed & Breakfast Inn It's the perfect little home away from home for us. We usually focus on the "important but not urgent" category of things like forms (contracts/wedding workflow checklists/price lists) and updating/reviewing pricing. There's always areas in our businesses that need a little more attention and our retreats every few months have really helped us regroup.
Wow. I totally needed to read this today. Considering tomorrow is the first day that both kids will be back in school and I will finally FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THREE MONTHS have three hours to myself every day I have a list of things a mile long that I want to focus on. I’m practically giddy with my plan to sit in Starbucks all morning tomorrow and work on my lists and get by biz back in order. I’ve honestly been doing the bare minimum to scrape through the summer and am totally overwhelmed by all I’ve let slide. Where do I begin with what I would do on a whole weekend of retreat?
1. draft stock emails so that I’m not wasting hours every time I get a new client
2. schedule and write blog posts in advance so I’m not overwhelmed with panic when I have nothing new to write about.
3. update my website to showcase newest and best photos, not ones from two years ago.
4. Revamp business planning/schedule/blogging so that it’s OK to take the summer off. I’ve come to the realization that I want that time with my kids and don’t want to be sitting in the office everyday.
In a dream world this would all take place in a sunny place where I could sit on the beach with my notebook all day brainstorming, go to dinner by myself at night and sit on the balcony working on my laptop to put it all into action in the evening with no guilt. But in the short term, Starbucks and those Pumpkin Spice Lattes are going to have to do…
YES. Just, YES. Will plan one in the next two months.
(This post is like the business version of that Parks and Rec episode, Treat Yo Self:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsABTmT1_M0)
Thank you for always inspiring us to practice self-care along with smart business.
LOL! Love it!
I am by nature a very shy person. I do my best to fake it when I can! My goal for my retreat is learning the art of networking and selling. I think both are difficult for a shy person and both are very difficult for me! I would love to see that part of my business explode in action!
I have an upcoming long weekend at the beach – a get together of lontime friends and their daughters that will totally work for some retreat time for work. I’m constantly tossing thiry seven ideas around in my head at once and shifting from one thing to the next so getting things down on paper and ORGANIZED would be a main priority because, here’s the deal, I have a chronic pain condition – I’ve finally acknowledged I’m not getting better and that I have to build this business around what I can do right now and not what I’d like to do if I feel better next week.
I’ll be making a daily task workflow, networking schedule, planning for an upcoming chairty event, and the marketing plan for the next year so that I’m being proactive and not reactive to my business. I would love the virtual pass as a way to help me refine these ideas! Thanks for your awsome blog and advice!
E
I’m actually going on a business retreat this month! My husband has a conference and I’m going along – five days with no kids or routines or responsibilities. Taking a giant note pad and a whole lot of reading. I CANNOT wait to come home inspired and with a step-by-step to-do list. The main thing I’m going to work on is a marketing plan/calendar.
I swear I could use a whole week for a retreat!! I have so much I want to accomplish and set in motion – just lacking to constant uninterrupted blocks of time I think I need to do it!
On my retreat, oh my, I would first take someone along (or maybe two people!) who was genuinely interested in helping me with my business, and someone that really could. Someone who would keep me in focus and knows that the time is about my business (i.e., no gossiping or working on her business etc). I know that sounds selfish, but often times when I get together to “brain storm” with other people, it turns out that I help them with all their problems and issues and mine remain unresolved.
Specifically I nail out a business plan that included 1, 2 and 5 year aspects. (goals included).
I would figure out how to bring to market online mentoring, sales and tutorials for photographers (and how to really stand out and not be the same as every other blog/site out there).
I would spend a day pre writing blog posts (I have a two page list thus far of blog post topics but no actual blog posts).
I would figure out a plan of action for gaining more commercial photography contracts – specifically within the mining industry and also with a major children’s company of some sort.
I would get a detailed budget and cash flow in place for the next year and what my realistic expectations are.
I would put into place mentoring – in person and online, for photographers and figure out how to market it.
There’s nothing I’d like more than a business partner and I would figure out how to find and introduce a business partner into my existing business. This isn’t necessarily for the photography part, but for the online stuff – someone to do the social media and website upkeep, design templates, ads, do the odd blog post, put orders together, etc.
These massively productive spouts of activity would be offset by outdoor walks, great food, spa trips and fun adventures.
Whew! And I would be set on the road to success, refreshed and revitalized!!
Congrats, Kelly — there’s a virtual pass coming your way!!
Great post! I need to go to a business retreat, I’ve hit that stage where I have a portfolio, and now I need to figure out how to reach my target audience. I think I also need to clarify my vision, and what makes me different from everyone else – this is something that my clients seem to really take away once we’ve met and again when they’ve seen their photos, but as an introvert it’s tough for me to convey that to potential clients, and I think I’ve lost a few because of that.
A retreat! I have so many ideas for my business that I feel like my clients will love but each time I sit down to tackle one, I get a tad overwhelmed! I’m just emerging from my cocoon of maternity leave; exercising, eating well, and am ready to craft this business to help my clients, the local community, and allow it to help our family as much as it can. We have so many amazing businesses around!
Crafting a business deliberately will allow me to be home and be the best mom I can–so I can pair photography with library visits, snuggly afternoons, and walks in the park. It’s hard to admit but I had life planned until the baby was born…ready to plan my next phase.
It cut off my list when I pasted!
1. Local business blogging project
2. Beefing my in person sales skills
3. Creating a client welcome packet
4. Practicing new photo techniques
This is SUCH a great idea. A friend and I were just discussing the need for a BUSINESS retreat last week! Now I think we’ll actually DO it. Thanks for the extra-inspiration.
As far as WHAT I might be focusing on during this business retreat… where do I start? I think THAT is one of my biggest issues… I feel pulled in SO many different directions, that above all else, I need to prioritize. I need to list all the books, workshops, blog posts, ideas, etc. that I want to do and still haven’t done, and create some kind of timeline/plan for next year. Because I find that I lose myself in the day-to-day. I scramble around to keep up with my current projects and clients, and don’t leave time to do what I need to do to make my business grow.
So all those ideas I have for making a better website and blog, and creating a workshop for others… yup… they’re on the backburner, baby. I want to create a space to set them FREE. To IMPLEMENT them. Not just PLAN to do them.
And my BIGGEST, hugest, most COLOSSAL thing I’ll be focusing on? Coming up with a solid plan to leave my day-job in the dust and focus on photography full time. : )
I think I'll be planning a little trip for myself soon. hmmmm…
I absolutely needed the push for this. I’m having a baby in four weeks and have totally been slacking on business stuff while picking out baby bedding – gray and white polka dots or gray and white elephants?! These decisions take time! Seriously though, it’s not practical for me to travel now, but there’s a sweet hotel downtown I’ve been dying to try, so I’ll be booking my night away in the next week or two. Things I will ponder in my quiet room: How much time do I have to give to my business? How much time do I want to give to my business? What is the schedule of my dream day? What do my clients want that I’m not giving them? Where do I go when my studio lease is up? Do I want to venture into indoor studio photography? How can I earn a real, I’m going out of town for a few days, business retreat next year?
Awesome post! I need to work on revamping my website, it's doesn't sell well enough.
My goal is to generate a plan to identify where my ideal clients are and get in front of them. We need to identify the right businesses to partner with and plan an approach for each of these businesses. Partnership marketing to create the right client base is my critical goal for moving forward.