How we run a small business and take holidays
The number one reason most start a business is to gain more flexibility.
Flexibility to work when you want and for whom you want.
The greater options the more choice.
The more choice the better the lifestyle.
The better the lifestyle the less burnout.
The juggle of managing a small business is real, and while we don’t have all the answers we think we’ve cracked how to run a small business and take holidays.
We reconciled early in our career it would not be possible to remove two principles* from business with 5-10 employees for a length of time and remain viable. And ‘length of time’ is valuable for Australians with the high cost of flights for travel overseas.
*I understand it may be possible for others, but I knew my mental health would suffer trying to disengage myself completely from my business, especially when we had mortgages over the office and our home, all tied back to business profits.
Our solution is to work/holiday.
We travel to only one, maybe two places, hire an apartment and ‘live’ like a local, while working. It’s more possible than ever, technology and acceptance of remote working is just making it easier every year.
Choosing accommodation
If you’re serious about outputting a decent amount of work, balancing a computer on your knee is really not viable. Much better to have a designated workspace.
We chose apartments with a table able to accommodate two laptops. We’ve worked perched on bar stools at a breakfast bench and we’ve sat crossed legged on the floor at a coffee table. Both can work but neither are as good as a dining table with two good chairs. We take an extension lead and a powerboard so we only need one adaptor.
The aim is a set up that makes it easy to jump in for short amounts of time without having to reset.
Working economically
Long stay apartments are much less expensive than short stays and many have a 30+ day discount — for example, we’ve just returned from Bologna where we booked an apartment for 4 weeks for the price of 3.
Choosing apartments with fully equipped kitchens also reduces costs, plus we enjoy exploring markets and shopping for local, in season ingredients to cook at home if we choose.
Working internationally
It is a holiday, so we plan work around play and work at times to suit us — for example rainy mornings or foot-sore afternoons. If we need to meet or have an online conversation, finding an overlapping time to suit both Australia and where we are is generally not that difficult.
Two examples:
In Paris we’d be online around 7am (4pm AEDST time) for a couple of hours to give/get feedback before heading out for the day. We’d return to the computer (if needed) around 10:30pm for an hour or so when Melbourne was starting their day (8:30am) — not difficult at all in a culture where 8:30pm is still early for dinner.
New York is a little harder – we’d be at our computers from 5 pm (8am Melb time) until 7pm when we’d head out to dinner. If more communication was needed, we’d plan to eat in so we could work later.
(When we travel we often contact local designers to chat and compare worlds. After a great afternoon meeting with Lynda Decker (Decker Design) she generously offered us keys to her downtown New York studio to use overnight when they didn’t need it. How kind what that?)
Attitude
I understand work/holidays won’t work for everyone, especially people with rigid itineraries, or those who need to turn off their work brain completely to rest. It works brilliantly for those of us whose brain constantly flits between life and work and who don’t mind overlap.
In the work/holidays we’ve taken – New York (twice), London (twice) Paris, Rome. Florence, Lisbon, San Francisco, Hong Kong and now Bologna – things have only gone pear-shaped once and it was then the value of the longer stay was evident.
We spent a month in San Francisco soon after we’d changed our business to a theatre model. A new supplier let me down dramatically and I/we had to takeover a web project. We worked our arses off — infact that month on Nob Hill we billed more than we did for any other month that year.
We started work early then went for an extended lunch break exploring somewhere we wanted to visit. We returned to the computer late each afternoon for another few hours and before heading out for dinner. We didn’t work every day of the four weeks and we had each weekend free but it was a good insight of what could happen. I have fond memories of our San Francisco holiday and don’t feel like it was compromised at all.
So what?
Like many small business operators, we planned and then cancelled holidays because of commitments and/or deadlines. It was from necessity we invented our work/holiday. Once we found we could maintain a relationship with our studio and clients as we holidayed and we never looked back. It may not work for everyone but it works well for us.
Carol Mackay
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About Carol Mackay
After 30+ years running a design studio, I accumulated a pretty special network of fellow designers. One thing most have in common: a need for more information about the ‘business’ side of design. Most are impatient with any task competing for time spent doing what they love – designing so they wanted more info about how to work more efficiently and effectively.
Not me. I love that intersection between design and business. I built a career working with Ombudsman schemes, the Emergency Services sector and the Courts. My special power has always been an ability to use design to translate the difficult to understand or the unpalatable message.
I now use exactly the same skills with creative business owners. I translate the indigestible into bite-sized chunks of information. I share insights, introduce tools and embed processes to help others build confidence business decision-making skills. More confidence makes it easier to grasp opportunities. More confidence makes it easier to recognise a good client from the bad.
Outside DBC I have mentored with Womentor, AGDA The Aunties, and most recently Regional Arts NSW.
And I’m a proud volunteer and board member of Never Not Creative.
Always happy to chat, I can be contacted here.
