Being a copywriter is a lot like being a travel agent.
We’re both selling our expertise.
More than that, though, we’re both selling our TIME.
Once we max out on time, we max out on how many clients we can take on, and … we max out on how much money we can bring in.
(It’s just too bad they haven’t invented a cloning machine for busy business owners yet, huh?).
That’s why one of my BIG goals for this year is to get a whole lot better at time management.
Because running a business takes so much more than just serving our clients.
We should be spending about 40-50% of our time on client work, tops.
With the rest of our time, we’re checking off to-do lists longer than a CVS receipt that include stuff like: sending out and chasing down invoices, conducting consult calls with potential clients, banging out blog posts, scheduling our social media, writing enticing opt-in offers, ordering brochures for an upcoming trade show, formatting our e-newsletters, reaching out to past clients for testimonials and referrals, applying to conferences, completing certifications, trying to wrap our heads around our budget and expenses to see if we can afford to hire a VA … etc etc etc.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention doing our taxes. That’s always a multi-day endeavor for me.
PHEW!
So, in order to tackle the never-ending to-do list while still finding time for client work, I’m going to try something new: theme days.
What My Theme Days Look Like
It goes like this—each day of the work week will be themed according to certain business tasks I need to accomplish.
Monday: Content Day. I’ll be focused on writing and creating my blogs, e-newsletters, social media posts, and opt-in offers.
Tuesday: Client Day. No, this is not the day I work on client projects. Instead, I’ll be doing everything else related to keeping up with my clients—like scheduling consultation and strategy calls, reaching out to onboard and offboard clients, conducting research for client projects, etc.
Wednesday: Client Project Day. THIS is the day I tune out everything else and dive deep into my clients’ copy projects. Write, write, write, all day long.
Thursday: Marketing & Biz Development. This day is all about strategy. It’s when I’ll plan out my webinars, pitch publications on guest posts, outline the funnels for my opt-in offers, and concentrate on creating a marketing plan for my own products (like my Travel Agent Website Roadmap course).
Friday: Finances & Efficiency. I’ll tackle invoicing and budget stuff on this day. I’ll also use Friday to strategize ways to make my business run more smoothly—like researching a CRM system and online bookkeeping software.
How To Use Theme Days in Your Travel Business—and Why They Work
At this point you’re probably thinking: “Emily, are you really only going to work on client stuff one day a week?”
And yeah, you caught me: probably not. I’m sure client projects will bleed into other days.
But I like the idea of batching my work like this, and I think it can work for travel agents too.
For example: maybe you have a business development day for yourself, and you use it to concentrate on researching which FAMs to invest in, reaching out to potential JV partners, and setting up your follow up email campaign for a bridal show you’re attending.
By the way, I didn’t just come up with the idea of theme days myself. Lots of incredibly successful entrepreneurs use them—like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, and John Lee Dumas, host of the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast.
Why do theme days work? Because they cut down on context switching.
If you’ve ever felt completely exhausted after a day of researching your client’s itinerary, taking calls with potential clients, writing a blog post, and completing a couple of modules in a certification course, it’s because you were doing way too much context switching. Your brain just couldn’t keep up.
Theme days allow you to focus and dive deep into one topic (or a set of related topics). You’re less likely to get whiplash from constantly switching gears in your business.
So, for the sake of giving my poor old brain a break—and to set my business up to grow—I’m going to give theme days a try.
Are you in, too?
Let me know in the comments below, and we can keep each other accountable!
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