Episode 139: Build a Business That Doesn’t Break When You Take a Break

If stepping away from your business means everything stops, you don’t have a business—you have a job you built for yourself.

In this episode, we’re unpacking what it actually takes to create a business that keeps working when you’re not in the room. Because breaks aren’t luxuries—they’re necessary.

We get into:

• The difference between working in your business vs. leading it
• What needs to be in place so things don’t fall apart when you step away
• Delegation strategies for solopreneurs and small teams
• The systems, processes, and automations that make consistency possible
• How to keep sales and client communication going while you’re offline
• Building referral pipelines and partnerships that support you year-round
• Setting up your schedule and team so breaks are built into your business model
• Letting go of perfection and control in favor of sustainability

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters—and setting up the right infrastructure so your business supports your life, not the other way around.

Listen in and start designing the time-off plan your business needs.

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Read the full transcript of this episode below:

 

Hey, I’m Lynn. And I’m Amanda. Welcome to the Pursuit of Badasserie, the podcast.

It is summer. Along with summer comes vacations. And if I have to hear one more person say they cannot take a vacation because their business will fall apart without them, I’m going to lose it.

Go on my own vacation. So this is for all of those business owners who think you cannot take a vacation because your business will fall apart.

Let’s talk about building a business that does not fall apart just because you are away. Yeah. And I do want to put a little disclaimer.

Yes. In some regions of the world, it might not be summer, but this is. That’s true. Yeah. Because we’re not all on the same.

That’s true. It is winter and the summer. The earth cycle, but you get what we’re saying. So, here’s the thing.

Um, the, I. I mean, we cannot stress this enough, but building the frameworks and the SOPs and the frameworks and SOPs, frameworks and the SOPs, absolutely.

We could repeat that this whole podcast, we could just say framework SOPs, systems and processes, systems and processes, absolutely.

Like building those enables you to be able to strengthen a team, have a business and not have the world revolve around you.

And, you know, it’s funny, when we were talking about this one, I had a couple of memories from when I first bought the franchise in Ascentive, and we had a few conversations around, first of all, the whole business revolving around one person, right, or revolving around one person, but also like putting yourself first, like you have to take those vacations.

And I’ll get into a couple of stories later, but it is absolutely essential, essential, regardless if you have a team or not, that you build something that can.

that I you Great. We and potentially even grow while you’re gone, when you step away. Even without a team, there’s a way to do this, and we’ll give you some ins on that.

And before we get into that, I want to go ahead and say it’s from the perspective of a U.S.

citizen. There are some cultures, and U.S., I’m going to point the finger at you because you are terrible about it, that will create this almost badge of honor for not taking vacation.

I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, and our business is doing great. And it’s almost this martyr complex of, I don’t need a vacation.

taking it for the team. I’m going to do it for the business. I don’t need a vacation. I’m not going to take a vacation.

I mean, really, when I was in the corporate world, it was really a badge of honor to say you hadn’t taken a vacation in five years.

Like, it was like, look at me. I am much more dedicated to the company because I refuse to take a vacation.

That is not my opinion anymore. And I still… It’s not the world today. It’s not the world today, for sure.

But I still… I feel myself feeling guilty for taking a rest, but you don’t have to earn a rest.

It’s not like if I make a million dollars, then I can take a vacation. this isn’t my part of having a business isn’t that you have to sacrifice your own well-being and your sanity in order to, you know, can’t possibly take a vacation unless you’ve earned it.

I want to just sort of dispel that whole I don’t care what country you’re from. know it’s just America.

I know you. I see you because I was you. But when it comes to building a business, you really, I mean, I know we just said it, but systems and processes, you have to set yourself up and your team up so that you, it’s not interdependent upon you as the owner to be present or to be managing it, to be able to step away.

I mean, when you, if you go on vacation and the whole world falls apart, then you know, you don’t have systems and processes in place.

Even if you think that you do, it means that your team doesn’t know how to use them, that you haven’t trained them on them.

Because if this, if the world falls apart, the second you. If you off on a plane, then you know that even if you have systems in place, they are not effective and that the team, if you have one, is not aware of how things operate, that you haven’t delegated or automated properly in order for those systems to be effective.

Just having a system is not enough. It has to be implemented and tested and make sure that it’s effective.

Otherwise, it’s just a system for systems sake and nothing’s actually getting done and certainly not improving. And you’re absolutely going to come back to this big pile of crap on your desk that will make you question whether or not you can ever go on vacation again.

And that’s exactly what we want to avoid when we’re building our businesses. Absolutely. You said it. Delegation automation would be the next.

So systems and processes or SOPs and frameworks, but then learning how to delegate and automate what you can. So automation is great because it runs in the background without anybody needing to see.

So even our solopreneurs, what can you automate and we’ll get into some other apps. So we’re of leaning on certain things and people as well in a minute.

But automation is key. So it keeps keeps going as nobody is around. But the delegation part is really essential.

And we have done podcasts, we’ve wrote chapters and books around delegation. There’s many ways. But if you haven’t, and delegation is a muscle, the more you do it in the right way, the stronger that muscle becomes.

And the more empowered the people that are getting delegated to really embrace that delegation, right in that whatever task, whatever tasks that they’re doing.

So learning to delegate and making sure that it’s really clear, especially as you start to go on vacation, you know, the whole the whole phrase, when the cat’s away, the mice will play type of thing, and we’ll get a little bit more into that mentality side.

But if there’s no delegation in the clarity around what they’re supposed to be doing on the processes and systems and all of that, then that’s lot of

Some more idle time, that means that they screw off, that they’re not doing as much, or they get pigeonholed into some of the things that they’re doing versus keeping their eye on the prize and making sure that that business is moving forward.

And it really is a team empowerment. What are you empowering your team to do? What do you expect them to do?

Do you have that system set up? Have you had a conversation with them? Not like while you’re at the airport on your second drink waiting for your flight to board.

Before you’ve left, have you said, well, you know, usually that’s when you start remembering those things that forgot, the second one.

First one’s just to cut the edge. So when you’re thinking about your team, when you know you’re going away, generally speaking, when it comes to a vacation, not like a work trip, like an actual vacation, you usually know more than a week, ideally, before you’ve left.

So you have at least a week to let your team know what’s happening and to take the time to actually train rather than

I mean, they’re going to figure it out, or they should already know what they’re doing, or I’ll give them a checklist and that’ll be enough.

Those aren’t empowering the team to succeed, and it can lean to bitterness and resentment. Also, if you’re setting up this expectation that they’re going to do one thing and then they’re asking for compensation and there’s this big old muddy mess that can be created when you haven’t set up those proper expectations.

And when you haven’t empowered the team to take over and to take ownership of what that looks like, because no one wants to do the crap work with no recognition.

That’s what the owner does. The crap work with no recognition. That’s the owner. But when it comes to your team, you’ve got to empower them differently than just do it because I say so, because that never works the way you want it to.

No. I love that you brought that up, and I think that that all needs to start before you go on vacation.

I know you mentioned that earlier, but I want to reiterate that, and it’s that way they can kind of get used to being in that flow and that delegation of.

And I think one really… The key asset to kind of launch it is, okay, you know, you’re going on vacation in November, have a couple of meetings before, have a team meeting and say, okay, guys, like, you know, so-and-so is going on vacation here, so-and-so is going on, what do we need?

What do you need, Amanda, in order to be able to make sure that all of your tasks are being handled, right?

And so this is what great leadership is about. So that way you can make sure that you are, and I know that we’re talking about, we will get to the independent, our solopreneurs here in a second.

But as anybody who has, like, some people, even if they’re contractors, even if you just have VAs, like, have a little meeting and say, hey, I’m checking out, like, what needs to be done and running in the background, what do you have on your plate, or what I have on my plate and I need help, like, while I’m gone is X, Y, Z.

And I think that meetings are so underrated, good meetings with purpose and with direction are so underrated and so underused, and people sometimes just have meetings for meeting’s sake.

think, but- They are absolutely powerful in building a business that you could take a vacation from. I know that that is more setting them up for success when you’re gone, or somebody else might be leaving, but if this becomes a habit, becomes really an anchor in your business.

I do want to back up though and talk about the attitude of building a business and that whole attitude that you were talking about of martyrism.

You also have the, if you want it done right, got to do it myself, so the micromanaging or that control freak.

You also have the other side that I’m too busy to take a, um, take a vacation. And I think, you know, the attitude that you approach your building your business, regardless if, cause eventually you should take a vacation, but, and it could be a creative vacation.

Like the way I look at vacation is very different than maybe what somebody else might look at as a vacation.

Right. And everybody has their own definition. But, um, but, if I had the attitude still, uh, I’m too busy to take a vacation or I,

You know, the martyrism side of it, like, look, I’ve been working so hard, we’re hustling all the time, look at us, look at us, or any anything in between, then it’s only setting myself up for burnout, it’s setting the business up to constantly need dependency on me, that means that I’m bottlenecking, or we’re bottlenecking, and making the growth stagnant, or, you know, some kind of plateaued at some point.

So we’re really not building a business to grow and expand at all, we’re building this, like, tiny little business, and by the way, a tiny business can be multimillion dollars, depending on the type of business that it is and your connections, but that means as soon as you take yourself out, it’s a vacuum, and I think it’s really interesting that we’re talking about this, and I know I’m babbling, but there’s a lot of parallels to this, building a business you could take a vacation on, and the businesses that are built today, because they might take a vacation.

But it’s a post on Instagram and do all this, because a lot of businesses nowadays are not being built for scalability and sustainability.

And I think that that is the one thing that we need to bring in here. They’re overnight successes. They hit it big because of XYZ.

But the second, like a couple of things go wrong, or they take themselves out of it, becomes this vacuum and implodes on itself.

And so it’s gone within six months, versus the six years that you were putting into it. I think that there’s a lot of parallels to that.

Absolutely. And one other thing I want to say around your vacation is, as the owner, yes, you should absolutely take a vacation.

But I also want you to check yourself on your expectations and your mindset around your vacation. Because as Lynn mentioned, my idea of a vacation may not be the same as somebody else’s idea of vacation.

And if you set your team up with the idea that if anything goes wrong, I can be contacted at X number at any time of day, and then you get resentful when they use that number to to you to because

We were micromanaging, so they don’t know how to do anything, that’s going to set it up to everything feeling like your vacation isn’t a vacation, and it sets you up, whereas where I go on vacation, I have work days built into there, so I’ll say, oh, well, I’m going to be unavailable on this day, but if you need to contact me, here’s my scheduling tool, you can schedule this on that date or whatever, so I make it very clear the hours and the boundaries that I’ve set around when I am accessible, and when I’m not, and then if my team knows I’m traveling, like maybe they’ll be able to reach me, maybe they’ll maybe they won’t, but it’s not contingent upon me, there’s a system set up, there’s somebody else that they have to account to that isn’t me, and it’s not like the world stops turning just because I’m not there to make it, and then I don’t then get resentful that they’re calling me, or they get resentful because I’m not there to make this decision, et cetera, et cetera, so check your mindset and your expectations, because if you truly want to check out and take a full vacation, don’t give a reach me at this number, could, you know, give me, give an emergency number to somebody else, but don’t don’t

Let it be known and then get mad at people when they actually call you up, because we don’t want to open that door and not set your team up for success and then wonder why they’re calling you with all these things that they should know.

I think there’s a couple of things around there that also is like building a business that you can take a vacation from in general.

And then I want to get into the solopreneur side is the job descriptions are huge. Like everybody understanding what their roles are.

Not enough people do it and I’ve even been in corporates where the job descriptions are really muddy and what happens is, is people don’t know who’s in charge and who’s empowered and who’s supposed to do what and not the, the, gets passed around a lot where it takes responsibility and there’s just a lot of .

And so when bigger people, the leaders go on vacation, like it definitely like business isn’t as usual. Right. And so it just creates a weird kind of start stop or kind of like dips and valleys.

Right. Right. So job descriptions are huge. But it’s also like empowering and passing the baton. Going on, what you were saying is like, if we’re going away, like this is what, you know, who you would contact in case of XYZ.

And that person maybe knows how to get ahold of you, but the rest of your team only, only if they cannot make that decision, but you have to empower them and appoint them to, but you also have to communicate to the team like this is who you would go to.

But again, if you have that pre-meeting and make sure everything’s answered and asked, it’s rare that something huge comes up.

And, you know, obviously you can, if, if it’s like the biggest client you’ve ever had, and it’s a multi kajillion dollar deal, I don’t think as an owner, I would be mad at somebody contacting me on my vacation for something like that.

Like there are exceptions to the rule, but, but that those job descriptions and then passing the baton or like empowering somebody as that, that, that decision maker, that leader within boundaries.

Within a container, because unless you’re leaving for a month or a sabbatical for six months, then they’re not really running the company, they’re running the operations.

There’s a difference between running the company and running the operations, and both are extremely important, but running the operations is happening daily.

Running the company isn’t necessarily happening daily, and so that can have a little bit of a break. All right, so let’s talk about solopreneurs, because it’s not just, and some people who have employees and contractors act like solopreneurs, because they don’t ever delegate anything away, but one of the biggest things that drives me insane when it comes to solopreneurship is that you think going on vacation means all the money stops, that one of the big perks of being an employee at any company is that you get this paid vacation, but there’s no reason as an entrepreneur or solopreneur, you can’t also have paid vacations if you set yourself Number one, I mean, if you want to talk about taxes, can talk about that in another episode, but let’s talk about.

Like, what can you have running in the background that’s doing work for you while you’re away? If you’re waiting on a big contract, why not wait in Cancun rather than wait at your desk and like, oh, well, I’ll send that when I get back.

Well, if you know something is going to take weeks to come to fruition, set that up to start while you’re gone so that all the waiting period is while you’re gone anyway, rather than like, well, when I get back, I’ll get into that.

If you know it’s going to take weeks to get it done, set yourself up to all the waiting is while you’re on vacation.

And then when you get back, you actually have an answer within a few days rather than waiting two more weeks before you get an answer for something.

So this and then again, if you know you’re leaving, prepare yourself. If you know you’re leaving in a month, don’t wait to the night before to realize you have to set up systems or maybe your computer on an automated response email.

And yeah, I’ll be out of I’ll be out of the country for X amount of days and wait 48 hours and all these systems that you can set up.

But we talk a lot about automation and systems. I think things, but if you’re waiting until the last second to set them up, you’re going to be even more stressed.

It’s not going to be as effective, like even something as simple as a sales funnel. You can start something in your CRM and have it running while you’re gone with very specific dates where they’re not going to have to check in with you until you get back.

But it takes a little bit of preparation. It takes a little bit of time. takes a little bit of forethought.

And that’s not always something that people do. And they’re thinking about going on vacation to think about the outfits they need to buy, but they don’t think about outfitting their business with systems for success.

I agree. And like Amanda said, like, this is part of the business that you should have anyway to have, go from hobby or this like hodgepodge thing to more of like a business.

You want it sooner than later. Another couple of things. And actually I was thinking of my really good girlfriend.

She’s like a sister and she’s actually her and her company has been a long time client. They were my first clients.

She’s a broker though, real estate agent. bank, Thank And, you know, they’re independent. So what she does is she makes sure everything’s kind of in her funnel, like every, all the clients are notified, everybody’s prepared.

And then if there’s going to be something that is activated when she’s gone, then she finds a counterpart, like somebody who can help her while she’s gone.

So, uh, this happens to be another realtor, um, that she tries and maybe she splits, um, splits the commissions with them or whatever their agreement is.

Um, sometimes that is part of it. Sometimes it’s not, they’re just like helping each other out, especially as solo.

So like you’re independent there, right? You have, you have help, but it’s still, it’s more of an independent thing.

And so, um, but that she’ll also, and I’ve been on many vacations with her where she’ll have her laptop and she’ll have it out, like closing a deal.

Um, even though she’s on vacation and, but this was a necessity. So again, everybody’s vacation is kind of slightly different in way it is.

We’re not saying, you know, to work on your vacation, we want you to check out, but sometimes depending And kind of your support systems or the type of business that you have, you might have some things that pop up.

So that’s one thing she does. But that brings me into, like, things can be running while you’re gone. And one of the things, one of the best things you can do as a, not a solopreneur, but definitely as a solopreneur, is have your strategic partners and your referral partners working for you while you’re gone.

They’re still edifying you in the community. They’re following up with clients. Oh, I haven’t heard from them. Oh, she finally took that vacation that, you know, she’s been building up to, like, she’s going to Africa for a month and blah, blah, blah.

Well, I can put you in touch with somebody on her team or, or whatever, like a counterpart, if you’re a solopreneur, some, maybe a resource that you have in the, in the community.

But making sure that they’re working for you while you’re gone, because another thing is, is especially when you’re a solopreneur, but also as a business owner, you are the, the generator of business as well, right?

Unless you have a. So the shittiest thing to come home to is that you put your business on hold, there’s nothing still moving, you’ve kind of even stopped the edification process and all that.

So almost like you have to start over again, or kind of start from a lower level. But if you have people that are strategic alliances and or referral partners that are helping just continue to keep you up front of mind, continue to move some of those relationships along, or those prospects along in edification.

Or even some really trained referral partners, slash strategic partners, then they could even close business for you while you’re gone.

I’ve had that happen several times for me. I mean, do it all the time for people, but I’ve had that happen for me as well.

The other thing that I want to make sure I point out as well, is the aspect that you can also implement in your business, your business plan, passive income strategies, like some things that are, and they may not be completely passive, but some are, so.

it’s, Setting up any kind of more passive strategy will help you with that as well. So whatever you can look at, if you look at your entire business, where can you be making money with what you already have, even when you’re not physically present?

Those are the kinds of things you want to build, particularly if you have this next year, my dream trip, I’m going to travel Paris and France, and I’m going spend a whole month in France and blah, blah.

Fine. If that’s your goal, start setting up systems now that can run without you. So any kind of passive income stream will help you get paid while you’re not at work.

So maybe that’s, maybe it’s stock investments, maybe it’s a digital product, maybe it, you know, there’s hundreds, thousands of ways that you can make money on passive income strategies, but every business should have some kind of product or service that is not necessarily you.

Absolutely. Friend of mind you, live you, it can still be you, but maybe it’s a digital you. It doesn’t have to be like, it doesn’t have to be difficult.

Thank you. When you create a one-dimensional business, get one-dimensional results. When you diversify, you have, and we’re not saying diversify to a way where you’re spread super thin and you’re not putting focus, but, and it builds over time.

I absolutely agree. I do want to mention a couple other things that might be good. One other thing we’ve, we talk about this a lot is when you’re preparing for it, batch things.

So batch your content, batch your, well, we already said, like, go through your sales funnel and like, who’s quick.

Or who’s sooner than later. And like communicate, like that communication is key, but batching all of the things that you can batch to have it redone, um, even, and we would suggest for you to not have it done to the day you arrive home, but maybe a week or two after.

So that way everything is done. And Amanda and I, I remember like when we first started podcasting, like we knew we weren’t going to record podcasts during certain chunks of the year.

So we’re really good about pre-recording batching podcasts. We’re good pre That way we know that we’re traveling here, there, and there, or it’s Christmas vacation, and we really don’t want to have to do podcast recording, then we batch, and we’ll have sometimes up to three months ahead of schedule.

But that’s also true with social media. That’s true with many things. So what in your business can you batch, can you create before, redo it, so that way it’s already done, conceptualized, completed, but also implemented.

And that would be scheduled, done, the automation or the delegation side of it. Absolutely. It will absolutely change everything in how you’re looking, because nobody wants to come back from vacation and have a mound of laundry to do, piled up mail that’s figuring everything out, and then also have to jam at your business the second you drop down.

I mean, we’ve all landed somewhere, and all of a sudden you get your phone, you get it off airplane mode, you have 47 messages that came in.

And nobody likes that. And if you can… can… And Set yourself up for success. I know we say it a lot, but batching is a great way to do it.

And I, I love it. I will always grind a little bit so that I can have a coasty vacation.

And then the next week when I get back, because things happen. And what happens if you go on vacation and then you get stuck or like giving yourself a little bit of buffer can definitely not.

It’s like the whole concept of you need a vacation from your vacation. You come back and you’re like, oh, I’m just stressed.

And then you’re just distressed. You can avoid that. It is avoidable. It is. It is avoidable. just have to kind of put in the work.

Yeah. That crazy. Well, that’s even like voice note, like saying I’m out of country in case of emergencies, contact this person.

And guess what? For our solo partners, you can actually hire agencies to do some of the stuff. For example, probably the number one thing, which I will never forget when we did this and this wasn’t because I was on vacation, but because I couldn’t, when I had the security company, I hired a call center to answer all of the calls and actually our sales went up, but to have.

Hire a call center. Do you know you’re going to be gone weeks? You can hire a call center for two weeks to have your calls rerouted to them and they have scripts.

They know how to handle it. It helps nurture that stuff around. So think of even like a temporary hire as a contractor to kind of help you if you need, but kind of looking at that.

The last thing I think to talk about, I know we kind of brought this up a little bit, but like that emotional guilt that we might have, there’s a real importance of having like grace and with yourself and compassion with yourself during this, but also like get off your high horse.

Like you don’t have to be the end all to be all. Like if it’s not done, like the really important stuff, yes, you should handle.

But a lot of the things going on vacation gives you the ability to come back fresh and look at it through new eyes.

But a lot of times you’re doing a lot of . You don’t need to be doing anymore. And it wasn’t when I was going on vacation, but I, I, there

Aspects where I had to step away from things. And I remember like really having a hard conversation with myself because I was so stressed out about my to-do list and I had to-do lists, to-do lists, had to-do lists.

So I still have many stickies everywhere, but I’ve become better. And I remember I get so stressed because things weren’t getting done on that.

And if I had to step away from that to-do list, I remember thinking to myself, okay, like, what do I need to do?

What needs to be done? Like before I would go on vacation or before I’d take off a couple of days.

And then, um, allowing things to fall off that aren’t important. I’m holding all of this, like importance to all of these things on my list, but really they’re not that important.

I’m putting too much energy towards them. So learning, like stop giving yourself the emotional guilt and understand that what needs to be, obviously don’t set yourself up for failure, set yourself up for success.

What can you put in place prior to going? What can you continue to build so that way you’re building a sustainable and scalable business, but also one that you can step away from?

For a week to a month, and then all the other things that we spoke about, taking away that emotional guilt also I think is really important.

And you know, I have to say it because we’ve said this so many times, do a little Eisenhower Matrix on this.

What’s important? What’s not important? What’s urgent? What’s not urgent? Because not everything in the world is important. Not everything is urgent and nothing will shine brighter on that than when you’re going on vacation or you have a big event or something.

Those things, everything seems so important. Everything seems so urgent. But it’s not. It’s not. There’s actually a lot of stuff you can throw away.

hundred percent. Yeah, don’t keep that box that you’re never going to use for 10 years from now. So it’s just boxes.

Yeah, my ex used to do it all the time. He’s such a good box. I got to keep this box.

No. I mean, every once in while, maybe. But no. I would get rid of him. I used to work as a declutterer.

used to work in an organization business for a while. And that was the first thing I would get rid of.

So many boxes, just empty boxes. I just do it for the love. I love it. I know you love that.

Well, I love it. That’s why I had to make the business. I do love I can’t have any just hobbies for hobbies.

mean, guess what? As an analogy though, cardboard boxes attract cockroaches, bugs, things, and moisture. So it actually creates the nastiness.

And that’s true with like having the cardboard box that you’re just keeping around for ‘s sake in your business.

It also is attracting the bugs, the termites, the mold that you don’t need. It’s creating stagnation in your, in your business period.

It is. Let it go. It’s gross. The immortal words Elsa. Let it go. Go on vacation. And if you need a travel buddy, we’re good travel buddies.

Anyway, we hope that you got some knowledge off of this particular podcast about go on the damn vacation, just do it.

Build a business that you can walk away from for a couple of weeks. Thanks. And enjoy. Winter, spring, summer, or fall.

We don’t care when you are listening to this podcast, take the vacation. No, I’m singing that song in my mind.

You’re welcome. Yeah. It’s been songs all day. Anyway, if you know somebody who’s holding off and feels like they can’t take a vacation, send this podcast to them and let them know why they need to be listening to it.

If you liked it, go ahead and hit subscribe as well. Let us know what you took away from this podcast.

And until next time. Get after it. Send us a passport. Send us pics. But not those. No, yeah, yeah.

No, no. Thanks. Passport pics. Yeah. Vacation pics. We want to see your vacation pics. All right. Till next time.

Get after it.