Holiday contacts

Firstly, let me aplologise for the stress and loneliness my regular readers will undoubtedly have felt during my absence on a weeks holiday.

On a more serious note, most of are now equipped with Blackberries, I-phones, Netbooks etc, which means that there is no excuse for us to be out of contact; which really begs the bigger question 'should we deliberately put ourselves out of contact?'

An old friend of mine was head of IT for the UK subsidiary of a large US corporation and as such, was an early adopter of these technologies. On a typical night out the US parents would start turning up to work at 10.00 our time and his Blackberry would start buzzing with emails. He felt obliged to read and act, even though in reality he was unable to do anything from his position on a barstool. Despite all of his friends explaining that reading emails in the pub was a bad thing, he continued to do so, and worry about the day ahead which made him, frankly, bad company. (and needlessly stressed).

As a small business owner, it is natural to be concerned that you could be missing opportunities or - worse - that things are falling apart in our absence. In reality the second eventuality is highly unlikely and the first can, at least to an extent be managed and mitigated.

Some routine pointers:

• Take your holidays at a time of minimum impact to your business. (If you own a seaside cafe, best not to go away in August!).
•  Pre-empt and handle as much as possible in advance.
• Advise regular customers and contacts that you will be away. Offer them an alternative where possible, but ask them only to call you personally in an emergency.
• Put auto-responders on email, voicemail etc notifying your away dates and if possible, providing alternative contacts.

Business owners should be aware that - unless you are in an emergency business -  very little actually happens in a week or even a fortnight (many of us recall going on holiday leaving a long 'what if' list to find that same list untouched on our return). Also, your customers and suppliers will - almost without fail - recognise your right to holiday in peace.

I have mentioned in a previous blog the value of being friends with the competition. I can name numerous instances where I have been diverted to a supplier's competitor whilst my supplier was on holiday. It takes trust, but then so does much of our business & personal life.

From a personal viewpoint I take a very simplistic view - I turn on the Blackberry once a day just to make sure there is nothing business-threatening and send a personal notification to emails and voicemails promising prompt attention on my return (or giving the number of my stand-in).

Invariably on my return people will apologise for having interrupted my holiday and the business relationship will benefit as a result.