Last time I blabbed all about how to manage your marketing while on vacation. I also hinted (teased even?) at the vital importance vacations play in the success of not only your marketing, but your business a whole.
So here’s the real meat of the vacation discussion I tantalized you with in our last outing. It’s all about keeping those all-important creative juices flowing…

Creativity Counts… In Business

More the a few business owners see themselves as the OPPOSITE of creative…
“I’m not the creative-type.”
“I just don’t have the vision.”
These are two of the most common self-defeating proclamations, among many variations on the same theme, all of which I’ve heard more times than I can count.
This, however, is a GIANT load of Hooey! Let’s get this straight, once and for all: It takes TONS and TONS of creativity to launch and maintain a successful business.
And don’t forget the TITANIC creativity required to solve the endless parade of problems every business encounters.
As any business owner can attest to, more than half of your business is problem-solving. In fact, you’re as much a professional problem-solver as you are professional service provider.

The Creativity That Drives a Successful Business, Drives Successful Marketing, Too

Many business owners also see marketing as some “creative alchemy” far beyond their reach. And true, effective marketing require creativity.
But no more creativity than, oh say, launching and maintaining your own business. Maybe slightly different muscles are involved, but the exercise calls for a similar flex.
Here’s the Parallel Between Business Management AND Marketing…
When you BURNOUT, the creative juices necessary to effectively manage your business EVAPORATE. Those also happen to be the same creative juices nourishing effective marketing. So burnout destroys your biz on ALL FRONTS.

And that my friends and confidants is why vacays are a MUST.
So how do you get back on track and replenish your vital creative juices?
It works something like this…

Relax

When you’re on 24/7 without a break for any length of time (we’re talkin’ longer than your average two day weekend), burnout is INEVITABLE.
That’s because the essential sponge (which is a metaphor I’m gonna run with throughout this post, so buckle up!) that is your energetic life-force eventually gets TOTALLY WRUNG OUT.
And when that essential sponge is a dry, you’re no longer effectual. You can’t draw in new ideas, the ideas that help or plot new plans and unlock puzzling problems.
That’s why you need time away from the job and your “everyday world.” A chance to take breath, and relax your body and mind. It’s this physical and mental downshift allows your essential sponge (there it is again) to regain its natural shape.
When ole spongy is fully decompressed, you returned to a “zero baseline,” so to speak. And then you’re ready to…

Recharge

With a relaxed body and mind, and your all-important essential sponge back to its natural, idea intake ready form, you’ll notice a shift… Perhaps subtle, and perhaps not.
Suddenly you’ll find yourself… Mentally cataloging new ideas. Formulating extraordinary new plans. And unlocking solutions to troubling problems that have plagued you like a horrifically mixed up Rubix Cube.
Returning to a zero baseline opens the gates to reinvigorating and recharging your creativity. Your essential sponge (aren’t you loving spongy?) can now soak up those ideas and solutions critical to effectively managing your business and your marketing.

Return, Refreshed

Relaxed, researched and renewed – Now you can return to your business and banish the burnout formerly weighing you down.
More than crushing pesky burnout, you be fully engaged…

• Tackle frustrating and complex problems with newfound clam and poise.
• Finding ingenious solutions, like an organizational admin MacGyver.
• And rocketing your business to magnificent new heights, like a titan of industry.

Well, maybe not all that dramatic. But you’ll notice a definite change. Ideas and solutions will come naturally, rather than through frustrating and painful brain damage.

Vacation Tales

How have vacations impacted your business? Have you experienced the dreaded BURNOUT? Have you RECHARED with a relaxing vacay? Stop by my Google+ page and tell your tales!