Career
RiRi Okoye: How to Avoid Burnout As a Business Owner
We’re getting closer to the end of the year and if you are a business owner like me, you may experience burnout if you don’t take a break. Breaks are important to get you re-energised and ready for the next phase you want to get to in your business. Businesses, during the festive period, can become very stressful especially if you do not have laid down plans on how to manage expectations and demands. That is why it is important to the these steps to ensure you do not burn out:
Plan Your Marketing Activities
With just over three months to the end of the year, you must plan your marketing activities so that you are not all over the place. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What are the essential activities you need to do in your business to improve your business performance?
- What activities should you stop doing because they are a waste of time and are not generating any revenue?
- What new opportunities should you explore?
Here are some activities you should be doing:
- Review your marketing plan
- Review your marketing objectives
- Review your communication plan
- Review your sales goals
- Take action on the things that are not aligned with your business objectives.
Stay Focused
It’s easy to lose focus because there’s information overload. For the last few months of the year, rather than trying to achieve too much and not achieving anything at the end, stay focused on essential business activities. Once you have achieved your goal, you can then move on to the next.
Here is a list of essential business activities that you should focus on:
- Identifying new clients
- Cross selling and upselling to existing clients
- Deliver sales presentations or pitches
- Create sales funnels
- Create irresistible offers & promotions
You need to market and sell. Finally, track the performance of your marketing and make changes and improvements where necessary. There’s just a few months left to the end of the year but I know if you focus you will achieve your goals.
Have a To-Do List
One of the reasons for burnout is poor time management. TD Jakes says we spend 20% of our time on the things we are supposed to do and 80% of our time doing non-essential things. It takes time to be creative. Here are some time management techniques that might be useful for you:
ABCDE Method
List your activities and then rate them under the following:
- A – Must do
- B – Should do
- C – Nice to do
- D – Delegate
- E – Eliminate
Also rate them under the following:
- Urgent and important
- Not urgent but important
- Not urgent and not important
To manage your time better…
- Start with a to-do list
- Use a time management method
- Work singularly on each task till complete
- Chunk down into smaller tasks
- Always ask, “is this the best use of my time?’’
- Remember your reason for doing what you are doing.
Limit Social Media Time
Are you spending too much time on social media? Are you spending too much time surfing through images or videos instead of focusing on your business goals? Have you noticed how tired you can get after spending time on social media?
- Set limits on your social media time because it can be a major distraction.
- Find tools to help manage your SOCIAL MEDIA content
- Keep your phone away from your site for a few hours and see if that helps.
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