Business At The Beach

January 14, 2012

I’ve heard people actually state with pride that when they are on vacation they do not respond to email or phone messages. The focus only on their vacation, and put off any business until they return.

To quote my wife and the economic buyer in our home: “What are they, nuts?”

We’re leaving Puerto Rico, where every day we’d sit on the beach at the St. Regis Bahia Resort. This was a “veg” vacation, where we simply wanted to get away from winter in New England and not think about social obligations or anything other than sunning and eating. However, I had my cell phone and iPad on the beach, and made just over $40,000 during the trip.

In addition, I kept a lot of current clients happy by responding to questions and providing some feedback. All of this took less than 30 minutes a day, spread out over seven hours on the beach. Even at my rate of spending, we paid for the vacation!

I have no problem watching the breakers and responding to a call. (One client said once, “What’s that noise?” I replied, “I’m on the beach in Aruba and those are the waves.” He said, “You’re such a kidder. Where are you really?”) Almost no one has my cell phone number, so I have the prerogative of listening to messages returning calls quickly or not. The same with emails—I can be very selective if I choose to be.

But by striking fast, you get business that much faster (sometimes versus “not at all”). I process credit cards on my lap top or iPad (and could on my iPhone). I keep people happy. I strike while the iron and the sun are hot.

And when I return home, guess what, there are fewer messages to return, no pile of unreturned calls to wade through. If I can go to my pool during my “working day” at home, why can’t I take business calls or email on my vacation? If I disappeared into my room for half a day on vacation, I’d be a fool, and probably divorced. But talking on the beach, trying to keep my food away from a gull, sipping a Bahia Breeze—come on, that’s not work, that’s living!

Or as the buyer says to me around 4 as we collect our things to head back from the beach, “How’d we do today?”