6 things you can do in summer if you are an entrepreneur

When, in summer, an entrepreneur decides to start a project, or is immersed in it, there are times when it is not easy to see and consider that season as a “vacation”. Of course, it is necessary to break the routine and take some time off, but it can also be an opportunity to review some activities. These are 6 things you can do in summer if you are an entrepreneur to not disconnect from your project and ensure a successful season.

1. Review your brand image

Summer for an entrepreneur usually offers a period of inactivity, or of reduced activity, typical of the vacation season. And it's the perfect time to reflect on your brand, the expression of your business. But what can you check? Well, the first thing you should check is if your brand is out of date, if you have experienced changes and right now your image doesn't reflect 100% of what you are, if you should update your social media profiles, etc. It's also time to check if your sales have experienced a significant drop and you've tried everything to reposition yourself. Make sure to align with your audience and reflect your true brand spirit.As a complementary strategy, spend some time to analyze your competitors. See what's working for them and what's not working for them, and take advantage of your competitive advantage to differentiate yourself from them.

2. Design a plan to attract new customers

In the previous point we talked about strengthening the connection with customers, it is important not to leave them in oblivion and to maintain the relationship with them throughout the year. This will help you build loyalty for the future, either with new aspects of the business or with future sales campaigns. But, in addition to taking care of that established relationship, it is important to take advantage of and design a plan that will help you attract more customers once the summer is over. You can take that time to organize everything, and execute it when you return from vacation, when it will be most effective. At this point you can dust off your list of old contacts, optimize your SEO strategy, work on content marketing or create campaigns aimed at attracting new customers. Although, I'm sure you can think of many more ideas that you can carry out! In the end, no one knows your target audience better than you.

3. Update your knowledge and skills

Now that you may have less work than is necessary, the kind you can't put off, take advantage and catch up on all the innovative practices that have emerged during the year and how they are contributing to the growth of your sector.An entrepreneur is always up to date with new trends, but he doesn't always find the time necessary to implement them in the business. That's why summer is a good time to update all that information. If you think about it, cars require periodic maintenance; and, if you are one of those who use it as a means of transport to go on vacation, you will surely check that the wheels, oil, and everything else are as they should be. Well, the same thing happens with knowledge and learning. Why not take the opportunity to research and read and thus be able to implement new knowledge on the go?

4. Analyze failures and turn them into learning

Soon we will enter the third and last quarter of the year, which means that a large part of 2024 will have passed. A good practice to do in summer is reflect on the least “successful” experiences.Surely there is something that you have left without doing out of fear of failure, or something that you have tried and it didn't work out as well as you expected. If so, the best thing to do is ask yourself What learning have you obtained of those experiences. A positive side can be drawn from everything! As an entrepreneur, failure is inevitable, however, the important thing is to know how to face it and overcome every obstacle that appears along the way.| “People are not remembered for the number of times they fail, but for the number of times they succeed” - Thomas Edison. | “Entrepreneurship is about doing, learning and doing better” - Richard Branson.

5. Renew your business objectives

Surely, at the start of the project, or at the beginning of the year, you have set yourself some goals. Well, perhaps the time has come to go a step further: review those goals and see how they can be transformed into new aspirations. For more opportunities to achieve your goals, be sure to use the SMART method (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound). In other words, the objectives must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and subject to a specific period of time. With this method you will also be delimiting your action plan. | Definition of objectives in startups and methods for their delimitation

6. Take time to reflect

This point may seem to be the most obvious, or unimportant, but on many occasions we don't pay attention to it. For a business to work, we have to Ask us, listen to ourselves, and this exercise requires a minimum of time and effort. A moment of pause and reflection will be essential to establish the new direction of the business. Of course, these are just a few examples of tasks you can carry out, although the list could be endless. The most important thing is to analyze each individual case. To do this, you can make a list of tasks and classify them according to their importance using the Eisenhower matrix:

• Urgent and important: should be your priority.
• Important, but not urgent: you can plan them more in the long term.
• Urgent, but not important: If possible, delegate them.
• Neither urgent nor important: evaluate if you really need them and, if not, delete them.

Even so, we must not forget that the summer period is a time when we have to set aside time for everything. There needs to be that period of rest and total disconnection to recover all the energy needed to continue giving the best in your project.