Category: Holiday cover

It’s nearly time to get your business ready for Christmas. From essential health and safety to sharing the festive spirit, there’s always a lot to do. So here’s a little pre-Christmas present from Get Ahead – our Christmas checklist for business owners. 

Health and safety

If you have a business premises like a shop, factory or office, it’s important that it remains safe and secure when you’re closed. Remember to turn off the regular lights and turn on the security lights. Set the heating so it kicks in if temperatures drop – you don’t want to come back to frozen or leaking pipes. 

Depending on your business and what you offer, you or a team member might be “on call” over the Christmas break. Make sure the right people know who this is. If necessary, include the on-call person’s phone number on your emergency plan, answerphone message or email auto-reply. 

Outsource your office cover 

Get Ahead has a range of office services to keep your business ticking along when you’re closed. We provide inbox monitoring so the important messages don’t get lost in the sea of junk mail. And our phone answering service means there’s always a professional response to any inquiries that come in over Christmas.  

Holiday and Christmas cover from Get Ahead can be set up in as little as one day – please get in touch if you’d benefit from our support! 

Add a Christmas message to your website

If you’re closing over Christmas, it’s a good idea to let your community know via a message on your website. This should help you take the break you deserve over Christmas, as well as being good customer service. 

Write a Christmas message to your clients and customers

Your business would be nothing without your customers and clients. Take some time this December to thank your business community for their support over the past year, and wish them a very merry Christmas!  

Set your email auto-response

If you’re lucky enough to not have to check emails over the Christmas break, remember to set up an auto-reply to let your clients, customers and business family know. Get Ahead are great advocates of taking time off, so if you’re able to take a Christmas break, make it a complete switch-off.

Word your out-of-office carefully. Don’t promise to reply if you don’t intend to. We’ve noticed that the number of Get Ahead clients taking a complete break over Christmas has increased every year. So please don’t feel guilty for taking time off – lots of others are too! 

If you do need to leave an emergency phone number (see above), be clear that it’s for emergencies only. 

Check the fridge before you lock up the office. 

If you’re closing for ten days over Christmas and New Year, please, please take the milk home when you lock up. Throw out anything that’s not going to survive the Christmas shut down and enjoy (literally) a fresh start to the New Year! 

Get your business ready for Christmas with support from Get Ahead

If you have outstanding work you need to finish before Christmas, Get Ahead are here to help. We can cover your back-office responsibilities so you can get on with your core business, tying up loose ends before you take a complete break. Explore our site to find out more, or contact your local regional director today. 

Feeling overwhelmed is increasingly common. Modern life (and sometimes social media) can have us worrying that we’re expected to be dynamic business owners, committed parents, interesting members of society and willing volunteers all at the same time. But the truth is, there are only so many hours in the day. No one can do everything. 

The worst thing about feeling overwhelmed as a business owner is that we can’t see the wood for the trees. But that’s where Get Ahead comes in. Of course, we’re there for people who phone us up and ask us for straightforward social media management. But we also love it when business owners come to us to say they know they need help but they don’t know where to start. When this happens, our regional directors draw on their own knowledge and experience, as well as the expertise within our team, to help a business owner find a way through.

In this blog, we talk to Sarah Yandell, one of our regional directors, about how to manage feeling overwhelmed and how Get Ahead can help.

Why do business owners feel overwhelmed?

Sarah: Running a business is hard work! No matter how experienced you are, there will always be responsibilities you love and others you struggle with. 

Another problem with running a business is that you don’t get paid holiday, sick leave or compassionate leave – I’ve met people who are trying to keep going when it’s really time to take a break. These pressures can leave you feeling overwhelmed. 

If you’re really overwhelmed, you might not be thinking very rationally and it can be difficult to get your priorities in order. 

What to do if you’re feeling overwhelmed as a business owner

Sarah: Be strong and take a break. It can be really hard to do when you’ve got an ever-lengthening list of jobs, but remember that you’ll work more effectively if you recharge your batteries. Often, stepping away from work can give you the sense of proportion you need. It can help you see where the problem really lies; it can also help you work out “what will make the boat go faster.”

Talking to someone can also help. Depending on the structure of your business, you might be able to talk to colleagues. And if you work alone, talk to a friend – a different perspective can be very refreshing. Remember, talking about difficulties and asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. You might be surprised at where the help comes from too. 

Often, talking to someone can help you find your priorities. Once you’ve found them, don’t try to fix everything all at once. If you’re overwhelmed at work and you’ve got other commitments too, focus your efforts on the most important thing first. For example, you can’t move offices, employ new staff and experiment with a new social media channel when your invoicing system isn’t effective. Put everything else aside and get on top of the invoicing first!  

How does Get Ahead support business owners who feel overwhelmed?

Sarah: When a business owner client comes to me because they’re feeling overwhelmed, my first instinct is to help. I ran a variety of businesses before I joined Get Ahead and I know from experience that it’s not always easy. When I meet a client for the first time, I always start with an informal chat. This is because trust is so important if we’re going to get you through this crisis and running your business effectively – locking you straight into a contract is unlikely to help your stress levels. 

Once we feel we can work together, I listen to you describe your business, the challenges you’re facing and how you feel about them, and start to put together a proposal. Like you, I’m not an expert in every area of running a business, so I also ask Get Ahead’s team of virtual experts to help me identify the best solution for your needs. 

It’s worth noting that the proposal is very flexible. I often start by offering a basic service like diary management, and you can add to that over time if you want to. And if we start off providing a service that you later don’t feel you need, you can simply switch it off. I manage the relationship with the virtual experts, so you don’t have to worry about an awkward conversation if you feel it’s time to bring the support to an end. 

Resources to help you when you’re feeling overwhelmed as a business owner

Sarah is our regional director for Suffolk and Essex, but her supportive approach is what you can expect from any of our team. Get Ahead are here to support business owners in any way we can – here are our top resources to help you when you’re feeling overwhelmed:

Case study: personal branding coach in Yorkshire

Take our mini-quiz to help you decide what to outsource

Follow our tips to protect yourself from burnout

Outsource social media and you’ll have complete peace of mind that your followers will stay engaged even when you’re on holiday. But outsourcing is just part of the solution. There is still a lot you can do yourself to keep your social accounts ticking over while you’re taking a break.

In this blog, our social media expert Leah outlines practical steps you can take to ensure your posts are consistent while you’re away. 

Value your break

You need a holiday. Smartphones and connectivity mean that it’s very easy to find yourself working while you’re away. But working on holiday means you don’t get the complete break we all need. So before you go away, put whatever you need to in place so you can switch off. Just because you can update your business Instagram from the beach, it doesn’t mean you should. 

Assess the potential risks

Depending on your business, you might choose to do a full risk assessment of your social media before you go on holiday. For example, if you receive most of your customer communication via your Facebook page, an unanswered complaint could create serious problems for your business. If this is the case, you should consider outsourcing your social media to someone like me. I can keep up with responses while you’re away so you have complete peace of mind. 

Even if neglecting your social media won’t have serious consequences, it’s still important to consider what could go wrong. This is because knowing how serious (or trivial) the outcomes could be will help you decide whether you should “just check your LinkedIn” while you’re on holiday or if you can switch off for a week without any negative impact.

Share your “out of office”

If your business will completely close while you’re away, putting up an “out of office” post will let your online community know. As a small business, your clients and customers will probably appreciate your honesty – it’s always valuable to connect with people on a personal level. 

Delegate to ChatGPT

If you don’t have time to write fresh social media content before you go on holiday, you could get ChatGPT to do it for you. The customer service AI can write on-brand posts, sharing your key messages.

Only choose this option if you’re already familiar with ChatGPT – if you’re new to it, you could lose valuable time working out how to get it to write what you want. 

It’s also important to check what it has written before you let it post for you. AI is a good servant but a bad master – don’t assume that everything ChatGPT writes is correct.

Find out more about Chat GPT here.

Schedule your content

Scheduling content has been a game changer for social media. It allows business owners to schedule a big batch of posts all at once, which roll out one by one across your social media channels. This works well if you have a busy week but it’s also a huge advantage when it’s time to go on holiday. Simply schedule your posts for the duration of your holiday so your posting remains consistent even when you’re not there to do it in real time. 

Scheduling content is not entirely risk-free – the last thing you want to do is schedule something controversial when you won’t be there to deal with your community’s response. Instead, stay safe with tried and tested, on-brand content. Maybe repost a successful blog, or share links to specific products or services.  

Outsource social media while you’re on holiday

The safest option is to outsource your social media for the duration of your holiday. This will mean that a real person (maybe me!) will post for you regularly throughout your break, providing seamless communication with your community. I can adjust scheduled content if something unexpected happens and respond to comments while keeping your brand message consistent. 

Outsource social media

Outsourcing social media is one of our most popular forms of business support. We offer the same flexible service for large and small businesses, ranging from one-off holiday cover to a full circle service. Find out more about our social media support here.  

PS – if you’re going on holiday tomorrow, we’ve put together our top out-of-office hacks here!

The small business guide to opening on a bank holiday – 2026/27

If you own a public-facing business, a bank holiday may provide you with some great opportunities to generate more revenue and connect with new customers. However, in spite of the obvious advantages to opening your small business on a bank holiday, business owners may have questions about the legality of opening, employment rights, annual leave and overtime pay.  

This blog looks at small business rules and best practice for bank holiday opening.  

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As outsourcing experts and flexibility champions, the team at Get Ahead can see many reasons why delegating admin to a virtual PA (also known as a virtual assistant) is great for your business. It’s worth noting that we outsource our admin to our own remote team, doing just what we recommend to our clients and reaping the same benefits.

Here are the top reasons working with a VA is an efficient solution for your business.

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One of the headaches of running your own business is staying on top of the admin. However, it’s not as big as the headache you find yourself with when you can’t find a vital file or you’re late with your tax return. Admin may not feel as important as your core business, but it still has to be done.

Here are our five top tips for staying on top of business admin:

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You’ve fulfilled your dream of working for yourself and being your own boss. This is great news – we’re thrilled for you! But we also know that working alone can be tough. This applies to people in many professions, but particularly business coaches and life coaches, who give so much support to others that they sometimes neglect their own businesses.

In this blog, we look at ways to make working for yourself as fruitful and efficient as your business deserves.

The advantages of working for yourself

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Get Ahead has been supporting coaches for almost as long as we’ve been in business. Some of our most successful working relationships have been with life coaches, business coaches and personal branding experts.

In this blog, we look at why outsourcing is a great solution for coaches.

Why is Get Ahead a valuable resource for coaches?

Coaches, like other business owners, usually have a long to-do list. In addition to working with clients to help them find their strengths, we know that coaches also have to market their businesses, stay on top of invoicing, create resources, keep up with the filing and more.

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Get Ahead’s ethos is built on flexibility. The business was created to provide flexibility to the people who work here, and to allow our clients to achieve better work-life harmony too.

Christmas is a great time to take a break. It’s accompanied by two bank holidays followed by a third a week later, forcing us to down tools for a few days. Many of us take the whole week off to rest, relax, see friends and family and observe Christmas in whatever way we choose.

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Ambitious entrepreneurs want to take their business to the next level. Depending on where you are in your career, “the next level” might be a taking on a second client, or opening a second office. Whichever step is right for you, outsourcing can help you expand at an affordable pace, without committing to a huge outlay before your return is guaranteed.

Here are three ways that outsourcing can take your business to the next level:

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