Managing a Sydney PR Agency and Traveling Abroad.
When you’re running a busy, non-stop Sydney PR Agency like Neon Black, sometimes you need to stop, take a break and have a change of scenery.
With Neon Black being 9 years old this year, servicing local and global brands, it can often feel as though you’re on a hamster wheel, focusing on the next big thing and you’re unable to take stock and really consider all of your achievements.
Recently, I was lucky enough to take a little break from the business (my second proper holiday in 9 years of running a PR Agency in Australia), and take a trip to the US. Here are some of the big learnings I have from creating some time away to travel.
Prepare for your break nice and early
Starting to plan for your annual leave the day that you leave your Sydney PR Agency is not the best way to do such a thing. You really need to prepare for your holiday nice and early. Think about when you’re going to be away, how long for, what you have coming up and what it will look like when you’re not there.
If you’re servicing global clients in your Australian PR Agency, will you be able to meet with anybody while you’re away in another location?
Prepare all of the necessary documentation you need to go on leave, and have a Plan A, B and C for when and how you can be contacted based on a variety of different scenarios.
If you are prepared to take a break from the day to day of your PR Agency, there is a higher likelihood you will be able to properly settle into your annual leave and your holiday.
Having a great team is what makes a break possible
I’m not going to mince words - if the team in your PR Agency isn’t empowered and able to handle the work and activity, taking a break will be much more challenging. You need to trust in the team of your PR Agency and know that they are there to pick up the slack.
Having a naturally talented team is really a small part of the process; before taking a holiday you need to consider what kind of training you can provide them with and how you can support them to learn and grow so they feel equipped to handle a range of different scenarios that could pop up within your Sydney PR Agency.
A team that understands the beauty and importance of annual leave and really wishes to support you in having a break and time off work is greatly appreciated from any leader, and we are lucky that our Neon Black team are driven and dedicated.
The clients of your PR Agency will understand
It’s the worry of any founder that your clients will all abandon you at the first whiff of you going on annual leave. As we’ve ascertained, the team in your PR Agency Sydney is really important to the continued smooth sailing of your business, however as is how you communicate with your clients.
Giving them advance notice, attending meetings and sharing your action plan for annual leave, advising them of where to direct any issues or challenges while you’re away and ensuring they trust your team is key to a seamless transition.
Whether it’s an Australian owned small business, or a larger global brand, at the end of the day, we are all human and understand the need for some time away to rest, recharge and unwind.
Staying connected isn’t always a bad thing
So here I am, talking about a holiday away from Sydney and our Australian PR Agency, but it doesn’t quite work like that completely in practice.
Worry, stress and anxiety of not knowing what’s happening in your PR Agency can be a risk for any dedicated owner or entrepreneur. So staying marginally connected is a nice way to do it.
Set parameters around your trip; will you be checking emails? Answering calls? If so, between what hours? Be realistic, and set your boundaries.
In my instance, the idea of a bulging inbox is enough to create added stress, so I devoted time every few days to read and file the items, leaving only the important things that required a response either immediately or on my return.
Don’t feel guilty if staying connected, even a little, is the best thing for you.
Work where there’s WiFi
If covid taught us anything, it was the benefits of remote working and the work-from-anywhere lifestyle. When traveling, if you do need to work on your trip, focus on working where there’s WiFi.
How does that work in practice?
For example, on my recent trip to New York, I realised that the best place to work was easily Starbucks. For the price of a delicious Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew, I had the ability to sit in a comfortable space with great music, sipping on a delicious drink, taking in the New York vibes and getting work done all at once.
Whether it be your hotel room, a cafe, an airport, or a great rooftop bar, checking in on your PR Agency doesn’t have to be a challenge.
Allow travel to expand your mind and energy
This is true of how I felt when I returned. Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut. It’s easy to fall into a home-life structured routine where we go to the same places, see the same people and do the same things.
We forget about the beauty of going somewhere new, seeing things with fresh eyes, the cultural differences and the opportunities that a fresh perspective can give you.
The beauty of this is the flow on this has into your working life. For people working in a Sydney PR Agency, this can be seeing ads on the Subway in New York and feeling inspired, taking in live music at a great bar and using this as event inspiration, or even eyeing up future trends and fashion for your office style inspiration.
It’s the quirky things you don’t expect
In my recent trip, we had the pleasure of visiting Greenville South Carolina for the annual Rubber Ducky Derby. A race of 14,000 ducks to the end of the local stream. A community event which brings out locals in droves with festival energy and all of the American delicacies including deep fried cheesecake.
In a PR Agency Sydney, we love the quirky, fun and unique things and often use these to generate noteworthy campaigns and results for our clients.
Taking in quirky, fun and unique local events that are so different to what we see and do in Sydney can generate future sparks of creativity from a work standpoint, as well as generally surprise and delight!
Sometimes to switch on, you have to switch off first
Burnout. It happens, and especially for those who are owners of a Sydney PR Agency who work in a fast-paced, always-on environment.
A holiday can almost be like doing a hard reset on a phone. If your phone isn’t quite functioning perfectly, you turn it off, let it sit, and then turn it back on; any IT expert will give you that directive. And then, when you turn it back on, the phone instantly functions significantly better.
Why don’t we think of a holiday the same for us as human beings? We live in a hustle culture where we feel that we need to be ‘on’ 24/7. Doesn’t it stand to reason that, if every so often, we switch off, we will be able to ‘switch on’ more effectively.
Having returned, I’m feeling more creative, excited, passionate and efficient.
Traveling isn’t the same as a holiday
There. I said it. You see on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok that people are traveling to 10 countries in two weeks, and you feel envious. They return and you say “Wow - you must be SO relaxed”.
The reality is, traveling to many countries or cities isn’t as relaxing as you think. Between flights, buses, trains, checking in and checking out of hotels, and then the rush to do/see/eat in each location can take its toll.
When you’re planning your trip, consider scheduling in some time to ‘holiday’, whatever that might mean for you. If you recharge by lying on the beach, or swimming in the ocean, sitting in an art gallery, or doing a lengthy hike, make sure you’re doing something to allow you to come back to your regular life in your PR Agency Sydney feeling as though you’ve had a holiday - not JUST traveled!
Allow space to settle back into your Sydney PR Agency
As silly as it sounds, you’ve holidayed, but you can’t be expected to just come back and hit the ground running without taking stock.
Spend your first day meeting free, take some time to understand what’s been going on while you’ve been away, and allow yourself the opportunity to feel as though you are on top of the details.
It takes time to settle out of your Sydney PR Agency and get into holiday-mode at the beginning of a trip, it makes sense that it will take a day or two to properly get back into the swing of things on your return.
With these tips, tricks and techniques, we hope this will support you in taking some time away from your PR Agency to travel!