42:7 Seasons Greetings

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to the final episode of the holiday season. My name’s Lee and you are listening to Trailblazer FM. Today in my pouch, I am joined by Edison, who also wishes you a Merry Christmas. In this episode, I just want you to sit back, relax, listen to the holiday messages from all of our agencies, and wind down for the break. Remember, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, there are still some great pieces of advice and wisdom here for any holiday. Edison and I would also like to thank Cloudways for sponsoring this season. You can find out more about them over on trailblazer.fm/cloudways. If Edison was to choose any host, he would choose, yes, Cloudways Folks, have a wonderful Christmas, all the best from me, my family, to you and your family. Enjoy these messages and we will see you in the new year.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Take the time off you deserve it. And 2022’s clients will thank you for that break that you’re taking. We all had a pretty insane two years, right? So, let’s just chill super hard this holiday season.

Tom Amos:
I’d like to wish everyone, a very Merry Christmas and happy new year. Thank you, Lee, for having me on. And I hope you all have a lovely time with your family away from work and enjoy the things that matter.

Morayo Orija:
My message to you trail blazers is to give yourself the gift this year. We often are our own worst critics, but give yourself the gift of grace and reflection. You accomplished a lot this year. You may have forgotten that because you’ve been so busy in the day-to-day to-do lists, but take a moment to look back at all of those small victories that you didn’t celebrate. Take the time to pat yourself on the back to say you did a great job and rest in that. Give yourself the grace to rest in that. Give yourself permission to rest. Find some good holiday music. It’s the only time we should be listening to holiday music, is right around the holidays. For those stations that are starting the music in October, that’s too much. So relegate the holiday music time to the true holiday season. That’s my advice.

Travis Buck:
I’m pretty big on making sure prepare ahead of time and know you want to take days off. If you want vacation, you got to basically plan for it early, make yourself a holiday wind down checklist. Think about scheduling your holiday notice in autoresponder emails ahead of time. Make a plan for letting your clients know, build extra time into each project during this year. And most importantly, set client expectations early. I absolutely cannot switch off just being an agency on earth. So what you should do is consider hiring a holiday support service, even just to receive client phone calls, fix minor tech issues.

Abby Wood:
Happy Christmas, and have a wonderful new year. My Sage wisdom and advice for the 2022 season would be to do more of what you love. So if you are thinking over and over Christmas that you don’t enjoy a part of your work or you hate a certain client or anything like that, don’t do it next year. Do more of what you love. Life is short, enjoy it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. I love watching Netflix. So I’m going to do way more of that next year.

Abby Wood:
Be productive.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, I misunderstood.

Emily Hunkler:
My holiday message for the trailblazers would be take time off. Whether you are set up with a service, like GoWP where, you know you’ve got a team taking care of your clients while you’re taking time off, or you’re not, set the expectations with your clients, let them know you’re out of office. And you will not respond until after the holidays and hold yourself to it. Whether it’s spending time with your family, with friends, your pets, or anything. Going for a walk in the middle of the day, that sort of thing, you need that time to prevent getting burned out, to refresh your mind and get new ideas and think about your business and the big picture and come up with some goals and strategies and come back in the new year, refreshed with ideas and feeling motivated. And if you don’t allow yourself to take that time off, you’re not going to get that. It’s a lot more difficult. That’s my message. Enjoy the holidays and Merry Christmas. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season this year.

Michael MacGinty:
Insist on support plans for all your clients. Don’t respond to non-sport emails during the holidays, by working on issues that you should be working on. Schedule any work that does come up for when you get back and just tell the client that that’s, what you’re doing, make it very clear. It’s not that we’re running away from the work, but it isn’t part of the support plan so we’ll work on this. When we come back in January. If you lose a customer, be grateful and move on just because somebody else buys a website from you, it doesn’t mean that you have to care for it for life. If you sold a puppy to someone, you wouldn’t be expected to feed it or walk it forever. So make your own rules for how you want to handle support. And that will make Christmas work out.

Ali Green:
I would say that my holiday message is this is a very stressful time of year. Go easy on yourself. I think if we’ve learned anything from the other episodes where I mentioned my stories, it’s that you don’t have to get overly creative with your gifts. You don’t have to try to go above and beyond. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself being a creative agency owner to be creative, but sometimes the easier, the better. And that’s okay. I consider that a win. If you get the gifts out, if people feel appreciated and you have spent time with your family and loved ones, then consider it a win.

Nicole Osborne:
I truly believe 2022 is going to be onwards and upwards for all of us in so many different ways. The best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is time with yourself, with your family. Switching off, even not checking the phone. And I just love to wish everyone. [inaudible 00:09:10] and a happy new year.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh.

Nicole Osborne:
Oh.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I want to cry now, come on Christmas hurry up. We wish you a merry Christmas.

Nicole Osborne:
We wish you a merry Christmas.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, you should sing one in German. Do you know one?

Nicole Osborne:
Okay. Yes, of course. [foreign language 00:09:27].

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s brilliant. That’s actually the one I knew as well, O tannenbaum, because I know that that means Christmas tree in German. That’s about it. All is calm, all is bright. Oh my word I feel so Christmasy right now.

Nicole Osborne:
Me too.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Merry Christmas, Nicole.

Speaker 8:
Oh, holy night. The stars are brightly shining. It is a night, of our dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining. Til He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angels voices. O night, divine. Oh night, when Christ was born. Oh night, divine. Oh night, Oh night divine.