Expectations vs. Reality: Small Business Owner on a Road Trip Edition
I share a (mostly) weekly newsletter with interested subscribers. It covers quick-hit marketing activities that small businesses and nonprofits can use to overcome that “I know I should be doing something, but I just don’t know what that something is” feeling. I say “mostly” because, from time to time, I can’t get out of my own way to write my content, source my links, and compile the email. I know I’m not alone here. Last week, I sent a version that was totally out of the ordinary, trading in marketing tips for a small business owner confession session. As nervous as I was to be vulnerable about how things didn’t quite go according to plan work-wise on my three-week trip from Boston to Wyoming and back, I think it’s important to pull back the curtain every now and then and show some humanity rather than the polished Instagram version of running a business.
Here’s what I shared:
Something a bit different this week...
Sometimes the best intentions never quite align with reality, you know what I mean? Take, for example, this newsletter—it's a weekly email with actionable tips and tricks. And yet, it's been a month since I sent it! I'm sure you were all waiting anxiously to see the last few weeks of content (ha!), but try as I might, I ran out of time to schedule them before I was out on the open road, traveling with my family to Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and every other interesting thing on I-90 between Boston and Wyoming.
So this week, I'm showing up as a small business owner with expectations that didn't match reality—have you been here? Some of the mismatches:
Expectation: Oodles of work time while driving between destinations. Reality: Deep conversations with my husband, observing the landscape change dramatically as we drove west.
Expectation: Packing individual, healthy-ish snack boxes and lots of activities for each of my three kids so they'd be a little more independent. Reality: A week of "snackleboxes," then being too tired to put in the effort and resorting to an Ikea bag with snacks I grabbed from the pantry. And all the screen time.
Expectation: Logging on in the evenings to check emails and chip away at a few to-dos. Reality: Face-planting into my pillow immediately after putting the kids to bed way past their regular bedtimes.
Expectation: Struggling to unplug in Wyoming and South Dakota thanks to little-to-no cell service. Reality: Relishing the lack of digital connection (except when we needed GPS) and trying to figure out how to cut back on my chronically-online default at home.
Expectation: Panicking about keeping people waiting and things falling through the cracks. Reality: Trusting my clients, trusting my out-of-office message, trusting that everything will be fine, knowing this time away together is irreplaceable.
Did I schedule all my content so it kept humming along when I was away? Nope. Did I front-load a large portion of my August work and give current clients plenty of notice that I'd be unavailable for a bit? Yep. While my outward-facing marketing looks like it stalled out, my internal marketing processes (because it's not all social media and advertising) allowed my business to keep growing even when I was stuck in a bison traffic jam.
