It is time for part 2 of our Planning for Maternity Leave series. Cheyanne and I are both officially on maternity and excited about the new bundles of joy in our lives. Before reading part 2, I highly recommend watching part 1 first as it gives you a great overview of what to do and what to expect. Maternity leave looks much different for a solo-preneaur than a small or medium-sized business owner. I have seen this first hand from the preparations I made when Jameson was born. Preparing the team for maternity leave is a HUGE process now that I did not experience last time. We hope these pointers will help you prepare your team and business for your upcoming maternity leaves, as well.

1. Regular Team Meetings.
   1. What needs to occur before leave begins?
   2. How will your leave change sales goals and how to adjust to that change?
2. Prep for events immediately after maternity leave.
   1. Final Walk-Throughs
   2. Wrap-Up Questionnaires
   3. Layouts
   4. RSVP counts and how/when to get final numbers to you during the leave.
   5. Prepping vendor team with your expectations for that event and when you will be back to answer questions
   6. Prepping venue on the expectations and how to reach another team member.
3. Review batched content by the team. Set expectations on content.
4. Setting up black-out dates in advance.
   1. Allows inquiries to keep coming in without having to contact the team to make sure they are available.
5. Wrap-Up Meeting.
   1. Expectations during leave
      1. Hours
      2. Contact
      3. Duties of each individual
         1. Inquiries
         2. Emails regarding questions from clients
         3. Content – how and when?
         4. Event meetings in the event of early or late delivery
      4. How to handle inquiries
6. Assign back-up team members to events around your due date in case of early or late delivery.

I hope these tips help you. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have additional questions. Helping fellow florists and planners is near and dear to my heart and I’d love to help you create a plan for your new mom-boss life. If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Behind the Business email list to hear about each new episode.

With Love,

Kelsea