When we had Kerr in January 2018, I was a bit naive to think that I could welcome a new baby into our home & keep the same pace in our business. We did our best to step away from our business as best as we could – but I remember thinking, “We will do this completely different next time!”

And now we are about to embark on a brand-new adventure! Our family is growing from 1 to 2 babies & to say I am terrified would be an understatement. 🙂 I know we are not alone, but my goodness, what is this new world going to hold? I am working hard on planning lots of content for maternity leave so I can be fully present with my babies & soak in the early morning snuggles!

Lots of people have asked: How do you plan a maternity leave or extended time off from your business? We don’t have ALL of the answers, but here is our plan of action for welcoming Baby #2 into our lives!!

Turn On Your “Out Of Office” Responder

Remember, when you are gone from the office, you want to set appropriate expectations for your clients & other inquiries. They may not know you just had a baby or are taking extended time off! So when they send you an email, your auto-responder should let them know the details of your leave. Here is an example of what we will have ready for our clients when they email us:

Hey there friend!
Thank you so much for contacting us! We are out of the office on maternity leave from now until mid April. We will be checking emails periodically, but please expect a 3-4 day response time. Thank you for understanding & we look forward to connecting with you as as soon as we can!
In the meantime, please follow along on our adventures through our Instagram!
Cheers! The Rainsfords

Plan & Write Your Content Ahead of Time

This one is HUGE & probably the most overlooked piece of stepping away from your business for an extended amount of time. I have made a small calendar of content that I want to create before I officially step away. I planned out how often pieces would be published & then created goals to write so much per week in order to be ready. LOTS of coffee shops were visited in reaching this goal!

To give you an example: I would like to have content published twice a week. This is one blog post on education (for brides or photographers) & one blog post on a past wedding or engagement session. I have a contractor whom I love & trust who will put together the wedding or engagement blog for me & this allows for me to spend time writing valuable content for the education blog! This content will also be pushed to our IG feed & Stories so I can spread it out among a few different places. See? Once you have a plan – you can execute it!!

Train & Trust Your Contractors!

We are so excited to step away from our business for a bit of time because we have some of the best contractors on our team!! You may not know it, but in order to be parents & run a profitable business – we have hired out quite a few things. This allows for us to trust our employees & confidently step away when we need to. All of that being said, we have set up a planning calendar with each person, met individually & made sure we are all on the same page & lastly we have told each contractor that we TRUST them, because we do 🙂

So what can you expect to see from us while we are out on maternity leave?

• Wedding blogs!
• Bride & Photographer education!
• You will still see us on IG but it may not be as frequent (because taking a break from social media is GOOD & healthy)!!
• Emails will be answered but at a delayed rate (but don’t worry – we will answer you)!

We are so thankful for all of your support as our family grows – as WE grow: our marriage, relationships with others, routines/schedules, & what we can handle on our plate or need to delegate. Overall, our business is a reflection of all of that!

All my love, JP