Unplug and Recharge: How to Take a Break from Social Selling

Last week, the reach of my content was down 35.5% on LinkedIn.

As somebody who teaches sales reps how to increase their reach, this major decline should be a big issue.

However, it was intentional. Last week, I took a break from posting on LinkedIn.

My family made our annual cabin trip up to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. We spent time kayaking, hiking, golfing, eating, and spending time with our extended family.

I did not spend time creating posts for LinkedIn.

In years past, I’ve found myself pulling out my laptop to crank out some quick content and engage with my network. Like many people, I fell into the trap of thinking that I needed to keep up my social networking or risk hurting my sales results.

But this year is different. I decided that the best use of my time was to take a break.

Leisure is the Ultimate Luxury

Hustle culture is rampant in today’s world. Especially online.

You see influencers everywhere who are pushing the importance of relentless work. People like Gary Vaynerchuk with their high-energy rants of how you need to grind your way to success.

Then you have the realities of sales roles. Nearly every salesperson feels pressure to work while on vacation. Deals don’t stop and quotas don’t change when you are offline. So we continue to schedule meetings and respond to emails between our vacation activities and family responsibilities.

This leaves many of us white-collar workers feeling like we can never truly disconnect.

But remember - leisure is the ultimate luxury.

It represents the freedom and ability to enjoy activities that are personally fulfilling and enjoyable, without the pressures of work, responsibilities, or obligations.

Throughout human history, the ultimate sign of wealth was your ability to have leisure time. Kings didn’t post updates to Instagram from their remote castles… and neither should you.

Having to pop on calls or continue logging into social networking sites is not a sign of how important you are. In fact, it’s the opposite! A truly wealthy person can afford and benefit from scheduled downtime.

How to Take a Break and Benefit From It

I encourage you to take breaks from your social selling strategy.

Not every day, of course! But as we move through the summer months here in the northern hemisphere, you should be able to schedule time away to enjoy your summer vacation plans.

Yes, your impressions will temporarily go down.

Yes, you will miss opportunities to engage with prospects.

Yes, you will break your “streak” of consistency.

However, there are some real benefits to taking a break. Benefits that provide you leverage and make you a better salesperson over the long term.

Here are five ways to take advantage of social selling breaks:

1. Embrace Lesure Time - First and foremost, embrace your leisure time. You can avoid burnout by having the opportunity to drop the pressures from work and enjoy time away doing activities that truly bring you joy. Use this opportunity to rest and reset.
2. Be Present - We salespeople are continually looking forward to the next deal. But, if you can, use your break as an opportunity to truly live in the moment. Be mindful of the people around you and the quality time you get to have with them.
3. Reflection - Leverage your time away by reflecting on your strategy. With distance between you and the daily grind, you’re able to better ask and answer the important questions: What is working? What is not working? What would your ideal day look like? What will you do differently when you return to work?
4. Schedule Content - If you have consistent content that your audience expects, like a newsletter, video series, or weekly update, you can schedule your content ahead of time. For instance, I scheduled last week’s Sell with Social newsletter to be sent out automatically while I was sipping coffee beside the lake.
5. Communicate Your Plans - Let your employees, customers, and prospects know that you are going to be offline and are enjoying time away. Most people will be happy for you and actively avoid making you feel pressured to continue working on their behalf. And as a bonus, it also is a great conversation starter to discuss your trip when you return.

Your time away doesn’t need to be an elaborate beach vacation or ski trip in the Alps. It can be as simple as taking a long weekend to rest and reset.

The main point is that you should be intentional with taking time off. See it as a benefit to your selling strategy, not a hindrance to your performance.

Your social selling strategy will not implode under the weight of your relaxation. I promise.

For this week’s action items, I want you to take a break.

While it might not be this week, review your calendar and find a time when you can genuinely log off and embrace leisure time.  

To make the most of it, do the following:

1. Schedule Time Off - Plan the time off ahead of time. I’ve found that if I don’t schedule my vacation time, it somehow never comes!
2. Prepare Ahead of Time - Ahead of your time off, let people know that you will be logging off for a few days. Allow them to schedule meetings upon your return and to tie up any loose ends before you leave. You can also pre-schedule any social posts, emails, or content publication before you leave to continue consistency with your audience.
3. Reflect and Grow - Use your time off to separate the signal from the noise in your sales strategy. What are you doing that is working? What is not working? While we are away from the daily grind, reflection can bring clarity to the big questions that help us grow as individuals.

What are your time off plans? Where do you go to take a break? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also, if you've enjoyed this article, please forward it to your friends and colleagues. I appreciate you helping to grow the Sell with Social community!