Not All Clients Know about Holidays

Holidays are a great time to take days off and spend time with your friends and family. This labor day weekend, I don’t have much planned, but I do intend to relax a little, especially since I’ve been working so hard lately. I have a client who gets a certain number of articles every day, and I mentioned to him on Friday about having a nice holiday weekend.

His reply was a confused “so you aren’t going to be around on Monday?” email. Stupid me – I forgot that Labor Day in the United States isn’t Labor Day everywhere. My client happens to live in Europe.

My Labor Day won't be quite THIS relaxing, but I still do intend to at least sleep in! Image: sxc.hu

As a freelancer, don’t assume that you get any holiday off. Whenever you plan on taking some time to yourself, make sure you email all of your clients as a reminder. Even clients who live in the same country as you may not realize that the holiday is coming up or may intend to work through the holiday. If they don’t hear from you, they may assume that you’re doing the same.

And as a side note, since it’s our monthly theme: social networking doesn’t stop for a holiday, even if that holiday is huge around the world, like New Year’s Day. Most people who are involved with social networking log on at least once from home, even on Christmas Day or other major holidays.

Bottom line? If you plan to take time off, even if it seems like most other people are too, make arrangements with clients and keep you networking efforts going while you’re away.