110. 3 Steps To Your Best Summer Ever as a CEO Mom in 2026

Every May, the panic hits. The kids' school schedule is imploding, your calendar looks like a snack list exploded on it, and suddenly you're realizing... oh. Summer is in like three weeks.

And if you're anything like most mom entrepreneurs, your "summer business plan" is basically: vibe and hope. Which — girl, same energy but not a strategy.

This episode is the wake-up call you need before you either disappear all summer OR burn yourself out trying to hustle through it. I'm walking you through my 3-part Summer Sales Plan — the exact framework I've used through multiple summers (and yes, three summer maternity leaves) to make money without losing my mind.

The truth is, the moms who actually have a calm, profitable summer didn't work harder. They just planned earlier. And the best time to plan is right now.

In this episode:

• The sneaky mindset mistake that makes you think nobody buys in summer (hint: you're projecting your own chaos onto your clients)
• What a "pre-sell" actually looks like when you're not into big complicated launches
• The nurture journey strategy that keeps your audience warm even when you're running at 40% capacity
• Why September feels like rebuilding from scratch — and what to do right now so it doesn't
• How I made money while nursing a newborn (and how you can set that up too)

Resources mentioned:

• Summer Sales Intensive — 4 spots only — DM "SUMMER" to me on Instagram: instagram.com/theyaelbendahan
• Money Map - Get my eyes on your business and personalized marketing strategy and offer positioning angles for less than $100 - yaelbendahah.com/moneymap

LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years working nap times and being a full time mama of 6. Claim your spot here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/leveragepod

💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:00

Welcome to the Raising Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Yael Bendahan, founder of CEO Mom Academy, mom of six, and lifelong reading addict. This podcast is here to empower moms to run their businesses and lives like the powerhouse CEO they are. I want you to believe that you can have the business success you desire and be present with your family, and to give you my best tips and strategies for how to make that happen. I'll be sharing the honest reality of balancing business and motherhood, biz models that work for you, marketing simplicity, and the mindset of a CEO mom. Now, let's dive

0:32

in.

Speaker 0:40

hey, welcome back to the podcast. And I need to know if anyone else does this every single year around May. You look at the calendar, and you suddenly realize,"Oh, wow, summer's like tomorrow," right? Oh my gosh, May-cember, the kids are... have parties, and they're all ending school, and I have to go buy all these supplies for random dress-up days. And oh my God, like, how am I gonna do business this summer? And I don't know why. Sometimes, some years I've been like,"Why am I surprised?" Summer happens every single year, right? And I do definitely at the beginning of the year plan ahead. I'm always thinking,"Okay, what's- what- what's- what is my angle gonna be? What am I gonna sell? How's it gonna look?" But very often when you are... when you don't have a plan, if you don't necessarily have a plan for the summer, your brain will go into one of two modes, right? You're like,"Oh, nobody really buys in summer. I'll just have to grit my teeth and wait till September, and then I'll start selling again." Or,"Okay, I need to work four times harder right now so my business doesn't completely collapse, and I can make some money, and maybe people want some stuff right now." And then you just start overbooking yourself. I actually just spoke to a person who in my DMs, who was literally, like she had so much... She had taken on so much work. And although she was making money, right? It was... She was happy about that, but she really overbooked herself, and it created a lot of mental stress and just emotional stress for her. So I don't think summer is the problem. I think both of these are pretty terrible strategies. And I think the problem is that most mom entrepreneurs walk into summer with absolutely no plan except,"Okay, hopefully this works out. I'll promote this, and let's just see what happens." Which respectfully is not a strategy. So today I wanna walk you through what I think are the three parts, the three things that every mom entrepreneur needs in their summer sales plan if she wants to make money before the summer, not disappear off the face of the earth the entire season, and come back in September and hope people remember her, and- come back to sell her stuff in September without feeling like she's rebuilding her business from scratch. Because I really truly believe that your business should support you in the summer instead of completely ruining it. And I've had the years where my business ruined it and I've had the years where it was fantastic and I want you to have the fantastic kind. And this is why I created my summer sales intensive because I keep seeing moms either overcomplicating their pre-summer launches or completely disappearing or spending September in this full identity crisis trying to figure out what they're even selling and do people even remember what they do. And now you have to warm up my whole audience all over again. So this intensive is basically us building your entire summer sales plan together before the summer hits. So you can have your pre-sale strategy, your nurture map, and your fall setup built around your actual capacity throughout the summer, depending on what your summer is going to look like, right? Like you have, you might have some kids in camp, you might have some kids home with you. You might, you're going to have a lot of laundry thing that people are off schedule. So I want to talk about your specific capacity and how you can work your way around it. And there are very limited spots. Currently there are only four spots and founding pricing closes May 15th. So DM me summer on Instagram if you want details and I will send you the details in the link. So I think one of the biggest mistakes mom make, okay, the real reason summer feels really hard as a business owner is because they're selling from their summer instead of their client summer. Like you might be overwhelmed thinking about camps and snacks and keeping tiny humans alive and your ideal client might be thinking about that too. But your ideal client might also be thinking, I need a better income plan. I need support. I need systems. I want to work on this project, right? I can't keep doing business like this. Maybe right now they're just like overwhelmed with like how their summer is going to look and they want support and you could be that person to support them. So I think we project our own season onto our audience. I'm distracted so everyone must be distracted or I'm crazy busy so everyone must be crazy busy. Not necessarily true, right? Some people might actually buy more in summer because they finally slowed down enough to actually think and they actually take time to just think through where their life is going or their business is going or their house organization or their baby sleep training or their diet and nutrition, right? They have more flexibility so they can actually, again, they can dedicate more time to specific projects or initiatives or goals. Maybe they're prepping for fall, whatever that looks like. Maybe they're about to have a baby like me, right? And or they're realizing their current business model cannot survive their capacity. So what I realized is that even whether you're selling B2B when you're speaking to business owners or B2C, people don't buy necessarily based on the season. They're buying based on whether your offer feels relevant to where they are right now. And I think it's a really important distinction, okay? When I've literally like I've heard things like, oh, July is the worst month ever. And then my client was like, actually, July was my best month ever because I really committed to this ongoing like a weekly Facebook Live strategy, and I was just getting leads coming in, and she actually ended up having her biggest quarter that year in Q3, right? I've even done maternity leave prepping, so and I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more'cause this is my third baby to be born during the summer. I've I actually have only had summer babies since I started my business, which is very interesting. So I've had, I've had... my first four kids were all born in more winter months, or fall/winter, and then since I started my business, I've had two and a half babies. I have I'm currently gestating my, my, my third baby as a business owner, and this baby's also due in July. So July, June, and then July again. And I have had to think about maternity leave three times in the summer, okay? I know that homeschool moms have different schedules, and they'd be like,"Homeschool during the summer is no different than homeschool during the year," and they don't really care that it's summer, right? So there never really is a perfect season. So I wanna walk through the three-part summer sales plan, and then I'll talk about exactly how I apply this in my business and how you can apply it in yours, and also some stories about my clients. So the first part of the summer sales plan is the sales explos- the sales explosion pre-sell, okay? And I really need you to stop thinking pre-sell means a complicated launch or a giant funnel or a webinar or a bajillion emails or ads or, and stress and chaos because, to be honest, a pre-sell is mostly showing up, selling your thing, and having conversations, okay? It is an offer you believe in. It has to be positioned around why now matters, why they should join your offer now, and it's sold through conversations with warm people. That is it, okay? Because what I've noticed that the m- moms who make good money during the summer are usually not grinding harder during the summer. They already built that runway before summer started. So before El- my daughter Eliana was born, she is turning six this July, I... This was in 2020. It was still early on in COVID, so th- all those loans and stuff were not really flying around the internet the same way. But I had a group coaching program that ran up until I had my baby, and then at, towards the end of the group co- coaching program, I pre-sold a mastermind to start after my maternity leave. And I remember sitting there nursing my newborn realizing,"Oh my gosh, money is just coming in, and I'm not doing any work." And I jumped into coaching them, I think, about six or seven weeks after I had my daughter, and I was so happy that I didn't wait to sell because they were still... They were already in coaching mode. They were still excited about working together, and I was like,"I wanna continue working with you guys. You, you are so amazing and I really would love to be able to continue to support you, and here's what this would look like, and here's why this is an amazing offer." And I think about 60% of the people in that group coaching program upgraded into the mastermind for a full year, okay? So- Cash collected before the summer changes summer completely, right? And whether it's cash collected or it's even just monthly recurring revenue building up because it takes away stress and pressure, okay? It takes away that feeling of,"Oh my God, like now I have to figure out what to sell, and I have to figure out my capacity." And the truth is, like if you have warm leads, if you have people that you've spoken to in the past who have not necessarily joined your offers yet, if you have people who, you have connections with people or business besties who have audiences that could use your stuff, right? You have so many people probably in your orbit that could be ready for this offer. And so I wanna challenge you to sit down and think about, what you want-- would love to sell right now, like what you feel like you could sell right now or maybe sell right now and deliver it a little bit later. And write down five to ten people who you think this could be a really good fit for. And I'm-- I would be... I'm s- if you cannot think of five, ten people, it's probably not the best offer for you to sell. But I off the top of my head can think of at least twenty people who this Summer Sales Intensive would be amazing for, right? So I really do believe that you don't have to have a huge audience to convert, right? I have small-- a pretty small audience, really, my whole business. I never really ran ads. I grew my audience primarily through collabs and and other people's audiences, right? I've never had a huge email list or a huge huge y- Instagram or Facebook or whatever. But when it came down to it, I sold through relationships. I sold through voice notes and DMs. I sold through conversations. And so your small audience can still convert really well, even if you feel like,"Okay, I'm not... I don't have, I don't have enough people to talk to." I'm sure you have enough people to talk to, okay? I'm sure. Now, the second part is the nurture map. So if-- this is assuming you have some level of audience, okay? And it really depends where they are. But very often people will pre-sell something, and then they disappear all summer, and they come back in September wondering, why does their audience feel cold and now feeling they have to rewarm their audience up all over again. Excuse me. I'm always tired. So a nurture journey is basically what keeps people connected to me while I'm lower capacity, right? Not how do I create tons and tons of content all summer using AI, so nobody even believes that it's me, right? It is how do I keep people remembering me and keeping me top of mind while I'm at lower capacity? And the goal of nurturing is to, number one, build trust, and number two, build desire for future offers. That is it, okay? Sales is a fun bonus, and I actually am gonna talk about how I nurtured with, with sales. But I think it's really just a matter of staying top of mind for your audience. So this could include a scheduled podcast. This could include emails or every- evergreen emails. I'm actually currently setting up a double nurture where it's gonna be a weekly evergreen email, and I'm gonna have periodic promotions towards my low-ticket offers this summer. Okay? This could be, behind-the-scenes content. I per- and I personally for my podcast, I have a lot of really fantastic Facebook Lives that were so good and people absolutely loved, and I'm-- I have always been, like, thinking I've always been thinking like these would be so good to these would be so good to use as podcast episodes. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to pull some of my favorite videos, and I'm going to use them as podcast episodes because literally, why not? Really, why not? I'm really excited about this. So I personally have a lot of really amazing Facebook Lives that I planned to, that I plan to use as podcast episodes at some point because I did them, they were really fantastic. I just need to like, maybe improve the sound a little bit, but they're so valuable. And so now I'm gonna be using those as my scheduled podcasts throughout the summer, okay? A, back to basics, like here's, from the archives sort of thing, and it... it's really good stuff and people really enjoyed it. And that was important to me, and I also want to make sure that people are getting supported and they're getting value from me without me having to actually show up and record. So this is a perfect solution, and you may not have that available, but even, deciding to bring back some of your best work, right? So maybe like bringing back like best... most popular, like re-promoting your most popular episodes or or whatever. Whether you have YouTube or whether you have a blog or whether you have Facebook Lives or Instagram Lives, right? Like bringing back some of your best work, almost like a roundup of your best content. So when I was on maternity leave with my daughter, my VA kept nurture content running. She was l- running like weekly kind of promos to my low-ticket offers, which made me money throughout the year throughout the summer. And right before I went offline right before I had my daughter, I did a quick launch for the curriculum-only version of my coaching program. So I made money before the summer, okay? With that launch. I pre-sold my mastermind, so that brought in monthly occurring revenue and added weekly, like little email promotions to my low-ticket offers, okay? And so that was a triple revenue stream throughout the summer that I did not have to show up and deliver at, at all. It was amazing, right? So I really do believe that consistency matters more than intensity. You don't need to be p- posting in tons and tons of content, but being consistent about it will keep you top of mind for your audience. And part three is the fall launch setup, okay? And the third piece could be the most important because a lot of mom entrepreneurs spend September trying to rebuild momentum, feeling a little bit confused, trying to decide what to sell, creating offers last minute pa- panic posting on Instagram. So your fall launch does not mean having to fully build everything, recording everything, making everything per- perfect. It means now you should be deciding what's happening in September, okay? So before the summer, you should know, what are you selling in the fall? Who is it for? Why is it relevant? And how can people express interest now? Whether they can raise their hand, get on a wait list, right? Build a list of interested buyers. September should feel like a running start, right? Not a cold- Open where you're like,"Okay, like now I have to start all over again. I have to start nurturing my audience, so I can't really launch anything till October." No, I don't want that for you. I want you showing up for your audience in a low-key way that creates a journey towards that offer. And you have two options here, right? You have... The option is re-reselling what you were selling before the summer but with a fall angle, which is possible, right? And you could also downsell, right? You could sell an offer that is a lower ticket offer for the people who weren't qui-quite ready for that who weren't quite ready for the for the summer offer, which is also okay. So I want you to think think outside the box here. This is not just about the summer and the fall, okay? I think underneath all of this is a bigger conversation about building a business that can survive your life and that goes through cycles, right? And I really do believe, I- I'm a full believer in money momentum. So your business should be creating momentum constantly. So momentum in audience growth, momentum in sales, right? So when you do a launch for a higher ticket offer, and then you do a promotion for your lower ticket offer and let people spill over into the lower ticket and then continue to sell some lower ticket stuff in between and build up that audience again and build up that audience of warm people and low ticket buyers or people coming into your freebies or whatever that looks like, and then relaunching your higher ticket, right? So you're const- there's a constant cycle of sales happening, right? And y- if your business completely falls apart every time your capacity changes, that's gonna be a problem because as a mom, your capacity is going to be changing a lot, okay? You're gonna have school breaks, you're gonna have maternity leaves, you're gonna have sick kids, you might be burned out or just tired or maybe going through illness, or your kid will be going through illness, or your husband is, or I don't know, right? Or just general lower energy seasons. So you don't want a fragile business that is dependent on constant output and constant launching and always being on. You want a sustainable business that is systems and nurturing and intentional offers and planning ahead and leveraging, thinking about long-term leverage. Whatever you're selling, how, what can I do with this later? Can I turn this into something else? Can I pull something out and turn it into a front-end funnel, right? You did not build this business just to become the most overworked employee in it. All right? You built this business to have freedom in your business, and I want that for you, and I want your summer to feel like that. So to wrap up, your summer sales plan has three parts, pre-selling before the summer nurturing while you're lower capacity, and setting up your fall before the summer starts. And the m- so the moms who feel calm during the summer are not necessarily smarter or more productive or better than you, okay? They just planned earlier, right? And there's that, that, there's that saying, which is an old saying you know if if I had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend 45 minutes sharpening the ax or something like that. I forgot who said it. It was either George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, one of them. But either way, if you spend some time sharpening the ax, right? Spend some time now n- knowing what you're gonna do, planning ahead of time, thinking how things are going to look, then you are gonna be so much more prepared for these slower or lower capacity seasons. So summer is not the problem here. Okay? You are not the problem either. You do not need to disappear, and you do not need to hustle like crazy. You just need the right plan. So if you want help building your actual summer sales plan, DM me summer on Instagram for the summer sales intensive details. Again, I have four spots available that is literally it. I don't have more time than that because I have a baby coming. And if you are interested in just the intensive piece, just like the planning piece without the ongoing support, we can chat about that too. I have a couple of spots open for that as well. So if any of this interests you and you're like,"I want you to help me build this out," I am the queen of sales angles. I'm the queen of helping people to work out exactly how... what to say to sell their offer. So this is my zone of genius. So if this episode made me feel approximately 12% less panicked about summer, send it to another CEO mom who needs a reminder too. All right? So I love you. Go drink water, cut some grass, and I will see you next week.

Speaker 2 18:01

I can't thank you enough for listening to Raising Your Business. I hope this episode has inspired you to take another step towards building a business and life that you love and growing your income in a way that works for you and your family. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to rate and review, and let's connect on Instagram. Screenshot and share it on Instagram stories so we can get the word out to more mom business owners like you. Tag me at theyaelbendahan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week.