Focus 123

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Androulla

Distractions, going in different directions, doing too many things at once can all cause you to be BUSY and not be PRODUCTIVE. It’s easy to do, that was me years ago, coming up with excuses why I wasn’t getting things done, why the results I was getting were not what I hoped for. I was too busy being busy and spending less time planning and being focused. This was until I started to implement what I now call the Focus 123 strategy.

So what is the Focus 123 strategy? Well, it’s a SIMPLE strategy I use daily that keeps me focus on the day and includes actionable items that lead towards the goals of the business. If you have not set goals for your business you can click here for a free template to get started.

Tony Robbins has a quote, “Motion creates emotion.” When you start doing then you start noticing emotions. How many times have you procrastinated doing something on your ‘to do list’ but once you got started you couldn’t stop and you were really proud of the end results?

I know I have, for example, sitting down to write an article, picking up the phone to follow up prospects, creating the presentation for a speaking event I had, doing the marketing for a webinar I was running and doing my bookkeeping (my background is Accounting and I love my numbers). Think about a time you were in this position and how you felt once you got started.

So what should be on this list of 123? Focus on the top 3 things that will help grow your business and ensure you fulfil the needs of your clients. Top of the list should be:

Following up prospects, making those calls. When adding this to your list make sure to include the names of the people you are going to call.
Deliver the service you promised your client. Be specific, what is it you need to do to service your client. For example, send business X a report on “recommendations to increase productivity in X’s business.”
Then add items like administration, marketing, teamwork.

With the items on your list make sure to add a timeframe, for example with making the calls to prospects you can allocate 30 minutes in the morning say at 10am to make those calls.

Setting a timeframe gets you completing things and not dragging them out. It also minimises the procrastination to moving to the next item on your list. Remember, it’s not about how busy you are but how productive you are with your time.

You don’t have to limit your day to only 3 things to do, but these 3 things you list are MUST DO items. If you have other things you want to do, add them to your daily list but don’t do them until you have finished the top 3. If you’re a visual person as I am, I like to measure my productivity by highlighting things in different colours and using a different colour pen. What I mean by this is, once I complete an item on the list I would highlight it in GREEN. I would also then add the date of completion in red next to it.

Now if you don’t complete one of the 3 items on your list, it remains unhighlighted, this way at a quick glance you can see what has not been completed. If you have started but not completed the item then highlight it in YELLOW. For those items not completed, write in pencil next to it when you plan on completing it. Then add it to your 123 list for the day you plan to do it.

Give this a go and notice just how much you can achieve in a day.

Make sure to do this daily so that this becomes a DAILY HABIT. I know personally that when I chose not to do this, the focus becomes blurred. It’s now time to stop the blurred vision and to start getting clarity on what your day will look like.

To learn more DAILY HABITS to incorporate into your business click here to attend a free live online training on this week.

EmpowerBeyond – Business Performance Solutions, focusing on people, process, products and services and improving productivity and cash flow. www.empowerbeyond.com.au

Who Do You Need to Contact?

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Androulla

For your business to grow you need to build relationships, speak to people, find out their needs as you may be the person they need either now or in the future.

Whether you have met someone through a casual conversation or through a formal meeting/network event, it’s what you do outside that time that will make the difference to you building a business relationship with that person.

Think about it, how many times have you gone to an event or met someone and they said to you “we should catch up” or “I’ll call you next week to arrange a meeting” and they never do.

Maybe you are one of those people. What’s the reason for you not taking that step to make the call to arrange a meeting? Could it be:

You are not sure what to say at the meeting
You are not sure how to articulate what to say
You are not sure what you want as the outcome of the meeting
You are worried they will say NO to the meeting

I’m sure you can come up with more reasons why you have been holding back contacting the people you know you should be contracting.

You see, being in business is about communication and listening. Listening to the other person’s needs and helping provide a solution to the problem they have. Think about when you had the initial conversation with a person what were their needs, what is something you could help them with or you know of someone who could help them. By doing nothing, you are actually doing a disservice to that person.

Imagine you have a problem or challenge and the person standing right in front of you had the answer but didn’t offer it to you. How would it make you feel?

So right now, you know of 3 people you need to contact that you could possibly help. Write them down and set aside 20 minutes today to call them and arrange a time to have a meeting with them.

Let’s not stop there, once you have those 3 people confirmed for meetings, write down the next 3 people you can help or add value to.

Start to notice the momentum you are building, even if you get a small setback keep making those calls because you will be way ahead of where you were before making these calls.

For some of you, the rewards may not be instant but could be in months to come. Book in meetings now that will eventually lead to work in the near future. I personally had a meeting in November which now has me booked in to be a guest speaker for 3 events for early 2018 for a particular industry with small business owners.

Before you know it, your calendar will start to fill up and it will not only be filled with meetings with leads/prospects but also filled with client appointments.

EmpowerBeyond – Business Performance Solutions, focusing on people, process, products and services and improving productivity and cash flow www.empowerbeyond.com.au

Lining Up All Your Ducks

Posted on November 6, 2017 by Androulla

I don’t think it’s the right time, I don’t have all the resources I need yet, what if this happens, I don’t know all the steps to take.

Do you hear yourself saying these things often and find they stop you in your track?

They stop you from taking that next step, doing what you know you should be doing in your business but don’t.

You either have a clear idea or some idea as to what you want to achieve in your business but until you have all your ducks lined up you can’t take that step.

What happens here is the following:

You get stuck and don’t get moving
You take longer to get your results
You are ready to give up

What if we turned this around and assumed you had all the answers you needed, would you then say yes?

Let’s try this on for a minute.
Choose a situation, a thought, an idea, a challenge you have been sitting on for a while and say “Yes, I’m going to move forward with this, even though I don’t have all the answers yet and have some fear about how this will turn out.”

“Say yes and then work out the how” is how to approach to take.

I know it’s scary, especially if you like certainty around the decisions you make but just give it a go, what’s the worse that can happen.

Grab a notebook and now write down what you have said yes to.

Examples, of saying yes to:

Creating an offer to your target market by the end of the month
Generating [insert dollar amount] by [insert the date]
Sending out weekly educational emails to your database by [insert start date]
Posting [insert frequency] on social media
Contacting a certain person who has been on your list for a while
Creating an event, online or offline for your audience/potential clients
Getting help from a person you know can assist you
Setting boundaries in your business [example, the days and hours you work]

What’s important here is knowing your intention, what outcome you want to achieve.

It’s also about getting started and trusting that knowing what to do [the how] will come as you work through this.

In some cases your plan will not go as anticipated, you may be led in a different direction but ultimately your aim is to get to your destination, the outcome you want.

No more reasons or excuses as to why you can’t move forward in your business.

It’s now time to say YES and start your journey towards your goal with the first step. So what is the first step you need to take? Once you know what that is, take action. Once that’s done, then ask yourself what’s the next step from here? Keep going with this and before you know it things will start to unfold for you and the business. Along the way, you will also learn a lot about yourself. You may even surprise yourself as to how resourceful you have been with your time, knowledge and resources you have.

At each step reflect on your experience and ask some questions – Here are some questions to get you started:

Am I on the path to achieving the outcome I want
What have I learned from this
What resources did I need
Who was able to support me
What could I have done differently
What will I continue to do moving forward (way of thinking, what you say to yourself – the self-talk, your actions)

Use this process for one aspect of your business that you want to work on right now and use then use it again on another aspect of your business.

EmpowerBeyond – Business Performance Solutions, focusing on people, process, products and services and improving productivity and cash flow www.empowerbeyond.com.au

Time is a Valuable Resource!

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Androulla

Time is something you can’t get back it’s one of the most valuable resources we have.

Speaking to people they tend to have a ‘To Do List” that keeps growing and growing or seldom do they get to complete everything on that list.

If I was to say to you, “here’s an extra day for you do whatever you wish, what would you do with that time?

STOP reading here… Now take this time to make a list of what you would do.

Breakdown your list into the following categories:

What will take UNDER an hour to do
What will take OVER an hour to do

Now my question to you is why haven’t you done these things already?

Maybe you have been too busy, busy with other things, maybe these things haven’t been a priority for you until now. Whatever the reason, let’s move forward from this and start prioritising what’s important right now for you.

In reality, I can’t give you that extra day but what you have done as a result of doing this exercise is started the process of accomplishment. To accomplish things you need to:

Identify what needs to be done [prioritisation]
Scheduling that time in your day or week to get those things done
Taking action and completing that tasks at hand
Feeling satisfied knowing that you got things done and feel good about it

Being aware of time and what you choose to do with it is so valuable.

Whether you have a day or even 30 minutes to do something, the benefit of being aware of time and how precious it is will help you accomplish things faster.

Remember, it’s quality not quantity. Everyone has the same amount of time in the day, but why is it that some accomplish more than others?

EmpowerBeyond – Business Performance Solutions, focusing on people, process, products and services and improving productivity and cash flow www.empowerbeyond.com.au

What Makes for a Productive Meeting?

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Androulla

When speaking to business owners who have staff or Managers and I ask the question of whether they have regular meetings with their staff, most of the times they say yes but not on a regular basis as they have so much to do that they don’t have time to run them.

They did mention however that they do communicate on a daily basis about things with their staff. What you find is that passing through the office and having a conversation in an informal manner is great however as there are elements missing from the conversation the outcome may take longer to achieve. In some instances, the problem is raised but the details of why, how, when and who are not addressed.

This is why a formal meeting where times are set aside to address this is a great way to get results faster.

A meeting can have different formats, whether you are a business owner or a manager in a corporation, these types of meetings can be used in many business types.

There are 3 types of meeting:

Regular meetings to discuss general activities.
Meetings called to address a topic that needs to be addressed immediately.
Meetings that relate to the projects that are being worked on.

A productive meeting is one that when you walk out the room you can say, “we achieved a lot in a short period of time and we are all clear as to the next steps and by when to reach a certain outcome.”

Some elements of a productive meeting will include the following:

Having meetings on a regular basis with your team [daily 5-10 minutes at the start of the day, weekly, fortnightly, monthly].
Having an agenda [what will be discussed in the meeting].
Having a start and end time for the meeting.
Having the relevant people at the meeting, those who can provide insight on the topics and those who have authority to make decisions.
Sending the attendees any relevant documents for them to read outside the meeting before attending.
Having a chairperson, making sure the discussion stays to the agenda.
Knowing the outcome you want to reach by the end of the meeting [the purpose of the meeting].
Minutes are taken outlining topics discussed, who will be responsible for any actions outside the meeting and when to have them completed by.
Setting a date for the next meeting at the current meeting.
Sending out the minutes to all those who attended the meeting and who were invited but were absent at the time of the meeting.

So if currently you are not having regular meetings with your staff or you are but not as structured as you would like them to be, start this week with setting them up.

Decide how regular you want these meeting to be with your staff. Look at what projects you need to start or issues you need to get resolved and set up meetings with the appropriate people.

EmpowerBeyond – Business Performance Solutions, focusing on people, process, products and services and improving productivity and cash flow www.empowerbeyond.com.au