Focus, Focus, Focus!

I help clients attract more clients, make more money, and have more free time. I do this by helping them create focus in the areas of sales and marketing – we connect their marketing with their sales strategies for real results.

One of the most successful strategies my clients adopt is creating focus in their “TIME and TASKS”. It’s hard to balance it all and even harder to do it all yourself. The following is a system that I use almost every week. Your schedule may be totally different than mine – it doesn’t matter what your system is, only that you create a system that works for you.

Marketing Mondays- This is when I do my marketing activities and my preparation for the week.
• I prepare for my client appointments for that week – research, emails, contacts etc.
• I do all my writing, preparing for e-blasts for my Business Support Manager to send out, writing for clients, contacting colleagues and suppliers, setting up potential client appointments, preparing proposals… whatever needs to happen!

Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursdays – are client days.

I am out of my office first thing in the morning and have client or potential client meetings all day, networking events and usually back in my office late in the afternoon. I am also usually out 1-2 nights a week to networking events. Getting out there in a big way leads to people knowing, liking and trusting you – the formula needed for people to do business with you!

Fridays – I may have one appointment in the morning, but most, if not all of Friday, is my own. I may have lunch with a friend, run errands, go shopping.

During every week the most important strategy is delegation! If someone else can do it faster, cheaper or better – delegate it. Also recognize when you reach your STUCK POINT. Ever notice you can get tons of things done really quickly and then you agonize over a certain project for days, weeks, months? This is your stuck point and the perfect time to delegate. Just image how much time you’ll free up, how much stress will be relieved and how many incomplete projects will actually come to life!

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on December 8, 2010

Creating Your Team

For most of us it was our passion that inspired us to go into business for ourselves. We wanted to do what we love, help our clients and generally live to the beat of our own drum. Before long the reality of running a business on our own hit – suddenly we realized there are many different hats to wear other than the one that inspired us to entrepreneurship.

A great team is essential to all success – especially the success of a “solopreneur” or small business owner. Based on much focused objectives my decision to not have employees doesn’t diminish the need for additional resources. I work with an amazing team of professionals that serve a variety of purposes. I focus on what I’m good at to generate revenue and outsource everything else.

Each person only has so much capacity – why not use that time to make money and delegate the things that can be done by someone else? It’s also important that your team include colleagues that assist, inspire and motivate you to think and reach beyond your comfort zone to create YOUR ideal life – whatever that means to YOU.

One of my most important team members is my “right hand”. The one that helps me by professionally and reliably completing the necessary on-going tasks that are essential to the success of my business but not my forte. It’s not enough to have a typical Virtual Assistant, you need a professional that can think like you, know what clients expect and works with initiative and innovation. Whatever that means to you in your business I guarantee that as soon as you hire them it will feel as though a weight has been lifted from your shoulders and your business will start to become what you initially dreamed about.

Being an entrepreneur – there’s no life like it!

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on October 27, 2010