What if you could get ten times more done, work 50% less and continue to triple your revenues in the process? Who wouldn’t want that, right? I’ve put together a list of my top 10 “Go-To” tips for boosting my personal productivity and bottom line.
Review this list and pick one or two to put into action this month. And be sure to share which tip you’ll use first in the comments below!
1. Stop Doing Low-Payoff Activities (LPA)
Low payoff activities drain your time and energy away from the bigger opportunities that only you can take action on. When we spend time “in the weeds” of our business it’s easy to lose track of your big vision. LPA are any task that someone else could do better, faster or cheaper than you can do it. When you are ready to increase profits and productivity you have to spend more time doing what has the highest payoff to the business.
2. Do More In Your Genius
Just as important as putting more time into high payoff activities is spending more time in your Zone of Genius. Really evaluate your core offerings and ask yourself, do these offerings align me with my best energy? Am I serving the clients I most want to spend time with? Is my day full of activities that light me up? If not, it might be time to eliminate (or at least pause) what is no longer aligned.
As we grow and evolve, so do our strengths, passions and desires. Let your offerings grow with you and be willing to release and simplify so your business growth can feel inspiring. There’s nothing worse than feeling trapped in a business you don’t love!
3. Time Block your Week
A little trick I learned many years ago is to time block my day. Every day of the week has a purpose and within each day I block out time to focus on specific activities. By creating time blocks your productivity goes up about 10 times as you will experience momentum by moving from one similar project to the next. When you try to tackle different types of activities or start/stop projects, your productivity will plummet as your brain takes time to adjust to the new focus point.
I always leave space on Monday morning and Friday afternoon to do what feels right – catch up or take time off to recharge.
4. Manage Interruptions
If you are interrupted by clients or team members all day long you’ll accomplish very little of your own goals. Create a boundary around your day so that you have at least two “focus” times. Turn off your phone, email and instant chat tools. Set a timer if you have a hard time sticking with it. Educate your team and clients what times you will be available for them so their expectations match your availability. The bonus is that many of the people who routinely interrupt you will learn to problem solve on their own!
Interruptions are a massive profit-drain to an #entrepreneur. So is doing things that are low payoff. Click To Tweet5. Hand off Email
Email is probably one of the biggest productivity drains on the planet. Most small business owners spend at least 10 – 15 hours a week sorting through and responding to emails that generate less than 10% of the income in your business. If you haven’t already, hand off your main email accounts to a personal assistant. Create templates or scripts of how you would like certain responses to be handled. Then, schedule 2 – 3 times a day (instead of every time you get a new “ding” in your inbox) that you will check your email.
6. Automate Routine Activities
There are many activities that can be automated so that you minimize the time you spend recreating the wheel. Evaluate all of the activities that happen at a certain time or could follow a specific sequence. Document your steps or implement technology to automate the steps for you. For instance, you could use a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) to set up automatic follow up steps or create a procedure for your weekly e-zine to be done on specific days (this is there Time Blocking comes in handy.)
7. Plan your Priorities
Planning seems to one of the least favorite activities for every entrepreneur I have worked with over the years – but the absence of a plan is a costly mistake. Its kind of like stepping over dollars to pick up a few pennies – without a plan you’ll be reactive, waste precious time and resources, and you will financially under-perform.
When you map out your revenues goals and reverse engineer your offerings to meet your goals, you’ll have better focus and use of your resources. With that level of clarity you can ensure that your marketing each month is tailored to the specific offerings you’ve planned out. With this strategy, you’ll be less reactive and more profitable! If this is hard for you, get my Profit Explosion Toolkit and I’ll walk you through each and every step.
8. Give Your Offerings a Profit Boost
When you’ve done everything else right but your revenues seem stagnate, it might be time to redesign your offerings so you can scale back your one-on-one time but grow your income and impact. Consider ways to increase your fees, add volume sales, introduce group trainings or even package your knowledge into products that your clients can purchase.
9. Activate Collaboration Currency
One of the best ways to increase your productivity is to align with a colleague who serves your audience and deliver one of your “sweet spot” programs. A solid alliance already has built trust and rapport with their community and has built a marketing machine to serve them. By joining forces you eliminate the time and cost of building up that new marketing channel on your own. Of course you’ll want to share a referral fee to say Thank You – and it will be worth every penny.
After you implement all of these tips, you’ll be a high performing entrepreneur who is on fire! You might just be able to take that vacation you’ve been dreaming about (and guess what, your business will make money while you are gone, too.)
What’s one of your tips for increasing profits and productivity?
