Productivity Power Tip #5
Productivity Power Tip #5
Strategy before tactics
A problem I see a lot is entrepreneurs trying new tactics, without understanding the strategy behind it.
This is especially the case if you are a creative entrepreneur or business owner just starting out.
Strategy refers to a direction toward a goal. Tactics are the actions taken to support that strategy.
I see a lot of people getting lost. They hear about another tactic and try to apply it without considering whether it’s the best fit for them right now.
Or, they spend time creating new things before considering whether it suits their business model.
Examples of this include:
- Posting videos without understanding the exact ideal person client trying to help
- Putting out blogs and never putting a call to action with it
- Posting lots of random quotes without thinking about the ’why’ behind it
- Posting stories that don’t help solve people’s problems
- Posting images without thinking about whether it fits your brand message
I’ve made all of these mistakes. It’s easy to get caught up in new shiny tactics because they seem like a quick way to solve our problems.
It takes time to develop strategies. But if we want real and lasting results, it should always be strategy first, tactics second.
A well-planned strategy provides you with a clear vision of where you’re going and helps give you direction in your day-to-day decisions.
Anyone can do tactic for 2 seconds – the strategy is the key.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu
Action Tips
Do you have a clear strategy in place that will take you towards your vision and goals?
If not, it’s time to step back and clarify your strategy.
What would help you the most at the moment? Maybe it’s marketing, sales, packaging, niche, pricing or event-planning.
Book in at least 1 hour of thinking time alone this week, where you put your phone on flight mode and nut it out.
It’s worth it.
Productivity Power Tip #4
Productivity Power Tip #4
Eat That Frog
As business owners, we can have very long to-do lists. Often, when we feel overwhelmed with so much to do and so little time to do it, we can procrastinate on the hard tasks.
It makes sense – our brain always wants to take the path of least resistance.
Sometimes it’s because we feel we don’t have the space or brain capacity to give it our full attention, other times it’s because we don’t know how to do the task that’s on our to-do.
Either way, putting the hard things off can make them loom larger and larger over us, and can start to affect our confidence as a business owner.
This energy can be a drainer on our head-space and can lead to us getting caught in a spiral of self-judgment and self-doubt.
Often this can be avoided by committing to start each morning with our hardest or most unpleasant task.
A few years back, I read an excelled book by Brian Tracey called “Eat That Frog”.
In the book, he tells a story about Mark Twain who once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that is probably the worse things that will happen to you all day long.
Your “frog” is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.
Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major, challenging tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.
Action Tip
What is your “frog?”
What is the one task that you have been putting off?
Once you have chosen your “frog” make it a goal to wake up tomorrow morning and do that task first.
Productivity Power Tip #3
Productivity Power Tip #3
Focus on your R.O.I
A problem I see all too often is entrepreneurs spending so much time on things that won’t make them money.
So many ideas, so little time, and so much money… wait, what? Not so much money? That’s the problem, right?
If we want our business to last long-term, we need to stop the shiny object syndrome and choose the things that are going to get the financial momentum building.
Sometimes we get stuck in our comfort zone and not wanting to step out of it and put ourselves out there. This can lead to doing the very predictable - Nothing! Or investing time in things that won’t yield a good return.
An example of comfortable tasks include:
- Playing around and wasting money on Facebook ads without knowing what we’re doing
- Spending too much time on our logo or business card
- Trying to find the perfect stock image
- Going to another free seminar
- Wasting time trying to figure out how to do hard things by googling (when they could be outsourced)
Examples of brave, money-making tasks:
- Making sales calls
- Running our own event
- Following people up
- Planning a Facebook live with a clear call to action
- Creating a webinar
- Creating a marketing funnel
- Creating a valuable lead magnet
Action Tips
What are you doing that’s keeping you in your comfort zone?
What’s the next brave move you can make to get a solid R.O.I?
Write it down and start working on it today!
Pick up more productivity tips and strategies at my “Prosper with Productivity” workshop on Saturday 3rd Nov.
We will deep-dive into getting the most important things in your business DONE!
To learn more, click below
Productivity Power Tip #2
Productivity Power Tip #2
Just 10 minutes
Do you struggle to get all the important things done you need to do?
Doing a little bit of the right action every day is one of the most productive decisions we can choose to make.
Which is why the “Just 10 Minutes” strategy can be so helpful.
It’s about reaping big rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions.
Often we overwhelm ourselves by dreaming up that we need to have large chunks of time to achieve our goals.
The problem with this is that we can end up doing nothing, waiting for those big chunks of time to come.
In the meantime, we could have done something small, consistently - even for 10 minutes a day, which would have added up like a rolling snowball.
In reality, simply by starting something and working on it for at least 10 minutes a day, can do so much to build up motivation and momentum.
When we feel that momentum and flow building, we feel new energy and excitement and usually start wanting to do more.
Setting yourself a timer for 10 minutes, and doing short bursts of maintenance work on that area, just to keep it moving forward makes a big difference.
You can build up to more time, but if you really don't feel like it - just say to yourself "just 10 minutes" and see what happens!
This can work with things like...
• Writing the outline or some ideas for a blog article
• Speaking an idea into your phone in voice memos
• Organising your email inbox
• Reading a book about what would help you with your biggest challenge (marketing? sales? copywriting?)
• Practice recording videos
• Writing the copywriting for your social media posts
Just 10 minutes every day.
Action Tip:
Decide on something you can do for just 10 minutes every day that will move the needle forward in your business.
Imagine what it could do for your growth and improvement.
Pick up more tips and strategies at my “Prosper with Productivity” workshop on Saturday 3rd November, where we deep-dive into getting the most important things in your business DONE!
Click below to learn more:
Having a friend or colleague hold you accountable for your ten minutes can also be a big help!
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