Business Development As A Habit

Whether you’re a brand new entrepreneur or you’ve been running your business for a while, having a system for business development is essential to maintain momentum.  It is especially easy to fall into the trap of “coasting” when our initial marketing efforts start paying off, and we end up busy serving current customers and forget about needing to continue to prospect new customers.

Regardless of how busy you are, make sure you are spending time doing business development.  For example, your time may currently be divided amongst the following activities:

• Money-making/Billable Activities
• Business Development Activities
• Skills/Personal Development Activities
• Administrative Activities

How much time are you spending in each area?  I’ve found that a 60/20/10/10 respective percentage split works well in a business-as-usual state.  You spend 60% of your time on activities that contribute to your bottom line, 20% of your time on business development and strategic planning, 10% polishing or acquiring new skills, and no more than 10% on administrative tasks like paperwork, invoicing, and e-mails.

You may decide to have a different allocation, which is great.  The important thing is to know where you are and where you would like to be, so you can make the necessary changes to ensure you are leveraging your time intentionally.  What do you need to do to get to where you want to be?

Brand Butlers

Love the newest Trend Briefing from Trendwatching – check it out to learn what’s hot for business and how to bring those customers in!  My favorite is the City Tours by Google Labs.

Do You Take Your Own Advice?

As a young entrepreneur working with other entrepreneurs, I am constantly studying their business tactics and strategies. As the saying goes, the bricklayer never gets around to finishing his chimney and the seamstress rarely sews for herself. Similarly, I’ve noticed that some people in business don’t always take personal advantage of their own expertise.

Whether it’s managing, organizing, arranging, consulting or selling – customers or clients may glimpse into an  entrepreneur’s personal life and see a disconnect. Most of us are aware of this and I believe it is a big source of stress.  That nagging feeling of “I’ll get around to it,” is an unnecessary burden to carry through the day.

For the rest of the week, treat yourself like your own client, take the advice and wisdom that you give others – finish laying the bricks on your chimney or complete your unsewn dress.

Simple Rules for Success

I recently read a great article on Fast Company about 37Signals’ new book, 13 Simple Rules for Success in Business. Fast Company has laid out some of the suggestions that 37Signals discuss, and they’re illustrated!  My favourite pointer is #1: Workaholism.  Workaholics aren’t heroes!  The book suggests that workaholics don’t actually get more done than the regular worker, rather a workaholics game decreases productivity and results in lazy decisions.  I think this is one of the greatest reminders to entrepreneurs, because don’t we all think we can fit one more client in for the day, or we can write one more article?  You can head over to Fast Company and read the whole article by clicking here.

Don’t keep postponing the unpleasant stuff

I just got off the phone with a client who is in hot water because they kept postponing dealing with a tax issue.  It wasn’t that big a deal 6 months ago, but it is now a crisis.  And their justification – “I hate dealing with this tax stuff!”  Really?  Hands up out there, all of you who LOVE dealing with tax stuff.

Into every life comes those tasks that are unpleasant and IMPORTANT.   Just because you don’t like doing them doesn’t mean you should postpone them indefinitely.   By doing that, they often grow in size and become big issues with serious consequences attached if not dealt with.  But even more importantly, don’t you get sick of that nagging voice in your head that keeps reminding you that you need to deal with that issue?

To me that’s even worse than simply sitting down and taking care of that unpleasant important task.  Then it’s over and I can get my peace of mind back.

Not All Prospects Are Worth It!

One of the biggest dust bunnies I see in business is hanging onto prospects for too long. A lot of us HATE prospecting – you know who you are!

For a variety of reasons you have decided that prospecting is a horrible task, so you grudgingly find a few prospects or perhaps they stumble across you. However it happens, you hang onto those prospects forever, waiting for them to buy. Because as long as you are focused on waiting for an answer from them, you do not have to find other prospects. Because if you do, and they all buy from you, how will you ever manage all that new business? (I actually had a business owner say that to me.)

STOP! To survive in business today, you must get rid of the clutter of old prospects who are hanging around tying up your time and energy. For every old one you hang onto, you are missing the opportunity to find a customer that is likely to buy from you. Show me a business owner who is not making money and I will show you someone who is doing very little prospecting. Dust off that prospect list – clean off those prospects who are dragging their feet on buying. Focus your time and energy on finding ones who will.

Are You Busy or Productive?

I have come to realize that time management can make or break the success of a business. When is busy being productive? The trap I see for entrepreneurs is that productivity creates administrative busyness. It is easy to fill time by looking after the administrative duties of a business; that’s why many hard working people watch as their incomes drop.

A simple approach to evaluating the productivity of your work is to list your business related activities over the period of a week. If administrative tasks take up more than 20% of your time, these should be delegated to an assistant. The value of your hired help can be calculated by figuring your own hourly wage when you do only what is productive. Look at where your time is most valuable and aim to delegate out all the other daily tasks that just need to get done.  Don’t get busy, get productive.

A Year for Improved Productivity

This year, I’ve decided to do business differently – I’m pledging to cut down my stress level, if not cut stress completely out of my life! To achieve this, I’m going to be (more) productive.

Here are a few of the things I’m going to do:

1) Rate my daily activities as high, medium, or low in the realm of brainpower. This gives me a good sense of what needs to be done in the morning, when I am most productive. I also figured out what hours of the day I work most effectively, and will schedule the “high brainpower” activities for that time.

2) When energy runs out, take it as it is. I’ve decided that when I’m not feeling 100%, I’ll take a quick 15 minute time out or break to rejuvenate myself, rather than slogging through activities. I’ll return to my work refreshed and ready to hit the ground running!

3) Create boundaries. I have set time for business and non-business. Last year I let these two bleed into each other. My goal is to stay disciplined – turn off the phone and computer during non-business time.

4) Touch things once. Rather than read an email and then go back to answer it a few hours later, I’ve decided to implement a rule whereby if I read an email, then I’ll respond right away and get it done rather than waste my time later by re-reading it.

What are you doing to make your year more effective? I’m always up for suggestions!

The Rule of Once

Being effective at sales requires that you be an excellent manager of your time. It means you make your work hours really count. And you can only do this by handling things once. Yes – once. I am talking about paper, voicemail, and email. Taking time to read, look or listen to things more than once is lost time. This really hit home for me when I read “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes. He states: “If you spend just 15 minutes per day to reread documents or emails, you will waste 97 hours per year where no action is taken.”

Are you kidding me? What could you accomplish with an extra 97 hours a year? So get rid of the clutter and bad habits you are hoarding. Starting today, implement a new rule: If you touch it, take action. Don’t read that email or listen to that voicemail unless you are ready to tackle it. Yes, this will be hard to do in the beginning, but for my clients who have implemented it, they have seen a real jump in profitability and they find they have more free time. So I dare you to try it! Drop me a line and let me know what happens.

How Long Will Your Goals Last?

What I love about this time of year is that everyone is so positive.  We’re all making goals, thinking big and dreaming of the year to come.  But now, in the second week of the New Year, are your goals just as strong and alive as they were on January 1st?  I came across a great tool on Flying Solo, it is a one page strategic plan, with a template and instructions to fill it out.  Since this strategic plan is only one page, it is quick to fill out and easy to keep on a wall or in a day planner.  To meet your 2010 goals, fill out this template, revise it on a monthly basis and read it every day for inspiration and drive.  You can download the template here.