Dramatically Improve Your Productivity- Hire a Small Business Coach

If you run a small business, does this scenario ring a bell?

You get up, rush through your morning routine and hurry to the office. (store, warehouse, etc). You've been thinking of the important things you need to accomplish all last night and as you prepare for your day, you felt a certain sense of control and purpose about what you were ready to do. This was the day you planned to move the boulder forward and get some things done!

Since you are the first one to your place of business, you need to make coffee. While you are making coffee, you see the message light blinking on the office line extension so you pick it up and listen to the messages. There are no messages for any new orders but several from past customers or suppliers that are not happy and want your immediate attention. You scribble down a few notes, hang up the phone and grab the first cup of coffee as you head to your office.

One of the requests is for a pending order. To check this, you need to log on to your company's computer only to find out it is frozen from someone who used it to web surf the night before. So you do an end run on the problem and start searching through the stacks of unfiled orders on your desk. At that moment, the phone rings and you answer it. What happens next will take about 3 hours to resolve.

What happened to your zest for accomplishing the things you stayed awake all nightthinking about? You had good intentions. You even came into work early before anyone could get you involved in their problems. All you know is, at the end of this day you will go home with the same important things you wanted to do still needing to be done.

If this sounds like an average day in your life, you are not alone. In my small business coaching practice, I work with this issue a lot. If your business is not big enough for employees, you end up doing everything yourself. If you have employees, they all seem to need you to help them with their problems. If you are like most small business owners, you may just be of the mindset that no one can do it as well as you so you do it all yourself.

This cycle of unfocused involvement with everything in your business is not only creating havoc with your intended routine but prevents you from focusing on revenue generating activities that your company needs to grow and stay healthy. So, what do you do?

As a small business advisor, here are a few things you can do to stay more focused on the important tasks.

1. Define your goals- Once you have determined in your mind what you need to get accomplished, write these tasks down. Resist the temptation to create a 'grocery style' list. Too many tasks will inevitably create the same unfocused results. Write down no more than 3 items that must get done that day.

2. Set a time frame- Determine how much time is needed to complete these tasks. This will be an estimate at best but it serves to frame out your focus for whatever amount of hours you project. It also gives you permission to do nothing else during this time than the tasks you have scheduled.

3. Know your peak work period- Decide when during the day you will address them. Most people are prone to working on the important stuff when they feel mentally alert (morning person vs. night time person). Remember, that the later in the day you schedule your focused activity, the greater chance you will cancel or reschedule because you got caught up in something else that is taking longer than you thought. If you deicide to address your tasks in the afternoon, consider leaving the office to reduce distractions.

4. Look forward to being more productive- Treat your 'task time' like a vacation. If you were going on vacation to a place you were really excited about, you'd start getting ready to leave early. Don't schedule or take on a large project right before your scheduled time.

5. Remove all temptations- Once you are focused on the project at hand, eliminate all distractions. Turn the phones over to someone else. Turn off your cell phone. Tell people that work for you that you must not be disturbed. Unless your building is on fire, everything else can wait for 60-90 minutes.

6. Eliminate real time distractions- While working on your computer, shut your email service down. Having little signs pop up with 'You've got mail' is torture to some folks. I would even close my calendar book or software to prevent looking at the next days schedule and feeling like you need to prepare for the meeting you've arranged.

Focus is about eliminating all the distractions that cause you to deviate from your plan. It's also about not being clear about what you need to do and why you have to do it today. Addressing both of these areas will greatly improve your ability to concentrate and increase your productivity. Start by doing this exercise once per week. Once you get comfortable that you can devote time to the things you want to accomplish and your business will still be standing when you return, you will start doing it more often.

There are, however, some work place environments that are prohibitively difficult to control. If your productivity and sense of priorities is consistently being undermined by distractions, problems and dependent employees, consider getting a business coach or a small business mentor to help you reshape your daily operation. In a short period of time, a business coach can perform a business assessment on your situation and immediately begin moving you in the right direction. The return on your investment can be monumental.

Truly successful business owners realize that it is the time you spend working 'on' your business that drives growth, profitability and personal reward, not laboring away 'in' your business day and night.

Verbal Marketing: Is Your Networking Message on Queue

Several times a week, I make my rounds to the various networking organizations I belong to for the purpose of continuing to drive my business through referrals. As the owner of a small business coaching and consulting business, I rely on other people who know me and recommending their colleagues to me. It's time consuming but less expensive than buying news print or magazine placements. It also insures that people continue to see me, especially in the role of an experienced business coach. I've learned that as long as people see you out and about working your business, they know you are still in business. It's one of the most difficult things a small business has to acheive during the early years of operation- visibility.

Of course, if you are consistent with your message and the delivery of your product or service, visibility will lead to credibility. Now, none of this activity is of much value if you have difficulty telling people what you do. Helping small business owners develop highly effective marketing strategies so they can grow their revenues, client base and profits is something I can't afford to mess up on when another person says, "tell me what you do"?

Every networking event that I've been to incorporates common activities to get the crowd comfortable with each other. And of course, we're all there to find business so making introductions seems to be the best way to accomplish both. Here's where I find many business owners losing ground in the message and credibility department.

No one knows your business as well as you do. So, if you have difficulty explaining who you are and the benefit of what you do in 30 seconds or less, how can you expect other people to know what to look for. My best referrals have come from people who know exactly what I do, how I do it and what the benefit is to the small business owner. They know this becuase they have worked with me or been associated with me for a period of time. In a networking meeting, you don't have the luxury of time. You have to peak the interest of strangers and entice someone to ask, "wow, how do you do that".

It's called a 30 second commercial or an elevator pitch. Either way, it's what you say to someone who asks you what you do. Here are a few techniques for perfecting your pitch.

1. Start with something that lasts about 10 seconds. Identify a problem or issue that your target client has and state what you do to address it. The reason I say start with 10 seconds is because you want to be able to remember it so it sounds natural when you say it.

2. Don't be concerned about getting every detail out in 30 seconds. I hear this all the time and it end up being so rushed, jumbled up and unclear, you lose your audience. People's attention spans are about 8 seconds on a good day. If you don't capture their interest right up front, you've missed it.

3. The purpose of a commerical or elevator pitch is to pre-qualify your listener. In networking environments, the challenge is meeting people who can help you find more clients. If they're not interested in you, don't waste time on them. You can find this out in 10 seconds by how they respond to your commercial.

You can have the best business in the world and if you can't clearly tell others who you are and why they should do business with you in 10 seconds or less, consider investing in magazine ads and newspaper listings. And save money of the networking events to.

My business involves helping people with their marketing message. If you would like a complimentary session to find out how good your message is, visit my website and request a business assessment. http://www.BusinessCoachingThatWorks.com