It’s the Marketing for Owners podcast, episode 163 with me, your host, Jon Butt. It’s another day and another tip to help you get through the week and make some more sales in your business.
Today we are going to talk about how to find more time to do the things you want to do and to find time to do more of the things you love.
Let’s talk about the 80/20 rule to prioritizing. In our day we are busy! We have to write emails, read emails, do social media, write posts, visit clients, talk with co-workers and more!
But, with all these things, how do we prioritize and where do we prioritize? Now, you must have heard of the 80/20 rule. Quite simply what it means is that 80% of the benefit comes from doing only 20% of the work. You can pretty much apply it to anything.
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I have done loads of research and although it’s not always exactly that aveerage, it still works if you apply it. So if you take the day that you have just gone through and do an exercise where you look at your day . . oh wait — you’ve never done this exercise before?
Let’s start with that.
Grab a piece of lined paper, you don’t need any particular form, so any old piece will do, and write down every single thing you do such as answer an email — write it down. Just do it throughout the day and keep that paper with you. When you do something, write it down.
Now do this task for 2-3 days so you can see what all is going on in your day to day work flow.
Now what you are going to do on the other side of the paper, you are going to write down whether it is a priority or another administrative task, or something like that.
There is another method that people use all the time where they apply a $10, $100, and $1000 per hour to the tasks. So if in other words it is a $10 an hour thing, perhaps you shouldn’t be doing that task.
So you need to be learning what you actually do during the day and find out what tasks are taking up your time.
Now, once you decide on that, you are going to decide what you do and what gets you the most bang for your buck.
Now — some things have to be done. Quite often you can get someone else to do them. Always ask yourself — do I need to be doing this or can I outsource this to someone else?
There are many jobs. Some of them are instant hits with many clients. If you know that you can convert 3-5 clients out of every job or task, then start visiting your clients.
However, if it is a long term game, where it’s going to take 5 or 6 visits with those clients, but you still get those kind of conversion numbers, it’s still worth doing it — even if it is a long term game.
So think to yourself — is it worth me answering admin emails? Is it worth allowing my colleagues to interrupt me at any given time?
Now if you start to prioritize your time, and decide in blocks what you are going to do, and what you are not going to do, if you can pick 20% of the tasks — the ones that get 80% of the value, with the result your after, whether it’s income or progress, or just free time.
You have to pick, so welcome those 20 percent, welcome them hard and make an effort to get rid of the other 80 percent. There are people in your company who can do it , and if they’re not in your company, if you work for just you, there are the aids, virtual assistants, in countries far away and there will be the people in your local town who can do it too.
You don’t have to think of sending off to India or the Philippines every single time. People are going to help, so let them! Okay, that’s my advice for today. Something that you could practice over and over. You get good at it and then you’ll find your days are much more effective.
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Today is a Wednesday and on Wednesdays, we like to put out someone who’s ideal to follow on social media and around the blogs. Today is the wonderful Mari Smith. Her website is marismith.com and from there you’ll find lots of her other properties.
Mari is acknowledged as one of the leading Facebook experts however, if you’re going to brilliant at Facebook, you’re going to be brilliant at twitter at linkedin, and all the social because it’s just in your DNA.
With Mari Smith, it’s in her DNA. She is a sort of Canadian, Scottish, living in San Diego kind of person. She’s a bundle of fun, she’s fantastic, she has a great smile and very infectious. Follow everything she does, she is a true genius of the art of social media.
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What tasks should you be passing on?
