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Transcript
Glenn Mattson
Welcome back to the Building Blocks of Success. Last conversation we had, we started talking about paid time and non-paid time. And I wanted to take a little bit of a deeper dive in today as we started to take a look at how to manage someone's day. And I noticed an awful lot of people don't have a great process and how to do that. So I want to walk through real quick a couple of things. With respect to absolutely managing your behaviors along with managing your day.
Glenn Mattson
One of the easiest things to do is when you get into the office before you actually turn on your laptop, and you look at your computer, and you start looking at your emails, let's just take a look at and this is really done, quite honestly, when you're having your first cup of coffee. But the first piece is you have what's called a master dump. And a master dump is writing down everything that needs to be done that day. Now, yes, you may have a to do list already in your computer in your office. But the ability for you to write it down from your brain firm, that down to paper has such a magic experience to it. So make your mash list of all the things that need to be done.
Glenn Mattson
Step number two is prioritize that list, prioritize that list of things that need to be done that day, things need to be done in the morning time, things need to be done in the afternoon, things that are subsets of other pieces that are more critical. So start to take a look at prioritizing the list. So first is dump. Second is prioritization. After you get a chance to prioritize that list, next is time stamping. Time stamping is taking a look at that list in the order of priority. Looking at your day saying okay, when am I going to get this done within the time that I have? So start to have ownership of certain pieces of your day timestamping of when tasks are going to get done. Versus I'll get it done when I can is completely unacceptable. You manage your time you have to make sure you follow the three golden rules of mental dump goes down, prioritization, and then time stamping. It gives you the ability to really maximize your day.
Glenn Mattson
Now when we look at tasks, and taking a look at the trouble line, you know, one of those things that we take a look at is paid time activities. And that's really balancing the ability for us to when you first get out there and start a business, yes, you're gonna have to create the product or service the product or manufacture the product, but you have to sell it in a lot of situations. So unless you have a distribution network you're going to have to sell. And start of that sales process is taking a look at the paid time activities. And that could be prospecting and qualifying or closing and presenting or onboarding and enablement, relationship building, obviously, and the finance and managing it and branding and etc. But prospecting has a lot of different pieces. And everyone thinks, unfortunately, sometimes it's negative and prospecting is things like what you would normally say making up a telephone call or getting referrals from people that think that you're doing a phenomenal job for them. But prospecting is also creating awareness of who you are inside of a community and also giving awareness of what you do so that people have a familiarity with your face and comfortability with what you do. Just prospecting in social media with purpose, right of who and what and why. So there's some questions that you have to answer, but it's also taking a look at your social networking, your friends, letting people know what you're doing, and why you're doing it and who you're doing it with. And maybe even as my one of my dentist friends tells me, he shakes the trees, he likes to have conversations with people of all different areas, in different parts of his professional and his personal life, about just different things on and you never know, as he would say what something may pop up. So what is your ability to go out and shake the trees as he would say, your business connections, social clubs? Yes, if you want to join a country club and say that you're going to use it for personal functions, that's fantastic. But if you're if you're really buying it saying that you're going to use it as a business function, then taking a look at what is the expectations or the results that you're expecting to get from a business standpoint, by having that membership? And then you'd have to break that down and figure out what kind of paid time activities you have to do. So paid time is really not a anything more than taking a look at what you have to do to generate the business that you need to do to accomplish the goals and the activities that have to go in that. Now realize as you start to become more successful in your business, yes, your ability to do the paid time if you look at any entrepreneur will tell you that's one of the most primary functions, if not the primary function of the Rainmaker is the paid time for sure. But as you get better in that paid time, what starts to happen is you have more no paid time think about it. No matter what business you're in, you're going to have the ability on the right side is the paid time information right? So paid time could be things like product knowledge, all that that really never goes away and, and that's a lot of it depending on what kind of business you're in.
Glenn Mattson
And it's also service, making sure that your clients are happy with what's going on and making sure that if they have any roadblocks that need to be dealt with that you're on a quick and timely fashion of communicating and effectively and fixing those roadblocks for those individuals. Those are all things that are real important. Also having the ability to communicate with your clients and stay in communication with your clients, and prospects and individuals that may be part of your community. You're processing your business, right, so having the ability to communicate effectively, and connect with clarity is critical, right. And those are all important things. And having the ability to make sure that you have a good onboarding process to make sure that anyone that's new with your clients and or those that are part of your client base right now that you're doing, you know, quarterly business reviews, or you're doing some check of checkpoints of proficiency to make sure that what they are hiring you to do, you're doing it and you're doing at the level of their expectation. And it's a great way to make sure that you meet and exceed the expectations and really following the golden rule of taking care of your clients and your clients will take care of you. Right. It's the Emerson's law of compensation. So when we look at the business, no paid time activities grow exponentially, the more successful you get. Now, one of the things that's interesting is your successful people will spend time, energy and effort getting better at the paid time activities. And they understand that the no paid time activities are going to be things that still need to be done, it's not something that you don't do, you just have to get it done at a different time. So it's typically not during work hours, or during what you would consider paid time.
Glenn Mattson
Now on the other hand, you have other individuals that will be afraid to or won't want to get out of comfort zone, or in their mind have a different perception of what really paid time activities are. So they find themselves not spending time, energy and effort getting better at those activities. And they really spent more time on the paid time. And that's really improving process. That's taking a look at onboarding a client that's really taking a look at new business that's looking at marketing, that's looking at other aspects of the business. There's nothing wrong with that, but some people will find themselves gravitating more towards no paid time activities for different reasons Then unfortunately, the number one reason that most people do is really to hide, is to be in those activities to say that they're onboarding, saying that learning about the product, saying that they are really making sure that they have a true understanding of what's happening. And that's fair, but they're doing it during quality paid time time. And what's happening is, is that they're really sabotaging themselves by being busy, but they're not being profitable. And you have to ask yourself, you know how much time and energy you spending, and really generating the type of activities you need to do. And I realize, that doesn't mean that you're just a traditional back slapping cigar smoking, salesperson by any means no, there's a fair amount of work that needs to be done on the relationship and making sure that your clients are happy and being out there and being honorable and following through and all the things that need to be done to have a great ethical business. But as you grow, more and more no paid time activities will occur. So what starts to happen is you have to make a decision and many people will hide in the no paid time activities and the avoidance of doing the paid time. And just remember that as you're growing if you're in a business or if you're in a some type of firm or this other salespeople around, you could be STRS could be salespeople of any function, account managers, some of the individuals will use the no paid time activities as areas to hide because they're uncomfortable doing the no paid the paid time. So find those individuals that are leaning into the paid time. Find those individuals that want to do a study group to get better at the paid time activities.
Glenn Mattson
The best growth spurt, your building blocks of success. So as you take a look at the no paid time activities as you grow, what starts to happen as you look at your time, your energy and your effort and you ask yourself, where is my best time, energy and effort? And historically is going to be almost always 99 999 percent time in the paid time activity. So what happens is you will start to hire people and delegate the no paid time activities away. For instance, you may hire someone to schedule meetings for you having the ability to do so it was great. You have great communication with your clients, but you need to have that time to reinvest back into preparation for meetings. You need to reinvest back into relationship building with your clients. You need to build back into certain areas of your business, you will delegate that no paid time activity to somebody. And as time goes on those no paid time activities become more and more delegatable down to other individuals with different skill set. So you may have people that do marketing, you may have people who do some of your financing, your bookkeeping. You may have people that are running your operations, you may have people that are now running your sales department and or some of your sales teams or your salespeople. So as you start to grow in your own aspects, your paid time activities are still an area that you need to be focused in on but your role in the company may change.
Glenn Mattson
For instance, as a salesperson, you have a fair amount of paid time activities in the very beginning of your career around prospecting and building the business. Well, as time goes on, and you have that business, you're still going to be prospecting in some certain level to grow. But a lot has to be done on building relationships and keep maintaining those relationships. Because again, if you follow the 80/20 rule, if you take care of your clients, 80% of the time, they will take care of you. And you really only have to spend 20% of time and business development if you do it right. If you do it right. It's amazing to me that I go talk to certain clients of ours some of the questions I'll ask are, can you write down your top 10 clients? That's relatively easy for them. Then I'll ask them well, what's the criteria for your top 10 clients? And historically they have their own criteria it's different for each industry. But I'll turn and ask them, and again, depending on the type of industry, is it a service industry? Is that a high tech industry?
Glenn Mattson
The next one starts to be gets where the wheels get a little wobbly, if you want to call it that. I'll ask them. Okay. So fantastic. Say their company name or a person's name. Can you give me their spouse's name? Can you let me know how many children they have? Where did they go to college?
Glenn Mattson
When they were proposed, where did it happen? Simple questions. Where was the honeymoon? Where they go to college? What's the dog's name? What do they like to do on the weekends?
Glenn Mattson
Do you really actually know your clients? Well, some people do and some people don't.
Glenn Mattson
Spend so much time trying to bring in new business that if you just took care of your clients, they would do that for you. So remember Emerson's law, but going back to the paid time and no paid time. As you start to learn about delegating, yes, there are going to be people that are not going to be as good as you, for sure. I remember my first business, I had all the paid time and no paid time activities, I did the marketing. I'm the one that did the estimating. I'm the one that saw people on sales calls, I'm the one that actually would do the onboarding of new clients. I'm the one that after a client was taken care of, I would collect the money and make sure that their quality control was done. I'm the one that would do the marketing. I'm also the one that have to go to all the job sites to make sure that everyone was prepared and ready to go with the right material. And I still did the work. So all those things still needed to be done. And as you start to delegate, there's a sense of nervousness that although you know you need to, you're afraid that no one's gonna be able to do it as well as you. And we have to live by the 80% rule, which is if they can do 80% of what you do at the level that you're hoping that they're going to get done. They won't be the same as you they won't be perfect. You'll be surprised and how often sometimes they're much better at it than you, but the key is, is that as time, energy, and effort spent someplace else to grow the business. So delegating things is rarely important. Tell it taking a look at what you can delegate and how you can delegate it is every time I've seen an entrepreneurial get to next level of growth, it's because of delegation.
Glenn Mattson
They may be a producer they become a rainmaker, they are sure they're still selling some product, but now they have a team below them. They're magnetic, but the business is still built around them. So even if when that individual comes in all of a sudden becomes a leader of the business where they're really now selling the vision. They have a team that typically have partners below them, they have a second or third level leadership team with career paths, etc. But that individual started off as the Rainmaker.
Glenn Mattson
Now they're the leader, ultimately, they're going to become the mayor. The mayor is the one that is really focused on strategy that's their paid time. Their paid time is the strategy of the firm the strategy, the vision, the strategy of the thoughts of the people in the room. The mayor is the one that controls the values as they grow so people don't forget who they were that got them where they are.
Glenn Mattson
So as you start to grow in this next level take a look at your paid time and no paid time activities. Have the ability to understand every single day wake up, take a look at what are the things that you need to get done today, don't think them actually write them down. Great time to do is during the first cup of coffee, write down what are the things that need to get done that day. Turn around and prioritize them. You want to put a 123 next to it. That's fine for one to rewrite the list in the order you want to that's fine too. But right after you prioritize it, last piece is timestamp it. When is it going to get done during the day that you have that day? Without making a timestamp you're not making a commitment.
Glenn Mattson
Enjoy the session of Building Blocks of Success.