Send an Email

When should you email someone and when should you text or call them?

Let’s be clear, face to face communication, using a whiteboard or drawing on paper to illustrate your points, is the most effective form of communication.

“Email is a form of one-way communication…” The Grossman Group

How many of us use it so badly !!!

Also, I don’t recommend putting all of your communications in writing as we are all struggling to deal with all the emails we receive right now anyway.

However….

There are times when a short note using email can be very effective when you’re trying to get organised

• Email can be great because you can send them day or night, without disturbing someone with a text.

• Texts are hard to save for later to be actioned if the person can’t respond or do something straight away.

• You can message using email from your phone, whilst you are out and about and

• If used the right way, or for the right type of communication more specifically, it can be super efficient

Begin the process of setting yourself free from email. How to leverage your time if you are overwhelmed by emails see the Tim Ferris processing rules.

Short, straightforward communications are great via email.

For example;

• Hi, just wondering when the [x] will be ready?

• Here is the [photo/screenshot] of the problem I was talking about

• Please find attached the signed form

• Below is the email conversation I had regarding [blah]

• Hi Support. My system isn’t working. I tested it and here is the error message…

• Attached is a similar proposal that was done last year…

• As discussed, here are the things that need doing: 1)... 2)... 3)...

• Approved [in response to a proposed piece of work previously received via email]

• Here is the weekly report...

• I will need to check about this and will respond by Friday

Respond then and there if you can, when it’s on your mind or comes to your attention. If it takes less than 2 minutes to do, you should do it straight away and get it off your mind. [GTD]

If it’s a one way, clear and unambiguous answer, instruction or reply - try an email.

Long winded discussion are NOT suited to email.

• Discussions of options amongst a group of people aren’t good via email “What dates are people available to go to dinner?

• It’s its an interactive discussion, attempting to clarify something that is currently unambiguous, meet with people or call them.

Everyone is busy. Everyone has a lot on their mind. If you have anything you can resolve and get it off your and their list of things to do, do it straightaway.

Draw a Circle

Take a pen and paper and sit down and draw a circle. Write down what’s on your mind: a problem, an opportunity, a person, product or service of yours.

From there, list what comes to mind relating to that thing around the circle. As you write, things will come to mind.

Just try it. The act of having your brain move your hand while you think will stimulate thought.

Who knows how far you will get once you start writing out your thoughts? This is Walt Disney’s effort from 1957. Do you think it was worth the effort?

From those ideas you can have other ideas generated in another layer of things in a greater circle. This is a mind map.

You should always avoid feeling trapped. Trapped by your location, people, technology or skills. Your relationships, service providers, debt levels or cash flow.

When you’re calm and focussed you can sit and generate ideas that are options for you. 

Some things may come to mind that in hindsight seem obvious! 

You need to take yourself out of the caldron of running your business for these ideas to come to mind.

• Not sure if your ideas will work? - run them by someone else

• Need money to execute? - put some aside until you have the cash or start looking for a line of credit

• The idea is mostly complete, but there’s a gap or unsolved problem within it? - do some research to see how others have overcome it

Brainstorm some ways you can better use your time. How can you focus on your strengths, delegate more and leverage your skills?

This exercise is best done when you are calm and you can think clearly. Way before any deadlines or your back is against the wall. However, even if you are in a jam, carving out some time to think clearly about what you could possibly do can help a great deal. In fact, if you are in a rush and your current options all look bad, this is really important to try and do.

• Dedicate time to map out your options. No one knows your business better than you, so that’s where to start when you’re looking for solutions.

• Do it in advance. The longer your planning horizon, the more options you will have. And the more control you will have of executing it and power to negotiate.

• See your situation clearly. Doing this exercise will make it so much more effective when you do go and talk to someone else. They will appreciate that you’ve already put some work in and will feel better about assisting you.

Grab a scrap piece of paper… and write down your options, while you still have time to act on them.

No one likes to feel cornered. You are the only one that can stop you feeling that way. Invest some time so that you can take charge.

Stop! and focus...

Stop! and focus - on just the next thing...

Block everything else out. Do that thing to the best of your ability. Multitasking becomes ‘multi thinking’ and it DOES NOT WORK! Just do one thing at a time and focus on quality over quantity.

Levi Strauss are still using the image of some jeans being pulled apart by 2 horses to convey how tough their product is. I love this idea of showing how tough something is. I myself don’t like being pulled in two different directions though.

Some simple things that help with focus;

• Change where you sit

• Put headphones on

• Work from your car

• Go to a coffee shop - just take that one thing with you

• Shut your office door

• Block time out in your calendar

• Get something off your mind it it's bothering you:- call the person involved, write it on a list, do it if it will take less than 2 mins

• Completely clear your desk of all items, just chuck them in a box

• Put your phone on airplane mode

• Grab someone to assist if they can help you focus

• Tell yourself “I’ll just spend 2 minutes and make a start...’, see what momentum that can generate, this can be powerful

• Similarly, identify what is the smallest next step you can do to progress the task, just commit to doing that and show some progress. That’s energizing.

• Pick the correct time of day, when you have good mental energy (mornings work for most people)

• If its creative, just start writing on a blank piece of paper

• It its boring, plan to reward yourself after (run, swim, phone a friend, watch something funny on your phone, have a coffee)

“The One Thing” promotes the idea of clearly identifying the most important thing to do in your day, and do that first. Sounds obvious, but how often does that happen for you?

Your team will allow you to scale your activities but left without any guidance can ruin your ability to get things done;

• Delegate effectively

• Tell them when and how you are available to talk

• Write things down they will need to refer to if they forget

• Put rules in place for everyday tasks so they will only need to refer to you when things fall outside of those rules

• Have set meeting times, days and agendas. Daily, weekly Monthly qtrly

• Tell them what decisions they can make and within what boundaries. Properly delegate your authority

Your team can be your biggest asset or your biggest liability - build it the way you want it to work.

Change Hats - Ask about the risks….

Change your hat - take a minute to put your black hat on and think about “what can go wrong?”

“Black Hat Thinking” - this has been around for ages. “The Six Thinking Hats” - Edward De Bono, published 1985. The black hat is for “what can go wrong, what is bad?” thinking.

The colour black tends to represent bad things. So the black hat is the one you wear when you think about ‘what can go working?’

When I wasn’t in charge and just an inexperienced employee, I used to get a broom out and sweep these kinds of things under that carpet. So my “big broom and carpet” thinking was my thinking tool back then I suppose.

Then I noticed this interesting trend - I would envisage mistakes happening in advance and then, guess what, it would happen!

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”

“A stitch in time, saves nine”

“Prevention is better than cure”

“When you choose to gamble, you do so at your own risk”

Everyone has heard these sayings. You can’t say you haven’t been warned! And yet, how often do we all ignore the warning signs or gut feel that disaster is impending.

Now, I believe in Murphy’s law - if it can go wrong, it will go wrong… AND if you’re prepared, Murphy will be on my side...

• Take an umbrella, it won’t rain that day

• Make sure you have a spare tyre, you won’t get a flat

• Take a photocopy of your passport with you when you travel, you won’t lose your passport

...and so on...

The thing is when you are doing something new, you haven't experienced what can go wrong, so you can’t know what to do to avoid problems. Instead, you need to use your imagination, previous experience or talk to someone that does have the ‘tacit knowledge’ from experience of the same scenario (a mentor) to be properly prepared.

“Forewarned is forearmed”

Put your black hat on, start making some notes about what can go wrong. If you lack ideas, phone a friend (mentor), google search or chat to a staff member. “How do we set ourselves up for success?” See what they know from their previous experience with you and before they worked with you. What can they sense could be an issue?

Avoid problems wherever you can. Avoid wasting time, money and energy. Use a bit of ‘black hat thinking’ when you’re organising your business. Get Murphy on side!

“A dollar saved is a dollar earned.”

Get Them On Board

This can take very little time and will pay dividends if you make it a habit. Call someone… and ask a question;

• Do you want to do this?

• Is it clear what is required?

• Can you do this?

• Do you have time to do this?

Throwing spaghetti at the wall supposedly tells you when it’s done. Throwing tasks at people doesn’t always work. Make sure your people are engaged. This goes for suppliers and service providers too.

Your team is made up of human beings, that is ‘feeling beings that think’. Make sure after you’ve planned something you give people space to confirm they are on board and they can do the job. That they are comfortable. That they don’t have any major concerns. For everyday tasks this isn’t as important and can usually be skipped, but for anything new or challenging it’s important to set up properly by making sure you have buy-in from those who will actually be doing the work for you.

People are reluctant to complain or raise issues often and you may find out something absolutely that is essential for you to know if you give people permission to speak up. They might assume you know about something and take this opportunity to confirm it with you, when it’s actually news to you.

‘Role Alignment’ is part of the 3rd level of the “Fix This Next” methodology, ORDER.

You can also alleviate any concerns or fears they have about the work. If you've got good people, they will be concerned about doing a good job for you and getting it right.

Throwing tasks at people and hoping they will stick is not good practice. Make sure your team is clear on what’s required and that they are engaged.

Find a quiet place to sit

Find a quiet place to sit … and list some common objections to buying from you.

Some time spent, quietly thinking about how things could possibly work better for you, is well worth it.

Just list the first ones that come to mind to start. They should be the most common.

Then ask;

• How do you respond to these? How could you respond to these?

• How would you like to respond to them if things were different? What is a better answer you could give if you were in a position to say that?

• How would you need to change how you operate to be able to provide that as an argument to buy from you?

Could you be easier to deal with? Take more risk out of the purchasing decision for your customer? Add more value? Commit to a day and time to deliver? Have something in stock, ready to go? Offer something for free as a trial to see if they like what you do? Call a referee immediately to vouch for you or answer a question? Tell your customer about disadvantages of other products or businesses that they are not aware of?

“Client Conversion” sits in level 1 of the ‘Fix This Next’ methodology - SALES

Just think this over. Do you have decent responses? Or do you perhaps need to change the way you operate? Or find out more about things so you can answer more effectively?

This is not necessarily rocket science but it will take some time. Start today. Devote the time. Make a short list of common objections.

Pay a Small Debt Straight Away

I feel like this is kind of controversial for some people as they live and breath a rule of hanging onto their cash.

“Time is money” is the saying. But your time is actually invaluable. Once spent, you cannot buy it back, for ANY price.

At 0.1% interest, the interest charge on $250 for 4 weeks is $0.02 cents. There is NO point in waiting if you can get rid of that action item NOW. It’s not even worth talking about making anything more difficult for the sake of 2 cents.

There are many subtle ways to save time and it’s worth trying to adopt both big and small measures to get more done, faster and more effectively. Watch out what you leave to hang around on your action list.

Interest rates are low. Hanging on to cash does not deliver a huge benefit for small amounts of money. It does not make sense to delay paperwork you can do very quickly today when it will take you longer to finish down the track.

Looking back at an invoice and wondering what it was about 2 or 4 weeks down the track can really take up alot of time.

“Minimise Wasted Effort” is one of the objectives of level 3 of the ‘Fix This Next’ methodology - ORDER

This is a specific application of “the 2 minute rule” from GTD which I love.

You may incur a little bit more interest on your lines of credit but will likely save your time down the track.

Ask for a Line of Credit

Ask for a line of credit… even if you don’t need it.

Actually, especially if you don’t need it. You may need one at some point down the track, and it's good to line this up while times are good. If you’re under pressure, short of time and energy and the books don’t look real good, it's not a great time to be negotiating finance.

A line of credit can sit there and not cost you anything. Stockpiling other resources will though:- in rent, maintenance, the cost of the finance to fund that stock or resource that would otherwise be cash in the bank working for you and loss of stock, deterioration and shrinkage.

Do it while you're on top of things and sales are good. Have it sitting there for a rainy day when you might need it. Having a buffer you can call on if and when you need to will give you a sense of confidence on a daily basis that costs you nothing right now. And you will likely get it from a better institution at a lower rate if you act in advance. You will have time to shop around.

Having ‘cash reserves’ is one of the objectives of Level 2 of the Fix This Next methodology - The PROFIT Level.

Email your bank or broker and ask what they think and find out what’s being offered. You can delegate collecting the paperwork for the application instead of rushing around doing it all yourself. Have others do the leg work as you will be in no rush.

It’s an email or phone call that could lead you to being on top of things when times are tough.

Bringing ORDER to your Business

Things don’t just organise themselves, you will need to drive this. It will take a combination of big move and small adjustments to have things working the way you want them to.

• Small adjustments weekly

• Big adjustments every 3 months

If something will bring more order to how you work, costs less than $100 and take less than 30 minutes to implement, you should do it. Don’t think about it too much, just do it…

Try this example - buy a decent phone cradle for your phone in your car.

Charge while you drive and get things done. This Cygnett cradle is under $100. Click the image to buy one.

Tony Robbins talks about N.E.T time - get things done whilst you’re doing something else, meaning it’s done with ‘no extra time’ taken.

David Allen, in his book ‘Getting Things Done’, promotes the idea that ‘your brain is a good place for having ideas, not keeping them’.

How many thoughts and ideas do you get whilst driving along? If you’re busy, probably a lot. With a decent handsfree setup for your phone you can;

• Text - a person or group to ask or remind them about something

• Call - a friend for a chat, a client that called you or ask for a quote of check something with a supplier

• List - an action that something needs to be done in ‘Things’ or in a note taking app

• Create - a new appointment in your calendar

• Listen - to an audio book or music to relax or a podcast to learn something

Bringing ORDER to your business is the third level in the ‘business hierarchy of needs’ explained in detail in the book ‘Fix This Next’.

Learn, listen, list, communicate, enquire or just chat. Relax yourself or get revved up. Once you start the possibilities will grow for you. Just put “Hey Siri!” at the beginning of a task and then say what you want out loud.

Hey Siri, <call, text, create a new…> for Tom Woodbury…

Listening to whatever is fed to you by the radio, that is probably mostly irrelevant information or music you are luke warm about is pretty pointless now that we have these new tools and technologies - Audible, Spotify, podcast apps, Speech to Text, ‘Hey Siri’ and so on.

Make it a habit to adopt new habits and practices regularly. Overtime these small wins add up. Make the first step super small, like just ordering the equipment you need. Just get started.

You need to strive to adopt good practices across you whole business to be able to get anywhere. If you can’t take this attitude for how you manage yourself, then it’s not likely you’ll be able to move on to the rest of your team and business.

Automate Your Cashflow

Watching your bank balance go up and down really doesn’t tell you much. You could be making money or losing money. Subconsciously you know this and you’re worried about it.

I LOVE this idea of automating transfers for different purposes in your life. Setting amounts aside in advance. The above diagram is for personal finance, but the principle can be applied to your business - put money aside in advance, regularly. [Source: thanks to Remit Sethi - LINK]

If you have cashflow to manage and you struggle to understand where you are at, this is a no brainer. Just do it!

1. Grab you bank statements and highlight your fixed expenses. Include wages if they are resonably steady.

2. For quarterly and annual expenses like insurance, council rates etc grab those and from your accounting software and work out the amount per month for each.

3. Add up your fixed expenses for a month, divide by 4. This is your ‘future payments’ weekly provision.

4. Create a new ‘future payments’ account for your business - this can be done over the phone usually.

5. Create a weekly transfer from your operating account to ‘future payments’ account. Pick a day the account balance is usually high if you can.

Mike Michalowicz elaborates on this type of method of automation in ‘Fix This Next’ but more so in his book ‘Profit First’.

From here, you pay your fixed expenses from this new account.

Also;

• If you are able to, use an offset amount against your mortgage to keep these funds - saves interest!

• You can include future tax payments here as well, or have a separate account and automatic transfer if tax liabilities might vary.

The piece of mind and clarity you will get from automating this part of your cashflow management is well worth it. The bank provides the automation and structure for you to do this, so why not use it? The costs are known in advance and the bills will certainly come, so you WILL need to deal with it. So why not do so in advance, when you have the cash to put aside! This way you avoid over committing yourself or over spending and then leaving yourself with a problem.

Believe me this does not take long to do and is well worth it.

What Am I Competing On?

… price, service or quality. You should know the answer to this question.

You cannot be all things to all people. Customers will always consider price, service AND quality but will have a preference for one of these. You should know what the answer is for your business.

Speed versus endurance. F1 motors will last 7 races or 2,500 kms. But F1 cars won’t take you through a river or up a mountain. Both cars have gearboxes, differentials and fuel tanks but they have a different emphasis. Where’s the emphasis in your business?

You need to clarify for yourself where you are aiming. What your customers, your preferred customers, are expecting of you.

• A detailed quotation that takes a week to turn around may be too long. A ball park figure or a standard price may be preferred.

• A great coffee that takes 5 mins to prepare might not cut it.

• A cheap carpet laid a day late could infuriate some people.

Some people look to pay more because they need to have confidence in what they are getting. Others can wait and put up with issues. You can’t effectively serve both types of customer. Pick one. If you sound like you’re selling an ‘impossible utopia’ you will lose credibility with savvy people. [Image Source: https://onlineinfluence.com.au/good-fast-cheap/]

If you are competing on price you need to set expectations around service so that you can meet those expectations and know the customer is happy to buy under those conditions.

If you are providing great service, you need the right resources and people to do that consistently so you will need to charge more. Same goes for great quality.

All of this is possible but you need to know where you and your team are focussed. These may be a hard decisions but it will make everyone’s life easier once they have been made.

Don’t try and be all things to all people. It does not work. Price, service or quality. Pick one and focus there.

Data Gathering

I worked with a guy one time that ran operations for a phone company. He was actually trained as a surveyor. You know, theodolite, staff (which is like a big ruler you stand on its end), dirt…

How was he qualified to do that job?

It’s a great strategy in squash to get your opponent to chase the ball. Why not get your staff to chase your data? [source: www.tenor.com]

He was actually very good at what he did, because there was so much going on, in so many different types of technical specialities, the core challenge was to gather a view of how everything was going. From real time network management to maintenance and improvement contracts.

No one could have been technically trained to understand in detail what was going on from civil construction work, to building goers, to developing software to manage all of this.

Dashboards are a key tool, in the Fix This Next methodology. As you build and grow your business, you can add more to your dashboards according to what you need to see at the time.

The key was to build the provision of data into the vendor’s contracts. So vendors were compelled to report on themselves. This is very difficult to add in after the contract is negotiated and signed. Do it up front.

It’s the same with your staff.

If you want to get control of your business, you need your staff to chase the data you need and have them give it to you. ‘Bake It In’ to their job descriptions. Have them agree when they sign up with you. People will know they have this as part of their job AND that they will be watched closely. Poor performers will think twice about coming to work for you.

The data may be as simple as a checklist to open your store, an inventory of what’s need to order or a weekly check of stationery or marketing collateral - big or small all of this needs to get done. And if you want to ‘make your self redundant’ it’s got to be done by your team.

Like a great squash player, just stand there and have your team do it for you. You will NOT have enough time to gather all the info you need yourself.

Knowledge is power. Your business will not run itself. make sure you stand a chance of knowing what is going on. Get that data collected :)

How to Map Your Business Systems

I really like the expression ‘undocumented chaos’ to describe how some people run their business.

This is the oldest map of the world, the ‘Imago Mundi’. It dates from between 700 BC and 500 BC and it’s written in cuneiform! Maps are not a new idea.

Keeping everything in your head and expecting people to remember what you said or at times read your mind is futile.

Plus, you miss out on the opportunity to sit quietly and imagine how good it could be if everyone was organised and working together. What synergies could you find? What steps could you drop that were necessary before but are now thoughtlessly executed but no longer required?

Start with how you want to interact with your customers and work back from that. A great customer experience, that develops repeat business and great reviews, does not happen by accident or simply evolve of its own accord. How do you want people to feel after buying from you?

Of course, your first attempt to map out your business will not be perfect but I promise there will be benefits, even if you get one good idea that you can execute from a session of mapping it out it’s worth the effort.

1. Think through all the steps your customer go through when dealing with your business - how do you want them to feel

2. What are the things you and your people do to support that step? are you consistent?

3. Do your staff know what to do at each step? can they look at something if they have forgotten?

To be most effective, map from the top down, implement from the bottom up.

If this seems daunting then do a piece at a time. Look for some executable benefit from each session you do. Is there something you can action straight away?

Bring your team in too. if you have a large problem to solve and the neatest most elegant solution is not obvious to you, ask them. They will love being involved and flattered that you considered their opinion. Human beings LOVE to make a difference.

A beautiful, highly regarded and sustainable ‘Cash ATM’ that earns money while you sleep does not build itself. You will need to have some sort of blueprint to aim at and work through.

If you’re look for the best place to start try my online assessment >>> click here

Reaching Your Limit [The Peter Principle]

Not many people realise that the expression ‘the peter principle’ actually came from a whole book written about the concept.

“Every employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence.” (Peter and Hull, 1969) - you can buy the updated version HERE

You come across it in the corporate world, where frustrated staff see people promoted for doing well, until - they don’t do well. It’s used in the sense of “see, I knew they weren’t that good!!!”

The thing is that it’s not that simple. Failure at a new role does not mean someone was faking it until they got there. It just means that one or more of their skills is now not strong enough to be able to adequately perform in that role. No different from the value stream in a business.

You can find the binding constraint in your business AND the constraint in your skills - the same principle applies. This is the ‘dirty little secret’ to getting amazing results using little effort. STOP working harder on what you’re pretty good at. Face the fear and address your flaws. [Credit to Brian Tracy for pointing this out in his book GOALS]

You grow your business and something will ‘break’ (or exceed capacity). Your coffee shop needs to be bigger, you will need more man-hours spent on admin. You’ve invested in great machinery but now your sales need a boost to keep the machines busy. There will always be a ‘binding constraint’ in the system of your business.

The same goes for someone’s skill set. Agreeing on payment terms for the sale of one product is different to a long-term contract with a government department. Hiring your first employee is different to negotiating with a union rep. Running a food stall at the weekend markets is different to signing a lease for a restaurant.

As your business grows, you need to grow. There will be a binding constraint in your business systems AND there will be a binding constraint in your skillset.

Please don’t wait to see if I’m right. Expect this to happen and get on the front foot and identify where YOU need to improve YOU.

Find and fix your personal binding constraint. That way you will never reach a “level of incompetence”.

Why Business Is Hard

At school 90% was great. At work, it’s a fail - here’s why….

When you’re assessing the likelihood of errors, you don’t add, you don’t take the average. You multiply.

This example highlights how things go wrong in the real world. It’s good for you and your team’s awareness of how important it is to meet standards.

At school, getting 90% was awesome. Getting 90% across the board AMAZING!

As you can see from the above, 90% across the board in business is NOT amazing, it’s a FAIL. Even 99% will give you a 7% error rate.

The reason is that these are not separate tests like in school. In a process in your business one step leads to another, and then another. The output of one ‘exam’ [or step in the process] forms the input for the next. Any mistakes are passed on too - so the % results must be multiplied, not added together or averaged.

This is why it’s important to at least AIM for 100% at each step if you are serious about being successful in your business, as any errors COMPOUND.

Use this illustration to explain to your team how important it is to get everything right at each step. If they are not aiming to get it right EVERY time, the likelihood is that they will fail.

I've got 50 Overs, but where am I now?

Having ambitions and goals is important, but once you’re underway it is vital to be able see where you’re up to. We know this intuitively from trips we take driving or flying anywhere.

Knowing how far we have got to go can mean anything from giving us a sense of comfort that we are on track all the way to life and death implications if we are relying on our current fuel to get us across a desert for example.

Knowing the goal is OK but tracking where you're up to is even more crucial once you're underway. Ask any one day cricketer! [Source: https://cricketscorer.com.au/]

The graph above has recently become the key tool for tracking the cricket team’s score during their run chase for short form cricket. It’s obvious why it’s popular, it’s just so easy to understand how you are going. Without even reading the actual numbers the graph tells you instantly!

It gives everyone involved a sense of control. They can make good decisions about what to do next when they are able to make a difference. If things are going well, you can stay on course and focus. If you are behind, it’s time to take action, make a change, take a risk.

Why not use this in your business?

You’re not playing another team when you are running things for yourself. It’s more “you versus you”. You and your team working to achieve a target you set for yourselves. But when setting a sales target for the month and working toward it you are still in a chase, just as much as any cricket team. So you can still benefit from great information.

Great information leads to great decisions.

Also, it’s motivating for your team to know where they stand. They can see what happens when they put some effort in. You can tie progress and targets to incentives. And, it cuts out a lot of wasted time and effort wondering ‘where are we right now?’ Everyone knows exactly where they stand on a daily basis using this tool.

I highly recommend using a sales worm to motivate you and your salespeople. It could revolutionise your results.

Is your 'head above water'?

Constantly chasing more and more sales requires a lot of time and energy. Doing that AND making yourself redundant from basic functions in your business is very hard to do at the same time.

It’s a visceral fear we have of not being able to stay above the water. The implications are clear and we will do anything to stay above the waterline. The thing is the water line is obvious to everyone. Wan to stay afloat in business and be comfortable? You need to work out for yourself where that waterline is for you.

To free your mind and your time up to address systems, processes and delegation you need to know that the basics are on track - “How much money do I need to sell to keep my head above water?”

Answer the following questions;

1) What are my living expenses to be comfortable?

2) How much do I need to sell to make that money?

Once you have a clear target in mind, you can allocate time and money to systematising your business, delegating to others, and freeing yourself up to do other things (OR grow the business more).

Constantly pushing for greater and greater sales at the expense of your precious time and your personal life doesn’t work. You are not an unlimited resource! AND you can only work on one big project at a time.

Bed down your status with respect to sales, then move on to other things that will save you time. When you are free enough to think about growing sales again, you can. However, make sure you have the basics in place first! You can only know what the basics are (and how much they cost) when the waterline is visible to you !!!

Net Wealth Tracker

Making progress each month is a great feeling. You can see the results and feel like it’s all worth the effort. This is incredibly energizing and motivating.

FYI, this is not me. It is however someone who put in the effort and you can obviously see the results. That is not always the case with your business and finances.

You’re running your business for probably multiple reasons and a lot of them are personal to you. But one of the reasons must be to earn a living and get ahead. Or at least survive comfortably and pay down your debt?

Unlike the guy above, seeing your results when you have multiple personal and business bank accounts, credit cards, debts owing to suppliers and the bank and money owed to you by your customers it can be impossible to know “what just happened?” at the end of the month

A body builder can see his muscles growing. You can’t see if your net wealth is growing when it’s made up of a patchwork quilt debits, credits, assets, liabilities and investments. Unless you do this….

Get all of your bank balances, asset values, and liabilities IN ONE PLACE!

1. Create a spreadsheet like the one above and call it your ‘Net Wealth Tracker’. Each column will represent one month.

2. Assets sit up the top and are POSITIVE (don’t change house and car values from month to month, it’s not worth the effort)

3. Liabilities go underneath and are NEGATIVE

4. Take screenshots on your phone of ALL your bank accounts at the end of the month (PERSONAL AND BUSINESS). Make sure you cover all your bank accounts, credit cards, and investments. Take them all on the same day (the actual day you take them is less important than doing them all at the same time).

5. Enter the numbers and add them all up. Compare this month to last month. How did you go?

Money flows to and from your personal and business accounts so it’s much easier and more meaningful to capture and track the HOLISTIC view of how you are doing.

The clarity and confidence this will bring to your life is well worth the effort. Unless you prove to yourself that you are doing OK with a report like this you will likely assume that is not the case. As you see money going out of your accounts in small amounts on a daily basis it’s tempting to worry.

Once the spreadsheet is up and running this should only take 10 to 20 mins of your time a month. The trick is to use your phone, capture multiple accounts for each screenshot and do it all at the same time. Then you will know for sure what progress you have made.

I worry about money....

If you worry about money then some part of your brain is always devoted to this. Day in, day out. If you want to remove this wasted effort from your life you should use this tool.

If you gather the numbers from the right places this report can be very quick to update and the benefit immeasurable (depending on your level of concern about money of course).

Use total numbers for the month - simply take these from the “total debits and credits” from your bank statement. This is simple and holistic as long as you only use one main bank account for receiving and spending money. If you have more, sum the figures for all of them to get your rolled-up figures for the month.

Sales Projection = what you did last year + your gut feel for the market this year.

DO NOT spend too much time on this as it is a ‘guesstimate’ anyway. Err on the low side so your projection is conservative, you have confidence in the tool and if you do better than projected it will give you a boost!

Cost Projection = same as the previous months [provided you are not planning any major changes…]

Again, do not overthink this. Just use the figures from your bank statement if there are not large costs coming through. If you have seasonal expenses or occasional large expenses take the average of the last 12 months OR the average of the 3 corresponding months last year. For costs err on the high side so again if you do better than expected you will get a nice surprise

PLEASE NOTE: if you are doing it right this should only take you 5 mins a month to update [provided you are not running expensive projects or have large one-off bills coming in].

The benefits to your well being and decision making will be well worth the effort :)

Mental Blocks to Delegating

I find the biggest hurdle people have to delegating effectively is that the right mindset is missing. Our mindset is '“the story we tell ourselves”. You can’t not have a mindset, we are all telling ourselves stories all day. Having the wrong mindset for what you need to do will prevent you from doing it.

Here are 10 stories you could be telling yourself that are stopping you from delegating effectively and holding you, your business and your staff back;

1. I can’t trust someone else to do it my way

2. They won’t get it right

3. I don’t have time to delegate

4. I’m not sure what I want them to do

5. I’m in a rush and I’ll do it later

6. They’re not trained in this task just yet, I’ll do it and train them later

7. They don’t have the skill, so I’ll do it

8. Its all too much, I’m too overwhelmed to worry about giving it to someone else right now

9. I’m faster, so I’ll do it myself

10. I do a better job, so I’ll do it myself

or variations of these stories….

If any of these stories ring true for you, they need to be changed to stories that enable and drive you to delegate more and become a more effective leader. Not change WHO you are, just HOW you lead. Remember, people cannot grow unless they are challenged, and doing things yourself prevents others from having these types of experiences. If you need to, start with that as a story to tell yourself when you are hesitating to give others some responsibility.

If you would like to know more, send me your email address here (link) and I will send you my “Top 3 Ways to Improve Your Delegation”.

Chat soon :)